#maybe one day ill share the story my boss gave me but not yet

[bobfloydssunnies]

rhett would be the guy to get back inside when its really cold outside after doing word around the ranch or whatever he was doing and then saying he wants to show you something or give you something and then shove his freezing cold hands under your shirt (he'd think its really funny to come up behind you if he can and put his hands on your boobs)

[spoonhacks]

My Fibro Journey and How I Came Back from Rock Bottom

This not advice. But this is a true story, and it’s time I shared my Fibro journey. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia just as college was ending. This is not to say it began then, but it came to head enough to finally get an answer. This came about a year and a half after my Interstitial Cystitis diagnosis, and I was in BAD shape. I was 90 lbs, deteriorating, and everything winded me. The pain was constant and completely overwhelming. I had thrown every last drop of my energy into finishing my college thesis and graduating from a school I had worked SO hard at. When it finally commenced, I felt lost. I was depleted from the effort and it was 2011 and the economy was in shambles. Having nowhere else to go, I moved into my dad’s spare room in Massachusetts, miles away from the state I had always called home, my precious Florida warmth, and the love of my life. I was, unsurprisingly, miserable, and my health tanked immediately. I was cold all the time. No amount of blankets helped because I wasn’t generating my own heat. I remember spending Thanksgiving eve in the emergency room because an Interstitial Cystitis flare had caused a UTI to back up and give me yet another kidney infection and I had a soaring fever. Things were toxic with my dad. His cure for everything is to get up at 6am and be busy busy busy and I was in desperate need of rest. When it became obvious to me finding a job was not happening, I started an Etsy shop for my crafts with the limited energy I had. It pulled in maybe $200 a month but it felt good to be doing one small thing. A few months later the love of my life arranged to follow me to New England and secured a place for us in the apartment above his father’s house. We were together again but things were tense, his dad is occasionally a monster, and it wasn’t long before we were moving again. My health was awful and we were broke as a joke. I was sleeping 12 hours a day and spending the rest of my time trying to figure out what kind of life I was going to be able to have. I was severely depressed. We moved to an absolute shit-hole of a apartment in a bad neighborhood. Rent was $850/month for 280 square feet. We could barely afford it, and mostly lived off of my partner’s disability check and food stamps. My small savings was gone. We fought about money a lot. The Etsy shop brought in maybe $300 now, but it was clear this was not going to cover everything for a long time, if ever. My health only continued to decline and I felt utterly useless. Some days I was too sore to even get out of bed. The stress was unbearable as I watched everything in my life spiral. I honestly felt like if something didn’t change and soon, I was going to die. I thought back to the last thing I’d done right: my college thesis at art school. It took me forever to choose what medium to do the project in as there were a few I’d been practicing proficiently. I kept asking myself: “What am I the best at? What am I the best at?” and got nowhere. Finally I asked myself “What am I the worst at? What medium am I absolutely shit at that I would love to do but never learned how?” And the answer was pen and ink. A few months later I graduated with a pen and ink portfolio with one of two A’s in my professor’s senior class. So here I was, applying to design jobs and retail jobs and anything else I thought I might be good at with 0 responses for months on end. Then, instead, I asked myself what I was the worst at-- manual labor! After all, grocery shopping would knock me out until the next day. I realized this was insane to even consider and I might literally die. But I was so low it didn’t matter. If I continued wasting away like this I was going to die anyway. I knew this in my heart. Having cared for horses as a kid I started applying for barn jobs in the area. I remember straightening myself up and forcing myself to look energetic and animated for the interviews. I finally got a job. I was terrible at it. Shoveling for hours and pushing around a 300lb wheelbarrow, imagine! I could not lift a hay bale (they are about 65 lbs). But, I got up at 4:45 in the morning and drove to work in the snow before the plows came and always got to work on time. I worked only weekend days and by Sunday night I would have to make sure there was a crockpot meal going because I knew I would collapse at the end of the day. I cried in the car on the way home every single shift. My body was on fire. Mondays I could not get out of bed. The pain was immeasurable and I spent most of the day crying and had my partner help me to the bathroom. I spent the whole week recovering and patching myself up enough to get to my next shift on Saturday. But I promised myself something: that I would never complain, not to anyone at work, and not even to myself in my head. I imagined myself as a monk. Chop wood, carry water. I got fired. Then I got another barn job and got fired. Then I got another one and got fired again. The 4th job was still hard, but I did not get fired. I could now lift the hay bales. I gained 20 lbs (entirely muscle) and my body was completely different. Instead of being carried to the bathroom on Monday, I could transport myself to the couch and do basic self-care activities. I could do my crafts during the week again and between the two income streams I could afford my half of living expenses and was very slowly socking away a tiny, tiny nest egg that would eventually become the start up capital for my business. Two years had passed since mucking my first stall. My Fibro was not cured by any means but my IC was somewhat in remission and I was doing much better. Daily life got easier. After all, compared to hay bales, lifting the pasta pot while making dinner was less of a big deal. I eventually left the barn job and got a job doing landscaping and construction-- more manual labor! My new boss was disabled too and used a walker on the job site. He was also a Buddha in a blue collar. After having kept my illness a secret for 2 years of barn jobs I could finally tell a boss the truth and it was a relief. He understood me and always gave me the jobs I could flourish at.  I learned a lot from him, did legitimately good work, made slightly better money, and moved out of the shit-hole apartment to an art community, which was an important step forward on the path toward opening my own business and doing art full time. During the second year of running my shop I realized I didn’t need a second job anymore and that it would be the first year in the last 5 where I wouldn’t have to dig any holes.

I’d risked it all, every last drop of my health. It could have killed me. And the agony was indescribable, but I would do it again. My body is changed forever and even years since I have last worked manual labor I am still improved for it and much more active than I was in those dark years right after college. Everything I have now I owe to that one, insane decision I made at rock bottom. This is not advice. Take what you will from my story. I still despise people who say “exercise will cure Fibro if you just tried harder :) :) :)” or some stupid shit like that. None of them know how dangerous this was or how much suffering I endured. It could have easily gone the other way. There were days my partner saw the condition I was in and begged me to stop. I told him with a roar in my voice if I didn’t keep going I was going to die. I don’t regret it. I have less pain now, consistently, than I did before I went through all that and I still try to keep up my fitness level so I never go back there. Thank you for reading my story. I can’t recommend my path, but if you come away with one thing from this, just know that there is a path forward, somewhere, and perhaps in the most unlikely of places.

[yoon-kooks]

Witch Hazel- Pt.6

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: FanficWriter!Jungkook, Idol!Reader, College!AU, Angst, Fluff

Summary: There are two students in your art class with a secret: you and the quiet Jeon Jungkook. You’re a problematic idol singer, infamous for your ice cold reputation and perpetual resting bitch face; he’s the artist and author behind the viral comic series based on a certain ice queen idol. After a blowup of destructive rumors, lost motivation and inevitable solitude, you stumble upon Jungkook’s comic and find a new and unexpected light.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: none

Parts: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // ?

A/N: i’ve had mixed feelings about the tumblr fic community as of late :/ but heres something to read🥺

-

Holding the boy’s pinky in your own, you stare once more at his drawing of you with your guitar and flower crown—a superhero to those whom you shared your music with.

No. Your music hasn’t saved anyone. You’ve never been a hero to anyone. If anything, you’re the one who needs to be saved. You’d always thought you could grow strong enough to save yourself if you just closed yourself off from the world and did everything on your own. But in the end, that only seemed to hurt you more.

You should’ve known. It’s okay to ask for help, to reach out, to let him in.

“A few years ago, I had a thought. It wasn’t a very smart thought, but I decided I wanted to share part of myself with the world. I thought about the different ways I could go about that, but the way that made the most sense for me was music,” you say, finally letting go of Jungkook’s pinky and making yourself awfully comfortable on a bed that doesn’t belong to you. “So I auditioned for Polar Entertainment. Not to be an idol, but to be a songwriter.”

Jungkook doesn’t say anything, but he nods as if it’s not a shock to him, as if he saw it as “a Y/N thing to do.” At the same time, his gentle eyes wait for you to continue, curious to know what’ll happen next.

“Do you remember the song you heard me singing the other day in the music room?”

Jungkook cracks a smirk and starts singing your song word for word in a surprisingly in-tune whisper. Oh, he remembers it alright, and he’ll apparently never let you live it down. He doesn’t stop until you throw one of the balled-up blankets at his face.

“That was the first time I picked up my guitar and sang that song since being rejected at the audition.”

“I can imagine how scarring that would be. Rejection,” he shudders at the word, though you’re sure he knows little about the feeling with art skills as professional as his. “They really didn’t like you though?”

“They liked certain parts of me.” Your vocals, your beauty, your body. “But not the ones that mattered.” Your music, your creativity, your personality. You.

“That’s their loss,” Jungkook says in the midst of a yawn, practically inaudible. But you heard him.

“Maybe they had a point,” you say, looking up at the ceiling. “Because when I look back to that time, it was quite foolish of me to believe my music would reach anyone when it came from a place of desperation, not my heart. The song was a plea for help, not one that would save others.”

“What made you suddenly sing it again after all this time?”

You grab hold of the boy’s hand and form yet another pinky promise. “Promise you won’t laugh at me for my reason.”

“I can’t promise you that,” he says with the straightest face. He’s ready to burst out laughing again and you know it.

“Then I won’t tell you.” With a hmph, you bury yourself under the fluffiest blanket. You wonder how he would’ve reacted if you told him it was that dang jk.seagull and his fanfic that gave you the courage to sing again, to go back to your roots, to follow your love of creating music. It’d obviously sound ridiculous to admit it out loud, but the joy you feel from reading Witch Hazel is what reminds you of the very thing you want to provide others with—happiness.

And that’s perhaps all the encouragement you needed to start sharing your music again.

“I won’t tell you what it was exactly that made me do it, but I’ll tell you why,” you peek your head back out of the blankets to see the boy still waiting patiently for an answer. “I wanted to move on… from the failure I faced that day. That way, I can finally become that superhero you speak of.”

You place the drawing of your superhero self onto the nightstand so that it doesn’t get crinkled up on the bed. No, she’s not a superhero yet. But she will be someday.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“You better not tell anyone,” you remind him. “This isn’t something I share with other people. Ever.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he assures you, with not only his words but also his warmth.

“Good.” You smile whilst closing your eyes. You meant to tell him that he could confide in you too, but the warmth pulls you into a deep slumber before you could do so.

-

It’s been a minute since you’ve awoken in someone else’s bed, though this is the first time you aren’t all wrapped up in their embrace. Rather, half the boy’s body is hanging off the side of the bed for dear life while you’re right smack in the middle, all bundled up in one of the blankets.

If you wanted to, you could push him over the edge with the tiniest tap of your foot—that’s how close he is to falling. But as tempting as it would be to get even with the boy who teases you to no end, you opt to quietly check your phone without disturbing him.

To your surprise, you have two new notifications: a text from Seokjin earlier this morning and a late-night update from jk.seagull posted sometime after you had passed out. You’ve always been the type to take care of work obligations before indulging in guilty pleasures, so you open Seokjin’s text first.

6:04AM jinnie “so jimin’s manager reached out to me”

6:05AM jinnie “and you want to collab with jimin?”

7:12AM Y/N “oh yeah i asked him to have his manager contact you”

7:13AM Y/N “but i guess i forgot to tell you LOL”

It’s not that you forgot. You were just hesitant to tell your manager about it yourself. Because if possible, you’d like to minimize your own company’s involvement in this top-secret scheme of yours.

7:15AM jinnie “are you up to something?”

7:15AM Y/N “mayhaps”

7:16AM Y/N “but dont tell boss lady pls”

7:17AM jinnie “shes going to find out one way or another”

7:19AM Y/N “thats true 🤔 ”

7:20AM Y/N “well tbh knowing her, she’d probably approve of the collab anyway since it should clear up those dating rumors while (hopefully) appealing to jimin’s fanbase”

7:21AM Y/N “just dont tell her the logistics of the collab”

7:21AM jinnie “what are you scheming lmao”

7:22AM Y/N “youll see”

7:22AM jinnie “ 😒 dont get me or yourself in trouble Y/N”

7:23AM Y/N “i wont! i promise! 🥺 ”

7:24AM jinnie “okay fine”

7:25AM jinnie “ill arrange a meeting with jimin and his manager to discuss everything formally”

As you move on to the more exciting notification on your phone, you see that the sleeping Jungkook has slipped several inches closer to falling flat on his face. Maybe you’ll save him from his impending doom. Maybe you won’t. But that’ll have to wait until after you see what jk.seagull had to say on his blog.

“do you ever think back to that one time in math camp when a little girl screamed in your face that she hated math and wanted to become a musician instead? apparently she somehow confused ‘musician’ with ‘mathematician’ LMAO”

You aren’t sure what provoked the silly seagull guy to share such a random thought, but you do get a good laugh out of it. After all, you can totally relate as someone who went to math camp one summer despite knowing in your heart what you truly wanted to do-

Wait.

“Jungkook,” you say in a half-hushed, half-urgent tone, though calling his name wouldn’t be what actually wakes him from his slumber. “I think I know who the seagull guy is.”

Thud. You swear on your life you didn’t lay a finger on the boy when he fell, despite all the devilish thoughts you had about it earlier. He fell on his own. You’re innocent. Therefore, you have a right to laugh.

“Are you okay?” you snicker, peering down from the bed at the dazed boy. He might have been the biggest klutz for rolling off the bed and stumbling around to find his glasses, but holy shit. His wild bedhead and scattered blankets across the floor make it seem as though the two of you had a lot more than just an innocent heart-to-heart in his bed last night.

“I’m fine,” he stretches his arms and combs the bedhead out. Yes, he is fine. “But, uhh, what’s this about that seagull guy?”

“I think I know him.” You expect Jungkook to be as excited as you are, but he just seems kind of puzzled—perhaps from his lack of sleep.

“…and how did you come to that conclusion…?” he asks. Or maybe he doesn’t believe you.

“You didn’t see the post! Look at the post.” You join the boy down on the floor and make yourself at home there with your phone and some of the fallen blankets. He leans over your shoulder to read the infamous post you won’t shut up about.

“Math camp?” Jungkook continues to squint at the cryptic message before chuckling. “Also, did that girl seriously confuse musician with mathematician?”

“Stop laughing! That dumbass was me.” Now you wish you had kicked his ass off the bed.

He stops laughing, not because you told him to but because he’s mildly shook. “What?”

You take a deep breath in because you know you’re setting yourself up to be clowned for the rest of your fucking life. “When I was like ten, I told my parents that I wanted to be a mathematician, thinking that word meant musician. So they signed me up for camp that summer.”

“Did you ever stop to think that mathematician has the word math in it and not mu-”

You interrupt the boy’s unwelcomed commentary with an air-punch to his guts before continuing on as if nothing happened. “I was so excited until I got there. It was absolutely mortifying to learn that it was a math camp, not a music camp.”

“I like this story,” he nods with his arms guarding himself in anticipation of another air-jab as you square up.

“Still, I tried to make the best out of the situation since I was actually kind of good at math,” you say. “The camp director even told me I’d make a great math professor one day.”

“I can’t imagine you as a math professor.” He settles down with all the chuckling.

“I couldn’t either, so I ran off to an empty room where I thought I could escape without anyone finding me,” you soften your tone. “But somehow a crying, wandering boy found me.”

“Was it the seagull?”

“Maybe. All I remember was hearing music playing from somewhere outside. I sang along as a way to comfort and distract myself from the whole math situation, but it seemed to cheer up the boy as well.”

“Your voice does have that effect, you know.”

“He told me the same thing.” You can’t help but smile a little at the compliment. “But in that moment, it felt like my dream had a purpose beyond fueling my own desires. And I needed to share it with someone. Anyone.”

“So you shared it with the boy?”

You nod. “I told him my dream was to be a mathematician, but he knew what I meant.”

“Did he at least clown you first?”

“He did. He laughed right in my face, and at first I thought he was a jerk for making fun of my dream. But after he kindly taught me the difference between musician and mathematician, I announced my actual dream to him and him alone.”

“And how’d he respond?”

“He said it was cool beans.”

“He said cool beans?”

“Those were his exact words, yes.”

“And that was it?”

“That’s all I can remember.”

“So you don’t even remember his name or anything?”

“We never introduced ourselves,” you shake your head. “I don’t remember his face either because it was covered by a hood and long hair.”

“That’s too bad,” Jungkook sighs. “I bet it really was that seagull guy after all.”

“I have a feeling it was him, too.”

It would be nice and awfully romantic if you had somehow crossed paths long ago with the very seagull who continues to inspire your craft with his own. But even if that isn’t the case, you’re content with having that memory and entrusting it with another boy who has done nothing but lift you up.

You lean yourself gently against the Jungkook’s shoulder as you slip your phone back into your pocket, debating on your next course of action. The two of you should be getting ready for class, but that doesn’t sound very appealing. There are other things you’d much rather be doing, like maybe thanking the boy for lending his ear. But for some reason, it’s still difficult for you to say those two simple words of gratitude.

Perhaps it’s difficult because there’s a lot more you’d say than just “thanks man.”

“Can we just cut class and get coffee instead?” Yes, you’ll thank him for his service by treating him to coffee. Unless…? What if this is just your subtle way of asking the boy out on a date? What if he says no because you’ve already spent way too much time with him in the past 24 hours? What if he hates coffee? What if he-

“We should probably go to class to turn in our project, yeah?” Jungkook brings up a good point. But the thing is, you don’t really have your priorities straight at the moment and your mind has only two things consuming it: coffee and boy. “But we can get coffee after class.”

“Ooh, good, because there’s this one coffee shop I want you to try!” You chirp up despite your nonexistent dose of morning caffeine. “It’ll be my treat as thanks for… letting me hog your bed.”

“Oh right... that,” Jungkook hops to his feet and starts tidying up said bed. You help by picking up and folding all of the blankets. “I nearly froze and fell to my death because of that, you know.”

“I saw,” you bite your lip, trying to mask any naughty thoughts that come to mind. Because next time, if there is in fact a next time, you won’t let the boy freeze.

-

By the time art class ends, the weight of the dreaded group project has been lifted and your craving for coffee begins to settle in once more. And apparently, the hunger and excitement is radiating off you because someone has the audacity to make a comment about it.

“Why does your face look like that?” Taehyung teases, but you’re mildly offended.

“Because I’m getting coffee from my favorite café. That’s why,” you hiss but there’s still a hidden glow about you and your excitement. “Coffee is to me as girls are to you, Taehyung.”

“Ooh, speaking of girls, do any cute girls work there?” He strokes his wise man beard. “Maybe I’ll tag along.”

“I don’t fucking know.” And even if you did know, you wouldn’t say yes.

“How boring,” he yawns while nudging the boy next to him. “Hey Jungkook, wanna go on a double date with me? I met a pair of gamer girls, but I don’t know all the nerdy gaming stuff that you know. And think about it, this could be the first time you get laid since-”

“Actually, Jungkook’s getting coffee with me,” you interrupt. And if you had been brave enough to look up at the boy as you spoke, you would have seen the healthy pink radiance on his cheeks.

“Oh, so the two of you are dating all of a sudden?” Taehyung nods, as if he had hit the mark.

Neither you or Jungkook give an immediate answer, probably due to the unspoken yet very apparent shift in dynamics between the two of you as of late. Yes, you’ve developed certain feelings for the boy, but no, you aren’t technically “dating.” You just hope he’s on the same page as you.

“It’s just coffee,” you want to say, but it comes out of Jungkook’s mouth instead. And even though you would’ve said the same exact thing, it hits a little different hearing it from him.

