#my parents just got home from my grandparents so obviously we’re not driving to visit my brother tonight because it’s almost 10pm and he

[sluttyten]

.

[allthatsnullandvoid]

i’ve been a little angry lately. there’s just a lot floating around in my head, because summer is so close. we’re going to galveston beach next month, which is cool, but it coincides with my family’s ward’s youth camp who are there at the same time. (it’s a way of sort of having a family vacation while still just being my parents doing their church job of watching the youth. i’ll just be there with my youngest sibling too.) i wish i could say it means nothing. i wish i could say i could here the words ‘girl’s camp’ without immediately feeling like i’m going to cry. it’s so stupid, but i never really got over it. they sent me home from girls camp when i was 14 for ‘making other girls uncomfortable’. the situation was never explained to me at all. they ‘cornered’ me in front of the showers at the end of the day. they had other people, people i barely knew, touch and pack my things for me while i was in there. they made my father drive two hours, all the way out of state, to get there right as everyone was going to bed. never once was i asked about whatever ‘incident’ that they decided was my biggest fucking sin. i literally got on my knees in the gravel parking lot and begged them to let me stay. i cried until i got sick and never stopped begging. i didn’t want to leave. i wanted to be normal. i wanted to be normal. i can’t really say if i ever truly believed in god, but i can say that was the night i stopped even wanting to believe. i never felt comfortable in church again, after that. i found out a while later that they almost kept me from even going to girls camp. another girls mom complained that i shouldn’t be able to go because i was gay. they treated me like i was some kind of threat. like i was dangerous. a predator. i said the last prayer i ever earnestly tried for that night and it was the beg god to fix me or kill me. if i could not be saved i wanted to die. i honestly think the only thing that kept me from seriously hurting myself that night was the fact that i was so exhausted and detached from everything i felt like i could barely move. my family let me get on a plane to Utah by myself and go join my grandparents on a trip to visit family members, and i think that helped me in the weeks after. to not have to see or interact with anyone from home for a few weeks. it makes me so angry, still. i was 14. i was a child. not only a child, but i child with a history of self harm and depression, who was so obviously desperate for positive attention and some sort of togetherness from the people around me. i was a sad, anxious child and they watched me sob myself sick in the dirt in front of other teenagers and never even apologized. i hate them. i hate them! i’ll never feel normal. i’ve never felt wanted, or safe. i’m always terrified the rug will be pulled out from under me and i’ll be sent away to rot and cry until i can’t move and no one will even be sorry. and it happened nearly a decade ago and i still feel it like an open wound. i’ve just accepted that i must not be a person people want to be around. it’s so hard to believe anyone who tries to tell me otherwise because it feels like everything is just proving me right. the only way to make people like me is to carve chunks out of my self and pretend they were never there. i’m so tired of feeling wrong. i want to go to sleep forever.

[datleggy]

Buddie prompt: aggressively pro-buddie Helena and Ramon Diaz, who are ecstatic when Eddie tells them he's dating, and then utterly befuddled when he introduces Ana. But they decide to bite their tongues about it (Buck, their future son in law, has talked to them about respecting Eddie's decisions, however dumb, after all), until Ana (unwittingly? Innocently? No matter) makes a comment about Buck, and then all bets are off.

Hope this inspires you!

Helena is so relieved that Eddie finally feels comfortable enough to come out to them, that she could cry. She feels awful that it took her so long to realize it. 

It had been on Eddie’s last visit to Texas, when he and his crew had been fighting wildfires, that Ramon--her dense as can be when it comes to matters of the heart husband of all people--had noticed that their son was in love. 

Helena still remembers saying goodbye to her son and his two teammates, remembers Ramon closing the door, waiting exactly all of five seconds before turning to her and saying, “I’m happy for him. He’s so stubborn, I didn’t know if he’d ever let himself get that close to someone again.” 

And Helena had been confused at first, and then even chuckled when Ramon had explained calmly that clearly their son was dating his coworker Buck, until she’d stopped to really give it a moment’s thought. It had hit her all at once, how obvious those two were, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since they’d started dating and why Eddie hadn’t said anything yet. 

She’s seen the photos on Instagram, Helena thinks, as their plane lands. Buck smiling next to her grandbaby after helping her son build him a skateboard he could safely ride in the park. Buck standing shoulder to shoulder with Eddie behind Tia and Christopher in that Christmas photo at the station. The selfie Eddie posted of him and Buck with the giant cast still on his leg the day of the ceremony for when he was no longer a probationary firefighter with the 118. 

Really, she should’ve figured it out months ago. 

When Eddie had called and told her he’d started dating again and that the next time they came to visit he’d make an introduction Helena had been thrilled! 

Ramon drives them from the airport to their son’s place in their rental and Helena rambles on about how she hopes Buck isn’t too nervous to see them again, now that the cat’s out of the bag. 

When they arrive Eddie greets them at the door with a big hug and ushers his parents inside and Helena is so ready to step into the living room and welcome Buck into the family with open arms, to show her son that there was nothing to be afraid of, that they love him and nothing in the world would change that--

Only to be met with....not Buck? 

“Oh,” Helena stops dead in her tracks and Ramon stands beside her looking about as confused as she feels. “Hello.” she smiles politely enough. 

The woman sitting next to Christopher on the couch stands up and she’s absolutely stunning, her curls bouncing on her shoulders when she stands up to exchange hello’s. “It’s so nice to meet you both. My name is Ana.” 

The rest of the afternoon goes by just fine, but Eddie can tell something is amiss the entire time, though he does a good job of hiding it from Ana, who’s her usual charming self through out lunch. 

She has to take a work call at some point and excuses herself to another room and that’s when Eddie turns to his parents and half-whispers. “Ok, I know those looks. What’s wrong?” 

Helena shakes her head, feigning ignorance. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes. “Seriously, what is it? Ana is perfect. She’s incredibly smart, she’s funny, she’s got a great job, good head on her shoulders, and Christopher loves her--so again, I ask, what’s wrong?” 

Ramon follows his wife’s lead. “Mijo, really, it’s nothing. She’s great. We’re happy for you. I think we’re just a little tired from the flight, that’s all.” 

Eddie narrows his eyes slightly but decides there isn’t much sleuthing that can be done at the moment, so all he can do is take them at their word for now. “Fine, if you say so.” 

They’re in the middle of watching Nemo when Buck's name comes up.

"When the tsunami happened Buck and I sang 'just keep swimming' like Dory." Christopher grins up at his dad and Eddie ruffles the curls on his head playfully. It helps Christopher to be able to openly talk about what he went through that day, the good and the bad.

"You never told me Buck was there that day." Ana comments off handedly.

Eddie nods, "Huh, I thought I mentioned it? Buck took him to the pier that morning."

