#me and my other two housemates get woken up by her every single fucking day too

[merriclo]

when you’re just trying to do your religious rituals early on in the morning but your housemate is the loudest person in the entire world and you can’t go two seconds without getting interrupted by a loud clammer or humming

[flowerfan2]

Pineapple Dreams

McDanno, 3k, A03

Summary:  Instead of being away with Catherine, Steve is right here beside him.  This may be the best dream Danny has ever had. 

Danny comes to slowly, immediately aware that something is wrong.  He wishes it didn’t feel so familiar.  At some point, he’s really got to stop getting bashed around like this.  He’s not getting any younger.

He tries to take a deep breath, but everything feels heavy, and any attempt to move his head results in shooting pain.  There are voices nearby but he can’t tell what anyone is saying and each sound lands like a tire iron to his head.  Although he tries, he can’t make himself open his eyes.  Resigned that he’s going to have to wait, and not having any other options, Danny slips back into unconsciousness.

When he wakes again, the pain has faded to a manageable ache.  He holds still, not wanting to make anything worse, and tries to take stock.  He can tell he’s in the hospital, but he doesn’t seem to be hooked up to much, and he’s obviously breathing on his own.  He gingerly shifts his toes and fingers, and, deciding that nothing too awful seems to have taken place, opens his eyes.

“Danny,” a relieved voice breaths out, and then Steve is leaning forward, his face coming into focus in front of his own.  He needs a shave.  “You with me, pal?”

Danny can’t manage a response, but any words are tossed right out of him anyway when Steve leans even closer and brushes a kiss across his lips.

 “Glad you’re back, Danno,” Steve says softly, holding his gaze.  “I missed you.”  Then Steve sits up, straightening his shoulders as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened, and turns to respond to the doctor who has come into the room.

 What the hell is going on?  Danny quickly closes his eyes again and tries to think.  He really doesn’t feel injured and all his limbs are still attached.  Maybe there’s a life threatening bullet hole somewhere he can’t figure out?  Maybe he’s been diagnosed with a fatal disease, or the building’s about to collapse? Terrorists, perhaps?  

 It’s got to be something dire, because Steve does not <i>kiss</i> him.  Sure, he throws an arm over Danny’s shoulder, gives him a socially acceptable bro hug, flashes him those shining smiles, but there has never been any <i>kissing</i> involved. They may be friends, even best friends, but it has never gone further than that, no matter how chummy they are on movie night, not even when there was only one bed in that damn D.C. hotel. Steve’s not interested in him, not that way.  If nothing else, Steve leaving the island to find himself right after Danny got shot had made that abundantly clear.  

 Danny resolves to just play dead (not actually dead, just sleeping, it’s a saying) until he figures this out. He’s a detective, after all, there must be some clues to consider if he can concentrate hard enough.  With this decided, Danny forces himself to relax, and hopes Steve buys it.

 “Hey, buddy, good idea,” Steve says, apparently in reaction to his feigning sleep.  “I’d want to tune out, too, if I had a day like you did.  Today sucked, but you’re okay now.  You’re on the mend.  I’ve got you.  Sleep for a while, you’ll feel better.”  Danny feels Steve’s hand land gently on his shoulder, and it’s all he can do not to shrug it off.  It isn’t like Steve to tease him, not when it matters.

 Danny tries to listen when the next doctor comes in to poke at him, but his brain is still foggy and he can’t focus. He thinks he dozes for a while, safe in the darkness.  It’s much less confusing there.  When he surfaces once more, Steve is still right there next to him.

 This is definitely not normal Steve behavior.  Sure, in the past when Danny has gotten injured Steve will sit at his bedside until he wakes up, but then Steve’s off and running, tracking down the suspect, saving the island from the scumbag of the week.  But Danny’s already woken up once, and doesn’t seem to be at death’s door, yet Steve is still here.  It doesn’t make any sense.

 It must be a dream, Danny decides. He got knocked out, his brain got scrambled, and now he is caught in a dream, a dream where his painstakingly secret crush has turned out to be not so unrequited as he thought.  A dream where his feelings for Steve are returned.

 Danny is considering whether he can convince his addled brain to stay in this dream for a while, to bask in the fantasy sunshine of Steve’s love, and maybe get another one or two of those kisses, when his musings are interrupted by a well loved voice.

 “Uncle Steve, hi, I came as fast as I could, how is he?”  

