#like. i heavily applied to jobs every single day for months even after finding out i was unfit for work

[carrieway]

feelin a bit shit about my art however i usually do so it's not a development

(venting in tags n theres thirty of them soz)

[andreafmn]

Collision - Chapter 4

Word Count: 3,821

Characters: Female Reader Uley Character, Sam Uley, Allison Uley, Charlie Swan, Bella Swan, Seth Clearwater, Billy Black, Jacob Black, Emily Young, Paul Lahote, Harry and Sue Clearwater, Leah Clearwater

Story Description: (Y/N) Uley is back home after being away for four years. Her life at its first standstill and she is taking this time to find out who she is without school. But she never thought that coming back to the reservation would turn her whole life around. In the midst of secrets and mystery, a man crashes into (Y/N)’s and her life will never be the same.

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Twilight, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Stephanie Meyer and Summit Entertainment. The only thing I own is Uley Reader insert, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ story line.

Chapter: 4/?

A/N: Don’t know if I ever mentioned it, but the story takes place before New Moon but after Twilight. It starts at the end of May after the dance, so it’d be the summer before Bella’s birthday in September. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

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Chapter 4

The next time she awoke she was back in sight of the blinding hospital lights. Her head was heavily pounding and the clothes on her body felt alien to her. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the white lights of the sanitized room, but they were suddenly off.

“Back again, Miss Uley?” She recognized the voice, Dr. Cullen. “I’ve already turned the lights off so don’t worry about that.”

Her eyes finally opened to reveal the smooth pale face of the doctor. A wave of calmness rushed over her as soon as her eyes connected with his golden ones.

“What can I say?” She chuckled. “I just couldn’t stay away.”

“Well, it seems you’ve been having a recurring headache, insomnia, memory lapses, and a lack of appetite. It looks like post-concussive syndrome. Your mom told us you were feeling like this for a few days, why didn’t you come back?” Carlisle questioned. He was trying his best to look like he was breathing but if he took even a single breath all his years of self-control would be over in an instant.

“I thought if I could just make it to at least seven days it could clear me from coming back to the hospital, at least as a patient.”

“What do you mean?” This comment had perked the interest of the man. Thoughts raced through his head faster than he could analyze them.

“I was thinking of applying for a medical assistant job here in the hospital. I recently got my degree in biology, and I’ve been thinking of going to medical school after.”

“That sounds like a plan, but let’s work on getting you better first.” It did sound like a good plan to Carlisle. He wanted to be as close as possible to her every single day, but it also meant he would have to work triple as hard to control his thirst. “We’d like to keep you for the next few days and make sure you’re in good health before you can go back to business as usual.”

“How long would a few days be?”

“About four to five days, just to make sure that the symptoms don’t worsen, and we can give you an all-clear.” It would also give him a few days to grow accustomed to her smell. “We can work over that application for medical assistant, make sure it’s something you want to do.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” She smiled at the man in front of her, her heart fluttering with every breath she took. “Thank you, Dr. Cullen.”

“Please, call me Carlisle,” he smiled. “Now, why don’t you continue resting, and whatever you need just call. My office is right down the hall, I’ll be here in no time.”

The girl stared at the retreating form of his body and covered the heat that was rising to her face with her pillow. The butterflies in her stomach had made her uneasy and had her hands shaking. She didn’t understand why she was feeling this way. It had only been a week since her first encounter with the doctor, but those few seconds were enough to have her drooling over the man like a lovesick schoolgirl.

A few days had come and gone quickly. (Y/N) had grown attached to Carlisle, seeing and talking to him every day had felt like a dream. In his free time, she would go over to his office and pick a book to read, which they talked about the next day. They spent hours talking about nothing and everything.

It had been a long time since Carlisle had felt this way, centuries. Being around her had gotten easier each day that passed. Her smell becoming comforting instead of a trigger to the endless hunger for human blood – he’d never had a simple drop of it, but nothing could explain how much he wanted to have hers. Getting to know her had been a welcomed activity by the young doctor. He could spend days upon days listening to the sweet sound of her voice, admiring her curious-filled face when she started a new book – which she read swiftly, taking only a couple of hours to finish most of them.

“Can’t believe you have so many first editions, and you leave them at work.” She ran her hand across the spine of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. “I would keep them in a well-preserved chamber, and no one would be able to even breathe on them.”

Carlisle smiled as the girl gawked once again at his book collection. It wasn’t hard to acquire first edition novels when you were alive when they were published. “If you’re impressed by this collection, you’d be completely astonished by the one I have back home.”

“You have more?!” He nodded. The girl shined like a kid on Christmas, her eyes gleaming at the thought of a big library. “Oh, that sounds like a dream.”

“You’re more than welcome to come over any time. It’s always refreshing to meet a literature aficionado such as myself.”

“Really? That’d be amazing!” She grinned brightly. “I could spend all day reading, forget about work.”

The duo laughed. “Too late to withdraw the application but you’re always welcome to pass your downtime in my office.”

“Sounds like a plan,’’ she smiled. “Now, doctor, what will you ever do now that I’m not going to be here every day?”

“Oh, how will I ever go on?” He chuckled. “But if you ever need help during that time, just come by. My office is always open. And hopefully, you’ll visit from time to time on personal time.”

“I’m sure it’s something that can be arranged.”

If there was still blood rushing through his veins, the capillaries in his face would have widened. He felt like he now understood Edward; how being with her made him feel human again. And there was nothing more that he wanted than to take their friendship to another level, but he wasn’t sure if she would ever feel the same. Carlisle knew that she was unaware of the supernatural since (Y/N) had allowed him to be in her life. But what would happen once she knew everything? How could he ever come between her and her family?

“Miss Uley, your mother is here,” a nurse spoke up, peeking her head through the office door. “Discharge papers have already been filed.”

“Thank you, Nurse Dalen. She’ll be out in a moment.” Carlisle smiled.

“Well, the time has come.” (Y/N) took her phone out of her back pocket and handed it to the doctor. He looked at her with a question-ridden gaze. “I’m gonna need your phone number so we can arrange any future endeavors.”

“Right,” he laughed, typing his number into her directory. “I’ll be waiting for that call.”

“I’ll be making it soon enough,” she grinned. “I’m gonna go now. I’ll see you around, Cullen.”

“I’ll see you, Uley.”

She left the office with a huge smile on her face, holding her phone close to her chest. For the first time, she was experiencing something she had heard of most of her teenage years. Once she had met Carlisle all she wanted to do was get to know him better, spend her time with him, just being near him would suffice. It was the first time she was learning what falling for someone was, and even though it was scary, she was jumping in headfirst.

“Hi, honey. Ready to go home?” Allison hugged her daughter for the first time in five days. (Y/N) nodded, truly ready to finally sleep on her own bed.

“So, how are you liking Dr. Cullen?”

“MOM!” Allison laughed at her daughter’s reaction. It was easy to see that (Y/N) had taken a liking to Carlisle Cullen, and vice versa.

“What, darling? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.”

“It’s not like that, mom.”

“But you’d like it to be like that.”

“I’m not talking about that with my mother.” (Y/N) placed her cold hands on her cheeks, trying to cool down the warm blood that had rushed onto her cheeks. The cool air of the car’s A/C was only helping her so much.

“I just want you to be careful with that, honey. He’s older than you, technically has kids, and rumor has it he is married.”

A breath hitched in her throat. Married? She knew he had adopted five kids, most of them her age, but not that he was married. Had she read the situation wrong? He didn’t wear a ring, he didn’t mention any relationship, he had no pictures of a woman in his office. Then again, they had only spent five days together at the hospital. She didn’t know what he did when he went home at night, who he went home to at night. (Y/N) shouldn’t feel betrayed—they weren’t anything, and they weren’t on track to become anything.

“Don’t worry, mom. I’ve just been picking his brain about working in the hospital, and he’s been helping me with what I’m gonna be doing this summer.”

“Oh, have you decided what you want to do?”

“I’m gonna get my medical assistant certification. It’s a three-month course then I can work at the hospital.”

“That’s great, honey.” Allison smiled at her daughter from the driver’s side. “Is that where you’d see yourself making a career?”

“Not sure. I want to take this time to see if life in a hospital is truly where I’d like to work – see if medical school would be it for me.”

(Y/N) hadn’t taken the time to focus on her future. In her high school career, she spent her time focusing on the present and piling on as much as she could, and now she had no sense of direction. She would take every day as it came, hoping one day she would find her purpose.

Finally, back home, she hopped off the truck and stretched out her limbs, stiff from the days on a hospital bed. Taking a deep breath of fresh air and basking in the afternoon sun. The cold that had seeped into her bones from the hospital melted off, and she smiled feeling the warmth surround her.

“Why don’t you go upstairs, honey?” Allison told her daughter. “There’s a surprise waiting for you in your room.”

(Y/N) smiled and quickly made her way up the stairs to see what her mom meant. Opening the door, tears forming in her eyes. Her room had done a 180-degree turn. The walls had been painted a light beige color, and plants hung from the walls bringing warmth to the room. The bed was adorned with a white cover, and a fluffy duvet to keep her warm at night. A wooden frame sat atop the bed dressed in white linen and ivy vines. A bookcase lived in the corner of her room, filled to the brim with her collection of hardbacks and peppered with potted plants. Opposite the bed was a small desk with a dark green suede chair, her laptop set up in the workspace. Her room finally felt like hers.

“Do you like it, honey?”

“Mom, did you do this?”

“I wish I could take credit, but your brother and your friend Paul came over when I was at work and redecorated. I was actually surprised that they even came over.”

“I’ll have to thank them,” (Y/N) grinned. Even though their relationship was strained at the moment, and she had yet to see Paul since coming back, she was glad that they had taken time out of their days to do this for her. “I’ll go over to Sam’s house for a bit, maybe now he’ll have time to see me.”

“Why don’t you go tomorrow, honey? You should take it easy.”

“I feel a lot better, mom. You don’t have to worry too much.”

“I’m your mother, I’ll always worry. If you’re gonna go out, go see Jacob. He was really worried about you.”

“I will.”

(Y/N) kissed her mother’s cheek and grabbed her bag to head out. Her first stop was to the Black residence. Jacob saw her coming down the street and ran out to wrap her in a hug. When she collapsed last week, he had been very concerned when she collapsed in his garage. Jacob was glad that she had made a full recovery and was now back home, with minimum side effects showing. The visit was short, only a quick hello to ensure the boy that she was okay.

After spending some time with Jacob, she walked towards Sam’s house – she hoped to catch Paul there too since she had heard he now spent his time there alongside Jared Cameron. It hadn’t clicked in her head why Paul would ever hang out with her brother and Jared. Even when they were back in middle school, he never paid them any mind, having a separate friend group. She had only become his friend by spending time with him away from school, and her brother had always disliked them together, claiming he was a bad influence.

Outside of the small house, (Y/N) could hear the low chatter of manly voices, a higher-pitched one joining after. There was no mistaking that Sam was home. She started feeling nervous as she raised her hand to knock on the door. The shaky limb was able to make contact with the blue door twice before it opened wide open, revealing a shirtless Paul Lahote.

“(Y/N)?” He questioned. Paul knew she was back, but Sam had given him clear instructions to stay away from her due to their situation.

“Hey, Paul. Long time no see, huh?” The girl smiled at her friend that now towered over her. A few years ago, they were still of the same stature, but too much time had passed since then. She went in for a hug, and Paul cut it short – worried she might note his burning temperature. “Is Sam home?”

“Uh, yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck, turning towards the kitchen. “Sam! (Y/N)’s here.”

The older male appeared in front of them, a soft smile playing on his lips. “Hey, (Y/N). Good to see you’re doing better. What brings you around?”

“I just wanted to thank you both for what you did in my room. Mom told me you worked on it while we were away. It’s a dream.” Sam smiled at his younger sister and shared a hug with the smaller girl.

“I’m glad you liked it, (Y/N). We wanted to give you a place where you could rest better after the accident. It’s the least we could do.” The alpha could hear the duo that was left in the kitchen had grown curious about who was at the door. “Do you want to come in for a bit?”

“Are you really inviting me in?” (Y/N) was taken aback – the last thing she thought was that she would get that invitation.

“Yeah, there’s someone I want you to meet,” Sam responded, keeping his doubts of the encounter to himself.

(Y/N) walked through the threshold and instantly felt the warm aura that emanated from inside of the house. It was a welcoming environment that she had grown to love from her own mother’s house. She walked behind Sam, Paul following behind them. `There was nothing that could prepare her to the sight she was met with.

In front of her stood a beautiful woman. She had tan skin, long black hair, and a beautiful smile. But there was something that stood out to her, something she was sure stood out to everyone – three long gashes ran through the front of her face. Yet, they didn’t distract from the alluring atmosphere that surrounded her. Sam moved to her side, and (Y/N) quickly connected the dots and figured that was Emily Young. The Uley girl wanted to be indifferent to her presence, knowing how one of her friends had been hurt by the union in front of her, she couldn’t help but note the love that radiated from the pair. It had been a long time since she had seen her brother as happy as he looked as he stared at his fiancé.

“(Y/N), it’s an honor to finally meet you.” Emily stretched out her hand towards the girl, which (Y/N) gladly took. “Sam has told me so much about you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” (Y/N) joked. “Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to get to know each other more. I’d love to get to know the woman my brother is set to marry.”

“I’m sure we’ll have enough time now that you’re back.” Emily smiled and grabbed a basket filled with muffins, offering them to the girl. (Y/N) gladly took the baked good in her hand, picking at it and placing the piece in her mouth – a wonderful taste that quickly melted in her mouth. “You’re welcome over any time. Any family of Sam is family to me.”

“Thank you, Emily. I’ll be sure to take you up on that.”

Not much time passed before Sam had cut the meeting short, claiming there was something important the duo had to do. “We should do this another time, (Y/N). Paul and I have to go.”

“Go where?” (Y/N) questioned. “It’s already night, not much to do.”

“I can’t really tell you, sis. But it’s important.”

“So still guarding secrets?” Sam shrugged. “It’s fine, Sam. I’m growing used to it.”

“(Y/N)…”

“I can take a hint, Sam. I know when I’m not wanted,” (Y/N) smiled. “Thank you for the muffins, Emily. They were divine. I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer and visit sometime soon.”

“Of course, (Y/N). I’m sorry we had to cut this short.”

“It’s okay. I’ll see you guys.” (Y/N) took her bag and exited the house. She was confused on why Sam had welcomed her in only to have her leave soon after – there was something big he was hiding, and she needed to find out what it was.

“(Y/N), wait up!” Paul jogged up to her, turning her around. “Look, I hope you understand that we’re not trying to push you away on purpose. There are things that Sam is protecting you from.”

“Like what, Paul? What danger could possibly be surrounding us that he would stray from his family?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not my place to tell you, (Y/N). As much as I hate keeping this from you, Sam would not allow it to come from anyone but himself.”

“Are you serious? What kind of power does he have over you?”

“PAUL!” Sam shouted, gaining the attention of his beta. “Let’s go.”

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I hope one day you’ll forgive us.” Paul kissed her forehead and went to meet up with his alpha.

(Y/N) stood still as she watched their bodies disappear into the woods. She debated whether to follow them for a brief second, but she was exhausted. She left back home with a million questions running through her head. The pair of Sam and Paul was a strange view, and she was determined to get to the bottom of things.

When she got home, (Y/N) noticed her mother asleep on the couch, the tv in front of her still playing. The years that passed were clear on her face, the worry that she carried for both her children plastered in the lines of her face. She could see the exhaustion that she held, years of caring for two kids by herself taking a toll on her. (Y/N) grabbed a blanket and laid it on top of her mother’s body, making sure that she was warm during the night. She left a kiss on her cheek, thankful for everything her mother had sacrificed for her.

After showering the day off, (Y/N) changed into her pajamas and laid in bed staring at her phone’s screen. She thought if she stared at it long enough a message would magically pop up. Minutes passed and her phone kept silent, not a single notification appearing on the screen. She scrolled through her directory until it landed on the newest listing. Carlisle Cullen, it read. Her finger clicked on it and selected new message.

Her fingers danced atop the keyboard of her phone, no words coming to her mind to send to the doctor. Should she even send him a message? What if he truly was married? She would never want to come between a couple. But her fingers did not follow her thought train. Unconsciously, they started typing away a message and before she could analyze her actions, she sent the message.

Hi, Carlisle. It’s (Y/N). I made it home okay and don’t have any symptoms, seems like you fixed me up! Anyways, wanted to know if you possibly had some free time this weekend to join me for some dinner at La Bella Italia. Hope you had a good rest of the day at work!

Her jaw fell when her screen read message sent. There was no way to delete it now. It was out there, and it would make its way to his phone. (Y/N)’s head fell onto her pillow and muffled a scream that escaped from her throat. This feeling was alien to her, and she was learning what steps to take to grow closer to the astonishing man. Minutes felt like an eternity to (Y/N), thinking that she had imploded the friendship she had built with the man over the past week.

Beep.

The sound from her phone caught her attention. She scrambled for her phone and quietly shrieked at the words on her screen.

Hello, (Y/N). I’m glad you’re feeling better, hopefully, no symptoms will arise once more. And I did have a good day at work, although I missed our afternoon book chats. I have a free day on Sunday. Tell me a time and I can meet you in Port Angeles. Hope that day is good for you.

“He said yes. If he were actually married, he wouldn’t have said yes,” she thought.

So, she typed back.

I’m glad you had a good day, and the book chats have an easy fix. I’m just a phone call away. As for Sunday, it’s a perfect day. I think around 5:30 would be a good time for dinner. Let me know if it works.

Sent.

Seconds later, another beep.

I’ll make sure to schedule those calls then. 5:30 sounds perfect. I’ll see you there. Have a good night, (Y/N).

See you then, Carlisle. Good night. 😊

(Y/N) smiled at her phone, joy wanting to burst from her body. She was reveling in this new feeling and the happiness it brought her. If it was Carlisle, it was worth it, she believed.

That night she went to sleep with the biggest smile she had experienced in her life. Unbeknownst to the life-changing moments that were to follow this meeting.

Tag List: @daniallh @catchmeupimgettingoutofhere @imaginetwilight2704 @jessicas-undrground @hey-you-therexo @mauvette268 @mxyee @beefwhobarksandisalilmadalot

[hualianff]

Vampire/Human AU

(Slight NSFW, angst)

Thinking about vampire HC who owns a vampire-friendly bar with humans who apply as donors to supply fresh blood for vampires willing to pay the expensive prices. When a human with beautiful amber eyes, soft facial features, and blood that smells absolutely delectable, walks in, every vampire whips their heads towards the door. The human approaches one of the staff, YY, to inquire about becoming a donor. HC watches as the enticing morsel follows YY into a room to finalize his application.

Right after the human leaves thirty minutes later–YY probably having said it would take a few days to find him a match–HC pulls YY aside, demanding to have a look over the papers the new donor filled out. After a quick scan, HC shoves the papers back to YY with a click of his tongue,

“No need to find him a match. He’s mine.”

A human whose blood smells heavenly, who has never been bitten or even nipped by a vampire. HC wants to corrupt him. Ruin him.

The next night, HC has the human, XL, meet him in his personal feeding room. There’s a luxurious velvet couch to the side, a pristine glass table with fancy wine and glasses, and a king-sized bed with crimson silk laid upon the mattress.

HC, like most vampires, typically feeds while stimulating their donors. This can be done with something as simple as kissing or full-on intercourse. Not only does this relax the human’s nerves so they won’t tense up before being bitten, but the toxins injected into their system after being bitten feels incredibly euphoric, serving as a kind of aphrodisiac. Many humans donate their blood in this way for the sole reason of attaining this heightened sense of pleasure.

But as soon as XL enters the room in front of HC, his mind freezes as he sees the bed.

“I’m a virgin,” he blurts out, wide eyes panicked as he looks at the vampire. HC raises his eyebrow, unperturbed.

“We can work with that.”

XL gulps.

“I’ve also never kissed anyone.”

HC runs a tongue along his sharp fangs.

“Do you want to change that?” The vampire asks, walking up behind the human, pressing his chest against XL’s back. HC hears XL’s heart rate pick up at the proposition. It’s an unspoken yes, though XL also imperceptibly nods his head. He does not see HC’s lips spread into a vicious grin. However, XL does feel lips brush against the shell of his ear, sending shivers down his spine.

“Use your words, precious. Do you want to be kissed? Want to be touched, experience pleasure beyond comprehension?” HC murmurs, skimming his lips across XL’s nape. “I can fuck you too. Push into your little body as I sink my fangs into your neck. I’d place them right here-“ HC taps XL’s jugular, the human jerking to the side with a gasp. “-oh? So sensitive. All the better. I can make you feel so good.”

XL’s breath quickens, ever so slightly leaning back into HC’s tall frame. HC leans forward to catch a glimpse of those doe eyes regarding him with caution. Oh, how he wants to eat this human alive. HC turns XL around by his shoulders. He lowers his head to bump foreheads with XL, forcing the human to look into his red-tinged eyes.

“Is that a yes?”

XL blinks those doe eyes once, then twice.

“Yes.”

HC brings his hand up to brush a hair away from the human’s head.

“Wonderful.”

***

XL is at the point in his life when he lost everything. He chose to pursue a career outside of his parents’ embroidery business despite being expected to take over the shop after college. Abandoning college altogether, XL went off on his own to chase his dream to become a singer.

A few years later, where XL was provinces away from home, XL’s parents’ business had gone under, devastating them as they could no longer pay for their medical bills. Upon hearing the news, XL rushed back home to take care of them. It seemed they had kept their declining health conditions under wraps. They were too prideful to admit their weakening physical states; they also did not want to guilt XL into giving up on his ambitions to take care of them.

XL’s parents lasted one year before passing away, his father first due to prostate cancer, his mother one month later after succumbing to exhaustion and grief. XL lost their home along with the shop merely a week later, unable to pay off the debt. His parents had used up their savings for their medical expenses and XL had been scraping by as a musician for years. Additionally, there was no one he could confide in. He had lost contact with his friends as he moved from city to city, busking on streets, attempting to catch the attention of music labels.

XL was utterly alone. There were days when not even music could bring an ounce of comfort. However, music was the thing that kept him sane between the various side jobs he managed to pick up to keep him off the streets.

As if the fates decided XL had had enough bad luck for a lifetime, a CEO of a fairly well-known label offered him a business card after a busking session. It was JW of Capital Records who gave XL hope of achieving his dream. XL spent most of his late 20s under the label, training and practicing and producing. He had the chance to record a couple of singles and one mini-album–which he didn’t get to participate much in the production side–but other than that, XL didn’t make it far. He was tremendously overworked and yet, still discarded to the side.

Wondering why he wasn’t provided the opportunities other artists received to further their careers, XL scheduled a one-on-one meeting with the CEO to ask what he was lacking. JW had insisted he could give XL more opportunities if XL could offer something more than just his serene vocals and pretty face.

The unspoken suggestion that XL offer up his body pierced his heart with yet another stake. Overwhelming disappointment and betrayal crashed into XL, but perhaps he should have known better that the whole situation was too good to be true. XL vehemently rejected this idea, angering JW who eventually tore XL down to the point of a medical emergency that allowed him to leave the agency without repercussions.

At age thirty-two, XL was left with no family, mental and physical trauma, and a dying will. Ironically enough, the song lyrics he’d written after experiencing so much loss were the closest thing to making music he’d gotten. But in the end, XL still felt like a failure.

Now in Xi’an, XL was left with limited options to earn money for rent. He already worked two part-time jobs in addition to writing music—though even time set aside for this has dwindled.

One night, as XL was walking home after closing up the convenience store, he saw the neon lights of the sign “Ghost City.” He’s heard many things about this club and is no stranger to the existence of nonhuman creatures roaming amongst human society. After hours of research, XL decided to apply to become a blood donor. It’s not like he had a better option that paid more anyway.

XL’s hope to somehow redeem his past actions has all but fizzled out. He doesn’t expect a vampire like HC to care about his comfort or consent when feeding, though HC still prioritizes these things for some reason.

XL has never looked at his body and thought about the best ways to pleasure himself. HC shows him how. HC caresses and kisses XL like he’s worth being handled with care; HC also invades XL’s body as a threat to break it, broadcasting a vampire’s strength, speed, and endurance in the bedroom.

XL can go as far as to say he even looks forward to his time with HC. In between a busy work life and dealing with people who would rather look the other way than give him the time of day, XL’s mind and body steadily weaken.

It starts with memory loss, where XL can’t clearly remember the conversations he’d had the day before. One of the reasons this develops is because he goes through many days without having anyone to tell about his day. It’s like the life XL lives is so insignificant, nothing about it is worth remembering.

Then, it’s the lack of eating. Most of XL’s money goes towards rent, essentials, and groceries. But he’s not a great cook. And he’s already drained by the time he gets home after working both jobs and visiting Ghost City. XL’s stress doesn’t help, adding to the fatigue that gradually shuts his body down.

While HC might not be able to taste a difference in XL’s blood, he does notice how frail the human moves around. How delayed XL responds, more so than he should be–even as a human. XL has scheduled more visits: three times a week this time. However, his words become less. He stops telling the little stories that brought a small smile to his face. XL doesn’t even mention the songs he’s been working on lately.

HC forces himself to ask about them after an especially rough coupling.

“How’s the songwriting going, darling?” HC asks quietly. He props his elbow upon his pillow, resting his cheek on his hand as he intently observes the human struggling to catch his breath, eyelids fluttering.

“I haven’t written anything new,” XL breathily answers. HC purses his lips. He ducks down to affectionately tongue at the skin his fangs pierced.

“No? In how long?” HC asks. XL sighs heavily.

“Maybe three weeks.”

HC doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s not one to console anybody. No one had afforded him that luxury, and naturally, he did not grant anyone else his concern. The silence that follows is unbearable.

***

The next time XL visits, he’s the one to initiate their first kiss. HC growls happily against his human’s lips, pinning him against the closed door of his private room. XL moans obscenely as HC languidly licks into his mouth. His arms desperately wrap around HC’s neck to bring him closer.

“Someone’s eager,” HC says with a chuckle as he pulls back. XL instantly attaches his lips to the vampire’s jaw, peppering light kisses along the pale skin. HC can’t help but think he’s taught his little human well. XL hums while trailing his lips back to HC’s, capturing them in a kiss that’s the sweetest one yet.

HC should’ve noticed how unstable XL’s legs seemed, how dreadful the bags under his eyes looked before indulging in their bedroom activities. He should’ve kept track all along of how thin XL is, how much more skin and bone he had become. HC is certainly not one to intrude on someone else’s life and scrutinize all their choices. But he should’ve said something sooner.

Maybe then, XL’s heart wouldn’t have stuttered so violently, or completely stopped beating for five counts.

HC watches in horror as XL’s eyes roll into the back of his head. His human’s body goes limp in his arms, collapsing into HC’s chest. When XL’s heart beat starts up again, it’s very weak. There’s a noticeable abnormality in its rhythm.

HC quickly gathers XL in his arms and speeds to the bed. He sits back against the pillow, placing XL to recline against his front. HC hooks his arms around XL’s middle from behind, anxiously listening to XL’s irregular heartbeat that seems like it takes all of his human’s energy to pump. Luckily, XL awakens a few minutes later. He registers a cold embrace and warm puffs of breath lingering near his ear.

“Did I pass out?” XL wheezes out, unconsciously melting into the body behind him.

“Yes,” HC says tightly. “Your heartbeat is uneven. Something is wrong.”

XL can’t tell if he’s imagining it but that sounded like worry in the vampire’s tone.

“Oh.”

HC inhales sharply.

“You just fainted, Xie Lian. Hell, your heart just stopped for a few seconds, and all you have to say is ‘oh?’” HC grinds out.

So he is upset. XL swallows thickly, not wanting to escalate things and further upset the vampire.

“It’s okay,” XL says. “I’m okay-“

“No. You’re not,” HC interrupts.

XL takes a deep breath, wincing slightly as HC tightens his arms around his hips. He’s more sensitive than normal, XL realizes. Before XL can defend himself further, HC grasps XL’s chin and turns his head to face the vampire.

“You’re hiding something from me,” he states. He hears XL’s heart speed up. “There’s no use in lying. I can tell you’ve grown weaker since you first came.”

“Well, I have been donating my blood to a certain vampire for a few months now. I’m bound to be a bit weak in my legs,” XL replies as a matter of factly. He means to poke fun at the situation rather than acknowledge the severity of it. HC knows this because he’s done it numerous times himself. But when XL does it, it makes HC’s blood boil.

“Are you saying I am causing this- this deterioration in your health?” HC asks tensely. XL lets out a gasp, whirling around in HC’s arms, immediately backpedaling.

“No! No, not at all.”

HC’s eyes assess his human who trembles slightly in his arms. He cradles XL in between his legs, hands shifting XL further up his body so he can rest his head on HC’s chest. HC gently pets XL’s hair, an action that was uncharacteristic of him months ago, before XL had walked through the entrance of his bar.

XL gently smiles in an attempt to placate the vampire.

HC’s eyes flash a frightening scarlet.

“I don’t believe you.”

XL’s face crumples.

“It’s true! I’ve just been really busy is all. Work has been hectic and- and-“ gone is the innocence that HC once saw in XL’s doe eyes, instead replaced by stress and utter brokenness that alarms the vampire to no end. A voice in the back of HC’s head snarls that those emotions had always been behind XL’s eyes; they were simply better hidden, and HC had been too lust-driven to notice.

XL continues his rambling, frantically shaking his head. “-I took some extra shifts because I needed the money to pay for some water damage that flooded half my apartment. I’m fine—truly.“

If HC had a beating heart, it would have dropped down to his stomach at the sudden realization. His fingers dig into the paper-thin skin of XL’s hips, then trace up the bony knobs of his spine.

“You’re not eating right.”

“Wait- S-san Lang-“

The nickname HC had asked XL to call him is hurdled back into his face like a stone aimed to shatter. It sounds like a cry for help.

“And you’re not getting enough sleep,” HC concludes with a disapproving frown. His eyes now glow a deep crimson, matching the silken sheets that HC ensures are in perfect condition every time XL visits.

“Fuck, XIE LIAN, you know you need proper nutrition and rest to recover from each night you spend with me!” HC is nearly shouting now, voice wavering out of his control. Who knew another creature could make him feel so strongly?

“I-I am!”

“I SAID NOT TO LIE TO ME. I CAN TELL WHEN YOU’RE NOT BEING HONEST,” HC explodes, spatting those words with a poison that he often uses with uncooperative subordinates, but never directed at XL before.

Tears glisten in XL’s eyes as he’s cornered with no way out, no relief from the building pressure that suffocates him. Right now, after everything XL has been through, this seems to be his tipping point. He never expected HC to care this much. Or perhaps HC is just concerned his reliable supply of blood is flaking out on him, just when he’s had a feasible taste.

XL is sure HC has plenty of other donors to feed on. It’s not like XL is particularly special in that way. Frankly speaking, XL had time and time again asked the universe to give him one last sign that his life mattered in some capacity. But if he couldn’t see the value in his own life, who else could?

XL scrambles off from HC’s lap, allowing himself to speak with the deep-seated spite that has grown in his heart like an untamable weed.

“THERE’S NO NEED TO GET SO WORKED UP OVER MY HEALTH!! I’LL BE GONE SOON ANYWAY! THE DOCTOR GAVE ME THREE MORE MONTHS,” XL screams, having to catch his breath after exerting so much power into his voice. “So there. You have my answer. I’m not lying this time. Just one a couple more months and then- then you won’t have to deal with my shit anymore, okay?”

HC can’t move. He can’t speak either. The shock taking over his system renders his mind and body completely useless. He can only stare blankly at XL whose tears now cascade down his cheeks.  

No, this cannot be happening-

XL’s whimpers pull HC out of his head. The human hugs his own frail body, shivering from a coldness that does not exist in the room.

How did HC let it get so bad?

“I’m sick, San Lang. Very, very sick. Not just physically,” XL whispers defeatedly, letting out a small hiccup.