At the same time, coffee is coffee and Jungkook is Jungkook. You need to remind yourself that your craving for coffee with the boy will be satisfied, regardless of whether it’s a date or not. After all, “dating” is not an option for an idol who should only be focusing on her music and fans.

“Which drink would you recommend?” Jungkook asks as you lead him in the direction of the café.

“If you like coffee, all of the drinks are good in my humble opinion,” you say, though you realize you should probably give the boy a few specific suggestions to make his decision a little easier. “You can get a standard mocha or latte if you want something simple. Or, their signature hazelnut coffee is really really good. Or if you want something iced, you should try the cold brew because it’s literally the most refreshing dose of caffeine ever. Oh! But if you’re into something more plant-based, I suggest the maple oat-”

“You’re not narrowing down my options if you recommend the entire menu, Y/N,” the boy chuckles at your coffee enthusiast behavior.

“Well, here’s my thought process: if we go at least once a week after class, you can eventually try every drink on the menu by the end of the school year. Not including all the different types of milk options though.”

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or terrified that you even bothered to do that calculation.” His eyes are bigger and brighter than the sun. “But that must mean you really like coffee then, huh?”

“Of course! Is that even a question?” The snobby coffee enthusiast jumped out real quick. But even beyond the coffee, you did the calculation to see how long your little coffee not-dates with the boy could last before you have to return to your idol obligations. “You like coffee too, right?”

“Not really,” he sighs. Your jaw drops. Who the does he think he is? “Are there any tea options? Or like a banana milk or something?”

“You can’t just walk into a coffee shop and not order coffee.” Is this guy for real? No, he’s just fucking with you. Probably. “I better start reevaluating who I hang out with,” you say with a sarcastic hmph.

“I’m kidding, kind of.” He doesn’t do a very good job of reassuring you of that. “I like… coffee.”

“That hesitant pause doesn’t sit well with me, Jeon.” You raise an eyebrow at the suspicious boy. It feels nice to tease him for once. “Why are you grabbing coffee with me if you don’t love it?”

“I just curious about this coffee place,” he nudges you, “since someone seems to really enjoy it.”

So it’s because of you…

“Good to know I’ve successfully peer pressured you into consuming caffeine,” you hum, playing it off as if his words weren’t absorbed right into your heart. It was never about coffee.

It’s about you and him.

The thought of that makes your heart scream a little, so you hide your flustered face behind your phone as the two of you approach the coffee shop. You have an unread text from your manager.

2:35PM jinnie “good news”

2:36PM jinnie “i set up a meeting with jimin and his manager in an hour”

You stop in your tracks. That’s not good news. Well actually, it is good for your top secret collab. But the timing of it all is anything but good.

“Are you searching up the menu online? Oh wait, you already have the entire menu memorized from A to Z.” He thinks he’s funny. Now is not the time, Jeon. His teasing smile doesn’t disappear until the distress is written all over your face.

How do you cancel a not-a-date date without a proper explanation? How can you do that to a boy who has only ever done you right? The thing is, you don’t have to hurt him.

You can cancel the meeting, you can bail out on the collab, you can disappear from the idol world altogether if you choose to do so. And if you didn’t want to go that far, you could instead tell the boy of your deepest and darkest secret, of your idol identity, and he would surely understand your reasons for having to leave so suddenly for work.

You could do any of those things, but you decide not to. You won’t allow yourself to make such a rash decision, even if it’s the right one. So you decide to keep the meeting, you decide to keep your idol self hidden in the shadows, and you decide to abandon the boy.

[who-is-reign]

Hello, hi, hey

Hi I did a short writing thing- here it is!!

Everything starts with a hello, a hi, a hey. A greeting of some kind. Ours started with something else. It started with a trip, a lot of apologies, and crying. Though I feel like I should probably start at the beginning. That makes more sense anyway.

It all started on what I knew was not going to be a normal day. The day started with two pieces of toast, 3 slices of peaches, and a mug of earl grey tea. Or what I was hoping to be a mug of earl grey tea. I poured the rest of what was left of my mug into a thermos and walked out the door. 

3 stairs, take a left, 5 steps forward to the next stairwell. 10 steps down, 5 breathes, 2 stops I could have taken, 7 doors I could see. I ran to my car, even if it was only 5 feet away. 

30 minutes and a coffee stop later, I was at work. I work at a publishing firm as the executive editor. I have been there since the start of this company, Indigo Query. I helped with the name of course. Most of the books that I edited are Best Sellers right now. I can’t say I’m not proud of that. 

Today is the release date of the first book I wrote. I have babied this book for 4 years. All of the characters are complex and have their own stories. I tried to make it to where there weren’t any background characters. To where there were stories going on behind the scenes, or the main focus of the chapter. It is 1563 pages, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 468900 words. This book is my literal child. I have had these characters since I was in 6th grade. I only started seriously writing out their story in the last 4 years. 

I just realized that you know nothing about me. Maybe that’s for the best. You’ll find out later anyway.

I walked in, went through the cafe, up the elevator, through the small library. I was there, and my book was there. On my desk, I saw a hardcover copy of my book. I almost started crying. Okay, I did start crying. That art was my choice, it was made by one of my oldest friends. I carefully picked up the book, letting my hands run over the almost woven texture of the cover, the embellished sides, and the title. Lastly, my name, small in white coloring. I turned to the copyright page and breathed in. My name is listed as the author and editor. My best friend’s listed as the cover artist. This is what I was meant to do. Write books, edit books, publish books.

I put the book down, I couldn’t read it. Not yet. I needed to meet with Leo Adams, president of the company. He is not the original president, he took over after the old president passed. I personally am not a fan of his. I think he is corrupt and doesn’t deserve the company. The only thing I can hope is that one day this company, my home, will get a better president. The only reason I stayed with this company, is because of my book. I could leave if I wanted to, other publishing companies have asked if I wanted to sign for them. 

But I have something in my eyes, something I can’t give up. I want to own Indigo Query. I want to own the thing I love more than anything. This company is my life, my livelihood. I hate seeing a man who doesn’t care about books be in charge of it. I need to save the company I have over a decade of time into. But right now, it is my time. My book is getting released.

I need to focus on that and nothing else. I need to work, that’s what I need to do. What I want doesn’t matter right now, and it won’t matter for a while. 

I walked as fast as a caffeinated lesbian could without it being considered running to Leo’s office. 

“Ms. Kore, it’s fantastic to see you. And of course congrats on the book release, it looks fantastic already.” Leo’s words drawled on, a slight curve to his phrases. I hated it.

“Of course sir, I couldn’t have had this book released without you,” I replied, trying desperately to keep the ill intent out of my voice. 

What I didn’t say, was that of course, I couldn’t have had this book released without you. Even with you, there were so many issues with getting it released. Including the date getting pushed back 6 months. I could have had this book out, and sold by now. But no, he said it was too problematic. It took all of the editors, our cover designers, the VP of the company, and basically everyone to get him to allow it to be sold. 

“Though Ms. Kore, I must tell you, I really do not think this book will thrive that much. I just do not want to see you getting hurt. Take the day off, you need to.” I almost scoffed once he said that, but I really only muttered thank you and walked out of the office.

I practically ran to one of my coworker’s desks and sighed completely and utterly overdramatically. This coworker has been my friend since high school and they helped found the company. They also know about my aspiration to own  Indigo Query.

“Oliver, I can’t believe him. He literally said that he didn’t think my book would work out and that he just didn’t want me to get hurt.” I groaned and tried to not sound whiny, though I know I did.

“Babe, that is so horrid but also you are so close to literally owning this company. You are so close, and you can’t lose sight of what you have done because our boss is horrible.” I know they’re right, and I am really close, but I need a break. 

“I’m leaving for the day, Adams said I had to.” I sighed.

“Girl you have been here for less than an hour, sit down.” Oliver raised their eyebrows and practically forced me to sit at my desk.

I just rolled my eyes and got to work on a new manuscript that came in today. It wasn’t long before my eyes felt like they were going to burst from my head. 

“I’m taking a coffee and tea run. Want anything?” I closed the manuscript, my question aimed for Oliver who was holding a red pen and had a red pen tied up in their hair.

“Yes, yes, and yes please darling. You know my order anywhere.” And they were right, their order hasn’t changed since freshman year. Unlike everything else. Oliver used to be really shy, with red curly hair, they didn’t have confidence. And now they talk or flirt with everyone, have longer sunset ombre hair, and have more confidence. I’m proud of them.

I walked out of the building and to the nearest cafe. I ordered Oliver’s, which was a matcha latte with added raspberry syrup, apparently, it was amazing. Then I got a London fog earl grey tea with extra vanilla syrup.

 I noticed the cafe had a small bookstore and I walked over there after ordering. I saw something that warmed my heart, my book. I inhaled deeply in shock, already a small bookstore had my book in it. I grabbed a copy and read through some of it. My words, my characters, my world. I get now why it is such a big deal for Oliver every time they see a book they wrote. I only walked away when I heard my name getting called. I grabbed both of the cups and walked away, saying thank you many times.

Close to the door, the not so impossible happened. Someone ran into me, my tea spilled everywhere. Oliver’s drink ended up being safe somehow. 

“I am so sorry, I can’t believe myself, I’m so sorry. Deeply sorry. Let me help.” The person who ran into me sputtered out.

“Don’t be sorry it was an accident, it is okay,” I say looking at them softly.

They had hair a little bit longer than their shoulders, it was a coppery red. Their eyes were a shade of amber. That was when I realized. 

“Laurette?” I asked, stunned that this may be her.

“Yeah? Do I know-- Persephone!” Laurette hugged me and sighed. “It’s fantastic to see you!”

“Good to see you too. What are you doing these days?” 

“Oh! I’m living with Ophelia with our kid. I’m a fashion designer and she is a daycare owner. So she gets her share of kids every day. What about you?” as Ophelia spoke I could practically feel her love for her wife. 

“That is fantastic! I’m the chief editor and now an author for a publishing company called Indigo Query. My first book got released today actually. I work with Oliver Evanora.” I was filled to the brim with pride. 

“Really? Congrats! I bet the book is amazing! I’ll have to check it out sometime. Tell Oliver I said hi. ” Laurette sighed happily, “Well, it’s been great seeing you, I’m so sorry about the tea. I hope to bump into each other again.” 

I smiled and went back up to the counter to grab the tea they remade, gave them a 10 dollar tip, and left. A newfound pleasure seeped through me. I walked back to the office, careful not to spill anything. I gave Oliver their drink and went straight back to work.

4 hours later and the clock showed 5 pm, the day that I had been waiting for years to happen was over. Since I needed desperately to get home, I made Oliver give me a ride home.

“Why didn’t you drive to work? You have a car.” Oliver asked when they were in their car.

“Because I wanted to walk.” 

“It’s winter, it is dark at like 4. You can’t walk home when it’s dark. We live in a city, girl.”

I just sighed, they were right anyway. I didn’t think it through.

“Want to get food?” They asked, “Cause I am starving!”

“Nah, I’ve got to get home.”

“Ok girl, whatever you deem useful,” Oliver said, already pulling down my street.

“Thank you so much! Oh and by the way Laurette said hi.” I said as I shut the door.

  I went inside and set water on to boil. I started stirring the water clockwise and humming a distant melody. It was almost time. The water started to bubble like an ancient potion that had just been given the final ingredient. I poured the water over a mug, grabbed a tea bag, and let it seep. At this point, the stars were already out and thriving. 

After a quick 5 minutes, I grabbed my mug and walked outside into my backyard. I went directly to my shed. My shed was more of my office than a shed. It had a typewriter, my laptop, a shelf filled with different types of teas or coffee. Plants were scattered about, my desk had a big fluffy white chair pushed up to it. Everything was a pastel blue, pink, or white. It didn’t really seem like it was mine, but it was. And it’s more of a home to me than my room is. 

I sighed as I sat down on my mug, put on gardening gloves, and grabbed my spade. I went outside and started to get to work. I planted a new rose bush, I replanted my lemon tree that's growing out of their pot. I moved my ever-growing cherry tree to where they’ll get better sun. 

All of this I did while humming, or singing in some parts. I am the type of person to sing and talk to my plants. I am also the type of person to own 3 trees and more plants than I can count.

I heard a bang and I flinched, my entire body froze in place, as if any movement would cost me my life.

“Is anyone there?” I whispered, barely to where anyone could hear it.

“Hello, darling” When I heard Oliver’s voice I calmed down, “sorry to scare you babe, but you seem stressed. Thought I’d help.”

“It’s okay, Oli.” I sighed, already putting my spade and gloves away. “So, how did you plan to calm me down?”

“Stargazing with some people from high school,” Oliver replied, smiling.

“Like who?”

“Kira, Raven, Laurette, Ophelia, Lilith--” Oliver was about to continue but I cut them off.

“Okay, I get it, almost everyone. Let’s go.” I said, laughing, “Let me change first.”

Five minutes later I was in Oliver’s car wearing a star printed black layered lace dress and 4-inch heeled black boots.

“Let’s go! I wonder if they all brought their kids! Oh, I can’t wait to see Sabrina or even Litha! I miss my coven friends.” Oliver used to be in a coven at school, it broke up after our senior year.

“Where is the place we’re going anyway?” I asked, playing with my acrylics. 

“It’s only 30 minutes away, a small little cabin. Though, we are staying for a week. I took all the clothes that are yours at my house, it’s enough for 7 days. Plus they all look great.” 

“What about work?!”My yells could probably be heard by our high school friends.

“I got it covered babe, don’t worry,” Oliver said in a sing-song tone. 

“Got it covered? Um, no. My book just got released, I need to be in town.”

“Honey, your book is already almost sold out at 3 stores. I only bought one copy. Your child will be fine.” Oliver sighed as he looked at me, “You need this. More than any of us do. So, I dragged you into the countryside to look at stars and hang out with people from our high school. Don’t you want to see everyone’s kids? I’m pretty sure Ophelia and Laurette are bringing theirs.”

“Okay, fine. I do need this, don’t I?” I pulled out my phone and breathed in.

‘I need this, I need a break. 7 days hanging out with old friends will give that to me.’ I thought as I mindlessly scrolled through twitter.

Then I came across this,

‘Jdjisddsj this book came out today! I already love it! #ScarletDreams #Persephonekore’

“Holy bees, Scarlet Dreams is trending in the literature section on twitter.”

“That’s fantastic, but we’re here.” I looked up and saw a cottage with wildflowers surrounding it, two beehives sitting among the flowers, a few kids running through fields. 

We parked next to where a collection of other cars were. Immediately I was pulled into a hug by Ophelia and Laurette.  

“I missed you!” Ophelia exclaimed as she pulled away, her child pulling at her sleeve.

“I missed you guys too, it’s fantastic to see you.” 

Oliver looked at me, then to everyone and said: “Was I right? Did you need this?”.

I could practically see his fear of him making a mistake, a dark sludge crawling through him, pulling him down and towards his own Tartarus. 

“Yeah Oli, I really did. Work was starting to hurt a little.”

A group of three people left the cabin, they were all holding hands and walking right next to each other.

“Oh, hello. I’m Cassandra. I don’t remember you from high school” She said her last sentence more like an inviting question than a statement.

“Hi, I’m Persephone, I didn’t really talk to many people other than who I knew so I can’t expect you to remember me.” I ended my statement with a small laugh, trying to match her tranquillity.

“Babe, you said there wouldn’t be that many people” The person who spoke was as far behind Cassandra and they could be while still holding her hand.

“I wanted you to come, plus I didn’t that many people would show up, darling.” Cassandra's voice was somehow softer than it was before, it seemed as soft as flower petals blooming out to show a beautiful rose. 

Or rather the sun urging a rose to show it’s own beauty. Cassandra’s red hair had so much volume it seemed to live on its own, like a red fox laid over her shoulder. She was wearing a vintage lace dress that was white with roses on it, you could tell a petticoat was hiding beneath the layers of the dress from how it poofed out. Her cheeks were a rosy red, and her eyes had pink eyeshadow flowing out from them. Her eyeliner wings were sharp enough to stab, and honestly, I wanted her to stab me with them.

As soon as I realized what I was thinking I felt guilty, though I wasn’t sure why.

A voice snapped me out of my thoughts, “Hi, I’m Jade!” said the other person next to Cassandra.

Her hair was a really big fluffy black braid, purple threaded itself through the braid, and blue and green followed. The braid went to her lower back and was tied with what I thought was a gold string. A black mini dress hugged her sides. A light pink fluffy jacket was partially zipped and fell off her shoulders.  The dress went to her lower thighs, then a few inches down my eyes trailed down to her light pink knee-high boots. 

“Take a picture and it will last longer darling,” Jade said, the tone of her voice playful yet held enough flirtiness to send shivers up my spine and turn my face red. 

“Darling, let's not immediately start to flirt with the new girl. Let’s not kill her on the first day here.” Cassandra spoke, her tone matching Jade’s.

The one who has stayed behind Cassandra the entire time stepped forward, appearing to gain confidence from my embarrassment. 

“Why not? She may hold up longer than I did.” They said, their voice was soft yet firm. It held together like a cactus in heavy wind, trying to keep its grip. I felt like that’s the type of person they were, a cactus. Harsh on the outside with spikes and a few flowers to lure you in, but held water and healing on the inside.

I knew my face was painted a shade that countered everything around me and the dress that now seemed to hug me instead of flow around me. Like the petals of a tulip instead of an orchid. My heart sped up and I felt frail, yet held stable by these people who I had only met what seemed hours ago but what I knew was minutes, or even seconds that had just been drawn out to a century. 

Then coughing erupted into my thoughts as Oliver shimmed their way in between me and the group, “Let’s go inside, I need warmth.”

“It’s not even cold” I sighed.

“Whatever,” They said as they already started towards the cottage.

As soon as people realized that Oliver had started to walk away, people hurried to follow them. That was Oliver for ya, they could sure direct a crowd.

[trifrost17]

YGO Advent Day 18: Adventure

Summary:  The gang plays the new Monster World VR game that Yugi created and things are going great until Atem and Yugi fall down a hole. Yugi doesn't take Atem being unconscious very well at all.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16811635/chapters/40398353

18: Adventure

“Ryou just messaged me. He’s on his way over now to our meeting spot here.”

“And Kaiba? Is he coming?” Yugi shrugged, sighing.

“I’m not sure. I texted him our party’s code so he could join the quests with us, and Mokuba, too, but I’m not sure if they’re going to join or not. He never responded back.”

Joey sighed, sitting on the ground and dragging the tip of his sword back and forth on the dirt. “I was hoping the whole gang could be here. Since Téa is supposed to come and all.”

Atem looked like he was going to say something but thought better of it, shifting back to stand in Yugi’s arms. Yugi instantly wrapped an arm around his husband, enjoying the feel of the costume that clung so nicely to all of Atem’s assets. He was very glad that Atem’s avatar looked identical to him. It would be so much harder to fawn over his avatar in the VR world if it didn't look like Atem.

“Hey guys, I made it! And look who I found on the way over!” Ryou grinned and pushed Téa in front of him. She laughed and waved, accepting all the cheers and hugs with relish from the group.

When they finally stopped, she turned to Ryou and Yugi. “This is amazing, guys. I almost feel like I’m here with you even though I’m halfway around the world right now. You guys did incredible on this game.”

“That’s all Yugi!” Ryou responded cheerfully. “I may have been the lead designer and story writer, but Yugi was the one who really put this to life with Kaiba. He’s a mad wizard at this VR stuff.” Yugi blushed, trying to wave off their compliments, but he did feel secretly pleased that they liked his game.

Monster World had been his grandest project yet, even when comparing it to Spherium II. It had taken him two years to program the game fully, even though the code had been something he had been working on since he began his programming classes in college. But it had always been one of his dreams to translate the tabletop Monster World RPG into a VR RPG. Kaiba had been fully on board with the idea and had helped him immensely with creating the game, making it compatible with the KaibaCorp VR Duel Disk-Headset.

