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fear-before-valor · 3 years ago

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AU Ficlet: Jim, who was raised by the Order from the age of five, attends Arcadia Oaks High, for his first day of human high school. Weird things happen in Arcadia, though, and his appearance seems to be one such weird thing to the residents in this small, strange town...

Aka: How an Order-raised Jim met Toby and Claire

Words: 2939 II Warnings: none II ok to rb --

Jim dropped his backpack at the empty desk next to one Tobias Domzalski’s, one of the only people at school who’d been properly friendly to him so far. It was Jim’s first day of mortal high school, and he’d been vetted mercilessly by every student group but Tobias’s, though he was beginning to suspect that said group consisted of only Tobias.

Of course, Jim had been screening his peers right back, but it was still exhausting. He thought he’d been ready after the Order’s… extensive lessons on humanity, and how to fit in with the mortals like himself, but already, everything he’d done felt like it must have been a social faux pas of some kind.

Act quiet around the quiet kids? Then no one speaks, until the silence grows so long that it’s awkward, and starting up a conversation makes it feel painfully forced. So, okay, maybe find some louder kids and try to blend in with them. Except, they start to grow obnoxious, and at some point, the headache simply stops being worth it.

Jim wasn’t even going to dare try and bond with the overly studious; he wasn’t here to vie for valedictorian, nor was he all that interested in making grades that separated him from the pack. Not to mention, he much preferred whatever lessons the Order could teach him anyway. They were very practical things, going over philosophy, strategy, combat, computations. He was already conversational in Bellroc and Skrael’s original languages, and though he knew Spanish would be equally valuable, the Spanish teacher seemed… intense, in a way that Bellroc and Skrael, who could likewise be rigorous sometimes, were not.

In fact, the only class he was indeed eager to take was history—and, okay, perhaps physical education didn’t sound horrendous, so long as he was careful about holding back in certain areas—because while he could learn plenty of history from his very ancient guardians, to hear of human history from the mouths of humans, like himself… it sounded unique, in a way that he hoped was amenable, at the very least, if not genuinely interesting or entertaining.

As he sat down in the chair beside Tobias, the boy seemed to light up, beaming over at Jim, a reaction that he hadn’t expected from his peer. He’d thought he’d rather botched his first conversation with Tobias in homeroom that morning, as he hadn’t known anything about anything that Tobias had referenced (what on earth was Gun Robot?). But, evidently, he must have done something well—or at least, acceptably— because Tobias was leaning over and excitedly holding out his hand to show Jim something which clattered in his palm as he moved. Politely, Jim glanced over to see what it was, and—oh.

Oh no.

That was definitely the remains of a troll.

Tobias was holding out small, grey pebbles for him to see, on which Jim could just make out hints of tattoos that had been etched into the troll while they were alive.

Holding back his mild panic, he gave a tight smile and a nod, as his classmate diagnosed them incorrectly as gneiss—which, admittedly, Jim thought wasn’t a bad guess, really. It’s not like the other boy had any reason to think that the rocks he was holding were anything but an average metamorphic stone.

Tobias was looking to Jim for a response, though, so he opened his mouth to speak, breathing in—

—magic.

Jim froze once more. The distinct tingle of magic had just washed over his senses, keen and undeniable, unlike anything else he’d felt that day.

It was raw, underdeveloped, not yet bolstered by the right teacher, but it was there, and it spoke in tones of purple, pulsing with potential.

Jim was no wizard himself, much preferring combat to the arcane arts, having not a strong penchant for it or its intricacies and delicate, temperamental nature, but even still, he’d been raised with the three most powerful magic-users in the known world. They’d taught him from youth how to recognize when magic was present, how to glean as many clues as he possibly could about it, or who might have cast it, might be walking in it, based on its style and scent, its intensity, or its intentionality. He wasn’t quite the best at sensing the finer details, nor could he find it when it was masked, but when it was open, unhidden, he could feel it like a mild electric shock that one might get when touching a door handle in dry weather; he could sense it like the faint scent of ozone during a storm, or like a prickle on the hairs on the back of his neck, when lightning was about to strike.

What’s going on? He thought, as he turned his head in the direction of the epicenter of the magic. First, there’s troll remains in the hands of a classmate with the same schedule as him, and then there’s—the girl, there. The girl with the blue streak in her hair.

The witch.

She’d caught him staring, as she set her books down on a desk in the front row, a couple columns over from his. Beside her plopped down two more girls—her friends, Jim noted, as they chattered familiarly, cheerfully.

The girl gave him an awkward smile, then, and Jim realized that he must have been staring for a few moments too long, so he rapidly flicked his eyes back to the surface of his own desk, trying not to think about the flush he could feel splash across the back of his neck, or the tips of his ears.

Tobias did not grant him such grace.

“Ooh,” he grinned, smug as a cat in a sunbeam. “That’s Claire Nuñez. President of the drama club, valedictorian candidate, great actress. She’s tied with Seamus Johnson and Shannon Longhannon for top of the class right now, I heard. She’s wicked smart, and—Jim?” Tobias huffed, “Are you paying attention to me?”

Jim’s eyes darted back to his new friend, from where they’d been briefly studying Claire Nuñez’s back, trying to get a more in-depth read on her arcana. He nodded distractedly. “Yeah, yeah, smart, a president; I heard you.”

Tobias sighed, shaking his head. “Jim.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, indicating that he was listening.

“She’s out of your league.” He deadpanned. “She’s super popular, and you’re, no offense, definitely not.”

Jim shot Tobias a confused look, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

The boy stared openly at Jim. “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? Do you really not— Oh my god.”

Jim blinked. “What?”

Tobias shook his head. “Jim, you’ve kinda… scared a lot of the people in our class today. They don’t know what to think about you. You’re like a giant question mark! No one even knows where you came from—”

“Ohio.” Jim recited his cover story, which Skrael had helped him pick the night previous. They’d chosen a city that started with a c… right. “Columbus, Ohio.”

Tobias shot him a deadpan look. “Okay, fine, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio. Why’d you suddenly move to Arcadia, then? Why not L.A.? Why not Burbank?”

Jim frowned. “Do you interrogate every newcomer like this? My parents got a good job opportunity here.” He held up one hand, “And before you ask—real estate.”

“Oh yeah? How come I haven’t seen them put up ads, then?” Tobias crossed his arms. “I’m just saying, dude; I think you’re cool, but you freak a lot of people out with that brooding, silent thing you do.”

Jim snorted. “I do what?”

“Y’know—”

“No, I don’t know—”

“You act, like, all silent and mysterious when people try to talk to you.” Tobias shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but some people don’t seem as ready to brush it off as me. I’m only telling you so that you can make more friends here.”

“Well, I have you, don’t I?” Jim’s head canted.

Tobias blinked, floundering at that. “Well—y…yeah, I guess so, but—”

“I mean, we are friends, aren’t we?”

It was Tobias’s turn to go a bit pink, shaking his head in bewilderment. “If you want, yeah, but—”

“Then there we go. I have a friend.” Jim smiled.

Tobias tried to protest, “But—” only to find himself cut off as Mr. Strickler strode into the classroom at that moment, placing a leather briefcase on his desk with a decisive thump. Cacophonous voices incrementally petered out, as attentive heads turned to the front of the classroom, where Mr. Strickler had pulled out a stack of syllabi, handing them to the student nearest the door, with the instructions to “take one and pass them,” spoken precisely to the class.

Tobias looked like he wanted to say something when Strickler turned his back to write his name on the chalkboard, but Jim shushed him from the corner of his mouth, opening a fresh, blank notebook as he did so. This was the only class he’d bothered to buy a separate notebook for, and, to be frank, was the only class he’d even intended to take notes in at all.

Tobias looked chagrined, but not angry, as he rolled his eyes and went to fetch a pencil from his own bag. Might as well have something to do with his idle hands for the next hour.

—

As his first day was winding to close, Jim had to admit, having a friend at school did end up making it a little easier.

The rest of his time there had passed largely unremarkably, since a rather thrilling start to the history curriculum. Jim’s hand had shot up just as much as the apparent reigning top of the sophomore class, one Miss Claire Nuñez’s, had— a fact which had, according to Tobias, already begun to percolate across campus.

The lesson had only briefly covered the basics of ancient Rome, going over a bit of easy, more widely known trivia, to see what the class already knew about their oncoming first unit, but, nonetheless, Jim had been eager to jump in, to talk almost directly to Mr. Strickler, going back and forth in the form of a discussion. He’d spoken quietly, quickly, and he’d felt the eyes of his peers glued to his desk, but had ignored the sensation altogether, in favor of listening to what his teacher had to say about aqueducts, instead.

When the hour had finally come to an end, in fact, he’d packed up slowly, most of his classmates abandoning the room as quickly as they could—the lunch period was about to begin—though Tobias was kind enough to wait for him. As such, Tobias was the only other person present to hear Mr. Strickler stop Jim after class, paying a brief compliment to his performance that day, and accompanying his words with a poster for the history club. Jim didn’t think his furtive smile had gone entirely missed by the teacher, but as they’d exited into the now mostly empty hallway, he forgot to worry about it further, as Tobias wasted no time in asking him how the heck his new friend knew so much about history already?

Jim had shrugged it off, saying that it was his favorite subject; and besides, didn’t Tobias— “Seriously, dude, it’s Toby, by the way”— know more about geology than anyone else in their class? The compliment had made Tobias—Toby— preen, and he’d promptly dropped the topic, instead launching into an enthusiastic lecture meant to coach Jim through the cafeteria process. Jim, who had tried to jump in to say that he’d heard this at orientation the week prior, but Toby had shot him an appalled look at that, swiftly informing him that orientation did nothing to help the social side of things. Sure, he knew the motions, but did he know how to do them without standing out in the crowd? Absolutely not—in fact, the thought was almost laughable, according to Toby.

So, Jim had grinned, followed Toby’s lead, and had just barely survived the ever-important lunch line waltz.

The rest of the day had passed mostly the same way, in the end. Toby, having warmed up to Jim, took him through the whole rest of the day, guiding him through the intricacies of Arcadia Oaks High, and by the time the final bell was ringing, Jim almost felt like a normal student. Some of his peers had even started waving to him in the hallways; he’d broken the ice, after all.

Well. He’d thought so, until Toby had said goodbye, peddling away on his bike toward home, leaving Jim alone in the courtyard by the bustling lockers, surrounded by students eager to either go home, as Toby had, or to dive into after-school clubs and sports.

Jim opted to take his time, though, to enjoy the Southern California sun, as he strolled casually across the campus, toward the front of the school grounds.

As he rounded the corner, though, intending to head toward the Arcadia Oaks sign, where he’d stop and shoot off a text to the Order that his first day had gone well, and that he’d be home soon, he felt a tap on his shoulder, instead, and heard a throat being cleared behind him.

He knew who it was before he even turned to face her; her magic had given her away as soon as she’d reached a hand for him.

Despite this, Jim whirled as if she’d caught him by surprise, schooling his features into something startled but friendly, relaxing his shoulders as a polite smile crossed his face, upon seeing her. “Oh, hey. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting—” he rethought his words, shaking his head. “Never mind. …It’s, ‘Claire,’ right?”

She nodded, returning his smile. “Yeah! And you’re ‘Jim Lake’, hm?”

Something about the way she asked that question sent up a warning bell in the back of Jim’s mind, but he tried not to look unsettled; it was probably just nerves.

“Yup; just Jim is fine, though.” He added with a casual laugh.

Claire tilted her head, continuing. “So, you’re quite the history buff, huh?”

Jim’s hands dropped to his pockets, as he glanced at his shoes, then back up to her. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess?” She teased. “You were on fire in class today.” She lifted her chin, to look at him head on. “Do I need to worry about you unseating me, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio?”

Jim snorted, shaking his head. “No, no; it’s not like that. History’s just a hobby.”

“Pretty intense hobby, if you know half as much as you seem like you do.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

Jim grinned. “Intense? Like being the president of drama club, the vice president of debate, and the supposed shoe-in for the lead in the play this fall?” he recited, much to Claire’s surprise, who shot him an impressed look.

“Huh. You sure do pay attention, don’t you?”

He glanced around, making it a leisurely movement, concealing the way he was searching for anyone who could overhear, before his eyes met hers again, as he said, “Only to certain people.”

Claire blinked, cheeks reddening, mistaking his meaning. “Oh, yeah? What kinds of people?”

Jim rolled the dice. “Well, people who seem nice, or kind, who I could make friends with. People who do things I wanna do, too, so I can have an ‘in’. Like clubs, and things.” he clarified.

“And, uh…” his voice grew hushed, “Magic-users in the human world.”

Claire’s face fell. “What was that last one?” Her nose scrunched with the skeptical look that overtook her features.

Jim’s eyes darted to look for an exit, realizing coldly—fearfully— that he had grossly miscalculated.

“Uh…” Stupid. He chided himself. Think of a lie before you go backing yourself into a corner. Skrael would be disappointed in him if he were here.

“Did you just say ‘the human world’ like you… aren’t human?” She stared at him suspiciously.

Jim blinked. “What? No. I’m human. Of course I’m human.” He gave a strained laugh. “What else would I be?”

“…Someone who thinks they aren’t?” Claire’s brow furrowed.

“It was a rhetor- well. I mean, I guess that’s true. But I’m not!” He smiled weakly, and then froze for a split-second, rapidly adding, “Someone who thinks they aren’t human! I know I’m human!”

Claire’s eyes shot to the street, where, to her poorly hidden relief, her dad had just pulled up to the curb, there to pick her up. “…Right. Well, Jim Lake from Cleveland, Ohio, my dad’s here, so I need to go, but this has been… interesting.”

Jim nodded rapidly, shooting her one more smile— a sheepish, apologetic one— as he gave her a shy wave. “…Yeah.”

Claire hoisted her backpack onto one shoulder, giving him a half-hearted wave back. “…Bye, Jim.”

“Bye, Claire.”

As she turned to leave, Jim frowned to himself. He wasn’t sure why, but something felt wrong. He supposed it could have been the awkward manner in which he’d acted, but in a flash, he decided that wanted to see her again, just in case that wasn’t it. He couldn’t be too careful.

So, before he missed his chance, he called after her retreating back, “See you around?”

Claire stopped, hand poised on the handle of the passenger side door, freezing there for a heart-pounding pause.

Then, she shot him a look over her shoulder, one of interest, meeting his eyes deliberately. Jim got the sense that he should heed it carefully.

“Yeah. See you around, Jim.”

#(why yes I did mean to have claire say 'cleveland' the second time)#hopefully the next fic in this is how jim becomes the trollhunter but!! for now I hope y'all like this piece!#i may make an au introduction post as well but brain tired from editing so that'll come soon!#trollhunters au #trollhunters fic #trollhunters fanfic #jim lake jr #the arcane order #toa #toa fic #toa au #ok to rb

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hello-yue-here · 3 years ago

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thank you @chiptrillino for tagging me in a wip game!

not quite sure what the rules are but based off of your AMAZING POST OF ART WIPS (check it out here yall chip is so talented) ive decided to just share some parts of my writing wips that i rlly like because i cannot draw whatsoever lmao

enjoy some lil snippets hehe

from heart don't stand a chance:

"Zuko couldn’t get over her eyes. She was looking past the camera towards the man who took it. Zuko could see clear as day the love she held for Sokka in her gaze.

It was a perfect moment that Sokka had captured. No wonder held it with him at all times. If someone had looked at Zuko like that, he’d never want to see anything again.

As he took in the photograph, Sokka sat next to him in silence. His hand was clutching the ring around his neck again in his fist, pressing it close to his mouth as he peered over Zuko’s shoulder to look. Zuko turned to him to compliment the picture and saw a sad fondness lingering in his eyes."

this is a scene i wrote a while ago thats gonna appear in a much later chapter. but yeah. more yue angst for you guys im so sorry.

from i love you (and that's all i really know):

"Mister Sokka," a little voice wishpered in his ear as he felt tiny pokes on his cheek, "Wake up Mister Sokka."

"Good morning to you too Izumi," Sokka responded wearily as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He looked towards the little girl who was standing on her tippy toes to see over the edge of the bed and poke his face until he rose.

She smiled at him once she realized he was awake.

"Can we have pancakes?" She asked shyly, hiding her mouth just below the edge of the bed as she looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

That look was going to be dangerous for him later on, he could aready tell.

"Sure thing, Izumi, just let me sleep for five more minutes, mkay?" He asked as he shut his eyes again. He was exhausted from last nights events, and the sun had barely risen. How did Zuko do this?"

this is a scene from the next chapter of this fic. so much sokka and izumi bonding you guys are gonna explode hehehe.

from cherry (the mailee fic i wont shut up about that is now a whopping 19 pages):

"Mai never had to guess with Ty Lee. She always knew when Ty Lee was happy about something because she would use an obnoxious amount of exclamation points. She would send gifs of people or cartoons making outlandish expressions whenever she wanted to react to Mai’s text with a specific facial expression. Sometimes Ty Lee would even send voice memos whenever her thoughts became too long, or she got too excited about a story that her fingers couldn’t type as fast as she could speak."

hehe i love mailee.

from yours (the mailee sorority fic that i promise i did not forget about):

"Mai lifted her head off the pillow again and met Zuko’s eyes. She studied his impassive expression, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. He did seem like he missed Mai and Azula, so maybe he did really just want to catch up with them.