"It was scary but Buck saved me." Christopher tells his grandma, who reaches across the couch to squeeze his arm. Helena had been horrified to hear what had happened at the time; it still gives her anxiety just thinking about it.

"That's right." She says softly.

"I thought some woman you didn't know carried him to one of the tents, and that's how you two were reunited, no?" Ana asks.

"Yeah, but before that, during the initial impact Buck was with Christopher, he managed to get him up to this firetruck in the middle of everything. It was after he dove back into the water to save someone that a second wave came and swept Christopher right off and they got separated from there." Eddie recalls solemnly.

There had been blood running down the dirty wet bandage on his arm, he'd been soaked to the bone, exhausted and barely standing upright. It wasn't until Christopher had been found that Buck had allowed himself to collapse.

"Oh..." Ana frowns.

Ramon puts a hand over his heart and sighs. "It's a miracle, really."

Ana doesn't mean to say it outloud, but the words comes tumbling out of her mouth without warning. "And you're still friends with him?"

Eddie blinks. "What?"

"I'm sorry, really, it's just--I don't understand." Ana rubs her shoulder self consciously, fully aware of the fact that everyone is looking at her. "Look, Edmundo, you nearly bit my head off when Christopher got a skinned knee under my watch but you're still best friends with the man who lost your son for God only knows how long? It doesn't make any sense to me."

Ana knows how overprotective Eddie is of his son, and in fact, that's one of the reasons she likes him so much; she admires that about him and this? It doesn't track with the man she knows.

Helena wants to open her mouth and she say something in defense of Buck--he's a good man, after all. But she knows better than to get between a couple in an argument, especially given how bias she is towards her future son in law...

Instead, she clears her throat and looks at Christopher, "Honey, how about you help me and Grandpa unpack? I bought a lot of fun things from Texas for you."

Christopher doesn't want to go. His Dad looks upset. Ana looks upset. He wants to stay and help. If Ana met Buck she would understand, Christopher's sure of it. But his grandparents are already leading him down the hall and to the guest room.

Christopher hangs out with his grandparents for a few minutes before fibbing and telling them he needs to use the bathroom. They both offer to help him but he insists that he can do it himself, promising to call out if he needs them.

He sneaks the home phone into the bathroom with him and dials a number he knows by heart at this point. He waits a couple of rings before the call connects.

"Hey, what's up?" Buck's voice comes through the other end. He sounds distracted.

"Bucky? Can you come get me?" He whispers into the phone.

He hears a small commotion and then a stifled 'ow!' and then: "Chris? Are you ok? You're home, right? What's wrong? Where's Eddie?"

"I'm home. I'm ok. But--" there's a knock on the door and it startles Christopher into accidentally hanging up the phone before he can explain the situation in it's entirety.

"It was a tsunami." Eddie sighs, "It wouldn't be fair to hold something like that over his head. And look, you weren't there. You didn't see the look on his face, you don't know how many hours he spent crying out Christopher's name at the top of his lungs, injured and looking nonstop through the rubble for him--"

"Yeah, which he wouldn't have had to do if he hadn't lost him in the first place. It sounds like he was too busy playing hero for strangers to watch your son." Ana folds her arms across her chest. "I don't want to fight. Especially not with your parents here. Honestly, I'm just confused? We don't have to talk about this right now. I can go. I just want to apologize to your parents and Christopher first, before I leave, for," she sighs, embarrassed, "well, for causing a scene. This is not the way I'd pictured meeting your parents."

"You know, if you just met Buck I really think you would--"

A cacophony of knocks at the door make the both of them jump. Ana looks at Eddie. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

"Christopher!? Christopher I'm here, open up!"

Eddie gapes. "...Buck?"

"Did you...call him over?" Ana didn't even see him reach for his phone.

"What? No, of course not." Eddie starts towards the door--the knocking has gotten so boisterous he's pretty sure Buck's about to break down his door--but Ana beats him to it.

At this point Eddie's parents and Christopher are in the hallway wondering what all that racket is.

Ana lets the door swing open, and if she's being entirely honest she's not sure what she's planning on saying to the man who's essentially at the center of her first real argument with her boyfriend, but whatever it was, it goes up in smoke when she takes in the sight of him.

Buck is taller than she'd pictured but that's not what's got her speechless.

He's standing at the doorway, chest heaving, clearly having rushed out of his house, where he was very obviously in the middle of shaving, if the shaving cream still smeared on a third of his face is any indication. He's in sweatpants and a white undershirt that's got little drops of blood on the front from where he must have cut himself while shaving. There's a bright red cut running down the underside of his chin.

"Um." Ana can't do much except stare, wide eyed.

Buck blinks at her, "Uh...Ana?" He suddenly realizes all the people in the house behind her are looking at him in a kind of stupor.

She nods slowly. "Buck?"

Buck nods sheepishly, "Uh... So, I am clearly interrupting something here."

"You came!" Christopher moves past all of the adults in the corridor and throws himself at Buck's legs.

Buck lifts the kid up easily enough, crutches and all, "Yeah, about that," he gently pinches his cheek, eliciting a giggle out of Christopher, "What was that phone call all about? You nearly gave me a heart attack, bud."

Eddie groans. "Christopher, did you call Buck to come all the way over here in the middle of the day?" He walks over and uses the cuff of his shirt sleeve to wipe away the rest of the shaving cream on the side of Buck's face. The look on his face is fond as he does so. "What did this little menace say to get you over here in such a rush?"

Christopher pouts. "I just told him to come get me. I thought if Miss Ana met my Bucky she'd know how come you're still best friends." He grips at Buck's t shirt tightly. "You can't stop being friends, Dad. I love Buck. He's my friend too."

Buck frowns. "Umm..."

Eddie gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry, it's not--it's complicated. I promise to explain everything later. Right now isn't really a great time--"

Ana interrupts hesitantly. "Actually, now is probably good. I need to get home soon, it's getting pretty late, so I should get going." She turns to Helena and Ramon. "It was very nice to meet you both." She scoohches past Buck and Christopher and practically sprints to where she parked her car, aware of the fact that Eddie is calling out her name and only half a step behind her.

It's not until they're several blocks down the street that she swivels around and he nearly topples into her in his haste. "Ana, please, I don't want you to leave like this. I really didn't call him over." He reaches into his back pocket and shows her his phone. "See?"

Ana takes the phone and presses her lips together thinly. "He called you like twenty times on his way over."

Eddie frowns. His phone must have been on silent. It's no wonder Buck rushed over like he did. "He was just worried about Christopher--"

Ana sighs resignedly. "No, I know. It's obvious, how much your best friend cares about your son. I can see why he's still in your life. And I think I can also see why that means you don't really have any room for me in it..."