He had asked Ryou to help him design the game and the story mode, too. In that way, it did make it less taxing than Spherium II since Yugi wasn’t responsible for everything. But after all their hard work, the game had finally been released.

And if the reviews, pre-orders, and first weekend sales were anything to go by, Monster World VR was turning out to be a big hit.

“All right, so I figured since we’re all different levels, we could start on a mid-level quest to encompass all of us. Téa, Tristan, and Duke are all low leveled, so you guys can get the boss kills and level up like crazy. Joey, Atem, Ryou, and I have all been playing in our downtime so we’re a little higher leveled." That was an understatement. They were actually rather high leveled, he and Atem especially. "We won’t take any kills, though. We’re just there for back-up.”

“No way!” Tristan exclaimed, pouting. “Let’s go on a hard quest! If we have you guys, we got this in the bag!” Yugi hesitated, looking around his group. Ryou and Téa shared his apprehension while Atem, Joey, and even Duke looked amped for a more dangerous mission.

Finally Téa sighed and shrugged. “Whatever. Let’s do this and make it epic. The hardest one that you have—that you know we’ll actually win!” Yugi nodded, pulling up his quest menu. He scrolled through it until he found the mission he was looking for. With a smirk, he nudged Ryou, who hissed when he saw it.

“Yugi, no!”

“Yugi, yes,” he responded with a grin. “They wanted hard. Let’s give them hard.” Ryou groaned while Joey and Tristan cheered. Even Atem looked excited.

Of course, considering it was rare for their entire group to get together and play games like this, no wonder everyone was excited. A more intense quest would make them play together longer and bring an extra level of thrill to the game. Yugi was okay with that, even if it would be more challenging and definitely way too much for the lower-leveled characters to fight on their own.

He clicked on the quest and the world melted around them, reforming into the new lands that applied to their new adventure.  

“So, this is called the Signer quest. We have to defeat six dragons to make the seventh and most powerful dragon appear. But after we defeat them, they’ll join our sides. Actually, whoever KOs the dragon gets the Signer mark permanently after that and can summon the dragon from here on out in the game.” Yugi grinned, shifting to the balls of his feet excitedly. “Then, if we beat this quest, it’ll unlock the Dark Signer quest. That’s when we use the seven dragons to defeat the seven Earthbound Immortals and the evil Crimson Devil. It’ll be fun!”

Duke was the one that opted to respond. “Sounds like it. After what you've made, if you're saying it's fun, it will be. Let’s go, then. Lead the way, Yugi.”

“Wait, wait, what is everyone?” Tristan asked, pointing at Atem for an example. “I'm a Magic Gunman. White Wizard for Ryou; Warrior for Joey; Téa is a... ?”

“Magician,” Téa supplied.

“Thief,” Duke said, pointing to himself.

“I’m a Beast Tamer!” Yugi told him. At Tristan’s blank look, Yugi elaborated, “It means I can convert enemies to our side. I already have a few from previous quests; I can only have six on me at one time.”

“And I’m an Illusionist,” Atem finished. “I can create images and mental traps to attack enemies with. I also got an ability to summon different magician friends, so I have four magicians I can summon to help me, too.”

Tristan nodded, seemingly pleased with the explanation. He gestured for them to continue moving, so Joey took the lead, loudly proclaiming he knew where to take them.

He didn’t. They wandered in circles, fighting enemy spawn after enemy spawn. After the third circle around a forest, Yugi waved his Marshmallon and Winged Kuriboh back to his side and reached out, halting Joey from going further.

“This way, Joey.” He pointed towards the left. “Kuriboh saw the pathway from over the treetops.”

“I knew that! I was just lettin Tristan and Téa level up and stuff.” Yugi gave him a patronizing grin and nodded. “Ah, hush up!” He gave Yugi a noogie before walking off in the direction Kuriboh was leading them.

They found their first dragon almost immediately once they were on the right path. It was sleeping on the ground, surrounded by plants. As soon as the party stepped into the pathway, the black dragon poked its head up, glaring at them. It flared its beautiful wings, covered in large rose petals, and stood, roaring. It’s spiked, thorned tail thrashed against the ground in warning.

“Yeah, this is what I’m talking about! Hiyaaa!” Joey let out a war cry and rushed forward, his sword held over his head. Tristan was hot on his heels, shooting magical laser shots from behind Joey.

Everyone grimaced as the dragon’s tail lashed out, catching Joey and Tristan in one fell swoop and sent them flying. “Yikes. Maybe we should be a bit more coordinated,” Ryou suggested. Yugi and Téa nodded.

“Téa and Ryou, you two should provide back-up since you’re both long-range. Atem can summon his spirits and provide extra coverage. Duke, you can dart in and out when the dragon is distracted and cut down its health points. We’ll let Joey and Tristan continue to be the distraction. And I’ll bring one of my own friends out to help defeat this.” With the plan set, the group spread out.

“Timaeus, come forth!” A miniature version of the green dragon rose from the ground. It nuzzled Yugi’s hand, wanting to be pet, before it turned to Atem and waddled over to him, nudging the magic user. He smiled and ran his hand up and down Timaeus’s neck.

Téa raised an eyebrow. Yugi laughed at the picture Atem and Timaeus made. “Atem and I sometimes just come in here to play with the pets instead of questing. Timaeus really likes him.” After the dragon had gotten his fair share of petting, he turned towards the Black Rose Dragon and zoomed off, shooting blasts of water.

Atem was next, summoning the Dark Magician Girl and the Dark Magician to his side. They were tiny, toon versions of the characters, both spirits that were missing legs and having ghostly tails instead. The two began to circle around the dragon, attacking, while Atem stood back and began shooting spells to disorient the dragon.

Joey and Tristan continued to get smacked around (keeping Ryou rather busy with constantly healing them) while Duke weaved in and out between people to slice at the dragon with his dagger. However, it was Téa that shot the killing blast. The Black Rose Dragon gave a cry and then exploded into a red light that shot down onto Téa’s hand, leaving a mark behind.

The group as a whole felt themselves level up, some gaining more levels than others. They collected the monster drops and loot, finishing up their first battle.

“Whoop! One down, six more to go! Let’s do this guys!”

Dragon number three was when Mokuba and Kaiba dropped into their team. Mokuba was a Bard while Kaiba was an Enchanter. While Mokuba played songs on a flute to up their stats, Kaiba used surrounding objects to throw at the current dragon—the Ancient Fairy Dragon—to weaken it.

Duke had defeated their second dragon, the Life Stream Dragon, and gained its power. As for this third dragon, Mokuba stole the kill right at the end from Joey, taking the Ancient Fairy Dragon as his new summon, too.

Their next dragon, the Black-Winged Dragon, was a tougher opponent that had Yugi summoning a second dragon. It was the Red Eyes Black Dragon and Joey nearly had a fit when he saw his favorite dragon at Yugi’s side.

“It was a new summon I found a few nights ago,” Yugi explained sheepishly. Joey continued to glare at him throughout the entire fight. At least until the dragon was defeated and Joey had a new target he could direct his pouting to. In this case, Tristan took the kill and Joey's whining.

Dragons five and six appeared together much to the group’s horror (besides Yugi, Ryou, and Kaiba who all knew what the quest entailed). They were the strongest dragons and Joey and Kaiba both fought over trying to get the final kill. It was a difficult battle, though; enough so that Ryou had to revive Joey twice and Tristan three times.

Atem had to summon his final two magician spirits: the Magician of Black Chaos and the Silent Magician. Yugi was also forced to summon his final two dragon companions, the Blue Eyes White Dragon (which had Kaiba apoplectic when he saw it) and Gandora, the Dragon of Destruction.

Atem nearly had the final kill but was nice enough to freeze the Stardust Dragon for Kaiba to take the kill. Ryou also had the final killshot on the Red Dragon Archfiend but Joey swooped in right at the last second and stole the kill.

“You’re lucky there is no friendly fire. If there was, I would roast you alive,” Ryou grumped out, pouting as the dragon’s mark appeared on Joey’s hand. “I wanted a dragon.”

Yugi nudged him and smiled. “Don’t worry. You can get the next one. Think of how cool that’ll look, too! Summoning that flaming beast will make you legendary.” Ryou gave a laugh, nodding.

“You’re right. I’ll be the most badass White Wizard in all of Monster World. Come on, let’s go get that Crimson Dragon!”

When they made it to the sacred summoning ground, the six members of their party who had the Signer marks had to lift up their arms to draw forth the dragon.

If Yugi was being honest, the Crimson Dragon was one of his and Ryou’s most beautiful creations. It was slender, like a snake, but it had flaming stick-like wings, almost skeletal in appearance. It was nothing but pure flame, though. No body, no actual wings, no teeth or claws; nothing but pure molten energy. They could feel the heat radiating from its body.

“Amazing…” Téa breathed, staring up at the creature in awe. Tristan and Duke both made similar sounds.

“Let’s take it down!!” Joey was the one to charge in first, again, like always. But this time, the creature was too strong.

“Joey, no!” Yugi reached out to stop him but was too slow. His best friend was slashed across the chest by the dragon’s claws, sending him to his knees.

“Joey!!” Their entire team rushed to his aid but everything happened in a blur after that. Yugi wasn’t sure what happened, exactly. He was reaching towards Joey, there was screaming, Téa went flying backwards beside him, Atem was yelling, Kaiba grabbed him and threw him backwards, and then there was a lot of earth shaking and rocks.

And then… and then the ground was cracking open and a huge fissure split the earth. Yugi was sitting up enough to see what happened and it was like a movie playing in slow motion. Atem was shoving Ryou out of the way from the hole but he didn’t move fast enough, and then he was the one falling down the crevice. Yugi watched Atem’s body disappear into the blackness and it felt like his heart stopped.

He knew, deep down, it was only a game and that no true harm would come to his husband. But in that moment, it was like his world stopped. He couldn’t hear anything around him, couldn’t see anything except Atem’s falling body, couldn’t think about anything except saving his husband. His heart thudded in his chest and Yugi simply moved on pure instinct. He dived after Atem, ignoring Ryou and Kaiba’s shouts for him to stop.

He managed to grab Atem around the waist, holding him to his chest, as they plunged into icy waters below them. Before he lost consciousness, he was horrified to feel his hands slip from Atem’s body.

Yugi blinked his eyes open slowly, feeling like his mind was in a fog. How he hadn’t died from the fall was beyond him. He should really be waking up back home, in the real world, after being booted from the game. But he wasn’t.

The rush of memories came back and Yugi sat up, panicked. “Atem? Atem! Atem! Where are you?” He stumbled over himself to stand, wincing as his leg nearly gave way instantly. Yugi groaned as he fell back on his ass. He pulled up his status menu, taking inventory of his wounds. It looked like his ankle was sprained, so until he found a healer, his walking ability would be limited. Luckily, that was the only real damage. Everything else was just bruises and cuts.

As well as the fact he was freezing. That was delightful.

He groaned, chanting a few spells to summon his dragons back to his side. All four appeared in front of him, as well as Marshmallon and Winged Kuriboh. “Timaeus, Blue Eyes, go search the surrounding area for Atem. I need to find him. Red Eyes, I need your flames to warm me up, but then I want you to go find our team and let them know where I am.” Timaeus and the Blue Eyes White Dragon took off at Yugi’s command, while the Red Eyes Black Dragon lit a small fire to let Yugi warm up.

Once he was dry and his body temperature back up to normal, the Red Eyes took off up the cliff to find the rest of their friends.

“Gandora, help me walk. I have to find Atem.” Gandora let out a whine, clearly wishing Yugi to remain sitting, but Yugi was stubborn. He stood, wobbling on his good leg, but began to hobble off, following the river he had washed up from. Gandora trotted along beside him, steadying him slightly. Kuriboh flitted around his head nervously, clearly worried about Yugi’s health.

Thankfully, Timaeus let out a cry that had Yugi stumbling towards him in a rush. The Blue Eyes found Yugi and steadied his other side, helping him get to Atem’s side faster.

And there was his husband, lying prone on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

It’s just a game. It’s just a game. It’s just a game. This isn’t real. Atem is fine. Atem is fine. This isn’t real.

Yet no matter how many times he repeated it, Yugi couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks or the panicked breathing. This was his husband and he was hurt and just lying there and Yugi didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t lose Atem again.

He made it to Atem’s side and scooped him up into his arms, shaking and doing his best to hold back sobs. “A-Atem, darling, please wake up. C’mon, babe, wake up. Please get up.” He gently tapped his cheek but Atem didn't stir in the slightest.

It was just a game but at the same time, it was way too real. Yugi felt this strike something deep inside him and felt as his innermost fears began to bubble up to the surface. He couldn’t breathe.

“Please, Atem, please. Please wake up. Please.”

It was like a nightmare. Yugi felt himself slipping into his darkest memories; he was back there, kneeling on the ground in a dark temple, watching the love of his life walk away. Feeling like he had killed him, forced him to leave. Watching the doors slide close behind his king, forcing a smile on his face as his heart shattered.

Yugi’s breath hitched and he let out a sob. “Atem! Please, Atem, please… Please!” He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for. He wasn’t sure why this was destroying him inside so much, but it was. Yugi couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle Atem unconscious like this, slipping away from him just like before.

He couldn’t have him walk out of his life again. Yugi wouldn’t let it happen. He’d die before he let Atem leave him again. This time, if he wanted to walk through those doors to the Other Side, Yugi was going to follow him no matter what Atem said.

“Yu… Yugi?” The voice was hoarse but it snapped Yugi out of his spiraling sobs, making him open his eyes and give a relieved whimper. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re okay,” Yugi told him, trying to steady his breathing. He was still hiccuping from his tears. “Gods, y-you’re o-o-okay.”

Atem looked perplexed for a few seconds but he seemed to realize that Yugi’s tears were not normal. And that was why he loved his husband because instead of probing and asking why Yugi was overreacting from a video game, he simply reached up and hugged him. “I’m here, Yugi. I’m not going to leave you. Ever.”

Yugi let out a sob, unable to hold it back. “I-I-I’m sor-sorry. I don’t—I don’t mean to b-b-be like this but… but… you were—-”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. Don’t apologize; I understand. But I’m here, my love. I’m right here, solid, in your arms. I’m not going to go anywhere. I’m not going to leave your side for all eternity. Remember? We promised that.” Yugi nodded, unable to say anything.

“Do you want to breathe together? Or do you just want me to talk?” Atem asked him, stroking Yugi’s hair.

“J-just talk. I want to hear your voice.”

“Okay. I thought your dragon was beautiful. You and Ryou have done so amazing on this game. Even the pain reception. It’s not too much but enough to feel sore; to make it real. That heat, though, from the dragon! It was incredible, partner. I’m so proud of what you’ve made. And all of our friends are enjoying it, too. Even Kaiba is playing, so you know it’s a great game.”

Yugi felt his heart begin to fall into its normal rhythm. Everything was okay. Atem was there. Atem was real. Atem was alive.

“I love you,” Yugi whispered. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Yugi.” Atem seemed to feel him calming. “Do you want to talk about it? What triggered that reaction?”

Yugi took a few more deep breaths before he trusted himself to speak. “I saw you… just lying there. And all I could think was that you were… you were dead again. And then I remembered the last time I saw you die and leave me and I… I don’t want you to go away again. If you want to go back to the Field of Reeds, I’m going with you this time. I won’t let you leave me.”

Atem cupped Yugi’s cheeks, tilting his face down so he could reach up and kiss him. He kissed him long, gently, and deeply. He kissed him until Yugi felt like he was seeing stars; all he could think about was Atem. He could taste Atem, smell Atem, feel Atem, see Atem, hear Atem—Atem had his every sense and it was perfect.

He broke away and wiped the tear residue remaining on Yugi’s cheeks. “I will never leave your side. Anything we do, we do together. Until the end of time.” He didn’t wait for Yugi to respond, leaning back up and kissing him again.

Yugi wasn’t sure how long they sat there kissing, but it was long enough that all the traces of panic and anxiety eased from his chest. It was long enough that he could breathe normally and think logically again. He knew Atem was there and it grounded him to the present.

“Wow, seriously?” The annoyed tone of Joey had Yugi and Atem pulling apart with embarrassed grins. “Here we are, worried sick about finding you two, and it just turns out that you’ve run off to go canoodle! What the hell, guys?”

“It’s… not what it looks like?” Atem tried with a cringe. No one in the group believed it.

However, ever the perceptive one, Téa seemed to notice Yugi’s red-rimmed eyes and his death grip on Atem’s back and seemed to process that there was something underlying going on. She waved Joey’s rants away, rolling her eyes at him. “They’re the married ones; let them do what they want. After all, this is Yugi’s game. If he programmed spots to go be alone with his husband, well, he deserves to use them!”

Yugi gave a sheepish laugh, not feeling like correcting Téa’s assumption that this was a spot that he could do, ahem, other things with his husband. He technically couldn’t. Those spots had been programmed into the game, of course, though they were very difficult to find for other users. But this particular place wasn’t one of those spots.

Which was probably a good thing. Yugi wouldn’t have liked getting caught by all his friends doing his husband.

“So did we defeat the dragon?” Atem opted to ask, working on redirecting the conversation away from them. “Or after Ryou heals us, are we going back up there to give it another go?”

“We killed him!” Joey declared proudly, puffing out his chest. “It was hard. And Ryou had to revive almost everyone. But we finally did it!”

Yugi scanned their arms, trying to see who won. Ryou held up his arm, the crimson mark glowing all the way down the front of his hand to his elbow. It was in the shape of a dragon. “I did,” Ryou said proudly.

“So, we up for doing the next quest?” Duke asked the group as Ryou healed Yugi and Atem. “Or are we calling it a night?”

Yugi caught Téa glancing over at them worriedly; she could definitely sense there had been something else going on when the group wasn’t there. Giving an exaggerated yawn, she said, “I think we should call it a night. I’m beat. Remember, it is like 14 hours difference over here. So I know it’s like 5:00 over there, but it’s like 3 in the morning here. So call it a night?”

“Oh shit, yeah. Sorry, Téa. We’ll have to time this out better next time.”

“Meh, it’s Friday. No biggie. Anyways, don’t do the next quest without me! I want to use my dragon, too. I’ll see you guys later?” There were choruses of agreement all around her, making Téa smile. “Awesome. Later, guys.” Before she logged out, though, she flashed Yugi a look that asked, Are you okay?

He gave her a grateful smile, nodding, and mouthing, “Thank you.” She nodded and smiled back before logging out. From there, everyone else said their farewells and logged out after her.

Back in the real world, Yugi pulled off his microphone piece and headset. He took a deep breath, leaning back against the couch.

Only to open his eyes, startled, when a weight settled on his lap. “I thought I would show you how real and alive I am. Just in case you needed more convincing,” Atem told him, smirking flirtatiously. The look sent fire flooding Yugi’s veins.

“I think I’d like that,” he admitted.

“Good. I’ll make us both come alive.” And his husband proceeded to do just that.

[rmjagonshi]

Visions of HeartBreak Past

On AO3

It was almost done, Soos was finishing up the last few stitches before they let the thing into the air. If he could pull this off, he might actually get more customers into the Mystery Shack. There might actually be an upside to this ‘Woodstick’ Festival yet. He’d seen the way these kids spent money – heck, some of them were adults not that much younger than him – and with any luck, he might just be able to top off the budget for this month. He was short on the utilities payment by a good three-hundred-bucks. If there was one thing he never counted on, was that his brother’s dumb sci-fi portal mess drove the electricity bills further up the ‘dear god why’ charts. He does kinda feel bad for the kids; he’d had to come up with some lame-ass old man excuse for never turning on the lights or air conditioner during the day. He’d make it up to them…somehow…maybe. He sighed.