HC doesn’t hesitate to surge forward to throw his arms around XL, hugging him once more. It’s a habit now—to hold XL whenever he could. Now, HC wonders how many more times he would get this chance before it was inevitably the last.

“Xie Lian…”

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I-I just can’t eat. Sometimes from stress, other times I completely forget. And I want to rest, but I end up laying in bed awake for hours a-and my mind just won’t let me sleep-”

For the first time in over a decade, there is someone else to hear XL’s agonized wails.

“Please believe me, San Lang. Please."

[tundrainafrica]

Hi Sav. Sorry for this rather personal question, but I’ve always find you a very wise older sister. I remember you saying that you change career? I did that too, I left a very well prestigious career to another one that I felt more at ease. Have you ever regret your decision? I sometimes still think of the what if. Also, did your parents got mad at you? Do you have any life advice for this nervous mess of a person? Haha

Thanks for the question! Don't apologize for that. I'm actually touched people are actually curious about this so brace yourself for a bunch of bull shit about my life.

I remember you saying that you change career?

LMAO MY LIFE IS A MESS.

I graduated with two degrees, economics and environmental science and I decided last minute to apply to law school. Then I did a human resources job for a few months then I decided to drop law school to focus on work cause I had a job already that was offering me higher than what I would have gotten with law then I realized I kinda hated human resources and thank god they laid me off.

But here's the thing, if your first job gives you a good salary, it's pretty much smooth sailing from there because every job after that will usually do their best to beat the your first salary.

I work in business development, tech support, software testing etc. It's a job which wears a lot of hats?

And I kinda still make use of my econ degree since I trade stocks on the side.

But about environmental science, I opted not to continue with environmental science cause given the current situation in the country, I'm probably gonna get shot.

Have you ever regretted your decision?

Yes but I think given my own thinking habits, it’s kinda normal for me to think really hard about everything? Like I constantly feel like I would have done better in every single other job but you know it's that type of sadness where I'm all like sad for five seconds, I take a deep breath and I just move on.

I applied to medical tracks and law tracks even when I was in high school. I just opted not to pursue those either. I considered taking the talent test for piano in the music conservatory and I started preparing for that already and I opted not to pursue those either.

So I think about how easily my life would have changed, if I just did something differently but I don't feel really strong regret if that's what you're asking.

I wouldn't have met my boyfriend for example if I didn't take my environmental science degree. I wouldn't have joined the chess team or met my friends there if I didn't take an economics degree because the one who introduced them to me was my economics classmate.

And, yeah I probably wouldn't have gotten into Levihan in the first place or written any fanfiction if I pursued law school.

I wouldn't have met the amazing people in my company if I didn't pick that job so everything just seems to work out in the end, and when I try to assess the decisions I COULD have made, I realize, those decisions wouldn't have been me anymore because a lot of the weird decisions I have made are the reason I'm here today and I'm pretty okay with where I am.

Also, did your parents got mad at you?

My parents aren't the type to get 'mad.'

They get disappointed and they just would be glaringly not excited about what I do if I do something they don’t want me to do.

They really wanted a doctor in the family and they really wanted a lawyer too. My sister is already a doctor so there was no big pressure for me to end up a lawyer. It does kinda hurt when I hear my parents talking about all eight of their kids being successful (except me) and how they spend so much money on the education of my siblings because they HEAVILY support all their hobbies and their general fields of study.

Do you have any life advice for this nervous mess of a person?

Know what you want.

THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. Because the last thing you want to do is be really miserable where you are. It's difficult to know what you want but I found, you can easily summarize it to something comprehensible.

Think to yourself, what is the most important things to you and rank them: Money? Family? Career? Friends? Love? Freedom? Hobbies? Bucket List? And from there, that's when you decide what type of job you're going to take or what type of field you want to get into or your plans for future studies for example.

Because unless you're REALLY lucky, you can't really have all of them, usually just one to two at a time since we all have 24 hours a day, a very mortal body etc.

And then people ask, what is the barometer of success? Money? Career? Family? Love?

It's achieving what you want and being satisfied with it. I think a happy and satisfied middle class person is miles more successful than an angry and overly resentful millionaire.

So if you wanna be successful, know what you want and value.

Have a good relationship with failure.

I think a lot of what influences people's decisions is a fear of failure or a fear of making the wrong decision but I personally found that a lot of things end up working out anyway if you just focus on the process of doing instead of the actual result.

Because all of us fail at something anyway and besides, when has nervousness or fear ever made us better decisionmakers?

Don’t be stupid with money

Do you need millions? No not really but I think how much money or savings you have will definitely impact your power to make decisions or pursue your interests or to just save yourself from completely fucking yourself over in the future so I think it's worth mentioning.

Build a credit rating as quickly as you can. Buy stuff on credit even if you know you can afford it and pay your debt on time so you can build a relationship with banks because these will be the people who will be lending you money for your house or your car. You save more money borrowing from the banks than paying off installments straight to companies.

Have money in stocks, mutual funds or other monetary instruments. Inflation happens every year and the value of the money you keep on deposit WILL go down. Your wages will not get higher as quickly as inflation applies to money so if you can, try to put money on investments if you have disposable income. My rule of thumb is try to earn at least 10% a year from monetary instruments to offset inflation

That's pretty much it, if you actually read this haha, thanks for reading I guess?

[xxtraord1nary]

POV

Fandom: Open Heart

Pairing: Tobias Carrick x f!mc (Charlotte West)

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Constructive criticism is always welcome! No hate please and thank you for reading reblog and comment if you enjoyed.

Summary: A very naughty and heavily pregnant Charlotte much prefers her handsome lovers point of view.

Warnings: Strong Language, Fellatio, Sex, and a tad of dark humor. If that makes you uncomfortable please exit stage left because you’ve been warned. Overall vulgar.

Tag list: @katkart122 @missmiimiie @openheartfanfics

“Tobias, I am not playing with you get that damn camera out of my face! It's way too early for your shit.” Charlotte snapped whilst swatting at the pest she called a husband as he continued to record his very moody wife with his old camera he found a couple a months ago when Char ordered him with a broom in hand to go “clean that damn garage” or he could sleep on the couch for a month, so that being all the motivation he needed Tobias got to it with vigor.

“You're really good at this whole black mama thing Charlie.” he teases with a shit eating grin plastered on his stupidly perfect face. “Keep it up and I’ll be a single black mama if you don’t quit.” she grunted while taking down her plaited kinky tendrils that in the morning tended to have a mind of their own.

“Now why would you say that?”

“Because I’m going to kill you” she said whilst continuing to grumpily apply toothpaste to her electric toothbrush.

“Really talking like that when I’m recording, then the police will immediately know who to be held responsible in the case of my untimely demise, Charlie.” he further ribbed while shaking his head playfully behind the lens.

“Screw you and the police Carrick.” she spat.

“Babe, you know all you have to do is corporate and let me get my daily picture of you and our little Tiny Tia. So get with the program.” he chided with a small but genuine smile as he further gazed at the love of his life and their little one growing inside her very pregnant belly.

“Alright two things: that name is super cute and I’m surprised you came up with that yourself.”

“I’m good for something, see?” to which she answered with a ‘meh’ and shrug of her shoulders.

“I’m offended.” and again another answer in the form of shrugged shoulders and a hard roll of the eyes.

“Now for two, why on earth do you need a picture every day?” she whined with tired eyes.

“This is our first child out of many, I need to capture every moment. Now lift up your shirt!” he confidently proclaimed.

She didn’t want to burst his little bubble but if he thought for a second she was pushing another of his big headed babies out of her lady parts he was sorely mistaken. ‘What the hell is “out of many” anyways?’ she pondered with a perplexed expression. “Absolutely not, I look like a gross ragamuffin.”

He sighed, “Charlie lift up your shirt or I’m gonna hold out.” he asservated pleased with her shocked expression. “Oh yeah, hold out what exactly?” she challenged with raised eyebrows. He knew the denial of sex would be the thing to do it for her. Already she had an insatiable sexual appetite hence here they were here six months pregnant, but pregnancy hormones only amplified that. “You really don’t wanna play those games with me Tobias, or you’ll find yourself handcuffed to bed and taken by force.” she lightheartedly fired back. “I’m quite intrigued as long as I can return the favor.” he huskily dropped an octave and whispered to her. She shivered and scoffed “You a silly little freak.” with a laugh.

“Honestly Charlie, all this is unnecessary as all I wanted was my pictures and could have been going about my business by now but someone refused to get along with the picture. Pun heavily intended.” he sighed.

“Okay I’ll bite, but what are you even doing with these pictures?”

“Well, if you must know. I take your picture or video then I pleasure myself.” he sexily drawled “then upload it online to make a virtual scrapbook.” he happily finished. “Why am I not surprised?” she chuckled as she shoved his laughing form. “Wait, you still masturabte?” she inquisitively questioned.

“Well, yeah sometimes you're in a horrifying mood and I’d rather work with what I’ve got than you ripping my head off, do you?”

“Actually no, not since I met you at least.” she truthfully noted, as her hands just didn’t do the job since Dr. Tobias Carrick waltzed into her life with his devilishly handsome face and rocked her world.

“I’m doing my job right then.” he pressed with a smirk. “Mhm, too right if you ask me.” she quipped pointing to her very round and beautiful stomach adorned with barely visible glittery stretch marks that only magnified her beauty and strength. “What’s on your mind now?” he pried while she poked at her bump in the mirror. “Me and Sienna, Aurora, and Jackie are going out to Carson Beach and I can’t decide whether to wear a two or one piece.”

“Two pieces of course so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.” he smiled proudly.

“Four minutes hardly constitutes at “labor” she mocked with air quotes. He smacked his teeth in annoyance, “If you loved me you’d do this for me.” he pleaded. And now it was her turn to kiss her teeth, “Fine!” she huffed. “But leave my face out of it, I look icky in the mornings.” to which he eagerly disagreed and pecked her lips but not before muttering something along the lines of “stunning”.

“Alright, I’ll give you your little video but you have to do something for me.” she suggestively proposed. To which he readily agreed as he loved her ‘just been fucked’ afterglow. He then turned off the old camcorder and attempted to put it away but she fingered the loops of his jeans “Uh uh turn it back on.”

He was sure his eyes were completely bulging out of his skull and managed to mutter a “Charlie a-are you serious?” in his daze. She nodded and sunk down to her knees as she slowly tugged down his boxers and elicited a low groan from him.

In the lens of the camera she expertly handled his member with care and tenderly began to stroke him giggling at his floored expression. “You ready for me, Tobias?” she tantalizingly asked not ceasing her stroking. Receiving an eager nod and thumbs up from the camera she smirked at her success in making the talkative bastard speechless. Expertly she teased his large in girth and lengthy member with the tip of her tongue before guiding him into her mouth as she had done tons of times before sucking her mans dick like a woman starved.

“Oh god, slow down baby.” Tobias pitifully groaned while screwing his mind down as the love of his life expertly worked him. “You wanna be inside me, baby?” she whispered in a sultry tone against the head of his member cursing a pleasant shiver to rack his body. He didn’t answer but instead made a gesture behind the camera for me to turn around. He thanked the heavens above for the easy access and the fact that she was wearing one of his shirts and abandoned underwear long ago. She hissed as his large strong hand cam crashing down on her bare ass, and soothed the pleasant sting with a soft rub. “Perfect.” he murmured as he continued his caressing of her more than generous backside. “How’s the view?” she asked with a wink through the mirror.

And with a quick and brutal thrust he was inside leaving her panting mess on the cold surface of the bathroom countertop as she moaned slowly.

“Amazing.” he quickly answered before he began his unrelenting deep thrust. “Deeper” she moaned out in the air. Resting on her palms and easing away from the countertop she made eye contact with a chipper Tobias as he violently thrust into her and she had to brace herself. “Where are you going Char?” Tobias teased as she stood on her tiptoes desperately in an unsuccessful attempt of creating space between them.

“Damn I know I told him deeper, but now he's just showing out for the camera.” she thought while groaning as he hit a spot inside her making let out a loud guttural moan. He made the most out of his opportunity reaching to rub her clit. Moaning even louder he soon used one hand to grip her shoulder as he angled the camcorder downwards to catch sight of his pelvis meeting her dripping cunt. Closing her eyes for some reprieve she opened them to meet Tobias’s eyes in the mirror to find him damn near gnawing through his lip to hold back his loud groans.

Her release soon crep up on her and she moaned loudly, “Baby, I-” to which he cut her off as he sped up his tireless thrust, “Me too. Don’t wait for me.” and with that she came harder than ever and fell back on the counter, a panting mess and sweating bullets and winced as he pulled out of her. She mistakenly thought he was going to clean her only for him to zoom in the camera to get a close up of her used pussy with his milky cum dripping out of her.

Once he caught his breath he chuckled “That was amazing and it wasn’t even my birthday.” to which she rolled her eyes with a dazed expression and a small smile on her face since enjoying the after effects of their morning activities.

“Yeah yeah you better delete that.” she warned turning on the shower.

“Uh-Uh Charlie we just made a porno, I’m downloading this to my USB and keeping it in my safe.” he remarked while being transfixed at the camcorder in his hands causing her to snort with laughter.

“Whatever, if it gets leaked I better get paid for it.” she declared while leaving to her shower leaving Tobias in a cheerful fit of post orgasmic laughter.

Fin.

A/N: That was nasty and you read it so you’re nasty too.

[rapeculturerealities]

For millions of working women, the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a rare and ruinous one-two-three punch.

First, the parts of the economy that were smacked hardest and earliest by job losses were ones where women dominate — restaurants, retail businesses and health care.

Then a second wave began taking out local and state government jobs, another area where women outnumber men.

The third blow has, for many, been the knockout: the closing of child care centers and the shift to remote schooling. That has saddled working mothers, much more than fathers, with overwhelming household responsibilities.

“We’ve never seen this before,” said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan and the mother of a second grader and a sixth grader. Recessions usually start by gutting the manufacturing and construction industries, where men hold most of the jobs, she said.

The impact on the economic and social landscape is both immediate and enduring.

The triple punch is not just pushing women out of jobs they held, but also preventing many from seeking new ones. For an individual, it could limit prospects and earnings over a lifetime. Across a nation, it could stunt growth, robbing the economy of educated, experienced and dedicated workers.

Inequality in the home — in terms of household and child care responsibilities — influences inequality in the workplace, Misty L. Heggeness, a principal economist at the Census Bureau, concluded in a working paper on the pandemic’s impact for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Without a more comprehensive system of support, she said, “mothers will forever be vulnerable to career scarring during any major crisis like this pandemic.”

The latest jobs report from the Labor Department showed that some of the damage was reversed last month as the service industry revived, nudging down the jobless rate for women to 6.5 percent, slightly below men’s. But there were still 4.5 million fewer women employed in October than there were a year ago, compared with 4.1 million men.

And according to the Census Bureau, a third of the working women 25 to 44 years old who are unemployed said the reason was child care demands. Only 12 percent of unemployed men cited those demands.

Laci Oyler has felt that pressure. Her husband, employed by a large printing company, was already working from home when the pandemic shuttered day care and schools in Milwaukee. But after two days of taking care of their two young sons, “he said, ‘Absolutely no way,’” Ms. Oyler explained. So she cut her weekly hours as a mental health counselor for Alverno College, a small Catholic institution, to five from 32.

In August, when she learned that public schools would continue to offer only online classes for the fall, Ms. Oyler decided she had little choice but to take an unpaid leave.

This month, she decided to resign.

“Work is so much more than what you’re taking home as payment,” Ms. Oyler said. “But when you look at that bottom line of risk versus reward, it doesn’t seem worth it,” she added, referring to the cost of child care combined with the possibility of coronavirus infection for her or her children.

As a licensed professional, Ms. Oyler does not expect to have difficulty returning to the work force when she is ready. But for most working women, dropping out to take care of children or other family members exacts a sizable toll, several studies have shown. Rejoining is hard, and if women do, they generally earn less and have less security. And the longer someone is out of work, the tougher it is to get back in.

Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard, said this was the first recession where the economy was so intertwined with the network of child care.

“During the Great Depression, no one cared about the care sector,” she said. “Women weren’t in the labor force, and they weren’t supposed to be.”

One reason that Congress started giving financial assistance to poor households headed by women in the 1930s, under a program originally titled Aid to Dependent Children, was so they could stay home with their children and not compete with men for jobs, Ms. Goldin said.

Only during World War II, when women were urgently needed in factories and offices to replace men who were in the military, did the government establish a far-reaching federally subsidized network of nurseries and child care centers in nearly every state. Once the war ended, so did the support.

“You cannot have a contented mother working in a war factory if she is worrying about her children, and you cannot have children running wild in the streets without a bad effect on the coming generations,” Senator Carl Hayden, an Arizona Democrat, testified in 1943.

Women make up roughly half of the country’s work force. They range from entry-level to professional, they live in urban, suburban and rural areas, and they often care for toddlers and teenagers. But the burdens of the pandemic-induced recession have fallen most heavily on low-income and minority women and single mothers.

Members of these overlapping groups often have the most unpredictable schedules, and the fewest benefits, and are least able to afford child care. They fill most of the essential jobs that cannot be done from home and, therefore, carry the most risk for exposure to the virus. At the same time, they make up a disproportionate share of the service industries that have lost the most jobs. The jobless rate is 9.2 percent for Black women and 9 percent for Hispanic women.

When the pandemic caused housecleaning jobs to dry up, Andrea Poe was able to find cleaning work at a resort in Orange Beach, Ala., about a 45-minute drive from Pensacola, Fla., where she and her 14-year-old daughter, Cheyenne Poe, had moved in with an older daughter, her fiancé and their five children.

The families were behind in the rent and threatened with eviction when Hurricane Sally ripped through the coast in September. To escape the floods, they piled into two cars, drove to Biloxi, Miss., and spent five nights in a Walmart parking lot.

Now Ms. Poe and Cheyenne, who has turned 15, are in Peoria, Ariz., living in a room in her mother’s trailer.

She said she was applying for jobs every day, so far without luck. And the bills keep coming. Ms. Poe has missed two consecutive loan payments on her car and worries that it will be repossessed.

“I’m just hoping my unemployment checks come through so my car doesn’t get taken away,” she said. “If I lose my car, I’ll never be able to get a job.”

Women with more resources are in a better position, but they struggle in other ways.

When the pandemic ripped through Seattle and compelled Kenna Smith, 37, to work from home, she initially saw one upside — a chance to spend more time with her 3-year-old son.

“At first, I thought I’d just focus on my child,” said Ms. Smith, who had just started a branding and design company, Wildforth Creative. “It was fun for a while, but then the stress was intense.”

Like many families who were worried about the risk of infection or short of money and space, Ms. Smith and her husband let their son’s nanny go. Her husband, project manager for a general contractor, worked out of their bedroom.

“I’m not sure why it totally fell on me,” Ms. Smith said of child care. “I’m out in the living room, dining room area with a whole bunch of toys strewn about, with my laptop, trying to run my business.

“I was wanting to work and wanting my business to succeed so badly,” she said. “I didn’t realize. …” She paused, interrupted by a voice: “Mommy, I want some applesauce.”

The couple recently decided to hire a part-time nanny, concluding that despite the expense, it was the only way both could keep working. (Ms. Smith’s sister is also helping out.)

From 2015 until the pandemic, women’s increasing participation in the work force was a primary driver of the economy’s expansion, said Ms. Stevenson, the Michigan economist. “It’s why the economy grew the way it did, why employers could keep hiring month after month,” she said.

Since February, women’s participation in the labor force has been falling, with the biggest decreases among women without college degrees who have children.

Changes forced on women by the pandemic elicit a mixture of anxiety and hope.

Many women worry that the changes will sharply narrow women’s choices and push them unwillingly into the unpaid role of full-time homemaker.

And the impact could stretch over generations, paring women’s retirement savings, and reducing future earnings of children now in low-income households.

“We are creating inequality 20 years down the line that is even greater than we have today,” said Ms. Stevenson, who was a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “This is how inequality begets inequality.”

Yet there is also the possibility that the mounting pressures could create momentum to complete the unfinished project of fully integrating women into the work force by providing a system of family support — like affordable child care and paid parental and sick leave.

“I think we’re really at a crossroads,” said Julie Kashen, director for women’s economic justice at the Century Foundation and one of the authors of a new report on the pandemic and working women. “We’ve never built a workplace that worked for people with caregiving responsibilities.”

[angelsswirl]

Whatever Makes You Happy

Chapter 1: "i saw you in a dream"

Summary: Lisa Manoban, owner of LLE (one of the biggest entertainment companies in South Korea) just hired you as the nanny of her kids. You hadn't gone into the job wanting to seduce your boss. But, as you spend more time with her, it seemed you simply didn't have a choice.

Pairing: Lisa x Reader

Rating: Mature; language, eventual sexual content

Warnings: None

Requested: No

Notes: Alright, here's that new bp fic I've been alluding to. Been Through will be updated within the week. Check out the Whatever Makes You Happy playlist!

I saw you in a dream

Then it came to an end

I wonder if you'll come and visit me again

Were you qualified for this job? No. Not particularly. You had went to University for dance, not for babysitting or "nannying" if one will.

But you were running out of options. Your parents gave you an ultimatum. It was either find a job with stable benefits in Seoul or move back in with them and help your dad with his restaurant.

So, it was really like you only had one choice, because working with your dad definitely wasn't one of them.

And trying to get a decent, beneficial job with a dance specialization was like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks. You're sure someone somewhere could do it, but that person simply wasn't you.

Again, so, here you were. Resumé on your lap. Hands folded on top of it. And legs crossed beneath. Waiting for your interview to commence.

Being a live-in nanny for the children of one of Korea's most powerful women certainly couldn't be that hard. And people had definitely lived less glamorous lives.

Besides, you were still going to be able to do what you had dreamed about, what you had been born to do. At night. After you tucked the kids into bed. And in a near empty livingroom. Ok. Maybe you wouldn't be able to do what you wanted to.

"Miss Y/LN? You can go on in." The nice receptionist nodded in the direction of the office.

You took a deep breath and stalked into the room.

The LLE building was pretty much your typical glass windowed office building. The only things that weren't bordered by windows were the dance and music studios.

You hadn't been particularly astonished by the building. You assumed Lalisa Manoban liked to keep things simple. You hadn't been particularly astonished by the building until you entered Lalisa Manoban's office.

You hesitate to call anything nowadays modern or high-tech. But that's exactly what was happening here. The room was static and sleek and there in the middle of it all was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen in your entire life.

"Miss Y/LN. You're late." That voice. Never had you heard something so effortlessly...sexy.

It took you a moment to actually understand what she had said in the first place.

Once you did, you frowned and looked down at your watch.

"Ma'am, I have to respectfully disagree. I'm actually early."

You looked up as she stalked around her large oak desk. A small smirk played at her lips. She leaned on the desk and crossed her arms.

"Oh. You're messing with me."

"Yes. I was. I appreciate the punctuality and you having the balls to correct me. Normally people just agree whether they're late or not."

You blushed at the praise but otherwise stayed silent.

"So, Y/N, tell me about yourself."

"Well, I-"

"You're hired."

"Huh?"

"You're hired."

"But shouldn't I like plead my case to you? Tell you why I would be a good fit?" You stared wide-eyed at the taller woman. She only adjusted the cuffs of her blazer before looking back up at you with a curious expression.

"No? I already read your resumé and references. You sound desperate enough to make this work no matter what and I do not have the patience to interview anyone else."

"But-"

"Do you want the job or not, Y/N? The quicker you say yes, the quicker we can discuss your salary, and then the quicker you can start earning it."

"Yes! I want the job." You almost dropped your papers in your haste to affirm.

"Thank God. I thought you were going to make me sit through more boring interviews."

You blushed heavily at her resulting smile. In your process of applying and researching the ever allusive Lalisa Manoban, (and by researching, you do mean watching and reading every single interview you could possibly find. You may or may not have even delved back into her idol days) no one had ever told you she'd be so damn charming.

"Okay, well now that that's handle. Next order of business, how much do you think would be a good amount to get paid?"

"Well the application said-"

"I know what the application said. I wrote it. I want to know how much you think you're worth." Lalisa crossed her arms over her chest and waited patiently for you to answer. She seemed more than content with just talking to you as a human being, and you had never found anything sexier.

....Clearly, you need to take a good evaluation of your standards if simply being treated like a human being turned you on.

"I think I'm worth quite a bit, Ms. Manoban."

"You can call me Lisa. You're taking care of my kids, I imagine we're going to be spending a lot of time together."

You gulped.

"Okay...I think I'm worth quite a bit, Lisa. I'm pretty fucking amazing if I do say so myself."

"You're avoiding the question. I admire the confidence that you, hopefully, rightfully exude. But, I want a number, Y/N."

You do not like the way Lalisa Manoban says your name. No name should ever carry that much sensuality or meaning or...or...truth when it leaves lips as perfect as Lalisa Manoban's.

On second thought, maybe you shouldn't take this job.

"2,000?" You just blurted out the first number you thought of. She was staring at you and you did not know what to do. Hopefully 2000 dollars wasn't too much of a stretch. After all, the life of her children is hanging in the balance.

"Oh, only $2000 a month? I thought for sure you were going to extort me or something. $2000? Seems much like highway robbery. How about $3500? That makes me feel better as your boss."

That was more than enough for you!

"Deal."

"Great. Next order of business? You meet the boys tomorrow. Hope you're not freaked out by seven year old twins. I know I certainly am sometimes."

"That shouldn't be a problem." You smiled softly at your new boss. Lisa seemed to avoid eye contact for a second before turning her gaze back to you. It was the most serious she had been all day.

"I-um they're still grieving over the lost of their other mother. Tho, I don't think they remember her much. We got divorced when they were three. I think they've been taking it out on their nannies. And it definitely doesn't help that I haven't been able to see them as much as I would like to lately. I guess what I'm asking is, just be patient with them. They're seven, sometimes they don't realize they're being little pains in the ass." Lisa rubbed at her eyes before looking at you.

You nodded profusely, "I understand. For what it's worth, I can tell you love them probably more than you love yourself. And I'm sure they know that. You seem like a pretty fantastic mother."

Lisa chuckled lightly, though, you weren't sure you heard too much humor in it, "Thank you, Y/N. I'll see you bright and early Monday morning."

[holylulusworld]

Green-eyed bad boy (2)

Summary: He’s trouble, you don’t care.

Pairing: AU!Dean x Reader, AU Sam, OFC’s

Warnings: angst, tension, flirty/cocky Dean, nakedness, talking about tattoos, voyeurism, virgin reader, innocent reader, language, smut, protected sex, fingering, oral (female receiving), seducing, slight age gap (the reader is 24; Dean is 28)

Trouble Masterlist

Eight months, two weeks and four days ago…

Blinking a few times, you need to let his words sink in. Your heart beats faster and you are sure the way you are breathing is wrong.

“Did you listen at all, Y/N?” Your father, or rather stepfather barks. He only was nice to you as he loved your mother, or at least he pretended to do so. 

“Yeah, Jason.” Sniffling you look away. “I heard your words. Every single word telling me you are going to marry a woman barely elder than me after my mom died not a year ago.” Spatting the words, you want to turn on your heels, but your stepfather grabs your arm harshly.

“You will be nice to her or you can leave my house. I think you should learn your place, Y/N. I only let you leave here and pay for your education as your mother asked me to do so. Don’t be useless for once and follow my orders…”

Stiffen you nod silently, not knowing where else to go. “Okay…”

“Good…now…” Handing you the keys to the house, garage and back yard your stepfather narrows his eyes. “I want you to let the gardener in the whole month. I will be away for at least a month, maybe two. Money is in my office, the brown envelope.”

“I don’t know how to…” His grip tightens and you whimper as your stepfather smirks at you. “You will learn how to live alone. You turn twenty-five, you are gone. Got it.”

“Yeah…mom really could pick them…” Mumbling the words you cry out as he backhands you. 

“I promised her to make sure you can end your education, nothing else. Twenty-five was the limit. Now take the keys and follow the list lying next to the envelope. All bills are paid, you only must buy food. No parties. No boys. No friends.”

Finally letting go of you your stepfather glares at the gardener who dared to walk into the house.

You can see the pity on the tall man’s face seeing your split lip and the tears rolling down your cheeks. “Sir, I’m Sam Winchester, my brother Dean is outside with the needed tools. Can we begin?”

“The student… Law was it, right?” Changing is posture your father offers Sam his hand and you wonder. “He’s studying law at Stanford. Maybe you should’ve studied something useful too…”

—-

Two weeks later the tall gardener is gone and got replaced by his brother. He’s tall too, cocky and doesn’t talk much. All he does is cutting the lawn while playing music.

Today you try to find some peace while looking for a payable apartment and a job to apply to. No way you will keep on living with your stepfather and his new wife.

“Can you hand me the water, Sweetheart?” Smirking the gardener eyes you up and down, enjoying the way you look up at him with doe eyes. “I won’t bite.”

Feeling your cheeks heating you nod, not able to talk to a man like him.

“Here…” Handing the tall man a bottle of water and a half of your sandwich you bite your lower lips as he takes a huge bite, moaning at the taste.

“Such a nice girl, Sweetheart. I bet your daddy is proud of you…” His piercing green eyes search your face only to see it fall.

“Stepfather, and he’s not. I need to…” Pointing toward the newspaper and your iPad you want to continue your research.

“Damn, such a shame…” You want to say something, want to tell him your stepfather doesn’t even like you, but he strips his Henley off, followed by his undershirt to reveal his muscles and tattoos.

With shaking fingers, you grab the newspaper while you try so hard to not stare at the man opening the water bottle only to pour it over his sweaty chest. A tiny whimper escapes your lips as he flexed his arms.

“You should look at my brother’s girlfriends’ profile. She offers a room. It’s a nice apartment, safe and clean. Sammy would hang out there, but according to my brother you liked him.” Dean turns toward the mowing machine, showing you the tattoo on his back.

There’s a phoenix on his left shoulder, one of the wings is placed at this left upper arm, the other spread over the back. It’s a beautiful tattoo and you could get lost in studying the man’s body.

“Are you in a gang?” Glancing at the odd numbers underneath the phoenix you gasp at your boldness. Believing he will get mad you try to get away but he’s turning around, giving you a dirty grin.

“Sweetheart, I am member of a gang. I like tattoos, the girls like it too.”

Stepping closer, close enough to let his breath fan over your skin the green-eyed man darts his tongue out. His fingers reach out for you, slowly sliding over your right arm.

“Girls…” Looking up at him with glassy eyes you barely recognize you place one hand onto his chest. “Is that the reason you’ve got a heart tattoo on your chest?”

“No, Baby Girl. That’s just the first step…you know…” He’s closer again, almost brushing your forehead with his nose. “First step? I don’t think I understand what this means…Sir…”

“Dean, Sweetheart. Just call me Dean.” Smirking he wraps his hand around your upper arm, squeezing your flesh. “It means this tattoo is for a special girl, a girl I didn’t find so far. One day her name will join the heart…”

“OH…” Nodding eagerly you look at the heart at his chest again. “That’s romantic…”

“Nah, I’m not into romance or cuddling. I’m rather the take what you want for one night guy.” His nose brushes your forehead and you shiver as you can smell his cologne and musky scent.

“You mean sex only…I see.” Shrugging you take a step back. “I don’t like men doing such a thing. Pretending they like you only to use you…”

“Baby Girl, I do not use anyone. All girls are coming back…” The smirk turns into a dirty grin. “…for more…”

—-

Every day the same pattern. Instead of sitting in the garden you hide in your room, behind the curtains to watch Dean take care of the garden or repair the fence. Dreamily you bite your lips when he takes off his shirt again.

Once or twice he got a glimpse of you, knowing you are watching him. Dean is flexing his arms, stretching his back to show you all he has to offer but so far you didn’t give in to his advances.