Eddie shakes his head. "What? Why would you say that?"

Ana looks him in the eye, intent as can be on reading him. Eddie had smiled so warmly, creating such an unintentionally intimate moment when all he'd done was swipe at the other mans face with his sleeve...

"You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"I think this is something you and Buck need to sort out yourselves. Goodbye Edmundo."

Eddie closes the door behind him as he steps inside, a little heartbroken and a lot confused.

There's noise coming from the kitchen and so Eddie follows it to the source. Ramon is telling Buck about how to sear the perfect steak by the stove while Helena and Christopher set the table.

"Is everything alright?" Helena asks, when she notices him by the entryway.

Eddie nods, lying when he says. "Yeah, all good Mom."

She gives him a knowing look but keeps her mouth shut. "Honey, take Buck here to your room, let him borrow one of your shirts. And maybe a razor?"

Buck chuckles shyly. "It's fine, really. I should probably get going too--"

Ramon shushes him. "Nonsense. Go, go, get changed and get your butt back into this kitchen. Scoot."

Eddie takes Buck by the shoulders and drags him to his room, where he finds a worn gray Henley for him. "Here."

Buck thanks him before stripping out of his white undershirt and throwing on the clean shirt.

Eddie plops himself down on his bed with a sigh. "Hey, I'm sorry about all this mess. And on your one day off, too."

Buck sits down beside him, bumping their shoulders together. "I don't really know what's going on but, are you doing ok?"

"I don't know," Eddie makes a face. "I think I got broken up with today."

Buck cringes. "Shit, I'm sorry, what happened?"

That's a good question. Eddie ponders that a moment. Ana had said it herself: she understood perfectly why Eddie didn't blame Buck for what happened during the tsunami and she had seen first hand how much Buck cares for Christopher for herself today.

So, why?

"She said that there wasn't any room for her in my life?" Eddie scratches the back of his head. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this dating stuff anymore."

"Aw, c'mon man," Buck pats him on the back. "You fall off the bike you gotta get right back on." He turns his body all the way around so that he's facing Eddie fully. "Dude, you're a catch. You're a handsome, badass firefighter, you've got the best kid, and hey--you got me." Buck grins toothily.

Eddie rolls his eyes, though he can't help but smile. "So what I'm hearing here is that I'm stuck with you?"

"Oh yeah, for sure." Buck laughs.

Eddie leans back on his arms and looks up at his best friend, pensive. "Promise?"

Buck extends his pinky and wiggles it in front of Eddie, who smiles as he wraps his pinky around Buck's. "Promise."

.

[footballxwrites]

Ridiculously in love with your writing so giving another one😂

So read reports that Christian pulisic maybe going back to the bundesliga to play for Bayern so maybe you could write one on that where he feels guilty for not having been able to probably make it work in Chelsea. He’s been with his fiance since they were like 12 and she’s a British citizen and an arsenal fan so she was definitely the happiest when they moved to london as because she runs her own company and their main office is in London. Christian feels like a crap fiancé also because now she’ll have to travel up and down every other week like she did when they were in Dortmund, and she’s done and sacrificed so much for him and he couldn’t even make it work so she can be in her hometown for once and also be with her family, plus they’re looking to start a family so this travelling business and not having grandparents around the corner isn’t ideal either. With all this plus not starting games plus family stuff weighing him down, he starts to be distant from her and she obviously notices. She gives him a bit of space at the beginning but then quickly realises that they should talk about it like they always have in their relationship. So she brings it up and he lets out everything and she’s like “ don’t be stupid, I want the best for your career and if that’s in freaking Finland well go there, you’ve had a tough year and not the ideal start to your time at Chelsea ans that’s okay. Everyone has set backs but we need to make a comeback so we’re gonna do what’s best for you and then go from there. Europe is small and London to Munich or wherever it is isn’t too bad at all, plus you know I genuinely like travelling for work. And when the kids come we’ll just figure out a schedule that puts them first and have you seen our parents, they’re gonna be coming and seeing us all the time. It’s fine, we’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be just fine” and then Christian is just crying by then because how did he get so lucky blah blah blah... can’t wait for this one xxxxxx

Long Distance Love ♡

𝖧𝖺𝗁𝖺 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗇𝗄 𝗒𝗈𝗎! 𝖨 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗊𝗎𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖨 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗂𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍 (𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂𝗍 𝗆𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗌 𝗌𝖾𝗇𝗌𝖾 𝗅𝗈𝗅)...𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗌 𝖨 𝖼𝗈𝗎𝗅𝖽𝗇’𝗍 𝖻𝖾 𝖻𝗈𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗉𝖾𝗅𝗅 𝖼𝗁𝖾𝖼𝗄 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗌𝗈 𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗆𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗌 𝖺𝗋𝖾 𝗍𝗈𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝗈𝗇 𝗆𝖾 😅𝗑

January 10 2021

Suddenly, you felt him stir slightly, readjusting his arms that were snaked around your body, which made your head shoot up to gaze at him, seeing his eyes fluttering open and a lazy smile creep upon his lips as he leaned into a kiss. His arms were quick to pull your waist against his so your head was flat on his chest, listening to the peaceful sound of his heartbeat, instantly making you feel at home. You little moment was cut short when his phone went off and he rushed out the room with a groan, leaving you annoyed and your heart pounding, having a feeling you knew exactly what the phone call was about, hoping he come back and give you the answer you wanted to hear...

“It’s gone through...the transfer” he sorrily spoke, making your breath hitch in your throat, although knowing it was a high possibility of the move actually happening, a part of you was certain he’d be staying here in central London for at least another year. “Guess you’d better get packing then” you softly laughed, feeling disheartened to say the least, the words of “it’s happening” not being the ones you wanted to fall from his lips, “look can we talk about this properly-“ he began, reaching for your hand as you swiftly dodged his grip and made your way to the bathroom, ready for a complete meltdown about everything, “No I have to get ready for work...while I still have my own business” you trailed off, letting the door close behind you with a slam...

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January 2 2019

"The real question is, how did I get so lucky?" you giggled before he gently pushed the mug of coffee into your hands while leaning in to plant a small kiss on your forehead. Instantly, that warm feeling flew through your body just from the smallest, loving touch he gave you, it never getting old. “Good morning, beautiful." he mumbled against your lips, before wrapping his arms around your neck and resting his head on top of yours, “and a very good morning to you handsome” you smiled, feeling the most relaxed you’ve felt in a while, lifting your gaze to him, love dancing in your eyes as you leaned in to clasp your mouths together.