If he was gonna pull this off, he was really gonna need to prepare the kids for the eventuality of their entire world upending. But for now, he just needed to advertise. And the balloon was…abso-fucking-lutely not like he had anticipated. It was a fucking horror show, looked nothing like the blueprints and very much like what he saw in the mirror every morning. Although, Soos’s comment that the nose looked like a sausage and that it reminded him of the story that his Abuelita told him about a couple who find a genie and they fight over the wishes and one ends up with a sausage for a nose, kinda made it better. Soos was a good kid – er, man. Man-kid. Stan was sure he didn’t deserve the kindness and loyalty that the man gave him. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he’d used that unwavering loyalty to his advantage a few times.

Stan gritted his teeth in frustration at his own mind. Everything came back around to that, didn’t it? Everything he did, every time he felt even the tiniest bit of happiness, it all had to circle back and remind him that he was a sad, tired and despicable old man that didn’t deserve the friends and family he had. Hell, until the kids came, he didn’t have any family to call his own. But…maybe, just maybe, after all these years, he could do something right. Be less of a fuck-up. Which brought everything back to the hideous hot-air balloon that he was beginning to doubt was a great idea. He took another look at the blue prints and tried to make sense of the horrid scribbles he had jotted down in the margins when the sound of a lot of hot air being released into the night sky caught his attention.

“Wuh-oh. Mr. Pines. Think we got a problem.” Soos gestured to the ripped seam up near the balloon’s fez. Sure enough, the patchwork fabric they’d used to make the fez was flapping wildly as the hot air trapped in the misshapen balloon escaped with force, threatening to burst adjacent seams with every second. Well, shit. It would take a good hour for Soos to deflate the balloon, repair the damage and get it back up and running. Why is it that everything always had to go wrong? Why couldn’t one of his plans go off without a hitch? Just one? Oy!

“I’m on it Mr. Pines! I’ll have this balloon fixed in a jiffy. Now, what lever turned off the do-hicky again?” Make it two hours until Soos figured out how to fix this. He should probably scope out the venders and see what the young people were spending their money on. I couldn’t hurt to expand the gift shop merchandise to include things his new customers were actually interested in buying.

“Hey, Soos, I’m gonna go walk around, scope out the competition, ya’know. Figure out what these kids are into.” Or he really just needed to walk around and think and didn’t need Soos to pick up on it. As oblivious as the kid was, he always had a knack for knowing when Stan was moping around. It seemed every time, without fail, that he was feeling particularly depressed, he would open the door to see Soos standing there with cookies, or breakfast, or something sweet his grandma had made, or some kind of ‘Boss Appreciation’ gift. While he adored the boy, sometimes, he just needed to stew. He was sixty for Pete’s sake, he was entitled to a few days where he could just be a sad and grumpy old man. He’d earned it.

“Sure, Mr. Pines.” Soos had already started flicking levers and pushing buttons on the engine. Stan shrugged, Soos was the better of the two at figuring out how it worked anyhow. What harm could it do? He turned and walked back to the rows of venders all in pavilion style tents. All the venders were shouting and trying to attract customers, showing off their products and…what was that? Giving out free samples!? And the kids were eating it up! How the heck can they make any money by just giving stuff away? Oh sure, keep the t-shirt and caps for full charge, but give the stickers away for free.

Stickers are where he made most of his money! People were rubes, but some of them were pretty price savvy. Show’em a t-shirt with cheap cloth that will fall apart after five washes and tell’em it’s twenty-five bucks, they’ll laugh in your face and keep their wallets tightly closed. But show them a cheap key chain or sticker and tell them it’s a buck or two, they eat it up. They buy five, one of each variety. Paint one shipment gold and call it “special edition” and charge an extra buck, they buy the whole stock. Have a stack of postcards that got wet and the ink warped during the last storm because the roof leaked? Sell them as prints of a hand painted scape of Gravity Falls and double the price. People were absolutely stupid when it came to money if you just nickel and dimed them with special editions and ‘one of a kinds’.

But he wasn't here to boat to himself about how much better a con-artist he was. He was here to figure out what the young people of today were spending their money on. The further he walked, the more food and drink stalls he came across. Okay, so having a food truck on site might be a good idea. He’d done that with the fair he’d put on at the beginning of the summer. Didn’t he make a lot of money that day? Honestly he can’t remember much – he does the fair every year to replace the county fair that the town can’t pay for anymore, and it breaks even most years – all he remembers is sitting in a dunk tank for the afternoon and bleeding the suckers dry as rube after rube tried their hand at dunking the old creep from the Mystery Shack.

Okay, food truck. He could do that. Have a tiny kitchen where he sold drinks and shitty hot dogs and icecream to the families that come from miles around. Might even call up Susan and see if she had a spare cook and the Greasy Diner can share in the profits.

Or…not. He’d not too keen on calling the resident Crazy Cat Lady again. Especially since she still seemed to want to date him. That was a total disaster. And poor Mabel. She meant well, but he was just, as Wendy had put it, ‘un-fixable’. Heck, Soos had been trying for over a decade and hadn’t gotten anywhere. He was doomed to be alone forever, he supposed. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He’d pushed everyone in his life away. He creeped most women out – most men too for that matter – with his really tired and used pick-up lines. His six hour marriage to Marylin ended with her ducking out of the El Diablo at 75 mph with their ill-gotten casino winnings. He’d really thought he’d been in love. Then again, he’d thought he’d been in love with Carla too. He’d dated her through high-school and when he’d gotten kicked out, they’d tried to go steady for a while. But his constant moping over living in his car and losing his family had pushed her into the arms of a musician. And Ford…

Well, he’d pushed Ford into a swirling vortex of Hell in a fit of rage. His guilt hadn’t let him get a full night’s sleep in thirty years.

And now he was avoiding his feelings by wandering the tents at the Woodstick Festival. Dang it! He really needed to go see a therapist like Soos said. But what was he gonna say; ‘Hey, yeah, so I pushed my brother into a sci-fi portal and have spent the last thirty years trying to teach himself quantum physics and calculus, so he could get him back. Oh, and I may or may not have romantic feelings about said brother.’ Yeah, that would go over well.

Stan sighed. He really was hopeless wasn’t he?

A yell and the sound of a cart of beads being turned over caught his attention as he saw a telltale mop of brown hair and a rainbow sweater dart around the corner. He watched as both Mabel and Dipper cut and weaved through the crowd, a rather pudgy blond man in moderate pursuit. At least, until the prop wings on his back started flapping and Stan got a nagging prickling at the back of his head whenever he encountered something supernatural. His gut reaction, the same one that had kept him from going insane in the last thirty years was to turn around and ignore, repress, and feign ignorance. A slightly more pressing gut reaction was to chase down the offender with a baseball bat for endangering his kids.

I really wasn't even a debate as he found himself darting after the three, watching in only slight horror as he saw the absolutely not supernatural man fly overhead to cut off the kids at the fenceline. Stan caught up just a moment after, quick and practiced fingers taking the bottle of black powder from Mabel’s hand as he came up behind her and tucking it in his jacket. He was braced to punch a hippie in the face to protect his children. Heck, he’d probably punch the hippie anyway.      

“Sorry, kids, but you’ve left me now choice. Visions of Heartbreak Past!”

As the blond hippie raised his bottles of creepy hippy powder to throw at Mable, Stan darted in front of her, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her back to fall to the grass and was coated in the pink and purple smoky haze instead. He inhaled and immediately regretted his need to breathe as he doubled over, hacking so hard he was surprised his dentures hadn’t fallen out. Whatever this guy was using to drug people, it was doing a number on Stan’s lungs. He really was lucky to have quit smoking when the kids showed up. He’d probably have passed out by now if he hadn’t. The residual powder coated his mouth and throat. It tasted of bittersweet hope, and…was that jelly beans? God, he hadn’t had jelly beans since…

“Stan?”

Stan froze. He knew that voice. Knew it better than anything else. That voice, that scream that haunted his nightmares.

“Wait, wah?”

“Why is there a pink flavored Grunkle Stan? Hey Love God, what was that supposed to do?”

The ‘Love God’ gaged.

“Ewwww, Man! I knew this bozo was weird. I didn’t think it was this bad.” The twisted face of disgust on the Love Gods face confused the twins, but was completely lost on Stan.

As the smoke cleared, a pink tinged hand extended out to him. A six-fingered hand, wreathed in pink light reaching out to him. When he looked up, it was like looking into a mirror, one that reflected only his best features. His tired, half-blind eyes meet soft pink ones, ones he knew were supposed to be blue so his mind filled in the correct color.

“It’s supposed to show you romances you’ve had and lost. It gets people off my back when they get too suspicious.” Spat ‘Love God’, momentarily recovering from his aborted retching.

Stan heard none of it. Eyes fixated on the phantom in front of him.

“Himself? Huh? Guess it’s not that surprising.”

“But, why would he have ‘lost’ himself? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Man, you kids have one freaky family.” The ‘Love God’ gulped down something from his belt of potions.

The six fingered hand reached for his own, tugging gently at first before pulling Stan to his feet and interlacing their fingers. A shy smile pulled at that lips he used to catch himself staring at. He knew, logically, that he wasn’t looking into the face of his brother. Stanford was likely older now than his memory allowed. And Stanford wasn’t pink, he knew that. Logically he knew that. But his heart couldn’t take it. The phantom embraced him, twelve fingers digging into his suit jacket.  

“Please…” God, he wanted to. Whatever it was, he would do it. But his mind clouded, his eyes clouded and all he could do was cry.  

He gripped the phantom tightly, the twins watched, even more confused but thankfully silent. The ‘Love God’, true to his name, showed somewhat of a heart and stopped gagging and even frowned in empathy. He barely noticed when the phantom pickpocketed him. The phial was tossed to the ‘Love God’ and the phantom Stanford shot a wicked smile at Stan. One that, while it was supposed to look like betrayal, only shot a bolt of heat down his spine. The ‘Love God’ was right, he was a freak.  

Panicked screams echoed as the night sky lit up orange and red. Stan turned in time to see his would-be advertisement scheme in flames and headed directly for them. Through residual tears, he launched forwards and scooped the twins up and out of the range of the fall out. The ‘Love God’ was not so lucky.  

When the dust cleared and the fire crew crowded in to put out the flames, the kids squirmed their way out of Stan’s grasp and raced back to the spot where the pudgy aspiring musician stood.

“Love God? Are you ok?”

“Please be immortal, please be immortal.”

It was just Stan’s luck that Cupid was invulnerable. He still got a good punch in before the freak got to the stage.

*~*~*~*~*

When they found the portal in the hidden basement and everything literally almost turned upside-down, it made sense. When the author of the journals walked out from the glowing blue light and introduced himself, they understood. When Stan told them the stranger was his brother, everything fell into place.

Mostly.

Mable was still struggling to understand what had happened at the Woodstick Festival. Climbing out of bed, Mabel made her way downstairs and out the back door, hearing muttering from the open door to the gift shop.  

She found Stan leaning back into the couch on the back porch, glass bottle in one hand, lit cigar in the other. Eyes red rimmed and blinking slowly at the treeline like he was a million, billion miles away. He was letting he cigar burn down, the ash dropping off the end to land in the ashtray he’d absently left on the side table. She tentatively took the cigar from between his fingers, squashed the lit end into the ashtray to put it out, and climbed up on the couch beside him.

He startled when she took his cigar, but just watched her as she put it out and sat down; not speaking, not accusing, not asking. He knew why she was up, why she’d come looking for him. Ford was still in the basement working on something or other; the clang of metal occasionally reverberating enough to be heard through the floorboards. He settled back, moving to set the bottle down before wrapping an arm around her. She curled up into his side, fingers picking at stray hairs on his dress-shirt – the suit jacket left somewhere inside. She knew they hadn’t hugged, and that Stan would need one. She liked her new Grunkle, he was cool, and super smart, he just, had some anger issues to deal with. But as mad at Stan as he was, he couldn’t hate him, could he? They were twins, like her and Dipper. They could never hate eachother. She felt her Grunkle slump further into the couch.

He really didn’t want to talk. But like pulling out a loose tooth or a splinter, it was the best thing for him.  

“So…the Woodstick Festival?”

Stan flinched. He tilted his head so that the glare from the open door blocked his eyes and withdrew his arm. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but his voice caught in his throat and no sound escaped. After a few seconds, he just gave up, closing his mouth with a click and turning away from her.

The ‘Love God’s’ words had stuck in her head. Not love, ‘romance’. As in, crush, as in stay awake all night thinking about them. But, Grunkle Ford was Stan’s brother. Love God had to have been wrong, maybe he used the wrong powder, or maybe it applied to familial love too. Her head jerked up when she heard Stan’s ragged voice.  

“I…I…understand…if you want to…go home early. I won’t ask you to stay. It wouldn’t be right. Just…all I’m askin’ is that you not tell your parents about that. I don’t care what they think of me, but Ford deserves a chance to know his family. He never got the chance to meet your dad. Shermie told me that they are a lot alike. Probably where Dipper gets it.”

He chuckled to himself. Voice dry and lacking any sense of real warmth. He reached down and took a swig from his bottle, draining it and staring at the label as if it held the cure to his every ailment.

“But he didn’t know. Nothing ever happened. I was all me. I’m the freak. Ford didn’t know, still probably doesn’t know.” His movements were jerky, bottle dropping to the porch as he turned and grasped Mabel by her hand. “Oh God, please…please don’t tell him! I’ll do anything!” He had clasped her hand in both of his. He was pleading with her, just like he’d done back in the basement. Begging her to trust him, begging her to not do this.

She felt scared. Why on Earth would she not tell Grunkle Ford that his brother loved him enough that their falling out broke Stan’s heart? Why would she not tell her parents that, either? Why would it even need to be a secret? Why would Stan call himself a fre…unless……oh. OH! He meant, as in, oh wow! That changed things, didn’t it? He meant it like, he ‘loved’ his brother. He loved Stanford.

Something in her expression must have showed recognition because his eyes filled with shame and he turned away, letting go of her hands and picking at the tear in the couch cushion.  

“You love him. And I mean, like, love love, like lay awake at night thinking about them, love.” It wasn't a question. But all the same, Stan nodded.

She didn’t know what to say. Usually, she’d tell Stan to go tell him, go confess your feelings. They either liked you back, or didn’t. But this was way different than everyday romances. This wasn't even just forbidden love between a snake and a badger or like between Dipper and Wendy. This was taboo. This was all kinds of wrong. What could she say to that? ‘Oh, hey. Grunkle Ford, I know that we just met and all, but did you know your brother is in love with you? No? Well he is, and spent the last thirty years trying to get you back because of it.’ She shook her head. There was no real way to talk this through.

She tried to imagine feeling about Dipper like that. Like, tried to picture Mermando and the feelings she got when thinking about him and tried to put Dipper there. But, she just couldn’t. Every time she pictures his face, all she felt was good natured affection for her bro-bro. He was cute…she guessed. But he didn’t make her heart beat fast like Mermando did.

Grunkle Stan had called himself a ‘freak’, maybe he was right. Loving your brother, wanting to smooch your brother was weird. She understands now why the Love God got so grossed-out when he saw the phantom Grunkle Ford. It was kinda weird and gross, but…well, Stan was a weird, gross, old man, maybe it was ok. He looked so lost now, like he wanted to jump into the Bottomless Pit and not come back.

She would be sad if he did. He would cry and cry and cry until the whole of Gravity Falls was under water. Dipper would cry too, though he would never admit it. And she doesn’t know Grunkle Ford very well, but she’s sure he would cry too.

They had sat in silence for several minutes as Mabel processed what had to be her Grunkle’s greatest secret. With a small smile, she flopped into Stan’s side and did her best to wrap him in the biggest Mabel hug she could.

Stan flinched, jarred by the contact he thought he would never feel again. He shifted his weight on the couch, turning just enough to gather Mabel into his lap and squeeze as tight as she would let him. He buried his face into her soft hair, brown strands absorbing the tears he couldn’t stop.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled into her scalp, gravel voice hardly a whisper. “I’m sorry your uncle is a freak.”

She wanted to tell him that is was going to ok, that he wasn't a freak, and that he wasn't a bad person. But, she just couldn’t…not yet, and maybe not ever. She didn’t know how to feel about this. She loved Stan, yes, and nothing he would ever do would change that, but, this was something she didn’t know how to handle. She just squeezed tighter.

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Upstairs, the triangular window was propped open, and a microphone dangled from a string from its ledge. Dipper’s – with oversized headphones over his ears – face was contorted, brows furrowed and chewing nervously on his thumbnail.

-

-

Ford leaned against the wall beside the back door just outside of view of anyone looking in from the outside. He’d left his boots downstairs to muffle the sound of his steps. His was was grim, tired, and despondent. Hand absently trailing to the inner pocket of his jacket where he kept the one photo that had kept him going the past three decades. He wondered if it would still carry the same meaning now.

[cryinggameff]

Sixty Three

Cayden

I was in Jamaica working on a deal with some guys Sean had connected us with a while back. We had been doing small business with their niggas out in texas and we hadn’t had any real problems, other than the small feds issue but that was on our end, and it had been dealt with. My sources let me know people had stopped talking and the investigation was dropped. Randi was on on my ass to fix that one real quick, but i understood why.

Jamaica was beautiful though, i wished i was here to just chill, with my girl, not working. We’d spend the day on the beach, or in this big ass hotel room…fucking and everywhere. Most likely the second one. I promised myself to bring her some time.

Sean and Pat were both with me, and we were going to some meeting with the dude who was gonna supply shit. We were in our car on the way there.

“Like i told you, dude kinda crazy, so lets try and avoid any beef. I heard he be keeping niggas balls as torphies and shit,” Sean said, looking over from the drivers seat.

“I can respect that,” i chuckled. “Maybe imma start doing that, make yall niggas really fear me.”

“Thats some batty man shit,” Pat mumbled.

We pulled up to the building, which was some food place.

“They doing drug deals out of a restaurant?” I looked at Sean.

“Thats how it be here,” he shrugged. We walked in past the store front and inside there were lots of tables and plastic chairs. A group of people were gathered at the back near the register, two guys stood on either side of the table, body guards. They stepped up when we approached and my instinct was to be pissed off because the nigga knew i was coming but yet he had security in my face.

“He knows who i am,” i said simply. They looked back at their boss and then let us through. We sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“Sean, wa gwan my brotha?”

“Im chillin. Omarion, this my nigga Cayden. Cayden this the crazy dude Omarion,” Sean said. Omarion looked me over and i did the same.

“Texas right?” he said. I nodded. “You know i done business with yall in the past actually.”

“Word? When?” I asked. He leaned in, putting his hands on the table. He smirked in a way that really made me think he was crazy.

“Way back when, Red was running shit back then,” he said, tilting his head.

“That must have been a long time ago then,” i said nonchalantly.

“Shame what happened to him isn’t it?”

“Tragic,” i said. He burst into full blown laughter. I guess people really knew what had gone down. I smirked.

“I like your style Cayden,” he said. “This should be a good partnership. Lets get to the business then.”

“We got everything ready on our end. Just gotta see what we buying before we hand the money over.”

“Everything irie my brother, dont worry,  we got the best quality product. I got some coke and the weed for you to try, the rest will be here tomorrow when we do the drop,” he said, turning and nodding to one of his guys. The guy got up and went back to the kitchen then came back with a brick of coke and a bag of some rolled up blunts. He put them on the table. I opened the plastic wrapping and looked over the coke before passing it to Pat. I wasn’t about to try it because i knew i had a problem with the shit and Randi had threatened to leave me over it when we first got together. Doesn’t mean i wasn’t tempted though. Pat took a sniff while i lit the blunt. I knew the weed was gon be lit because everyone knew this was the place for the shit. I took a long pull.