But Mai wasn’t going to give up a golden opportunity like this.

“Tell us everything about the boy toy as well and you’ve got yourself a deal,” Mai said.

Zuko rolled his eyes and sighed, “Ugh, fine. And his name is Sokka by the way.”

“Nuance. You also have to wake up Azula.”

“No chance in hell,” Zuko scoffed, “You’re the roommate and her fellow ‘pong princess,’ wake-up duty is all yours.”

“If she murders me, it’s your fault. She’s a bitch when she’s hungover.”

“Whatever you say, Mai,” Zuko grinned before returning back to his phone."

i have decided that zuko is a little shit for this fic and no one can stop me.

from Where'd All the Time Go? (the yuekka fic that i have severe writers block with that i also promis i have not forgotten about):

"“Sokka I really think you need to take a moment and-”

“I am fine Aang, I don’t have time for a feelings talk right now. Right now I need to find the fucking chief of this damn place.” His words came out harsher than he meant, but he didn’t have the time to dwell on that.

Before Sokka could run off again to continue his search, a hand grabbed his arm. One of Arnook’s advisors, Malina, had started dragging him towards the podium.

“Do you not realize how late you are for this Sokka? The ceremony was supposed to begin with your speech nearly an hour ago-” she hissed at him as she pulled him along through the crowd.

“Malina I’m sorry but I really need to speak with Arnook it is urgent-”

“This damn speech of yours is what’s urgent right now Sokka, you can speak with Arnook later but the guests are getting antsy so you need to give your speech right. Now.”

“But-”

“Now.”

Maline shoved Sokka towards the podium and suddenly all eyes were on him. Every guest in attendance had their focus solely on Sokka."

homeboy is stressed in this scene. things are slowly going to shit in this chapter. i promise i will update this before the end of the year. i swear. im so sorry.

from a currently untitled jetko/sukka boiling rock fic:

"“Oh good, you survived after all,” She said in a mocking tone.

Jet didn’t answer. He knew anything he said would be used against him. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know what was happening. But he would be damned if he showed that weakness in front of the fire nation.

“I was told you were more talkative than this,” the girl mused. There was something familiar about her, “my informants were very detailed when discussing your little teashop romance.”

I knew it. Jet snarled in his mind, That bastard betrayed me."

i want this fic to be a little darker but idk how good i am at writing darker fics because i love fluff and humor too much. this could be good angst practice for me.

from a toph and sokka fic that i wrote a while back to help me cope w some shit that i dont know if ill ever post:

"“Sokka? Are you still there?” Toph asked, the slightest hint of concern began to slip into their voice

“Tell me a story,” he was trembling. Despite all of his efforts to sound calm, he knew his voice came out trembling and scratchy and pathetic-

“Is everything okay? You don’t sound too hot,” Toph said through the phone.

Breathe, Sokka, breathe. You don’t want them to be worried, you just need to calm down.

“Please, Toph, I just,” he said through shaky breaths that weren’t nearly deep enough for him to be getting enough oxygen, “I just need a distraction. I just need to hear your voice okay?”"

nonbinary toph anyone?

from a 10 things i hate about you kataang and zukka au:

"“What? Something on my face?” the guy asked deadpanned. He rubbed at his scar as if he were wiping off a smudge of mustard, and Aang’s face went pale.

“Stop scaring the sophomores Zuko, this one’s new. He won’t get your… humor… just yet,” Ms. Wu said as she waved Aang off again.

“I’m hurt that you’d imply I’m not funny, Wu. I’m hilarious,” the senior, Zuko, said as he walked past Aang.

Aang let out a sigh of relief knowing that this Zuko guy didn’t seem all that offended by his awkwardness, and darted out of the room."

zuko is a little shit part 2. the amount of sarcasm i have dripping off of heath ledger zuko is glorious. let zuko be a little shit. i havent added to this in months but when i finish some of my other wips i cant wait to get back to this.

i have more wips and drafts saved but none of them have anything juicy or funny or interesting yet because all of them are like less than three pages so far

but yeah, heres a good chunk of sneaky peakys from my wips!

I hope you liked them!

anyone who wants to do this can totally go for it. imma tag @ambykinns @lumities and @flowers-inthepieshop (only if you all want too!!) because this was fun :)

#liv talks about writing #liv talks ab fanfic #liv wips #liv fics #i love sharing my writing #especially when i have a bit of a block going on with well.... every fic #maybe this will give me inspiration!!!#i love sharing my writing im proud of these little snippets and i hope you all likes them as well :)#atla #avatar: the last airbender

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hange-zone · 4 years ago

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anything fluffy for jeanmarco 😭 like them realizing they have feelings for each other 🥺 i cant take anymore sadness for them 😔

The first thing Marco does when Jean says, “I like you,” is to hug him. Which wasn’t exactly in any of the scenarios he’d practiced with Armin or carefully gone over in his head. But Marco is warm and nice-smelling and Jean really, really likeshim, so much so it leaves him all slushy inside, so he responds by wrapping his arms around the taller boy and hugs him back. They stay like that for a few long seconds. He can feel his heart thumping in his chest and he bets, embarrassingly, that Marco can too. And he isn’t sure what to make of it. He isn’t sure what the hug is supposed to mean, either, so after a while he wriggles them apart and tilts his chin up, meeting Marco’s caramel eyes.

“Um,” he starts. Then, feeling so lame, because it’s such a terrible desperate silly move, but also he needs to know definitively where Marco stands and the other boy has so far said nothing, he ventures, “Er. Do you…like me…?”

He feels his face burn as Marco regards him questioningly, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side as he mulls over Jean’s words. Jean bites his lip, watching as the evening sunlight catches on the planes of his face. They’re standing inches apart and he can see every minute detail: the pale hairs, almost like peach fuzz, over the curve of his square jaw and every pore and line across his cheeks and in the corners of his mouth where he smiled, and the flecks of gold in his eyes which regarded him wordlessly. He can feel himself fixating on how the warm rays of the fading day illuminate his long lashes and how his cheeks were dusted with freckles - ugh, how he wanted to crush his stupidly red and soft mouth against his, cradle his obnoxiously handsome face and-

“Of course I like you,” Marco says, after a pause. His expression is neutral and his voice is even and bright. From his response it seemed as if they were discussing nothing more consequential than what to have for dinner. Which it certainly was not - or at least it felt that way to Jean. He continues, in that same reasonable way: “You’re a great guy, Jean. Why wouldn’t I?”

Oh my god, Jean thinks. Oh my god. It’s actually worse now. They’re nowhere closer to an understanding. He likes him, he really does, and Marco was usually sharp and incisive and good at these things, but he was either being deliberately obtuse or maybe words didn’t mean anything anymore, they were just sounds people made with their mouths, the whole project of language was a construct, yes, the concept of the author had died and there was no single intention to be assigned to anything, anymore. And so it was totally reasonable for Marco to act this way because what was ‘I like you’ or 'do you like me' or even the idea of 'liking' supposed to mean anyway?

He makes a face and reaches a hand to scrub at the back of his neck, which is hot under his touch. His entire face - no, his whole body - is on fire now. He actually wants to shrivel up and die, or at least go and scold Armin, who he irrationally hates now, because he’d hyped him up and told him it was a good idea and why didn’t anyone warn him it would be so bloody awkward?

Marco looks upon Jean’s furiously blushing face and starts laughing. “Sorry,” he says, pausing to catch his breath. “Sorry - you look constipated - sorry, I-”

Jean stares at him uncomprehendingly, mouth hanging open and body stock-still. His hand is paused in his hair and his eyes are large and blank, barely registering the other boy’s movements. “What?” He manages.

“Armin’s a little snitch,” Marco says, amusedly, by way of explanation. He’s still laughing. “Or maybe you two just discuss everything really loudly and maybe Eren heard -“

At the sound of the too-loud, too-annoying boy’s name Jean unfroze. “Him?” He sputters.

“Joking,” Marco says. “You’re not exactly subtle when you like someone” - and Jean thinks, involuntarily, of the times he’d tried to play it off when their hands had brushed together and the one time they ended up huddled together in bed but he’d really rationalised it was them keeping warm - and he lets out a long breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The other boy was watching him, a cheeky smile playing at his lips. He continues: “Besides, I thought I was pretty obvious. Like, duh, why else would I tell you goodnight every single day and squeeze your hand and why are we even planning our lives together?”

“Friends do that,” Jean says weakly, miserably.

“…really?”

“Armin and Eren do,” he offers stubbornly.

“And we’ve caught them messing about in the broom cupboard - ”

“Fine, you win,” he says huffily, throwing his hands up. He really likes Marco, but he really does not like how smug he looks. And how good and hot he looks while smirking at him. Ugh.

Marco can probably read his mind, because he slings an arm around Jean’s shoulders, pulling him close, and plants an exaggerated kiss in his hair. “There,” he says, nuzzling him. “You happy now?”

Jean nods grudgingly. He is, of course, because he likes Marco and Marco likes him back (here he can only think in interrobangs), but also that was such a dick move on his part. He’s annoyed at the other boy, but he also wishes that he’d kiss the top of his head again so he can feel that slow heart-flip. “...Yes.”

“Good,” Marco says, voice suddenly low and serious. His long fingers reach out to cup the other boy’s chin. Jean lets his eyes trail up the slender fingers, past his tanned wrist and forearms, across his broad shoulders, eventually settling on Marco’s face, which is angled, ever so slightly, downward. His features are relaxed and an easy smile is on the edges of his lips. It’s a diagonal line, a heartbeat long, between them. Their noses are almost touching. His breath hitches as his gaze flickers to Marco’s - they are so close and he is drowning in the amber of the other boy’s eyes as they share a long look. Then, just before their lips meet, Marco whispers, breath soft against his mouth: “I like you a terrible lot, Jean Kirschstein.”

When they do kiss, it is exactly as he’s imagined and words have meaning again because it is exactly as the words feel: simple and tender and sweet. And the whole time he can’t help but think about how he really, really likes this boy.

here you go anon! it isn't exactly them realising their feelings for each other, mostly because it’s painfully obvious but i do hope this suffices:”) they are such goofy dorks & adorable kids in love. and just putting it out there shamelessly - i wrote something ages ago about how they’d confessed but it’s so lame! anyway it’s quite funny to see how far we’ve come. (also in my head that the last scene where they kiss is exactly like this moment [insert interrobangs!!])

(and here’s the ao3 crosspost + encouragement to submit more!)

#snk #aot #jeanmarco #Jean Kirschstein #marco bodt #askbox prompts

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the-bjd-community-confess · 3 years ago

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DOA Bullshit and Bias Hubbywrangler is always in the comments foaming at the mouth whenever someone says less than positive things about DOA. Your autocratic bullshit only works on DOA; you cant control what people say online and you certainly cant ban them for having an opinion, but since you enjoy being an asshole to those who are scared of joining DOA, have felt unwelcome there or discriminated against, why not say something that really matters? The other moderators dont comment on things here, but a mod did on IG and had her ass handed back to her, why not give it a go here? Fantyfofo and MANY others got banned with no warning because they cast doll mannequins to make wigs, something that was not in the rules before banning them - no warning and not allowing them to fix their "mistake". This is unfair, specially because theres just a big red banned on their username and most assume its scamming; you know the damage that this does. when people question this, you just brush their frustration off. Youve sometimes said that these people are lying and the ban was actually not what this person is saying. Well, why not put in the reason why someone is banned? Youve already placed an obnoxious BANNED title under their name, its only fair for everyone to know why they were banned, so no one would accuse you like they have in the past for power tripping. You know the average user would see the banned title and avoid purchasing or dealing with said person - even if the ban was because they made another account, made a mannequin head or ffs, disagreed with a mod offsite. Before you say no, I know for a FACT that Aimeeeee banned a person because they had a disagreement with her on LJ, if you need names, its Hi3ru. I also know of the bullshit secret section of DOA that got hacked and leaked over a decade ago with Sal3m and JaM3 being particularly the shittiest of them all. Dont give me this non-biased bullshit when you obviously dont know how to be anything but biased. This may not be the case these days, but the secret section was there, anyone who has been in the hobby for a long time would remember it or has seen it. There is zero recast tolerance on DOA, yet Mannie admitted that she posted her recast and got suspended for it, when others did the same mistake but got banned permanently, please make it make sense. How is she not banned permanently? How is she still active in the forums when not only did she post her recast, but she admitted to it on her tumblr, and had made tutorials on how to purchase one safely? When being fair, the rules should apply to everyone; that does not mean your friends get to be exempt from it. Speaking of, how do you expect to be the "authority" on everything BJD, when even mention or linking of recasts get you banned or suspended? Do you think a newbie, or someone who has english as their second language will first assume its a fake? When a person wants a discussion - note discussion, not statement - on recasts to educate themselves to make an informed decision, is met with a suspension; how likely do you think they will get a recast out of spite for being "shunned" from the community? No sense in spending too much, "artistic integrity" when the artists and the "head" of the community is hostile towards you. This is such a missed opportunity for DOA to make something great, actually make a difference and encourage being pro-artist instead of bullying a person who is questioning it (no, those who made informed decisions on purchasing recasts can fuck off). I had my recent feedback deleted off my page because the moderators suspect the feedback is from offsite and is against the rules. Did you know, that when you get banned, there is no reply or appeal? You have to send an email which never gets replied to. The other thing; there would be an archive of dolls being sold. Clothes and accessories? Once its sold, its gone. The feedback I got was from those sales AND DOA suspended me because they suspected it was offsite sales. Putting that on the side; why limit feedback on DOA to only sales done on

DOA? IG and FB allow feedback from everywhere; as long as you have experience with that buyer and that seller, that should be the only thing that matters. Having the problem transaction thread for members only is also a decision I wont understand. Yes bad feedback can be linked to the feedback page, but how am I supposed to see and judge the feedback if there is no access to the bad feedback linked, because problem transactions are members only? People are fed up with the rules and tip toeing on DOA. Conversations have become so inane and stupid that I feel my IQ drop every time I read the debate section. The forums used to be enjoyable with actual meaningful conversations and now people only go to DOA to read the problem transaction threads, or BJD news. The discussions is nothing but people talking about their purchases, their missed purchases or purchases they hope to make. There is no conversation and you have no one to blame but yourselves because of the free use of bans, suspensions and this shitty punishment point system you threaten people with. You honestly need to get over yourselves because others see you as intimidating. Some mods are better than others, but generally speaking, you guys are power tripping assholes who are way to proud to get with the times and realize that the current way of running the forum is outdated. This is why many see DOA as an archive; talk too loud and the librarian shuts you up; only old threads have any value. Why do you think people have moved to discord, facebook and instagram? You know what would be nice? Allowing name changes. People will pay for it if you provide it, and you can always link the past usernames on their profiles like ebay. Let people change their names. Not alot will pay for extra doll profiles, and extra DOA PM space, but they will pay for name changes. If anyone else has anything to say, please sound off in the comments. H0bbitwrangler has defended DOA a lot, and they are an active mod that comments and lurks here; let them know what you think because they are trying to make DOA seem like the only ones having an issue are those who were banned "fairly".

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #TrueBJDCounterfeits #DoA

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afroggyfrog · 4 years ago

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SuperStraight

A brand new sexuality that is trending on twitter and being super popular.

Definition:

A superstraight person is someone attracted to members of the opposite gender who are not transexual.

This was created as a response to people who sometimes say things like this:

(source:BBC)

Let’s give a name to the people who insist that not being attracted to trans people makes you transphobic, since I’m not about to describe them every time i wanna bring them up, I’ll call them trans-incels because just like incels they resent people for not wanting to have sex with them.

It’s worth it to remember that trans-incels aren’t representative of all trans people. or even of a majority of them, if i were to bet, they are about as popular as actual incels.

In all the comment sections I checked the anti trans-incel side was a clear majority, and having searched for “superstraight” on youtube to see what people have to say, the first video on the list, from a trans man, is definetely anti trans-incel .

> If you don’t want to date a trans person that’s fine, and if somebody is trying to force you they’re just an asshole

-probably most trans people

From the perspective of a trans-incel (and how we’re all assuming too much)

Imagine a person.

Imagine the probability that they are racist.

Imagine that same person saying “i wouldn’t date a black person”

Has the probability increased at all? be honest, it hasn’t gone up to 100% (which would be the race-incel response) but it must have gone up by at least a little.

But why did it go up by a little? Because now the chance they’ll say something like “because blacks disgust me” has also gone up.

Now imagine being into internet drama (ew) and as a trans person, you’re especially interested in people being transphobic and you probably see transphobia every day because people like talking about it as much as anti-sjw(tm) people like to talk about the trans-incels.

If discussions about trans people only gets to you when it causes drama you’ll probably never see “i wouldn’t date trans men/women...” without having it be followed by “...because they’re not real men/women”.

And even though the whole point of being superstraight is to explain why people wouldn’t date trans men/women without calling them ‘not real men/women’ lets see what the original guy who started the whole superstraight meme has to say at second 15.

https://youtu.be/z8vQhkPnEE4

It’s like instead of throwing bait, they’re just throwing food.