 What is Grace doing here?  She’s in college, on the mainland.

 “Gracie.  He’s fine.  Don’t worry.”

 Steve’s hand leaves Danny’s shoulder (his hand was still on his shoulder?) and Danny can tell he’s getting up and hugging Grace.

 “Is my dad going to be okay?”

 “Absolutely.”

 “But you said he was drugged.”

 “It only lasts a little while, and he’s already waking up.  Come on, sit with him a minute.  Take my chair.  I’ll go grab a coffee.”  

 Danny is distracted by Grace leaning over him and giving him a gentle hug, and then he realizes he’s alone with her. He shouldn’t feel so hurt by Steve’s departure, Steve was never really here anyway.  

 “Danno, stop faking.  Why won’t you open your eyes?”

 Danny can’t help a small laugh. His daughter is too smart for her own good.  He looks up at her, drinking in the sight.  He may not have Steve, but Grace is as wonderful as ever, although she is looking far too grown up for his tastes.  He supposes dreams are weird that way.

 “When am I gonna wake up?” he asks, realizing as he does that dream Gracie isn’t likely to know the answer any more accurately than Danny himself does.

 Grace smiles and shakes her head. “You’re wide awake now, Danno.”

 “Nah, I’m not,” Danny says indulgently. He doesn’t want to argue with dream Grace, but she’s wrong.  

 “Steve says the drugs will wear off soon.  You’re going to be fine.”

 Danny closes his eyes again.  He loves his monkey like crazy, but he does wish Steve would come back too.  They could all be here together in the dream.  A dream family.  That would be awesome.

 “Danno… open your eyes.  Talk to me.”  Grace can still whine with the best of them, even in his dream.  Too bad.  “I’ve got to go soon, I can only stay until Steve comes back.”

 Danny squints one eye open. “He’s coming back?”

 Grace grins at him.  “Of course he’s coming back, silly.  Where else would he go?”

 Okay, that’s not a helpful question. Steve has plenty of other places to go, all of them away from Oahu.  Away from Five-0, and his ohana.  Away from Danny.

 Danny presses his cheek into his pillow and pulls an arm up over his face.  He doesn’t like feeling so confused.  Grace is keeping something from him, and so is Steve.  There has to be a reason for the way everyone is behaving. He just wishes dream Steve would return and keep him company until Danny’s brain clears up and he can return to reality, whatever it might be.  He’d be fine with being best friends again, especially if Steve would keep kissing him every so often.  It could be their thing, their special best friends/partners/housemates thing.

 Danny drifts off, and then Steve is back, bringing the welcome smell of coffee into the room.  Grace whispers something about being late for an appointment, and Steve tells her they’ll talk later.

 Steve sits down next to Danny, and Danny risks a quick glimpse.  Steve is gazing right back at him, a terribly fond look on his face.  Danny quickly closes his eyes again.  He’s got no fucking clue what’s going on, and it’s making him nervous.

 “It’s all right,” Steve says, his coffee breath in Danny’s face.  “Take all the time you need.  I’ll be right here.”  Then there’s an unmistakable brush across Danny’s cheek.

 Again, a <i>kiss.</i> A <i>kiss.</i>  It doesn’t make any sense, but Danny likes it anyway.  Loves it. Is already addicted to it.  He can’t help tilting his head towards Steve, and he’s rewarded with a quiet chuckle and <i>another kiss,</i> this time on the lips.  He wonders if he can dream this dream forever, because it’s pretty damn good.

 “You really should wake up soon,” Steve says, pushing Danny’s hair away from his forehead.  “There’s still lots to do.  Grace is handling some of the last minute stuff, but she keeps asking me questions, and I know you’ve got opinions, even though you’d think everything would be decided by now.  Who knew weddings were so much work?”

 Danny sucks in a breath, stricken. If Steve notices he doesn’t say anything, just moves his hand to hold Danny’s as a nurse engages him in small talk about his favorite surf spots.

 That’s why Steve is here.  Grace is getting married.  Danny knows he should be happy for her, but at the same time, this information sends his dream crashing down around him.  Steve isn’t here for Danny, he’s here for Grace. That’s why he came back from wherever he danced off with Catherine, trekking the Himalayas or saving endangered pandas.  He’s just here for Grace’s wedding, and then he’ll leave again, and Danny will be on his own, pining for what might have been.