“Damn,” i said, blowing out smoke. The guys chuckled and i took another drag.

“I told you my brother. So we good for tomorrow?” Omarion put his hand out. I nodded and shook his hand.

“We’ll see yall tomorrow,” i said, standing up. Pat and Sean stood up too.

When we got back to the hotel the first thing i did was face time Randi. It has only been 3 days but i missed her and i knew she was probably freaking out by now. She was clingy for a nigga. Her phone rang for a real long time before she finally picked up.

“Why the fuck it take you so long to pick up?” i asked, immediately wondering what she was doing. She moved the phone so i could see her face.

“Well i was sleeping,” she said, voice low. I could tell she had just woken up from her hair and her voice.

“You at the girls’ place?” I asked, not liking the idea of her being alone.

“No, they’re here, at the house, they watching a movie i think,” she said, brushing hair out of her face.

“You love watching movies, why you sleeping?” my brows came together.

“I was tired. Where are you?” She asked.

“My hotel room. Its real nice, youd love it here babe. Imma bring you one day.” She smiled.

“Okay,” she said, excited now.

“You look pretty,” i told her, looking at her messy hair and makeup around her eyes, i liked it.

“I literally just woke up, im pretty sure theres drool on my face,” she wiped her cheek.

“Nah. You look perfect.”

“I miss you,” she frowned.

“I know,” i said simply. She knew i was missing her the same if not more.

“Come home quickly, i need you…”

“Whats wrong?” I asked immediately. I already knew something must be up.

“Nothings wrong. I just love you and i wanna see you,” she said in a not so convincing voice but i let it go.

“I love you too. You gon be aight. Just a few more days. But you need to get out of bed and get outside. You even leave the house today?”

“Not really.”

“Get off your butt or im gonna send someone over there. Im gonna send Ty actually. He needs the key to my office anyway. You know where it is?”

“yeah i know,” she said. “Ill give it to him.”

There was banging on my door then and i lookd over. Sean and Pat stormed in and were making all kinds of noise.

“Nigga we going out,” Sean said. Pat grabbed my phone from my hand.

“Hey Randi. Cayden has to go now,” he said.

“Okay. Bring him back in one piece please,” she said.

“I promise,” he said.

“Okay, go play with you friends. I’ll talk to you later,” she said to me.

“Bye baby,” i yelled. Pat hung up and i sent him a mug.

“Dawg you not staying in this room. Grab yo shit we going,” he said. I groaned but got up. It would be a shame to leave jamaica without partying.

Randi

The last few days were very strange for me. I would go to sleep and when i first woke up id forget about the whole being pregnant thing, then after a few minutes as i really woke up and started my day id remember and be momentarily terrified. I mean i was terrified the rest of the day too because i still had no idea how i felt other than scared and i couldn’t even share it with anybody because Cay didnt know and wasn’t here. China and Jada were staying here right now and, though Jada sort of knew, i hadnt confirmed anything after the positive test, i couldn’t talk to them about it.  The crazy thing is that i was actually scared to the core to tell him. I couldn’t rationalize why on earth id be scared. That morning when i woke up i decided to call Dr. Williams office to see if she had an opening, and she did. So instead of going to the salon first thing like i usually did, i went there.  

She looked like she was ready to pop. Seeing her so sure and confident in her pregnancy and clearly over joyed about the prospect of having a child, i couldn’t control myself, i spilled the news because i had to talk to someone.

“Thats definitely some news,” she said, giving me a soft smile.

“It feels weird saying it out loud,” i said, running my hand up and down my thighs.

“This is the first time you’ve told anybody?” She asked, surprised. I nodded. “So Cayden doesn’t know then.”

“No,” i said in a guilty tone. “I found out at a bad time, he was leaving for work and i didn’t wanna make him worry or feel like he had to stay, so i kept it to myself,” i said.

“That sounds pretty stressful on you, dealing with it all on your own,” she said sympathetically. I nodded, biting my lip. “How are you feeling about it, whats been going through your head?”

“I dont think im feeling the things im supposed to be feeling,” i explained.

“You dont have to feel a specific way, you’re allowed to feel your own emotions. You can always say the truth here,” she tilted her head to the side.

“But i don’t want something to be wrong with me,” i said.

“Why would something be wrong with you?” she wrote on her notepad.

“Because im not all excited and happy, im just terrified. I’m even scared to tell Cayden,” i sighed.

“Being scared is normal. This is a big change,” she pointed out. “Do you fear how Cayden will react?”  

“No,” i shook my head, “its not that. Im not sure what it is,” i played with my hair.

“Whats the worst thing you immagine happening,” she tried instead. I paused for a while, picturing me telling him.

“I think its more to do with me. I dont want him to see my fear and be upset by my reaction,” i scratched my arms. She nodded.

“You think Cayden won’t be understanding of your fears and concerns?”

“I dont know,” i shrugged.

“You’ve been together for how long now, has he given you reason to think he wouldn’t be understanding of your story and how things may feel a bit intense for you?” I shook my head.

“Then maybe you should give him a bit more credit and trust that you can confide in him,” she put a hand on my knee. I nodded. I knew she was right. The fears were all because i was in my own head too much. I knew i was also generally high strung when Cayden was far away from me.

“You’re right,” i said, dabbing at a single tear that had escaped. Why did she always have me crying in her office?

“You’re very brave, dont forget that. Give yourself a break. You are a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman…and you will make a terrific mother.”

When she said the last part i really lost it, i don’t know why. I took the tissues she offered me and we just sat in silence for a little while, since my hour was almost up anyway. Once the session was done she gave me a long hug and told me to come in any time. I thanked her and then left the office.

When i got back home i was emotionally drained and just tired all together. Jada invited me to watch a Romcom which was my favourite, but i needed to lay down so i flaked and went upstairs to sleep instead and Cayden ended up calling me an hour into my nap and we had a short but nice conversation. Hearing his voice and seeing his face lifted my spirits and also made my stomach flutter in a new strange way. I couldn’t believe i was one of those girls who couldn’t go a few days without seeing her man, but it was different once you were married. We truly functioned as a unit, and taking him away was taking away part of me. He encouraged me to get out of bed though and i washed my face before going to join my friends downstairs.

“How you doing?” Jada asked, looking at me a little too intensely.

“Im good. I had an intense therapy session, im always drained after talking to Dr. williams,” i explained.

“We got you some food, i was gonna bring it up but i didnt wanna wake you,” China said. “You should eat,”

“Im actually starving. What you get?”

“Fried rice, its in the fridge” she said. My mouth watered immediately and i ran to the kitchen. Suddenly i was happy and feeling good about life as i warmed my food and grabbed some cutlery. I brought it to the couch and Jada flipped through netflix finding a new movie.

“A walk to remember?” she asked.

“Too sad,” i said.

“Jumping the broom?”

“Yeah i like that one,” i nodded. She pressed play and i made myself comfortable.

Later on in the day, Ty did come by just like Cayden had said. I let him in and asked him if he wanted something to drink. He said sure and followed me to the kitchen. I got him a can of coke from the fridge.

“How you doing nugget?” he asked. “You look down.”

“Im alright, i didnt sleep a lot last night. Im just tired,” i said.

“Can’t sleep cause yo nigga gon?” he guessed. I stuck my tongue out at him. “Yall so extra.”

“Don’t act like you dont be all pissy when Cole not here. We all have to put up with you until he come back on the weekend.”

“I dont get pissy,” he said real quick, face serious as ever.

“Ok,” i said in a ‘sure’ tone. He sent me a mug and drank his coke. “So what did you need again?” i asked, having forgotten what Cay had told me i was supposed to give him.

“The key to Cayden’s office,” he said.

“Right. Ill go get it, be right back,” i said. He nodded. I got up and left the kitchen to go up to the bedroom. The key was in some safety deposit box with a pin but it was our wedding say so i knew it. I unlocked the box and got the key while also lurking at everything else. There was some money, a gun, some keys, and an envelope. I grabbed the envelope and opened it. It was a deed for the house that had, apparently, been updated to have my name on it beside his. I couldn’t help but smile. I had never asked him to do that. Cayden had bought this house all on his own way before me. It made my heart skip a beat seeing he added my name on a legal paper listing me as an owner of the property.

“I love you Cay,” i said to nobody. I put the letter back where id found it and locked the box back up. I left the room and started for the stairs, jogging down them because id kept Ty waiting when i got distarcted. I was wearing socks though, and the stairs were polished wood, so when i put my foot on the next step it slid all the way past the edge and threw me off balance. I let out a little scream as i  slipped and caught myself on the hand rail before i could go tumbling down the stairs.

“Fuck,” I said, my heart pounding. Ty was now at the bottom of the stairs. I took the rest of the stairs slowly. My hand had somehow ended up on my stomach in a very non random way, i guess to protect it.

“You good?” Ty said.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to calm myself. “That was really scary,” i ran my hand up and down my lower belly. He looked down at my hand which was still on my belly, making slow movements. He looked at me like I was weird at first then he seemed to put things together. I went red.

“Wait…” he said. I quickly removed my hand and wiped the nervous sweat on my jeans. “Are you knocked up?” I didnt answer right away so that about confirmed it.

“Please don’t say anything to anyone,” I begged, closing the sweater I had on. He chuckled.

“Oh shit,” he said, looking at me like he was seeing me for the first time.

“I haven’t gotten to tell Cayden yet so don’t tell him please. I know you’re his best friend but im begging you,” i said desperatly.  

“Don’t worry, I won’t” he said in an understanding tone.

“If he asks how i am just say im good. I dont wanna worry him,” i said. He nodded. “Thanks,” I said, handing him the key. He took it and I thought he was gonna leave but he wrapped one arm around me and pulled me into a hug. This was the most affectionate he had ever been with me. We had a very brother and sister relationship. I mean he would mess up my hair teasingly or choke hold me but this was a real, soft hug. I didn’t know what to do.

“Be careful on the stairs aight?” He said. I nodded. He pulled away. He nodded and then went out the door. I knew I had to tell Cayden. I would feel horrible if he found out from someone else. I promised myself that would be the first thing i did when he got home. I just had to wait a few more days, and not fall down any stairs.

[90simaginesandfanfics]

Cradle Broken Glass - Chapter Ten

Layla sat under a blanket on the couch, wrapped in layers upon layers of wool in order to stay warm. She had come down with a massive cold and couldn’t make it into work. Even though she had told Cindy that she would be fine, Cindy refused to let her work while ill, convincing Layla that she might make all the customers ill. She was flicking through the channels, finally ending up on reruns of Happy Days. All she wanted was to shrivel up and die, letting her running nose die with her. She was hungry, but didn’t know if she had enough energy to make it to the kitchen to get food. She was glad, however, that she had gotten ill at that particular time. Phil was on another business trip, this one for three days. It was her sickness that had convinced him to go, knowing that she wouldn’t be leaving the house, and didn’t believe anyone would pay her a visit. She groaned in frustration as her stomach grumbled, begging for her to get food. She tried to lift herself off the sofa, with her aching joints screaming in pain. One of the many problems with Layla was that, when she got ill, she got ill. It would start as a cold, and suddenly she would throw up, and have an aching stomach, and her back would start playing up, and her period would start, and she would get a sore throat, and everything in between. She laid back down, telling herself that she would get food in a couple of minutes. However, she slowly started to drift off, dreaming of the Apple pie at Jimi’s.

*****

A loud knock woke Layla up. She cursed herself as she saw it was getting dark outside, as she didn’t want to sleep through the day. Her stomach rumbled once again, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten earlier due to her unwillingness to move from her couch. She slowly got up, still wrapped in several blankets, and made her way to the door, looking through the peephole to see who had interrupted her sleep. She brought her eye up to the glass and observed familiar long brown hair. Curiously, she unlocked the door and pulled it open, leaving only a crack in the doorway.

“Eddie?” The brown hair suddenly turned around, along with the body it was attached to, to reveal a dazzling smile which had been on her mind since she first saw it.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, in a slightly accusatory tone, confused as to why he would be at her apartment, and how he even knew where she lived. She tensed up as she realised that a man was on her door step, but soon relaxed when she remembered that Phil wasn’t here. Eddie’s smile dropped a little once she said that, but it soon returned again, as he held up two large bags with the most heavenly scent coming from them.

“I went to the diner after rehearsal, but that woman who owns it said that you were sick, and spending the day at home. She told me where you’re apartment was after she realised I wasn’t a stalker and I brought you Chinese food.” He said everything so quickly, almost waiting for her to shut the door in his face. She looked at him with a blank expression, not knowing why he would care enough to bring her food when she was ill. She gestured for him to come in, to which he brushed past her, causing a shiver to go up her spine. Shut the door and told him that he could put the food on the coffee table in front of the sofa. She went to go to the kitchen, but stopped when she felt Eddie take her hand in his.

“I’ll get the plates and glasses, okay, you’re ill. Go get comfortable on the sofa.” She looked down at the hand that was still wrapped around hers and nodded. He let go and made his way behind her to the kitchen, and she instantly missed the warmth of his hand. She collapsed onto the sofa and opened up the two bags. Immediately she was hit with the smell of Asian cooking, which happened to be her favourite. She could eat all the food in the world and she would still have room for Chinese food. She took all the take out boxes out of the bag and put them on the table. She also took out two wine bottles that were in the bag. For some reason, this was what freaked her out. A friend bringing over Chinese for another sick friend was a nice gesture. But also bringing wine makes it romantic. Almost like a date. It didn’t help that the lights in the living room were dimmed and outside it was raining. She almost laughed at the situation. Here she was, in a situation which she always considered to be the perfect cozy date, sharing it with one of the most attractive guys she’s ever met, and yet he would run for the hills if she even suggested that it was anything more than platonic. She suddenly became sad, realising that the only time someone would ever do something so kind for her, would be when it was someone other than her boyfriend.

“Sorry about taking so long, I had no idea where you keep everything.”

She turned back and saw Eddie sit down next to her on the couch, close enough for her to feel his shoulder brush against hers every time he moved. They started piling food on their plates, with him pouring them two glasses of wine, filled completely to the top, making her laugh. After they both started to dig in she asked him why he wasn’t eating everything he had bought. He explained that he was a vegetarian, and so all the meat dishes were purely for her. That piece of information made her heart burst into two. He had bought things which he thought she would like, not just what he usually ate. They sat in a comfortable silence, sitting on the couch, facing each other. The only sound coming from the TV and them shovelling food down their mouths. She groaned after she started eating the crispy beef, almost passing out with the pleasure coming from her mouth. She opened her eyes and looked at Eddie, only to find him intensely staring at her lips, and then back up at her eyes. He coughed, his cheeks going a pink colour, and looked down to his food again, suddenly very interested in pushing some rice around on his plate. She blushed, not knowing exactly what had just happened.

“Is your food good?” She asked, wanting to break the silence which had suddenly become uncomfortable. He coughed again and hesitated in making eye contact with her.

“Yeah. Seattle may have shitty weather, but it’s got the best takeout I’ve ever eaten.” He laughed and she joined him, agreeing. While he had moved from sunny California, she had moved from England, and so was used to the constant rain. After the awkwardness of the previous exchange, they soon started easy conversation about everything in the world, similar to the night at the diner. As the night went on, one bottle of wine was finished, and soon, the other one was too. They had opened a third bottle which she had retrieved from the kitchen, reminding herself to replace it before Phil got back. She had thrown the blankets off of her, feeling warm due to the alcohol in her system. He was reclined back, with his arm slouched over the back of the sofa. Within the space of three bottles of wine, they had gotten closer, with Eddie’s leg brushing up against her calf every now and then. They had descended into a fit of giggles after Layla told him the story of the only time Cindy had ever gotten angry at a customer. Their laugher died down until they were staring at each other. Eddie’s eyes flicked down to her lips again, causing something within her to stir, telling her that maybe things weren’t too good to be true, maybe he did want her. The alcohol was clouding her judgment, and making her think with sense for once. Eddie leaned down and she could feel his breath tickle her cheek, faintly telling her that this was real and happening. He gently placed his lips over hers, which tasted of sweet wine. His lips were soft and full, everything she could imagine them to be. She slowly pulled back and looked up into his eyes as they gradually opened. He gave her a look of apology, but before he could pull away, she pushed her hands in his hair that she had dreamed about since she met him and planted her lips over his again. This time the kiss wasn’t soft. She dug her fingers into his locks while her grabbed her by the waist and pushed her against him. Their lips moved over each other with a passionate ferociousness. She felt his tongue touch her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth to allow him better access. Their tongues moved as one, sliding in and out of each other’s mouth as they savoured each moment. She pulled away and bit his bottom lip, causing a groan to erupt from his mouth, sending shivers down her spine and right to her core. She had no idea why she was being so bold all of a sudden. She rarely touched alcohol, and while she wished she hadn’t of drank any wine, she was secretly glad it was giving her courage, enabling her to do this. He gripped her waist tighter and moaned into her mouth as the kiss became more heated. She moaned back, causing him to nip at her lip. He slowly moved from her mouth down to her neck, sucking and biting just below her jaw. She moaned aloud as he hit a spot which caused her to shudder with pleasure. She gripped his hair tighter, almost massaging his head while he kissed her neck. He moved back up and kissed her again, as she slowly reclined back on the sofa with him on top of her. She decided to do the same as he had done, and moved her lips down to his neck. She sucked on the area below his Adam’s apple, biting and then kissing it to soothe the bite. She was doing something right, as it caused him to groan even louder and moan out her name breathily. Their lips met again and they became entangled in each other. Then the phone rang. The shrill ringing sent a shock through both of their bodies as she shot up from the sofa and rushed to the phone, feeling overwhelmed and light-headed. She picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Hey, babe, just calling to see if any mail arrived today. My boss said he was gonna send my pay check in the post since I couldn’t pick it up today. Has it arrived yet?” Fear racked her body as she recognised Phil’s voice, paranoid that he would be able to tell what had just occurred in his house by simply talking to her on the phone. She took a minute to respond.

“Babe?”

“Um, no it hasn’t arrived yet. Nothing has. It’s just been a quiet day like usual.” She cursed herself for sounding so desperate. She rolled her eyes silently when she thought about what he had asked. If the pay check had been sent out today at six when everyone usually collected them, through the Seattle post service, why the hell would it have arrived already?

“Alright, well when it does just leave it by the bed for me when I get back.”

She agreed and he hung up the phone. She turned back to Eddie who had been watching her the whole time.

“I think you should go,” she said, not knowing how to deal with the situation right now, and not trusting herself to be around him when he looked so good. He nodded and got up, making his way to the door where she stood. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, lingering for longer than he should have. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, which smelt of the sea. He leaned back, not making eye contact with her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” He blushed and frowned, the lines between his brows forming, and looked down at the floor. She just nodded in understanding. He opened the door and walked out, looking at her one last time in apology before walking off. It wasn’t until then when she realised her cold had gone.

*****

Well that was intense, what did y'all think?

[voltagefangirl19]

Hey! Your writing is amazing, I was wondering if you can do a Kbtbb fanfic of the guys cheating? Can you also have it in their POV? Please and thank you, you rock keep it up!

please don’t hate me anon TTnTTSo here’s the story: I suck at this, and although I think I have good ideas for the other guys I barely ended Eisuke’s, so I’m going to put this one here and if you like it I’ll write the others after my finals are over, cause they’re hellroutes under the cut

Warning for a slightly smut and a little angst

After a hard shift thanks to the IVC party, _____ returned to the suite she and her boyfriend shared, thinking that he and the other bidders were at the auction, unfortunately, she was dead wrong.