The more you see “...because they’re not real men/women” the more likely you are to expect it, and as someone who subscribes to people posting drama 24/7 you’ll see that hundreds of times until you end up answering ...

the probability that the person who says ‘i wouldn’t date trans men/women’ to be transphobic is 100%

...and even if they don’t follow up with something transphobic it’s always easier to imagine they’re just hiding it rather than to change your whole worldview on the spot.

And if you think “why do they even predict transphobia before its spoken”, well, this might sound crazy to you, but everyone is assuming things all the time, our whole perception of reality is nothing but a hallucination that our brain comes up with using not only stimulus from the world but also assumptions.

There’s a blind spot on each 1 of your eyes, your brain simply fills it in without you knowing, it also adds color to the edge of your vision and makes the whole thing less blurry.

When someone says “i won’t date trans people” some people will simply fill in the blanks, they’ll assume every bit of info about who you are what you believe in what your personality is from just a sentence, because the brain is literally designed for it.

IQ tests are just patterns where a spot is blanked out and you’re supposed to fill it in, your intelligence is measured by your ability to fill in the blanks, and low intelligence people will just make mistakes more often, but everyone smart or dumb will constantly make assumptions about everything, and dumb people will be proven wrong about their assumptions more often.

And this happens all the time even when you’re not talking about politics or having a fight.

Someone talking about the earth being curved? well, every time I saw someone do that they called it a sphere so let me just fill in the blanks.

Someone saying they wouldn’t date trans women? well, every time I see screenshots of people saying that in my drama facebook group i see them being transphobic, so let me just fill in the blanks

That’s just how incels operate.

Building legitimacy

Have you ever noticed that every sexual preference eventually gets assigned a flag, on that note, why does every country have a flag?

If you ask a regular person to guess why their country has a flag you’ll get something related to aesthetics, our flags represent our country.

For example Romania and Hungary:

In school we are taught that each colour on our flag has a different meaning, I searched on google and everyone disagrees on what they mean but as an example.

Liberty (sky-blue), Justice (field yellow), Fraternity (blood red)

Outside of school I was taught by my grandma that the Hungarian flag, much like the Romanian flag, also has a meaning.

The green represents a wide field of green grass, the white represents a white dog playing on the field of grass, rolling around on his back, and the red represents his red dog cock.

Both of these meanings are pretty much just something that a Romanian randomly came up with so i don’t think most people know why countries have flags.

Flags originate from war, that way the armies know not to attack their own allies when they see they carry the same flag, having an army grants you true legitimacy because you can just beat people up into believing you’re legitimate, so countries with no armies probably still had flags because it would be really hard to pretend you have an army otherwise.

Nowadays every country has a flag even if war is illegal, simply because every country has been using one for so long that it became convention. If you don’t follow convention you will be seen as illegitimate. It’s an unwritten rule, but a rule nonetheless, that you need a flag, and much like not following written rules makes you illegitimate (and illegal) so does not following unwritten rules.

And sexualities having their own flags and names probably feels like an even stronger convention than countries having flags for some people.

It’s very often brought up that you have to feel “valid” (which more or less means “legitimate”)

I still don’t know why, but it’s apparent that people need to be reassured that their sexuality is “valid” and then there’s also this:

Why does a sexual preference have to be distinct from a sexuality? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the only difference between the two is legitimacy, to confirm to the conventions of flags and labels.

Q: So why do superstraights get a label and a flag and copy everything that LGBT people do, like tweets talking about how valid their followers are or using the word bigot etc

A: Because to get true legitimacy you need to copy the conventions.

The cargo cult

(wikipedia) Some primitive tribes of people would look at colonists from the civilised world and notice that after they’d built some plane lanes, the planes would come bringing cargo full of valuable stuff.

The tribesmen have made the observation that planes land if you build lanes for them to land on, they made the hypothesis that building the lanes causes the planes to come, and like scientists, they set out to test it.

They made lanes, they made fake planes, they tried to copy everything that the colonists did hoping it would be enough.

Superstraight is a lot like a cargo cult of sexualities, they have a flag, they have a label, they call everyone bigots all the time.

This is the first pic I sent before cropping it.

Because, like a cargo cultist who does not see the plane factories from the colonists homelands, the superstraight person does not see the LGBT community from outside his filter bubble, the filter bubble where only the most obnoxious people like the trans-incels can get through.

So when the superstraight person who thinks every LGBT person is just an obnoxious incel tries to “fit in” with the LGBT, they will act like an obnoxious incel, and when everyone is angry at him, he thinks to himself “they've all proven themselves hypocrites! i baited them so hard! i won!!!”

Even tho there’s a bunch of LGBT people from the comment sections I read who don’t even know the trans-incels even exist, because their filters simply don’t show them the same things you superstraight people are shown.

It gets worse

There’s some people who are so cocky and think they’re so much smarter than the LGBT community that they can just sneak in the nazi SS symbol into their flag and not just fuck up the bait completely.

hehe Schutzstaffel fla- wait! you cant call me a nazi! this is just another sexuality you hypocriteeeee

But this is also just a minority of the people who get superstraight trending, its so popular that I’m pretty sure most of the people getting it to trend are actual normies who wouldn’t even recognise the SS symbol and who have never been to 4chan.

Speaking of 4chan

Of course people don’t think superstraight is legitimate when you have 4chan taking credit for it.

They pick up on all the superficial customs like the flag the label the speech patterns and think “this is their, logic, im using it against them, and they’re all mad because of this alone and not just because a we’re comparing ourselves to the Schutzstaffel”

In a turing test a computer attempts to pass as a human.

In the ideological turing test a human tries to pass as someone of a different ideology.

Are people afraid of passing the ideological turing test? do they think if they can think like the enemy, then they’ll become the enemy? there was no need for people on 4chan to talk so openly about superstraight being a ruse, there was no need to make nazi memes with it, there is no need to post “we used their logic against them”, to constantly tell “yes this is all a lie”.

And yet people have to constantly break character and expose superstraight for being a fake sexuality, why? what’s even the point of it then?

What it could have been

Imagine a world in which instead of making a cargo cult sexuality and just delegitimizing it yourself with all the actual nazi symbolism, you were able to cancel trans-incels.

Imagine if they were able to say things like “the trans-incels are trying to create a new rape culture in which superstraight people are coerced into having sex with transexual people” with a straight face

Imagine if they even tried to coin the term “trans-incels”, since incels are hated by progressives for misogyny and are often associated with 4chan.

Imagine if they could get people banned for hate-speech against the superstraight

Imagine if they had the balls to denounce the people amongst them trying to delegitimise superstraight with their nazi SS and obvious parodying of the points that aren’t taken seriously by anyone who doesn’t call themselves anti-sjw.

Maybe then there’d be some divide between “pro-superstraight” and “anti-superstraight” instead of everyone who’s not anti-trans agreeing that superstraights aren’t legit.

Maybe they’d be able to get some people canceled, there’s been at least one actual celebrity (India Willoughby) who is a trans-incel, they could have canceled her! but nobody is even trying.

And oh how much “applying their own logic against them” would have been true if as a response to “but not all trans people are calling you transphobic for having a sexual preference!” you dusted off the “not all men are like that” memes that was popular with feminists.

If they would go on the offensive, cancelling people, spreading trans-incel screenshots to everyone who says they’ve never seen one, mocking people who stand up against them the way feminists used to and say “nOt aLl TrANs pEopLe aRE liKE THat” to anyone who says “not all trans people are like that”, to tell them that “silence is violence” and to make them cancel eachother.

Imagine how much more effective that would have been.

In the end this isn’t gonna make a difference, it will be forgotten, maybe in a couple months, or a year, or a week, some people are angry today because a counterculture hashtag is trending, but they’ll forget about it too, maybe a couple dozen people will permanently have superstraight on their twitter bios, but really, nothing interesting is gonna come out of it, and if someone tries to make something like whitesexual/blacksexual/asiansexual etc a thing the well will have already been poisoned by superstraight.

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lovelyparkers · 4 years ago

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the lifeguard (1)

part one!

summary: you're a summer lifeguard at coney island's beach and peter convinces his friends to go. y'all are 18 in this and just graduated! 2.9k words

warnings: none really, just swearing, fluff and spice woo part two is gonna be spicier oops

peter knew from the moment you told him you were working on coney island's beach this summer that he would be there as much as possible. he had liked you all throughout high school. literally all four years and never did anything about it. but now high school was over and he knew you would slip right past him. plus seeing you on the beach in a tight red bathing suit? how could he say no to that. and of course, red was really his favorite color, and seeing it on you...that would be heaven.

you had discussed summer plans with peter and you told him of your new job. you told him how you would drive there every morning at 8 am and be there till 6 pm. 7 days of the week. but hey it payed well and you loved the beach. lots of kids from school frequented the beach too, so it's be nice to see your friends—and maybe part of you hoped you'd see peter.

peter had mentioned he had a night job in queens and besides that no other plans. you liked the boy. there was something about him that was just so endearing and when you talked or even looked at him you got butterflies. and don't even get me started on how you felt thinking about him.

you were all set the next day to go down to the beach for your first day in the job, feeling ecstatic. you had bought several different styles of red bathing suits, lots of sunscreen and a cute pair of sunglasses. you went through intense training about a month ago and were all ready to go. you'd spent other summers life guarding at your neighborhood pool, but wanted to go down to the beach for something different before heading off to college. and hey maybe you'll get to see a super cute boy aka peter there sometime, you dropped him hints.

the night of the last day of school, peter met up with ned, mj, and betty for celebratory pizza when he brought up the idea.

"so how 'bout we go down to the beach tomorrow? coney island," he asked while chewing.

michelle laughed, "why? because you know y/n is working there?"

"what? no! i didn't know she was working on eighth street."

"no one said she was working on eighth street peter," betty snapped.

"well i—"

michelle smirked, "just admit it, you like y/n."

michelle was one of your close friends and knew you somewhat liked peter so this was fun for her. but she was so happy he liked you back. you constantly complained about needing a boyfriend.

peter threw his hands up in defeat, "okay! okay! i like her!"

"i knew it!" ned screamed causing people in the pizza shop to look over at them awkwardly. "sorry."

peter's face flushed, "so, the beach?" everyone nodded. it was the beach for god sakes. hell yeah. and coney island was what they were all used to.

"i'm guessing we are going to eighth street right?" michelle teased.

"uh huh, and you're driving because you're the only one with a car!"

michelle groaned obnoxiously, "fine! but y'all are giving me gas money."

"we have to leave early so we don't get caught up in traffic," betty added.

"there's always traffic," ned replied.

"still there might be less."

"i don't think so it's summer—"

"guys stop! it's settled. eighth street, we'll leave at 8:30, mj is driving," peter spat.

everyone finally agreed and finished the last of the pizza. michelle got up to leave and said, "everyone meet at ned's i'll be there at exactly 8:30. if you're late we leave with out you, see ya losers."

the next morning at exactly 8:30 am, michelle pulled up outside ned's apartment in her dingy vintage car. ned was dressed to the nines in beach attire, as was betty. meanwhile peter was simply wearing flip flops, swim trunks and a white muscle tee, along with a blue beach towel draped around his shoulders. he had his grey backpack filled with snacks, sunscreen, his wallet, and other random shit. his black sunglasses shielded his eyes, as did his long brown curls that he had been growing out. it was almost 90° as well, so needless to say this was a much needed beach day. the boys packed some beach chairs and an umbrella into michelle's trunk then everyone hopped in the car, betty in the passenger seat, ned and peter in the back.

the drive wasn't too bad, it took 45 minutes with the traffic like said. and luckily they were able to find a parking spot in about five minutes of arriving which was rare. everyone got out and grabbed their things, running to the beach.

"guys! we should set up close to the lifeguard stand, you know in case of emergency," peter yelled over the noisy wind and boardwalk.

"you mean a y/n emergency?" michelle laughed causing peter to turn red. michelle decided to lead the rest of the way onto the beach and down the mat to find an open spot. michelle plopped her chair down like ten feet to the right of your lifeguard stand. the boys and betty were still trudging through the sand.

"hey y/n!" michelle called up to you.

"mj! hey! what are you doing here? i thought you hated the beach!"

"i do! i'm just a chauffeur. but hey i wanted to see you too!"

"oh cool!" you shouted back, taking long looks at the water since your coworker wasn't here yet. "who are you with?"

as you asked that, the staggering three came into your view and they all waved to you. peter was at the back of the group acting relatively shy. "i'll make sure you guys don't drown!" you shouted again, making them laugh. you got back to looking out in the water through your sunglasses, the cool shade of an umbrella over your head allowing you to somewhat relax from the intense heat. meanwhile, peter was taking glances at you every few seconds as the crew set up their beach spot. michelle immediately sat down in her chair, pulling out a book. ned and betty set up the other chairs and laid down a sheet in front of them to put their coolers and bags on, throwing a shoe on each corner. peter set up the umbrella since he was obviously the strongest one to stick in through the sand. he easily pushed it into the sand and pulled the cover up, making a nice circle of shade around the four of them. you couldn't deny that you snuck a look or two at peter's clenching back muscles as he jammed the umbrella into the ground.

"mj, wanna go touch the water with us?" ned asked innocently.

"no."

"okay then..."

peter, ned and betty went down to the water to feel it. it was brisk, but it felt nice under the 90 degree sun. tons of people were already in the water cooling off. you watched peter run a hand through his long locks and let it blow in the wind, making it a mess. but a cute one per say. you stood up on the stand, pushing your sunglasses up on your head to get a better look. he was splashing and kicking the water at his friends, laughing his head off. betty was screaming like the water was going to kill her while ned just joined it. peter's muscle tee left little to the imagination, allowing you to see his brawny muscles that he always hid in school. his pecs were also quite prominent through the front of his shirt as well, it was a bit see through, being white and all. and gosh you just couldn't imagine what he would look like when he-

you stopped your train of thought when peter looked directly up at you on the lifeguard stand. he smiled, mid laugh, teeth showing. you couldn't see his eyes under the sunglasses but they were bright and admirable. you grinned back at him, waving yet again, mouthing a 'hey.' peter waved too, with both hands up in the air, mouthing a 'hey' back. he turned back to his friends and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. god, you looked so good. your hair was blowing in the wind and you had a red bikini top and bottoms tied around your body. your lifeguard whistle was on a lanyard around your neck, hanging just in between your boobs. (ur hot asf and u cant convince me otherwise) the sight of you almost caused him to combust, how could you look that good. and he could just almost imagine what you would look like without-

"peter?"

"huh?" he asked quickly.

"you zoned out," ned said.

he scoffed, "oh yeah, i just- yeah, i'm good."

"is it y/n," ned winked.

peter shook his head up and down. he didn't even care that anyone knew. he just really, really liked you. and seeing you on the beach in that attire, didn't help his problem.

he rushed back to sit down in his beach chair, resting his slightly sweaty forehead in his hands to try to relax himself. he got way too worked up way too fast.

"you saw y/n i guess?"

peter looked up to see michelle laughing at him.

"why don't you just talk to her you weirdo."

"i don't know i- she's just- y/n is...i can't."

"yeah you can dumbass. just say hi."

"what are we talking about?" betty asked as her and ned sat down with the two. "he won't talk to y/n," michelle answered.

ned perked up, "peter! why don't you just pretend to drown, then she will save you and give you mouth to mouth! she said she would make sure you didn't drown."

"i'm pretty sure that's illegal," michelle said.

"yeah i-i can't do that."

"then just go talk to her," betty said agreeing with mj.

peter hopped out of his chair and started toward the lifeguard stand before stopping on his tracks at the sight of you greeting your apparent coworker. your coworker was a guy, probably around 20 years old and obviously good looking. he had messy blond hair paired with abs. nothing like peter's though. peter suddenly felt a pang of jealousy as you laughed at something he said. he watched the guy put a hand on your back, as he settled down. peter returned to his chair and slumped down, cheeks red from both the sun and jealousy. once peter sat down you scanned your eyes around looking for him and eventually landing on the boy in his chair.

your coworker was busy watching everyone in the water but you hopped down from the stand to keep an eye on some little kids...and maybe peter. just as your feet hit the sand, a gust of wind blew by, pulling peter's beach umbrella out of the ground and almost smacking you down, had you not caught it. peter had jumped up to try to grab and it and he ran after the umbrella only to be met by you holding it out to him. "here you go pete," you said smiling.

"thanks," he whispered, grabbing the umbrella from your hands.

"you gonna swim?" you asked him.

"oh," he looked at the water then back at you, trying not to get distracted by how good your boobs looked in that top, "yeah. we're gonna swim like, soon."

"cool."

"yeah," he said twirling the umbrella stick in between his hands.

"it's great to see you peter, you look great."

he blushed, looking down then back up, "you do too. look good i mean. you look great y/n...red suits you."

"thanks," you giggled. you had to stop yourself from reaching out and feeling his muscles. there was a moment of silence between you two until you realized you had to work. "i'm gonna uh, you know, get back to work. i'll find you on my break, be careful out there."

"i will," peter replied softly, watching you climb up the stand, ass almost in his face. you looked back down at him smiling. he shyly waved and returned to push the umbrella back into the ground.

"what took you so long? i could barely see my book!"

"i was talking to y/n. she said she's gonna find me on her break," he happily stated. peter had a little bounce in his step now, feeling more energised and confident. "c'mon guys! let's go swimming!"