"Kissing you never gets old," you mutter softly as you both pull away, Christian flashing you a cheeky grin before spotting his luggage packed and ready for the off beside the front door of your new complex, a sigh falling from his lips, “can’t believe I arrived here a week ago and I’m already flying back to Germany” he frowned, pulling a pout. “It’s only six months and it’ll be over before you know it, I’m not going to lie I will miss living over there, especially the weather” you giggled, messing up his perfectly gelled hair to which you got no thanks for, “hands off, this took ages to do” he said, pretending to be serious and grabbing your hand as if to say ‘go on do it again I dare you’. “I’m gonna miss you, the apartment’s gonna seem empty without you here...and it means I have to build all the flat pack furniture from IKEA myself” you huffed, pointing at the hundreds of cardboard boxes filling the spacious room as he laughed, culling your face and running a finger along your cheek, “you’ll be fine, we’ll FaceTime every night and whenever we have a minute spare because you’re gonna be busy as hell now...my super business woman” he winked as you shook your head, still not quite believing you actually own a company, like a whole ass company belonged to you and it was mad to just even picture it.

“Ah shut up, you’re making me blushing Mr Pullisic, now go before you miss that flight of yours” you grinned, going in for one last peck while shoving him out the door with a struggle, feeling like his clingy self wasn’t ever gonna leave, “I love you, see you in half a year” he happily said, grabbing his many cases and walking out, letting the door gently fall closed...

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July 1 2019

The classic iPhone ping went off as an incoming text message lit up your phone screen, instantly opening the pic attachment of him saying ‘en route’ which meant he was on his way and by god you couldn’t wait to just see him in person after all this time. He barely got through the front door before you took a leap, linking your legs around his torso as his hands secured under your thighs to carry your weight. Squeezing him tight, you rested your head in the crook of his neck, enjoying his presence as a laugh escaped his lips, “missed me just a bit?” he stupidly asked, not even bothering to let you answer before smashing his lips on yours for the first time what felt like in forever.

Gently tapping your legs, he slowly placed you feet on the ground and then cupped your face, pulling you in for another long, loving kiss, “so how’s everything been then, and by the way you’ve done a good job decorating this place” he nodded, eyes gazing at all the modern interior, “funny you asked, I managed to open two more branches this week, one in Gateshead up north and the other in Manchester!” you exclaimed letting out a small squeal, not able to control your excitement any longer as his eyes went wide with joy. “I didn’t think you could make me any prouder but I guess I was wrong eh” he gushed, heading over to sort out his cases, “I’m saying the same about you” you laughed as he pulled out a couple man of the match awards along with a jersey signed by all the teammates. “It felt strange to say goodbye to them after all these years...but it’s time for a fresh start, here in London with Chelsea Fc and with you” he whispered, excited for the new chapter in your lives to finally begin.

——————————————————

The next year could only be described as perfect for the both of you, his career taking off and loving every moment at the club, getting along with everyone in the dressing room and then loving the fans and atmosphere within the stadium, and knowing you were in the stands somewhere cheering on your ‘captain America’ made it all the more special. As for you, your company was doing beyond amazing, going from National to world wide, owning buildings in Dubai, Spain and you’ll never guess where, Germany. Your main branch was of course London, where the company was founded and to which was the office you managed and were based at, meaning you rarely visited the abroad ones but you weren’t complaining, with you being a London gal to be in your home city with your own bloody business was unimaginable, not to mention you were only a 20 mins drive from your family.

Oh yeah and he popped the question about four months into the move on your eight year anniversary which you of course said yes to, already having planned out your dream wedding, the pair of you agreeing to have it here rather than America with work and travel and all that malarkey.

For the first time in ages, it all seemed to be coming together for yous...

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January 10 2021

8 hours later and the two of you hadn’t spoken all day, with him going off to what you assumed was his last training session and proceeding to ignore you and your many questions, you decided to go to work too, trying to get this whole moving countries once again after only one fucking year back home thing off your mind.

“Right that’s it, you’re going to talk to me Christian because you must think I’m a mind reader or something and I can just tell what’s going in in that brain of yours” you said, stumbling through the door and throwing your keys in the side before throwing yourself on the sofa beside your sad looking boyfriend. “I’m sorry” was all he could say, looking down at the ground leaving you with a confused frown on your face, “enough with the apologies, I just want to know what this means, for us” you sighed, placing a hand on his cheek and giving it a small pinch, hoping it’d put a smile on his lips.

“Well I’m definitely leaving Chelsea, guess not everything works out...but it means I’m back off to Germany” he said as you slowly nodded, “you have to do what’s best for your career, ok?” you smiled, running a hand through his hair as he was quick to shake his head, “no I can’t. I don’t wanna leave you, not again. And anyways we’re supposed to be trying for a baby and that’s going to be a challenge if we’re in different countries don’t you think?” he’s spoke with a slight laughter. “I’m not arguing with you Pullisic, go and sign that contract and get yourself away to Germany to revive your job. I’m not saying I’m going to drop everything and move again because I have my work and life, but I can easily fly out and visit, you’re forgetting I have an office over there. As for kids, we’ll get to that part when it comes around...so just take one step at a time and get on the phone to your agent to tell him you’re taking the transfer” you blurted out with a soft smile, knowing exactly what you were saying and that this was just another step in your life, at the end of the day, life isn’t life without it’s challenges along the way...❤️

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If you got this far reading it, I hope you enjoyed it! x

@kingkepa @champagne-coys @footballcloud @footballmagical @alexajanecollins @masonmounts @hoely-pavard @hazardybala @jamesmaddiscnx

[lovelyirony]

my cherries and wine, rosemary and thyme (And All Of My Peaches)

@peachy-keener to the best of the best ;), and @angxlsgrxce, the extension of the prompt that she filled! the prompt was not taken quite literally: set during fall...but i think that it makes the best of it 

Harley had grown up going to his grandparents’ house on his Dad’s side for years. He had grown up chasing his cousins around, Grams chastising him for being skinny as a bean pole. 

“You’re just like your Papa,” she’d say, stirring the cider at the stove as Harley “helped.” (Ate most of the cranberries.) 

“Good,” he’d say, mouth stained a brilliant purple. 

“Not good,” Dad would say, swinging his son into his arms and peppering him with kisses all over his cheek. “That means I have two insomniacs.” 

“But you also have a Pepper at your disposal,” Papa said, coming in from behind. “Hey Mama, thanks for letting our little bambino steal berries from you.” 

“It’s why I buy extra,” she says with a wink. 

As Harley grew up, he’d seen near-about-everything that happened. He’d heard all the stories, but his favorite was about the year Tony finally got to visit. 

“They thought we wouldn’t know,” Grandpa said, cutting up the ham with a laugh. “My damn fool son thought that I wouldn’t notice when he was gone on somebody.” 

“Language, dad,” he would say, and Harley would grin up at his dad. 