“Dude, get dressed,” Sam mutters as he steps into the garden, handing Dean the phone he forgot at Jessica’s place. “She’s not one of your one-nighters, Dean. Y/N is a good girl, innocent…”

“Innocent…” Looking up to your room Dean licks his lips as you hide behind the curtains, panting heavily. “I shouldn’t…”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t, Dean. I know you love your love them and leave them attitude, even the bad-boy façade, but that girl…” Sighing Sam points toward your window. “She’s been through enough without you breaking her fragile heart. Just don’t…”

“Don’t…” Dean nods, not wanting to hurt you even more. He can see the longing in your eyes and the want, but he will be damned to hurt you.

Forming a plan in his mind he will try to scare you away.

—-

Walking back toward the house, two heavy bags in your arms you wonder why a black muscle car stands in front of your fence. Glancing at the car you gasp at the sight of Dean butt-naked on top of a girl. 

He’s calling her dirty girl, while she screams underneath him. You want to look away, want to walk into the house but you can’t take your eyes off his body rocking into the woman.

To your shame he turns around, looking at you with those plump lips curved into a dark grin. Flustered and disappointed you rush toward the house, not wanting him to believe you are a peeping tom.

—-

For the next days, Sam took over his brother’s job, took care of your mother’s roses while you searched for an apartment and job. 

“Got some water for me, Sweetheart?” Dean husks but you don’t turn around. Simply pointing toward the water, you remain silent, continuing looking at a scrapbook you made with your mother. “Are you mad at me for having fun in front of your house?”

“Why should I? The street, we don’t own it and you are a grown man able to have sex with whoever you want to.” Sniffling you look at the next picture.

“Are you crying, Y/N?” Feeling guilty Dean looks you all over, seeing the red and puffy eyes he believes it’s his fault. “Listen…I’m sorry…”

“Gosh, Dean. Do you believe everything is about you?” Scoffing you jump up, pressing the scrapbook against his chest. 

“It’s my mom’s date of death. My stepfather promised to be here but he’s busy fucking a girl barely elder than me. You can have fun with this girl anytime. It’s not as if we are friends or anything…”

Turning on your heels you run toward the house, not looking back as Dean stands in the back yard, blinking a few times.

“Damnit…I want you…”

—-

Another week passed without Dean coming around. Oddly you miss his company, even if he only gave you a dirty grin or called you Sweetheart Dean made you feel comfortable around him.

Tonight, your friends insisted on dragging you into a bar. Here you are now, bored and not in the mood for their stupid jokes you look around to meet sparkling green eyes.

Your breathing quickens as he smirks at you, downing his drink in one go. Watching Dean for a while you sigh as a girl sits next to him, trying to get his attention but his eyes are focused on you and the way you look away now and then.

“I need to go, Lis. I don’t feel well and should sleep a bit.” Pecking your friend’s cheek, you say goodnight to call a cab outside of the bar but only a few heartbeats later you feel a presence behind you.

“It’s late, Y/N. You shouldn’t stand out here alone in the darkness.” Dean steps closer to wrap his jacket around your shoulders. “’s cold too, Sweetheart. Let me drive you home…”

“I can call a cab, Dean…” His hands move up and down your arms to warm you up as he chuckles behind you. “I didn’t ask for permission. Come to my car and I will drive you home, no talking back…”

“Okay…”

—-

Eyes glued to Dean as he drives toward your house you bite your lower lip. There’s a new tattoo at his right upper arm and you have the urge to shove his shirt away to reveal what it is.

“Just have a look, Sweetheart…” Shoving his shirt away Dean shows you it’s another phoenix.

“You like a phoenix?” Gently touching the colorful tattoo, you look at Dean. His features change for a moment. There’s a hint of sadness in these green orbs as he stops the car.

“It has a meaning, every tattoo…you know. The phoenix stands for resurrection, Baby. It means I was dead for a moment and came back to life.” Gasping you touch the tattoo again.

“You were dead?” Blinking you flinch as Dean places one large palm onto your thigh, gently caressing your skin.

“Car accident when I was eighteen. Sammy, me and my parents got hit by a truck. My parents…they died…” Gulping you feel his hand wander higher, squeezing you tightly. “I was in the hospital and my heart stopped beating for like half a minute. They had to reanimate me three times…”

“So…there will be three phoenixes one day?” Panting you spread your thighs as the hand wanders to your mound, cupping it shamelessly. “Dean…”

“I got another one…” Smirking Dean leans closer to brush his lips over your ear. “I’ll show it to you one day, Baby Girl. Now let me drive you home…”

“The numbers underneath the big phoenix…is that the date of death of your parents?” Dean shakes his head, brushing his fingers over your clit to ignite a spark you didn’t know exists.

“It’s the time my heart stopped beating. I will always remind myself I’m mortal, and destructible. I live my life the way I want to, Sweetheart. No rules. No complaints. No chains holding me down.”

—-

“Will you let me in to have a shower, Sweetheart. Sweat his running down me like a waterfall.” Dean takes his shirt off, licking his lower lip as you are only in a flimsy nightshirt. 

“I was still asleep. It’s Sunday morning, Dean…” Yawning you walk toward the stairs to show Dean the way to the shower. 

“You could join me, Y/N. I won’t bite…not if you don’t want me to…”

Stepping backward you shake your head, glancing at the tattoo at his chest once again. There are flames around the heart now, which seem to burn the heart.

“Changed it a bit, you know…” Stepping closer Dean cups your face. “I might have found someone burning me inside and outside…”

Plush lips press against yours and you gasp as his tongue swipes over your lips, forcing its way into your mouth.

“I want to taste you…” Purring the words Dean smirks as you blink a few times, not getting what he meant.

“I…uh-I got no clue what this means…” Laughing Dean presses his lips to your forehead. “You are a good girl after all…”

—-

While Dean has a shower, you prefer grabbing some clothes to get dressed. You can hear him sing under the spray, along with praises for the water pressure.

Giggling you get a pair of panties out of your drawer to get dressed but stop in your tracks, watching Dean walk into your room, only a towel slung around his waist.

“I thought you wanted me to taste you…” Dean’s eyes roam your body as you try to hide the panties in your hands.

“You won’t need those…” Taking the panties out of your hand Dean tosses the fabric over his shoulder. “Need you to lie on your bed and spread those pretty legs…”

“I…no…Dean…” Pressing your hands against his chest you shake your head. “I never…I can’t…”

“Shh…I want to taste you, not steal your innocence - not today at least.” A dirty promise in his words Dean pushes you onto the bed, making you yelp as he crawls onto the bed to spread your legs. “Son of a bitch, Baby Girl. Such a nice little cunt you have…”

Paralyzed you feel one finger slide over your folds, spreading your arousal around your clit. His thumb draws circles around your nub, and you gasp as he lowers his head to replace his thumb with his tongue.

“Dean! Oh…god…” Grasping for his hair you cry out as his wet tongue laps at your folds. You read about this in a book, but never thought you would ever experience someone will willingly go down on you. 

“Fuck, you taste so good, Baby Girl. Can’t get enough.” 

Your thighs lock around his head caging him as he wraps his lips around your clit, suckling hard enough to let your legs shake.

“I…it feels…please…” Fisting his hair harder you press his face further into your sex, grinding against him and Dean groans against you. “I tainted you…” Purring the words he slips two fingers into you, teasing your entrance.

“Dean,” Whimpering you arch your back. “Oh…don’t stop…please.”

Smirking against your he laps at your folds, as his digits slide deeper into your pussy.

“You want this? Right here…right now?” Eyes three shades darker Dean looks up at you, smirking as you nod eagerly.

“Please…”

“God, I’m such a selfish bastard…” His lips seal around your clit, sucking hard and you cry out his name. “Love it when you cum…”

You’re a quivering mess, boneless and shivering as Dean kneels between your legs to remove his towel.

“Dean…do you have something with you?” Nervously chewing at your lower lip, you point toward his cock and he laughs, nodding eagerly. “We will wrap it before I take you apart, Sweetheart…”

“Take me apart…” Eyes wide, fearful you watch Dean grab his wallet to fish a condom out. “I will not hurt you, Y/N. Let me make you feel good, Sweetheart. I know how to treat a girl right…”

“I know, you got some practice a few weeks ago after all.” Smirking Dean nods before he pounces on you, tugging at the shirt covering your body. 

“Get this off … now.” Growling Dean kneels between your thighs, watching you strip your shirt off with a dark grin on his lips. “You’re fucking perfect, damn…” Cupping one tit he squeezes your tender flesh and you press it further into his hand.

“Dean…”

“I’ve got you, Y/N. Do you want this? I need to know you don’t do this only as I’m here between your thighs. We can stop anytime.” Dean tilts his head to wrap his lips around one nipple, causing you to arch your back. “So responsive…”

“I want this…with you. All guys I knew are…dunno…” Shrugging you look at Dean. “I want a man, not a boy…”

“I am a bad boy, Baby Girl but I’m going to make you feel so good…” Pushing you onto the pillow he kneads one breast, not taking his eyes off you as he rips the foliage of the condom open with his teeth.

—-

“Do you think Dean is into that girl? He spends more time at her stepfather’s house than he gets paid for.” Jess smirks as her boyfriend sighs heavily.

“He wanted to help me out, take over my shifts and I am afraid he’ll get into trouble or hurt Y/N. She’s not his usual girl…maybe we should intervene, Jess…” Meeting his girlfriend’s eyes Sam gives her his puppy dog eyes.

“Sam, he changed the tattoo…you know…” Pointing at Sam’s heart Jessica smiles. “There are flames now, Sam. You know what this means…”

Looking at his tattoo Sam smiles. Loving the way Jess slides her hand over his chest to place it onto his heart. “You mean he found the one?”

“I think he did, Sammy…”

—-

“Just relax, let me in, Y/N.” Settling between your legs Dean carefully slips the tip in to press into you. You are a panting mess, nervous as hell to embarrass yourself as Dean slowly inches into you. 

“You’ve got freckles…” Giggling you slide your fingers over his chest, glancing at the little dots all over Dean’s skin.

“I got freckles, Baby Girl and …shit…oh…you’re so tight around me.” Bottoming out with a groan Dean press his lips against yours, slipping his tongue into your mouth.

Your hands slide over his shoulder, gripping him tightly as you feel him slide back out.

After a few shallow thrusts, Dean sets pace taking your breath away.

Your legs wrapped tightly around his thighs you try to match his rhythm.

The spark reignites and you dig your nails into his shoulders, crying out his name to urge Dean on.

“Want you to cum for me, Sweetheart. Need to feel this tight pussy squeezing me…” Nodding you peck his lips, panting against him while the heat in your lower abdomen gets unbearable.

“Please…so close…” Your hands get pinned down as Dean press his knees into the mattress to slam his hips against yours. He pants, curses and moans between thrusts, looking like the bad boy he is with his smirk on those plush lips.

“Fuck, Sweetheart…” Body shaking, you whimper as you come undone. “Best fuck I ever had…”

You feel something warm fill the condom, not daring to say a word. “I think…” Kissing your neck Dean smiles against your skin. “I want to do this with you again…”

—-

Months later…

“You’ve got a surprise for me, Dean?” Sitting on his hood you look up at your boyfriend, your lover, your bad boy as he unbuttons his Henley.

“All for you, Sweetheart.” With shaking fingers, you touch his chest. The heart is even more on fire now, but that’s not what takes your breath away. It’s your name written under the heart.

“That’s my name…” Stammering you get up to kiss his chest. “My name…”

“You name, Baby Girl, only your name.” Smirking Dean cups your cheek. “Now, we need to decide where to put my name…”

“Hmmm…my chest?” Dean shakes his head, looking you all over before his eyes land on your lap. “I think I found my favorite spot…”

“No way!”

“Can I seduce you?” Wiggling his eyebrows Dean smirks as you pout at him. “How about my chest, right over my heart. Matching tattoos…”

“Bad boys do not wear matching tattoos…” Cursing Dean feels your hand slide over his chest as you look up at him with doe eyes.

“But you are my bad boy, Dean. My man can wear matching tattoos…”

“Fine…you win…” Grumbling Dean presses his lips to yours, snaking his tongue with yours.

“I’ll have a phoenix too, Dean. I want one on my shoulder as the moment I met you I got resurrected too…”

>> Part 3

SPN Forever Tags

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Dean/Jensen Forever Tags   

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[imagine-loki]

The Naughty Poltergeist

TITLE :The Naughty Poltergeist

CHAPTER: #1 of ?

AUTHOR'S: lokilover9 & velvetzybanshee

RATING: M

NOTES: This one shot is based on Loki having paid penance for ruining Thor's coronation. He never fell from the bifrost, nor attacked earth and is now free. Not to discount his true history, we just thought he deserved some happy. As for Felipe, he's based on the Spanish character Agador Spartacus, from the movie  The Birdcage and speaks in broken english. 

EXTRAS: Madre = mother  niña = girlfriend  panocha = pussy

Original Imagine  

Imagine thinking your new house is haunted. No one knows Loki lives there because he's always invisible and conjures furniture as needed. Disgruntled by your presence, he behaves like a poltergeist until one day you've had enough."I'm not leaving! Show yourself dammit!" Nothing happens for days and you think he's gone. Then while giving friends a tour, you find him naked on your bed drinking whiskey. "Cheers, darling. You did say show myself." Only you can see him and he follows you around like that for the remainder of their visit.

Loki was content residing on Midgard. With Thor King of Asgard remaining heavily influenced by Odin, he felt displaced as ever and decided to travel abroad. It was aloud providing he didn't hide from Heimdall and returned were the realm threatened, but that didn't mean he behaved. Midgard's continents teamed with beautiful maidens and Loki spent months at a time seducing them across the globe. Yet an introvert by nature, the constant socializing became exhausting. He needed intervals of solitude to rejuvenate his mind and cock. Indecisive of where, he conjured a world map, closed his eyes and randomly chose a location. 

First attempt. "A Frost Giant in the Amazon? I think not." 

Second. "Middle of the Bermuda Triangle? Know enough aliens already, thank you." 

Third. "Inside and active volcano? Fenrir's arsehole." He scoffed. 

Fourth. "Very well. Maine it is." 

The god settled in a vacant Victorian evicting its two following buyers with  'ghostly' shenanigans. Yet to the king of this miniature palace's annoyance the next didn't frighten so easily. 

Alexis was proud having bought her own house after a long divorce. Closer to friends and hours from meddling family, she'd thought herself free of troubles until sensing the place haunted. While unpacking, items started going missing and resurfacing in different places like her keys, clothing and once her vibrator after an evening of ménage à moi, disturbingly appeared in her dishwasher the next morning. Doors would slam, electricity short circuited, faucets unexpectedly ran, but most disconcerting was a voice randomly whispering 'mine' into her ear. Whether in the shower, her yard, doorways, the ghost didn't care. Alexis burned sage, had the house blessed, held a seance with a local paranormal group, but nothing helped. When returning after a long day at work to find half the main floor repacked, she angrily shouted into the air. 

"Ha ha, trickster! You don't scare me and I am 'not' leaving!" She held up a large envelope. "This is 'my' crib and here's the deed to prove it. Show yourself dammit!" Nothing happened so she put everything back, showered, grabbed her vibrator and stormed into the upstairs corridor. "And one more thing! See this? Touch it again and I'll summon your ass with a ouija board and douse you in holy water!" 

Loki inwardly chuckled. 'I'll be sure to bring a towel.' When she fell asleep reading in bed, he snuck a peek at what had intrigued her. 'Smutty fanfiction? Tisk, darling. Who could your heartthrob be? The name sounded familiar so he googled it. 'Ah, the actor from Crimson Peak. Good movie, but I'm much better looking. 'A wicked grin curled his lips when she moaned Tom's name. 'Maybe I need to play a little 'dirtier.'

With the next several days uneventful, Alexis thought she'd frightened the ghost off when in reality he was buying time. Since moving her in friends offered extra hands in their free time, but it was her befriended neighbor, a single gay man with a flamboyant, funloving personality who'd helped the most. They met one afternoon when she peered over his fence to complain about blaring Salsa music as he hosted a pool party. Felipe was sunbathing in a yellow thong, wearing sunglasses with enough bling to impress Liberace and choked on a shot of tequila when she whipped a pebble at his head. He invited her over with a promise to adorn shorts, they hit it off and became besties. 

Alexis planned to have other friends over for dinner one month after moving in, but with all the goings on had postponed twice. Now with a set date, Felipe was invited too and asked what she planned to cook.

"Who said anything about cooking? I suck at it Amigo and prefer no one hurling on my lawn." 

She waved a take out menu and he dramatically gasped. "Chinese food for eight people? Where you gonna put up you blow job booth to pay the mortgage after?"

Alexis smirked. "You're such a slut, Felipe."

He shrugged. "Happy whoopie stick makes a happy me."

"I think I've forgotten what they look like." 

"I show you mine, but no touchy touchy." She laughed, knowing he was kidding. "Too long without sex causes brain damage, niña. How long its been for you?" 

"Since my ex and I separated nineteen months ago."

"Ay dios mio. I lend you my Dustbuster for the cobwebs down there."

"Not funny, Felipe." 

"See. Abstinence makes everyone bitchy. My sister Maritza too. She was happy single before becoming a nun. Now she's Oscar the grouch with eyes like the chucky doll."

"How come you can pronounce words like 'abstinence' and 'cock' so well yet not others?" Alexis teased.

"Don't make me spank you. Come, we go shopping."

"For what?"

"I help you cook. We stay home and talk about cock, mine will curse me in Spanish. He's lonely too."

Alexis slipped on footwear. 

"Why you wearing those?" Asked Felipe.

"What's wrong with flip flops?" 

He stepped onto the porch. "You need something sexier, like bitch boots."

"It's ninety degrees in the shade today."

"So?"

Loki sighed when the door closed, relieved for some peace. He thought Felipe annoying enough as a neighbor yet worse as a guest who never stopped talking. So much so, he'd pondered concocting a tongue numbing spell, sneaking into his house and applying a heavy dose while he slept. But knowing his flair for drama, he'd run panicked to Alexis in the Boo from Monsters Inc. robe worn onto his deck every morning, carrying a note pleading to stay and until recovering, would hysterically sob each time he couldn't sing along to one of the show tunes on his phone. Loki opted to tolerate him for now. He'd be gone once Alexis left. 

The day of feasting came and while she handled finishing touches around the house, Felipe prepared guacamole dip and ingredients for fajitas while mixing margaritas. Hearing music, Alexis snuck to the kitchen and started recording him singing to Bad Girl, by Donna Summer while dancing like a hussy. 

"Toot toot, hey, beep beep

Toot toot, hey, beep beep

Hey mister, have you got a dime?

Hey mister, do you want to spend some time, ooh yeah

I got what you want, you got what I need

I’ll be your baby, come and spend it on me…"

He startled when noticing her.  "Girlfrien', you post that on social media, I kill you."

Alexis propped her phone on the counter and joined in wildly shaking her chest. 

Felipe tried the same. "No fair. I need big titties like yours to jiggle. Next time I bring tangerines and a bra."

Loki secretly watched on. 'Fucknuts.'

The three couples soon arrived. One, old neighbors of Alexis, Blake and Deidre, the others, her friends, Sage, Lisa and their newest flames Colby and Grant. She started a tour on the main floor then the upper leaving her bedroom for last. Excited to show it off, she was already opening the door as they shuffled out of the second.

"And this is my creme de la...eep!" She quietly squeaked once inside.

The resident spookster sat perched against her headboard sporting only what the Norn's delivered him to the universe in and winked pouring himself a whiskey. "You did say show myself, yes?"

She hurried out, slammed the door and her friends froze on approach. "Erm..wouldn't ya know I forgot to make my bed. Anyone for a drink?" 

Alexis passed them for the stairs and cringed when Deidre spoke. She was nice enough, but sometimes persistent when it wasn't welcome. "Nonsense, friends don't care. Right everyone?" 

Alexis continued down. "Enter at your risk then." 

Felipe watched her rush by into the pantry, close the door, followed and closed it too. "What you are doing?" 

"I can't go back out there."

"Why?" 

"He's upstairs naked on my bed." She anxiously whispered. 

"Which boyfriend? I take up the wooden spoon."

"No, the fucking ghost!" 

"It's a man? Is he hot and what do I tell your peeps? You afraid to come out of the closet?"

"Felipe!" 

"Sorry, it's the margaritas."

"I thought you the one person who believed my stories."

He eyed her sympathetically. "I do. You want I go bribe him to leave with a mcsqeezy?"

"Will you be serious? Ghosts aren't supposed to be naked. One look at him and everyone will think I invited them for an orgy." 

Blake and Grant came down first catching bits of their conversation and quietly conversed. 

"Can't believe she's still imagining this ghost." Blake wise cracked. "I always told Deidre she had a screw loose."

"Nah." Said Grant. "Lexi's a smart cookie. Sounds more like she needs a man. There's one inside with her. Maybe they'll shag, knock some shit off shelves." 

Felipe stuck his head out the door. "You not so quiet, cumquats. I gay. You want I show you my jolly green giant and shag 'you' inside against the creamed corn?"

Loki rubbed the back of his neck. 'I sacrificed prowling beaches of the French Riviera for this?'

Hearing the ladies coming, Alexis approached Blake and quietly inquired. "Still peeing in your wife's pond at night, murdering her koy? I'd see you through my bedroom blinds. Who's a few cans short of a six pack?" 

"Oooh snap." Said Felipe. 

Grant nudged the arse. "Let's chill in the dining room. There's a makeshift bar and appetizers."

The ladies entered the kitchen. "Who's a nincompoop?" Asked Deidre.

Felipe almost answered but pursed his lips together when Alexis loudly cleared her throat. "You know, just my ex."

"He sure is, honey." 

"Your bed's made, girl." Said Sage. "The room looks great." 

They all agreed passing through while thirty year old Lisa's younger boyfriend lingered. "Pretty awesome digs ya got here."

"Thanks." Replied Alexis.

Colby slid his hands into his pockets. "Soo..Lisa says you think it's haunted."

"Yep."

He spaced out for a second, staring at the floor. "I once thought a bat in our house was my dead uncle Howie haunting my parents for selling his mannequin of Vlad the Impaler. But hey, sometimes weird shit happens when you're stoned right?" Alexis and Felipe were saved when Lisa called him. "She misses me already. Laters." 

"He looks fresh from his madres panocha." Commented Felipe.

"That's the way Lisa likes them. Says the younger they are, the easier it is to train them."

Loki rolled his eyes. 'Age is irrelevant.'

Felipe feigned fright by playfully biting his nails. "She bad. Maybe Colby wear a leash and bark like a good doggy for her?" He goofily imitated one in a deep voice. "Woof, woof..woof. Or maybe he sound like an angry chihuahua?"

Alexis smirked. "I have my own problems. A streaking phantom who now makes unexpected appearances."

Felipe gave her a margarita. "Cheers. These make everything better." 

Alexis gulped down the beverage as he watched with raised brows. "Thanks. Next time that streaker appears, I'll just ignore him."

"Next time I give you smaller glass. Go enjoy you friends, niña"

She gave a thumbs up on her way out. "I got this. Easy peasy right?"

Loki mischievously grinned. 'Darling, I'm just getting started.

[zigtheeortega]

to hell and back

✿ pairing: logan x mc

✿ word count: 4174

✿ warnings: mentions of violence from book one & angst

✿ tags: @diamondsless ; @agentsewell ; @violinet ; @messofakind ; @hudush ; @roguemal ; @troublemakerinspace ; @choicesarehard ; @litgpop ; @auroraemery 

✿ author’s note: i’m incredibly nervous to post this, as this is my first ever logan fic so please be gentle! i got the idea for this fic after watching portrait of a lady on fire, after being reminded of the myth of orpheus and eurydice, which if you haven’t ever heard of it, read up here! the idea of a forbidden love always breaks me but i’m a sucker for punishment, so i thought i’d apply that myth to future logan x mc (my mc’s name is raquel). i hit a follower milestone, too, so i thought i’d celebrate by pushing myself out of my comfort zone! woo![disclaimer: i’d never want to accidentally upset anyone by writing him ooc, so if you have any pointers, please dm me] 

•─────────✦✿✦────────•

He was the last person she’d expected to hear from. It’d been years. Her life was finally getting back on track, and she was moving on.

She white-knuckled the steering wheel, her hands slick with sweat, and peeled out of the parking lot of her dorm, leaving her world to enter his again.

Some days, her time with the Mercy Park Crew felt like a distant dream, a day dream she’d conjured while bored at school. Other times, she’d reminisce on his specific features to make sure she’d never forget what he sounded like, how he looked, how he felt.

Some days, she’d zero in on his eyes, the way the brown tones were multidimensional, layered, and how dark and full his lashes were, shading his dilated pupils when he’d stare at her lips before leaning in for a kiss.

Other days, she’d focus specifically on his hair; the strong coconut smell of his deep conditioning mask, which he unabashedly used, a secret she swore to keep, and the silky feeling of his thick waves beneath the pads of her fingers.

She’d spent years mulling over her time with the Mercy Park Crew, spilling tears every time she came across her prom photo with Logan, so often that she had to lock it up in a journal she’d filled long before. She was used to the feeling of a choked sob, the tension in her lungs and the soreness that came after a good cry: a comfort so familiar to her that it was one of the only things that reminded her she was alive – that she was human.

She’d spent so much time grappling with her morality, the guilt of her involvement weighing heavily on her for her entire freshman year. The depression that came with it was unrelenting, the loneliness of moving across state lines settling in almost immediately. The nightmares were worse.

They came as quickly as they went – in short blips, interwoven with her worst memories. It wasn’t unusual for her to wake up in cold sweats, vivid details of bullets ripping through flesh, the metallic smell of blood burned into her memory.

She often woke up trembling, panting, always quick to muffle her cries with her pillow as to not wake her roommate.

She spent the majority of her first year in isolation, a self-inflicted punishment for the people she’d harmed in such a short span of time. Thankfully, her roommate was rarely there.

She was homesick, but not for Los Angeles. 

No matter how much she wanted to go back, she wouldn’t allow herself to go. Not for holiday breaks or summer.

For the first year, her chest felt like a gaping wound, and she struggled with aimlessness, the thoughts of her purposelessness a constant mental burden. She toed the ledge, always close to jumping but never committed.

It took intense therapy to get her to a safe distance.

She slammed on the brakes, the red hue of the brake light in front of her the only thing warning her to stop. The burst of adrenaline she got from almost rear-ending another car was the most she’d felt in a long time.

She had chased the high relentlessly, either isolating herself completely during depressive episodes or throwing herself into high risk situations to feel something – anything.

Driving had become a utility to her, transportation and nothing more.

She associated the exhilarating sensation of pressing the gas pedal until her foot was nearly pointed, the smell of burning rubber, her tangled, windswept hair caught in her lip gloss – with Logan. It was wrong to try to recreate it without him.

When she’d left for Langston, she’d never looked back. Partially because she felt like she had nearly nothing anchoring her to L.A., but also because her last semester had a sense of finality to it. The crew vanished without a trace, and her inhibitions returned.

It took her five days of driving and stopping to make it to the campus. Her once intimidating, tightly packed car barely filled her half of the shared dorm room. And once she was on campus, she rarely drove anywhere, unless absolutely necessary.

She clung to the hope that she’d be able to find a crew of her own in undergrad, and that she’d hear his voice again. Envisioning Logan’s lips enunciating her nickname gave her a rush close to adrenaline, but not quite.

The soft pattering of rain on her windshield drew her out of her reminiscent thoughts. She blinked, glancing around the pitch black road, searching for a road marker. She flicked her high beams on, bouncing off of a distance marker. “Greenwood – 13 miles”.

He’d called at nearly midnight, his voice trembling, quiet, the bass of his voice keeping him from a true whisper. “Raquel, I need you.”

His tone was pure fear, the four words dripping with the subtext of a flubbed deal, a job gone wrong.

She kept the same phone number, clinging to the belief that maybe, just maybe, she’d hear her name roll off his tongue one more time. 

It took three years for her to hear his voice again. And he was terrified.

She’d spent three long years dealing with the aftermath of the spring of her senior year of high school. A couple months of living in a new world had left a lifetime of damage, and she’d come out of it changed. The damage had festered, so much so that she had to seek help.

She’d promised herself that if she ever saw him again, she’d stand her ground, and try to pull him out of the deep end. She was strong willed, and well intentioned, that much she was sure. She learned so much about herself during that last semester, and she was grateful for it.

And all of that was abandoned the second he spoke her name.

She turned off the highway, and after a long stretch of backroads framed with gravel driveways, the bar came into focus. The open sign flickered, overshadowed by the numerous draft beer logos shining brightly around it.

The parking lot was nearly empty, a couple of reverse-parked pickup trucks scattered across the gravel. The muffled music met her ears, barely audible over the electric bug zapper near the entrance.

She still couldn’t get used to the muggy, swampy weather of the east coast, much less the mosquitoes and the irritating itchiness of a fresh bite.

The chill of the air conditioning hit her before her nerves did. With nothing but a few bills, her driver’s license, phone, and determination, she’d set out to save him. She hadn’t even prepared.

What was she supposed to say to the one person who burrowed his way into her subconscious and never left? The one that she was forced to live without, even though she craved daily him like the sweet bitterness of nicotine, the fleeting high enough to keep her coming back, no matter if it’d eventually kill her.

In the back booth of the dingy bar, she saw him.

She noticed the stubble first, so foreign from the smooth tanned skin she remembered running her fingers across. The dark circles under his eyes aged him, the years of trauma finally catching up to him. It’s like his light was dimmed; she thought he was broken before, but whatever healing journey she’d had, he’d endured the opposite over the years.

His cheeks looked hollow, like he hadn’t eaten in days. From the look of his greasy hair and dirt stained white tee, he’d been on the run nonstop.

“Logan?” She called out, just loud enough for him to hear.

He met her eyes, and for a brief second, they were empty, devoid of emotion, just long enough for her to notice, before they filled with tears. He jumped up from the tattered booth seat: grabbing her in a crushing hug, burying his face in her neck.

He murmured her name into her neck over and over, like he couldn’t believe she was real. She wrapped her arms around him, his familiar warmth bringing her to tears. 

And they stayed like that, enveloped in each other, not a single thing around them mattering, except the feeling of being in each others’ arms after years apart.

When she pulled back to look at him, he stared at her lips, and ran his thumb across her chin. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she breathed, her arms snaking around to his front, and she grazed the tight muscles of his torso.

A drunken man shoved past them towards the restrooms, taking her out of the moment.

“Should we sit?”

He nodded, sliding onto his side of the table. “Do you… want a drink, or?” He asked, a bit nervously.

“No, I’m driving.” She fiddled with the braided keychain attached to her car keys, pulling at the frayed edges.

“That’s the responsible Raquel I missed,” he chuckled, breaking the tension a bit. He took a deep gulp from the beer bottle in front of him.

“I missed you so much,” she sighed, watching his face intently, committing every new detail to memory, tucking it away for later.

“I missed you, too.”

It was a hard conversation to initiate, much less navigate. She was still deciding if he was real – she’d dreamt of the moment she’d see him again, and it wasn’t anything close to what was happening.

She’d daydreamed of him pulling up to her dorm, parked out front like he did when they first met, as cliche as it sounded. Donned with the same white tee and jeans, he was leaning against the car (in her dream she pictured a convertible, so she could watch how beautifully the wind’s rough caress styled his hair, able to tousle it in a way a pair of hands never could), a smirk on his face, his arms folded, but his body language was never uninviting. He was relaxed, untroubled, as she kissed him, and they drove off into the sunset. A cliche, but at least they were both happy.

“So…” she started.

“I know you have a lot of questions, but I don’t know if I can answer all of them right now,” he finished, apologetic.

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say that… subter-fudge doesn’t always work to get you out of sticky situations.”

“You mean subterfuge?”

“Okay, truth be told I’ve never used that word in my life, but it was the word of the day on this dictionary app I have. And I was saving it for a good time, but I think I fucked it up,” he smiled, shaking his head.

She reached across the table, covering his hand with her own. “Let me get this straight. You not only learned a new word to use on me, but you have a dictionary app? You know you can just Google words, right?”