She closed the door and was about to enter the bedroom when a female moaning stopped her, _____ slightly opened the door just to see her fiancé being ride by a beautiful red head with his eyes closed while she was moaning her soul out, _____ gasped at the moment and a few tears went down her checks, she calmly turned around, put the engagement ring on the coffee table and walk away trying to make as little noise as possible.

As _____ was walking through the hotel’s hallways, she was trying to process the information that she had just learned, her mind was a mess, since when this was happening? Did the other bidders know? Did they lie to her as well? Could she trust anyone anymore?She knew she had to act different, to yell at him, to cry, to scare the bitch away, to do something, anything, instead, she just walked to her room in the dorms, in the most utter shock. She felt as if something has been taken away from her, for the first time in a while, she felt lost, in pain, she didn’t even remember to feel like that when she was sold at the auction, she didn’t know what to do, where to go, she didn’t want to see him again but at the same time she wanted to yell at him, to ask him an explanation but she knew she wasn’t brave enough. So, in all her confusion and shock, she felt asleep between her broken heart and tears of despair, she felt useless, and at the same time, she felt used; the last thing she thought before falling into a horrible land of nightmares was: what did I do wrong? Why did he stop loving me?

Eisuke POV (I kinda inspired on this song)

‘Disgusting’, I thought as I saw the woman that was riding me, for a moment there I forgot completely how I got involved in all this useless bunch of crap, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see someone that wasn’t _____ on top of me. ‘It’s just business’ I said to myself, remembering how the powerful underground businessman came to me with a proposal hard to ignore: connections with people that not even Soryu nor I knew about it, a large amount of money in properties and, most important, information about my father, in exchange of marry his daughter. Of course in that moment I refuse profusely, how could I marry someone else when I already had the perfect woman in all world: _____, I tried to make other arrangements, but his proposal was concrete, the only way I could get another deal was to talk to his daughter directly, who came to me a week later while I was working, she looked at me with her pair of cold and calculating green eyes, in the same way Ota evaluate fine pieces of art, when I asked what did she wanted she just said “you”, I could smirk even now remembering the ridiculous plan she had come with.

“Listen Ichinomiya, I know you have your precious and little girlfriend…”“Fiancé”- I remarked, she smirked back at me “Sure, whatever, I’m not going to step between you two, so… in exchange of what my father has, I request 10 million dollars….” –she made a pause, maybe to evaluate my expression, the first part was easy and didn’t require much sacrifice, I could recover that sum easily in an auction, it was what came next that surprised me- “and one night stand with you”“I have no intention to sell me to you, even for one night”- I said immediately afterward, she smiled “I knew you would said that, then I guess I can take my proposal to her” –she took pictures of _____ out of her pocket, the photos show her buying things, at work, even in the little kitchen of her dorms, it was obvious that they had been following her, and they must have been pretty damn good in their job for her not to notice even after I had been warning to stay alerted- “I bet that when she knows that we have information that could help you to know the truth about your family and that you might be in danger she won’t hesitate to do whatever we said” –‘bitch!’, my heartbeat grow faster cause I know she was right, _______ had already  been kidnapped for my sake twice, I couldn’t let anything happen to her“give me time to think about it”“Sorry but no Ichinomiya, I bet that if I leave right now you are going to find a way to put her on alert and to get away with what you want, but guess what Eisuke? Not this time, so right here, right now decide. Her body or yours, refuse and right now I’ll give the sign to proceed with her, accept and you can have a lovely evening with me, she’ll be okay and you’ll have the information you need”I curse myself for not having a backup plan to protect her, the same way I didn’t have one when she was sold to Hishikura. “Alright, you can have one night with me” – I said with bitterness, her eyes glow in response, she gave me her hand to shake, I reluctantly did it“A pleasure to do business with you Mr. Ichinomiya” –She squeezes tighter and whispers- “I hope as good as you are in business you are in bed… Eisuke”- she took her bag and started to leave, as she was reaching the door she said- “See you in the next IVC”.

Three hours before, the bitch had come to me in the middle of the IVC and demanded to go to my suite, she then proceeds to kiss me and to take my clothes out of me and then…I opened my eyes to see that she wasn’t done yet, ‘this is boring’ I thought, if I was going to be extorted at least I would have fun. I take her off me and put her in four to have my own pace, she was moaning all the same so I put my fingers in her mouth“shut up bitch”- I guess that turned her on cause she got tighter, I have to admit, it felt good, so I start to smack her and to do it rougher until we both came.

Next morning I order the money transfer to daddy’s pet bank account, it was a quiet and calm morning when the others arrived at the lounge; they were talking about the party and the auction of the last night, I was focusing on my own paperwork when Baba’s voice snaps me out of it“So boss… tell me, you didn’t appear at last night auction, did you get into some hot action with ____?”- I ignored him, the only person I had told the situation was Soryu since I had to ensure ____’ safety in case something went wrong, speaking of which…“I bet he takes advantage and left with that beautiful redhead” –Ota said with a smirk, I unintentionally frown at the memory- “bullseye?” “You wouldn’t do that to a lady as good as _____, right boss?” – Baba was getting on my nerves I swear“Shut up everyone”- I said as I took my cell phone and called Kenzaki, it was late and she hadn’t come to make me coffee or to clean the lounge-“Kenzaki? Where’s ______?”“Didn’t she tell you, sir?”- Kenzaki’s voice came through the phone“Tell me what?” “______ reported very sick this morning Sir”“Sick? With what?”“She didn’t say, but she asked for a few days for recovery sir”“I’ll call her and Kenzaki… bring me coffee”- I ended the phone call“Something wrong Eisuke?” –Soryu spoke for the first time in the morning, everybody else looked at me with curiosity“No yet”- it was strange, why ____ didn’t call me if she was feeling ill? I wasn’t possible that she…, I called her one, two even three times, she never stop answering my phone calls, so I started to think the worst- “Soryu, start looking into the surveillance cameras for _____, I’m going to her dorms” – I ordered as I was already walking“W-wait boss! What’s going on?”- Baba asked confused, but I didn’t have the time to answer that.

When I got to the employee’s dorms and to _____’s room, I knock at first softly, but as the minutes passed and she didn’t answer the door I grew impatient and used the master key, I opened the door and went inside, just to find everything in order, well… almost everything.The room was empty, all her stuff was… gone, which it didn’t make sense; I stayed there trying to think and to remember if she was planning to move somewhere or to go somewhere, my thoughts were interrupted by Baba´s voice.“So it is true… She is gone” –I turned to face him, he was in the doorway with Ota behind him, both looked with serious expressions “What do you want?”- I asked irritated and concerned as well “You didn’t answer your phone, so Soryu sent us to tell you that the found _____ in the tapes…”He didn’t have to say anything else, I walked as fast as I could without losing my head, I reached the lounge again, where Soryu was sitting in front the coffee table with his computer.“You need to see this” –That’s all he said. I sat next to him and look at the screen, he put play to the surveillance video, showing me ____ dragging a bunch of her bags and getting inside a cab and then she just… disappeared- “I had someone checking out her bank account, she took 500 dollars out, there are no signs of her after that” -  I stayed silent, why would she leave? maybe it was someone else’s doing? It wouldn’t be the first time, Soryu seem to read my mind because the next thing he said was: “you think that brat has something to do with this?”“maybe… Soryu, find out everything she has been doing since last night, if she or anyone on her command, even his ‘daddy’, had any contact whatsoever with _____ they’re going to pay”.The others insisted on knowing, to which I only said that it was someone who I had a troublesome business with, no that I gave a crap if they knew that I had sex with another woman, but I didn’t want them to try to get _____on their good side, since I knew they all had a crush on her.

Days passed, and, even with a mob boss, a thief, and a cop, I couldn’t find _____. The other kid had nothing to do with her and that made me feel a little bit relieved but other than that I didn’t have any other clues except for her engagement ring, which she had left on the coffee table of our suit, I was growing desperate by each passing second without her, I thought that nothing could be possibly worst… until the end of the week, when the doors of my office burst opened and when I turned to see who was the bastard, there she was, beautiful as always but with something different, her clothes were darker and she was wearing sunglasses despite the cloudy weather, I was going to give her a hug, a kiss and a piece of my mind for leaving me for a whole week without telling me and how worried sick I was when she gave me a paper.“What the hell is this?!”- I asked pretty pissed off “My resignation” –she said simply and plain“Your what?”- My mind got blank for a minute“I’m leaving Eisuke, I’m returning to Japan” –In that moment I wasn’t registering what she was saying, I just acted on instinct and ripped the paper that would take her away from me- “Mr. Kenzaki already has one, and he accepted it, I’m just giving you one out of formality, I’m leaving… goodbye Eisuke”Out of instinct, again, I grab her hand, a little bit more desperate than I initially intended.“Wait!, you can’t leave! We are engaged! We are going to get married and have a family! Or did you lied about that?!”- she showed me her naked left hand without looking at my face“I left my ring on the dinner table of your room”“our room” –I corrected, the ring was in my pocket, ready to return to the hand it belongs“Your room”- she said harshly- “Let me go”“Did anyone told you to do this? You know that I’m going to protect you and that my security is brilliant, nothing is going to happen to me so…”“I’m not leaving because of a threat, I’m leaving because it’s the best” –she made a pause, like if she was thinking her next words, which took me by surprise- “that way you can keep fooling around with other women and I don’t get hurt in the process” –I let her hand go out of shock“What?”“the redhead? In the last IVC? I mean you must remember! Surely you saw her face at least once while she was riding you!” –she said calmly, spitting the words as if they were venom to her. In that moment I understood everything, a wave of guilt and fear passed through my body“So you saw…”-She nodded slowly, for a moment I thought she was crying- “but babe, that was…. A business, to get information about my family and to protect you from..”“I don’t care, I don’t give a damn about your explanations, you are Eisuke Ichinomiya, surely you have the resources to get that information and to protect me without selling your body right?! Well, at least you don’t have to worry about the second thing because I’m not your problem anymore, so goodbye”“wait! At least give a chance to…”“let’s not do this any more difficult, don’t humiliate me anymore please?”“How can I even believe you if I can’t even see your eyes?”-She took her sunglasses off and then I understood, I believed her, I could see what kind of damage I have done: her eyes looked dead. The beautiful sparkle that used to be there and that I loved… was gone“Thank you… for everything, I really loved you, more than I thought I could possibly love someone else, these past days… were hell, I wanted to be with you but then I remembered and… well I guess I’m dry now, I don’t think you can harm me anymore, so let’s end this properly”- she gave me her hand to shake, HER HAND; I couldn’t control it and I hugged her, she got tense, but she didn’t cry, I let her go after a painful minute, she looked at me and before turning around to leave she said- “Goodbye… Ichinomiya”Those two words destroyed me, what was the point of having everything if I lost the woman of my dreams, I sat on my couch, I couldn’t cry but I was in a state of despair, hours passed and I got distracted only by the sound of my window getting open“Can’t you just enter like a normal person Baba?” –I asked the man with the fedora“She was in a hotel in the outsides of the city”“You knew”“She needed a friend, she told me what she saw, I dig a little and I told her about your deal but she didn’t care, she was broken”-I let those words to sink deep into me ‘I broke her’- “nothing happen between us if that’s what you think”“I don’t care about that, now get out, I need to work” “But boss…”“Get out”- I repeated“Aren’t you going to fight for her?, Eisuke! You love her! Why would you let go the one person who took out the best out of you?” –He sounded dead serious, more than I’ve ever heard him“Because… I hurt her, I took a very important part of her… how can I even… I do love her, but I don’t want to hurt her again… at least she is going to be safe now, far from all this shit. Now leave, I have work to do, I need to get my mind on something”-Baba walked to the door and before he left a painful thought to strike my heart- “Tell… tell Kenzaki to bring coffee, is going to be a long night”.

Soryu POV (I was actually thinking of this song)

I hated it, every moment, every movement, how gross her strong perfume smelled, I closed my eyes, wanting her to end that, while that hideous woman was having her fun I just thought of ______, I yearn her heat, her moans, the softness of her body, but I couldn’t do anything about my current situation, since this was, my very well deserve punishment.I screwed up, and my men were trapped by a rival gang, by the time I found out about the failed plan it had been enough time to torture them or to do something even worse, so, naturally I ordered Samejima to put me in contact with their leader, we settle down a date and place to meet and I went then to negotiate but..“Why should we let them go? The ice dragons are our enemies after all”“Surely you must want something in exchange…” –I said trying to figure out this man’s intentions“ Hmm not really…”- The man who was in charge of the organization looked like he had Rahman’s age and taste in fashion, but he looked way more twisted than him; he thought for a moment and then continued- “what should we do?.... just torture or kill them won’t do…” –He looked at me knowingly, with a grin almost taking form in his face- “Tell me Soryu Oh… What’s the thing you hate the most?”- I clench my fist knowing where this was going“Women” –I said, although thanks to _____ I was becoming more tolerant towards them, I still hate the simple and fake women that surrounded the other bidders“And yet you have a fiancé…”-His eyebrow raised a little in disbelief. “She is different, and don’t you dare to lay hand on her, or else next time I come it won’t be to negotiate but to kill you” –I warned him in a deathly tone, wich I think he got, cause he low his head and raise both of his hands“Calm down, I don’t want to get civilians in this, not really my style… but for your punishment… Since you hate women so deeply… you are going to get my second daughter pregnant”“What…?”-I couldn’t believe what I was hearing“My daughter doesn’t want to get married, so I told her that she only had to give me a grandson to be the heir and she could be free, and what kind of genes are better than yours? Besides, since you hate women so much it would be the perfect punishment and way to get what I want… or I could just go on straight ahead to kill your subordinates that trespassed…”I clenched my teeth, I had to protect my men, even if that meant to lose my dignity and to betray ______

After the woman left I took at least 3 showers, and yet I felt that her stinky smell wasn’t fading, I was feeling the urge to see my beloved _______, so I got out and put my normal casual clothes and kept my hair down, I knew it was late and she would probably be tired or sleeping already… but I needed her so much… I was heading towards the door when something caught my eye: her engagement ring. What was doing here? Did she take it off for the IVC? No, but it was the case she would have kept it with her to put it afterward, it isn’t like her to just leave it here, unless…The worst case scenario cross through my mind, she saw me… with that nasty girl, and as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t have any excuse to what she might saw. I hold my head, feeling the anxiety running through me, I needed to find her, to fix things up before it was too late.

I run as fast as I could to reach the employee's dorms when I got to her’s I made a pause… what was I’m going to tell her anyway?... no, anything was better than to just shut up and to let us break apart, so I gather my courage and my mob pride and knocked.“________? It’s me, can we talk?”“Soryu? What are you doing here? Go away!” –I recognized her upset tone of voice, but I couldn’t fulfill her request“______ please let me in, we need to talk”“I have nothing to talk with you”“Please, I need to explain…”“I don’t want your pathetic excuses and lies! Now go away, leave me alone!”-her voice cracked, letting me know that she was crying“please… please…”- my tone of despair surprised even me, but I was feeling quite desperate- “I don’t want to lose you..”   “Too late… you should’ve thought that before”“You think I like that woman?! You more than anyone knows how much I hate her kind, selfish, reeking of perfume, empty… but I had no other choice! This… this all my fault… If I hadn’t screwed up… my men wouldn’t have been in danger and then… I… I…”- my voice was falling, even when I raised it before, I was letting my feelings to get in the way, I knew that was bad for a mob boss like myself, but I couldn’t control it, reason was out of the window when she was involved, I only prayed for her to believe me and for my subordinates to never see me like this.She didn’t speak after that, neither did she opened the door, I just stayed there, against the physical wall that was separating us, at some point, the desperation, fear, stress, and tiredness got the best of me and I drift off to a land of nightmares, in which ______ left me behind and I was trying desperately to reach her without accomplishing it, leaving me alone and miserable.

“Ryu… Soryu…” –the sound of her voice woke me up, the first thing that came to my mind was that my head and body ached, it was confusing, why I was on the floor outside her dorm, then it hit me.“_______!” –I could see her puffy and red eyes, probably for crying all night ‘this is all my fault’- “I….”“Don’t say anything, come in, I don’t want my coworkers see you laying here so early in the morning, I don’t want them to make the wrong idea” –She said with a slightly cold voice, I looked around,  truth is… I had been reckless doing such a show in the employees dorms, so I just followed her lead into her room, she closed the door after me and then put distance between us; her arms were crossed and she was directing her back towards me, clearly she didn’t want to even look at me, it hurt, but I knew I deserved that. She let out a sigh- “What you did is unforgivable, so I’ll just hear you out, it won’t change my mind though, you have one minute to say whatever you want… after that please get out.”“_______...”“50 seconds” –I sighed, it was better than nothing, so I started to tell her everything, from how I screwed up the original plan wanting it to make it quicker, to how my men were caught and tortured and how that bastard wanted to kill them unless I gave him an heir, I even told her my suspicions that he knew about me from long time ago… because no normal man would oppose to have sex for free with a girl, so he did know about my hatred towards women and used it against me, I told her how that rotten brat mocked me, drug me so I could get an erection, and generally how much I wanted to kill her… And she listened, my beloved mob princess listened to me to the very end. – “So you chose your men over me…” –she signed again, but this time she turned around and looked at me in the eye, she looked beautiful, with a softer expression, I knew she believed me… though it didn’t mean she would forgive me.- “Actually… I’m not surprised about it, you have done it before, and I can’t expect to be different”“I’m sorry” –That was all I could say because she was right.  _____ looked at me dead serious“I can’t forgive Soryu, I can’t forget either… and even if I could, I know you’ll do anything for your men and I can’t make you chose between them or me but I don’t want to live like this… doubting you, with the fear that this might happen again...”“but if we get married…”“I can’t” –She raised her voice, changing her expression again, now she looked hurt and a bit disgusted, to be honest – “right now I can’t even see you without seeing that woman’s back” –she closed her eyes strongly and turned her head down- “I can’t do it Soryu… I can’t be with you now” –_____ whispered in a sad tone, I, on the other hand, saw a hopeful light“Now… but can you be with me again after some time passes?”“What?”“If time goes by… do you think we can put all this behind us ad be together once more?” – I asked, feeling the hope creeping through my heart“That’s… that’s not how this works Soryu… I can’t… trust you anymore, and… honestly? After this, I don’t think I can’t wait for you any longer”“I know… but what if we start all over again? I promise I’ll do anything to regain your trust a-and I’ll become a boss and man that won’t be used like this again, a man who’ll be able to protect his men and be loyal to you… and you wouldn’t have to wait because while all that happens, I’ll be there for you, making you fall for me all over again…”She looked at me unsure, but I knew she was considering, because she knew that I love her just as much as she loves me, and what’s more, she does believe me that I would never have betrayed  her confidence if it wasn’t for something serious; it passed a minute or so when she relaxed a little“I… can’t guarantee anything… since I'll always have that image haunting me, I’m neither happy or sure about it, but…you are right on something, so I’ll go with what you say for now… From now on… we are total strangers”.And that was all I needed to keep moving forward… a chance to start over… my only opportunity to win back the woman I loved more than anything in the world.

[francu-s]

Laments in 3 parts

Lament part I

Not Les Mis related just sayin’... what you find here are: feelings, life and a couple of progress pics to lessen the pain.

I know my posts are... sparse in number, to say the least. I also know that most of my followers started to follow me due to my les mis related drawings. So every time when I felt like sharing some personal details, or write a random post, I was like “ow no, don’t do it, you just waste others' time, nobody cares about your shit and so-called 'problems', they are just whinings anyway (fuck, if you want to know what 'problem' really means, check out the news)."

Almost everyone knows this feeling I guess - when your bitch of mind is your worst enemy.  

But... maybe we should take it as a challenge.