 But if Grace is getting married, why can’t Danny picture her spouse-to-be?  And he’s sure that the last time he talked to Grace, she was single, and confidently declared that she wanted to remain unattached, at least until she decided where to go to grad school.  Although, if she’s already thinking about grad school, what’s happened in the meantime?  Isn’t Grace just a sophomore?  

 It occurs to Danny, like a beam through the fog of his mind, that whatever he got drugged with must have affected his memory, because he’s got no idea what led up to his little girl getting married.

 Danny’s confusion must show on his face, because Steve has noticed this time (he can be very observant, it’s annoying how easily he can read Danny), and is now clearly worried about him.  Danny can’t stand this, can’t stand being so disoriented.  Nothing makes sense, and it’s scaring him.

 “Danny?  You okay?”

 Danny squeezes his eyes shut, and a tear slides down his cheek.  Well done, he thinks to himself.  Now he’ll definitely believe you’re asleep.

 “Hey, it’s okay.”  Steve wipes the tear away with a fingertip, and Danny squirms.  “Really, you’re gonna be okay.  Trust me.”

 Now there’s a loaded comment. Trust him. Danny does, though, despite Steve leaving after he was shot, despite the fact that Catherine went with him, despite everything.  Danny doesn’t remember what day of the week it is, or whether Grace is marrying a boy or a girl, but he knows he trusts Steve.  He just wishes someone would tell him why he feels so lost, and why he can’t ever catch a break.  He’d almost rather not have had this stupid dream, not when Steve is just going to leave again.

 “The drugs will wear off soon, Danny. You got a low dose, just hang in there, it’ll get better.  Noelani went over the results from the last victims, and she’s sure of it.”

 Danny’s not sure what Noelani has to do with any of this.  She can’t keep Steve from leaving.

 “Come on, relax.  Take some deep breaths for me.”  Steve is running his hand over Danny’s hair again, and Danny wants to scream.  Deep breaths aren’t going to help this situation.

 “Tell me what’s wrong, Danno. Just tell me, let me help.”

 Steve’s affectionate tone breaks him, and Danny can no longer control himself.  “How soon are you leaving after Grace’s wedding, huh?” he spits out. “Might as well go now.  Save me the goodbyes.”  He knows he probably isn’t making any sense, but he doesn’t care. He just can’t go through it again, losing Steve.  Waiting for his texts as they get more and more infrequent, wondering if things will ever go back to normal.

 Steve takes Danny’s face in his hands, and speaks firmly to him.  “Danny, open your eyes.”

 Danny shakes his head.

 “You are a stubborn bastard, aren’t you,” Steve says, and leans down and kisses Danny, right on the lips. It’s a more assertive kiss this time, and Danny feels himself respond, a strangely familiar feeling coursing through him.

 Danny can’t help looking at him when Steve pulls back, even as he pants to catch his breath.  “Why do you keep kissing me?”

 Steve smirks.  “Preparation for the wedding.”

 “What does that even mean?”

 “We’re gonna kiss in front of everyone, and you’re acting like you’re out of practice.  So, I’m fixing it.”

 “Steve…”  Danny looks around the room, hopelessly out of his depth, but no one is there to give him a clue.  “I don’t understand.”

 Steve’s grinning his just-for-Danny smile, and Danny recognizes it, despite his confusion.  “There <i>is</i> going to be a wedding, you were right about that.  But Grace isn’t getting married.”  Steve shifts and pulls a box out of his pocket and places it in Danny’s hand. “We are.”

 Danny stares as Steve opens the box for him, revealing two simple gold rings nestled in the black velvet.

 “I picked them up from the jeweler yesterday, just before all hell broke loose.  They’re ours, exactly how we wanted.  See?”  Steve takes a ring out of the box and slips it onto Danny’s finger.

 “You’re joking.”

 “I am not.  This is your wedding ring.”

 “I’m dreaming.  Not that I mind, actually, but this has to be a dream,” Danny insists, but Steve just smirks at him and puts the other ring onto his own hand, holding it up and smiling at Danny.

 “It’s not a dream, pal.  Just rest, and try to relax.  You’ll remember soon.”

 “Remember?  What are you talking about?”  Danny’s chest feels uncomfortably tight, and he wonders if he is having a panic attack.  He’s pretty sure you can have a panic attack in your dreams, he’s had nightmares of every shape and size, why not add panic attacks into the mix?  He’s drawn away from this line of thought by the squeak of the hospital chair as Steve shuffles it closer to Danny’s bed.