"i'll pass," michelle shouted.

ned and betty obliged and got ready to head into the water. peter put his sunglasses in his back pack, not caring to lose yet another pair in the ocean. then he pulled off his shirt, revealing his once hidden abs to the world. his swim trunks sat on his hips, exposing his v-like slightly. you were lucky to have caught a glimpse of this show, sucking in a sharp breath when peter pulled off his shirt. shit. he was hot. of course he was.

he ran down the sand and straight into the water, diving under a wave when it got deep enough. you watched him intently, back muscles flexing when he dove. as he came up out of the water, he whipped his curls out of his face, facing you. you had no idea if it was on purpose or not but god did it make you shiver. this was gonna be a long day.

you watched him gracefully swim in the water and body surf waves so effortlessly. it made being a lifeguard less boring in all honesty. but gosh were you besotted with him. and when he walked out of the water to go back to his chair, it was like he was walking in slow motion, the way hot people do in movies. and it was gorgeous to watch. water was dripping all the way down his body. droplets would fall from his now even darker, wet curls onto his face and down his neck, then onto his broad chest and toned abs, finally reaching the waist band of his swim trunks. right to his v-line. you almost audibly gasped right there.

as peter walked by the stand he looked up at you, again running a hand through his wet curls to push it out of his face. he grinned at you, knowing you were watching him. and you stared right back. he was showing off wasn't he? two can play this game. you pushed your sunglasses back up on your head and made direct eye contact with him, causing peter to stumble in the sand. you laughed and put your glasses back down. he was so cute and hot at the same time. how?

when your break came around, you decide to head into the water and cool off. your coworker took over, watching you climb down the stand, as did peter. you slowly strutted toward the water, walking in slowly before it got deeper and dunking your head under the cool water. peter eyed you from the beach, hunching over with his elbows on his thighs. his sunglasses blocked the lustful gaze from anyone else's view luckily. when you came up out of the water he watched it drip all over your body and glisten on your face. he couldn't take his eyes off you.

you looked over to peter, since you did promise you'd find him during your break. you saw he was staring at you and just smirked. you pointed at him on the beach. he sat up in shock and poked his finger on his chest as to say, 'wait, me?' you then curled your finger toward your body in a come here motion, obvious to peter. he stood up and went straight to you in the water, swimming out past the waves to you. as he got to your side you noticed how flushed his face was, you couldn't tell if it was from sunburn or something else. it was the latter.

"hey," you started.

"hey y/n."

"so what goes on?"

"nothing really..just...swimming."

"well i'm glad you're here. it made me really happy."

"me too. i'm happy to see you too." the two of you were just floating in the water, up and down waves with each other.

"you know i didn't think you'd actually come."

"what do you mean?"

"well obviously i wanted you to come while i'm working. i was dropping hints in school, if you couldn't tell."

peter chuckled, "no, no. i picked up on them. you're ah, you're really cool."

"so are you." you smiled at each other now, just enjoying the company and the semi peacefulness. until your coworker blew his whistle and pointed at you.

"that's me, i gotta go. see you later peter!" you swam off towards shore, peter watching you all the way to the stand. he smiled to himself, giddy over the fact that you wanted him to come here. and he just wanted to spend every second with you. you were truly the kindest and most beautiful person ever, that he couldn't get enough of.

now all he had to do was ask you on a date.

#peter parker imagine

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marshmallowprotection · 5 years ago

Text

Matchup Request!!!♡♡♡

This is the person that asked if i could pm you/submit the matchups! :D -->

[Chaotic Neutral, Introvert, Leo, INTP, 5'7-8]

I'm A Pansexual girl but I definitely lean more towards boys, I've got a dirty Mind and a Sailors Mouth (I swear too much). Really fast matabalisiom and can eat about whatever i want, i can be pretty obnoxious and self centred but I'm working on it! :D, I used to be in my schools drama club, I say sorry too much, Im kinda Touch-starved So I'm really cuddly with people who would let me. I'm tol and v e r y insecure about it.

I'm very confident and i like the way i look, I don't really let what people say get too me, but i used to be mistaken for a boy alot (my face shape was different before I got braces and i wore more neutral clothes, I had an overbite and was bullied cuz' of it.), I still get super self conscious and uncomfortable when I'm miss-gendered and out of girly clothes!

I'm outspoken, Lazy, Impusive, Immature, rude, Picky but when I compliment someone I always mean it. I always say whats on my mind, good or bad.

I really hate people who can't stand up for themselves and i have highs and lows of energy.

I'm Friendly, Easy-going, Creative, Silly and Confident, when someone tries to make fun of me I always laugh it off, even if it actually hurts a little. I can compliment people no problamo but I get super flustered when complemented back.

^^ I'm a go-with-the-flow person with a devil-may-care attitude,

I have two dogs, A cat, and four quails.

I have a big friend group and i like to think I'm reasonably easy to talk too, but I need alot of alone time (Like, unheathily) for me and my phone, but affection is welcomed greatly during these times!

I like binging junk food, aesthetics, and i have a soft spot for photography & I really dislike kids-

I have Pale skin, A freckled nose, Olive green eyes, wavy light brown hair that reaches my shoulders, braces and Glasses that I'm legally blind without but still refuse to wear. (I've walked into so many poles.)

I like everything about rain and heavy thunderstorms, It feels good, it smells good, it helps you sleep, and it's totally worth wrecking your cute clothes for. (Lean towards the feminine side of fashion! Olive Dresses, Pastel Skirts, Pearly Blouses, black Dockmartens-)

I cant go 5 seconds without listening to music, the only times when I'm not listening is when I'm shopping or at school, ( mainly Indie Folk and Bands like Destroy Boys / Mother Mother! )

I have ADHD, Dissociation, AVPD and Anxiety, I'm super physically weak (+ Plus i have a really low pain tolorence).

I Love reading and i want to writing but I never have any motivation! I'm a big daydreamer and I'm usually passed out on my school desk fantasizing about random stories. I'm big on Indie RPGs and Adventure games! (Ive got a bad habit of staying up at night reading and sleeping all day, I'm a really deep sleeper and litreally nothing can wake me up.)

My favorite movie/TV shows are; Brooklyn 99, Archer, Zombieland and litreally any Stand-up/Animated Comedy, im a sucker for romcons, I really like Stupid girl Drama and Folklore, my idea of a good time is dangerous Midnight Walmart Shennagigans with close friends, Laying in bed on my phone all day eating cake, Partying all night long (with snack and nap breaks) and long midnight car rides to McDonalds. I wanna have adventures more often but I don't the energy, Depression, Y'know?

I'm really facinated by abnormal psychology and 'the dark side' of humanity, written horror makes me giddy but I hate horror movies, I'm really jumpy and get scared easily. I want to become a Psychologist. (Really big Empath, Second hand embarrassment, even in movies, makes me wanna leave the room and screech.)

^^ I'm pretty much a cowardly thrill seeker.

I like dressing up for fancy occasions more then actually going to them, something about energetic night club parties where people don't care about the normal stuff and just wanna have a fun time makes me really happy.

In relationships I call people nicknames alot! Usually stuff like 'babes', though like with compliments, i get super flustered when called nicknames.

Thanks for your time! Sorry it's so long, I try to make these as detailed as possible! ^''^ again, if it's too much please tell me!))

I match you with...

Zen!

You’re a whirlwind of all sorts of things. I had to think about this at first because wow, there’s a lot of options here, and I wasn’t sure which would suit you the best. In the end, I reached the conclusion that someone who could respect your energy and as well as help you out of your shell when you need it. You’ve had your struggles in life with your attitude and your appearance, but now you’ve got this sense of faith that nobody can knock. There are still moments when you feel low, but you’ve come to the same conclusion that Zen has. He can feel that energy coming off of you and he respects the hell out of it. The way that you smile and laugh without shame makes his heart start to stutter; You have a lot to say about the world and he doesn’t hesitate to listen to every word and play along when you’re teasing.

Aren’t you just a sucker for a guy that can scoop you up? Well, that’s easy for Zen, and if you make a hint of being tired or not wanting to get up, he’s the first one on that. He loves the way that you squeal and try to make him knock it off, mainly it's the way that you become red in the face that makes him chuckle.

Some of your insight into the human mind actually makes him want to come you to discuss the character that he might be playing, or leaning towards. He likes to hear different intakes, and it helps him reach a way to make something his own instead of something else.

The great thing about Zen is that he’s pretty awful at games, so you’re going to win every time that you play him. He really doesn’t mind that because you laugh and cheer every time you do win.

#ask #mod kait #submissions #mystic messenger #matchups #matchup #it's not too much #whatever people feel like sending me is what I work with no matter how long it is #hyun ryu #submission

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in-madhouses · 7 years ago

Photo

drink up your movements (still i can’t get enough)

Niall Horan to Aahna Deakins: just a heads up

Aahna Deakins: ??

Niall Horan: i think caroline wants to have sex with you

Aahna Deakins: i mean i already knew that

Niall Horan: …

Niall Horan: what?

Aahna Deakins: seen

Niall Horan: ‘m gonna kill harry

Aahna Deakins walks onto the set that first day of filming and Niall just knows he’s fucked. Like, proper, up the arse, without lube, fucked.

And he doesn’t think that very often. Not since he was twenty and earning minimum wage as an english lit teaching assistant who auditioned for a small role in a tv show but ends up being cast as Remus Lupin.

Three and a half critically acclaimed seasons later, he’s one of the more successful actors in the British young adult genre, earns more than the average person’s annual income in a month, and oh, right, is on first name basis with JK Rowling. A feat he’s sure he’ll never top considering that he was an avid Potterhead growing up. (He still has his first copies of the books, creased, weathered, and now, signed by the author herself, sitting on his shelf along with every script that he’s ever received.)

Life is, more or less, good. But after weeks of whispers proclaiming everything from new characters being added to the cast to the producers planning a genderswap episode, things take a sudden nosedive.

Their red stamped ‘Confidential’ scripts made clear that some of the rumours were true; they were adding a character to the show but said character is only there for a backdoor pilot that spills over multiple crossover episodes within the latter season of Marauders: Mischief & Mayhem. If it were any other show, it would be easy to assume that the writers were getting lazy; a whole six episode arc to introduce characters and a plot that will depart for its own show? Seems ridiculous, but the idea is solid and the script is tight, so tight, that apparently Rowling herself greenlit the crossover slash spin off.

Now, by all intents and purposes, Niall and Aahna should have gotten along fine. She’s a model turned actress with a strong work ethic while he’s a seasoned veteran by now, having worked with a lot of people in his time being on Marauders. Being one of the four titular characters kind of guarantees that he’s a given amidst the revolving faces of extras and guest stars. But for some reason unknown to man, Aahna Deakins completely just… gets the better of him.

He recognises her from pictures and billboards when they have their first table read, tall and tan, all lean muscle and sharp edges, her face as mysterious as it is expressive.

When he looks her up, he finds her tweets sharp and witty, her instagram lined with humour, and her presence in the tabloids a staple. And for that alone, he realises that they would mix about as well as oil and water. The fact that they share about 50% of their screen time together doesn’t help. Every scene, every table read, every small discussion turns, at some point or another, into a ridiculous debate and often time (more than a little) raised voices.

He’s not sure how, or who, starts it, but they have full on shouting matches about inflection and intention and everything in between. And it’s not like he’s the oddity who doesn’t play well with his cast members, he gets along with the cast members like a house on fire. She gets along great with everyone too, moving into Harry’s guest room because they go way back and she’s not about to make any property commitments in London until she knows for sure that her show is getting a full season order.

And that’s where things go from bad to worse for him because it means that they live in the same apartment complex and he’s practically a permanent fixture over at Harry’s.

Harry Styles to marauders doing marauder-y things (plus liam): nialler why’d u call 12 times

Niall Horan: slight emergency, am out of beer

Harry Styles: just come over u never had a problem with that b4

Niall Horan: deakins there?

Harry Styles: look do u have any idea how big a deal this is for her

Harry Styles: she did two pilots that got axed before they aired in the states

Harry Styles: and that one movie that basically made a loss in the box office

Liam Payne: didn’t she win a bafta for that?

Louis Tomlinson: nah

Louis Tomlinson: she won the baftas by going on the red carpet with her girlfriend

Harry Styles: *ex gf

Harry Styles: they broke up at the after party

Harry Styles: it was a mess™

Zayn Malik: i still got pictures from that night… that i don’t… understnd what’s going on

Harry Styles: lol yeah u were pretty fucked mate

Louis Tomlinson: i maintain i had nothing to do with that

Liam Payne: wow that girl’s not having a good year is she?

Harry Styles: yeah so maybe u guys should like go easy on her

Zayn Malik: i’m out with her and caroline rn wot u talking about

Louis Tomlinson: i don’t have a prob with her

Liam Payne: i literally have like two scenes with her

Niall Horan: seen

Harry Styles: did you just type ‘seen’

Harry Styles: that’s not how you seen someone, u just seen them

Harry Styles: !!!

Louis Tomlinson renamed the group niall old man horan™ cant work tech

Niall tries to be nicer to her, he really does, but Aahna Deakins doesn’t quite make it easy for him.

She’s… a bit of an enigma.

On one hand, she’s just the type of person he wouldn’t mind as a friend; a sense of humour, the ability to draw the line between on and off screen relations, and an oddly in depth knowledge on history and mythology. (They had a twenty minute row on set about lycanthrophy which had to be escalated to some staff writers before they reached a resolution that she was indeed correct, despite the fact that he’d been the one playing a werewolf for most of his on-screen career. Where is the justice?)

But on the other hand, their similar interests; a passion for food, books, and golf doesn’t stop them from arguing all the time. And it doesn’t quite matter where they are either; on scene, in the studio, at the apartment, even while grabbing lunch with the cast. There’s apparently always something to disagree over.

Suffice to say, it drives everyone a little bit crazy. Especially Harry, who is caught in between more often than not.

“Oi, five-year-olds! We were trying to get some work done here?” Harry hollers, rolling his eyes.

Aahna’s in midst of running lines with some of the boys at Harry’s when Niall decides to pop by for a beer and they (naturally) find something or another to bicker about.

“Oh, I’m a five-year-old?” Aahna asks, incredulous, “I’m not the one who needed seven takes to get one line right,” she shoots a glare at him as he plops down on the couch, a beer in hand, intentionally close to her despite the copious amounts of space available literally anywhere in the living room.

It’s evident at that point, that no work is going to commence in the space anytime soon.

“I wouldn’t have needed seven takes if you didn’t keep breathing down my neck about my bleedin’ accent,” Niall jabs her in the ribs with his free elbow, “Christ, you give a model one acting gig and she thinks she’s Helen fucking Mirren.”

Niall’s not quite sure why, but the need to rile her up as much as she does him is overwhelming. It isn’t even hypothetical, when it comes to Aahna, he’s condescending and he’s obstinate to a point of being obnoxious, and he can’t seem to help himself. He’s tried to isolate where the antagonism is coming from, because it really is out of the ordinary; her presence, on set and in recent times, in his life, somehow nettles him more than it should.

But he isn’t sure what it is about her. Isn’t sure why he’s reacting the way he is.

Aahna just… gets under his skin.

“Don’t you have your own apartment to muck around and drink and do nothing in?” Aahna huffs at him, voice condescending as he plucks the script out of her hands.

“Well if I did that, who would you have to distract from learning your lines?” Niall shoots back, voice dripping with something not quite pure annoyance.

“Alright you two need to cut it out!” Harry is pretty much frantic at this point. “And Lou, stop taking shots. It’s barely sundown! What is wrong with you?”

Louis simply shrugs and tilts his head back, tequila shot glass in hand and refusing to look even a little bit guilty for not helping the situation even at all.

“Many things, primarily his overwhelming desire avoid responsibility,” Zayn shrugs.

“Oh, blow me Malik,” Louis snaps.

“Not for free.”

Life falls into a bit of a schedule like that. They work, they bicker, their friends slash cast mates break up the tension of their bickering, and they all end up getting drinks together or watching some kind of documentary at Harry’s whilst playing a drinking game at his expense (they take a shot everytime he points out an inaccuracy).

And it works, until they’re about halfway into filming the third episode when something just snaps in him.

“Can you stop it with these accusations?”

“It wasn’t an accusation,” she hisses back, the line of her jaw going taut as she walks off set, heading, he’s guessing, away from him. Which of course, only leads to him trailing behind, matching her large strides.

It’s the same old song and dance.

“Really?” Niall taunts, unable to help himself, “Sure as hell sounded like one.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Alright, then.”

“Just shut up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just shut up!” She snaps, taking a step forward at him as if to issue a challenge. And suddenly they’re all too close. The inches separating them feel like a ravine. An abyss from which he’s not sure he’ll recover from.

“It wasn’t an accusation, it was a observation,” she says finally after the silence lingers one second too long between them, “You come in and you do the scenes without a thought; you know your character, you know Remus by heart, and that’s great for you, but some of us don’t have a five season contract to tide us over.”

Niall grits his teeth at that.

Her lips purse at the silence and when she finally speaks, he’s sure it’s just to provoke him some more.

“You’re maddening,” she says, sounding equal parts exasperated and defeated.

“What, so I can’t argue with you but I can’t be agreeable either?”