He shrugged. “I try to learn a new word as often as I can. It’s not much, but I feel smarter, even if I never use the word.”

“I thought it was cute.”

He chuckled, tracing his thumb across her knuckles. “You’re just trying to flatter me because I messed up.”

“No, I’m flattering you because you tried… and I missed you,” she said, squeezing his hand, the roughness of his skin comforting to her.

“God, I missed you more,” he whispered, eyes roaming over her face. “You really answered after all that time?”

“Yeah, of course. I knew you’d come back for me, eventually,” she smiled, burying the years of grief underneath the momentary gratification.

Her life since meeting and leaving Logan had been a probability. The numbers were infinite, the outcomes varied. She thought her psychology class would’ve been more rough on her mentally, but numbers didn’t lie.

Her calculus and statistics classes had been terrible – not just because she had to work twice as hard for a good grade in math classes, but because the problems so well translated to her life.

There were so many times that she could’ve died – so many times that she could’ve gone to prison for working with “criminals.” So many times that she jeopardized her future. And she was offered a way out, to start fresh.

But as many times as she tried to scare herself into feeling lucky and grateful for being steered back onto her path to success, she felt hollow. She had a one in a million chance of getting out of that life alive, but she had a one in a million chance of meeting Logan, too.

There were millions of people in Los Angeles County – she could’ve gone her whole life without knowing him, blissfully ignorant to the rough underbelly of the city she’d grown up in.

He changed her from the second he met her. Her probability split down the middle, branching into paths and subpaths, and multiple more until each move she made was critical. And the moment he left, she clung to him, despite the probabilities of them ever meeting again slimming more and more with each passing day.

He squirmed a bit, looking uncomfortable. She could tell that he was holding back. “Look, Raquel, I have to be completely honest with you, or it wouldn’t sit right with me. I know you haven’t seen me since you left for college, but… I’ve seen you.”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, all of the jobs I’ve taken since leaving L.A. have been on the east coast, so I could stay close to you. To protect you.”

It shouldn’t have been music to her ears, but witnessing those words fall from his lips filled her soul with a sensation she could only describe as tranquility.

Her first year of college was riddled with depressive episodes, but the ensuing paranoia that came after she was reminded of The Brotherhood was even heavy, even more suffocating. She watched her back so much that her body was covered with bruises from the times she’d run into door frames, trash cans, people, sometimes causing her to trip and fall.

She was so unhealthily fixated on all of the possibilities and outcomes that she withdrew, not wanting to be the reason anyone close to her was harmed. She spent so long worrying that it nearly ruined her.

But hearing that he was always there, close enough to keep her safe, alleviated her, renewed her, replenished her. It nearly undid the hurt, minus a critical detail.

“Why didn’t you reach out to me?”

“I couldn’t… hurt you. The crews I ran with… it would’ve –” he cut himself off with a shake of his head, throwing back the bottle to finish it off.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Logan,” she whispered, watching his labored breathing, like he was so close to crumbling before her eyes.

“No, I can handle it. It just might take me a few tries to get it out,” he smiled weakly, gripping her hand, and she held firm, grounding him.

“Truthfully, I wanted to call you. You don’t know how many times I typed your number out and deleted it. I know your number by memory now.

“I was already here by the time you moved in. I’d been recruited by one of Teppei’s old friends, if you could call him that. He seemed like a great guy at first, but…” he trailed off, pained.

“It got really bad. This guy said he never worked with the same crew twice, and I thought since he kept calling me back that I was special.” He laughed curtly, the familiar look of brewing rage bubbling beneath the surface. “It was stupid, but each time he kept pushing me into doing more than I bargained for. I did a lot of things I couldn’t stomach, but by the time I realized what I was doing, I was already getting orders for the next job.”

He watched her hand on his, refusing to meet her eye.

“I always thought I’d dip when things got too rough, but I couldn’t give up being so close to you.”

“You didn’t run?”

“I told you I was tired of running,” he grinned, and it seemed alien on his gaunt face – like it’d been so long since he smiled he’d forgotten how to do it.

“So, what are you doing now, then?”

“Running.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so deadpan, so pragmatic, that she knew not to pry. He was at rock bottom, and she was his only way out.

“What can I do?” she asked, no hesitation, ready to throw herself in the line of fire for him.

“I just need a ride to the used car lot on the other side of town. I have cash and someone there waiting to sell me one, so all I need is a ride.”

“You could’ve just called a cab or something, though. Why do you need me?” She prodded.

“I don’t know if you’re gonna like what I’m gonna say,” he hesitated, clearly torn.

“I can’t like or dislike it if you don’t tell me.”

He sighed. “Well, this might be the last time I can see you… for a while.”

“Can’t you just hide out and wait out till it’s safe? You can’t leave now, I just… I just got you back,” she choked, panicking and grieving all over again. 

“I have to. There’s a pretty hefty warrant out for me. And I’ve got people looking for me. I can’t drag you into that,” he said, solemn.

“No, you can get out, Logan, we just have to plan it out. We can beat this, we just have to try,” she whispered, vision blurring with tears.

“Hey, hey, Raquel, it’s okay, I’ve accepted it,” he soothed her, reaching out to stroke her face, swiping his thumb across the streaks of water the teardrops left behind. “I just wanted to see you before I left.”

“Logan, I can’t say goodbye again. I just got you back,” she repeated, the familiar sense of dread creeping in, her chest tight.

“I can’t. I’m in too deep.” And he left it at that.

He left a tip, and they walked to the car, hands intertwined. She wanted so badly to just talk – to catch up on the years he’d missed, to make him proud, but it wasn’t the time. There’d never be a time. Being together in that moment was precious, every minute counting.

She’d have to memorize every second; they would have to last her a lifetime.

“Do you want to drive?”

He chuckled in response, a spark of his old self coming back. “Nah, I’ll be doing enough of that. I really missed seeing you behind the wheel.”

They slipped onto the warm leather seats – the moist air left over from the rain had seeped into the atmosphere of the car. She cranked up the AC, sweat beading on the back of her neck.

She peeled out onto the gravel backroad, not knowing what to say next. Thankfully, he leaned forward to tap the volume knob, turning on the radio, but the soft hum of the engine drowned it out, white noise in their silence.

He slipped the dog tag from around his neck, ruffling his hair, and placed it on the neck of the rearview mirror. It dangled, catching the occasional light of the passing streetlight.

“Is that a new necklace?” she asked, watching it sway as she turned onto the ramp to merge onto the highway.

“I hope you don’t think it’s weird.”

“I think we’re past that.”

“After I gave you my last necklace, I wanted something of my own to remember you by, so I got this done,” he rotated the piece towards her.

“Troublemaker” and her phone number was carved into the metal, scratched and slightly rusty.

“Oh, Logan,” she breathed, gripping the steering wheel harder. She couldn’t tell him bye. She’d just gotten him back.

“I want you to keep it.”

“No, you need it to remember me by, like you said,” she forced through a sob, the composure she’d thought she’d had a grasp on crumbling with each syllable that fell from his lips.

“I don’t need it, Raquel.”

“If I take it it means that…” she couldn’t say it.

“That it could get ugly. And I might not ever come back for you.”

“I want you to, though, Logan. I’m so close to finishing college, and I’m going to start med school soon, and I’m gonna have a great job, and I can take care of us and I–” she cut herself off, crying, her body heaving.

“I’m so proud of you,” he whispered, and was met with the calloused pads of his fingers on her jaw.

“I can’t do this without you.”

“You can. You’re way stronger than you think. I know you made it through some hard ass classes without anyone’s help,” he joked.

“You are too.”

“This isn’t about me anymore. It was never really about me,” he said, tracing a hand down her shoulder to rub the nape of her neck lovingly. “I know you never moved on. Hell, I didn’t really let you move on since I was secretly playing bodyguard for years. But this time I’m serious. You’ve gotta let me go, Troublemaker.”

“You know I’ll never do that,” she laughed feebly.

“You have to at least try. For me.”

She didn’t answer him. She pulled off of the highway, begging for the car to break down, for some divine intervention to happen to prove that they deserved to be together.

When she parked in the empty lot, the only light coming from her headlights and the flashing streetlight, he turned to her, a softness in his haggard appearance.

They stared at each other, drinking in every inch of their bodies. She wanted to remember him as bright, more vigorous, more alive.

And before she knew it, their lips were on one another’s, fervent and hungry. He smelled exactly the same, and she breathed him in, lacing her fingers in his hair, taking full advantage of their brief moment of solitude.

He parted his mouth, tasting her, groaning. They kissed over and over, reacquainting themselves. It morphed into her breaking down, yet again, kissing and embracing him over and over, trying desperately to reclaim the moment as healing. But she couldn’t see it that way, even as he whispered affirmations in her ear, reminding her of all of the things he loved about her.

The rain picked up again, tapping insistently against the windshield, setting a much more soothing ambiance than the situation called for.

Finally, she leaned back, so unwilling to part from the warmth of his arms. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he breathed, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I need to hit the road so I can make it over the state border by sunrise.”

“Logan…” she whispered, begging. “I know we can make this work.” She sounded like a broken record, proposing empty ideas with no solutions. She knew there wasn’t a solution, but she preferred empty words to the stinging slap of the truth.

“I’m a fugitive. You’re going to be a doctor. I can’t compromise that. It’s selfish.”

“But I want you to be selfish,” she clasped his hands in hers, holding it to her chest. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“That’s the problem, Troublemaker. I can’t let you do that,” he brought her hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles once, twice, before unlocking his door, and stepping out. “You were always too good for me, Raquel.”

He circled to the front of the car and smiled at her one last time, the tears in his eyes glimmering, reflecting the headlights. She watched the rain dot blotches all over his ratty tee, clinging to his form, and it made her wish she’d been able to see all of him. 

Then he turned, and walked further and further into the lot of cars, his form becoming hazy before disappearing completely. 

And she couldn’t stop him. 

Probability always won in the end – the numbers didn’t lie. She could’ve seen it coming from a mile away, but she didn’t want to see it.

She was paralyzed in fear, knowing that there was no way she could save him from the hell that’d engulfed him, but refusing to believe it.

[petulantskeptic]

Death of the calorie

For more than a century we’ve counted on calories to tell us what will make us fat. Peter Wilson says it’s time to bury the world’s most misleading measure BY PETER WILSON The first time that Salvador Camacho thought he was going to die he was sitting in his father’s Chrysler sedan with a friend listening to music. The 22-year-old engineering student was parked near his home in the central Mexican city of Toluca and in the fading evening light he didn’t notice two tattooed men approach. Tori Amos’s hit, “Bliss”, had just started playing when the gang members pointed guns at the young men. So began a 24-hour ordeal. Strong willed and solidly built, Camacho was singled out as the more stubborn of the pair. He was blindfolded and beaten. One robber eventually threw him to the ground, put a gun to the back of his head and told him it was time to die. He passed out, waking in a field with his hands tied behind his back, almost naked. Camacho survived but, traumatised, he sank into depression. Soon he was drinking heavily and binge eating. His weight ballooned from a trim 70kg to 103kg. That led to his second near-death experience, eight years later, in 2007. He remembers waking up and blinking at bright lights: he was being wheeled on a stretcher into a hospital emergency ward, with an attack of severe arrhythmia, or irregular heart beat. “A cardiologist told me that if I didn’t lose weight and get my health under control I would be dead in five years,” he says. That second crisis forced Camacho belatedly to deal with the trauma of the first. To help with what he now understands was post-traumatic stress disorder, he started having counselling and taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. To address his physical health, he tried to lose weight. This effort propelled him to the centre of one of the most fraught scientific debates of our age: the calorie wars, a fierce disagreement about diet and weight control. Today, more than a decade after his cardiologist’s stark warning, Camacho lives in the Swiss city of Basel. He is relaxed and confident, except when two topics come up. When he recounts his kidnapping his gaze drops, his smile vanishes and he becomes noticeably quieter, although he says his panic attacks have virtually disappeared. The other touchy topic is weight control, which causes him to shake his head in anger at what he and millions of other dieters have gone through. “It’s just ridiculous,” he says with exasperation and a touch of venom. “People are living with real pain and guilt and all they get is advice that is confused or just plain wrong.” The guidance that Camacho’s doctors gave him, along with a string of nutritionists and his own online research, was unanimous. It would be familiar to the millions of people who have ever tried to diet. “Everybody tells you that to lose weight you have to eat less and move more,” he says, “and the way to do that is to count your calories.” At his heaviest, Camacho’s body-mass index – the ratio of his height to his weight – reached 35.6, well above the 30 mark that doctors define as clinically obese. Most government guidelines indicated that, as a man, he needed 2,500 calories a day to maintain his weight (the target for women is 2,000). Nutritionists told Camacho that if he ate fewer than 2,000 calories a day, a weekly “deficit” of 3,500 would mean that he would lose 0.5kg a week. With a desk job as a planning engineer in a Mexican hospital, he knew it would take real discipline to trim his pudgy frame. But as his kidnappers had quickly realised, he is an unusually determined character. He began getting up before dawn each day to run 10km. He also started accounting for every morsel of food he consumed. “I filled in Excel spreadsheets every night, every week and every month listing everything I ate. It became a real obsession for me,” says Camacho. Out went the Burger King Whoppers, fried tacos packed with pork and cheese, and tortas (Mexican sandwiches filled with meat, refried beans, avocado and peppers). Out too went his usual steady flow of beer and wine. In came carefully measured low-fat cheese and turkey sandwiches, salads, canned peach juice, Gatorade and Coke Zero, with three Special-K low-calorie diet bars a day. “I was always tired and hungry and I would get really moody and distracted,” he says. “I was thinking about food all the time.” He was constantly told that if he got the maths right – consuming fewer calories than he burned each day – the results would soon show. “I really did everything you are supposed to do,” he insists with the tone of a schoolboy who completed his homework yet still failed a big test. He bought a battery of exercise monitoring devices to measure how many calories he was expending on his runs. “I was told to exercise for at least 45 minutes at least four or five times a week. I actually ran for more than an hour every day.” He kept to low-fat, low-calorie food for three years. It simply didn’t work. At one point he lost about 10kg but his weight rebounded, though he still restricted his calories. Dieters the world over will be familiar with Camacho’s frustrations. Most studies show that more than 80% of people regain any lost weight in the long term. And like him, when we fail, most of us assume that we are too lazy or greedy – that we are at fault. As a general rule it is true that if you eat vastly fewer calories than you burn, you’ll get slimmer (and if you consume far more, you’ll get fatter). But the myriad faddy diets flogged to us each year belie the simplicity of the formula that Camacho was given. The calorie as a scientific measurement is not in dispute. But calculating the exact calorific content of food is far harder than the confidently precise numbers displayed on food packets suggest. Two items of food with identical calorific values may be digested in very different ways. Each body processes calories differently. Even for a single individual, the time of day that you eat matters. The more we probe, the more we realise that tallying calories will do little to help us control our weight or even maintain a healthy diet: the beguiling simplicity of counting calories in and calories out is dangerously flawed. The calorie is ubiquitous in daily life. It takes top billing on the information label of most packaged food and drinks. Ever more restaurants list the number of calories in each dish on their menus. Counting the calories we expend has become just as standard. Gym equipment, fitness devices around our wrists, even our phones tell us how many calories we have supposedly burned in a single exercise session or over the course of a day. It wasn’t always thus. For centuries, scientists assumed that it was the mass of food consumed that was significant. In the late 16th century an Italian physician named Santorio Sanctorius invented a “weighing chair”, dangling from a giant scale, in which he sat at regular intervals to weigh himself, everything he ate and drank, and all the faeces and urine he produced. Despite 30 years of compulsive chair dangling, Sanctorius answered few of his own questions about the impact that his consumption had on his body. Only later did the focus shift to the energy different foodstuffs contained. In the 18th century Antoine Lavoisier, a French aristocrat, worked out that burning a candle required a gas from the air – which he named oxygen – to fuel the flame and release heat and other gases. He applied the same principle to food, concluding that it fuels the body like a slow-burning fire. He built a calorimeter, a device big enough to hold a guinea pig, and measured the heat the creature generated to estimate how much energy it was producing. Unfortunately the French revolution – specifically the guillotine – cut short his thinking on the subject. But he had started something. Other scientists later constructed “bomb calori­meters” in which they burned food to measure the heat – and thus the potential energy – released from it. The calorie – which comes from “calor”, the Latin for “heat” – was originally used to measure the efficiency of steam engines: one calorie is the energy required to heat 1kg of water by one degree Celsius. Only in the 1860s did German scientists begin using it to calculate the energy in food. It was an American agricultural chemist, Wilbur Atwater, who popularised the idea that it could be used to measure both the energy contained in food and the energy the body expended on things like muscular work, tissue repair and powering the organs. In 1887, after a trip to Germany, he wrote a series of wildly popular articles in Century, an American magazine, suggesting that “food is to the body what fuel is to the fire.” He introduced the public to the notion of “macronutrients” – carbohydrates, protein and fat – so called because the body needs a lot of them. Today many of us want to monitor our calorie consumption in order to lose or maintain our weight. Atwater, the son of a Methodist minister, was motivated by the opposite concern: at a time when malnutrition was widespread, he sought to help poor people find the most cost-effective items to fill themselves up. To see how much energy different macronutrients provided to the body, he fed samples of an “average” American diet of that era – which he believed to be heavy in molasses cookies, barley meal and chicken gizzards – to a group of male students in a basement at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. For up to 12 days at a time a volunteer would eat, sleep and lift weights while sealed inside a six-foot-high chamber measuring four feet wide by seven feet deep. The energy in each meal was calculated by burning identical foods in a bomb calorimeter. The walls were filled with water, and changes in its temperature allowed Atwater to calculate how much energy the students’ bodies were generating. His team collected the students’ faeces and burned that too, to see how much energy had been left in the body in the digestion process. This was pioneering stuff for the 1890s. Atwater eventually concluded that a gram of either carbohydrate or protein made an average of four calories of energy available to the body, and a gram of fat offered an average of 8.9 calories, a figure later rounded up to nine calories for convenience. We now know far more about the workings of the human body: Atwater was right that some of a meal’s potential energy was excreted, but had no idea that some was also used to digest the meal itself, and that the body expends different amounts of energy depending on the food. Yet more than a century after igniting the faeces of Wesleyan students, the numbers Atwater calculated for each macro­nutrient remain the standard for measuring the calories in any given food stuff. Those experiments were the basis of Salvador Camacho’s daily calorific arithmetic. Atwater transformed the way the public thought about food, with his simple belief that “a calorie is a calorie”. He counselled the poor against eating too many leafy green vegetables because they weren’t sufficiently dense in energy. By his account, it made no difference whether calories came from chocolate or spinach: if the body absorbed more energy than it used, then it would store the excess as body fat, causing you to put on weight. That idea captured the public imagination. In 1918 the first book was published in America based on the notion that a healthy diet was no more complicated than the simple addition and subtraction of calories. “You may eat just what you like – candy, pie, cake, fat meat, butter, cream but count your calories!” wrote Lulu Hunt Peters in “Diet and Health”. “Now that you know you can have the things you like, proceed to make your menus containing very little of them.” The book sold millions. By the 1930s the calorie had become entrenched in both the public mind and government policy. Its exclusive focus on the energy content of food, rather than its vitamin content, say, went virtually unchallenged. Rising incomes and greater female participation in the workforce meant that by the 1960s people were eating out more often or buying prepared food, so they wanted more information about what they were consuming. Nutritional information on foodstuffs was widespread but haphazard; many items carried outlandish claims about their health benefits. Labelling became standardised and mandatory in America only in 1990. The emphasis and use of this information shifted too. By the late 1960s, obesity was becoming a pressing health concern as people became more sedentary and started eating highly processed foods and lots of sugar. As the number of people who needed to lose weight grew, changing diets became the focus of attention. So began the war on fat, in which Atwater’s calorie calculations were an unwitting ally. Because counting calories was seen as an objective arbiter of the health qualities of a foodstuff, it seemed logical that the most calorie-laden part of any food item – fat – must be bad for you. By this measure, dishes low in calories, but rich in sugar and carbohydrates, seemed healthier. People were increasingly willing to blame fat for many of the health ills of modern life, helped along by the sugar lobby: in 2016, a researcher at the University of California uncovered documents from 1967 showing that sugar companies secretly funded studies at Harvard University designed to blame fat for the growing obesity epidemic. That the dietary “fat” found in olive oil, bacon and butter is branded with the same word as the unwanted flesh around our middles made it all the easier to demonise. A us Senate committee report in 1977 recommended a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet for all, and other governments followed suit. The food industry responded with enthusiasm, removing fat, the most calorie-dense of macronutrients, from food items and replacing it with sugar, starch and salt. As a bonus, the thousands of new cheap and tasty “low-cal” and “low-fat” products which Camacho used to diet tended to have longer shelf lives and higher profit margins. But this didn’t lead to the expected improvements in public health. Instead, it coincided almost exactly with the most dramatic rise in obesity in human history. Between 1975 and 2016 obesity almost tripled worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (who): nearly 40% of over-18s – some 1.9bn adults – are now overweight. That contributed to a rapid rise in cardiovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke) which became the leading cause of death worldwide. Rates of type-2 diabetes, which is often linked to lifestyle and diet, have more than doubled since 1980. It wasn’t only wealthy countries that saw such trends. In Mexico, middle-class urban families such as Camacho’s got fatter too. As a child Camacho was fit and loved playing football. But at the age of ten, in 1988, he was one of many young Mexicans who started stacking on weight as increasing trade with America saw cheap sweets and fizzy drinks flood the shops, a process known as the “Coca-colonisation” of Mexico. “There were suddenly all these flavours you had never tasted, with chocolates, candies and Dr Pepper,” Camacho remembers: “Overnight I got fat.” When his uncles teased him about his bulging waistline, he cut back on sweets and stayed in good shape until his kidnapping 12 years later. Other Mexicans just kept bulking up. In 2013 Mexico overtook America as the most obese country in the world. To combat this trend, governments worldwide have enshrined calorie-counting in policy. The who attributes the “fundamental cause” of obesity worldwide to “an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended”. Governments the world over persist in offering the same advice: count and cut calories. This has infiltrated ever more areas of life. In 2018 the American government ordered food chains and vending machines to provide calorie details on their menus, to help consumers make “informed and healthful decisions”. Australia and Britain are headed in similar directions. Government bodies advise dieters to record their meals in a calorie journal to lose weight. The experimental efforts of a 19th-century scientist stand barely changed – and are barely questioned. Millions of dieters give up when their calorie-counting is unsuccessful. Camacho was more stubborn than most. He took photos of his meals to record his intake more accurately, and would log into his calorie spreadsheets from his phone. He thought about every morsel he ate. And he bought a proliferation of gadgets to track his calorie output. But he still didn’t lose much weight. One problem was that his sums were based on the idea that calorie counts are accurate. Food producers give impressively specific readings: a slice of Camacho’s favourite Domino’s double pepperoni pizza is supposedly 248 calories (not 247 nor 249). Yet the number of calories listed on food packets and menus are routinely wrong. Susan Roberts, a nutritionist at Tufts University in Boston, has found that labels on American packaged foods miss their true calorie counts by an average of 8%. American government regulations allow such labels to understate calories by up to 20% (to ensure that consumers are not short-changed in terms of how much nutrition they receive). The information on some processed frozen foods misstates their calorific content by as much as 70%. That isn’t the only problem. Calorie counts are based on how much heat a foodstuff gives off when it burns in an oven. But the human body is far more complex than an oven. When food is burned in a laboratory it surrenders its calories within seconds. By contrast, the real-life journey from dinner plate to toilet bowl takes on average about a day, but can range from eight to 80 hours depending on the person. A calorie of carbohydrate and a calorie of protein both have the same amount of stored energy, so they perform identically in an oven. But put those calories into real bodies and they behave quite differently. And we are still learning new insights: American researchers discovered last year that, for more than a century, we’ve been exaggerating by about 20% the number of calories we absorb from almonds. The process of storing fat – the “weight” many people seek to lose – is influenced by dozens of other factors. Apart from calories, our genes, the trillions of bacteria that live in our gut, food preparation and sleep affect how we process food. Academic discussions of food and nutrition are littered with references to huge bodies of research that still need to be conducted. “No other field of science or medicine sees such a lack of rigorous studies,” says Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College in London. “We can create synthetic dna and clone animals but we still know incredibly little about the stuff that keeps us alive.” What we do know, however, suggests that counting calories is very crude and often misleading. Think of a burger, the kind of food that Camacho eschewed during his early efforts to lose weight. Take a bite and the saliva in your mouth starts to break it down, a process that continues when you swallow, transporting the morsel towards your stomach and beyond to be churned further. The digestive process transforms the protein, carbohydrates and fat in the burger into their basic compounds so that they are tiny enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream via the small intestine to fuel and repair the trillions of cells in the body. But the basic molecules from each macronutrient play very different roles within the body. All carbohydrates break down into sugars, which are the body’s main fuel source. But the speed at which your body gets its fuel from food can be as important as the amount of fuel. Simple carbohydrates are swiftly absorbed into the bloodstream, providing a fast shot of energy: the body absorbs the sugar from a can of fizzy drink at a rate of 30 calories a minute, compared with two calories a minute from complex carbohydrates such as potatoes or rice. That matters, because a sudden hit of sugar prompts the rapid release of insulin, a hormone that carries the sugar out of the bloodstream and into the body’s cells. Problems arise when there is too much sugar in the blood. The liver can store some of the excess, but any that remains is stashed as fat. So consuming large quantities of sugar is the fastest way to create body fat. And, once the insulin has done its work, blood-sugar levels slump, which tends to leave you hungry, as well as plumper. Getting fat is a consequence of civilisation. Our ancestors would have enjoyed a heavy hit of sugar perhaps four times a year, when a new season produced fresh fruit. Many now enjoy that kind of sugar kick every day. The average person in the developed world consumes 20 times as much sugar as people did even during Atwater’s time. But it is a different story when you eat complex carbohydrates such as cereals. These are strung together from simple carbohydrates, so they also break down into sugar, but because they do so more slowly, your blood-sugar levels remain steadier. The fruit juices that Camacho was encouraged to drink contained fewer calories than one of his wholegrain buns but the bread delivered less of a sugar hit and left him feeling satiated for longer. Other macronutrients have different functions. Protein, the dominant component of meat, fish and dairy products, acts as the main building block for bone, skin, hair and other body tissues. In the absence of sufficient quantities of carbohydrates it can also serve as fuel for the body. But since it is broken down more slowly than carbohydrates, protein is less likely to be converted to body fat. Fat is a different matter again. It should leave you feeling fuller for longer, because your body splits it into tiny fatty acids more slowly than it processes carbohydrates or protein. We all need fat to make hormones and to protect our nerves (a bit like plastic coating protects an electric wire). Over millennia, fat has also been a crucial way for humans to store energy, allowing us to survive periods of famine. Nowadays, even without the risk of starvation, our bodies are programmed to store excess fuel in case we run out of food. No wonder a single measure – the energy content – can’t capture such complexity. Our fixation with counting calories assumes both that all calories are equal and that all bodies respond to calories in identical ways: Camacho was told that, since he was a man, he needed 2,500 calories a day to maintain his weight. Yet a growing body of research shows that when different people consume the same meal, the impact on each person’s blood sugar and fat formation will vary according to their genes, lifestyles and unique mix of gut bacteria. Research published this year showed that a certain set of genes is found more often in overweight people than in skinny ones, suggesting that some people have to work harder than others to stay thin (a fact that many of us already felt intuitively to be true). Differences in gut microbiomes can alter how people process food. A study of 800 Israelis in 2015 found that the rise in their blood-sugar levels varied by a factor of four in response to identical food. Some people’s intestines are 50% longer than others: those with shorter ones absorb fewer calories, which means that they excrete more of the energy in food, putting on less weight. The response of your own body may also change depending on when you eat. Lose weight and your body will try to regain it, slowing down your metabolism and even reducing the energy you spend on fidgeting and twitching your muscles. Even your eating and sleeping schedules can be important. Going without a full night’s sleep may spur your body to create more fatty tissue, which casts a grim light on Camacho’s years of early-morning exertion. You may put on more weight eating small amounts over 12-15 hours than eating the same food in three distinct meals over a shorter period. There’s a further weakness in the calorie-counting system: the amount of energy we absorb from food depends on how we prepare it. Chopping and grinding food essentially does part of the work of digestion, making more calories available to your body by ripping apart cell walls before you eat it. That effect is magnified when you add heat: cooking increases the proportion of food digested in the stomach and small intestine, from 50% to 95%. The digestible calories in beef rises by 15% on cooking, and in sweet potato some 40% (the exact change depends on whether it is boiled, roasted or microwaved). So significant is this impact that Richard Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard University, reckons that cooking was necessary for human evolution. It enabled the neurological expansion that created Homo sapiens: powering the brain consumes about a fifth of a person’s metabolic energy each day (cooking also means we didn’t need to spend all day chewing, unlike chimps). The difficulty in counting accurately doesn’t stop there. The calorie load of carbohydrate-heavy items such as rice, pasta, bread and potatoes can be slashed simply by cooking, chilling and reheating them. As starch molecules cool they form new structures that are harder to digest. You absorb fewer calories eating toast that has been left to go cold, or leftover spaghetti, than if they were freshly made. Scientists in Sri Lanka discovered in 2015 that they could more than halve the calories potentially absorbed from rice by adding coconut oil during cooking and then cooling the rice. This made the starch less digestible so the body may take on fewer calories (they have yet to test on human beings the precise effects of rice cooked in this way). That’s a bad thing if you’re malnourished, but a boon if you’re trying to lose weight. Different parts of a vegetable or fruit may be absorbed differently too: older leaves are tougher, for example. The starchy interior of sweetcorn kernels is easily digested but the cellulose husk is impossible to break down and passes through the body untouched. Just think about that moment when you look into the toilet bowl after eating sweetcorn. As with so many dieters, Camacho’s efforts to accurately track his calories “in” were doomed. But so too were his attempts to track his calories “out”. The message from many public authorities and food producers, especially fast-food companies that sponsor sports events, is that even the unhealthiest foods will not make you fat if you do your part by taking plenty of exercise. Exercise does, of course, have clear health benefits. But unless you’re a professional athlete, it plays a smaller part in weight control than most people believe. As much as 75% of the average person’s daily energy expenditure comes not through exercise but from ordinary daily activities and from keeping your body functioning by digesting food, powering organs and maintaining a regular body temperature. Even drinking iced water – which delivers no energy – forces the body to burn calories to maintain its preferred temperature, making it the only known case of consuming something with “negative” calories. A popular expression in English tells us not to “compare apples and oranges” and assume them to be the same: yet calories put pizzas and oranges, or apples and ice cream, on the same scale, and deems them equal. After three years of dedicated calorie-counting Camacho changed tack. While recovering from running the 2010 marathon in San Diego he took up Crossfit training, an exercise regime that includes high-intensity training and weightlifting. There he met people using a very different method to control their weight. Like him, they exercised regularly. But rather than limiting their calories, they ate natural foods, what Camacho calls “stuff from a real plant, not an industrial plant”. Fed up with feeling like a hungry failure, he decided to give it a go. He ditched his heavily processed low-calorie products and focused on the quality of his food rather than quantity. He stopped feeling ravenous all the time. “It sounds simple but I decided to listen to my body and eat whenever I was hungry but only when I was hungry, and to eat real food, not food ‘products’,” he says. He went back to items that he’d long banned himself from eating. He had his first rasher of bacon in three years and enjoyed cheese, whole-fat milk and steaks. He immediately felt less hungry and happier. More surprising, he quickly began to lose his extra fat. “I was sleeping so much better and within a couple of months I stopped the depression and anxiety medication,” he says. “I went from always feeling guilty and angry and afraid to feeling in control of myself and actually proud of my own body. Suddenly I could enjoy eating and drinking again.” The weight stayed off and in 2012 he moved to Heidelberg in Germany, a world away from the hectic streets of Mexico, to study for a masters degree in public health. “The idea hit me that I could combine my own experience with academic work to try to help other people overcome these various barriers that I had found.” After his masters he embarked on a doctorate on how to tackle obesity in Mexico. Today he is married to a German scholar, Erica Gunther, who has studied food systems around the world. Their diet includes things he used to shun, such as egg yolks, olive oil and nuts. Two days a week the couple stick to vegetarian meals but otherwise he devours steak, kidneys, liver and some of his favourite Mexican dishes – barbacoa (lamb), carnitas (pork) and tacos with grilled meat. His wife enjoys making a traditional Mexican sweet pastry called pan de muerto (bread of death). “Before I would have run an extra two hours to compensate for eating that but now I don’t care, I just make sure it is a treat, not an everyday thing.” Having spent years trying to forgo alcohol, he has a glass or two of wine several times a week, and goes for a beer with friends from his gym. Sweating through three or four workouts a week, he is as well-muscled as a professional rugby player. A stable 80kg, he has very little body fat, though he is still considered overweight by the body-mass-index charts, which rate many beefed-up professional athletes as too heavy. The only relapse of anxiety he suffers nowadays happens when he hears Tori Amos singing “Bliss” – the song playing when he was kidnapped – which he says “is a real pity because it’s a great song”. Today Camacho could be described as a calorie dissident, one of a small but growing number of academics and scientists who say that the persistence of calorie-counting compounds the obesity epidemic, rather than remedying it. Counting calories has disrupted our ability to eat the right amount of food, he says, and has steered us towards poor choices. In 2017 he wrote an academic paper that was one of the most savage attacks on the calorie system published in a peer-reviewed journal. “I’m actually embarrassed at what I used to believe,” he says. “I was doing everything I could to follow the official advice but it was totally wrong and I feel stupid for never even questioning it.” Given the vast evidence that calorie-counting is imprecise at best, and contributes to rising obesity at worst, why has it persisted? The simplicity of calorie-counting explains its appeal. Metrics that tell consumers the extent to which foods have been processed, or whether they will suppress hunger, are harder to understand. Faced with the calorie juggernaut, none has gained wide acceptance. The scientific and health establishment knows that the current system is flawed. A senior adviser to the un’s Food and Agriculture Organisation warned in 2002 that the Atwater “factors” of 4-4-9 at the heart of the calorie-counting system were “a gross oversimplification” and so inaccurate that they could mislead consumers into choosing unhealthy products because they understate the calories in some carbohydrates. The organisation said it would give “further consideration” to overhauling the system but 17 years later there is little momentum for change. It even rejected the idea of harmonising the many methods that are used in different countries – a label in Australia can give a different count from one in America for the same product. Officials at the who also acknowledge the problems of the current system, but say it is so entrenched in consumer behaviour, public policy and industry standards that it would be too expensive and disruptive to make big changes. The experiments that Atwater conducted a century ago, without calculators or computers, have never been repeated even though our understanding of how our bodies work is vastly improved. There is little funding or enthusiasm for such work. As Susan Roberts at Tufts University says, collecting and analysing faeces “is the worst research job in the world”. The calorie system, says Camacho, lets food producers off the hook: “They can say, ‘We’re not responsible for the unhealthy products we sell, we just have to list the calories and leave it to you to manage your own weight’.” Camacho and other calorie dissidents argue that sugar and highly processed carbohydrates play havoc with people’s hormonal systems. Higher insulin levels mean more energy is converted into fat tissues leaving less available to fuel the rest of the body. That in turn drives hunger and overeating. In other words the constant hunger and fatigue suffered by Camacho and other dieters may be symptoms of being overweight, rather than the cause of the problem. Yet much of the food industry defends the status quo too. To change how we assess the energy and health values of food would undermine the business model of many companies. The only major organisation to shift the emphasis beyond calories is one dedicated to helping its customers slim down: Weight Watchers. In 2001 the world’s best-known dieting firm introduced a points system that moved away from focusing exclusively on calories to also classifying foods according to their sugar and saturated fat content, and their impact on appetite. Chris Stirk, the firm’s general manager in Britain, says the organisation made the change because relying on calories to lose weight is “outdated”: “Science evolves daily, monthly, yearly, let alone since the 1800s.” Many of us know instinctively that not all calories are the same. A lollipop and an apple may contain similar numbers of calories but the apple is clearly better for us. But after a lifetime of hearing about the calorie and its role in supposedly foolproof diet advice we could be forgiven for being confused about how best to eat. It’s time to lay it to rest.