 “I wasn’t supposed to say anything until the drugs wore off, apparently it agitates people to realize that their memory is impaired.”  Steve leans in and wraps his arms around Danny.  “I didn’t mean to stress you out.”  Steve is pressed so close against Danny, he can feel the rise and fall of Steve’s chest against his own.

 “Breathe with me,” Steve implores. “Come on.  You can do it.”

 Danny does, his nose practically touching Steve’s cheek, warm air exchanged between them as Danny matches his exhalations to Steve’s.  When the room stops spinning, he pulls his left hand out of Steve’s grasp, and looks at the ring Steve placed on his finger.  He slides it off and sees the simple inscription.  <i>Danny & Steve -- 10/1/22</i>

 “No way.”

 Steve catches his gaze, and looks at him steadily.  “I wouldn’t kid you about this Danny, not after how long it took us to get our act together.  This is real, I promise.  Here, wait a sec.”  Steve takes out his phone holds it out to Danny.  “Our engagement party, back in the spring.  You drank three pineapple mai tais.”

 “Now I know I’m dreaming,” Danny mutters.

 “Come on, check these out.”

 Danny looks at the pictures as Steve swipes through them.  There are multiple pictures of Steve and Danny with their arms around each other, dressed smartly in slacks and dark button-downs, elaborate leis around their necks. There’s a picture of them kissing while surrounded by their friends and family.  There’s a sweet one of Danny’s mom in the middle of a Steve and Danny hug, and a picture of Tani doing a Charlie’s Angels pose with Mary and Bridget. Everyone’s there – their friends and family, ohana from the island and from New Jersey.

 Steve swipes to another picture, just the two of them dancing in front of a banner that reads “Congratulations Steve and Danny.”  Each of them have a plumeria flower behind their left ear.

 It’s still awfully hard to believe.

 Steve swipes once again, and this time it’s a silly photo of Danny’s kids making faces behind Steve’s back. This one is easier to accept, although… “Charlie looks so big.”

 “Growing like a weed,” Steve confirms. “Grace is going to bring him by later, if you’re still stuck here.  But I think I’ll be taking you home soon.”

 “Home?”

 “Yeah, babe.  Home.”

 <i>Babe?</i>  Isn’t that Danny’s line?  “This is a very confusing dream,” Danny says.  

 “A good one?”  Steve asks, his eyes searching Danny’s face.

 Danny can’t possibly lie about this. “Are you serious?  It’s amazing.”  Danny doesn’t know what to think as Steve flat out climbs into the freaking hospital bed and snuggles – snuggles – up against him.  Could Steve be telling the truth?  Are they getting married?  How had Danny possibly pulled that off, luring Steve back to the island, away from Catherine, and back with Danny where he belongs?  How had Danny convinced Steve McGarrett to give him his heart? It is both too incredible to believe, and at the same time… Steve asked him to trust him, and he does.  God help him, he does.

 “Enough worrying for now,” Steve says, snuffling against Danny’s neck.  “Sleep for a while.  It’ll all come back to you soon.  Hopefully in time for the bachelor party.  Kamekona’s going to be pissed if we have to cancel.”

 Danny lets himself drift off, safe and warm with Steve’s heavy arms wrapped around him.  When he wakes a few hours later, his fiancé curled up against him, Danny knows this isn’t a dream.  It’s his life, his wonderful, crazy life, and it’s better than any dream he possibly could have imagined.

[written-on-the-trees]

Strawberry Necklace Part 8 - Yungblud Fan Fiction

Word Count: 1925 words.

Warnings: None, for this part. Smut, fem-dom, and prostitution for the whole story.

Summary: Nova explains to her sister about her relationship with Dom...but it turns out Stella isn’t the only one who’s interested.

Where else can you find this:  Ao3  |  Wattpad

Part Seven  |  Part Nine

"So...strawberry necklace boy."

 "Hi Stella. Yes, I'm well, thank you. I got you a latte - no, no, there's no need to thank me." Nova replied blithely, ignoring every unspoken question she'd just been asked and smirking at her sister, who was glaring at her from the chair she'd just dropped into.

 "Nova!" Stella whined: "Stop it! You got a boyfriend, and you're trying to talk to me about coffee. Seriously!"

   Nova just laughed.

 Stella glared and bunched up a napkin and threw it at her hand, but that only made Nova laugh harder at her sister's annoyance.