“Well, maybe it’s too late to be agreeable.”

“Well, maybe it shouldn’t be.”

The glare that she throws him is heated and harsh, “Why do you care so much?”

She’s got him there, he has to admit.

And so they stare at one another like that, breaths uneven and face tinged pink from anger.

Before he knows it though, he’s crashing into her like a tidal wave; mouth on mouth, skin on skin, and searing heat all over.

It’s not just a kiss, it’s a head rush. It’s a fight. It’s… akin to a flood, and it’s as though he’s waited his whole life to feel it. Part of him knows that they were just seconds ago shouting themselves hoarse at one another, but she’s pulling him in closer and all Niall can hear his blood rushing in his ears, blocking out everything but the smell of her, the taste of her, the feel of her.

Her lips are pressing up against his, ravenous, matching his intensity.

He’s glad that they’ve actually gone into overtime for the scene and the studio is mostly empty at this time of night because when they finally stumble into his dressing room, the door slams behind them with all the subtlety of police sirens in the dead of night.

“Fuck,” she gasps, pulling back as though reality hit her like a tonne of bricks. Her eyes wide and frenzied, lips red, hair wild around her head. Niall is certain that if they were to be walked in on, they would look to an outsider, guilty as sin.

Her blouse is halfway buttoned and barely hanging off her shoulders while his belt buckle is undone and fly already down.

“Fuck?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, “Fuck!” She reiterates herself slightly louder, running her hands through her already wild hair.

Niall breathes out a shaky laugh, “Someone’s eloquent tonight.”

“Oh like you think of a better word to describe,” she motioned the space between them a little too frantically with her hand, “… whatever this is?”

“I’ve got a couple off the top of my head, yeah.” He shrugs, looking her straight in the eye.

There’s a silence. And then…

“Oh shut up,” she instructs, taking a step closer before tugging on his jumper and pulling his lips back down onto hers.

Niall Horan to niallofficial is a shitty twitter handle: seriously

Niall Horan: which one of you bellends got Sierra involved

Harry Styles: ???

Niall Horan: someone told my agent

Niall Horan: who apparently is also deakins’ agent (thanks btw harry)

Niall Horan: that i’m being difficult on set

Niall Horan: now she wants to ‘talk to me’ tomorrow at her office

Louis Tomlinson: … have u evn checked twitter since u created your acc?

Louis Tomlinson: mirror.co.uk/things-getting-fired-up-between-niall-horan-and-model-actress-aahna-deakins-on-marauder-set

Niall Horan: oh

Liam Payne: don’t think ‘oh’ is gonna fix this one mate

Niall Horan: this explains that email from the execs

Louis Tomlinson: i can’t believe u read those studio memos

Harry Styles: not to abruptly change the subject but i need 2 talk about this thing with me n ains

Niall Horan: my agent is about to rip me a new one for on set behaviour

Niall Horan: which by the looks of the mirror article, the whole world knows about by now despite it being a closed set and everything

Niall Horan: but by all means commandeer the chat to talk about your love life

Louis Tomlinson: either get together or dont

Zayn Malik: ur not exaclty an authority on the subjct tommo

Harry Styles: i have booze

Louis Tomlinson: in the car now

Liam Payne: swing by to pick me up

Zayn Malik: me too

Niall Horan: getting in the elevator now

Ainsley Williams to Niall Horan: You should look at Twitter right now

Ainsley Williams: Everyone is so frenzied

Ainsley Williams: By the way, what were you boys up to last night?

Ainsley Williams: Apart from your drunk tweets

Ainsley Williams: Harry called twice to tell me he really enjoys scones

Ainsley Williams: Hello?

Niall is a little nervous as he makes his way to Sierra’s office at five past noon. The woman is a hardass agent who’s great at sniffing out opportunity (not that he’s needed for much from her in the past four years). She books his appearances, endorsements, and despite him never being interested, never fails to send over scripts for killer movie roles.

By proxy, she also works as his publicist, although they have more of a you stay out of trouble and I don’t have to put out any fires type of relationship.

And now he’s five minutes late to see her.

Sierra I didn’t get to where I am today by sleeping in Jones, is going to rip him a new one. He knows it. He can feel it in his bones. Niall can just imagine, and he groans at the thought of it, her utter annoyance at him. First he makes headlines for being a diva on set and not playing nice with the newcomer and then shows up to a meeting late? She’ll have his left nut and then some.

He reaches her office door a good three minutes later despite the near jogging pace he’s been walking at and silently curses Harry’s complicated love life. He’d told Aahna to stay at Ainsley’s so that he could have a lad’s night but ended up mostly just whining about how he doesn’t quite know where he stands with Ainsley.

Sierra’s assistant waves him in and he takes a deep breath before pushing the door open, surprised himself to find Aahna already in the room and apparently trying to reason with the older woman.

“Mr. Horan, how nice of you to join us,” Sierra greets his entrance sweetly, sarcasm simmering just beneath the surface of her voice.

Niall shuts the door behind him, rolling his eyes ever so slightly. The woman is a great agent, he can’t argue with that, and an expert negotiator too, but she’s definitely got a short temper and a flair for dramatics.

“Do sit down.”

Niall slides into the chair next to Aahna, intentionally avoiding her gaze considering that they hadn’t discussed their rather… explosive row few days prior. Not that they had much to discuss; they yelled, they had a bout of angry shagging, and kind of just left things at that.

It helps that they hadn’t needed to be in the same room together since. Up until this point that is.

“You wanted to talk to me?” He almost chokes out the words, voice a little worse for wear after the night of heavy drinking.

Sierra raises her eyebrow before letting her stare flit between her two clients, as if gauging something.

“Well, it has come to my attention that there’s been some… trouble on set,” the older woman starts saying, “Now, I don’t normally interfere in these matters but neither of you have publicists or managers, and no one is pointing fingers, but filming might need to go into overtime for two weeks.”

Sierra takes a long breath and exhales rather theatrically before continuing, “Would I be wrong to assume that this is because you two can’t seem to get your scenes wrapped satisfactorily?”

Niall sighs, “Is that what she told you?”

The woman frowned, “Is that incorrect?”

“That’s hardly—”

“Aahna, you’ve had your say, now I’d rather hear his,” Sierra says curtly before diverting her attention back to him.

Niall takes a deep breath before non committally saying, “Well, there was never a problem like this until she came around.”

“Oh, piss off!”

“Language, Aahna!” Sierra snaps, glaring at her sharply for a moment before resettling her gaze on Niall, exhaling crossly, “You were saying?”

He pauses for a moment, feeling his co-star’s rage boring holes into the side of his head. The co-star he does not at all like but shagged in his dressing room. (But there’s no way he’s discussing that with Sierra. Or anyone really.)

“We just… rub each other the wrong way,” he settled on saying, “And maybe that’s stalled production a little but—”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?” Aahna interjects.

“You can’t just conveniently skip over the part where you constantly insult how I play my character and think that that’s not going to have an effect on production!”

“Forgive me for trying to have a civil discourse—”

“And here we go again with the accusations—”

“For the last time, it’s not—”

“All you need to do is show up and read your lines—”

“We’re on the same team here, you wank—”

“If you two could restrain yourselves!” Sierra interjects, her voice the loudest Niall has ever heard. She pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales, taking her time to (he’s guessing) let all three of them calm down.

She declares crisply, voice slightly acidic, “Do you think we can find it within ourselves to act our age?”

“I wasn’t the one tweeting obscenities at midnight,” Aahna rolls her eyes, crossing her arms like a petulant teenager.

Technically, she’s right. (He’d seen some of her meme retweets of their video that’s making its way around the internet and things got… a little more heated online. The boys and the booze didn’t help, obviously.) But he’s not about to let her know that.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! I wasn’t the one retweeting vines—”

“Obviously, you didn’t even know what a vine was before—”

“WOULD YOU BOTH. JUST. SHUT IT?!” Sierra explodes, her voice cracking with shrill exasperation, her eyes blazing at the indignant lack of respect in her two clients.

They’re both immediately silenced, words dissolving off of their tongues at the volatile frustration of one Sierra Jones. Niall suspects that their agent is way past pinching the bridge of her nose in dramatic silence. So they sit there under her steely gaze.

After a moment or two, she states as a matter of factly, “I’ve come to a conclusion that you two idiots need to sort this out yourselves.”

He hears Aahna scoff derisively.

Niall blinks at that, slowly and deliberately, contemplating his agent’s words and willing her to continue that sentence because honestly, he imagines that paying her 20 per cent of his income would warrant a better solution.

“You two clearly have personal issues that you need to resolve outside of the set,” Sierra says, eerily calm as she flips through some files, some scripts, and stacking them all together, “If these little outbursts are of any indication, your antagonism towards one another clearly goes beyond work.”

Niall reluctantly turns to meet Aahna’s confused gaze as they both pull into the same trail of thought, all of five minutes with them and they’ve somehow driven their agent completely mental.

“The only way I see fit to remedy this situation is to forcibly give the two of you time together to straighten things out.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, his head fills with apprehensive dread. More time together did not sound like a solution. If anything, it spells disaster, and clearly, Aahna thought so too.

They both speak out at the same time;

“The more time we spend together is just more time spent fighting.”

“Wouldn’t throwing us into The Hunger Games be faster?”

“Is that even necessary when we’re already halfway through the season?”

“If we’re already behind schedule that hardly sounds like a good idea.”

Ignoring them both, Sierra rearranges the stack of her files patiently and stands up, tucking them into her oversized purse before pushing a button on the phone on her desk, “You can leave for the rest of the day, Andrea, I’ll be working remotely.”

“Hang on,” Niall asks as Sierra walks around the table toward the door, “Did you just say ‘forcibly’?”

She swivels around to face them as she reaches the door.

“I don’t know about you kids, but my Twitter feed today is 80% people asking if the two of you are having hate sex,” Sierra’s no nonsense eyes snaps over to his mirthlessly, as though issuing a challenge, “And I’m not saying that hate fucking is going to fix this… whatever it is that’s going on between you two, but it might be something to think about in the next few hours.”

They’re both out of their seats at this point.

They have definitely, definitely, driven their agent to the brink of insanity.

“You’re kidding.”

Sierra tight lips lifted slightly into a satisfied smirk, “I don’t ‘kid’.”

“You can’t just lock us into a room together and force us to get along.”

“Watch me.”

And with that, she is out the door with a rather decisive click echoing behind her slamming the door shut.

Aahna turns to look at him, “Did she just—”

“Lock us in her office together? Yeah, I think so.”

Niall’s eyes fly shut in disbelief, head lolling back and frustrated groan leaving his lips as she lunges forward toward the door to rattle the knob inconsequentially.

She turns around, a slip of paper that Sierra somehow slid through under the door in her hands.

“This is a nightmare,” she declares, passing him the piece of paper.

Office is soundproof so yell away.

Snacks and water in my left drawer.

Cleaners have the keys. They come at four.

DO NOT BREAK ANYTHING.

A rather tense, momentary silence fills the room. While Niall resigns himself to their fate, it seems that Aahna has other thoughts, fidgeting with the doorknob some more and getting really up close and personal with the door in general.

When he doesn’t seem at all bothered to help, she snaps at his direction, “What are you even doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Vegetating, or something equally productive.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Niall kicks his legs up onto Sierra’s desk and places his hands behind his head.

“So you’re just going to not look for a way out of this?”

“She said that the cleaners are coming in a few hours,” he shrugs, enjoying the fact that the whole situation seems to have her more on edge than him.

And on edge she proves to be, making a ruckus and a whole production out of trying to unscrew the hinges and then moving onto attempts to break the doorknob. After about twenty minutes of her basically exhausting herself and him making mindlessly unhelpful comments, Aahna slumps onto the sofa.

It’s uncomfortable to say the least, but only because they’ve never really spent any time alone together. There are always other cast members around, or crew members, or… other people in general. And the last time they were left alone, well, that didn’t really fix anything.

Niall never would have thought in a million years this is what his career would result in after taking on Remus Lupin.

He had prepared himself for pulling all-nighters to get scenes just right for rather difficult directors or falling in love with guest stars on the show over table reads on otherwise unremarkable Wednesday nights or piling laughingly into taxis with the cast and crew after a night out and having good-naturedly bemused drivers who’d chuckle and ask to take selfies with him. But he hasn’t quite done any of those things.

He’s never been one for rash, near-reckless errors in judgment so he doesn’t quite know why he expected life to change.

But it didn’t, for so long, that he got comfortable and now he doesn’t know what the protocol is when you don’t get along with a co-worker, get into their pants that one time, be involved in a bit of bad press, and then get locked in a room with said co-worker.

So they just sit in silence for a few minutes, the tension palpable, and it’s turning him into a bit of a mess honestly, sitting there with his phone dead and nothing to do to distract from the fact that the last time they were alone together, things got a little… out of hand.

He tries not to think about it, he really does, but the way she drapes herself onto the sofa and a lack of things to occupy his mind with makes it a pervading thought; the way she had kissed him back, hard and rough and unexpected. The way his hands moved from her waist, lower and lower, like they’d been there before.

Niall starts shuffling through some of the scripts on Sierra’s desk to have something to do, but none of them hold his attention for long. His thoughts revolve mostly around how the last time they were alone together, his heart raced and his head swam and his blood seared.

The slow-going and low-simmering… something that he feels for her has inexplicably expanded. Exploded. Gone from an itch he couldn’t quite scratch to a blistering burn he couldn’t ignore. He thinks that liking someone isn’t a prerequisite for wanting them. Which is why he finds himself blurting out, “So the boys may or may not have also suggested that we should fuck.”

Aahna raises her eyebrow at his direction from the couch slash casual sitting area in Sierra’s office where she’s taken up permanent residence in the past ten minutes, casually swiping on her phone.

Her expression ripples with surprise and then disdain.

“Why exactly do the boys think we should fuck?”

“I didn’t tell them that we technically already did if that’s what you’re worried about, they just think that some platonic fucking might actually help us be in the same room as each other without wanting to kill each other.”

And also they thought it might be good for me to stop being a soppy romantic and just get laid, he thinks. But he doesn’t say it.

“Right,” she says, but there’s something a bit off about her voice, “The platonic fucking in your dressing room didn’t exactly help us with Sierra today now did it?”

“It’s just a thought.”

“Uh huh.”

The pause that follows is heavy and full of all kinds of something he can’t name.

“This was a mistake,” he groans.

“What’s that mean?”

“What?”

“You said ‘this’ was a mistake,” she replies casually.

His heartbeat is beating fast, faster than it should be, and his palms are damp.

“What’s ‘this’?” She stands up, “Suggesting that we fuck? Or…did you mean something else?”

A muscle in his neck ticks, lurches, jumps.

“You started this,” he snaps.

“Look, I’m not a phase, okay, I’m not your crisis or your fucking spiral because your life is so God damn—”

He can tell that it’s about to turn into one of their angry yelling matches that got them into this predicament to begin with so he just nips it in the bud because he’s still slightly hungover and really isn’t in the mood, “Look, just forget I mentioned it!”

“It’s just a thought,” he’s also on his feet by now.

“Okay,” she nods in a tone that suggests she may not be okay with it.

Her gaze softens and looks genuinely alight with some kind of curiousity. But he catches the tail end of some unknown emotion flitting across her face as she takes another step forward.

“So let’s dissect it. You think we should, as Sierra so eloquently put it, have angry hate sex to solve our problems?”

He hesitates and clenches his jaw, unsure how she can be so blasé about the whole thing.

Tension hangs in the air between them like thick velvet curtains, heavy and all-consuming. The intensity of her gaze far too intoxicating to be uncomfortable.

“No, I’m—what do you think is happening here?” he hedges, his frustration mounting.

“I think you’re propositioning me for mindless totally non-timing consuming sex.”

Another step.

“Non time consuming?” Niall sputters, taking a step forward, a choked-off huff of frustration building at the base of his throat.

“Someone was pretty eager the last time,” she shrugs.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he huffs, completely lying.

They’re so close to one another now that he’s almost afraid a flicker of eyelashes would betray him. But she’s standing her ground, so he just waits for her to argue with him instead.

She doesn’t.

Instead she tugs on his shirt collar and fully closes the gap between them.

Their lips, as if entirely of their own accord, start to move furiously against each other and sort of just… work, in an unexpected and unexplained harmony.

Like a melody and a lyric that shouldn’t fit but flowed beautifully together.

Her throat hums in agreement beneath his lips.

Taking that as a go ahead, he moves his hands from beneath her shirt to lift her onto the solid surface they hit, Sierra’s desk. In turn, she wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him closer and smirking as he groans into her mouth, his growing arousal rubbing against her.

Aahna all but swallows her exhale as he slides his fingers into her, the sound that rips from her throat mid way between a grunt and a groan.

“You sure you want to talk about eager?” He all but challenges, a streak of confidence bordering the line of arrogance rearing its head as his fingers move against her obvious enthusiasm.

“Well, I haven’t had dick in a while, what’s your excuse?”

Her fingers are digging into his shoulders the way they are and her voice all raspy and out of breath shooting electricity into every corner of his body.

Niall can’t seem to think or breathe at their proximity. Nevermind that he’s being stupider than he’s ever been in his life, she whimpers as he groans, and his mind is blissfully blank, so he continues the teasing, rubbing and stroking and flicking.