Take it as a challenge and resist the urge to say 'sorry' after telling what needs to be told, or taking the blame for something what has nothing to do with you. Say 'no' to things what you don't want to do, and don't feel bad about it. Say 'no' to shame, sorrow, doubt and fear.

Harder than one might think! I try to live like this since last month and still fail in it every day. Like, I have deleted 5 'sorry'-s and 14 self-degrading sentences so far. I do not want to say sorry for my feelings anymore, or see them a burden what's unfair to share. If writing them out helps me then I have to do so.

To be honest, I wanted to put a "keep reading" button at the very beginning, but then I realized - that's exactly the root of the problem. The need to hide away even from myself, to feel unworthy, and frightened by exposure.  

And the sad truth is that whatever happened in the past, I did this to myself. It was not a conscious decision to close up like a seashell of course, but it's time to take responsibility for myself. I have to open up. I have to re-learn how to let things in, and out. How to let a person close, be an old friend or a stranger. How to trust.

I want to be brave and happy again. I want to get better.  

So I refuse to put that "keep reading" button there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lament part II

And now... let's practise this "sharing" thing.

I work as an au-pair right now, and the little girl I look after always asks somebody to check on her after bedtime. This person is usually her mummy but she travels a lot (like, for 4 days or one whole week) due to her work, and the task then falls on me. Her mom said it isn't really necessary to do so, though - if she is sleeping she will never know if you checked on her or not. The surprising thing is that this possibility of cheating has never occurred to the little girl. Well, I skipped the check-ons many times (still do) I admit that, but I felt bad about it so I usually crept to the door as she asked, but did not go into the room. Mostly bc she was a very poor sleeper in my first couple of months with her and did not wish to wake her up accidently and screw up my night with it.

It was too good to last for long. After the third time period or so alone, she finally stated the logical question:

"How will I know if you checked on me?"

Lol, how indeed...

So that night I made her very first bedtime note. Just a silly drawing on a piece of paper, a little girl in her bed and a short message (something like "I was here at 21:15"). I made three more at that week.

It worked. She loved them.

And the thing is, her mom loved them even more. She liked them so much that she asked me to draw some more so she can collect them and put them on the wall in a nice frame, well how lovely that would be.

I was flattered and happy, said OK but from that minute I just didn't feel so thrilled about this whole bedtime note thing. As that Lakota proverb says: "Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance." I have made more than 60 bed-time notes so far but only 10 or 15 which I really felt like, "wow I got I good idea for this one, let's do it" (I might share some of them later on). And this - to be unhappy while drawing and almost unable to perform - made me wonder if it was a good idea to pursue this utopia, to draw for a living. And I don't really dare to look at the bottom of this question bc the next logical one is this: "What to do, then?"

And the answer is... nothing. I don't want to do anything. I feel no calling, no enthusiasm by anything, or not for long enough. And I am tired and numb by fear.

The worst thing that maybe drawing IS part of the problem. ("Am I a part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?") I can't say I'm happy when I'm drawing but I'm in this flowing, timeless state and I feel nothing then. Nothing in a good way. I thought that helps. But maybe this is just a defensive mechanism on my part - I draw bc it makes (made) me feel safe. I draw to isolate myself from the world in body, mind and soul. To shut down, don't think, just be. To procrastinate dealing with Real Life.

All I know that it makes me angry when I feel like drawing and I can't, or when I have to draw something else what I feel for (even if the former is for free and the latter is for money... especially then).

Btw money - let's get back to my host mom/boss. 2 weeks ago she asked if I would draw a picture for her company. She offered 20 pound for it and I said yes bc it actually did seem interesting, so why not? So I asked about the details but haven't gotten much, only vague ideas. I made sketches, made modifications as her idea got more clear (but not much clearer). Never, ever say yes to a job where the customer has no idea what she/he/they actually wants! (yep it seems evident now...).

I have shoved her every progress, she was happy with them.

Then, at the very end of the project, she said there was a different style in her mind. Hand-made watercoloured picture to name it.

For God's sake, man... She knew how my style looks like. She knew I was working on the computer. She saw all the WIP pics.

I thought back the late week then - all the hours I spent drawing it, all the night I could have spent working on something else, or just sleep. I mean, there was at least 3 days when I did not get away from the computer for 5 constant hours, not even to pee. I was thinking of the burning sensation in my eyes (not crying, just too much hours in front of the computer). I was doing some quick maths then - how much time did I waste on this, exactly?... Let's be gracious here - 20 hours or so.

Let's just pretend for a funny moment that I actually hold a proper job, and also pretend that a proper job can be compared to art.

The minimum wage over 25 is currently 7.20 pound per hour in the UK, I just checked it. If you are an apprentice then 3.40, this is the minimum of minimums.  

When I said OK to this project I did not do it for the money, but anyway, let's just take out our pocket calculator, shall we? (if you mess with the zero then you don't even need one:)

20 x 7.20 = 144 20 x 3.40 = 68

So. At that point, all my sense of humor has left me.

And the worst part? I felt disappointed - in myself. I felt I failed her. That the whole shit is my fault. And that after all this work, I still owe her. I owe her a finished piece of art, watercoloured as she wants, even if watercolouring (OK, colouring in general) is as far out of my comfort zone as it is possible. I am the line-art type and not the colour type of person. But I felt I have to become a master of watercolour for next day no matter what and DO THE THING.

She has been so kind to print the line-art for me. I told her that I try to do my best but for watercolouring you have to use aquarelle paper.

Some harmful, ill determination and maximalism what made me finish this project. I bought paper, brushes, watercolours, all from my own money. I was not even thinking anymore. If any HR manager asks me during a job interview if I am a dedicated person, I shall tell them this story. (Then they can send me away for being such an idiot.)

Yes, I know I am an idiot. What else can I be when I still feel disappointed in myself, convinced that she did not like the final piece and only that damned English Politeness made her say what she said, and that I almost refused to take the 20 pound when she gave it to me today?

I reckon everyone reading this has already guessed that the whole post is about "releasing some steam". Here, I release some of the progress pics, too, out of gratitude that you haven't clicked on the "unfollow" button yet:

The original concept what I got: 1) hares 2) big hats.

Some random sketches and stages:

 She wanted only 3 hares having tea and cylinders like the Mad Hatter's in Alice in Wonderland. (couldn't you just say this much at the very beginning?)

Line art without the hats

Final line-art

Here is the flower border what she asked for (and what I spent one of those constant 5 hours on), and which was not needed after all.

Before colouring

Finished colouring (it's a fabric company and they wanted to show off their new collection on the hats)

Desperate attempt to make it less line-work-ish

Final watercoloured shit

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lament part III

The gall of me. I am not only an idiot, but an ungrateful, selfish one.

I hesitated to post this as my mind has been mocking me with one word during the whole time while writing it:

fanfiction

I plan to dedicate a proper post for this topic alone some time. For now, I just want to say that reading fanfictions is, shame or not, one of the most important aspect of my life. I have been reading them for more than a decade now, but they were my fuel of life in the last for 3 years or so. I can't be grateful enough for all the stories which kept (and still do keep) me going, and the authors who share their work, not for 20 pound or for one million as they deserve, but for free, without any lament.

If I were religious I would say: God bless you all. I wish you the very best and everything what you might wish for yourselves.

[lularoemomlife]

The beginning.....

So, I have two masters degrees and a graduate specialization.  I attended three of Virginia’s finest universities and worked incredibly hard in my former career each and every day.  How is it that I now stay home and sell LuLaRoe?  That’s a very good question.......

I started teaching right at the time No Child Left Behind went into effect and the testing culture seeped its way into schools.  I was one of those happy-go-lucky, positive people who just knew I could change the world one child at a time.  And, thankfully, I still believe that I did.  But, teaching with my whole heart in a low income school where the educators were held 110% accountable by administration for test scores slowly infected my soul and my will to get up at 5:15 every morning.  

I get it.  The principals have bosses and their bosses have bosses and there is no one to blame but the individuals in the building with the children all day.  But, to me, the kids were never numbers.  I cared way more about their well being and development as humans than I did about teaching to the tests.  This was obviously frowned upon.  I got by because during my ten years of teaching, I became a valuable asset to the school.  I was young.  I did not have children to run home to.  I stayed late into the evenings working like a horse to accomplish tasks that were piled on endlessly.  I was the chair or leader of multiple committees, I attended meetings others didn’t have time for, and I passionately advocated for things that would benefit the school.  And, I was friends with a lot of teachers.  I could rally people for the good of a cause and administration needed that.  

Because of everything I did, most of my students passed their tests for most of my years.  I had a few shining moments and a few that made me cower in defeat.  But, because of my nature as a teacher and my various specializations compared to other teachers, I often had most of the children in my class who struggled academically but received no services.  These were the kids who did not qualify for special education support.  These were the kids who previous teachers wanted identified but the work had not yet been done to make it happen.  I made it happen.  I put the time in to get children what they needed if at all possible.  And, believe me, this success made my heart soar.  But to say it was draining is an understatement.  

As my time teaching went on, the whisper in my head about supporting the social and emotional development of children turned into a thunderous shout.  I could not ignore it anymore so I shocked the pants off my principal when I told him I was leaving to go back to school full time to become a school counselor.  He had written me a great recommendation and no one was surprised when I said this was my path, but I don’t think anyone expected me to quit.  They thought I would do it all.  Elementary school all day and grad school all night.  Yeah, I get that.  I had been on the “Race to Nowhere” my whole life working hard like everyone was watching and there was a million dollar prize at the end of submitting report cards.  

But, here is the thing.  I can’t do anything half-assed.  I never could.  I’m an all in kind of person.  And, I was sick.  Like physically ill.  I had stomach issues that neither allergists nor gastroenterologists could figure out.  I was exhausted all the time, I was medicated for anxiety, and I was losing weight.  It was incredibly difficult to leave a place I called home for ten years.  The people were loved and the memories ran in my blood.  But, I just put myself on auto-pilot and made it happen.  

And, you know what, after a summer of relaxation, fun, and the knowledge I would be a student come September and not a teacher was all the medicine in the world.  I no longer needed stomach medication and I soon gave up the anxiety meds too.  I got to sleep in every morning, get up and do homework or study, and go to class in the evenings.  I seriously planned to substitute during this time to experience life in other schools but that goal soon dwindled.  I mean, I actually had time for my husband.  I watched tv shows.  I drank wine on Tuesday nights.  I needed this life more than anything.  All of my physical problems seemed to be stress related, and while grad school brought on different stresses, I laughed at them in the face.  

While I was in grad school, I whole-heartedly intended to become an elementary school counselor right after graduating.  But then, my husband and I found out we were having our first baby.  After my first year of grad school she was born and changed my life forever.  I was a mom and she had my whole heart.  It pained me to go into my internship each morning, even doing it part time at that point.  Then, I had my second baby shortly after graduating and I loved every moment of motherhood.  I had a couple of months before I would really need to start applying for a job, so I just tried not to think about it.  Eventually, I ignored the idea so much that it just went away.  My husband and I (read: me) decided that I would stay home that next school year and be with the children.  I mean, come the following August, my daughter would be nearing 3 and my son would be 1 1/2.  Surely, I could stomach putting them in day care then?

Nope.  You see, that year at home without grad school was even better than my time at home without teaching.  People with older children would tell me “Don’t worry, it gets better.” I would think, “Um, are you kidding me?!  The hardest days at home with my two are lightyears better than my best days with 25 who I loved, but were not mine.  If I could be patient with them, I can be patient with my own.”  They would tell me, “Enjoy every moment.  It goes so fast.”  I would think, “Good grief, you don’t have to tell me that!  It already has.  I’m cherishing every second.  Even when I’m thrown up on or up all through the night.  It’s pure bliss.”  I had trouble expressing this to people though, because they would not get it.  You see, being home was better for me at this point in my life than any job I could have.  All the power to the ladies who want to work, but that is probably because you love your job or it has not yet completely kicked your ass.  I was beat up and torn and the bruises were still raw.  Being home was my rehab from a career that had sucked the life out of me, but I also loved being the one to raise my kids.  I was definitely running from something but I’d found Heaven on Earth.  I knew better than to blow the idea that being a stay at home mom is hard.  I wanted other mom friends, after all.  

I started to think about how I could be with my kids AND make money to prolong my time at home.  I did NOT want to babysit others’ babies.  Like at all.  I didn’t want to do anything that would take my attention away from my own.  I started paying attention to my friends in direct sales and to those who did odd jobs.  Nothing seemed to be lucrative enough to get the bills paid.  Then, my sister and I learned about LuLaRoe at about the same time.  I think the lightbulbs in our heads went off at maybe the same moment and we went into business together in April of 2016.

You see, LuLaRoe is different from other direct sales companies in one majorly important way.  Every consultant selling the clothes has different items.  It’s not like Rodan & Fields or Stella & Dot where all of the ladies have the exact same beauty products or jewelry to sell.  I have a few friends who sell both of these and I actually get stressed about who to purchase from.  It’s like that time in middle school when one friend invited me over and then when another called, I made up a story because I didn’t want her to feel bad that she wasn’t included at the first friend’s house.  I’m not a good liar.  I can’t rest easily in those positions.  With LuLaRoe, I don’t have to worry about it.  What I have, other consultants don’t.  That’s the money maker.  

Once my sister and I paid off our original investment (which, I admit, took longer than we had hoped), every time we sell an item, it’s 100% profit.  We decide what to do with that cash.  I was sitting on the couch with my husband one night watching the Voice and I leaned over and said, “While we have been sitting here, I just made $250.” We then shared an evil laugh.  I don’t know what else I could do that would allow me to be home with my children every day, work while they nap and after they go to bed, schedule parties and events when it’s convenient for me (read: my husband’s soccer schedule), and still have free time for myself to do what I want.  

As you will see if you keep reading my blog, parts of this venture are far from glamorous.  There are days I wish we had become instant LuLaSuperStars and had a team of 100 ladies and there are days I’m just pissed because my Internet failed during an important sale.  Stress is a part of life and it will always be an imaginary frienemy I can’t shake.  But, I do not regret the path I have taken one bit.  

So why do I stay home and sell LuLaRoe?  Because that happy-go-lucky, positive person I was all those years ago is alive again and she is wearing Snoozies watching the Today Show and snuggling with her kids...... every..... single.... morning.  

Shameless plug:  http://www.facebook.com/groups/lularoekatieandjane

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This blog was originally posted on the RetroNeo Games blog page on May 27th, 2017.

Let me tell you a story. It’s about a boy who was born into a fairly poor family who eked out a passable existence on a family plot in the mountains. When he was only 12 years old, his father was killed in a tragic farming accident, and as his mother was too ill to work, he became the sole breadwinner for a family of six younger siblings.

He had a talent for singing. His deep and melodious voice, paired with a deep well of emotion bought from years of personal sacrifice, won him many admirers in the taverns and dance halls around the local villages. It wasn’t long before the girls started to notice him.

As his younger siblings matured, he dreamed of leaving the farm and pursuing a career in music, until one day a paramour told him she was pregnant with his child. Dreams of a life of travel and singing were forgotten. They married and his love gave birth to twins some few months later. He was the happiest man alive!

Unfortunately, the harvests had been poor for years, and the bank reclaimed his family’s farm as the twins neared their first birthdays.

With not one, but two families to support, and no means of doing so, he joined the army, one of the few employers who was always hiring. He moved both families to the city as he began boot camp.

His first post was guarding a hydroelectric power plant. It was hard to be away from his family, but he knew that they were safe and provided for.

One day on duty, as he quietly hummed a lament, thinking about the night he first met his beloved, this happened…

GIF recorded from tommytep's YouTube Channel. Click image for source.

THE END

Like that one? Let me tell you another (shorter) story.

A class sits idle in some code, waiting. Its name is Soldier 4. It’s basically frozen in time. It doesn’t even look like anything yet because its mesh hasn’t been rendered because the player camera’s frustum hasn’t come across it yet. Suddenly, the player enters a trigger area around the corner and the class springs to life in glorious pixelated detail. It starts playing an animation, shifting its weight back and forth on two legs. Then a raycast determines  that it’s just been shot 3 times. A rather slow and painful looking death animation is chosen from a small list of predetermined death animations. After a few seconds, Soldier 4 lies still, fades to nothing, and the garbage collector erases any trace of his existence shortly thereafter.

FIN

Okay, which story do you like better? Which is more true? Which is more believable?

Which would you tend to think of when playing a game? I suppose that would depend on how immersed you are, and what lengths the game goes to in order to inform you about non player characters (NPCs).

I used Goldeneye because it’s one of the earliest examples I can think of where my mom was a bit upset that I was shooting people in games, rather than speeding through checkpoints and jumping on robotic animals. It’s also one of the first games I can recall that put some real effort into showing pain in the enemies. You could shoot them in the foot, hand, or crotch, and they’d stop shooting, grab the injured area, make a pained noise and hop around (if they still could).

I was too busy at the time being blown away by the speed and the technology (I’d also never played Doom or similar 3D shooters at that time) to think of the enemies as anything more than obstacles to progression, but I can see now in games what my mom saw then. And it’s got nothing to do with graphics, or realistic animations. It’s partly a question of emotional maturity, of course, but also of storytelling. Where I just saw ‘baddies’ my mom saw me walk into a room and gun down a random young man in a Russian uniform with no provocation. Goldeneye didn’t really give you reasons to kill most of the game’s enemies other than “you’re James Bond and they’re Russian. Duh!”

Twenty years later, we have plenty of room on the disc to fit even a little audio that can precisely let you know why you should (or shouldn’t) want to kill these dudes. Yet in those situations where we have the opportunity to do better, how often do we actually strive to?

When to dehumanise

There are so many games of all sorts. I’m not at all trying to argue that we do want backstories for all game characters in order to make them better. That could often do the opposite.

Brutal Doom's OTT gore doesn't exactly inspire regret or sympathy. Because demons!

Take Doom (new or old). It’s an unapologetic power fantasy, delivered through the medium of speed and violence. Killing demons removes any need for cumbersome storytelling. It’s black and white. Demons are evil. Kill demons. A game shouldn’t try to do too many things. If the extras conflict with the core idea, cut them.

We often dehumanise the enemy in games. Literally. Whether to simplify story, avoid moral debates or to sidestep local censorship laws, we turn our targets into zombies, monsters, robots, or aliens. It works really well. Robots and zombies can also relieve the impact of bad AI, since they’re not meant to be particularly intelligent to begin with. Great! Over the top violence and power fantasies can be fantastically fun, and I wouldn’t change Doom 1 or 4 one little bit.

The topic I’m addressing is what to do when we have human adversaries, who are meant to represent believable people. Because this is the greater challenge, and it’s likely that you seek to tell some sort of story when you’ve chosen to have human antagonists.

There are two types of games that use humans as enemies; those with either fictional or non-fictional settings.

Fictional Settings

GTA V is one of the most realistic, alive open world games that’ve ever been created. But players have zero empathy for the citizens of Los Santos. The game’s over the top satire, occasionally wonky physics, and amazing yet vastly imperfect AI, prevent any great depth of immersion. That’s not to say that you can’t get lost in the game for hours, but you’d never mistake it for a real experience, and you wouldn’t really start to feel for the characters. The emphasis on driving fast across a world populated by pedestrians is fundamentally incompatible with any sort of attempt to make you care about individuals in this world. And that’s fine. GTA V is incredible for what it is, and no game can be everything (though it’s not far off, to be fair).