 It was tempting to keep annoying Stella by evading her questions - both because it was amusing and because talking about Dom was going to be awkward as hell - but her sister would probably move onto throwing heavier objects at some point, and Nova didn't want to get kicked out of another coffee shop. So instead of being a bitch, she shrugged and gestured for Stella to ask her questions.

   Of course, Stella already had a whole load of them - which she had apparently written in her notes app, if the way she started reading off of her phone was any indication: "Right, firstly...is he still treating you right?"

 "Stella, it's been two days since we decided to see each other outside of work - "

 "It's important!" Stella insisted.

 "Yeah...Yeah, he's still treating me right." Nova smiled softly. Because even if it had just been two days, so far everything had been good. Better than good, in fact.

   Stella nodded, apparently satisfied by what was probably a ridiculously sappy expression on Nova's face.

 It was hard not to look a bit sappy; Dom might have left last night, after getting his own text messages about who the hell was on his Instagram story and demands to explain himself from his housemates, but that didn't mean he hadn't made his presence felt this morning. She'd woken up to a really cute text message, and a delivery man knocking on her door to hand over a bouquet of all different kinds of pink flowers.

 Maybe it was just the honeymoon period, but that didn't stop her from feeling like he was amazing.

   "Good. Secondly, are you two dating now? Just seeing each other? Engaged? Planning to elope to Vegas next week? Where are you at? Am I going to be an auntie soon?"

   Nova choked on the sip of tea she'd just taken.

   "Jesus Christ Stella!" she spluttered: "Dating! We are dating! There are absolutely no plans for marriage or children at this point."

 "You sure?"

 "Yes!"

 Stella smirked: "Because I know you have a tendency to announce things via Dom's Instagram..."

 Nova glared and jabbed a finger at her sister: "Fuck off, it happened once."

 Little shit that she was, Stella just laughed: "Speaking off announcing things, have you told anyone else yet?"

 "I didn't mean to tell you. Fucking Sinead and her fucking Instagram." Nova sighed half-heartedly, bearing no actual ill-will to either her niece of her social media: "But no, I haven't told anyone - honestly I only plan on even telling mum, dad, and Orion because I don't want Dom thinking they won't approve of him."

   It was entirely true.

 Nova's relationship with her parents and younger brother was...strained at best. Her parents might be former hippies, but they were judgemental pricks, and Orion had some sort of youngest-child-and-only-boy inferiority complex that meant he was always looking for ways to prove he was 'better' than Nova and Stella. In truth, they probably wouldn't approve of her seeing Dom, but that disapproval would be focused on her, not him; because that was what they did. Disapproved of her.

 She got it; no-one really wanted a dominatrix for a daughter, but it had started getting old around five years ago, and by now she was completely over it. She knew her parents loved her, but they just didn't approve, and though they certainly weren’t afraid to show that, Nova didn't really care anymore. It was old news, as far as she was concerned, and Stella knew all of that, so she was quick to move on to her next question, because there was simply nothing else there to cover.

   "Speaking of family, Sinead thinks you're literally the coolest person in the family now." Stella rolled her eyes: "She's not shut up talking to me about how cool you are because you're dating this famous rockstar, and now she's somehow got Ciara and Finn on board, so you're going to be very popular this Christmas."

 Amused by Stella obviously being put out by her daughter's favouritism, Nova smirked: "I mean, I was already the coolest person in the family, but it's nice to finally have it recognised."

 "Go fuck yourself." Stella responded casually, taking a sip of her latte: "They've all been keeping it really secret, but are you and Dom keeping it a quiet? Sinead's really nervous about letting it slip if she shouldn't."

 "We haven't really spoken about it. From what I can tell, he's never been hugely obvious when he's dating someone, but he doesn't go to many lengths to hide it either. He seemed more worried by my family not liking us dating than anyone else, but for now..."

 Stella nodded in understanding: "Sinead and Ciara can keep it quiet a bit longer. I'm not entirely sure Finn actually knows who Yungblud is, or even if it's the same person that you're dating, so there's no risk there."

   Nova wouldn't lie and say that she was relieved that the girls wouldn't say anything yet. She didn't want to fuck anything up for Dom, which meant she'd have to take his lead on whether anything went further than their families.