[stumbleintothesun]

Life Rant

For the few people in here...sorry lmao this is long as hell.

Lately I've been feeling like...garbage. I know there's no one on this place that really follows me, so this is me posting to the void.

I have been dealing with a lot of health issues related to my mental health and weight. I've gained nearly twenty pounds in a year, and no matter what I do my weight doesn't budge. I work out regularly, Ive been trying to eat better but...my only thought is its because I'm working a desk job now - which I fucking hate with a fury. And I know my weight isnt the end of the world - it just really, really fucks with my mental health. I've always felt ugly. The only time I didn't was when I was super thin which I know is problematic - and I know that's part of my mental health...like my aunt died from an ED. And my mom definitely had/has an ED even if she's gotten much better about it in the past few years...

And I'm finally getting my face to clear up after wearing these masks for a year - a year! But I'm still dealing with the healing process and I'm anxious it will scar. I've worked this entire pandemic at a job I *hate* just to you know, finally pay off my student loans just go back to school so maybe I can do something I love. But even at 25 and providing for myself, I hardly got any financial help. The only thing saving me is my grades that got me a decent transfer scholarship.

But the first school I applied to wanted my high school transcript, even though I have an associate's degree, and because I'm, frankly, stupid I somehow missed that they needed it. So they threw out my application that I spent an otherwise four hours writing for.

So I'm going to Eastern, which frankly will be better for my mental health, but they don't have a tuition free program. So I'm going to have to borrow money after just finally paying off my single year at a liberal arts college debt that I took on when I was 17 (it ended up being like 30k to pay off). And it's all because I didn't fucking read right. So much for being a good student, I guess.

But it wouldn't have mattered because they would've hardly taken any of my classes despite most of them being from down the road and for an associate's degree! And even Eastern is giving me a hard time, despite my degree they say I don't have the basic level biology course - my degree is biology focused! I'm going into ecology! I have taken genetics, conservation biology, anatomy and physiology, cellular biology but I don't have intro bio? So now I have to test out, on top of working full time. Which is fine, its a good refresher...I'm just so overwhelmed with life right now. I have a stack of over 100 flash cards and I'm just anxious.

This is a year after my partner went through an ugly break up with their old fiance (we were poly), and their ex was an abusive POS who once told them if they came out as anything other than their assigned gender, he wouldn't date them anymore. He gaslit them constantly, made them feel like hell. So we finally got out, but he wanted the house they got together or 10k. He made over double what they make - and he always forced them to pay half the bills, including half of his fucking protein bullshit because it was "groceries." He knew they didn't have the funds. Because our friends are amazing, we were able to buy him off but he left the house trashed.

It fucking sucked, and they were also responsible for getting his name off the house which meant a refinance that we could hardly afford. We got lucky we were able to do it, but they hardly got anything back for it. And it was a *nightmare*. We finally got it done, after pulling teeth and it took six months. Four months longer than they said. And that entire time they were forced to occasionally reach out to him, their old abuser.

Finally we were free, but then I started having further issues at work. Between the pandemic, and working in a heavily red area during the election, I cried a lot. I work in customer service and while I make okay money for the industry, I'm constantly burned out. My colleagues are okay, but it feels stupid to leave just to find a job for three months to go back to school. Then I started being short in my drawer (I'm a teller at a bank). The final straw was being short $500. Now I'm on a work plan, and if Im short again, I'm out. And it's my fault. I don't know how it has been happening. So now I'm always on edge at work, triple checking everything. And I could leave, I could get another job but there's no promise I'll make what I do now, and in order for me to pay for the chunk of school I need to, I have to put away a certain amount every month.

I do have a grant of sorts for 5k per semester to help with bills, which will alleviate a lot once August arrives. And I know I'm crazy lucky to have that. So sometimes I feel like such an asshole about it. But we have a house to pay for and bills to pay. Just like everyone else. Ugh, I don't know.

I talked to my doctor about my weight, came in with calorie intake numbers and how much I work out with zero change. I cut out pop entirely from drinking it every day. Nothing has helped. So we switched my meds from Lexapro to Wellbutrin to see if I lose weight because of that. Nope, just having more mental break downs, steady weight, and my resting heart rate is abnormally high, stopping me from making a little extra cash donating plasma. So now I'm switching back to Lexapro with nothing gained other than. You know. Feeling like shit. Next up? Birth control coming out of my arm. Don't really need it anyway. And maybe that will help? But I don't think so. I'm not sure what to do.

I am genuinely trying to be healthy, eating more whole foods. More veggies. More home cooked meals. I love to cook, I'm just tired. And sometimes the air fryer and oven baked frozen foods are too easy to pass up. I'm trying to always eat breakfast. I'm working out again, we have a gym membership but there are so many men there and I dont always feel comfortable, because my partner has been anemic and they can't go yet. So I use our bike in the living room and do home workouts.

But when I did this last time there was zero change in weight or anything. Even when I ate really, really clean for three weeks and worked out for most days, tracking calories and everything. Nothing changed. My thyroid is fine, we've already checked it. I'm just tired.

This past year, other than being with my partner has fucking sucked. And this doesn't even cover all the shit they've dealt with with switching to they/them and a name change. I love them so much, and love that they are finally comfy but their parents were assholes about it. And that matters. It does, and I get it. I just wish I could help them more. I wish we had a break, a breather for longer than a day. Even then I can't relax, I'm too on edge. There's too much to be done. I need to earn money, I need to clean, I need to focus. I need to be productive in some way to justify if I'm not working on those things. It's...all dumb.

[agnesacacia]

Hansy Holidays

Pansy Parkinson hated these things. These insufferable fundraiser galas her mother insisted on throwing every few months, where they would honor some wizarding organization or another and all prominent members of wizarding society were invited to donate toward the cause. Because Pansy's mother, like all good pure blood witches, was a philanthropist. Honest to Merlin, that's what the woman called herself, like it was her career. A position that had been drilled into Pansy so hard that even at Hogwarts when she'd had to discuss her future career plans, she'd insisted on 'philanthropist' like it was a job title. She'd never forget the way Professor Snape had rolled his eyes at her and dismissed her as a silly, idiot girl with no real ambition. Which, to be fair, back then that's exactly what she was.

Sure she did well in school. Well enough to be at the top of her house. Not as smart as Hermione Granger (the twat) but she did alright. But a career just wasn't what someone like her did. She was a Parkinson and Parkinsons lived off of their investments and old family money. They contributed to the wizarding world through fancy parties and donations to politicians. And they married other pure blood members and continued to make pure blood children who would carry on that legacy.

But now.

Now Pansy was twenty two, still living with her parents, and woefully and completely single without any sort of career option to speak of. Her days were spent planning these horrible gala events with her mother and becoming increasingly aware that she would rather be doing anything else in the world.

Especially when these galas involved them. The Golden Trio. Harry bloody Potter and his two little minions were always at the top of the guest list and any event that was hosted had to have at least one of the three to be considered a success.

So here she was, glowering across the room as she watched Hermione Granger, looking absolutely fab in a chic new designer robe, her bushy hair tamed into an elegant bun. Weasley stood at her side, looking just as fab in a dark purple robe that made him look distinguished and important, which she guessed he was now. Both of them. Weasley was an auror for Merlin's sake. And Granger was already a top ranking official at the ministry of magic, working in magical creatures rights or some such shit. It only made Pansy feel even more inadequate. Why yes, I'm a philanthropist. The phrase made her stomach turn.

Potter was no where to be found, but that was nothing new. He had probably been roped into some horrid discussion about goblin rights or some such rubbish by all the diplomats here tonight. Sometimes Pansy actually felt sorry for him.

Across the room Pansy's eye caught that unmistakable white blond hair. Draco bobbed into view, looking miserable as always. He caught her eye and nodded in her direction. She forced a smile back, but made no move toward him. There was nothing left to be said between them.

Draco's parents sent him to these things in their steed because they were both too traumatized to leave their manor. They'd been mysteriously and inexplicably pardoned for their war crimes at the insistence of Harry Potter himself, and for that the Malfoys donated to every cause Potter endorsed. It made very little sense, especially to Pansy, but it was why it was so important that Potter be seen at these events. Potter meant money. Money meant success and success meant that the Parkinson family upheld their status as wizarding royalty.

Pansy rolled her eyes and gulped down the last of her elf-made sparkling wine. It was sweet and gritty on her tongue and her stomach rolled for a moment. She hadn't eaten much that day and her head suddenly swam. She needed some fresh air. It's not as if she'd be missed. No one was talking to her anyway. People rarely did.

She exited the party off the main floor out into a secluded courtyard garden. It was a cool November night and the air felt good on her skin. The smell of jasmine surrounded her and she relished the quiet, the calm.

A small sound made her turn around. It was then that she realized she wasn't alone. A figure stood hunched against the garden wall. Pansy lit her wand and drew closer. As her eyes adjusted to the night, she found herself face to face with none other than Harry Potter.

He still looked the same as he did when they were in school even though someone had clearly tried to tame him. He still had that same messy black hair, same glasses that sat a little too crooked on his face (why didn't he get a new pair for Merlin's sake?) and upon closer inspection, Pansy soon realized he was wearing the same bottle green dress robes he'd worn to the Yule Ball in their fourth year. Her eyes swept the hem at his feet and wrists and she was little surprised to find it had been altered rather poorly with a growth charm to adjust to his height.

She resisted the urge to scoff. The man was the savior of the entire wizarding world, had endless funds from his own family name, as well as that of the Blacks which was no small fortune, not to mention the fact that any robe maker would happily have him wear any of their designs free of charge (simply for the publicity...it's how Granger remained so well dressed) and yet here he was, at one of the most posh galas of the year, still wearing the same dress robes from Hogwarts.

How did he even exist?

"Pansy Parkinson," he said her name as a statement and a rather slurred one.

"You're smashed, Potter," she answered and sure enough he brought a flask of fire whiskey to his lips and took a swig. He cheers to her, then took another longer drag.

"You best be careful," Pansy said, wrinkling her nose. The man reeked of the stuff. She was surprised she didn't smell him the moment she went outside. "About a dozen reporters are here, and whatever truce you have with Rita Skeeter will doubtfully apply to the rest of them. No one would ignore the Chosen One being completely pissed at the gala for the benefit of war orphans."

"S'pose not," he said. He pocketed the flask and pushed away from the wall. He took a tottering step and promptly stumbled into a bush. He landed hard on his knees, then rolled to the ground before settling on his back giggling.

Merlin.

Pansy pursed her lips. She should just leave him here. It's not like she and Potter were friendly after all. In fact, other than a few cordial greetings over the years, she hadn't actually spoken to him since Hogwarts. And of course back then, could that really be considered speaking? It was more like jeering. She was such a shit back then.

She did sort of owe him. There was that whole thing where she tried to turn him into You-Know-Who.

Pansy sighed and pocketed her wand. "Oh go on," she grumbled as she pulled Potter's arm over her shoulder so she could haul him to his feet.

He leaned on her heavily, and Pansy steered him toward the staircase that led up to her personal terrace. She cast a concealment charm as they climbed the steps. Best not to be spotted leading a drunken Potter up to her bedroom. Imagine the scandal.

She led him through her ornate French doors and into her suite to the adjoining bathroom. Waving her wand, she lit the room and deposited the now hiccuping Potter onto the toilet and began rummaging through her medicine cupboard.

"I was saving this for a special occasion," she said as she thrust a vial of pearly pink potion in Harry's direction. "But I guess your needs are greater than mine, so bottoms up."

Potter studied the concoction with eyes that were very nearly crossed. "Wha izzit?" he slurred.

Pansy raised her eyebrows. "You don't get sloshed often enough, do you Potter? It's a sobering potion."

"Who sayz I wanna be sober?" Potter asked her.

Pansy shrugged as she settled herself on the vanity, her legs crossed under her black silk robe. "Fine," she said, "piss your pants in front of half of the Daily Prophet. Be my guest, but don't say I never tried to help. Besides, as smashed as you are, it probably won't make you completely sober. You'll still be a bumbling idiot...don't worry."

Harry glared at her a brief moment before uncorking the vial and tossing the potion back. It took about ten seconds before Pansy could see the effects. His eyes cleared and his pink face faded back to its normal swarthy tan. It was another thirty before he was vomiting.

Pansy couldn't help but smirk. "Forgot to mention that part," she said as Harry glared up at her from the toilet.

When he'd finished he sat back down heavily, took off his glasses and rubbed at his face vigorously. Pansy watch him impassively with her arms and her legs crossed. She summoned a glass and filled it with water. She handed it to him and he muttered a thanks before gulping it down.

Pansy watched as Potter buried his head in his hands, and for the first time since she saw his drunken arse in the courtyard, she wondered just what had driven the Boy Who Lived to get uncontrollably smashed. She thought about just asking him. It's what she would have done if it were anyone else sitting before her. But this was Harry Potter. And she was… well. She was Pansy Parkinson and while she and her family hadn't technically been death eaters, they weren't not death eaters. No matter what her mother pretended to be these days, she and Pansy's father, her aunts and uncles and cousins, they were all happy to sit the sidelines during the war and favor whoever won. To be fair, that's what most pureblood families did. They weren't really all that different than the Prewetts and the Greengrasses and even the Fawleys who never officially declared sides and didn't have any prominent family members representing them as death eaters. But they didn't fight either.

Pansy didn't fight. She didn't fight. That horrid seventh year at Hogwarts...the things those Carrows wanted them to do. What Amycus made her do...the things he did to her. And she'd survived it all by hiding behind her pretty face and her blood status and her last name. No one cared. Not even Snape and McGonnagal, not even the Weasley girl and Longbottom and all those pitiful DA members who fancied themselves saviors. They had new injuries every other day and Pansy thought they were insane, the lot of them. To resist was the die, didn't they see that? And many of them did die. They did.

Even Harry had died.

The Boy Who Lived had died, then lived again. A miracle many still didn't understand, Pansy included. But here he was. The boy wonder. Vomiting in her toilet.

He finally looked up at her and Pansy had a momentary shock that Harry Potter wasn't actually bad looking. Without his glasses, Pansy could clearly see those green eyes everyone always talked about. She realized with a jolt that she'd never actually been close enough to him to actually see. See the way they sort of glowed. Like emeralds, like actual jewels.

Her heart fluttered. And it made her angry. It made her feel vulnerable. And she was so done feeling vulnerable.

"So, Chosen One," Pansy said snidely as she studied her fingernails. "What's with the fire whiskey anyway? Felt like livening up the party out there? I admit it is rather dull."

Harry shook his head. "I've just been going through some things."

Pansy scoffed. "Going through some things? I suppose having thousands of admirers falling at your feet isn't enough for you? Now you've got things?"

Harry glared at her. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Pansy Parkinson?"

Pansy laughed meanly. "No more than you. Still feeling sorry for yourself, are you? Still fancying yourself the poor little orphan? That's why you're here tonight, right? To help war orphans like yourself? Some job you're doing of it, getting pissed and hiding in a courtyard."

Harry stood up. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?"

"You don't. All you know is parties and jewels and money and Merlin why am I even talking to you?" He turned to leave. "Thanks for the potion. I'll be going now."

Pansy stood up now. "You think you're the only one who's suffered? You think you're the only one who's got things? We've all got things, Potter. You're the just the only one who's allowed to wallow in them, is that it?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Harry snarled. "I put on a happy face and smile for the bloody cameras and I come to these parties with people who would have stabbed me in the back five years ago, and I do it all because I was there, Pansy. I am the one who saw the dead bodies and the kids crying and I have a godson who will never know his parents, and yes, I was bloody one of them. And where were you that night? Fleeing. Just like the coward you always were. Now if you'll excuse me." He turned to leave again and in a rage Pansy waved her wand with such viciousness that the bathroom door slammed shut.

"Coward, you think I am?" Pansy said softly and her voice was low, dangerous. "Do you have any idea what it was like at Hogwarts that year? Do you have any idea what we all went through, what I went through. Of course not. All you've heard is what your precious girlfriend told you. The blood traitor that the Carrows all but ignored unless she was making trouble. But me? Did they ignore me? Did they let me just be? Do you have any idea what it was like for me, Potter? To be Amycus's little plaything? Because he liked me Potter! He liked me, and it didn't matter that I was a student, that I was a young girl, or that I said no. All that mattered was that he liked me, and he wanted me, and I was pure blood and the Dark Lord promised him pure blood. And no one could protect me. All I could do was endure it all. You think me a coward, do you? For fleeing? You don't know anything, Potter!"

She was crying now and her hands trembled on her wand. She didn't know why she was telling him this. She'd never told anyone, not really. Draco knew, but only because Amycus used to brag to him about it. How he'd stolen his girlfriend. Another way to rub it in Draco's face that he and his father had fallen out of favor with the Dark Lord. Amycus used to whisper things in Draco's ear. Filthy things. The filthy things he'd done to Pansy, and he'd laugh and lick his lips and Draco could do nothing. Nothing except look at her guiltily, pityingly.

Sort of the way Potter was looking at her right now.

She didn't want his pity. She didn't want his guilt. She just wanted him to understand. To understand why she did what she did that night. Why she wanted it all to just...end.

"You're right," Harry said, and he looked like he might vomit again. "I don't know anything. I didn't know. And...I'm sorry. That's...horrible."

Pansy seemed to deflate. She collapsed on the toilet seat, and buried her face in her hands. Potter handed her a wad of toilet paper and she took it, carefully dabbing at her kohl lined eyes.

"I shouldn't have told you that," she muttered. "It's not something I want people...knowing."

Potter sighed and sat down opposite her on the edge of her immaculate bathtub. He sat there quietly for a moment.

"Ginny's chucked me," he said finally.

"What?" Pansy was still drying her eyes, still trying to calm her racing heart.

"It's the things I've been dealing with. Ginny. She's chucked me for some Bulgarian beater, Boris Vulchanov."

"You're kidding," Pansy said.

"I know. I'm being an idiot...I know it doesn't compare to what-"

"That twat!"

"What?"

"That unbelievable twat. I never did like her, no matter what Blaise always said. What a bloody idiot. Chucking the Boy Who Lived for some daft quidditch player. And a foreign one at that."

Potter raised his eyebrows. "What do you c-?"

"I suppose she thinks she's all high and mighty now that she plays for the Harpies."

"I really didn't think you'd-"

"I mean, honestly. Boris Vulchanov? He's not even good looking. And he talks like he's taken one too many bludgers to the head. The bloody idiot."

Potter cocked his head to side. "I don't know what's more strange. Your outrage or the fact that you know who Boris Vulchanov is."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows who Boris Vulchanov is. And if you ask me, he'll never live up to his father's stats. He's too thick."

Potter's mouth was hanging open.

"Ginny bloody Weasley chucks Harry bloody Potter…" Pansy shook her head in disbelief.

Harry frowned. "Well I'd rather her chuck me than stay with me just because I am...who I am."

Pansy leveled him with a glare. "That's not what I meant," she said. "It's just that the two of you… well Merlin if Harry Potter and Ginny bloody Weasley can't make it work, then what's that say for the rest of us?"

"That we're just as fucked as everyone else?"

Pansy surprised herself by laughing.

And Harry cracked a smile.

And Pansy's heart fluttered again.

She heaved a sigh. "Well I take back what I said before. You totally deserve to get smashed." Taking out her wand again, she summoned in a bottle of Scotch, the good kind, the kind she saved for special occasions.

"Whatever they say about muggles," Pansy said as she poured out two glasses. "They know how to make their liquor. Here." She handed him a glass and raised her own. "To Ginny bloody Weasley and Boris Vulchanov. May they both fall off their brooms."

Their glasses clinked and they both took a healthy sip. "Good, eh?"

Potter smacked his lips and nodded. "You know, my uncle used to drink this stuff like it was liquid gold. I always thought he was exaggerating."

"Was it awful? Being raised by muggles?"

Harry snorted. "It was awful being raised by the Dursleys, yes. Because they were muggles? Nah."

They sat in silence a bit longer, each sipping their Scotch, each lost in their own haunted memories.

"I'm sorry," Pansy said. "About what I said earlier. And about...well. You know. When I wanted to hand you over. I thank god every day that no one listened to me."

Harry drained his glass and poured them both another.

And they sat there. Together in Pansy's oversized bathroom, sipping muggle Scotch and silently forgiving each other.

2

Harry saw Pansy again about a month and a half later. She was standing in line at a shop in Diagon Alley, her arms filled with brightly wrapped parcels. She wore gray robes, stylishly cinched at the waist with a long matching cloak that was buttoned to her throat. A light pink scarf circled her neck and her black hair was windswept, her fringe a bit mussed and her cheeks a bit pink.

Harry caught himself staring before he realized it.

If he was completely honest with himself, he'd thought of Pansy Parkinson more than he'd have liked in the past weeks. It was a bit...annoying really. He often wondered what she was doing, who she was with, what she was wearing that day. It was absurd.

And then there was that trip to Azkaban.

After arresting Corban Yaxley, having taken years to track him down, Harry had wanted to personally escort him to Azkaban, as the man had managed to escape ministry clutches three times already. After depositing him in a high security cell, Harry had found himself standing in front of Amycus Carrow.

The man was lying on a low, hard bed. His legs were crossed as he thumbed through a copy of Witch Weekly. He looked so...at ease. Comfortable. And the rage that hit Harry was so hard that it was alarming. All he could think about was what Pansy had said. What this...scum...had done to her. He nearly reached through the bars and cursed the man right then. He'd settled for incinerating the Witch Weekly.

He watched Pansy pay for her items and exit the crowded shop. It was nearing Christmas and Diagon Alley was a bustle with witches and wizards scrambling to find gifts. Harry followed her outside into the snowy street. She had taken out her wand and was levitating several parcels and shopping bags, making her way toward Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

Harry entered the shop behind her and wasn't surprised to find that the store was more crowded than ever. Fred and George had just launched a new product that was selling like wildfire. Harry had actually had a hand in its development and was quite pleased to see its success.

"Messenger Diaries for sale over here," called out a familiar voice. "Step right up, there's enough for everyone. The perfect holiday gift." George was manning the Diaries sections and though his face was a bit red, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

The diaries really were a brilliant new invention and Harry and Ginny had actually gotten the idea from that old diary of Tom Riddle's (though they'd never admit it to anyone but each other). When Ginny joined the Harpies, she'd had to move to Holyhead, of course, which meant she and Harry rarely found time to see each other. And then there was the match schedule which took her around the world and with Harry busy with auror training and his work with the ministry, it was becoming harder and harder for she and Harry to keep in touch. Owls were much too slow, and flooing required a fireplace, and was always a bit uncomfortable. If only there was a way to write messages to one another that they would receive instantly.

"I hate to say it," Ginny had said, "but I sort of wish we had something like Riddle's old diary. It was bloody convenient being able to chat with him all day."

"Well if Riddle could do it, why can't we?" Harry had said. And so he had enlisted Fred and George's creative minds to help. It was quite simple once they got the logistics down. As long as two people had diaries, they could write to each other.

"Like walkie-talkies," Harry had mused, though the twins had no idea what he was talking about. But Fred took it a step further and enhanced the product so that one could chat with anyone else in the world who also had a diary.

"All you have to do," he'd explained, "is write their name at the top of the page, like this." He demonstrated by writing "Ron Weasley" at the top of a random page. "And now you just..." He took out a quill and wrote Hey git, don't think I didn't see you pocket those dung bombs. You owe four sickles or I'm docking it from your pay.

From across the room Harry and Fred had watched Ron's diary chirp. He opened it, read the message and frowned. He turned and made a rude hand gesture at Fred who merely waved.

"Neat, eh?" Fred asked.

"Brilliant," said Harry.

"We're going to make a killing of it. All thanks to you and Ginny. Don't worry, you two will get your share."

"Don't be daft," Harry protested. But Fred and George were very careful accountants. They were always sure Harry got his share in his investment and despite all Harry could do to discourage this, he continued to find fat amounts of gold in his Gringotts vault, deposits marked Weasley Bros Inc.

Harry watched Pansy head straight for the Messenger Diaries. She inspected several different styles, for the twins had different cover designs for sale. There was the standard brown leather, but also an assortment of designs ranging from deep purple with silver stars to vibrant orange and red stripes.

Pansy selected a shimmering pink that came with a matching quill and Harry smirked. He remembered how Ginny had detested the pink one. She then selected an emerald green one before making her way to stand in the curling line to get to the cash register. Harry saw that the twins had hired several new faces to help in the Christmas time rush, among which he spotted Colin and Dennis Creevy. They stood at adjacent registers, each wearing a matching smile and magenta robes.

Harry followed Pansy as she exited the shop and snaked her way through the crowded street, her parcels floating along behind her. She held her head high, her narrow hips sashaying as she strode along, quite oblivious to Harry following her.

She paused outside Madam Malkin's and surveyed a robe in the window display. When she went inside, Harry took out his own messenger diary. He turned to a new page and wrote her name at the top. Pansy Parkinson.

Fancy a cup of tea?

Her response came quicker than he would've thought.

Bout time you've asked. Seeing as you've been following me all afternoon.

Harry laughed out loud.

Meet me at Rosa Lee's in ten minutes?

More like twenty. I've just found a set of robes to die for. Must try on first.

And so Harry found himself, twenty minutes later, sitting in a crowded tea shop, across from Pansy Parkinson as she sipped her tea and nibbled on a biscuit shaped like a snowman.

Her cheeks were still pink from the cold, and her lipstick left red stains on the teacup. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured, painted a bright, festive gold that matched the studs in her ears. And she looked...beautiful.

Harry couldn't help it. She did.

"So," he said. "Er, Christmas shopping?" He nodded at her parcels and bags which now floated above their table, bumping gently into neighboring parcels as other patrons levitated their purchases as well.

"Ah yes," Pansy said. "All the obligatory gifts. New quills for Mum, shiny new cauldron for Dad—one he will never use, mind you. Let's see, a new hat for Grandmum, which she will surely detest but then...she detests everything. Some sweets for the house elves...let's see, what else..."

"Who's the second diary for?"

"Oh, I'm sending that to Daphne. She and her family moved to America, didn't you know? Just before all hell broke out here. I expect they'll move back after Astoria graduates Ilvermorny, but who knows. Daphne seems quite at home there. Met an American bloke she seems quite enamored with. It's a shame really. She's the only real friend I have left." Pansy smiled wistfully and took a sip of tea to hide her sadness. But it was there. Just under all the makeup and beauty potions, Harry could see it.

Harry didn't really know Daphne Greengrass. She was in his year, but being a Slytherin and one of Pansy and Draco's lackies, he never gave her the time of day. Of what he remembered of her, she was quiet, pretty, and was often found sniggering at something mean Pansy or Draco had said about him.

"And what brings you to Diagon Alley? Christmas shopping too?" Pansy asked him politely.

Harry frowned. "Er, yes. Kind of. I—well, Christmas this year might be a bit...awkward for me, considering…."

"Ah," Pansy nodded. "Considering the She-Weasle chucked you and you spend Christmas with her family every year."

Harry nodded. "Yes, she er—owled me that she was bringing Boris home to meet the family. Puts me in a bit of a strange position."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "The twat," she muttered under her breath. And despite the fact that Harry's impulse was to defend Ginny, he couldn't help feeling a perverse thrill at hearing Pansy's disdain. Part of him agreed. Yes, Ginny was a twat. He was angry with her. And everyone else in his life seemed very eager to stay on neutral territory when it came to Harry and Ginny's breakup. And he couldn't blame them, not really. Half of his friends were related to her, for Merlin's sake. And the other half –well….they adored her. Most people did.

But not Pansy. And that was...refreshing.

He raised his teacup and cheersed her. "So I fear my Christmas this year will very much consist of me popping into the Burrow for half an hour, just enough to drop off gifts and ensure Mrs. Weasley's feelings aren't hurt, then spending the rest of the day at home with my very old, surly house-elf and a portrait of a woman who hates my very existence."