“Okay, you have about five seconds—” she starts to say before he hastily covers his mouth with hers.

He lets his tongue push past her lips at the same time he pushes into her and the sound that comes from her throat is so fucking intoxicating that he‘s not sure of anything anymore.

Niall grips both sides of her hips tight, moving slowly inside of her, giving her the only thing he’s got that she wants and it pisses him off to be honest, how well they fit together. And by the way she’s leaving fingernail crescent marks down his back, he’d say she feels it too. They are scorching and sweaty and utterly out of breath, lips lazily locked. He’s stretching and drawing out the whole ordeal further than he thought himself capable of, eliciting sounds from her that play a soft symphony around the still room.

She pulls her head back to let obscenities freely tumble out, her breath hitting his skin in ragged huffs.

Aahna practically keens for more, her cheeks impossibly flushing and her muscles tight beneath him. It’s all heady and sensual and way more than he can take so in one smooth motion, he slides out and flips her over to bend her over the desk.

He thrusts into her, deliberately frantic, each pump leaving her more of a quivering mess than before, her knees shaking and barely holding her body upright.

As her body begins to spasm, his thrusts grow more desperate, barrelling her towards the release they both crave.

A dozen or so strokes later, he’s there too.

It takes them both by surprise, the sheer intensity of it. They pant together, recovering slowly, still tangled and reeling, neither moving more than what it takes to claim the next gulping breath.

Caroline Davies to Niall Horan: u fucking deakins yet?

Niall Horan: WHAT

Niall Horan: NO

Caroline Davies: care to explain y not?

Niall Horan: care to explain where this is coming from?

Caroline Davies: cos

Caroline Davies: u should get on that

Caroline Davies: or under that

Caroline Davies: or behind that

Niall Horan: i WILL block you

Caroline Davies: lol like you know how

Caroline Davies: also, i mean, if u wont i will

Niall Horan to Aahna Deakins: just a heads up

Aahna Deakins: ??

Niall Horan: i think caroline wants to have sex with you

Aahna Deakins: i mean i already knew that

Niall Horan: …

Niall Horan: what?

Aahna Deakins: seen

Niall Horan: ‘m gonna kill harry

The first time they consciously agree to have angry hate sex, in Sierra’s office no less, Niall thought it’d be a one-time thing, an interesting experiment culminated from a hangover and not having had sex in… a while.

But then the second and third time go by, and it occurs to Niall that there might be some real science behind the whole hate sex theory.

Things actually begin to drastically improve after they start shagging out their frustrations on the regular. When they agreed on something without yelling a good few minutes about it first, Louis chokes on his tequila shot. (It’s at the pub at the corner of the studio and the boys decided that everyone needs to take a shot whenever he and Aahna ‘go at it again’ and it spectacularly backfires when they take a preemptive shot just as she says, “No, I think you’re right.”)

A few more weeks and a few more tucked away in a dusty corridor rendezvous later and they’re all at the production wrap party, hosted by the studio after the final scene of the season has been shot.

It’s a Tuesday and they’re out with some of the crew at a little bar smack down in the middle of London. Aahna’s been ordering round after round of brightly coloured cocktails, all of which named after incredibly explicit sex acts, and between the outrageously short dress she has on and the sound of her saying things like, “hit me with a screaming orgasm” and “get me a couple of leg spreaders”, Niall thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s been thrust into a very special kind of hell.

And he can’t stop fucking staring.

It’s so easy to see now that she’s more than just a persona. Not just an empty, shallow, airbrushed mask. Not just a famous for being famous type influencer slash model slash actress.

She’s blatantly jagged and simpering and unapologetic about how she is.

And she’s smart too, not a lot of people have the nerve to move their entire life across oceans to fight her way into Hollywood (albeit it didn’t pan out as well as it could have). And he doesn’t doubt for a second that she’d had to fight tooth and nail for her Marauders audition as well. That she probably had to call in favours, made some unpaid appearances, turn down “comeback” runway opportunities. Basically, really really want it.

As Aahna throws her head back, laughing from across the room at some joke the ridiculously tight v neck t’ shirt by the bar just made, Niall thinks that they need to talk about their whole provoke each other and then press each other up against walls situation. His mind is slightly befuddled by the fact that they’ve been low-key shagging for the past month or two yet she’s flirted quite openly with the bartender for the past hour and the half.

(He’s also a bit confused about the fact that he can’t find any internet searches that addresses her sexuality head on. There’s little to no indication that she’s even ‘into the d’ as the kids say.)

Her laughter carries itself across the room and Niall fights the urge to go over and drag her away from the dark-skinned, broad-shouldered bartender.

Said bartender has high cheekbones and eyes half-lidded to go along with his lazy trying hard to play it cool demeanor. His posture is perfect, a little too perfect for a man standing by the bar at some shi shi up and coming hotspot in London. If it weren’t for the pub full of who’s who at the studio, Niall might think that he’s one of those tries too hard to be dangerous prep school boys peddling designer drugs with a carefully crafted layer of apathy.

Distracting himself from the scene, he busies himself with the tedious task of talking to some studio executives. Someone has to, considering that Harry and Ainsley have disappeared god knows where together, Zayn and Louis are going round with a bottle of tequila making cast members take shots and Liam is deep in conversation with one of the directors.

He’s mid polite laugh when out of the corner of his eye, Niall sees her meander out the backdoor all hips swaying and dress swirling and alone.

A few seconds go by and he excuses himself to follow, but something, or rather someone, stops him before he even makes it to the door.

“So how long have you two been fucking?” Caroline asks bluntly.

He’s not sure how Caroline of all people would know, but in hindsight, Aahna did leave his place the other night to meet her for a drink in one of his t’ shirts.

He raises his brow and feigns nonchalance, “Me and Mark from finance?”

“You and Aahna, bellend.”

He laughs, “What makes you say that?”

“Because you have that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“That ‘I want to fuck the shit out of you’ look.”

He looks Caroline straight in the eye and is incredibly proud of himself for not cracking, not even a little, “I do not have an ‘I want to fuck the shit out of you’ look.”

“You do and you so want to hit that,” the blonde says, all smug.

I’m already hitting that, he almost says, the words on the tip of his tongue just balancing perfectly before it swan dives him into trouble.

“No, you want to hit that,” Niall chuckles out instead.

“We get along too well for there to be any sexual chemistry,” Caroline shrugs, “The two of you on the other hand…”

“There’s nothing but animosity between us, Care.”

“Can I point out that hate sex is a known cure for situations like this?”

“Yeah. No,” he says before sidestepping her and pushing the door open.

He’s pretty sure she’s grinning like the cat that caught the canary and Niall isn’t sure if he’s the canary in the situation. The London air hits him like something out of a literary scene, a little nippy but a much appreciated break from the suffocating interrogation by the hands of one Caroline Davies inside.

Just as he recalls why he headed out there into the back alley to begin with, a line of cigarette smoke wafts into his view.

“Don’t you have better things to do than play babysitter and watch me smoke a cigarette whilst sipping on your tonic water?” Aahna remarks, a cigarette between her fingers and a layer of indifference around her.

“Excuse me?”

Niall may be twenty-five and enjoys the occasional beer or two (that often don’t end at two) but he’s also old fashioned and refuses to crack one open until the sun goes down to the very least.

“At least I’m not drunk at four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, at a company party.”

“I like to chase my cocaine high with gin, it goes down real smooth,” she hums, mocking the judgement in his voice with a line of smoke to his face.

“You realise that this isn’t Models R’Us anymore, right?”

She flashes him a smile that a journalist once called ‘equal parts make your slacks tighter and stop a baby elephant in its tracks terrifying’ in the Daily Mail and informs him in a sickeningly sweet voice, “First of all, it was a joke. And second of all, it’s a party, old man Horan. Loosen up.”

“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, expression visibly hardening as she effortlessly pushes his buttons.

There’s a pause as he collects his comeback and she leans in, as if to whisper a secret.

“Careful,” she simpers, narrowing her eyes, “Might give yourself an aneurysm there.”

“I don’t think you’re in a place to give off health advice, Deakins.”

She almost chokes on the smoke as she cackles at his statement, “Oh, like you are? Mr. three knee surgeries and clearly needs glasses but doesn’t wear them?”

“Just…” he says tiredly, “Shut up.”

“You shut up,” she snaps back, but without any real bite in her voice.

“I’m not the one trying to peddle an STD to poor unsuspecting bartenders.”

“Oh come on,” she drawls, “Getting chlamydia from me has been the highlight of your year.”

“I was wondering what that rash was,” Niall plays along as they grin at each other, sharp and feral, as though not realising who it is exactly they’re bantering with.

She drops the cigarette to the ground and their lips lock.

She tastes of cigarettes and sin. And her mouth is just the way he remembered, hard and warm, tongue flickering against his as he pulls her body close. It’s wet and messy and a little bit desperate the way their teeth clack together and their tongues urgently wanting more, but they stumble blindly into a storage room of some sort.

She arches up into him with a whimper when he moves his way down her neck.

He sinks blunt teeth into her sternum right where the fabric of the top crosses over on her chest and she whines at the contact. Her body already erupting in goosebumps.

“What are we doing?” He asks as he slides ad hand up her skirt between her thighs.

“I don’t know; what do you think we’re doing?” She gasps between breaths as she grinds against his fingers.

He’s not even touching her in earnest yet, just teasing, keeping her on the edge, ghosting over her skin.

“I thought you weren’t into this?”

“What, this being dick?” Aahna asks, contempt in her voice.

The disdain, obvious and unforgivingly sharp, would have bothered him if he didn’t quite enjoy feeling her body react to his touch so much.

He uses that as opportunity to slip his fingers into the thin fabric that is her underwear, using the pad of his thumb to rub gentle circles into her just the way he knows drives her crazy.

“Well, there’s this concept called bisexuality. I’m sure you’ve— fuck,” she moans throwing her head back as his fingers slide into her.

Her cheeks are flushed and bright while her eyes keep on fluttering, struggling to stay open.

The sounds escaping her throat as he continues to finger fuck her makes things so much better and so much worse at the same time. When he feels her insides clench at him and her breath shudder into his shoulder, reaching her release, he’s ready to burst.

For a moment there’s nothing but the sound of their harsh breathing, and she sighs into his neck. And then, she lifts her head and leans back against the wall, sly smirk dancing on her lips, “You know, they say once is a mistake and twice is a pattern.”

“Yeah, and what’s seven and a half?” Niall jokes weakly, his pants so tight he’s surprised there’s any blood going to his brain at all.

“Good practice,” she says as her hands slide from their spot on his back and down to the front, undoing his belt and unzipping his trousers with a certain finesse that’s getting him impossibly harder, “I mean, giving a blowjob isn’t exactly like riding a bike.”

He forgets what they’re even talking about when she gets down on her knees in the dingy little storage room.

Niall Horan to CALL TIME IS 12PM DONT FORGET: did empire just reschedule the shoot?

Niall Horan: i swear tommo, if you’re hungover and lied about the baby being sick again…

Niall Horan: guys

Harry Styles: why do u even have a twitter acct if ur never gonna use it

Niall Horan: what?

Louis Tomlinson: for once it is not my fault thank you very much

Zayn Malik: a and h are stuck with the bobbies

Niall Horan: what?!

Liam Payne: aahna saw a cyclist get hit and run-ed, she called harry after she called the ambulance, he goes over because he’s an idiot, they get recognised, twitter blows up because the interwebs think aahna and harry hit the cyclist, and now they’re giving a statement at scotyard

Louis Tomlinson: and that’s what you missed on glee

Niall Horan: the cyclist ok?

Aahna Deakins: thanks for the concern, horan

Niall Horan: and why would you stop if you weren’t the one to hit him

Aahna Deakins: it was a corner

Aahna Deakins: he could have gotten run over by other cars!

Harry Styles: didn’t you stop for a guy who got hit by a car once?

Louis Tomlinson: because he was chasing his dog?

Zayn Malik: at like 2am at night or some shit?

Niall Horan: i’m not a lone female driver nor a celebrity yet at that point

Niall Horan: and he got hit because his dog jumped out of his car and he ran after it

Aahna Deakins: wow was the dog okay?

Niall Horan: that’s beside the point

Louis Tomlinson: the owner still sends him pics every christmas

Niall Horan: THE POINT IS

Niall Horan: it could’ve been one of those staged scams where you get robbed blind

Niall Horan: or you could’ve gotten caught in a fan mob

Niall Horan: have you no sense of self preservation, deakins?

Louis Tomlinson: aww look at nialler all concerned for aahna

Harry Styles: i call that growth

Zayn Malik: look how far they’ve come

Liam Payne: 😍😍😍

Niall Horan has left the chat

Aahna Deakins to Niall Horan: we’re secretly fucking on the regular

Aahna Deakins: does that answer your self-preservation question

Niall Horan: THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING

Zayn Malik to this is your reminder to stop getting tattoos before they replace the whole cast: we’re heading over to pick ‘em up

Zayn Malik: make sure they dont get mobbed cause of harry’s fans

Liam Payne: so we can all get mobbed together apparently

Niall Horan: no

Louis Tomlinson:

As much as he loves his job, Niall is glad when things wind down. It’s mostly post-production work once all the scenes are shot and the cast get to take a little break. Not like anybody actually takes breaks; Harry and Zayn usually have promotional commitments or other projects that they jet off to, as does Ainsley, Liam almost exclusively has some West End or Broadway gig, Louis disappears into his role of on duty father and occasional boyfriend depending on the state of his on again off again relationship, and Caroline does quite a fair bit of radio.

For Niall though, it spells out a chance to settle in and recharge. Maybe get some golfing in. Playing someone on screen is like having someone in your head, and it’s exhausting. So he fulfills contractual appearances, does an interview or two, and reads scripts for movie roles he knows he won’t take because trying to purge one character out of his head is hard enough.

If he’s feeling particularly restless, he dives into a bit of writing.

He’d hit a wall with one particular piece he’s been working on a while ago and wasn’t sure where he’s going with it. But between shelving it and the hectic filming season, he thinks he might just be able to get back into the groove of it.

He’s reading through the pages when his phone buzzes violently by his side. Niall wedges the mobile between his ear and shoulder, answering on autopilot more than anything.

“Hello?” It’s Aahna’s voice, sounding like she’s calling from the middle of Glastonbury or some rave or whatever the young’uns are into nowadays.

Except her voice sounds terrible, gasping and raspy and all wrong.

He shoots upright from his former position on the couch.

“Deakins?”

“Yeah— I’m just— Hang on— I can’t deal with that right now, can you please get her from the loo so we can get out of here?”

There’s a shuffling and some shoving sounds coming from the other end, but then she’s back before he can question it or voice his worry.

“Sorry— We’re kind of next to bar fight. Anyway—”

“Did you just say bar fight?”

“Yeah, Harry’s been away for a week now and he hasn’t called to check in with Ains so we went out for some drinks where she basically whined about how she doesn’t know what they are and then Caroline thought it’d be fun to instigate a fight between these two guys who kept buying us drinks,” she rushes through the whole thing like it isn’t a big deal, “It’s a whole ordeal.”

“Yeah?” Niall says, having no idea where she’s going with the call.

The background noise seem to be getting louder and he eyes his car keys from his living room couch, wondering if he should go pick them all up before it morphs into a social media frenzy and another one of those things that the studio execs send them all emails about with exclamation marks in the headline.

“Yeah,” Aahna shouts back over the phone, “You remember that time when I told you that Harry’s new coffee maker was voice activated?”

He smiles at the memory of it, dropping the papers in his hands to his side, “Yeah, that was a fun morning. Spent fifteen minutes yelling at the damn thing before Harry asked me the hell I was doing.”

She laughs at that, “I swear you’re like a seventy year old in a twenty five year old’s body.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Niall’s finding it hard not to raise his voice to match hers at this point.

“Nothing, I was just calling to let you know that watching Caroline manipulate guys into a fisticuffs was really fun,” she shouts back, louder this time, “Almost as fun as watching technology stump you.”

Niall goes warm all over at that. He blames the chilli he wolfed down earlier that she left for him last night.

She’s stayed over at his almost every night since Harry’s been away, doing away with the cloak and dagger of sneaking in and out to avoid questions or suspicions.

It’s been surprisingly domesticated. She brings over takeout, they watch something or another on the telly, they fuck, they bicker all over his apartment that he feels her breath lingering in corners when she leaves for whatever responsibilities she has for the day, and it’s been sort of just… nice.

The intimacy of it all should feel like too much; the cuddling after sex, the falling asleep wrapped up in one another. But he can’t find it in him to to care. Not when his blood is still getting back to their path not south of his body and his sheets have yet to cool from their exertions. Besides, they’d agreed that they weren’t hurting anyone with their arrangement so there’s no point trying to fix something that isn’t broken and that’s just been that.

When he opens his door about an hour later, it’s Aahna. Leather jacket over a thin romper (ridiculous for London weather, in his humble opinion) hair all blowsy and too much leg showing.

No wonder some pricks was buying her drinks all night. But he doesn’t tell her that, obviously.

“You need to tell Harry you’re not dead,” she pushes past him into the apartment, kicking off her shoes and hanging her jacket at the hook next to the door habitually, without him prompting her to do so she goes.

“What?”