 In any case, it might not be a problem. If they tried dating and it didn't work, then it was probably better that it wasn't widely known that they'd been together at all. Dom wouldn't need the questions, and Nova wouldn't need the attention - it would be much better not to have the whole world know about them if there wasn't actually a them. Besides, she wasn't trying to be flippant, Nova had other things on her mind than Dom's Instagram followers.

 She was thinking of quitting her job.

 It wasn't because of Dom...she was just getting tired of being a dominatrix. She'd been doing it since she was twenty-one - not to mention the two years she'd worked in a brothel before that - and she was thirty-two now. It was boring. She was bored of her clients - with the exception of Dom, of course - she was bored of her lack of a real social life, and she was bored of the constant effort to try and look like she was in her early twenties because looks were a huge part of attracting and keeping clients.

 To put it simply...she was bored out of her mind. If she was being honest with herself, she'd admit that she had been for a while, but now she was dating someone - with the intention that the dating would turn into a relationship - Nova was wondering if it was time to move on. The only thing that was stopping her was...not knowing what she was going to do if she did pack it all in.

 Unfortunately, there was no easy answer to that. And so she wasn't going to dwell on it while she was having coffee with Stella.

 Instead, they carried on speaking about Dom, for a little while. Stella was insistent on getting the chance to meet him, but Nova warned her that it wasn't going to be for a while. She wanted to see if they made it past a month yet - if they did, then she would think about him and Stella meeting, since Stella lived so close. About the rest of the family, Nova wasn't sure, but she was sure that she wasn't in any rush for him to meet them, so that was fine for now. After that the conversation turned to a few other bits and pieces, before Stella had to leave to get Finn from school.

 Nova made sure to hug her sister tightly, a silent thank you for so open to Dom being a part of Nova's life, while still wanting to make sure he was good for her, before both of them left together, walking to the tube station together before going to their separate platforms. Nova had every intention of just going back to her flat and making the most of having no clients today, knowing she had and appointment with one of her less preferred customers tomorrow, when a text message from an unsaved number dropped down from the top of her phone screen, interrupting the news article she was reading while waiting for the train.

 An unsaved number, not an unknown one.

   What the fuck does she want?

   The text message itself was uselessly vague - messages from Nova's 'boss' always were. The old woman didn't like to put anything even potentially incriminating in writing. If she had something to say about business, she'd say it over the phone or (as she preferred) in person.

 And it seemed she had something to say.

   Meet me at your house. Five o'clock.

   Nova cursed internally.

 Helen Birch was a woman of few words, but somehow she always managed to make every single one of them feel like they were weighted down with lead. Maybe it was from years of experience, both as a dominatrix and a madam (although she would never admit to being the latter), or maybe it was just her personality, but either way it made reading her texts feel like being threatened...although in this case, it was potentially because Nova was being threatened. Not explicitly, of course, but nothing good ever came from such blunt commands from Helen.

 Sighing, Nova slid her phone into her handbag and boarded the train that had just opened its doors in front of her.

 The way she saw it, she now had two choices.

 One, ignore the message. It would piss Helen off, and likely only invite more arsey text messages. Helen didn't actually employ Nova - that would suggest there were contracts and paperwork and physical evidence - but did own the house Nova rented to work in, and she also took a cut of some of the money Nova got from some clients, if those clients were direct to Nova from her. And over the years she had sent Nova a lot of clients. She'd really helped Nova find her feet as a dominatrix, providing not just clients but also good advice and help when Nova needed it.

 Basically, it would be really rude to go with choice one.

 Choice two, however, was doing what Helen told her. And that...that set a bad precedent. Helen wasn't her boss, and Nova didn't have to go when Helen called. If Helen wanted to tell Nova something, she could ask Nova if she could meet like a normal person. Nova didn't want to give in and make Helen think that she could command Nova to do as she wished, whenever she wished.

 But if she didn't go with choice two, she'd have to wait longer to find out what Helen wanted. And more than anything else, Nova wanted to know why she was being summoned to her workplace.

   Looks like I'll be going to work after all.

    Whatever happened...it should at least be interesting.