Pansy wrinkled her nose. "I doubt that a dozen or more wizarding families wouldn't very much welcome the Boy Who Lived at their Christmas table."

"Yes, that's just what I want," said Harry sarcastically. "To spend Christmas dinner being toasted and saluted and asked to recount how I'd died and come back to life. That's in the real spirit of the holiday."

"Perhaps not," said Pansy. "Though might be better than spending Christmas alone."

"I suppose you have some lavish pureblood party to attend?"

Pansy sighed. "Well, yes. The Parkinsons are rather connected. Every Christmas Eve the Notts throw this large, ridiculous dinner party where we purebloods stand around together and congratulate ourselves on our numerous achievements and blessings...and until recently discuss how the muggles and muggleborns were destroying our society. But oh no, not anymore. Now it's all about integration and tolerance and creating a new world where wizards and muggles coexist peacefully. All thanks to you and Granger, really."

"Is that so?" Harry said.

"It's all very hypocritical. But at least the wine is good."

"I suppose you have some pureblooded suitor lined up to be your date to this party?"

Pansy snorted into her tea. "Are you serious, Potter? You think I have suitors? First of all, what bloody year do you think this is? And secondly… I don't suppose you read the papers do you?"

Harry gave Pansy a blank stare.

Pansy sighed. "You know Rita Skeeter might be on a tight leash when it comes to you and your posse, but unfortunately for the rest of us...we are free game. And her favorite topics are those of us who were so bold as to oppose you during the war. There's an article in the Daily Prophet every other week about me."

"About what?" Harry said, confused.

"Oh, usually some snapshot of me with an unflattering look on my face with some appalling caption like, 'Pansy Parkinson, Underground Death Eater Cult?' or 'Pansy Parkinson's Secret Pregnancy- how she sacrificed her baby to the Dark Lord!' She almost always begins the article by reminding everyone that I was the one who of course suggested we all turn on you at the battle of Hogwarts. No one wants anything to do with me, least of all romantically. Anyone seen with me in public runs the risk of being my alleged baby daddy to the child I used for some spell to bring back You-Know-Who, or some such rubbish."

"I see," Harry said slowly. He glanced around.

"Oh, don't worry," Pansy said. "There aren't any reporters here. And no one has been following me today...well except for you."

"How did you know I was following you?" Harry asked. "I thought I was being very discreet."

"Oh, you were," Pansy assured him. "You were the proper creep, don't worry. You'd make a fine serial killer. But lucky for me, I've had ample experience with predators and I've become quite adept at the tracking charm. It alerts me to anyone following me, or anyone getting too close. It only took once of being attacked by one of your many fanatics for me to realize I need to protect myself a bit better."

"The tracker charm?" Harry asked. "I've never heard of it."

"Ah, well you wouldn't would you? Learned it seventh year. Flitwick sort of took it upon himself, as did most of the other teachers, to take on teaching some more defensive spells. You know, since Defense Against the Dark Arts had ceased to exist."

"Ah," said Harry.

"It's bloody useful," Pansy went on. "Perhaps you should learn it yourself. Might save you the trouble of being harassed for autographs every few minutes."

"Perhaps you might teach it to me," Harry said before he could stop himself.

Pansy started to say something, but stopped as a blush crept over her cheeks. She buried her face in her teacup in an attempt to hide it, but Harry saw. And his heart lurched.

"So this party," Harry hedged. "At the Nott's… will there be press there?"

"Of course," said Pansy. "They never miss it. The Notts actually invite them. Pay them off to write something positive."

"And will the press be writing about you then?"

"It's likely, yes." Pansy said wearily.

"Well," said Harry, and here he started to smile. "What would they write about if you showed up with a pure blooded suitor on your arm? A certain, war hero of a certain...notoriety?"

Pansy frowned. "Potter, are you actually saying…?"

"Well, why not?" Harry asked. "You said it yourself, anything is better than being alone on Christmas. And this gives me a good excuse to duck out of the Weasleys. And of course, I still owe you for saving me from embarrassment at the last gala. Least I can do is return the favor. Imagine what the papers will say if they see we are friendly. All is forgiven, you're not a death eater, and so on."

Pansy looked down at her plate a moment. "Is it all forgiven then?" she asked quietly without looking at him.

Harry reached out and impulsively took her hand. It was warmer than he thought it would be, her fingers small and delicate. She looked up at him, her expression both surprised and hopeful. "There's nothing to forgive," Harry said softly. "The war was...hard. On everyone. I understand more now...what you were going through."

Pansy visibly swallowed and nodded, giving his hand a gentle squeeze back.

"So it's settled then?" Harry said lightly. "You'll take me with you to Nott's Christmas party?"

"On one condition," Pansy said, tossing her hair back.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"You wear proper dress robes. Not that ghastly one from the Yule Ball. Something new. Something posh."

Harry laughed. "It's a deal."

3

Pansy stood in front of her full length mirror and studied her reflection. It'd been a long time since she'd dressed with such care.

Her hair was sleek and straight, and it framed her face perfectly. She wore it just as she always did, a black bob with a thick straight fringe that hovered just over her blue eyes which she had lined with kohl, a thick coat of mascara and shimmering eyeshadow. Her complexion was perfect thanks to a beauty potion she'd splurged on and her lips were berry red and matched her robes –the latest fashion – floor length with a plunging neckline that went down past her sternum. The sleeves were tight to the wrist where they flared out slightly and it was made out of a slinky new material that clung to her every curve. She'd paired it with a short gold necklace and matching gold chandelier earrings and when she moved, every bit of her seemed to sparkle. On her feet she wore a pair of simple black stilettos, her creamy white legs peaking out from a slit in the robe.

Pansy checked the clock. Potter would be arriving in just a few minutes time by floo and then from Pansy's suite they would floo to the Nott party together. She tried (and failed) to calm her fluttering heart, reminding herself repeatedly that Potter was just doing them both a favor by accompanying her to the party… but the truth was, her mind seemed determined to think of this as a proper date. She'd be lying if she said she didn't feel a hint of attraction to him. Okay, more than a hint. And it made no sense because he was Harry bloody Potter, and she was Pansy bloody Parkinson and she'd spent most of her life despising him. But for what? Simply because Draco hated him, and she always did what Draco said?

Well Pansy decided to put that all behind her. All was forgiven. Isn't that what Harry had said?

Pansy checked the clock again.

She had no idea what Potter would be wearing. She'd received a number of messages in her diary a few days ago that had given her cause for concern.

H: Pansy, what's the difference between white and ivory? Is ivory just a dirtier white? Why does it cost more?

H: Should I get cufflinks?

H: What are cufflinks?

H: Do they honestly expect me not to wear trousers under the robe? Is that really the latest trend?

Pansy had finally taken pity on him and responded. P: Don't let them talk you into white. Ask for a forest green blended robe, calf length with matching trousers. And yes, get cufflinks, preferably gold.

And when Potter walked through Pansy's ornate fireplace a few seconds later, Pansy was almost rendered speechless by how closely he had followed her directions.

His robe was perfectly tailored, dark green with golden embroidery. It hit him at mid-calf, just as she'd instructed, and he wore matching green trousers underneath. The robe was cut close to his shoulders and waist, accenting both his broad back and trim waistline. He looked...good. Someone had actually succeeded in taming his wild hair (Pansy suspected Sleekeasy's potion) and he wore new glasses –black rectangular frames that complimented the sharp angles of his face and jawline.

"Well don't you look dashing," she said, recovering from her momentary shock.

He smiled at her. "Likewise," he said, his eyes sweeping her from head to toe, lingering just a moment too long at her plunging neckline.

Pansy flushed and swallowed. "Well, shall we go then?"

"Just a moment," Harry said. "I um...well. Considering it is Christmas and all. I...got you a present."

"A present?" Pansy said.

"Yes, you know. Gift giving is sort of a Christmas tradition, isn't it? Here." He took a small poorly wrapped parcel from his pocket and handed it to her.

She held it in her hand and frowned. "I didn't get you anything," she said bluntly.

Harry laughed. "Don't feel bad just yet. You haven't even opened it."

Pansy tore at the shiny red and white paper, revealing a small black box. She opened it and nestled inside in a pillow of velvet was a small gold bracelet with a tiny emerald in the center.

"It's got a cheering charm. Just something to spread the Christmas cheer is all. No need to get weepy about it," Harry said, sounding a bit panicked.

Pansy hadn't realize that her eyes had misted over. She blinked rapidly and looked up. "Thank you," she said. She slipped the bracelet onto her wrist and she immediately felt the charm's effects. Happiness bubbled in her chest and suddenly she was smiling.

"Strong," she said a little breathlessly.

Harry nodded and held up his wrist which bore a matching gold cuff. His smile was as wide as hers. "I thought we could both use a little fun tonight."

Pansy sighed happily. "You thought right."

"Well," Harry said, offering her his arm. Pansy took it and together they made their way back over to the fireplace.

"Oh wait," Pansy said. "I almost forgot." She went to her desk and picked up the invitation. It was spelled so that it allowed access to the party, which was strictly invitation only, very exclusive. Once Harry had basically invited himself, Pansy had owled the Notts to change her RSVP from one seat to two. She received a new invitation back almost immediately, that showed two guests were now allowed access to the party.

They flooed into the Nott's main foyer. It was a magnificent room. At least a dozen Christmas trees lined the walls, each decorated with silver and gold baubles, tinsel and sparkling lights. The ceiling hung with garlands and enchanted snow fell around them. They were greeted by a sweet little house elf wearing a red and green pointed hat with a matching dress and curling shoes. She looked straight out of the North Pole and every time she moved jingle bells sung from her hat and shoes.

"Right this way," she squeaked, and she led them out of the foyer, down a hallway and into the main ballroom. The Nott's manor was very large, but Pansy knew the ballroom had been magically enhanced to accommodate so many guests. It was quite crowded already. Witches and wizards mingled in a sea of colors, chatting and hugging and laughing. No one had noticed them yet, which Pansy was secretly grateful for, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

"Shall we get a drink?" Harry asked.

She nodded gratefully and pointed toward the bar positioned just to their left. Pansy ordered a glass of red wine, and Potter ordered a scotch. They were just turning away when Pansy heard her name.

"Hello cousin," It was Theodore. He leaned in and kissed Pansy on the cheek.

"Theo," Pansy nodded. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know, the same. The mastery at the department of mysteries is keeping me quite busy. My final project is due at the end of the- Potter?"

"Hello Theodore," Harry said, lightly raising his glass in greeting.

"I didn't know you'd- with Pansy?" Theo looked back and forth between the two of them as if waiting for some kind of explanation.

"Good of Pansy to invite me," Harry said. "I've been wanting to meet her family in full for ages. This seemed an opportune moment, seeing as it's Christmas and all."

"Er, yes," Theo said, eying Pansy, who merely smiled. Her cheering charm was in full effect and she was finding this entire exchange quite hilarious.

"Well… er, welcome?" Theo tried again. "This is my grandmother's house. She'll be….er….delighted that you're here."

Harry nodded gratefully and started to lead Pansy away. They left Theo standing there with his mouth agape and Pansy covered her mouth to stifle the burst of giggles that just exploded.

"This is going to be fun," Harry said softly in her ear, and Pansy's neck broke out in goosebumps. They meandered around the room, Harry's hand settled lightly on Pansy's lower back. Pansy watched people glance at her and then away, so used to avoiding her as they were. It was most comical once they realized who she was with. Their heads nearly rocketed off their necks as they did a double take.

"I didn't know Theodore Nott was your cousin," Harry said, taking a sip of scotch as they walked.

"Oh yes," Pansy nodded. "Our mothers were sisters. Both Warringtons."

"Is that so?"

"Of course. Though, poor Theo's mother died when we were very young. He was raised by his father, didn't you know? The death eater. I don't think anyone else in the world was happier than Theo was when the wanker was sent to Azkaban. I think he's secretly grateful to you for that. Ah, and Cassius is just over there. You remember Cassius?" She pointed at her other cousin who was standing just ahead of them. He wore green robes, similar to the ones Harry wore, and his golden blond hair was so carefully disheveled it was almost comical. He stood next to his date, a pretty brunette Pansy recognized as Eleanor Branstone, a muggle-born Hufflepuff several years their junior. Pansy studied Cassius. He looked as pompous and bored as ever, and she wondered if he were really interested in Eleanor, or was simply courting her to improve his family's image after the war.

"Ah, yes," Harry said. "Played Chaser for Slytherin?"

"Harry! Harry, good to see you!" Horace Slughorn seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Pansy watched as her old professor's reddened face smiled fondly and greeted Harry profusely. Slughorn was closely followed by Mr. Olivander, the wandmaker and another distant relative of Pansy's. And so for the next twenty minutes until dinner was served Harry was greeted and received and smiled and cajoled into hugs and handshakes, so much so that Pansy finally took pity on him and directed him straight to their table.

The ballroom was set up with two dozen massive round tables that seated twelve. Pansy and Harry were seated with an assortment of Pansy's cousins. Cassius and Eleanor, Theo and Tracey Davis, her two elder Parkinson cousins from her father's side of the family. Both heirs to massive fortune and had pureblood wives with 2.5 children, lived in wizarding villages and had upstanding careers at the ministry. They pointedly ignored Pansy on most occasions, but tonight they were all smiles, and "Happy Christmas" and "lovely weather we've been having" and "Oh, Harry Potter, what a pleasure!"

Dinner was delicious, of course. A six course masterpiece that left Pansy feeling comfortably full and warm. Her wine glass was never empty and she was feeling quite good by the time their plates had been cleared and the music started.

"Is that Celestina Warbeck?" Harry's voice came from her shoulder, his lips hovering just over her ear.

"Of course," Pansy said, turning toward the stage. "She sings every year."

Harry's eyes widened. "I've tried three times to get tickets to her show as a gift to Mrs. Weasley. They're always sold out instantly."

Pansy watched the aging witch in her glittering robe and her elaborately styled hair as she crooned out her classic hit, A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love. She shrugged. "I suppose I could introduce you. I'm sure if she would have known the famous Harry Potter wanted to get tickets to her show, she wouldn't refuse you a box seat."

Harry gave her a lopsided grin. "I don't suppose you'd care to dance, would you?"

Slowly couples were taking the dance floor, swaying together as Celestina switched tunes and started in on a Christmas song about the three Magi and their travels to Bethlehem.

So Pansy followed Harry out to the dance floor. The cheering charm and the wine and her full stomach were filling her with a sense of elation that she couldn't describe. It felt like a dream, swaying there in Harry's arms, his warm breath on her neck, her chest pressed lightly against his. This close, he smelled oddly like wood. Like he'd just gotten off of a broomstick.

She didn't even notice the cameras.

They danced for several more songs, and when Celestina took a break Pansy introduced her to Harry, and they chatted like old pals. Then there was more wine, and more people to meet, and house elves walking around with trays full of chocolate cauldrons spiked with fire whiskey, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, the bloody minister of magic, was hugging her, for Merlin's sake and before she knew it she and Harry were standing in the doorway under a patch of mistletoe, and Harry was saying something about Nargles, and then he was kissing her.

And for a bit, she couldn't breathe. Like the oxygen had been sucked from her lungs, and lights were flashing, and people were laughing, and his lips felt like soft cushions of heat, and he tasted like whiskey and chocolate, and something else that reminded her of quidditch games at Hogwarts and she still couldn't believe that Harry Potter was kissing her, and then they were dancing again. And the cheering charm and the wine and Harry, it was all happening so fast and so strange, and so amazing and she loved it, every minute of it…

4

"Harry, are you mad?" Hermione slammed a copy of the Daily Prophet down on the bar table, her face a violent shade of pink, and her hair looking particularly bushy. "Pansy Parkinson?"

Harry looked down at the moving photograph of he and Pansy kissing the other night at the Christmas party. He hadn't realized that he'd sort of pinned her against the door jam, one hand braced against the wall, the other wrapped tightly around her waist. Her hand cupped the back of his neck, and their lips moved passionately.

The memory of her lips and her body and the warmth he felt… it set his veins on fire. He couldn't keep the smile off his face.

"You think this is funny, do you?" Hermione's voice had taken on that shrill tone she used to use in school when she was telling him off for copying.

"Oh come on, Hermione," Ron said from Harry's right. "He's entitled to a rebound shag. I mean, Parkinson is an interesting choice, but-"

"Harry," Hermione said, cutting off Ron. She took a deep, steadying breath. "I know you and Ginny's breakup could hardly have been easy...but...but… Pansy Parkinson? Is this really the way to get back at Ginny?"

Harry frowned. "It's not about that," he said. "Hermione look. I know you don't like her. Hell none of us did. But she's changed. She's different now. I… fancy her."

"You fancy her?" Hermione shrieked. "Need I remind you that she it was she who suggested we turn you over to Voldemort that night at Hogwarts?"

"No, you don't need to remind me," Harry said crossly.

"Need I also remind you that she tortured us for six years of school? She made up that wretched song about Ron in fifth year and during the Triwizard Tournament she made up all those lies about you to Rita Skeeter? And what about Draco? How could you like someone who was so into him, like she was?"

"Hermione, come on. None of that was that bad."

"Not that bad?" Hermione's face turned even pinker. "Don't you remember fourth year when she sneaked into my dormitory and stole all of my underwear. Yes, all of it! And I had to write home to mum and dad to send me more. And then she just handed my knickers out to all the Slytherin boys who made up disgusting stories about how they'd gotten them. And then there was that whole period during third year when she charmed a tampon to fall out of my pocket every time I raised my hand in class."

Ron snorted and Hermione rounded on him with a glare so fierce Ron nearly backed away. "Sorry!" he said. "But...period." He raised his arms in surrender.

"Yes. Period. I'd just gotten my period that year and it was mortifying! Don't you remember any of this?"

Harry looked at Ron and raised his eyebrows. Ron shrugged. The truth was, Harry didn't recall either of those things. But then, he was a bit oblivious back then. "Hermione, come on," he begged. "I said she's different now. All those things happened in school. People change."

"Oh well, in that case, I'm sure you wouldn't mind a bit if I went off and snogged Goyle. I'm sure he's changed."

Harry sighed.

Hermione was studying the Daily Prophet again. "It says here that you went to the Nott's annual Christmas Eve party with her. Harry Potter was spotted sharing a mistletoe kiss with none other than pure blood bad girl, Pansy Parkinson."

"Bad girl," Ron chuckled.

"Could this mean the two have set aside their differences in the name of a budding romance, or was this merely revenge against Potter's newly split ex-lover Ginny Weasley, chaser for the Holyhead Harpies? See page eight for more details. Oh, honestly Harry. The press is having a field day."

"Oy!" Harry said, his voice rising a bit. "I don't complain when the two of you snog each other in public and your bloody faces are all over the cover pages. Just let this be… Meet her. Get to know her better. I promise things are different now."

"Do you mean to say...you're actually going to… date her?" Hermione said.

Harry shrugged. "I've invited her to Neville's New Years Party. She's said she'll go. I expect you can speak to her then."

"Harry, you didn't," Hermione said. "Don't you think you ought to… ask Neville if it's okay if you bring her?"

"Why would he care?" Harry asked.

"Well...because!"

"Hermione just because you hated her guts in school doesn't mean everyone did."

"Don't you remember how she cast that leg lock curse at him when he was trying to ask out Susan Bones? And how she actually pushed him down the stairs in fourth year? Or how she would call him Neville the Nutless? Or… or what was the other one? Oh yes, Limpdick Longbottom. She was just awful to him."

"But how did she know he was limpdicked?" Ron asked seriously.

"Well," Hermione said smugly. "That is the question, isn't it?"

Harry frowned. He didn't really remember Pansy being that terrible. But then… Neville was always being teased, especially by the Slytherins.

"Alright," Harry conceded. "I will ask Neville. But if he says it's fine, she's coming. And you best be nice to her. There's more to her than you know, Hermione. Trust me."

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and looked doubtful. "Well there's Neville now. Go on and ask him."

Harry peered across the bar and sure enough, Neville had just arrived. He donned an apron and began his work behind the bar.

Ever since Neville quit the aurors to begin his mastery in herbology, he'd been working at the Leaky Cauldron alongside his girlfriend Hannah Abbott. Hannah's uncle Tom, the Inn's notoriously peculiar innkeeper had recently retired and left the entire establishment to her. And honestly it was probably the best business decision the man ever made because under Hannah's management, the Leaky Cauldron had become a completely different place. It was warm, and comfortable and served delicious food and drinks. It's rooms were no longer drab and dark, but decorated tastefully. It's service was impeccable and it was quickly becoming a favorite destination for witches and wizards all over the country, rather than just the entrance to Diagon Alley.

And for Harry, Ron and Hermione...it was basically a home away from home. They met up there nearly daily. They all lived in London now and with all three of them working at the ministry, it was a great place to meet up. And then of course, the pub always had friendly faces.

"Hi Harry," Neville greeted as Harry settled on a bar stool.

"Hey Neville," Harry began. "I was wondering...do you have a minute to chat?"

Neville shouldered a tea towel and turned to Harry, giving him his full attention? "'Course, mate," he said. "What's up?"

"So about yours and Hannah's New Year party… I was sort of wondering if it'd be okay if I… well, if I invited Pansy Parkinson?"

Neville grinned. "Well, of course. You can invite whoever you want."

"It doesn't bother you that...well that it's Pansy? You know, since she was sort of awful to you in school?"

Neville waved his hand dismissively. "Aw, Pansy's alright. She's changed a lot since then."

Harry nodded enthusiastically. "Right?" he asked. "That's what I've been saying." Neville followed Harry's gaze as he glanced toward Hermione and Ron.

Neville frowned. "Seventh year was harder on her than most people think. You three weren't there… you don't know how it was. Not really."

Harry paused and studied Neville. "What do you mean?" he asked quietly.

Neville lowered his voice and got a bit closer. "Well, it was the Carrows of course. They liked her. I knew what Amycus was doing to her. We all sort of knew. It was...kind of obvious."

"It was?"

"Well sure. Everyone always thought she had it easy...you know because they wouldn't punish her like they did the rest of us. She was always showing up late for class and not doing her work and smarting off to the teachers...but they'd just let it all slide, right? But then Amycus would make her stay after class with him most days and... she'd get all pale and shaky. I saw her afterward a few times and well...it wasn't pretty. I tried to help her. I really did. But you know Pansy… she snarled at me, told me to leave her alone." Neville shook his head as if to rid it of the painful memories. "Like I said, people thought she had it easy, but I'd rather take the cruciatus curse any day than what Amycus had in store for her."

Harry looked down at his hands. Had he really been so blind, all this time? Was it true that everyone knew? And that no one did anything? Harry looked up at Neville. There was still a scar on his cheek, a souvenir from the seventh year Harry missed out on. No. Neville had done something. Harry thought of the DA and the room of requirement and the stories he'd heard of the students rebelling…. They'd all done something, hadn't they? And they'd won in the end. He had to remind himself of that.

"And that night..." Neville went on. "The night of the battle when she… well when she wanted to turn you over?" Neville shrugged. "I sort of felt sorry for her, you know? She was so broken by then, like a horse. But honestly, ever since the war she's been right decent. You've heard about all the philanthropies she heads, right?"

When Harry gave Neville a blank look, Neville grinned. "Oh yeah, she's the head of loads of them." He started ticking them off on his fingers. "There's the War Orphan Welfare fund...you've heard of that one I'm sure."

"Of course," said Harry. "I donate every year. Teddy gets a good amount of benefits from it."

Neville nodded. "Hannah too. Even though she's of age and all, they give her a fair amount of money… you know, because her mother was killed by those death eaters sixth year? It helped rahab this place," he gestured to the Leaky Cauldron. "But at first Hannah didn't think she should get the money, you know? She thought the money should be used on kids and stuff. She tried to send it back, but then Pansy showed up one day with a bag of galleons and right near forced Hannah to take it. And the funny part was...even though she was being typical Pansy, yelling and insulting and being a right hag...she ended up hugging Hannah. Saying she was sorry for her loss and then they were both crying. It was mad."

Harry glanced back at Hermione. She was watching them carefully.

"And then there's the St. Mungo's Fund," Neville went on. "She raises a lot of amount of money for that one too. And you can tell things have gotten better there since she started heading the foundation. The hospital's expanded a lot. And now my mum and dad get their own rooms. It's more like a flat than a hospital room. They get their own kitchen and bathroom and sitting room… Me and Gran brought in a bunch of photographs to put up and old furniture from their house that my Gran kept all these years… and while they're still… you know... They seem happier. Mum makes her own tea now and my dad's even started doing a little magic again. Nothing crazy, just sort of turning the lights on and off and summoning his shoes, that sort of thing. Kid stuff you don't need a wand for...but it's done wonders. And I think it's because he feels more at home, like his old self. And I'm truly thankful for that."

"Blimey, Neville," Harry said. "That's great."

Neville nodded. "And that's not the half of it. She's on the board for the Welfare for Magical Creatures, the Muggle-born rights committee, the Severus Snape foundation, Pureblood allies…. Probably a few more. The papers don't report about any of that though," Neville said disdainfully. "They'd rather talk about her clothes or her hair or who they think she's shagging."

"Neville," Hermione interjected. Harry hadn't noticed that she'd joined them. "I've looked into those charities and while yes, they raise a lot of money, the Parkinsons and other pureblood families keep a substantial part of the money for themselves. So while sure, they might be raising money, they work it like a business and it's really not all that philanthropic."

Neville shrugged. "I don't know anything about that. I just see what I see, that's all. But anyway, I'd be happy if Pansy came to the New Years party. Hannah will be delighted too."

"Thanks Neville," Harry said, relieved.

5

Pansy peered over the edge of coffee mug and watched Draco pace the room furiously.

"I saw the Prophet this morning and I just couldn't believe it," he was saying, his hand running rampant through his blond hair. "I had to come over. I just don't understand. How could you do this?"

Draco had woken Pansy up this morning by pounding frantically at her front door, frightening the hell out of one of her house elves, demanding to see Pansy at once. She'd allowed him into her suite with a roll of her eyes. She knew this was coming.

Now she sat sipping her coffee and eating her breakfast, quietly watching him rant.

"It's Potter, of all people, Pansy. Potter! What are you trying to prove?" he glared at the wall, and wouldn't directly meet her eyes. "What's he trying to prove?" Draco muttered more to himself. "It's got to be an angle. Another swipe at me. Hasn't he gotten enough? How much more can I bend and scrape to him?"

"Draco," Pansy said firmly. "I know it's hard to imagine that absolutely everything in the world doesn't revolve around you, but honestly...this has nothing to do with you at all."

"Nothing to do with me? Pansy. You're my girlfriend and Potter just up and snogs you in public!"

"Ex-girlfriend," Pansy corrected.

Draco met her eyes then. "Pansy, I- I know things haven't exactly been...warm between us lately, but I just always thought..." he shook his head and looked away, his face growing red.

"You always thought I'd be here waiting for you," she finished for him.

He glanced at her guiltily before looking away again.

Pansy sighed. To be true, she couldn't exactly blame him. She always thought they would end up together too. After everything died down, with the war and the pure blood mania and his death eater ties. Once they'd both redeemed themselves enough to be accepted by society again… they would inevitably get married. Not because they loved each other, but because they both thought no one else would have them. It was unspoken between them. He was an ex-death eater, known adversary of Harry Potter, and she was the one who sold out the Chosen One. They belonged together. And then of course, there was their history.

She'd been in love with Draco Malfoy since she was eleven years old for Merlin's sake. It wasn't something she could just forget about. He'd been her first kiss, her first...everything. They used to meet in the Slytherin common room at midnight, used to find places to steel away together. And then sixth year happened… and Draco started drawing away from her. Hiding from her. Disappearing for hours at a time, coming back sick and shaky and afraid and it was obvious what was happening, but Pansy didn't know what to do so she just ignored it all… and then came seventh year and everything changed.

Draco wouldn't touch her after that. And he hadn't since.

Sure, he'd tried. He really did. There were late night floos and trips to muggle London for dinner dates, and small, chaste goodnight kisses and weekly owls that felt more and more like correspondences between colleagues, than romantic partners.

"Draco," Pansy said softly, setting down her coffee cup. "Come here."

He seemed eager to comply, sitting directly in front of her, finally meeting her eyes. She reached across the little sitting room table and took his hands in hers. She tried not to notice that he flinched at her touch.

"Listen to me," she said. "I love you." She held tight to him as he tried to pull away. "Wait, listen," she said. "I love you. I always have and I think I always will. But… it's been over between us for years. You and I both know this. And we both deserve better. I see that now. Maybe one day you will too."

His blue eyes met hers and she saw the hurt there, the pain. Not that they were over. But that she thought him worthy of...something more. She could tell that he didn't believe her.

"But why Potter, though?" he asked. "Why him, of all people?"

Pansy smiled softly. She looked down at her wrist, at the gold bracelet she hadn't removed since the Christmas party, though the cheering charm had long since faded. "I honestly don't know," she said.

Draco studied her a moment longer. "I don't like it," he said. "If he's using you, if he hurts you, I'll-"

"Oh Draco," Pansy shook her head softly. "I can take care of myself. You know that."

Draco looked at her a bit longer his expression changing from anger to guilt, to grief. Suddenly his eyes filled. He blinked a few times and bit his lip. "Pansy," he choked out. "I should have – I should have stopped him. Carrow. All those years ago in school. I just...I just..." he bit back a sob.

"Shhhh," Pansy said, soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done. We were just children. Both of us."

Draco let out a muffled sob. He brought Pansy's hand to his lips and held it there with his eyes closed. "I wanted so long to tell you...tell you that I was sorry...that I wanted to do more, but I was afraid. I spent so much time being afraid..."

Pansy waited, watching him silently as her own tears spilled over. They'd never talked about seventh year. Not really. They'd both suffered so much and yet they were both so proud, so stubborn. They should have found comfort in one another, but instead they had pushed each other away. Maybe now they could find healing.

"Come now," she said finally, brushing away her tears and sniffing. "Have breakfast with me. We've much bigger issues to discuss."

Draco sniffed and looked up. "Is that so?" he asked, wiping roughly at his blotched face.

"Yes," Pansy said with feigned seriousness. "What in the world am I going to wear to Longbottom's New Year party?"

6

"Master Potter, your guest has arrived."

"Thanks Kreacher," Harry said, feeling his heart rate increase. "Er, how do I look?"

The old house elf was momentarily surprised at being asked such a question, but his face quickly turned calculating as he inspected Harry's attire. "Very...fetching, sir. Kreacher thinks young Sirius would be most pleased to see you wearing his old jacket. He was quite fond of it, if Kreacher remembers correctly. It drove my poor mistress mad."

Harry turned back to his reflection and studied himself again. He'd found the old leather motorcycle jacket in Sirius's closet (now his closet since he'd moved into Grimmauld Place and taken over Sirius's old bedroom) and immediately fell in love with it. It was well worn black leather with a broken zipper and when Harry put it on he felt almost as if Sirius were hugging him, it fit so well. He smiled at his reflection. He looked...cool.

The leather was so supple and worn it was as if he were wearing cotton. He could just picture a teenage Sirius running around London in the seventies, hopping on the back of muggle motorbikes and sneaking into pubs to listen to muggle bands. Yes, poor Walburga Black must have been beside herself.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Harry made it to his front drawing room where Pansy waited near the fireplace. She looked….well. To be honest, she looked like a glass of sparkling pink champagne.

She wore a shimmering pink dress that fit so close to her body it was as if it were a second skin. It was of modest length, down to her knees almost, and had long sleeves, but the back was completely open revealing smooth, white skin all the way down to her tailbone. On her feet she wore matching high heels, the kind that said all kinds of interesting things, and Harry sort of lost his breath at the sight of her.

She smiled at him. Her eyes were lined with kohl and shimmering pink eyeshadow to match her dress. Her ears dangled with overlarge chandelier earrings and she carried a small black clutch. She looked beautiful and elegant and sexy all at the same time.