“He’s been texting me to check up on you this whole week because none of your socials show signs of life and it’s driving me insane.”

He stares after her as she makes her way to his living room, confused. He does a few InstaStories on set here and there but those are more contractual obligations for promo than anything.

“And it’s not like I can tell him you’re fine because I’ve seen you practically everyday,” Aahna continues, “When I tried to flip the subject on him for leaving Ainsley hanging yet clearly not being dead because he’s texting me like clockwork every day, he accused me of not looking out for you, because apparently it’s a neighborly obligation to ensure that you haven’t accidentally bored yourself to death or something.”

“I don’t need looking out for,” Niall frowns.

“Good, ‘cause I’m apparently doing a shit job,” she jumps on the couch, lying flat with her feet propped on the armrest. She cocks her head looking over at him, “Although in his defence, your socials have been particularly dead and that’s not— Wait, what is this?”

She yanks out the scripted version of his story from beneath her.

“It’s nothing,” he says, as he goes to snatch it out of her hands.

“Niall James Horan, are you actually looking to expand your curriculum vitae?” Aahna cocks her eyebrow up as she leafs through the first few pages.

“Give me that.”

“Are you auditioning for a film?” She asks again, eyes skipping across the words on the pages, and ignoring his previous statement.

“No. It’s nothing,” he repeats defensively, tugging at the script, feeling nervous and oddly self-conscious about it. But Aahna has got an inexplicably strong grip and she weasels out of his grasp, script still in hand, jumping off the couch to read more of it without his limbs getting in the way.

“Where’d you get this from?”

“It’s not—”

“Niall, this is good,” she looks up at him, eyes alight, “This is really good. You should do it.”

He starts trying to explain that it isn’t a movie, just a silly thing he’s been working on and off over the years but he trails off before he can let the words out.

He can’t believe it, but the sleek, sour, and at times, inexplicably charming co-star, Aahna Deakins has, over the weeks, gradually gone from a veritable thorn by his side to somewhat of a begrudging friend. (Well, a friend who ruthlessly mocks him every available opportunity and then jump into his bed when no one is looking. That sort of friend.)

She’s just staring at him and they’re just silent, which neither of them are used to.

“It’s just a thing I’ve been fiddling with,” he finally admits, “I’ve been writing it for a couple of years, it’s not… It’s not anything.”

“I’m five pages in and I’m hooked, why aren’t you pitching this to the studio?” Aahna asks, confused.

“It’s barely a done script.”

“Then finish it,” she says, as a matter of factly.

“Sure,” he says with a shrug.

She looks at him pointedly, “I mean it. You need to show this to Sierra or something.”

“Alright.”

“You better,” she says, pushing the thick wad of paper flimsily stapled together into his chest as she turns to head to his kitchen as though it was hers. Although at this point, with all the take out and beer she’s bought over, it might as well be.

“If anything, you should do it for me,” she grabs a beer out of the fridge.

“For you, huh?” Niall sets the script down, trailing behind her into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” she knocks the beer cap off the corner of the bar counter with ease, “To impress me.”

“Trust me, I’m trying,” he says under his breath.

She cocks her head at that, and he takes the opportunity to snatch the beer from her, “Forget I said that.”

“Alright,” she says, mirroring his tone from earlier, smirk on her lips, smug and proud.

He’s moved closer to her without realising.

“You do, by the way,” she plucks the beer bottle back from his hands effortlessly.

“What?”

“Impress me.”

He says nothing for a minute, just looking at her. And she’s just looking back at him. Too much space between them. His heart, still thudding from the panic of her finding the script to begin with, slowing finally.

“Now,” she says, breaking their prolonged eye contact, “Let’s talk about getting Harry off my back about you; how do you feel about fashion shows?”

Niall Horan renamed the group can we pls stop renaming the group chat

Louis Tomlinson renamed the group horan and deakins sitting on a tree

Niall Horan: what

Louis Tomlinson: oh im sorry

Louis Tomlinson renamed the group #teamdrowningindeniall

Louis Tomlinson: better?

Niall Horan: first of all, you’re not using the hashtag right

Niall Horan: second of all, pretty sure this is cyberbullying

Louis Tomlinson: first of all what do u know about hashtags

Louis Tomlinson: second of all no is not

Louis Tomlinson: everyone saw the fashion show photos

Niall Horan renamed the group stop it or i’m calling old bill on you tommo

Louis Tomlinson renamed the group lmao old bill cant help that ur in love with aahna

Liam Payne: hahahahahahhahahahah

Harry Styles: could’ve been worse

Harry Styles: he could have started a fb couple page for u

Niall Horan: …

Louis Tomlinson: if i weren’t so happy ‘d be upset i didn’t think of that first

Zayn Malik: link us as soon as it’s up

Niall Horan: thanks, harru

Niall spends a good five minutes under the stream of the too hot shower water just staring at the tube of face wash. The body wash, her brand that leaves him smelling a little too coconut-y and a little more moisturised than he likes, swirls down the drain as he contemplates the face wash so innocently staring back at him.

It’s the exact brand he uses, one that you can’t just get out of any Boots or Tesco. No, his face wash is one that you could only get at its boutique brand outlets.

And he knows he’s overthinking it. Knows that it’s stupid to get all worked up over a simple face wash. He can’t help it though, a few weeks of under the radar shagging has left him even more unnerved than before they were working out their onset aggression.

He makes a gargantuan effort to push the thought away; the thought that Aahna went out of her way to get him his face wash to keep at her bathroom. The thought that even though filming for the season has wrapped and for all intents and reasons they wouldn’t be seeing much of each other anymore, she still got his face wash to keep at her place.

The thought that their level of intimacy now is almost on the edge of being caught. (She insisted that she needs to make Harry’s place look lived in by the time he gets back and Niall goes over to help her out with that except they just ended up fucking on the couch with some mindless cop drama playing in the background.)

He’s cleaning up in her bathroom and there it it, his face wash just sitting there in the shower. Like it’s been there waiting for him all this time.

Niall shuts off the water and steps out of the shower, face wash be damned. But when he walks out to the living room, she’s just lounging on the couch, scrolling through the Netflix queue in the ratty t’ shirt he was wearing earlier and his heart swells with some kind of feeling he hates to admit.

She settles on some documentary on greek mythology and he wonders for a moment if she is Persephone; an abstract idea he dreamed up and kidnapped, now kept captive in his mind.

(And he knows right then, that he is completely and utterly fucked.)

#wow this one got away from me #niall fic #fic: and they'll hang us in the louvre #fic: louvre #niall smut #niall horan fanfiction #keep reading

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meggannn · 7 years ago

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ive been cranky lately because of work and real life bullshit (i don’t know why i thought the housemate moving out would be any less dramatic than living with her for 6mo), so here’s some ideas i’m kicking around about what my shepard does after the war

what my shep does IMMEDIATELY after the war i am leaving up to covering in my fic and i won’t get into details bc there are some spoilers and shit i haven’t posted yet

so many years in the future, maybe in a decade or two: i dont know if i see shep 'retiring' so much as just choosing to decommission as an active officer. maybe her leg gets too irritating to handle or her migraines get worse or she just gets fucking tired or she realizes that one of garrus’s biggest fears is of him receiving a death notification and her dogtags in the mail, or a combination of all four.

but the alliance prob still keeps her as an advisor or senior member for possibly a few things, the preference of which i have not entire hashed out. she is para-centric in terms of morality and ideals, which doesn’t change as she gets older, but -gade in terms of drive and occasional ruthlessness within her job, which always has the potential to harm both herself and others. i think her attitude gets a little more manageable once she works out a new schedule and healthier job for herself. i’m thinking something like a liason for interspecies cooperation, or overseeing general of certain territories, or senior intel strategist, etc etc., something that keeps her away from active combat but still engaged in it, with her fingers in a lot of pies. so i think she'd be doing is “”deskwork”” but work that mostly requires cooperation and strategical planning at a very high level that she could do from the citadel or wherever.

then also, because she doesn't know how to take a fucking break, i see lyd admitting this with much embarrassment and discomfort but with TOTAL support from garrus: she kinda comes up and says “uhhh, also btw you should know i've been discussing with the university of thessia/oxford/sur'keh/etc about master's/phd programs" and g looks up from his briefings from the primarch like "what? you want to go back to school?” and shep is like, still mortified abt this as an adult but determined to act like it’s nbd, but now that she has Free Time she wants to check something off her list, which is: attend a formal school and gain a diploma. and not the damn remedial studies courses she took back in the alliance just so she could be taken off probation. and g is like “huh, well you know i support you, what are you gonna study?" and she's like "probably law, criminal justice, political theory, turian history and maybe interspecies language theory -- ” and she rattles off a bunch of things that nobody can ever possibly do all together, and garrus is kinda trying to wrap his head around the fact that it now sounds like his gf wants to become a lawyer or dump him to go become a xenoanthropologist with liara. and then she says “well look war cleanup is going to last the rest of our lives, we both know i can’t stay out of it. and because nobody takes me fucking seriously when i give advice on this stuff based on what i’ve observed with my own two eyes of this inefficient government system, i need a degree, or like, ten" and g is like “so ur going into politics" and she's like “FUCK no i would never" but she gets to work anyway.

working a full time job and doing classes w private tutors and profs g is like “ok i give up, you’re not going into politics or law? shit you’re not going to c-sec are u?” and she's like “no.......... but i will be making all of this as publicly accessible as possible” and this is basically just part of her movement to start making galactic govts more accountable for their actions and help inform the ppl of what's going on, in both legal and literal terms as they rebuild, and shep is adamant that the same problems that let saren run around loose and unevaluated, the hand-waving that allowed colonists to go missing for years, prejudice that led to one species threatening to not participate in a galactic total war just because a commander didn’t give into their command to allow an ongoing genocide to continue, yeah, that shit can’t keep going on. not just bc she feels like the govt failed them in the war, but bc of all the ways it failed the marginalized species and forgotten civilians, the blind spots, the corruption, etc, which she damn well knows abt bc she was a victim to this exact system as a kid. so she wants it, she wants it so bad, and it’ll never get done in her life time, but that’s ok, if she’s known for anything let it be for this too

meanwhile when garrus is too old to serve as commander of citadel defense he probably becomes like a military or political correspondent for citadel news network while also training young hierarchy engineers in ballistics and programming, and he’s known for being That eccentric instructor who you’re pretty sure pulls at least half of his “war stories” out of his ass, and he gives a different story to explain why half his face looked like it was eaten by varren every time he’s asked (”a maw got in a good hit of acid before i filled it full of cannon fire” “i overloaded a geth prime so hard its head is still embedded in the station ceiling, and then it dropped the rocket launcher it was holding which fired right into my face”) and for all that he loves to brag about cool shit he did, he still won’t answer if he and general shepard secretly eloped years ago because he still calls her his “girlfriend” but always winks when he does????

other ideas: with all the rebuilding, assuming for this post this is on the citadel but could be wherever, architects come to shep like “hey we have this empty space that used to be a department store, after it was ruined by the blast, now it's totally gutted and we want to put like a museum of your life there” or sth equally obnoxious and shep is like “........why. why on earth would u do that. make it a library you assholes” so they name the library after her instead. which she’s like good, that’s practical and will actually help people, here’s my seal of approval, and she doesn’t admit she's super touched they really did that bc when she was a kid she used to hide out in libraries and read all day till closing. and the librarians were nice and she'd feel normal, like she was learning even tho she dropped out of school at age 13. so i think that would be non-negotiable for her, like “i cant prevent you from making a dumbass statue but if you're asking my opinion on how to use five thousand square ft, you're going to make educational and free-access, or you're not putting my name on it"

more later maybe

#lydia shepard

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toycarousel · 7 years ago

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so... idk if you eill actually read this, but its worth a shot. so a while ago i fell for this absolutely wonderful girl (i am a girl also btw). she found out, then said that she couldnt date me because of her religion, which i understand and respect, but i was heartbroken. we still talk, and are pretty okay friends but i still cant get over her. my chest pangs when i see her. i dont know what to do. my friend keeps yelling at me to get over her, but i cant. please help, it is appreciated.

Hi there, Anon~!!! I read every message that’s sent my way... I just tend to have a hard time responding in a timely manner, since I don’t want to give out terrible, or flippant advice when a person is having a hard time, you know? I want to take the time to think things out and then try my best to offer what I can. But I’m definitely hearing you, and the things you want to talk about are important!!!!!!

From my perspective, it sounds like your friend (the one who’s been yelling at you to get over this girl) is being unfair to you. Love is a very tricky thing to navigate even under the best of circumstances, and you were handed some incredibly difficult ones. It’s great that you’re respecting this girl’s religious beliefs... I may not agree with those beliefs, and you may not either (I don’t know, of course), and those beliefs may be discriminatory, but they are still this girl’s beliefs, and are a part of something that matters to her -- and that may never change. So it’s good that you’ve accepted that, and are choosing to respect it, and try to move forward.

But like I said, love can be very complicated and painful. I think that your friend(s) need to understand that heartbreak can take a while to recover from. You will absolutely recover, I have complete faith in you~! But I know it’s incredibly upsetting, disappointing, and hard to fully accept, with mind, body, and heart. It’s fair to take your time in healing... you have the right to take as much time as you need to recover. And recovery isn’t a linear thing. Some days will be much better than others.

I think that radical acceptance may help here. You’ve already moved into acceptance, but radical acceptance is helpful for when something is out of your control, like the feelings/beliefs of others. We can’t always change someone’s mind... like, it’s good to problem-solve and ask yourself if there’s anything you can do to be with this girl, but it doesn’t sound like that’s an option here. I wish things had gone differently for you two... I truly do. Radical acceptance doesn’t mean that you have to feel happy about what happened. It doesn’t mean you have to believe in it or think that it’s right. It just means that you’ve fully accepted that things aren’t going to change, and that you’re willing to live a life worth living anyway, despite the fact that this specific girl may never be with you.

And from personal experience, I know that there will be other people who come into your life -- other girls that you connect with (I don’t know your full sexuality, so this could be other boys/any gender as well, if that applies to you). Basically, I just know that you will find the same sort of love that you have for this girl, in someone else. It might take a while, or it might happen right away~!!!

Another important not I have is that, even though you’re still good friends, it seems like seeing her, and knowing that she can only ever be a friend, may be hurting you... it might be a good idea to spend some time away from her, if you think that might help. You don’t have to reject her outright or anything along those lines. Just let her know that you need some time to heal, so you may seem distant, but it’s nothing personal, it’s just something you need to do for yourself.

That being said, for some people, creating that distance between themselves, and the person they love, makes things feel worse. If you are completely certain that you can remain in close contact with her, despite the way she makes you feel right now, then follow that instinct instead -- it’s different for everyone. No choice you make wrt that is “wrong,” I promise. This is just looking deep inside yourself and deciding on what you need in order to heal.

I’ve also got some resources for you that may be far less verbose than I am, and hopefully helpful~! I’ll link those below, but I just want you to know that you are lovable, and love will find its way into your life again!!! You can talk to me whenever you want, about absolutely anything!!! Take care, Anon~! And it’s okay to ignore what your friends say, if it’s just making things hurt more. That’s a discussion you can have with them, saying something like “I know you want me to be able to move on and be happy, but I just need some time to recover from this heartbreak.” It’s always okay to say that to people who care about you. It’s always okay to have limits and boundaries, and to need time for yourself.

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/overcome-pain-rejection/

http://www.professional-counselling.com/how-to-deal-with-rejection.html (not all of this is relevant to your situation, but the “10 Tips to Help You Heal From Being Brushed-off,” segment a little ways down the article, seem like good advice to me).

http://www.vixendaily.com/love/get-over-unrequited-love-fast/4/ (this one has a few obnoxious ads, but some good points throughout the article itself!!!)

http://www.lovepanky.com/love-couch/broken-heart/getting-over-rejection

Again, if anything comes up, or you just want to talk, I’m listening, Anon~!!!!!!! xoxoxo

#relationships #advice asks #religion -#anons #scotchasks

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ktrsss1fics · 8 years ago

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Cheeseburger in Paradise: Five.

What’s the best way to cure a hangover?

For some, it’s a marathon sleep session and a few gallons of red Gatorade.

For others, it’s an early morning run around the block and a fresh smoothie before a few hours of yoga.

For Georgina Ferguson, it was getting on a boat at eight o'clock in the morning after four hours of sleep and a small piece of avocado toast.

Her head was throbbing. Her stomach was in knots. And the sound of a certain boy’s laugh was about to send her over the edge. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and wake up when the sun was starting to set and the little hole in the wall started to make their obnoxiously delicious jerk chicken kebabs.

But she agreed to go parasailing.

At the time it was suggested, it seemed like a good idea. As soon as Brittany jumped on her bed earlier that morning to wake her up, Georgina realized it was not.

“How ya holdin’ up?” Brittany asked nudging her gently.

“If he doesn’t stop with that fuckin laugh, I’m feedin’ ‘im to a shark.” Georgina grumbled.

“Oi, give 'im a break. He’s having fun.” Brittany said looking over at their Irish friend.

“Well he should do it somewhere else.” Georgina said burying her head in her hands.

“Did you really drink that much last night?” Brittany asked scanning Georgina’s face.