[meggannn]

LOL YOUR ROOMMATE?? I can't stop laughing omg

god did i ever share the full story of what happened with my housemate last year? i think i bitched about her a little bit but here’s the full write-up of my six months with that housemate. unedited and probably full of errors and discrepancies sorry cause im going off entirely from memory

i’ve now moved out of this apartment, but i was there for a year with three other girls. two of them i got along with fine, and we introduced ourselves to each other before we moved in because that’s common courtesy to see if we get along right? but basically before any of us could talk or interview candidates for the last spot in the apartment, this girl, i’m making up a name and calling her emily, this random girl named emily basically came in and signed on for the spot on the lease without talking to any of us. uh, okay? so we eventually all get in a group chat and talk and introduce ourselves and plan to move in. day one:  emily moved in before me and i moved in a few hours later. i walk in and see the kitchen and she’s already covered the fridge with magnets and pictures and paper clippings featuring…. herself. like, a few of them had her friends, but most of the pictures were of her. basically. am i crazy or is that fucking weird? so from the get-go she just seemed……. if not privileged (which i also knew she was later), then definitely some sort of weird type of entitled but i couldn’t tell if it was maybe just cultural differences? (she was russian but had grown up in the states. idk)

anyway. she had this boyfriend who would come over occasionally, it was no problem since we didn’t talk and just waved hi to each other occasionally. but from the first week she and another housemate who lived on the far end of the apartment were both having trouble sleeping because someone else on the floor was blaring their tv loudly all hours of the night in the room next door. after several weeks of not being able to sleep through the night, they’d pretty much had enough and managed to track down whose apartment it was, and it turned out to be this elderly black woman’s apartment. i don’t really know if the woman understood why they were so upset because i think she might have been going slightly senile as well, so i think maybe the tv, or the volume, was something she wasn’t entirely aware she was doing? but the other housemate, i’ll call her veronica (who is more chill but was still upset) understood that this was probably not a fight they wanted to pick. veronica noticed that the elderly woman had a middle-aged male visitor, who looked like family, come visit the woman a few times a week and take care of her/take out the trash etc, so veronica decided to wait until she saw the visitor again to talk to him about lowering the volume or turning the tv off, or maybe getting his relative headphones or something. but emily, like….. kept pushing it every single night. every single night for the first month or so she’d stomp across the floor and rap on the door loud enough to wake up the entire floor (the walls were thin and it wasn’t a big building). and most of the time the woman didn’t respond, but there was one notable time someone else got fed up enough to wake up at 2am and yell at emily (deservedly so) for waking up the whole hall. all of which i heard very clearly because my room was next to the main door to out apt.

things escalated when i overheard emily talking to her friend on the phone about the situation and then she mentioned that in retaliation, she went over in the middle of the night and put vaseline on the woman’s door handle. i was kind of stunned and disgusted that a grown ass adult (she’s at least a few years older than me, i’d guess late 20′s/early 30′s?) would do something like that???? but anyway a few nights later iirc, once again in the middle of the night, i was woken up by a shouting match down the hall because apparently the male relative had come back to check in on who he said was his mother, and HE WAS PISSED, UNDERSTANDABLY SO, AT FINDING MY ROOMMATE IN THE MIDDLE OF PUTTING VASELINE ON THE FLOOR CREVICE UNDER THE DOOR. LIKE. THAT’S NOT JUST PETTY BUT REAL FUCKING DANGEROUS TO DO TO AN ELDERLY WOMAN. he basically shouted at her and she kept talking about how she can’t sleep for months because of the noise, and whatever, but she stomped back to our apartment and they had this argument loudly at the door (remember, my room was right next to the front door). i listened to it for a couple minutes wondering if she would like, acknowledge what she did was wrong? and it became clear that she was so focused on the noise she wasn’t listening to this dude, so i came out and i tried to be a voice of reason. the guy was understandably really pissed that she would do something like that and i apologized for her and said she was wrong to do that (she had stomped off back to her room meanwhile) and he seemed grateful to talk to someone who wasn’t batshit crazy in the meantime so he mentioned that he had grown up in this building all his life before moving out so it hurt to see someone treat his mother this way who had lived here for 50 years or something. and after that i was just thinking like, jesus, this is so not the kind of fight you want to have with a family like this as a white woman in a gentrified apartment complex. like at some point you need to realize this is not your fucking place and if you must settle things, do it civilly or just dip out entirely.

i think emily eventually apologized and he accepted and they found out that the tv wasn’t even coming from the woman’s room at all, but from someone on the floor above who THEY also had had problems with for months.