“He doesn’t need a lesson in what not to say,” Grandpa would say. “And you’re ruining the story. Anyways, here they are, cuddled up in a blanket...” 

Harley wants that. He wants to find someone he loves so much to bring home. He wants to dance with them in the kitchen when they’re supposed to be on clean-up, crooning to scratchy old records that made it past college dorm rooms. 

He wants to look across the table and smile fondly, and hold hands with whoever it is. 

His parents tell him it’ll be soon. 

“Before you know it, my mad scientist,” Dad says, grinning. “You’ll find someone that you’ll take their breath away.” 

“And hopefully it’s not because they’re asthmatic,” Papa quips. 

Harley giggles. 

“Goodnight bambino,” Tony tells his son. “Get good rest and wake up happy tomorrow.” 

“I promise,” Harley says sleepily. “Mostly.” 

Tony and Rhodey leave his room, and they smile at each other. 

“It’ll be too soon,” Rhodey says to his husband. “And then he will grow up.” 

“And we will be there for all of it,” Tony says, pressing a kiss to his husband’s forehead. “Besides, I can’t wait to see who Harley finds.” 

Harley meets a boy from Queens who talks a bit more than necessary, accidentally slapped him in the face while emphasizing his point about Jurassic Park during lunch, and has the most brilliant smile he’s ever seen. 

He can’t believe he knows him. 

Also, that they work together. Kind of. It’s an internship, but they also take most of the time to discuss conspiracy theories and challenge Ned with different programming games. 

“What do you think about adding some extra web spots on the sides?” Peter asks him. 

Harley is staring. A lot. 

Peter is wearing a good shirt. Funny pun. He is the funniest. And the cutest. He has these laughter lines by his eyes that always come up when he’s laughing really hard, and it’s so cute, and--

“Uh...Harley? You okay?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Um. Yeah. I’m all good. You were saying about side-lining your webslingers? Why?” 

“No, moving some to the side,” Peter says. “Like this.” 

Harley frowns at the diagram. 

“No, you splay out your hands too much when you’re Spidey. Web gets caught, you end up getting thrown at a ninety-degree angle or something. Skip it.” 

“How do I never think about the most obvious things,” Peter mutters. 

Harley has it on the tip of his tongue to mention that he is completely gone on him, and everyone knows it. Including his parents, which he isn’t exactly a fan of. 

Especially since Rhodey has been behind Peter at his work desk, mock-batting his eyelashes and throwing hearts up on any single display screen that Friday has control of. (She essentially staged a coup, and Jarvis let her.) 

“Dad,” Harley hisses out. “Stop.” 

“Stop what?” Peter asks, grin on his face. “What are you guys doing?” 

“Oh, nothing much,” Dad says. “But, that does remind me that I need to be doing something, and that is discussing Thanksgiving. We’re leaving for Grams’ early, around eight.” 

“Then cider!” Harley says, grinning. He turns towards Peter. “What about you, what plans you got?” 

“Oh, I think I’m going to attempt to make myself a mean turkey sandwich while May’s out,” Peter says. “Had to be on-duty for this year, but she gets Christmas off this year.” 

“What?” Harley says. “You’re not going over to Ned’s or anything?” 

“Ned’s visiting with Betty’s family, and MJ...I don’t know what she’s doing, but it’s something with family. She’s been sending me depressing poetry for half-an-hour.” 

Harley snorts. 

“Well that sucks, Peter. Sorry to hear that.” 

“It’ll be okay!” Peter says. “Just means I get to watch Star Wars with no complaints from you or Ned about my choices.” 

"I will find a way to have you avoid watching the prequels, they all suck.” 

“Sure they do,” Peter says. “That’s why everyone still watches them.” 

“It’s because everyone likes to make fun of them, not because they’re quality.” 

Peter laughs. 

“Maybe you’re right. But I gotta get going, Aunt May is trying to cook again.” 

Rhodey winces. 

“You want me to call Vietnamese food to-go ahead of time?” 

“I’ll see if I can help her any.” 

Harley waves goodbye, telling him to text when he got home. 

“I’m Spidey, I know how to get home safely,” Peter says, smiling anyways. “But I will. Anyway. Just to humor you.” 

“You have run into a telephone pole as Spidey before, you truly still think I have faith in you?” 

“I think a little bit of faith. Maybe a tad.” 

Harley rolls his eyes. 

“Go home before May successfully burns down the apartment complex this time.” 

“Will do!” 

Peter smiles one last time before exiting. 

“You, my dear son, are in love,” Rhodey announces. 

“Dad!” Rhodey snickers. 

“You did not learn subtlety from me, you learned it from your Papa, which is to say: you have learned no subtlety. It’s not my fault you’re entertaining.” 

“Ugh.” 

- 

But Harley keeps thinking about Peter. 

He knows that Peter is going to hate being alone, no matter how much he would actually watch the prequels. Peter hates being alone anyways. He’s always at least with someone, can’t stand being by himself. 

And on a holiday? One that’s usually spent with family of some kind? 

Well...it shouldn’t be that way. 

So at dinner, as Dad and Papa are talking about some sort of update on a phone, and Harley says it. 

“Can I invite Peter to Thanksgiving?” 

Dad and Papa stop. 

“I’m sure he’d love that,” Papa says softly, grinning. “I’m assuming it’s because he told you that May is on duty for that day?” 

“Yeah. I don’t think...I don’t want him to spend it alone.” 

His parents share a look, a look that they’ve shared a million times, one filled with soft understanding and so much love. 

“I’ll let Grams know we have an extra guest,” Tony says. “After all, it is my turn.” 

Dad snorts. 

“Sure it is, honey. Alright, Harley, call him up.” 

Harley grins, practically giddy. He’s excited to share this with Peter, to have him in this life. 

(And yeah, he’s hoping that it’s like the stories that Dad tells him at night, the ones over iced water and quiet reassurances late at night.) 

He presses the contact information, smiles as Peter answers on the second ring. 

“Harley, did I forget something?” 

“I don’t think so, no. But I wanted to ask you something.” 

“W-what did you want to ask me?” Peter asks. His voice sounds faint, almost nervous. 

“You sound weird. You okay?” 

“Yes. I am more than okay. I am perfection.” 

“Okay loser, don’t tell me. But I wanted to invite you to Thanksgiving with us.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. No one should be alone.” 

“I mean, I don’t want to trouble you. I can be fine on my own.” 

“Peter, you are a terrible liar. You hate being alone. Besides, you’ve never had Grams’s cider before, and that clearly needs to be fixed.” 

“You don’t have to twist my arm,” Peter says, laughing. “What do I need to bring?” 

“A blanket and maybe a sleeping bag if you got one. If not, no big deal, we just usually stay the night since it can be a bit of a drive.” 