"Hi," Harry said, dumbly.

"Hi," she answered. "Lovely home," she said gesturing to the drawing room.

Harry looked around. Grimmauld Place surely had come a long way since he'd moved in several years ago. After months of Kreacher hounding him, Harry had finally relented to the renovations the house elf had in mind. And now the house was almost unrecognizable to those who had known it when it was headquarters for the Order. It was bright and airy and decorated in the most modern and comfortable furniture. It turned out that Kreacher was quite capable of removing all the portraits and tapestries that had been permanently charmed to the walls and he proved quite adept at exterminating all the pests that had been living in the old house. He'd even moved the old portrait of Walburga into a less central location where she wouldn't be disturbed as easily. (Removing it altogether was out of the question of course, and Harry didn't even suggest it.)

Within several months, with the help of a few house elves from Hogwarts whom Kreacher had befriended in his time there, the house became nicer than anything Harry had ever dreamed of living in. The hardwood floors had been refurbished and now shined bright mahogany. The carpets had been replaced, along with the curtains and the bed linens and the ghastly old curio cabinets with all their old, scary relics. The house was massive with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, two formal dining rooms, two parlors, and one large seating area. The kitchen, located in the basement was now warm and inviting, and was where Harry spent most of his time entertaining guests, despite the ample space upstairs.

The house was of course much too large for Harry to be living in all by himself, and for a bit Ron and Hermione had been his housemates with Ginny a nearly constant presence. But it was decided (mostly by Hermione) that she and Ron needed their own flat to "grow as a couple" as she put it, and of course with Ginny's move to Holyhead and the ultimate demise of their relationship, Harry was quite alone as of late. That didn't stop Kreacher from making sure the place was spotless with fresh flowers and abundant holiday decorations dripping from every spare corner.

Harry watched as Pansy's eyes swept the room. "Thanks," Harry managed.

"You know, I saw the expose' in Witch Weekly last year, but it honestly didn't do the house justice," Pansy said, inspecting a fuzzy white throw pillow Harry didn't even know existed. Harry winced. He'd agreed to let Witch Weekly do that wretched article because he knew it would make Kreacher happy, but the publicity it sparked was a bit overwhelming. Grimmauld Place, a street in London which had once been quite abundant with witches and wizards, had fallen out of favor in the past century with the wizarding community. The surrounding houses had been sold off to muggles who had turned them into apartment flats that were rented out cheaply to mostly unsavory people. Crime had been quite rampant in the neighborhood when Harry moved in and even he had to be careful walking home alone at night. Muggles with guns were not afraid of the Boy Who Lived.

But then the article came out and suddenly those old townhouses were being sold and its muggle inhabitants evicted as prominent witches and wizards moved in. In a matter of months, Grimmauld Place had been transformed into a popular wizarding street. Everyone wanted to be Harry Potter's neighbor. Harry had lifted most of the enchantments that kept the house hidden...the Fidelius charm, for instance, and the unplottability charm, but many protective enchantments were still in effect. Otherwise his house would be swarmed by his many...fans. He'd learned that the hard way.

"Love the jacket," Pansy was saying, gesturing to his attire.

"Love the...er," Harry said, gesturing to all of her.

Pansy laughed, a soft tinkling sound.

"I figured we could apparate to the pub, if that's alright?" Harry asked.

"Of course," said Pansy. She withdrew her wand from the tiny clutch and Harry suspected she'd enhanced its interior with the extension charm. He took her hand in his and together they apparated.

They appeared together in an alleyway just outside the Leaky Cauldron. Loud music and shouts of laughter could be heard from the pub out on the snowy street. It seemed the party was already in full swing.

Harry led Pansy inside where they were greeted by a warm rush of bodies and noise. Harry spotted familiar faces everywhere, mostly friends he'd gone to Hogwarts with. Neville and Hannah were standing together near the door, each bedecked in paper hats and plastic beads.

"Harry and Pansy!" Neville shouted when he saw them. "Welcome, welcome." He draped his long arms over both their shoulders and it was plain to see he was already quite smashed. Hannah smiled widely, her own face flushed with drink. Harry thanked them both as they fetched him and Pansy glasses of sparkling champagne.

Harry kept an eye on Pansy as they were greeted by an array of guests. He'd been quite prepared to defend her presence, but it seemed no one really cared too much that she was there. No one greeted her quite as warmly as they greeted him, of course, but no one was outright rude.

They met Dean Thomas and Susan Bones, who were currently dating... along with Seamus Finnigan and a girl Harry recognized as being in Gryffindor but a few years their junior. Then there were Parvati and Padma Patil, each wearing identical golden dresses that were so short they might as well have been knickers. Lavender Brown actually kissed Pansy on the cheek as she greeted them, her blond hair piled in an array of curls so abundant she looked a bit like a lion. Ernie McMillan was there with his muggle girlfriend and of course the Weasley twins were there, dressed alike in their dragon hide jackets, Angelina Johnson and Verity Hopkirk on each of their arms both dressed prettily in sparkling dresses enhanced with some kind of spell that kept them changing colors. The effect was quite pleasant.

Then there was Luna Lovegood, wearing a white floor length dress that somewhat resembled a wedding gown. "Daddy says it's auspicious to wear white at the new year," she explained. "It marks the purity of new beginnings." Her date was a tall American bloke whom she introduced as simply Rolf. "We met in India," Luna said. "We were both studying the mating habits of the Dukuwaqa. They are really quite fascinating creatures."

They finally met Ron and Hermione, both of whom looked well into their cups as Ron had already spilled something on his shirt and Hermione hadn't bothered to spell it away yet. Hermione looked lovely in a black velvet cold shoulder dress that fit snugly up to her throat and Ron, despite the stain, looked rather good too in a matching black velvet waistcoat and dark washed jeans.

"Harry," Hermione said brightly as they approached. "I'd been wondering when you'd get here… Oh. Hello Pansy."

Pansy smiled tightly. "Good evening Hermione. Happy New Year."

"Yes, and you," Hermione said politely, glancing at Harry. "Er… Harry, what kept you? It's nearly ten o'clock. Hagrid has already come and gone. Said he had another party to get to."

"Ah, that's a shame," said Harry, genuinely disappointed. "I'd been hoping to hear about his holiday with Madame Maxine."

Ron chuckled. "Well, mate. I 'spect you'll hear all about it soon enough. Bloody lovesick puppy, he is."

"So what kept you?" Hermione hedged again. "I thought you'd be here ages ago."

"Er, got hung up at work," Harry lied. "Paperwork, you know."

"Ah," said Hermione. "That I do. I was just telling Ronald about a new piece of legislature I'm bringing to the wizengamot. It's advocating for the equal rights of non wizard magical creatures so that they can rightfully own property. Isn't it just appalling that house elves don't have any personal possessions? Goblins and centaurs too. Not legally."

"Quite," said Harry, glancing around the room. He had already heard about this new bill Hermione had been working on nearly a dozen times and was quite keen to change the topic.

"Yes, working in the department for regulation and control of magical creatures has come with many challenges," Hermione went on pompously, "But I feel I'm really making a difference, you know? And Pansy, how is the ah...philanthropy going?"

Harry felt Pansy stiffen beside him. He prepared himself to interject but Pansy spoke before he could.

"Quite well actually," Pansy said. "It's been an exciting time of year, what with Christmas and all. We've managed to almost triple the donations made for St. Mungos and the War Orphan fund is always growing. I expect we'll raise even more in years to come. It's quite rewarding to see the funds going to good use."

"I'm sure its quite rewarding for your pocket books, as well," Hermione said with a sardonic smile.

Pansy gave a quizzical look. "My pocket books?"

"Well, yes," Hermione said with a false conspiratorial wink. "I've seen the numbers. These philanthropies you head retain nearly seventy percent of their earnings. Quite a bit considering the national number is twenty five percent on overhead."

Harry bristled and opened his mouth to intervene but again Pansy beat him to it.

"Ah, while you may have noticed we retain seventy percent, it hardly goes into the pocketbooks of the heads. If you reviewed the numbers again, and paid attention to the donors themselves, you'd see that the heads of the charities, the Parkinsons in particular, donate much more to the cause than we retain. And I think you are referring to muggle organizations when you say the national percentage, yes? The national number for muggle philanthropies is around twenty five percent spent on overhead, as you noted, but what you're forgetting Hermione, is that muggle organizations get tax breaks and incentives which unfortunately the wizarding world lacks. Therefore our organizations are forced to retain a higher sum in order to pay for staff, food, event spaces etc. Perhaps you should take that to the wizengamot for a change in legislature. It would certainly make things much easier for me."

Harry smiled at the dumbfounded look on Hermione's face as Pansy politely sipped her champagne.

"Er, Neville's been raving about the changes at St. Mungo's," Ron said quickly, glancing nervously between Pansy and Hermione. "Says his mum and dad have been doing really well in their new apartments."

"I'm delighted to hear it," Pansy said. "As chair of the financial committee I've made it a special project to ensure long time patients, especially those suffering from ailments caused by dark magic at the hands of death eaters, are given the utmost care. They are the true heroes, after all."

"And you have that much power?" Ron asked. "You can actually tell them how to spend the money."

Pansy frowned. "Well of course. Haven't you learned this by now, Weasley? The people with the money have all the power."

Ron laughed.

Hermione scowled.

And Harry took a long drink of his champagne.

7

Pansy had never been to a party like this. It was lively and...fun. Everyone was quite smashed, dancing and laughing and cheering at unnecessary things. People she hadn't spoken to in years were offering her shots of fire whiskey and fetching her glasses of champagne and asking her about her life.

She was one of only three former Slytherins present. There was Bridget Farley, a girl a year or so younger than Pansy in school whom Pansy had rarely spoken, and then there was her own cousin Cassius Warrington who had accompanied his girlfriend and former Hufflepuff, Eleanor Branstone.

"Happy New Year cousin!" Cassius exclaimed when he saw her. "Fancy seeing you here."

Pansy stared. He was wearing one of those horrible black top hats with Happy New Year flashing across the brim and a hot pink lei. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and he was quite sweaty. Perhaps most surprising was that he was smiling for Merlin's sake. She'd never seen him looking anything but crisp and calm and surly.

"Happy New Year Cassius," Pansy responded. "And to you too Eleanor." The girl seemed surprised that Pansy knew her name. She wore a bright pink dress that was quite tight and quite short and Cassius looked at her with such adoration that Pansy felt foolish that she'd ever thought his feelings for her were feigned.

As midnight approached, Harry pulled Pansy close to him. His hands circled her waist and he eyed her in a way that made her feel hungry and soft and warm and feminine and just...deserving of...whatever this was. And as the Weasley twins cast large golden numbers in the air counting down the seconds until midnight, Pansy couldn't even watch the firework display raining above them, her eyes didn't leave Harry's and three, two, one...midnight arrived and so did Harry's lips on hers and she just sort of melted against him just like she'd done under the mistletoe just a week ago.

Shouts and cheers surrounded them, champagne bottles popped and fireworks exploded. Confetti rained down upon them, getting stuck in Pansy's eyelashes and Harry's hair, and Merlin she didn't want the moment to end. And then the music was thumping and she and Harry were dancing and he twirled her around until she was dizzy and then she was posing for a photo with Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones and Eloise Midgen, smiling like they were all best mates as Colin Creevey's camera flashed. And then she and Oliver Wood were having a lively discussion about Quidditch and Terry Boot was laughing at one of her jokes, and then she and Sue Li were comparing the best charms for levitation.

Around two in the morning the party started to die down. Harry found her near the bar, wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. He kissed her again, open and unembarrassed and she kissed him back, aware that they were surrounded by people but not caring one bit. He broke away a moment later and whispered close to her ear so that his breath sent shivers down her back.

"Come back to my place?"

They apparated together again, just outside the pub. It had begun to snow and the night felt mysterious and alive. When they arrived back at Grimmauld Place Pansy knew she ought to be cold, but Harry's presence warmed her.

"Do you-ah...want a drink?" Harry asked her when they got inside and were seated on the leather sofa in the drawing room. He seemed suddenly shy, unsure.

"Okay," she said.

Harry disappeared for a bit and returned a few moments later with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. He sat down next to her and poured her a healthy dose. "Hope this is alright," Harry said. "I couldn't find the Scotch and my house elf is...erm… a bit useless at the moment." He chuckled at Pansy's confused frown. "It seems Kreacher had a little New Year party of his own. Kitchen has about five or six Hogwarts elves, passed out on butterbeer."

Pansy laughed and raised her glass to her lips. The brandy was sweet and warm. She eyed him sitting next to her, nervously fidgeting. She knew he wanted her. She'd known he wanted her the night after the Christmas party too. She remembered how he'd flooed back to her suite with her, how he'd given her a chaste kiss goodnight, wanting more, but expecting nothing. She hadn't quite been ready then. She wasn't quite sure about him, about what it meant. But now. Now, she knew.

Setting her brandy glass down on the end table, she edged toward him. His lips parted as she drew near, and he leaned into her, their lips meeting in a heated tangle of limbs and tongues and hands touching everywhere. She gasped as his lips left hers and found her neck. His mouth made a trail of kisses down her throat, to her collar bone and she hitched up her skirt so she could straddle his hips. She felt his cock pressing hard against his jeans, and she sort of ground herself against him, just once and he let out a weak whimper. His hand snaked out from behind her back and slowly crept up the hem of her skirt, tracing the line where her knickers should be. Only she wasn't wearing any knickers.

He let out a deep groan as he realized this and his grip on her tightened.

"Hold on tight," he whispered and then she was being jerked upward as he apparted them to his bedroom.

They landed lightly at the foot of his bed and Pansy's hands got busy tugging at his clothes. His leather jacket fell to the floor, followed by his shirt, then his belt. He was more muscular than she'd thought he'd be, all sinewy and lithe biceps and abdominals and back muscles that rippled and moved under her roving hands.

She grabbed the hem of her dress and pulled it up, and up and up until it disappeared over her head, and she stood in front of him quite naked. He stepped back for just a moment and surveyed her body drinking it in with his eyes. The room was dimly lit, just a candle or two flickered on the dresser and she felt her skin singing under his gaze.

Then he was on her, his hands gentle yet urgent as they started at her hips then slid up until they cupped her breasts, his thumb flicking once, twice, three times over her nipple. Then he went south, his right hand sliding between her legs, lightly and gently and delicately touching her clit, just enough to make her gasp out his name and lean into him.

He pushed her gently down onto the bed, lifting her until her head rested on the pillows. He trailed his lips down her mouth to her throat, between her breasts, past her stomach until he fit his mouth directly on her cunt, taking her clit between his teeth he flicked at it expertly with his tongue. He pushed her knees apart and slipped a finger into her cunt where he curled and pulsed in an antagonizing rhythm, one that made her hands go numb and her mind go blank until all she knew was his mouth and her body and she was getting so, so close.

And then his mouth made its way back up her stomach, kissing along her rib cage as his hand cupped her breast. He took a nipple in his mouth and sucked lightly as her hands fumbled for his jeans. She tugged and pulled and was panting that she needed him inside her now and then he was, so full and so firm and he let out a deep groan that was almost a growl. He began moving back and forth, slowly at first, then faster and faster and Pansy gripped the back of his neck and guided his movements with her hips.

But she wasn't getting the friction she needed so she pushed him in the chest, rolling him over so she straddled his hips. She sat above him, his cock fully sheathed inside her as she rolled her hips, balancing on her knees. Reaching for his hand, she pressed his thumb against her clit, and taking her cue he began to circle it frantically. His other hand found her breast and he rolled a nipple in between his two fingers, tugging with just enough force to finally take her over the edge. She came with a barely contained scream and she rode him hard and fast until she felt him grip her tightly, groaning as he came with her.

She sort of collapsed on top of him, her breathing ragged and fierce and somehow still wanting more. They lay side by side for a few moments, catching their breath and relishing the satiation.

"You're amazing," Harry finally said, rolling onto his side and pulling her closer to him. His fingers trailed over her lightly, making circles on her arms and chest and breasts, her skin humming under his touch. And even though it was late, and they had both just come mere moments before, they found each other joined again.

This time it was slower, less urgent. She rolled onto her stomach and went up on all fours, guiding him into her so he could take her from behind. His hands kneaded at her and his thumb pressed and massaged into her. She rocked her hips into his, feeling his cock hitting her just right. He reached around at the last moment, his fingers finding her clit just in time for her to come all over again.

...

She woke up warm, comfortably hidden under a large white duvet, her face buried in a mound of pillows. Morning light streamed into the bedroom from the window's slightly parted curtains. She rolled over and stretched. Harry slept soundly next to her, his breathing long and deep and low.

She watched him for a few minutes still in awe of what her world had become. It was just a couple of months ago that she'd found him drunk in her courtyard moaning over wretched Ginny Weasley and accusing her of being a coward.

Now she was in his bed.

She glanced at the bedside clock. Ten-thirty. She yawned and stretched again, her limbs feeling liquid and soft and good. Rolling over she stood up and walked naked to the adjoining bathroom. Like the rest of the house, it was rehabbed with new tile and a large vanity and a steam shower, for Merlin's sake.

After taking care of her business, Pansy studied herself in the overlarge mirror. She cringed away at the way her makeup was smeared and the way her hair was sticking up in the back. Her eyes felt crusty with sleep and she could smell herself—old sweat and liquor and smoke from the night before. She left the bathroom and tip toed back out to the bedroom. Her dress had somehow been folded neatly and placed on the dresser, along with her shoes and her clutch.

Harry's house elf must have recovered, she mused as she grabbed up her things and brought them with her back to the bathroom.

The steam shower did not disappoint and Pansy emerged feeling quite refreshed. She used her wand to dry her hair and applied some light makeup so she felt more human. Then she reached into her clutch and extracted a pair of knickers, a soft bralette, a pair of black stretch pants and a long, soft jumper.

The breakfast table near the window had been filled in her absence. That house elf of Harry's really knew his stuff, Pansy thought. Harry still slept soundly, his soft snores rumbling from the bed. Pansy helped herself to a cup of hot coffee, a buttery scone and a plate of eggs. She sat there, enjoying breakfast and watching the London street below. The window had frosted over and snow was still flurrying down.

Pansy felt warm and safe tucked away at Grimmauld Place and for the first time in a very long time, she thought that maybe everything would be okay after all.

Harry roused a bit later and joined her at the breakfast table. They chatted and talked and perused the Daily Prophet and as morning turned to afternoon they fell back to sleep, a lazy new year's nap. And when the time came for Pansy to go home, Harry kissed her before she flooed away.

She hadn't been home two seconds before she heard her messenger diary chirp.

Harry Potter: What are your plans for dinner?

Epilogue

The Daily Prophet, December 25th, 2007

Harry Potter Marries Long Time Girlfriend Pansy Parkinson in Christmas Eve Wedding of the Century.

By Rita Skeeter

Notorious auror and hero of the wizarding world, Harry Potter, married long time girlfriend Pansy Parkinson last night during a beautiful Christmas Eve ceremony that had everyone raving. The bride looked stunning in an antique, goblin made wedding gown, a family inheritance from the 14th century. It had been refined to match the bride's particular sense of style with a six foot train and a floor length veil. The dress itself contained over nine million fairy pearls, each individually and voluntarily offered to the original Euphadora Parkinson in the 14th century after she single handedly saved an entire species of fairy from muggle fairy enthusiasts.

Pansy Parkinson, successful philanthropist known for her devotion to the War Orphan Fund and St Mungo's Home for Dark Arts Ailments along with the Foundation for Lycanthropy, which she co-founded with now husband Harry Potter, commented that this was "the happiest day of her life." She certainly looked happy as she walked down the aisle of St. Uther's Cathedral with a large bouquet of winter roses and a swarm of fairies following in her steed. She was preceded by chosen bridesmaids Daphne Greengrass and Hermione Granger, the bride's two most devoted friends, each looking radiant in floor length gowns of frosted blue.

Potter wore customary black dress robes, and was accompanied by his best man Ronald Weasley and godchild Teddy Lupin, a child of eight who shocked the crowd with his red and gold hair.

The reception was privately held in the bride's family home where dinner and dancing followed.

The couple now resides in their private residence, the former Black homestead on Grimmauld Place. They kindly request that in lieu of gifts to please donate to one of their many organizations listed below.

War Orphans Fund, St. Mungo's Home for Dark Arts Ailments, Welfare for Magical Creatures, the Muggle-born Rights Committee, The Severus Snape Foundation, Pureblood Allies, The Albus Dumbledore Foundation, The Granger Home for Newly Clothed House Elves, The Remus Lupin Foundation for Lycanthropy

[hopeless-lovex0]

I HAVE A DREAM (PART 6)

Kim Hongjoong Fanfic

Warning: Angst. Cheating. Heartbreak. Cursing. Fluff.

Hello fellow Atiny and Kpop stand, I wasn’t able to post Wednesday nor Thursday and I know some of you guys were looking forwards to read part 6 but without further ado here is part 6 of I Have A Dream 🥳🥳

She woke up to the sound of rain lashing down on her rooftop, the silence of the house being disturbed by the harsh water droplets falling from the dark sky.

The vibrations of thunder shake the small two-story house and emits a loud creak from within the place. Y/N tensed up for a second fearing that the small place would cave in on itself but then lightly chuckling from how crazy that would be.

She laid there a couple more seconds before hearing her alarm clock, the irritating ringing causing her to flinch from how unexpected it was. Sluggishly she lifts up her hand and slams it against the annoying piece of technology, the force of her hand causing the alarm clock to fall to the bedroom floor.

Letting her hand hang over the side of the bed she lays there a couple of minutes contemplating whether she should get up and go to work wanting to stay in the comfort of her warm covers the rest of the day, but then she realizes that Mrs. Park would scold her if she didn't take care of herself. Moving under the sheets she lets go of the pillow she was cuddling against and finally sits up, the darkness of the room making her think it's still night.

She hears the continues pitter-patter of the rain hitting her window making her turn towards it. She HATES the rain, the dark clouds surrounding the sky and the heavy feeling it drags along with it. She hates the memories that somehow always make their way back to her.

It was raining when she found them together, the rain falling down on her when she was breaking down somehow causing her to lose herself for a couple of days. The worse days of her life she would say, she was scared of how much she had changed after that night barely able to recognize herself in the mirror.

After a week she was finally able to come down to earth and take care of herself, she'll be damned if she let a man break her down. The thought of her baby also served as a motivation to her, wanting to give birth to a healthy baby and live in the small house she resides in now.

The room across her turned into a nursery after living in the village for a month. She felt the happiness of having a baby creep up on her letting her know that she was going to be alright with or without a man.

Shaking her head, she carefully steps out of the warm mattress, watching her step for the fallen alarm clock. Stumbling towards the dresser she opens it and takes out an outfit for the day, making sure that the clothing complimented each other or else Mrs. Park would roast her being the fashionista she is.

Setting her clothes down on her bed she walks towards her bathroom and turns on the showerhead, placing her hand over the water to make sure the temperature is just right for her. Feeling the warm water trickle down her hand, she turns towards her sink and takes her toothbrush and toothpaste figuring that she should just shower and brush her teeth at the same time as to save time.

Washing down her body with a little bit of struggle from the small baby bump she sighs to herself, the thought of her struggling with a much bigger belly to clean herself makes her huff in defeat.

Finishing up her shower she slowly steps out the tub and takes the white fluffy towel placed next to the curtain. Patting herself down she wraps it around herself and walks out the bathroom towards where she laid down her clothes.

She slipped on her comfy dark jeans and white long sleeve sweatshirt, the outfit was plain but still stylish as to not upset Mrs. Park with her lack of fashion.

Walking down the stairs, she steps over to the main entrance towards the shoe cubert. Kneeling down, she carefully opens the bottom of the cubert and takes out a pair of dark blue rain boots. Cleaning everything up she walks towards the small white couch near the exit and sits down with a huff, all the walking around making her lose her breath.

Leaning back against the couch she sits there a couple minutes rubbing her stomach before she sits back up and tugs on the rain boots knowing that her ride will be here anytime soon.

As in cue, honking comes from outside her house and Y/N curses out loud, quickly and carefully scrambling to get her belongings and to not keep the person outside waiting. Once at the door she shoves everything inside her purse and takes the raincoat next to the door as well as her keys not wanting to be locked out her house later on.

Once outside she locks her door and then walks towards the car parked in front letting the big water droplets hit her raincoat, too lazy to open up her umbrella.

She opens up the passenger door and quickly sits down wanting to get out of the rain already. “ Woooow look at you! The wet dog look is amazing on you!” She hears someone say on her left, snorting out and rolling her eyes at the driver.

She turns towards Kyung Mi, the villages teacher and lightly punches her in the arm already getting used to her teasing knowing she means no harm with her comments.

“ You like it? I got inspiration from you after that one time you fell in a puddle.” Y/N snickers out watching as Kyung Mi begins to turn red from embarrassment. “ HEY! You know we never talk about that okay! It could hurt my reputation around here.” Kyung yells at her not wanting to remember such humiliating memory.

“ What reputation? You take care of little kids who drool and slobber all over you and on occasions piss on you.” Y/N laughs out causing Kyung Mi to roll her eyes but she doesn't miss the twitch from her upper lip letting her know that she's holding back a smile.

“ Yeah laugh all you want but in a couple months you'll be getting slobbered and pissed on too.” Kyung says as she points towards Y/N baby bump. “ Yeah well, I can't wait for those times because at least I’ll finally have my baby with me.” Y/N says as she taps her stomach causing Kyung Mi to coo at her from the driver's seat.

“ Okay you cheesy momma bear stop with the cute stuff, you'll make my cold heart melt.” Kyung says but still gives her a small smile letting her know that she’s happy for her. “ Did you hear the big news recently?” Kyung asks her and Y/N shakes her head in confusion.

“ You know that big house a couple ways away from the town square?” She asks her and Y/N hums in acknowledgment while looking out the window. “ Apparently, there's a group of people moving in today. My neighbor said that he saw tons of people working on furnishing it and getting it ready yesterday.” Kyung says as she drives towards the town square where they both work at.

“ Really? Didn't someone say that the house was for celebrities or something since it's so expensive to rent?” Y/N mumbles out confusing plastered all over her face. “ That's why is such a big deal, apparently the people moving in are celebrities! Can you believe that!?!?” Kyung exclaims out loud startling Y/N at the same time.

“ What if they are cute! I can finally find myself a hot and rich girl Y/N! I can move out of this place and I'll take you with me. How amazing would that be!!” Kyung says excitingly taking one hand off the steering wheel and placing it on Y/N’s shoulder slightly shaking her as she talks.

“ Don't get your hopes up MiMi, it's probably just a bunch of old businessmen wanting to take a break.” Y/N chuckles out while patting Kyungs hand that is still placed on her shoulder. She hears Kyung sigh out and watches as she nods her head “ You're probably right, but that doesn't mean there won't be a cute assistant or even maid so I'll take what I can get.” Kyung says as she smiles at Y/N causing both of them to go into a fit of giggles.

Feeling the car stop, Y/N looks up and sees that they are parked in front of her job which seems to already be opened as the lights from inside are on. “ Don't worry, you'll probably find a nice girl to settle down with sooner or later.” Y/N says as she turns towards Kyung and pats her on the head causing Kyung to snort out a laugh.

“ Okay fashionista I believe you. Now go and have fun at work and call me later on if you need a ride home in case it's still raining okay?” Kyung says as she watches Y/N exit the car. Turning around Y/N gives her a thumbs up and watches as Kyung finally drives off towards the village's small school.

With a deep sigh, Y/N turns around and walks towards the boutique already expecting Mrs. Park to shove down some food down her throat in order to keep her healthy. As she walks closer she hears Mrs. Park’s loud voice coming from the back of the room and she shakes her head not once regretting ever applying here. Walking towards the back she prepares herself for a day filled with clothing and pampering.

_______________________________________________

They had left earlier than expected, the big bus taking them to Incheon arriving earlier in the day. From fear of having to pay more than they were told staff immediately rushed to getting every single boy in that bus and making sure their luggage was placed in the bottom portion of the bus.

In under an hour, they were able to get everyone on the bus and help with some last-minute packing before they finally set out towards Incheon.

The bus was quiet apart from some constant shuffling from some of the guys who had gone back to sleep, the rain combined with the smooth driving lulling them back into dreamland. Towards the back of the bus sat San, staring out the window as the rain fell heavily from the dark clouds.

He wanted to sleep, the heaviness from his eyelids and warmth that wooyoung was providing from beside him causing him to yawn but he couldn't. Mind wrapped up with the thought of her.

How was she doing? Was she taking care of herself? Is the baby okay? Does she know the gender? Constant unanswered questions floated inside his head and caused him to lose sleep multiple times throughout the 3 months that went by.

Turning to look towards the rest of the guys he located the one he was currently thinking about. Two rows away from him sat hongjoong, leaning against the window knocked out and snoring loudly against it causing it to fog up. San glared in disgust, how could he sleep so soundly after what he had done, sleep so calmly knowing that he ruined Y/N’s life and could have potentially ruined her trust in men altogether.

He glared at him with pure fire in his eyes and as if Hongjoong felt the intensity of his stare he watched as Hongjoong stirred and slightly woke up turning his head lightly then snapping his head back once he realized it was San who was staring at him.

Letting out a scoff San finally removed his stare from Hongjoong and continued to look out the window. He felt his body relax from the calming atmosphere and with that he lets his eyes close, letting sleep envelop him like a blanket.

. . . . . . . . .

“ San... San Hyung wake up, where here already.” San hears as he feels himself being shaken awake by wooyoung. Lifting his head from where it was resting against the window he catches sight of the big almost mansion-like house resting on top of a small hill.

Gathering his things, he shoves his phone into his pockets and lifts himself off the seat noticing that wooyoung decided to stand there and wait for him. Walking out together, San notices that he was probably the last one to exit the bus as the rest of the guys are already running towards the house in excitement and also in fear of getting wet from the small drizzle of rain.

Shaking his head, he begins to walk towards the house with wooyoung in toe. Up close the house is actually smaller than it looks like from down where the bus is parked but nonetheless still a decently big place. Arriving at the doorway he notices all their luggage stacked up against the left side of the big entrance and he quickly walks towards it wanting to take a shower and eat.

The rest of the guys seem to have the same idea because all at once they rush towards the mountain of suitcases and bags to last them a month startling the manager that would be staying with them.

“ Now, this is a big place but you guys will still have roommates just to make sure you guys spend more time together okay?” Says the manager and the guys grumble curses under their breaths seeming to have been looking forward to getting their own room which won't be happening now.

They wait as the manager takes out a clipboard from his bag and begins to call out names. San waits for his name to be called then immediately feels his body turn cold when he realizes that the only person left to room with is Hongjoong.

“ Okay last but not least San and Hong-” begins the manager but before he could finish San harshly interrupt him. “ No. I won't room with him so either you give me my own room or change roommates with someone else.” He says and he doesn't miss the way Hongjoong flinches from his tone.

The manager begins to stumble over his words, never have seen San tense up like he did just now and how hostile he was towards Hongjoong. In his mind, he prays that this break can somehow rekindle their friendship.

Seonghwa noticing how flustered the manager got from the situation decides to speak up not wanting to make him or the rest of the guys uncomfortable. “ I'll switch roommates with San, wooyoung and him can get a room together and I'll stick with Hongjoong.” He says and watches how the manager lets a breath out of relief and nods his head multiple times.

Not being able to stand the tense air the manager quickly turns around and begins walking towards a long hallway calling the boys after him and leading them into their rooms.

Once they are all finally settled in their big rooms, they all begin to unpack wanting nothing more than to eat, take a long hot shower and sleep. San is still tense from the situation and Wooyoung seems to notice because he grabs San by the shoulders and takes him back towards the front entrance.

“ Come on, let's go get some food and clear your head while we're at it. I'll let the manager know so we don't get in trouble.” Wooyoung says as he shoves his feet into his worn-out sneakers. San doesn't seem to hesitate and does so as well wanting to get out and relax for a while.