Now take Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I just finished playing yesterday. As in most games, you’ll mow down hundreds of enemies, but narratively there’s something interesting going on. If you listen to the idle dialogue and/or audio records, you’ll come to appreciate a depth to the enemies. There are the core villains but also their paid and oblivious contractors. Trinity are out to do bad things and don’t care who they kill, but most of the enemy army are hired mercenaries who don’t know about or don’t believe in the religious fanaticism that drives their employers. Among these contractors, many start to realise that their bosses are nuts, and say that they didn’t sign on to round up and shoot local tribespeople. Some talk about trying to get out asap. Some other contractors are psychopaths themselves, and then Trinity are always evil. This approach did make me want to avoid killing certain guys, or at least regret having to do so. A little. It also made me more eager to hear what type of group I was about to go up against, by stealthily sneaking up on their positions instead of opening fire early. It’s a pity that there aren’t any non-lethal options or other mechanics to expand on this narrative theme. Once the bullets start flying, the good ones and the bad ones all want to kill you just as much.

Still, it was a good effort at adding some depth to the game, and I appreciated that it was there. Because personally I’m usually (when facing human game enemies) thinking that they’re probably not all bad and they don’t all deserve to die. It was nice for a game to respond to this.

Of course, other games have done this, and done it better. If you haven’t yet played Spec Ops: The Line then do it now! Even if you think you know all the spoilers, it’s a masterpiece in subverting player expectations. The whole journey through the game is brilliant.

Fundamentally, I think that most conflicts only occur due to a lack of understanding or empathy (including an unwillingness to share resources). With better communication and patience, most could be avoided. Games so rarely attempt to show this, but if narrative is a serious part of the game you want to deliver, then it should be strongly considered.

Games are such a powerful medium for delivering understanding and empathy because the player actively takes part in them. I’m not saying that every game should be doing this, but we could certainly be faring better as an industry.

Historical Settings

Real world armies have forever attempted to dehumanise the enemy in order to make it easier for your own troops to kill them. They’re all savages. They’re all baby killers. They’re all rapists, thieves and murderers, and God is on our side. War films are almost universally anti-war films (especially since Vietnam) and they usually tap into the folly of these lies. Yet war games still seem to find it more convenient to buy the lie hook, line, and sinker.

Maybe it’s because you’re asking the player to do the killing directly for hours on end that designers have felt the need to retain these lies. I remember that in the opening minutes of Call of Duty World at War you’re being brutally tortured by Japanese captors before being rescued by Kieffer Sutherland and his band of more morally upstanding brothers. It’s set up so that you will have no problems killing Japanese or German pixels for the next several hours. Of course, the Japanese and German armies were conducting genocide and torture, and stopping that is a fairly justifiable goal (as long as we’re clear that no side was squeaky clean), but I’m just saying that I’ve never seen a game take the opportunity to do what Letters from Iwo Jima by Clint Eastwood did.

This is why I’m a bit concerned that Call of Duty are returning to World War 2 as a setting this year. For the last several years they’ve been doing fictional settings and usually have some big opening set piece showing you exactly how evil your enemies are and why you should kill them all (they blew up your house and neighbours, usually). Their games are so formulaic that I’m concerned they’ll miss their chance to advance the genre of war games by just ticking all the same boxes in a new (well, old) setting and perpetuating the notion that Americans are always good, and Nazis are always bad. That said, they seem to be heavily influenced by Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan so maybe they will have some shades of grey in their narrative and do something new.

Battlefield 1 at least lets you play as both sides in a conflict and although human lives are reduced to mere ‘tickets’, I do admit that I felt remorse when sitting in a machine gun nest, mowing down a charge across the trenches by the players on the other team.

Yes, it’s a game, but it represents something. Yes, the players will respawn and so it’s more like a game of paintball or virtual tag than an actual battle, but this is where my empathy for pixels idea comes in. Real lives were ended doing exactly this kind of action that I’m doing right now. I sincerely hope that when you watch the last hour of Titanic you feel a lot more moved than when you watch Con Air. Similarly, I hope than when you play games based on the world wars or Vietnam, that a part of you doesn’t glorify the killing in the same way as you the glory kills in Doom.

They’re different beasts, I think, and deserve different treatments from the creators. I hope that Call of Duty: WW2 gets some of that.

Games with more moral weight

I’ve referenced more linear games here so far, but RPGs are traditionally much better at giving weight to your moral decisions, even if they are nearly always set in fantasy or post-apocalyptic worlds.

I recently played Westerado, an indie cowboy RPG/ murder mystery in an open world that you have a lot of agency over. It doesn’t take itself fully seriously, but because you can go anywhere and kill anyone, you feel like you’ve some real responsibility in the world. Because of this responsibility, when I found myself riding out with some US Army soldiers who’d been fighting with native American tribes, and we than happened upon said tribes in a sudden ambush, I said “oh f**k no I will not be killing native Americans and still pretending I’m the good guy”. I ran from the fight. I failed that side quest. I think the army were regrettably all killed but I’m not sure. But that was my story. The game didn’t establish that these natives were out of line in any particular way, just that the army were fighting them. So my own knowledge of history filled in the rest.  While I was happy enough to help the army bring food to settlers (or whatever we were doing in that quest) I was not taking part in any genocide. Pixelated or not.

Here is an example of an extremely unrealistic looking game reaching me on a real level. An historical setting (fictional as the specifics are) and a game where my choices can have a lasting effect can create real empathy even for pixelated characters.

Mechanics for deeper, more sympathetic NPCs

Assuming you want some moral ambiguity or emotional weight in your game, particularly if you’re making a war game, what tools could be used to advance this agenda?

Just having NPCs chatter together is a very simple way of humanising them (for better or worse) before you go in guns blazing or not. It’s tried and true in linear games, but challenging in open worlds where the dialogue inevitably can start to repeat, and feel insincere.

The opening level of Battlefield 1 had you fighting a pitched battle on the Western front. Each time you died (in this level only), as the screen faded to black, you got your character’s name and the year of their birth and death. What it would say on their tombstone, basically. You then respawned as a new soldier elsewhere in the battle. This gave a weight to death that most war games (and the rest of this one) usually can’t deliver. If you add to that system something like “loving father and husband” or “always dreaming” you’ve a better system already.

Valiant Hearts has you play as characters from both sides of the trenches, and actually never has you kill anyone. It shows your Franco-German family in tact before the war, then watches as, torn apart by circumstance, they struggle to reunite.

This War of Mine has you play a war game from the point of view of starving families trying to survive amidst the rubble, where you make decisions to kill innocents because you need food for your own kids. The shocking reality of the unseen other side of war games was powerful.

Apart from historical settings that bring their own moral weight (and ethical dilemmas in terms of storytelling) to the table, you could use procedural generation to fill out backstories for each and every NPC that lives or dies. It’s its own challenge, but it’s possible. Watchdogs had a system where you could hack the phone of anyone in the open world and get a little summary of that person as an individual. That’s not an end in itself, but it’s a tool in the box.

Dwarf Fortress procedurally generates its entire world and history when you launch a new game. Co-creator Tarn Adams and Kitfox Games’ Tanya X Short have some great GDC talks and blogs about procedural generation, including a book they co-wrote called Procedural Generation in Game Design coming out soon. Do check some of it out if you’re interested in the area.

I’ve experimented myself with generating a small town’s size of population. Everyone gets a name, age and job. Every year people grow up and either die, marry, have kids, or do nothing extraordinary. Over a few seconds I grow this town by several generations and all of a sudden have a family history for every character still alive at the moment I start playing the game properly. I’m planning on using something similar to this in Sons of Sol to flesh out your wingmates’ backgrounds, though we don’t yet know the extent of player interaction with wingmates outside of the main missions.

In Conclusion

There are many more ways we could flesh out NPCs. Better AI is one. We could even get as far as giving NPCs the levels of interactivity that the hosts in Westworld have. Though I think the point of that show is that some people will just refuse to acknowledge the humanity in artificial things, while others can empathise with them very naturally; less because they’re fooled by looks or behaviour, but more because they’re emotionally invested in the story.

Humans have always loved storytelling, and creators have always found new and better ways of expanding our toolset for crafting them. We have amazing tools for creating empathy and understanding through interaction now.

Games are chief among the most consumed media in the modern age. Violence and conflict are a core part of many of our games, but also a significant part of the real world that we live in. In a world that too often seems to lack empathy and a willingness to understand our adversaries, games could be our best tool to foster a willingness to understand other sides in a conflict. I think it’s important that we start to do this more often. It doesn’t suit every game, but where killing humans is the main activity, and especially in historical war games, I think we can and should do better than we have been. We’re moving the right way, I think, but let’s keep it up.

Until next time..

[loveyou914]

Ten Spring Reads to Feed your Heart and Mind

March sent me over the moon, April has started out sad but, I’m turning to May with a hopeful heart and loaded with good reads. I’ve come to share with you my list of 10 books I’m reading in Spring 2017. I’m especially excited because some of the books on list are written by friends. And I want you to come with me on this ride. I know, I know. Reading is a solo sport but it would be fun to read these together. Then we can chat about them here on my Facebook page. 

The Complete Works of Florence Scovel Shinn — I’m all about bringing the positive, empowering thinking, and evolving. When my dear friend shared the quote: “Nothing but fear and doubt stands between a woman and every desire of her heart” I knew I had to read this one. Then, it came in the mail as a gift and I was like yup, meant to be read by me!

Florence Scovel Shinn taught generations of readers how to live richer, fuller lives with her four empowering classics: The Game of Life and How to Play It; Your Word Is Your Wand; The Secret Door to Success; and The Power of the Spoken Word. This volume collects all four of those works, offering a wealth of affirmations and real-life success stories

  Because some like a heart stealing read

Love Me Now — One of the true joys of being a writer is writing and publishing along with your friends.  Love me Now is very special to me because it was written by my friend and critique partner, Cate Tayler. I read an earlier version of this story. It’s sweet, sexy romance that yanks at your heartstrings. I can’t wait to read the final version.

Calista Markatos is failing miserably at saving her family’s Greek diner. Without a miracle, her parents will lose everything. And it’s all the fault of a land developer whose big ideas are destroying her family’s livelihood.

Driven by guilt over his brother’s death, Miles Gardner plays the role of dutiful son. But he rebels against his father’s choice of a bride. A fake engagement can help him avoid the marriage trap. All he has to do is convince the Greek goddess to go along with his plan.

She doesn’t have to like him to pretend to love him. Thirty days later, they’ll both get exactly what they want—and maybe something they didn’t know they needed.

Under her Skin – 

In Adriana Anders’ story, Ivan thought the world was through giving him second chances. Hell, who was he kidding—he wasn’t good enough for them anyway. And he certainly wasn’t good enough for her.

But the moment Uma walked into his life, Ivan knew he had to put all that crap aside and do everything he could to help. She was like nothing he’d ever known. Beautiful, lost, alone, she had the kind of sad eyes that were just begging for someone to save her…

…and despite his rough exterior, despite the nasty rumors, despite all the bad decisions following him around like the strays he couldn’t help but rescue, Ivan was nothing but willing to be the kind of man she needed.

Yeah, he’d thought the world was through giving him second chances. Until she came into his life. Until she changed everything. Until he realized he would do anything, fight anyone, tear the world apart if it only meant saving her.

And some like a hot read 

The Mitus Touch

 — Stoni Alexander Wealth manager Brigit Farnay despises Colton Mitus. And with good reason. He ripped away her family’s company during the most painful time in her life. Forced to work with him, she can’t deny that Colton is gorgeous, brilliant, commanding. And the enemy. Her traitorous body craves his touch every moment of every day. And then she finds out about the erotic games he plays…

Corporate raider Colton Mitus is success and power personified. He demands control in the boardroom and in the bedroom. So he shouldn’t be tempted by the newest member of the Mitus team. But he is. Brigit challenges him and frustrates him, but also quiets the demons that haunt him, especially as she agrees to be drawn into his secret, sinful world.

The most lucrative deal of Colton’s career places Brigit’s family’s company in jeopardy. When old enemies return hell-bent on ruining him, Brigit is the only person who can save him. But she’s been keeping secrets that could destroy everything…

Familiar Strangers

 — Sanco Singleton Jr’s story of love, betrayal, sex and dominance will have you glued to your eBook reader of choice.  Executive Vice President Alex Nicole Winston is done with love. After an abusive marriage and miscarriage, Alex has reinvented herself as a dominating boss in both the boardroom and bedroom. Now married to a man who adores her, Alex refuses to give love another chance. She has vowed to never be vulnerable again, and for her love is vulnerability. She cheats, unapologetically, and uses sex to control anyone she wants. However, there is one person who cannot be controlled and he is back with a vengeance.

Alex’s best friend, Reese, is a closeted bi-sexual who hides his sexuality from everyone, including his wife. Reese seemingly has it all, but he’s not satisfied. His search for satisfaction will lead him down a path of sex, love, betrayal, and blackmail.

Together friends Alex and Reese will prove that sometimes those we are the closest to are nothing more than familiar strangers.

Dirty Filthy Boy — In Magda Alexander’s steamy story, Bad boy quarterback Ty Mathews has it all–money, women,

fame. On the gridiron, he vanquishes defenses with his golden arm. Off the field, it’s another part of his anatomy that gets all the glory. And deservedly so, for what he doesn’t know about women hasn’t been written. Except for MacKenna Perkins.

The rookie reporter wants nothing to do with him. After all, she was hired to cover women’s and social issues for her local Chicago newspaper, not deal with a cocky football player. But when the sports reporter falls ill, she’s asked to interview a wide receiver. Since she knows next to nothing about football, predictably she fails at it.  Until Ty Mathews volunteers his services.

With her job on the line, she accepts his offer. Too late, she realizes her unruly heart’s not listening to her head. In no time at all, she’s in his bed, doing all those dirty, filthy things he likes to do. But soon secrets surface about his past. Secrets that may destroy his future. And MacKenna must decide if the price she pays for the story is worth a broken heart

No Good Dead — i love bad boys . . . in books, that is! That’s why I can’t wait to dig into Dana Volney’s first novel in her Bad To Be Good series.

I’ll kill you if you touch her. Able Blood on my hands isn’t anything new. I’ve been killing my whole life and it’s not protecting the innocent type bullsh*t either. I do it because I want to. Because I can. Nothing can stop me from getting what I want. Except her. Teagan My sister died protecting others, she gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Now I’ll catch the murderer who did it. Except I’m the one who gets caught. The web of lies that is being spun around me is increasing and I can’t stop it. I need help. I need him.

Able and Teagan must decide if an assassin and a do-gooder can overcome their pasts to build a future. One in which they both survive.  

Others want to be transported back in time

Night Song — Beverly Jenkins’ story has been on my TBR list for a while now. I can’t wait to meet Cara and Chase. 

A Traitorous Heart . . .

Cara Lee Henson knows no soldier can be trusted to stay in one place—and that includes handsome Sergeant Chase Jefferson of the Tenth Cavalry. Dallying with the dashing man in blue could cost the pretty, independent Kansas schoolteacher her job and her reputation. So, Cara is determined to repel Chase’s advances—even though her aloof facade barely masks her smoldering desire.

A Blazing Passion . . .

Never before has Chase longed for a woman the way he ached for lovely Cara Lee. The strong-willed ebony beauty, however, will not surrender easily. But with tender words and soulful caresses, Chase intends to conquer the reluctant schoolmarm’s misgivings—and teach her how to love fully, sensuously . . . and forever.

But some just want the read to scare the snot out of them

The Eyewitness

– Nancy C. Weeks —  Maryland PD forensic scientist Emersyn D’Azzo has an explosive past with her father’s younger, sexy partner, Detective Alec Pearce. Then an ill-timed kiss destroys the thin line of trust between her and her dad, just before tragedy strikes and someone guns down her father.

The fatal bullet turns out to be tied to the ongoing spree of random sniper kills across the state, but Emersyn knows this wasn’t a random act of violence and is determined to find the killer.

To do so, she’ll need to rely on help from Alec, whom she doesn’t quite trust but just can’t resist. When they discover a connection to a decades-old disappearance of a college student, their investigation takes a deadly twist. Can they learn to trust each other with their hearts to save their lives?

  Dead Silence — Last but certainly not least on my spring read list is New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Brenda Novak’s first book in her Stillwater Trilogy. 

There’s a body buried behind a Mississippi farmhouse Grace Montgomery knows who it is, and she knows why it happened. She was only thirteen the night it all went wrong. And now, like then, she has no choice but to keep her mouth shut.

Grace left the town of Stillwater thirteen years ago, trying to forget, trying to make good. As an assistant D.A. in Jackson, she’s finally achieved the success that was supposed to change her life. But it hasn’t—so she’s come back to confront her own history. Which means returning to the farmhouse now owned by her brother and facing the people of Stillwater, a number of whom suspect the truth.

Widower Kennedy Archer is one of those people. He’s running for mayor and needs to stay as far away from Grace as possible. And yet…she’s an enigma he can’t resist. Even though her enemies are close to finding out what really happened—and that could ruin them both.

Wait! Don’t go, there’s one more, I can’t leave my baby out!

Boss —

Determined to avoid the violence that claimed her family and friends, Carissa Elliott flees her hometown with a dangerous plan. She has proof that mafia boss Calum DeMateo killed her father—now she just has to catch him. To do so, she’ll have to transform herself from small-town ingénue to New York crime boss.

When her path crosses with Alec McLean, the sexy stranger with whom she once shared a steamy nightclub kiss, things take an unexpected turn. Alec heads his family’s criminal organization, the kind of made man Carissa should want nothing to do with. But he also has a plan to take down Calum, and the flames that flicker between them are irresistible.

Will their vengeful quests jeopardize their chance at lasting love? 

  Whew that was close . . . Tell me, what are you planning to read this summer? Do you want to join me in reading these awesome authors?  Let me know!

Ten Spring Reads to Feed your Heart and Mind was originally published on J. L. Lora

[madsmorales]

I WILL ALWAYS LOOK UP TO YOU BOSS :) Ill be leaving your company so soon but I will always be grateful :D I can still vividly recall how you treated me the first time we met. It was my interview day, was supposed to be feeling anxious for a new applicant but you turned it the other way around. After the interview, you asked me if I was free to go with you in a Penshoppe shoot. I got an invitation from a boss in my interview day! Yes,in my interview day! You didnt hire me yet but you trusted me already. I said yes and I was like "is this real? " but I went with the flow. I was quite nervous as time was passing by. You kept on asking me about things when we were on the road and so did I. You were surprised when you knew that I searched for your fb account and knew details about you before going to your agency. I got a 1-point for making an effort to know an employer. When we arrived at the shoot, you introduced me to everyone including Tanner Mata and Maria Fabiana like you knew me long ago. I stayed in the shoot, looking around to be familiarized. It was different! Different from where I started. You asked me to get food but I said "okay lang po,di pa naman po ako gutom" and smiled at you. Deep inside, my tummy was grumbling but I had to stay it that way. "Kuha nalang kita" you told me and I was really shy at that moment knowing that you were the boss. You were trying to share me things about modeling and I eagerly listened to you. You weren't like a boss, you were a mentor. Then, you had to get suites from the designer but you couldnt go so you asked me to do it since it was nearby and you were going to book me a grab car. We took so long in the shoot, it was kinda boring to stay but you made me look up to you. When we were going back to Makati,it was the same day when Tanner Mata was preparing to get isolated for PBB. When Tanner left, you invited me for a dinner coz it was a long day. I was shy to say yes but you wanted me to go. I only had P120 in my wallet and I wanted to refused the invite but it seemed you were gonna pay for it . 😂😂 My heart beat fast that moment coz it was unusual for me to have a dinner with a stranger and or maybe I called "uncomfirmed future boss". You shared me a lot of things about your life and did ask me about mine and that was the start of looking up to you. I got hired in the midst of telling me about things and you also gave me advices how to be good in work. Success couldnt get in one glance, you had to work for it. You shared me how cruel your life was but you chose to re-direct ways until you met success. As days passed, I saw how dedicated you were at work. You have a heart of gold and you also serve God.You touched my heart in every bit of your story.