“You sure you still want me coming?” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

“Um...it’s family time?” 

“You’re close to me, Peter,” Harley says. “And I want you around all the time. I’m just glad you wanna come. You’re gonna love Grams.” 

“Okay. What time should I swing around Stark Tower?” 

“Uh...lemme ask.” 

Harley hops off his bed, phone at his shoulder. 

“Papa, what time do you want Peter over for the ride?” 

“Seven-thirty!” Tony says. “Unless you two want to canoodle before you’re stuck in the car with us geezers or something.” 

“Stop!” Harley hisses, glaring at his father as he snickers. “Uh, Peter, did you hear any of that?” 

“Something your Papa said made you yell, but nothing else?” 

“Okay, get here by seven-thirty in the morning, if that’s okay.” 

“I’ll set my alarms.” 

“Alarms?” 

“Well, I don’t wake up that easily.” 

“And here I thought Spidey-Sense was real.” 

“Hey!” 

- 

Harley decides he’s made either the worst decision of his life or the best, and it all depends on if Papa catches him staring so blatantly at Peter. 

He’s cute when he’s sleepy. He leans against the kitchen counter, and he’s still in an over-sized sweater with a scarf lazily wrapped around his neck. Harley really wants to fix it, just reach out. It’d be so easy, so cute 

“Harley I swear to god, please get your bag in the car before it becomes like the worst-family-picture-event,” Papa says. 

Peter seems to perk up at that. 

Of course. 

“What would the worst family picture be?” 

Rhodey already has his phone out. 

“Harley forgot his bag, which had all of his clothes. Only a Wal-Mart was open, and...” 

Head-to-toe sports neon. It was bad. Harley was frowning with his brows lowered in an obviously-frustrated expression while Tony and Rhodey sandwiched him, obviously bemused by the happenings of the holiday. 

Peter laughs. 

“Aw, you were so cute when you were little,” he says, smiling. “Really cute.” 

“Even in neon?” 

“Well, you’re cute in anything. Even neon.” 

Harley nearly spills his coffee. 

The ride there is mostly quiet. Tony hums along to the music, smiling slowly at some as Dad explains how Papa was the worst dancer on earth. 

“Not as bad as Peter,” Harley pipes up. 

“Harley.” 

“Oh come on, it’s cute,” he teases. “The way your arms flail like spaghetti is endearing.” 

“See if you get a sandwich from Delmar again.” 

“Oh the tragedy,” Harley moans. “No sandwich from Delmar!” 

Peter laughs. 

“You two get some sleep, Mama isn’t gonna stop bothering you two,” Tony decides moments later. “Come on.” 

Getting to sleep is...not easy. Especially when you’re supposed to. But Peter smiles. 

“Share a playlist with me?” 

“Sure.” 

Peter’s music taste is amazing. Seriously. Harley usually sticks with what Papa plays, although occasionally he’ll foray into some of what MJ plays. 

Peter’s music is relaxing. It’s light, easy. There are undercurrents of a deeper meaning, and what the memories make it be. 

The current song reminds him of the end of the summer that year, when they had an end-of-summer-picnic and he fell into the pond, and Peter couldn’t stop laughing and took about a million pictures of Harley actually in the water. 

"You remembering that time I fell?” Harley says, grinning at Peter. 

“I’m remembering how good my photos turned out,” Peter says, although he smiles. “You made a fantastic model. You always do.” 

Harley turns red. 

“Um, thanks. I always have a great photographer, wouldn’t you know it?” 

This time, Peter turns red. 

“I’m gonna try to take a nap,” he says. “Mind if I use your blanket?” 

“Not at all.” 

And Peter settles against his shoulder. 

It’s uncomfortable, but hell if Harley minds it. He smells good, and he’s so soft. He probably needs sleep. Knowing Peter, he probably stayed up half the night with homework, or something that had been a project for SI. 

Rhodey catches his son’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and nods. 

After all, there’ll be more than enough questioning when they get to Mama’s. 

- 

Harley gently jostles Peter awake as they pull into the driveway. It looks like some cousins are already there, and Mama is already halfway out the door, most likely intent on attacking her son-in-law in kisses and hugs, and seeing how tall Harley has grown. (One inch, but now he’s taller than Tony.) 

“My baby!” she declares, attacking Harley in kisses. 

“Grams,” Harley whines. “I need to help Peter out of the car.” 

“Oh let me see him,” she says, grinning widely. 

“Don’t make him scared of us.” 

“Why would we be scary?” 

“I’m not mentioning the incident of 2011.” 

“That was one time!” 

And then Peter is out the car, grinning. His cheeks are flushed from warmth, and he’s already helping take out the luggage and the dishes from the car. 

“You must be Mrs. Rhodes, it’s good to meet you.” 

“Call me Grams, young man,” she says, eyes sparkling as she turns to Tony. “He reminds me of you at this age.” 

“I was not nearly so scrawny,” Tony says with a wink. “I was charming and devastatingly handsome.” 

“Oh yes, because nothing says devastatingly handsome like train tracks for a mouth,” Rhodey deadpans. 

“And yet what did we do in your room? As I recall, you--” 

“Tony!” Grams admonishes. “Not in front of the kids, and not in front of me.” 

Tony smiles sheepishly. 

“What can I say? I have wormed my way into your heart.” 

“Unfortunately,” Rhodey says. “Peter, watch out for Tony. He can get away with anything, he’s Mama’s favorite. Even though I’m her son.” 

“Well when you fix a finicky Ford in freezing weather, tell me immediately.” 

“Still?” 

“Still!” 

Harley drags Peter, holding his hand. 

“Come on, you have to meet everyone still.” 

- 

Peter is just a bit overwhelmed, but mostly laughing as Harley takes him around the house. 

He meets Grams and Grandpa and hears all about Harley’s embarrassing stories, and he thinks it is rather nice, the dusting of red that Harley gets on his cheekbones. 

It’s a bit odd. Usually, he and May just watch Seinfeld reruns on the couch, or sometimes May has a friend’s apartment that they go to. 

They’ve given up on ever fixing an Official Thanksgiving Dinner after Ben, and maybe it’s too bittersweet a memory, or maybe it’s because when Ben died, there went the last of the talented Parkers in the kitchen. 

So Peter is surprised when Harley leads him to the kitchen to help him prepare the potatoes. 

“I make the best roasted potatoes,” Harley says. “It’s from the family cookbook, but I always add a little extra.” 

He leans in conspiratorially, and Peter catches a whiff of his cologne. 

“It’s extra onion. Don’t tell Papa-Tony-he’s been trying to get it for forever.” 

“I shall promise,” Peter says solemnly, saluting. “Scout’s honor.” 

“Were you ever in the program?” 