Grabbing ahold of some umbrellas they both exit the big house and begin to walk towards the path leading to the town square. San mindlessly walks after wooyoung not knowing where they are going. “ Where exactly are we going?” San asks and they walk a couple minutes in silence before wooyoung answers him.

“ I woke up before you on the way here and I did some research on this place. It's a pretty small village, only about 4,000 people live here but that's good since we won't be recognized. I also saw that they have a really popular restaurant around the town square. Good food and good service so that's where we are going.” Wooyoung says and San only hums in acknowledgment trusting that wooyoung knows his way around from just google maps.

Walking for a couple more minutes they immediately know they are in the town square from how light up and lively the place is even if the weather isn't the best at the moment. Walking deeper into the town square, they get looks from the locals and hear as they start to whisper but none seems to recognize them probably just talking about a new face in town.

They continue to walk before they stop in front of a small restaurant filled with people, the small establishment bustling with life. Walking up towards the door they are immediately surrounded by the smell of meat and kimchi making their mouth water from the scent. They scan around the place and quickly realize just how packed it is, the whole place filled with various families and couples.

“ Should we just order to go? ” Asks wooyoung and San quickly agrees, not in the mood to be surrounded by people. They step up towards the small counter and greet the little old lady sitting behind it before they start to order, knowing that if they just get for themselves the rest of the guys would kill them so they place a big order for everyone.

Being told that the order would take 30 minutes max, they decide to sit against the bench located in front of the window and wait for their food. They sit there in silence but San can see from the corner of his eye that wooyoung want to say something, opening then closing his mouth multiple times.

Finally gathering his thought wooyoung begins to speak. “ You know we can't keep this up right...?” He says and San lets out a sigh from the question. “ I know... I want to forget about it and go back to the way it was but I-.. I don-...” San stumbles over his words not knowing how to express himself, wooyoung seems to sense this because he carefully places his hand on his shoulder and San brings his hand up to grip onto his hand letting him know that he appreciates the gesture.

“ You are the only one who knew how I felt about her and how much I suffered in order to let her be happy with hongjoong. I saw how happy she was with him and how in love she was and it broke my heart knowing that it would never be me and then he does that to her. ” San says not missing the way his voice starts to quiver.

Taking a deep breath he begins to speak again. “ It felt like a punch in the face after she texted us and I wanted nothing more than to take her pain away. I should have let her know, even if it wasn't my place or yours we let her get hurt by not telling her sooner and it honestly breaks my heart.” he says and wooyoung brings him into a hug knowing that San needs to let everything out.

“ And then we found that pregnancy test and it just felt like someone took my heart and ripped it into pieces. Can you imagine the excitement she went through when she found out she was pregnant? She always said that she wanted kids, and the minute she finds out she might be having one everything else just went downhill.” San says as he grips onto wooyoung, wanting to be held by someone.

“ I LOVE her wooyoung, and I'll travel the whole world to find her again and be the one to mend her back together. I want to be the one who she calls home and lays asleep in my arms at night. I want her child to call me dad because I know damn well I can be a better one than hongjoong.” he sniffs out, trying his hardest to keep himself together in public.

“ I know you will and I want you to know that I support you 100%. Y/N deserves the whole world after what she's been through and I know that you are the only one who can give it to her.” wooyoung says as he pats San on the back wanting to comfort him as best as he can.

They sit there in each others embrace for a couple of minutes before San finally pulls away, lifting his trembling hands and wiping under his eyes to get rid of the tears that managed to slid down his face. Chuckling to himself he shakes his head and turns to look at wooyoung. “ Hey.. Thanks man I really neede-.... Wooyoung..?” San begins to say but stops once he notices wooyoung’s flabbergasted expression. Lifting up his hand he waves it in front of his face and that seems to snap him out of it.

Wooyoung stutters out something but can't seem to form a proper sentence, noticing San’s confused expression he slowly lifts up a shaky finger pointing at something across the street. San turning around as he had his back towards the window looks at what wooyoung seems to be pointing at before his heart stops completely.

Across the street where a small clothing boutique stands in place are two women talking animatedly under the cover of the store, trying to shield away from the small drizzle of rain. They watch as the older lady of the duo leans forward to place a kiss on the other woman's cheek before leaning down towards her stomach and kissing it as well.

That's when San finally takes her whole appearance in having been staring at her face the whole time. The swell of her stomach causing her white long sleeve sweatshirt to stretch out, letting everyone know that she is currently pregnant.

They both stare in awe as they watch the older lady walk away with a final goodbye and other one walk the opposite direction opening up a big clear umbrella and holding it above her head.

Watching her walk away snaps them back into reality and wooyoung seems to gain his ability to speak again, whispering out the name of the girl they just found “... Y/N..?” he says and San turns around to look at him still too shocked to speak.

They stare at each other for a couple of seconds before the old lady at the register calls out their names letting them know that their food is ready. Scrambling to pay for the food they both exit the restaurant and rush back towards the house knowing what they have to do. Arriving there in under 10 minutes from how fast they were running as well as how close it was they burst through the doors startling the people who are present at the kitchen across the entrance.

“ GUYS COME HERE RIGHT NOW!” Yells out wooyoung and from the sound of his voice, the guys seem to know it's urgent as they rush out the kitchen all already dressed in their PJs.

“ What happened?!?!?” asks SeongHwa as he sees how shocked they are from their facial expressions, San not even uttering a word out just staring into space.

“ We found them.” San says, sounding like he's out of breath and all the guys stare at each other in confusion. “ Found who..?” asks Yunho and wooyoung grabs his shoulder in excitement.

“ We found Y/N!”

Wooyoung screams out and the rest of the guys gawk at them, minds immediately going blank from the information just thrown at them.

“ What do you mean you found Y/N?!?!? You mean to tell me you saw her here? At this location?!?!” Mingi utters out too surprises to even raise his voice. Wooyoung nods his head rapidly and they all fall into silence.

“ Wait! San said them..? Does that mean that she is actually pregnant..?” calls out yeosang and the rest of the guys snap their heads towards the dancing duo, eagerly waiting for one them to answer. They watch as San lifts up his head, the same flabbergasted expression on his face and he nods slowly causing the rest of the guys to gasp out in shock.

They knew there was a possibility of that pregnancy test being positive, they just didn't expect it to be true.

They all stand in silence taking all the information in before San jumps up in a hurry startling the rest of guys from how fast he got up. “ Guys... Where's Hongjoong...?” He asks and the rest of the guys tense up quickly losing color on their faces.

“ He left a couple minutes after you guys left, he was mumbling something about being alone.” Jongho says and the rest of the guys curse out. “ What direction did he go?! Did you see where he went!?!?” Wooyoung fires at him rapidly, not liking where this is going.

“ He walked the same direction you guys went, towards the town square, but instead of going all the way into the center he walked towards the little village houses.” He says and San and wooyoung completely freak out.

“ FUCK.” yells out San and the rest of the guys flinch from how mad he sounds. “ What?!? What's wrong with that?!?!” calls out SeongHwa and they watch as San spins around to look at them.

“ That's the direction Y/N was heading!” He growls out and the guys feel a cold shiver go down their spins, not liking what's about to happen.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hongjoong pulls his black puffy jacket closer to him, feeling shivers all over his body from how cold the night is the rain not doing anything to help it as well.

He knew that he should have brought an umbrella or put on more layers to keep himself warm, but the tense atmosphere around the house revolving around him and the guys was suffocating and he just had to get out of there.

He walked down the path leading towards the town square but instead of going all the way into town he branched off into the road leading to the village houses. When they were close to arriving he woke up from his deep slumber and watched all the little houses filled with families, along the way passing a small park and that where he was standing now.

Walking in the rain, he quickly found an empty bench to sit on and rest. He inhaled the fresh air the village provided feeling different from the air polluted city, and he lets the water droplets hit his face. He watches as a couple runs for cover from the rain, having their hands covering their faces so the rain won't hit them. He watches as they finally find cover under a house and burst out giggling leaning against each other and finally giving each other sweet pecks on the lips causing Hongjoong to wince at the sight.

Looking away he feels his throat clench up and his eyes to water but he stops himself from crying. Ever since he did what he did, he has never hated himself more than the day she left, every day he would sneakily go to her abandoned apartment not wanting the guys to know. He would lay on her side of the bed and grip onto her pillow, sobbing loudly not wanting her fragrance to leave the plush fabric. Even going as far as buying the same perfume she would wear and spraying it back on her pillow, trying so hard to keep the memory of her in his thoughts.

It was hard every day to live without her and Hongjoong never realized this after she left, taking everything he loved about her with her. Not knowing if she was pregnant or not he prayed that he could find her before she possibly gave birth, wanting to be apart of her and his child lives again.

Humming seems to break Hongjoong out of his thoughts and he swears he's heard that hum before. It takes him a minute to remember the song being hummed before he jumps up in a hurry and wildly looks around the park wanting to find the source of the humming.

The song is familiar to him only because it's the song SHE always used to sing, telling him that her mother used to sing it to her when she was younger and since then has stuck as a little tradition.

Snapping his head towards the road he sees a figure walking closer and once they walk under the light located in the entrance of the park he feels his brain stop working.

Walking calmly under the slight drizzle of rain is Y/N rubbing her belly bump and humming to it causing Hongjoong to stifle a sob. “ It is real then.” he thinks to himself as he sees her in all her pregnancy glory. She seems to be glowing and the baby bump makes her 10x more beautiful to him, knowing that the child she is carrying is his.

Snapping out of his thoughts he sees a car pull up next to her and his heart starts to race watching as the person rolls down their window.

“ Y/N you little snake!” yells the person inside the car and Hongjoong relaxes a little knowing that the person inside is a woman.

Watching as Y/N walks towards the car, he hears her laugh out loud and it makes his knees wobble from hearing her laugh again.

“ Hey Mimi, what are you talking about?” questions Y/N and the person inside lets out a huff. “ I told you to call me if you needed a ride back home! What the fuck are you doing walking in the cold rain dumbass! Don't you know you could get sick! Are you trying to get sick? What about the baby? I swear I'm like your mother taking care of you!!!” Rants out the girl inside and all Y/N does is let out another laugh and walk towards the passenger side.

“ Get inside right now and you're staying over tonight okay? I gotta make sure that you don't get sick and endanger my godchild!” the female who he now knows as Mimi yells out before opening the passenger door and gesturing Y/N to get inside the car.

He begins to panic once he sees that Y/N is about to walk away from him once again and he starts to walk towards the car weakly calling out to her. He's too late as he watches Y/N close the car door and the car speed down the road leaving him behind in the park.

“ Y/N...!” he finally screams out her name and runs after the car but stumbles on his way out the park falling to his knees and reaching out a hand towards the car, watching as it moves away further from him.

Hearing someone call his name, he turns around to see the rest of the guys running towards him. San being the one leading the pack of overgrown children, they finally stop in front of him watching as Hongjoong breaks down again mumbling one name that causes the guys to look at each other.

He's calling Y/N’s name.

[maisstories]

I Need Your Help

To be more precise, my girlfriend needs your help. The reason I am the one writing this text is because right now she is so depressed and discouraged that she doesn’t have the strength to believe asking for help would make a difference, and that… that terrifies me.

For those who don’t know us, I am Mai, and my girlfriend is Kari. Under different circumstances, we should have our lives all nicely sorted out, but as we are all aware, we live in the kind of dystopian world society at large likes to pretend only happens in fiction. Especially Kari. You see, I’m from Spain, and Kari is from the US. This means an entire ocean separates us (otherwise I would’ve bundled her up and brought her home, believe me).

Kari is a poor wlw who lives in a very conservative area (as in, Bible Belt conservative). She has ADHD, which went untreated most of her life, hampering her at every turn. First, because she grew up in a very conservative Catholic family and most Catholic families just Don’t Believe in Those Things. Now… well, now because she has no medical insurance and can’t afford to pay for medication. Cute, isn’t it? And that’s not even the best part. Kari has depression, that I mentioned, but this whole situation, and the hopelessness it causes her, has brought forth suicidal ideation. I don’t have the words to express just how scared I am by this. It paralyzes me. There is nothing, physically nothing I can do if they ever get the better of her.

To add to this, it has been made abundantly clear to Kari that her parents won’t help her if she becomes homeless. They didn’t want a child to begin with. A gay child? Yeah, no, forget about it.

(On a bit of a bright note, Kari has two adopted cats, which are the cutest fur balls over. They’re her closest emotional support most days, and I am very grateful for them. I can’t cuddle her or be physically there for her at all, but I can at least ask her to go cuddle them. They’re not even on the particularly scratchy side for cats).

Currently, Kari has a job, but despite taking on as many extra hours as possible, she cannot make enough money for rent. In fact, she cannot make many other basic necessities, which I will list here because they’re important, I am worried sick, and we really do need help:

-Work: Kari lost her previous job for one of those completely absurd, US-only reasons back in late October. I say absurd because any company trying to pull that shit here in Spain, and most likely anywhere in the European Union, would’ve been fined out of business. But hey, Country of Freedom and all that, isn’t it? She finally found a new job mid-November. Lower pay, though, which means it doesn’t help her cover full rent.

-Rent: As many people in the US will know, and others not from the US will have heard, rent outside of isolated areas is ridiculously expensive, especially for such a large and unpopulated country. The Wonders of Capitalism. As such, Kari is forced to pay a truly monstrous amount of money for a minuscule space to live in, one that ate up most of her previous salary and that surpasses her current one.

-Bills: Let’s not forget these. She rations. As much as she can. Electricity, water, internet… she goes for cheapest and least use, so far as to monitor her use of water during showers, but this still adds to her expenses.

-Food: Now’s where things get to a truly awful degree. When she moved to the place she lives in now (and if anyone wants the story that led to this move, please ask, because that’s an entirely other level of fucked up), she had to apply for food stamps, because she had barely no money left to feed herself and her two adopted cats after all the mandatory expenses. Food stamps people don’t look at the money you have left after bills, they just look at your income, so she was allotted $16. Useful, right? Anyway, fast forward to late October: Kari loses her job, so, obviously, one of the first things she does is contact the food stamps people to update her situation and have her allotment reevaluated. No response. Contact again. No response. This keeps going on. Mid-November, she gets a new job (still no response from the food stamps people despite the many attempts to contact them). Last Friday, her food supplies consisted of a bit of chicken, two fish fillets, and a couple eggs. I do not kid you. Today, the food stamp people finally answered her call: they won’t look into her case until, at least, December.

That’s it for the basics. As you see, it’s a wonderful situation.

Now, my role in this, as I’m sure some of you are wondering.

Let me start by saying this: I am a heavily disabled woman (nearly blind) living in an isolated area with the worst public transport system this side of the Mediterranean Sea. I am incapable of even getting out of home without assistance and someone to drive me at the moment. This means, having a job where I currently live is out of the question (I’m working on getting a job somewhere else where I’ll be able to live on my own. Sort of). My only source of income right now is my Patreon account, the earnings of which go fully to Kari because my girlfriend’s wellbeing matters to me much more than anything I could ever need for myself. I may say whatever I want about my parents’ belief that my relationship isn’t real because they don’t believe you can forge real connections through the internet (or the fact they want me to have a BOYfriend because they want grandchildren), but at least they’re so terrified I’ll break the moment I step outside on my own that they take good care of me.

Still, unfortunately, I’m only a writer, and a writer’s Patreon doesn’t make enough money to cover for such serious issues.

But Kari is the most important person in my life. I’m not exaggerating. I never thought I’d fall in love. I’ve always been the weird one out, the blind kid teachers coddled too much out of pity so other kids disliked and picked on, the one who was so odd that didn’t even fit with the weird kids in school. That happened everywhere, anywhere I went. Even in some fandom groups. It came to the point I stopped trying. It came to the point I thought once my parents died I wouldn’t have anyone. I’d stopped making plans for the future. There was no future for me.

And then I met Kari. She can make me smile with a silly gif and an obscure quote I thought no one else knew at 3am when I’m on the verge of tears because I feel trapped in my own house; she can get me excited about doing a joint cosplay in the distant future when I’d given up on cosplay years ago because I had no one who wanted to go to cons with me; she listens to my stupid history rants and even shows interest in them, when the most I’m used to getting are eye rolls and a change of topic.

Kari is the best that’s happened to me. Ever. And I want her to be happy. I want her to not have to worry about rent; I want her to be able to buy herself a chocolate bar because she feels like it without having to feel guilty for wasting the money. I want her to be able to live without the fear of being evicted every month, without having to worry about tomorrow’s meals because she ran out of food stamps and the fridge has only a can of soup left for the weekend. I want her to be able to go to the doctor when she’s sick and buy the medication she needs to get better.

But I don’t have the power to do this. Not now, not yet. So I’m asking you, everyone out there, to please help us. Help her.

And, I’m afraid, November is an awful month for Kari. Due to the late date at which she found her new job, she is missing a large chunk of rent. I’m doing everything in my power to gather money, and I ask —no, beg— you to help. Donate something, anything. Even if it is small, many small donations can make a difference.

Originally, we wanted to do a GoFundMe page with a three-month goal of 975 dollars to cover that period’s expenses (yes, guys, we’re missing about 500 this month. It’s that horrible), but every single crowdfunding website we have found works through bank accounts. Banks in the US are sharks; they tax you for not having enough income, for not having enough activity… Basically, if you’re poor in the US, you have to pay to have a bank account that will never have any money in it because the bank will eat it up. So, until we find an alternate crowdfunding site that allows to collect through paypal, we have set us several other safe forms through which you guys can donate to help Kari.

Paypal.Me: https://paypal.me/findyourwaycrafts

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/findyourway

Kari has a crafts store, because she is a fantastic artist (and you should totally check it out), with much stuff already on it and other stuff planned to come:

Store: https://findyourway.storenvy.com/

Store Tumblr: https://findyourwaycrafts.tumblr.com/

However, these things take time to take off, and we are running out of time in November. So please, please, help us cover the remainder of Kari’s rent for this month. Even if it’s just a dollar, three, five, a purchase of a necklace. Anything. Please, help us. Help Kari keep a roof over her head this Winter.

[gamelpar]

It’s All About Fakes (100 sentence prompts fanfic)

Because I suck a writing even short stories or drabbles, I write 100 sentences prompts for the Fake AH Crew instead.

Some of them are inspired by moments in Let’s Play videos, headcanons, social media posts, or just comes straight out of the blue.

Feel free to take inspiration from the prompts or use them.

Prompts are written from a non-shippy perspective, but each prompt can be intercepted in whatever way pleases.

Also my first work, so let’s see how this goes.

Hey, why don’t you read it on AO3 instead?https://archiveofourown.org/works/24787825

1. How the Fake AH Crew got this far is a hell of story, and you can bet it’s one damn worth telling. (Fake it Til’ You Make it)

2. Ray was a sniper; he could spot bullshit a mile away, so how come he ended up in the Fake AH Crew? (On the Spot)

3. Sitting by the wheel of the red minivan Geoff sighed for the 67th time that day, still disbelieving the fact that they were not on their way to carry through a well-planned heist but rather enroute to the beach for some “splashing and slacking”, as Jack had called it. (Sunday Driving - To the Beach)

4. “The Vagabond says: it’s all gonna be murder.” (What the Vagabond Says)

5. Whether it was the Golden Boy or Gavin; Mogar or Michael; they wouldn’t leave each other behind. (Bois Forever)

6. Lindsay---being an absolute goddess as always---supports Jack in her telling for Fiona, and Jack couldn’t have been more grateful. (Women’s League)

7. Matt screws something up; Trevor is there to help him fix it; then Gavin and Alfredo is there to screw it up even more. (Nice Job Breaking It)

8. It’s Bake a Cake Day (according to Gavin) and it’s Gents vs. Lads (insisted by Gavin) and it will also be known as the day when Geoff’s kitchen met its undeniable demise (because of Gavin). (Bake a Cake Day)

9. Long story short: Michael breaks into an animal adoption center for a cat because Lindsay, and Gavin and Ray tags along because why the fuck not. (No Animal Came To Any Harm Except For Gavin)

10. A heavily tattooed man walks into a bar; later, a mad man and a lady in a Hawaii-shirt joins him. (It’s Not a Joke but the Punchline is Fluff)

11. Lindsay and Jeremy have dealt with shit going sideways longer than most people so they know how to make the best of it. (Failure is an Old Friend of Mine)

12. “I hereby announce that the official Prank Wars Week is in session!” (Oh No)

13. The Vagabond might be ready to die, but Ryan knows he’s not. (Ready as I’ll Ever Be)

14. The Lads---and Geoff---gets drunk as hell one night and starts a sock company. (Socks, There’s Socks Everywhere)

15. A boring Fake AH Crew means a dangerous Fake AH Crew and the residents of Los Santos better prepare for chaos. (Boredom Can be a Health Hazard)

16. Ryan gets hiccups and Ray thinks it’s funny until he gets hiccups, too, and soon everyone is stuck with hiccups and everyone blames Ray for some reason. (The Hiccup Disease)

17. When dawn arrives the Fake AH Crew will never be the same again. (Dawn After Battle)

18. Shopping weekends was nothing Lindsay used to do regularly, until Ryan one time decided to come along; then it became a thing. (Stuff We Do Together)

19. Even after leaving the crew, Ray would still have a home to return to. (Home is Wherever You Make it Be)

20. “No---we’re not twins, we’re not brothers, we’re not related in any way, so please for god’s sake, stop asking that.” (Stop the Questions Goddamnit)

21. Jeremy tried to apply more pressure to the wound but as the time on the bomb was running out, so did the blood. (A Mistake You Won’t Live to Learn From)

22. Someone knocks---no, pounds on the door to Ryan’s apartment at 3AM in the morning and Ryan’s still not that happy to being woken up in the middle of the night even if it is Meg waiting behind the door. (Late Night Visitor   or   Expect the Unexpected)

23. “Hey, guys, Fiona here---you’ll never believe this---but I’m stuck in jail and I need one of you to come and bail me out.” (Let’s Bail)

24. Matt is found alone sitting on top of the roof, watching the sunset, but what Geoff finds is someone who needs to talk and so he decides to be that other someone who listens. (Everyone Needs Someone Sometimes)

25. Gavin gets into trouble, which drags Michael and Jeremy into more trouble, and Geoff just wants to have a fucking drink. (Prepare for Trouble)

26. Gavin makes a statement, and Ryan feat. Alfredo makes it a hundred times worse. (Disturbance of Your Own Making)

27. Being welcomed by the sight of a bloodied and battered Gavin through the open door eliminates any tiredness and annoyance Geoff had worked up to having been woken up by a loud pounding on the door at 2AM. (Bloody Brit)

28. That was the way of the Battle Buddies; if one went down, the other had to keep on going, no matter what. (Broken Promise)

29. Nothing lasts forever, and Ray knows that better than anyone. (Never Say Forever)

30. The remaining Gents as well the rest of the Fakes would always be missing a part of themselves from now on. (Parts & Pieces   or   Next Step is to Move On)

31. The alphabet wasn’t enough to cover every brilliant plan the Fake AH Crew had in store, but they never settled for a single letter anyways. (Seven Ridiculous Plans and One That Actually Made Sense)

32. To the Lads, brighter days ahead is just an illusion they can only dream of in the aftermath of a heist gone wrong which claimed the lives of the Gents. (Miserable Lads)

33. It’s a story from being refused of coffee, to wanting to commit suicide briefly, to Trevor having made room for tea-parties with Jeremy, Gavin and Lindsay in his schedule every now and then. (Shut Up and Have Some Tea)

34. Really, it all started when Ray wouldn’t leave Geoff’s house one night. (A Place for Everyone)

35. Usually things doesn’t escalate this far by playing a simple Xbox-game but having ended up in jail, Michael and Matt doesn’t have much of a say about it and Geoff’s pissed. (Hate the Players)

36. Waking up in a dark room tied to a chair with no slightest idea of what the hell’s going on tends to lead to some anxiety-ridden experiences, especially when it is Gavin who finds himself in that situation. (Blackout)

37. No one wants to be the only sober one left to take care of a drunk crew, but with Ray gone Ryan just has to accept that this is his life now. (Trust   or   Sober One)

38. To think it all started that day when Jack saved a drunk man from being robbed in a dark alley. (Mind Your Manners)

39. Neither Lindsay or Michael would force Gavin to put on a brave face after a nightmare; everyone had fears and it was okay to be scared sometimes. (Sharing is Caring)

40. Matt’s life was just another pile of broken pieces until he met Jeremy, and suddenly he had some glue to put the pieces back together. (Glue   or   Glue My Life Back Together)

41. In the temporary apartment Ray was living in at the moment there was a vase by the kitchen window, always holding five red roses. (A Vase Full of Roses)

42. Geoff’s mood could easily be improved a 100 times better with some nice and warm socks. (Can Never Have Enough of Socks)

43. The crew quickly learned that pairing up Ryan and Trevor together would leave a traumatic amount of battered bodies and large pools of blood behind. (Madness In Me)

44. Michael’s life was like a puzzle; bits and pieces all over the place, some fitting, some not, some missing or broken, some didn’t even belong---and Jack standing there in the middle of it all being the only one who seemed to sense some kind of pattern. (Puzzles)

45. The Fake AH Crew weren’t good guys---they never would be---but that didn’t mean they were incapable of doing good, and they were by far the most decent team of criminals that had ever set foot in Los Santos. (Bad Guys Do Good)

46. Tears kept falling, slowly soaking the photo Jack held in her hand of her and the crew---not wanting to forget, yet not wanting to remember. (Remember to Forget)

47. The pink sniper rifle that hung on the wall would always serve as a reminder for the members of the Fake AH Crew that they were not immortal after all. (We Could Be Immortals)

48. Ryan’s an evil mastermind and that frightens Gavin a little, but the Golden Boy reckon it’s time to beat the Vagabond at his own game. (The Reckoning)

49. Kerry Shawcross crosses paths with the infamous Fake AH Crew completely by accident, and all hell breaks loose. (Welcome to Fake Hell)

50. The blood on his hands belonged to someone he knew---someone he cared about---and Ryan had never been more afraid of himself. (There’s Someone There But it’s Not Me)

51. It’s Pride Month and Jeremy really takes it up a notch when coloring his hair this time. (Rainbows)

52. Watching them Lindsay realized that while each of them all had lost so much, they had found even more. (Less is More)

53. Trevor would be better than Geoff ever’d been at scheduling heists and leading the crew, but he still gets to handle all the complaining from the crew so he isn’t as satisfied as he would like to be. (Point of No Return)

54. When the realization strikes him that he’s the only one left remaining, Jeremy falls to his knees in defeat and can’t stop screaming. (What Remains)

55. Fiona can never seem to stop messing with Gavin in any way possible. (A Step Too Far)

56. “Yeah, they’re all idiots---but they’re my idiots, so don’t you fucking dare lay your hand on them.” (A Bunch of Savage Animal Idiots)

57. Times have never been darker for the Gents as each of them struggles to cope with the deaths of the Lads in the aftermath of an coordinated attack. (Falling Inside the Black)

58. The day he met the Wildcard, Michael’s whole world finally started to make some sense. (Wild World)

59. Geoff’s constant drinking worried Gavin sometimes. (Drunk Concern)

60. Matt didn’t believe anyone would care enough for him to consider him family, nor did he believe he would end up in becoming a part of one. (Lost and Found)

61. Alfredo always wondered who Trevor really was underneath his iron suit of armor. (Armor)

62. Even when stuck in a seemingly never-ending coma, Geoff was never alone. (Not Alone)

63. Alfredo joins the Fake AH Crew with more blood on his hands than most people---including himself---would’ve expected. (Red Sea)

64. There’s a perfectly valid reason why Lindsay, despite not being his roommate anymore, is the only one who has a key to Ryan’s apartment. (Key to the Door)

65. Four times Jeremy and Trevor talked their way out of jail and one time they didn’t. (Another Approach to the Problem)

66. Lindsay tried, and that’s why she was still alive, even though everyone else that mattered to her weren’t anymore. (The Fake Among the True)

67. Fiona was her own knight in shining armor and no tower could ever hold her captive for long. (Green Knight)

68. There were days when Jeremy saw a way out, yet the light would always fade at the end of the tunnel, leaving him in the dark. (No Way In, No Way Out)

69. The others would never come back, and Gavin, walking in the wake of that horrifying truth, felt like an empty shell with nothing left to give. (Empty)

70. Trevor would give his life for the crew just like Geoff and Lindsay had. (Third Time Counts)

71. One time for when each of the Fake AH Crew members showed strength and one time when they didn’t. (No Shame)

72. Jack and Geoff shared a special responsibility for every member of the crew, and Michael was no exception. (Nightmare Terrors)

73. ‘Who’s the creepiest motherfucker?’ is a question rather avoided and unanswered. (Creep Contest)

74. All Michael felt now was a burning anger that refused to flicker and fade, and thirst for revenge than could never be quenched. (Road Rage)

75. The last time they all saw each other the city was burning, wounds were bleeding---figuratively and literally---and they never expected to see each other again. (One Last Time)

76. Jack liked to be up in the early, quiet mornings while everyone was still asleep, but she was seriously going to tackle Ryan into bed if she found out he was still awake at 5AM again. (Go the Fuck to Sleep)

77. He’d said he was going to visit, but Ray always pushed the promise further to its limits every time. (Liar Liar)

78. Five times a heist went to hell and one time when it actually didn’t. (Heisting Hell)

79. Not every backstory of the Fake AH Crew’s members is full of shattered dreams and points of no return. (Wanted)

80. Gavin missed home sometimes, but the Golden Boy didn’t. (Two Sides of a Coin)

81. Jeremy’s admiration of monster trucks stretches way back to when he was only a child, walking past a toy store. (Monster Car)

82. “You can leave if you want”, Geoff said, “No one’s going to stop you.” (Freedom)

83. The Vagabond was almost always in control after the Fall of the Fakes, mostly because Ryan let him. (Dead by Daylight)

84. Perhaps the next mishap won’t be so embarrassing for Alfredo, but life didn’t seem to like him much at all. (It’s Life, What Can You Do About It)

85. Four times Geoff said no to either Gavin, Ryan or Lindsay bringing an animal home, and one time he actually said yes. (Animal Addition)

86. So the members of the Fake AH Crew decides to steal their boss’ yacht again and Geoff’s as usual late to the party. (Yacht Party)

87. The crew goes to get some tattoos, and Lindsay is very sure of which one she wants to get. (Tattoos)

88. When Jack falls sick and can’t make her awesome lunch for the whole crew, the crew makes one for her instead (and Jack appreciates it even if it’s a little burned). (Faking the Chef)

89. The day Fiona joined the Fake AH Crew is a day Gavin will very well remember. (Bully)

90. The B-Team is usually there to clean up the messes, except for this time. (Don’t Leave Your Messes Here)

91. The whiskey burned his throat when he guzzled it, and Geoff wished that the liquor could burn away the pain and memories the same. (Burning Bridges)

92. The Fake AH Crew may look like they’re having the time of their lives, but the outside is designed to hide the struggles and issues that lingers underneath. (Inside Out)

93. With the Gents missing, the Lads stuck in a burning building, and the B-team cornered in a firefight, things does not look good. (Already Over)

94. The Fake AH Crew never failed to be impressed by Michael’s colorful vocabulary of swear words. (Words of Color)

95. Jeremy tries to cover up some traces of his past life from the rest of the crew; it does not go the way he wants. (Known to the World)

96. The Ring had been like home, but he wasn’t earning any money being beaten up every round in familiar surroundings, so Michael left---and ended up in Los Santos. (Ring of Fire)

97. The different paths that every member of the crew took for themselves led each of them to end up somewhere they never intended to be, but somewhere they were meant to be. (Pathfinders)

98. It was safe to say that every member of the Fake AH Crew had at least one weird obsession; some had way too many, and some obsessions were just what the fuck. (Obsessions)

99. The Fake AH Crew heists in style, or they do not heist at all. (Do it with Style)

100. The Fake AH Crew is made up of a selected (un)worthy and unique individuals---each one with their own story of whens, ifs, whats, whos, and hows. (Now That We’ve Come So Far)