veronica was away on a trip i think during this climax, but before, while it was still escalating, i was talking with veronica and veronica mentioned she and emily had bitched about the noise to each other often, but veronica said she drew the line when emily basically started making her complaints race-themed ever since she found out the elderly woman was black. etc the complaints turned from “it’s too loud” to “this neighborhood is so ghetto” and “that’s what black ppl are like” and stuff like that. veronica wasn’t cool with that, so she planned on handling any other complaints herself directly so she could resolve things like a normal person, but ever since veronica mentioned that i knew emily was a pos

emily also complained about people partying/drinking on the street outside till ~11pm, which imo isn’t too unreasonable, like normal people do, and basically being too loud or whatever. on some level i get it cause she had to go to sleep early to go to work early, but also at some point i was just wondering how she functioned as a human being in the real world

ANYWAY THE STORY I TELL AT PARTIES IS THIS ONE, THE ONE IN WHICH SHE LEAVES (i will try to keep this as short as possible while still giving you all the details you need to understand just how fucking weird it was):

in early november, emily group messaged everyone asking if her boyfriend could come live with us. to her credit she said she wouldn’t do it unless everyone was ok, and she waited to hear back from all of us. i was out of town at the time but i remember being really put off by this idea and i was going to say no, when i noticed that my two other housemates had ALREADY said yes in the chat. just like that. i was stunned. what? like, no follow-up questions or “we dont even really know him” or “how is this gonna work”? were they fucking insane?

i messaged her privately saying i really wasn’t comfortable with it, for xyz reasons. among those being 1) rent, because nowhere did she offer to split the rent five ways instead of four (they were basically going to split her room between them, which, no). 2) fridge/living space, which was small enough with four people to one apartment as it is, and 3) just overall “i dont fucking know him” atmosphere. she messaged back saying she understood, and i got to asking why this was so important to her to do now, because she mentioned she wanted to do it “asap” if we’d said yes.

and this is where my “no” turned into “hell fucking no.” she told me this:

in response to my question of if she’d want to put him on the lease, she said no, she wouldn’t want her boyfriend on the lease in case “something happens so she could just tell him to leave” (raising my question: what, exactly, do you expect to happen? maybe the landlord, who lives in the building, finding out someone’s living here illegally? bc THAT WOULD DO IT FOR ME)

she was marrying him in december which is why she wanted it to happen “soon” so they wouldnt be living apart. i asked why she couldnt just wait until the lease was up to do all this, to which she said:

her boyfriend’s green card (he was russian) had expired so he was now paying month to month and that’s when i realized, oh. bitch he’s using you for a green card marriage and you’re trying to inconvenience all of us instead of owning your life like an adult, or something

at some point during the conversation she like tried to bribe me with a couple hundred extra dollars per month “to cover the cost of the extra utlities/wifi/inconvenience,” which i politely declined. this was when i said basically “look i never got the sense you particularly liked living here (massive understatement) and i think that it’d work out best if you moved out, which you’re clearly already planning to do”

and she did start looking immediately. at some point while she was looking i overheard her talking to veronica mentioning that he was a huge fan of putin and she’d asked him to like, politely, stop?, lmao because she didn’t like his entire yknow politics, and he basically said “i’m sorry, i can’t betray my personal/national identity, i just really believe in putin” or whatever the fuck and i thought to myself, this bitch is marrying him anyway for some godforsaken reason

i don’t know why i hoped that she would be any more considerate moving out than when she moved in, but somehow i was still surprised when the sublet she picked out was someone she never introduced us to or mentioned before, she literally just said “hey here’s your new housemate and when she’s moving in” and dropped us a phone number and facebook page.

one last thing: while emily was moving out, veronica mentioned to me that she was really pleased i stood up to her because she felt massively uncomfortable with the situation too. i asked why she didn’t say something, and she said she talked to emily privately airing out her problems, and emily had managed to talk her into accepting that sort-of bribe privately off message, and emily told her ‘just say yes’ in the chat, so she did and was kind of kicking herself for it after. (our other housemate was off doing fuck knows what at this point; she was gone for weeks on end leaving us to take care of her guinea pigs for her with little to no warning.)

but then, veronica says, the big thing that astounds her is that this wasn’t even the same boyfriend who she’d had when she’d moved in. six months had passed by this point. SHE HAD BEEN DATING GREEN CARD GUY FOR LIKE, THREE MONTHS WHEN SHE DROPPED THIS ON US

and then she moved to fucking harlem, one of the yknow most diverse neighborhoods in the city known particularly for its black heritage, so i guess have fun honey

(her replacement somehow turned out to be just as bad as she was, so you can imagine why i was eager for my lease to end in may)