“For a year. I dropped out after I accidentally almost became a missing persons case.” 

“Please tell me it was because you chased a butterfly.” 

“How did you-?” Peter splutters. “How did you guess?!” 

“It’s a you thing, and I know you,” Harley says, poking his shoulder. “Now come on, help me peel potatoes before Grams makes you set dishes with Aunt Lola. She’s nice, but...talks a lot.” 

“I gathered.” 

It’s peaceful, almost. Peter works easily, handing peeled potatoes to Harley, and when they’re all done, helping chop them. 

“Thanks for inviting me,” he says quietly. 

“You don’t need to thank me,” Harley says. “I, um. I wanted you here.” 

“You...you did?” 

“You’re the best person in my life,” Harley says softly. “And I, well, I--” 

“Harley!” comes a yell. 

He seems frustrated to Peter’s eyes. 

“What, Dad?” 

“Come here and help me with an air mattress for your cousin Vince!” 

“Why can’t he help?” 

“He’s supervising your Aunt Jeannie at the store!” 

“Why does she need supervision?” 

“She watched Chopped!” 

Peter laughs as Harley huffs. 

“Well, we’ll come back to it,” he says softly. “Don’t worry.” 

Peter finishes with the potatoes, and moves onto the onions. He looks at the stained page in front of him, and sees a small addition in Harley’s unmistakable engineer-block-writing about more onions. 

He smiles. 

He wonders if when he grows up, they’ll have a-- 

OH. 

Well. It’s not exactly a surprising thought. He’s been in love with Harley since freshman year of high school, after their second week of gym when Harley dramatically decided to pass out and shorten the class by about twenty minutes.

When Harley looked back and grinned at Peter, right at him, it was then and there that he fell.  

(MJ called him “the most love-struck boy in the world”.) 

- 

Harley bounds down the stairs, grinning as he sees Peter at the table, helping Grams with the cider. 

“You’re trusting someone to help you after all this time?” 

“You finally bringing someone after all this time?” 

“Grams, I’m still young.” 

Her eyes sparkle as she pushes some cranberries towards Harley. 

“Picked out some extra. And I remember when your Dad was your age, don’t think I don’t have the guts to tell the stories.” 

She gets up from the table. 

“You know the recipe by heart, love. Help your guy with it.” 

Harley slides into her seat, grinning softly at her. 

“Thanks Grams.” 

“I’ll come and see your results in a bit.” She smiles fondly. 

Peter and Harley are alone. 

“So.” 

“So.” 

Harley turns red. 

“So, um. Is it okay if I’m awkward for a minute? And I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, but I think it’ll be okay.” 

“You’re always awkward,” Peter says softly. He’s stopped cutting up the oranges, knife laid to the side. 

“Well. Um. Yeah.” 

“Harley,” Peter starts out. “You can tell me anything. I promise you that it will be okay.” 

Harley looks at him. And really looks at him. 

“Can I...can I dance with you?” 

Peter’s eyes widen. 

“Really?” 

It’s getting late, the night already dark for hours. The family is quieting down, and most have retired to their respective rooms. 

“Yeah, really.” 

Harley drops a record on the old player, smiling as the familiar croonings of Bing Crosby lift over the house. It’s a favorite of his dads: Only Forever. 

Peter stills as he hears the lyrics: 

Do I want to be with you as the years come and go? Only forever, if you care to know...

“You mean...?” 

“I mean it all, darling. I mean it all.” 

Peter smiles and there’s almost a tear in his eye as he leans his head on Harley’s shoulder. 

“I love you, Harley Keener.” 

They sway like that for a moment, and all is well. Harley breathes out, and he listens to Peter’s heartbeat slow down. It’s a good moment. 

-

For their wedding album, Tony surprises them with a picture of their first dance. The real one.

Harley absolutely does not cry and if anyone says that they saw him, they are lying liars who have received uninformed news. 

(No matter what his husband tells them.) 

[wordupcomics]

Could you give us a little summary of Theo's birth? I would like to see Tobey's reaction😂 I imagine Becky (in labor) holding Tobey's hand while he told her things that make her angry to facilitate labor HAHA JA. Please u.u

I feel like if Tobey said anything  to make Becky mad while in labor she would have said "That's an awful bold thing to say to your wife with super powers while she's in labor" and that would have been the end of that 😂

Obviously Tobey was waaaaaaaay more freaked out than Becky. As he was driving to the hospital he was panicked, screaming at other drivers, "GET OUT OF THE WAY! GO FASTER! WOMAN IN LABOR HERE!!" And Becky is just sitting there, getting progressively more annoyed thinking "I can fly, why didn't I fly myself to the hospital. What was I thinking?"

They get to the hospital, and get Becky settled in,

Tobey: Okay, how are you? Are you comfortable? Becky: I'm in labor so no, not exactly

Originally I had an idea that when Theo was born, Tobey held Becky's hand and she ended up breaking it, and because of that incident, when it was time for Julie's birth, he built a robot hand for Becky to hold instead because he wasn't going to go through that again. But in all honesty, I feel like with Becky's super strength, which likely only got more powerful as she got older, Becky wouldn't have just broken Tobey’s hand, she would have completely shattered it, possibly beyond repair. So now my idea is that Tobey anticipated this for Theo's birth and made some sort of robot hand for her to hold for Theo's birth.

Tobey: I'm sorry, my love, but I will not be holding your hand during this! Not when you have super strength! Instead, you can hold this robot hand! Becky: Are you kidding me? You're being ridiculous! Do you honestly think I'm going to break your hand or something? Tobey: Yes! Yes, I most certainly do!

Tobey starts making calls, letting friends and family know the baby is on the way, some of them would come to the hospital if they could, for the next part I was originally imagining Scoops and Violet, but their daughter, Daisy, is only a year older than Theo (give or take a few months) and I don't think it would be practical for them to visit with a young baby while Becky was still in labor, since you don't know how long that will last, it would be smart for them to visit after Theo was born instead of having to handle their own baby in a hospital for potential hours. So instead this next part might be either Becky's parents or Tobey's mom and step dad, idk I'm just gonna call them "visitors" because I haven't decided

Visitors: How are you doing Becky? Becky: I'm fine. Could one of you please please please take Tobey outside for some fresh air? He's not fine...

And I have Becky acting calm but I'm sure any woman's first time giving birth is scary, so I think she's acting calm on the outside for Tobey's sake, and inside she's thinking "I can do this...for crying out loud I've battled dangerous villains since I was a child! Certainly I can handle this!" Even internally though, Tobey's still far more freaked out than Becky is.

Doctor: Breathe, breathe— Becky, eying Tobey having a nervous breakdown: Look I think my husband needs these instructions more than I do....