Georgina lowered her sunglasses and shot her best friend a dirty look. The dark rings under her puffy eyes spoke for themselves.

“What do you remember?” Brittany asked knowing that look all too well.

“I don’t know.” Georgina mumbled putting her glasses back into place.

“C'mon G.” Brittany said rubbing Georgina’s thigh lovingly.

“You got me up at the arse crack of dawn and put me on a boat that will most likely be covered in my stomach lining by the end of the day.” Georgina groaned. “And now you want me to open up to you about a night I don’t remember. Where is the love Brittany Anne, hmm? Where is the love?”

“You really don’t remember anything?” Brittany asked sounding disappointed.

“Ehhh…” Georgina replied.

Did she remember anything? Yes. She did.

Was she willing to admit it? No. Not at all.

Because if she did, then she would have to admit that she let Niall Horan kiss her and get away with it.

And that was not something she was willing to admit. At least not before she had time to over analyze every decision she had made the night before.

“Keith threw up by the pool.” Georgina said after playing with the idea of being honest.

“And the driveway.” Brittany added feigning disgust.

“Um there is a plant called the love tree and it has heart shaped leaves.” Georgina rattled off trying to play it cool.

As soon as those words left her lips, she felt a pair of eyes land on her. She refused to acknowledge the boy who they belonged to. She knew why he was looking but hadn’t realized he’d been listening.

“Excuse me, what?” Brittany asked confused.

“Yeah um I don’t know its like real name but apparently there is a real plant that has leaves that look like hearts.” Georgina shrugged trying to explain her new found knowledge.

“You’re such a fuckin weirdo babe.” Brittany laughed.

“You asked what I remembered and that is something I remembered.” Georgina said.

“How is that even something you remember?” Brittany shook her head.

“I don’t know.” Georgina said. “I just do.”

Regretfully, Georgina looked up. An appreciative smile graced the lips of a boy she was trying her best to ignore. She focused her eyes back on the floor. She didn’t have time for boys like him.

“Do you remember anything else?” Brittany asked hoping to get more information out of her friend.

Georgina let out a sigh. “Nope.”

Brittany scooted closer before lowering her voice. “So you don’t remember someone kissing you?”

“How do you know about that?” Georgina narrowed her eyes at her friend.

“I saw it go down. Wait, you remember that happening?” Brittany said with an excited grin.

“Yeah but I wasn’t going to admit it to you.” Georgina mumbled embarrassed.

“You like him.” Brittany said reading between the lines.

“No I don’t.” Georgina scoffed.

“God just sit on his face already Fergie. We all know you want to.” David’s voice croaked cheekily as he sat down beside her.

“For fucks sake.” Georgina grumbled as she pulled her knees towards her chest in an attempt to hide her blushing cheeks.

She really just wanted to throw herself off the boat. She didn’t care how far out they were. She didn’t care if fish or sharks or Ursula was waiting for her beneath the surface. She just wanted something to completely swallow her up.

“David Allen!” Brittany said scolding him.

“What?” Dave whined childishly.

“You can’t say shit like that.” Brittany whispered before glancing across the boat. Niall was trying his best to act like he hadn’t heard what was said. But his blushing cheeks were hard to miss.

“Like he doesn’t know already.” Dave said placing a hand on Georgina’s knee. “This one’s just playing hard to get.”

“Will you knock it off?” Brittany sighed. “We said we wouldn’t meddle.”

“Yeah but she’s into him. Why can I just help her realize it?” David said gently.

“Telling me to sit on someone’s face and coaxing me into realizing I have nonexistent feelings are two different things you twat.” Georgina sassed.

“And if she has feelings for him, it’s none of our business.” Brittany said giving her boyfriend a dirty look. “We talked about this.”

“Well excuse me sorry for trying to help.” David said before standing up. Both women shot him dirty looks. “I can tell I’m not wanted over here. I’ll just go talk to Keith instead.”

“Yeah brilliant idea.” Brittany said before turning to her friend. “Georgie–”

“I don’t have feelings for him or at least I don’t think I do.” Georgina said softly. “The kiss was just confusing and it caught me off guard.”

Brittany just nodded. “That’s okay G.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m usually so sure with my feelings - especially when it comes to him.” Georgina explained. “But after yesterday, I just don’t know. I mean I still want to strangle him but I am kind of starting to enjoy looking at him.”

“And that’s perfectly normal.” Brittany smiled.

Georgina opened her mouth to say something but decided against it. She knew what Brittany was going to say. Niall was not Marcus. He was Niall and that made him better in every single way.

“You don’t have to have things sorted out right now.” Brittany said.

“I know.” Georgina sighed. “Haven’t really processed it all.”

“He’s scared of you.” Brittany said with a smirk.

Georgina looked across the boat to find Niall in a conversation with Dave and the boys. She slid her sunglasses on top of her head before turning her attention to Brittany.

“When he went to the bar after he kissed you, I ran into him. He was too scared to give you the drink.” Brittany explained. “He asked me to do it.”

“Why didn’t you?” Georgina asked. “I mean I could have used a little pep talk after it.”

“Sometimes you’ve got to let the people you love do things on their own.” Brittany shrugged.

Georgina rolled her eyes before putting her glasses back on. “Fuck, I’m too hungover for that shit Britt.”

“It’s true.” Brittany laughed at Georgina’s dramatics.

“When did you become a fucking Hallmark card?” Georgina asked.

“Oh stop. You know I’m just looking out for the two of you.” Brittany placed her head on her friend’s shoulder.

“You should be looking out for that boyfriend of yours.” Georgina said still disgusted by David’s comment.

“I can’t believe he bloody said that to you.” Brittany sighed. “I am so sorry.”

Georgina rested her head against Brittany as a comfortable silence fell between them. The early morning sun was dancing across the water as they continued to head to the middle of ocean. Her eyes wandered around the boat before landing on the group of boys in the corner. Dave was going on about a part of the night she hadn’t remembered and Niall was eating up every second of it.

She didn’t understand how he was doing it. He had consumed twice the amount of alcohol that she did yet he was walking around like almost fully functional human being. How was he acting like nothing happened? She didn’t know. She did know that his laugh was going to do her head in.

Georgina felt her best friend shift from beneath her.

“Wanna ride with me?” Brittany asked softly.

“Yes.” Georgina said. “Please.”

“I need a break from Dave.” Brittany said with a sigh. “Who says that shit this early?”

“It’s okay B. He was just trying to be funny.” Georgina said reassuringly.

“He doesn’t even like when I do that to him. Why would he assume that Niall would want you to do that?” Brittany said with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Unless they’ve discussed it.”

“And if that’s the case, I do not want to know.” Georgina cringed picturing the boys talking about any of the girls that way.

“How was the – you know?” Brittany asked lowering her voice towards the end.

“It was short but okay I guess.” Georgina said replaying the kiss in her head. “More like a peck nothing too substantial.”

“Would you want something more substantial?” Brittany asked smugly. Georgina sighed, “Honestly?”

“Fuck!” Brittany’s eyes lit up as she studied her best friend’s face. “You do.”

Georgina closed her eyes embarrassed. “If we keep getting as pissed as we did last night, I’m afraid it’s going to happen.”

“You haven’t had a good snog in ages.” Brittany pointed out.

“Would be easier to find some island guy for that.” Georgina joked.

“The boys wouldn’t let that happen.” Brittany said.

“I know. They are all so damn protective.” Georgina said. “I’m fine on me own.”

Niall cackled loudly catching their attention. She hated what it did to her. He turned her insides into goo and set her skin on fire. He was slowly chipping away at the tough exterior she had built before she left England and she didn’t like it.

“I think by the end of this trip, something will have happened between you two.” Brittany said keeping her eyes on Niall.

“Why’d you say that?” Georgina asked doing the same.

“Have you seen the way the kid looks at you?” Brittany asked.

“Stop putting those thoughts in me head.” Georgina grumbled.

“You are two single adults. It’s okay to have those thoughts G.” Brittany said patting her on the leg. “He’s not Marcus.”

“No he’s just a hot young millionaire who could get any girl in the world that he wants.” Georgina said as Niall caught her staring.

A shy smile was sent in her direction.

“Yeah but you see that?” Brittany asked nodding towards their friend. “He only has eyes for you.”

#1dff #niall horan fanfiction #cip #fergie and niall

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thesteveyates · 6 years ago

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Now, should that be ‘who’ or ‘whom‘ ? my grammatical’s are never the best.

In this post i am going to finish my current writing and video project : that of reviewing the boats and books of the late L. Francis Herreshoff. In previous posts i took a look at ‘The Compleat Cruiser‘ and ‘Sensible Cruising Designs‘ . Just as i was finishing the last episode contained within my post ‘The poor man’s yacht’ the third book arrived in the post, this one being ‘The golden age of yachting’. It’s most likely that i won’t get the video finished for this post because , shock-horror, i have actually got my boat alongside and i am actually getting some jobs done.

So, in this post i am going to take a look at 2 things : first the new book, as it covers a whole load of material from the big racing cutters of the late Victorian era and onwards, to a whole section about the glory days of the steam yacht…..essentially small private steamships. Second, i am going to try and get a sense of what Herreshoff’s America was actually like, what was going on at that time and so forth. The period that Herreshoff talks about in ‘The compleat cruiser’ and ‘Sensible cruising designs‘ seems to be the 1950’s or at least the immediate post second world war period. I said in my first section of the review that i really couldn’t get a feel for what the USA was like at the time so i had a lot of fun doing some basic research. The best way of putting that across seemed to be via a whole load of images, it being said that a picture is worth a thousand words…..so i have saved a few eh !

Ok so, first i would just like to say a few words about the structure and content of the book. First there is a quick historical tour of the early days of going on the water as a leisure experience as opposed to warfare and trade. The first ‘proper’ yachts as we might know them appearing as small armed sailing ships in the reformation period.

After that it’s straight into the big steam yachts and from there a technical discussion about the marine steam engine and then logically into smaller, faster steam launches such as ‘Turbinia’ which i had heard about. After that it’s into the really big sailing, racing and cruising, yachts including the big private cutters and schooners up to and including the inter-war years. After that there are sections about the ‘J’ class and the races for the America’s cup.

The racing cutter ‘Reliance‘ in dry dock, one of the most extreme and short lived boats ever built.

Lets take a look at the kind of thing, i hesitate to say boat, that Herreshoff is talking about in his section about the great era of steam yachts. The one i found a useful image of online actually made me smile in the same way that my recent boat names thread did : boats such as ‘Chuckle’ (Chuckle made me smile post), recently, ‘Fat bottom Girl’ and most recently the appropriately named ‘Slaphead’. I do love a good boat name, especially the ones that are a bit more personal than the endless ocean this and storm that.

The steam yacht below is, as far as i can tell, ‘La Belle Sauvage’ and if you know modern steampunk literature at all you will know that ‘La Belle Sauvage’ also appears in a book except that it’s in Philip Pullman’s recent book from the dust series and it’s a canoe. It is owned by the hero of the story , a young boy and it’s owners friend keeps over-painting the name to call it ‘La Belle Sausage‘. I read Pullman’s book while i was recuperating from my knee surgery and it made a nice relief from far too much Solzhenitsin, Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche…..far too heavy a diet !

La Belle Sausage then in all it’s obnoxious glory. Lets just call it the BS for short.

Now i don’t know how many crew it took to run the ship, for small steamship it was, and to look after the maybe half dozen family and guests but a similar ‘yacht’ had 140 crew* according to the book ! As i sit and try to account for that many people i start at one end, so obviously a captain and mate or 2, then a chief engineer and probably a couple of engineers mates, after that i guess a bunch of sweaty stokers and oilers. What else ? a bosun and some deckhands, quite a few stewards to pander to the owner’s every wish, maybe a governess and teacher if the family had children, but 140…..i wouldn’t even be able to remember their names. That one maybe was a bit unusual being a ‘Royal’ yacht so add to the ‘useful’ crew a whole load of ladies-in-waiting and basically flunkies of some kind …..the norm for the ‘great’ steam yachts being a mere 40-50 or so.

Just to put that in context, the great clipper ship Cutty Sark, of the same approximate time frame sailed with a crew of between 26 and 30. Cutty Sark carried some 32.000 square feet of sail and she was said to be able to run at an average speed of 17 knots….to put that into context the maxi yachts that i sailed, considered to be the big boats of that era carried around 5,000 square feet of sail and usually had around 17 or so crew. I have laid alongside a couple of big modern superyachts (power) and the biggest of those ‘only’ had 40 crew including one stewardess who just looked after the owner’s wife’s clothes. I have heard it said that the modern superyachts owned by the current super-wealthy run with about the same number of crew, except that quite a few of the newer ones include a heavy contingent of personal security.

Herreshoff tells us that this was the glory days of the great steam yacht and genteel living for a few aristocratic families. Somehow i thought these would be the newly wealthy of the USA in it’s prosperous pre-first war era but apparently not. Although there was some new wealth, even super-wealth, most of the big yachts were from Europe and a several of those were British owned. Now, ok so the British Royals had one or 2, and several big racing cutters for sport, Britannia for example, the Kaiser (some German geezer with a dodgy helmet) had one….oh and he had a big schooner as a racing dayboat ! etc etc.

Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd aboard the Meteor

Before i get too far into my own opinions about Herreshoff’s ‘golden era’ it would be as well to read some of his words. These short takes are from the sections about the great steam yachts : only one of several sections of the book.

Herreshoff says :

“One of the things i remember about the large steam yachts was their characteristic and delightful odor. If you passed under the stern or close to leeward of one of them you smelled the combined odor of new varnish, linseed oil, brass polish , Havana cigars and champagne all mingled with engine room smells and the slight odor of teak and other exotic woods, to say nothing of the burned gases of the naptha launches . To a sailor this combination was delightful.

Unfortunately there have been handed down some strange stories about life in the larger American yachts. I can assure you that these stories are not typical of the life that was actually led in these yachts when whole families were usually present. I believe life on the larger English yachts was the most refined of that of any class that has been known

Their owners were often titled men and their ladies descended from ancient earls. This perhaps was one of the reasons they were such good sailors”

Me again : well i can hardly keep my bile in check. I can only guess that life aboard was something like an upstairs/downstairs division of class. For sure the captain may have been held in some regard as a competent and loyal retainer but from there on down i suspect that it was a stratified society all the way downhill to the lowly stokers who, Herreshoff says, were controlled by the Ch.eng with threats and persuasions ! I guess that a ‘job is a job’ at any time and maybe a job on a steam yacht was a lot better than some.

Nor can i see how Herreshoff gets from a descent from ancient earls to ‘good sailors’, i once had the pleasure of knowing an old yacht surveyor who had sailed on the big cutters and the J class yachts. I cant imagine the landed gentry somehow as bowmen or mastmen aloft on a big racing cutter….perhaps ‘good sailor’ simplay meant that they knew which side of the boat to up-chuck on. The old surveyor i knew told me that the skippers and crew of those big boats were made up principally of Essex smacksmen who sailed and fished all winter off the coasts of Europe and then made their real money by crewing the big race boats during the summer. The lives of the smacksmen makes for much more interesting reading to my mind but that doesn’t appear in Herreshoff’s book at all but what does appear is his apparent disdain for professional yacht captains of his own era.

I find it very hard to read this kind of thing, although technically interesting, without holding in mind the greater history of the period. That i find is my own take on all of Herreshoff’s books where the boats and sailing seem to be happening in a vacuum with no reference to anything else going on : a couple of major wars for example. If we take just one enormously privileged and powerful royal dynasty’s of the time, the Saxe-Coburgs for example, in one branch we get the British royals, in another the Russian Czar and then of course we have Kaiser Wilhelm…..well between them i think they should have had the power and influence to prevent the catastrophe of 1914-18 and none of them did. I can barely control my contempt for the whole useless lot of them.

Dodgy helmet day !……what a total arse .

Well….lets move on.

In parallel with reading Herreshoff’s ‘Golden age of Yachting’ i have been trying to create a sense of what Herreshoff’s America was like at the time he wrote ‘The Compleat Cruiser‘. That period seems to be the immediate post second world war period, so the 1950’s and i only have a fragmented idea of what that period was like in any sense. I’ve studied the history of the cold war, so called, from a British perspective because i had an interest and i lived very close to the UK’s own ‘V’ bomber bases. Of course these were the early years of the nuclear era with the USA developing the hydrogen bomb in 1952 and the Soviet Union having a fully functioning weapon by 1955.

That was only one small area though so i did searches for everything from returning servicemen and what their lives were like, the politics of the era for example the MCcarthy hearings and the civil rights movement. While reading ‘The Compleat Cruiser’ i wondered what Mr and Mrs Goddard, their daughter ‘Miss Prim’ and her mate Veronica looked like, what their homes were like, what it was like at work and so on. From there i looked at advertising, art and music : did you know for example that doctors were portrayed in cigarette advertising not only smoking but claiming that smoking was healthy and good for you ?

What i did then was to create a series of image files about different aspects of American’s lives as seen through the camera, through advertising and art and simple searches of some events. The 1950’s not only appear to me now as a period of radical change about to happen but look very visually different to what i was expecting. Here they are with a short explanation of each slide show file. They really need a soundtrack, maybe a big band sound, maybe Elvis ! …..lets make it Glen Miller :

youtube

1.Returning servicemen.