Becky does hold the robot hand Tobey made for her...and breaks it....The doctors and nurses look at the mangled piece of metal and Tobey has to just give and awkward laugh and say "How foolish of me to make this from such a flimsy material!" so that they don't realize Becky has powers. Later...

Tobey: SEE! This is precisely why I refused to hold your hand! This could have been my hand!!! Becky: It's ...not that bad... Tobey: THIS IS SOLID STEEL! YOU MANGLED SOLID STEEL!

Obviously once Theo was born and they each held him for the first time was heart-warmingly emotional. An emotional moment that Tobey kinda ruined by awkwardly saying to his newborn child "I'm your dad...and I'm very sorry about that..."

After Theo was born Scoops and Violet would have come with Daisy, and I can picture them holding up Daisy to Theo and saying "They're going to be best friends!!"

And this I can't decide when it would happen, after Theo's born, while Becky's in labor or while she's pregnant, idk. So Tim and Sally are called Grampy and Grammy by all three of their grandchildren, these names inspired by Tj and Becky calling their grandfather Bampy. However Claire seems like the kind of grandparent who would go by simply Grandma. Now Claire has since remarried a man named Alexander (also goes by Alex). Alex spent some time brainstorming what Tobey's child(ren) should call him, since he's Tobey's stepfather, and again I haven’T decided exactly when this conversation takes place but this is how it goes:

Alex: Tobey, I wanted to run some ideas by you on what your child can call me when they're older Tobey: What? Alex: Like what Becky's parents are doing, they are opting to go by grammy and grampy. I've been brainstorming names for myself Tobey: Oh, I didn't realize you wanted to go by something else. Mother said she was fine with being called grandma and I just assumed you were alright with being called grandpa Alex: Well I mean I don't have any issue being called grandpa, and I realize that that's what your kid or kids will see me as but technically I'm not their grandpa and I just felt like I'd be overstepping if they called me that. So the ideas I came up with are— Tobey: Stop. You're not going to go by anything other than grandpa because that's exactly what you are. You are more than a father to me than the man who actually is my father, and you will most definitely be more of a grandfather to this child or any other children that Becky and I might have. You are their grandpa and that's what I want them to call you.

Later when they brought their new baby home (they were still moving in, by the way) they settled in this conversation ensued (remember Theo is trans and his parents were using she/her pronouns prior to him coming out)

Becky: It's so good to be home! And now we have a sweet little baby to share it with! Tobey: Yes. (pause) Tobey: You realize we have to raise her now right? Becky: Yeah I don't know how we're going to do that... Tobey: How long do you think before we each call our parents crying because we don't know what we're doing...? Becky: Probably a week...two if we're lucky...

It was more like two days...

[toogoodmusic]

THE TOO GOOD TEN with MADS LANGER

Growing up in the countryside near the small town of Skive, singer, songwriter and musician Mads Langer grew up always knowing he’d be in music. From singing songs at the age of 18 months in his own language to his latest release, “Lightning,” the new dad has been pursuing the dream for a long time now. Through honest, original and disruptive music the Danish singer has been able to be reborn time and time again through his music and continues that creativity as he looks to the release of his upcoming EP, Where Oceans Meet. The boundary pushing message of love is love in “Lightning” serves as a taste of the upcoming EP and contributes to the already 38 million streams and 506k monthly listeners he’s amassed across his career. He takes a break from his world domination to take on the latest Too Good Ten. Check out the full interview below to learn more about the latest release, “Lightning,” how becoming a dad has changed his perspective on life, how he rebounded from getting dropped by his girlfriend and label around the same time and much more.

The Too Good Ten. Ten Questions. One Artist. Too Good.

1. Looking at the beginning of your career – what was it about music that inspired you to pursue a career in it?

MADS LANGER: Expressing myself through music has been a fundamental part of my language for as long as I remember. My parents have recordings of me singing my own songs in my own language when I was 18 months old. I always knew that music was going to be my path in life. It wasn't a decision that I made at a certain time. It was more a realization that I was not gonna be able to pursue any other career even though I’ve always had plenty of other interests. I could have been in politics, in sports, in science and many other things. I could have been a teacher as my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents were. And then again, none of these career paths were ever up for grabs. Music was and always will be my thing.

2. You got signed and had an album that you ended up describing as “flopped” and had to start over and spent time busking all over Europe. How did you come to the decision to busk in the wake of “starting over?” What did you do to keep your internal mental conversation strong through the hardships that I assume came with traveling around?

ML: I got signed when I had just turned 18. I went straight from living in my parents house, in the countryside of Denmark, to living a life full of pressure and expectations in New York City. That was quite a shocking change of scenery to be honest. Looking back, I was definitely too young at that time. When a major label first wants you it’s the end of the innocence. I had to grow up overnight and try to keep up with that big machine that started dictating how I was gonna live my life. When my first record didn't succeed commercially and I got dropped I think I saw it as an opportunity to do some of the stuff that most of my friends had done after finishing high school. But most of all that whole 6 months of busking in my old van all over Europe was an escape from heartbreak. My first girlfriend had dropped me around the same time that my label dropped me. She fell in love with a really cool guy in Paris who was older than me and he could grow a very impressive beard, hahaha…

As far as keeping my internal mental conversation strong, that's has never been problem at all and as you can imagine I had plenty of stuff to think about, write about and then finally sing about in the streets of all of these beautiful cities that I got to visit on that trip.

3. “Lightning” is the latest release and gives fans the first taste of your upcoming album Where Oceans Meet which is due out October 1st. How did you decide to release this one as the lead single? What was the inspiration behind it?

ML: In many ways, I think “Lightning” is a song that represents that certain place where the oceans meet on my album. “Lightning” is a song about recognition. When I wrote this song, I thought about all those moments in my life where I really felt recognized on a deeper level. When I met my wife. When I looked my newborn daughter in the eyes for the first time. In concerts when my music meets the audience and it feels like we're all getting struck by the same lightning. Those kinds of moments.

CHECK OUT THE FAUSTIX REMIX OF “LIGHTNING” HERE.

4. Speaking of the upcoming album – what’s the meaning behind the album title? How many songs? Any collabs? Is there a song on the album you’re nervous about releasing out to the world?

ML: Where Oceans Meet is a metaphor. The entire album circles around the different contrasts that we all face in our lives. The light, the dark. The head, the heart. Hopes and fears. It’s about loving and longing at the same time. Where Oceans Meet represents the idea of the place where all these contrasts meet and embrace each other.

5. “Lightning” follows up “Hanging With You” which peaked at #1 in Denmark radio. What’s the story behind when you first heard one of your songs on the radio? Does it ever get old?

ML: It never gets old. Every time I listen to the radio, I must admit that I hope that they will play my song. It's the best feeling ever. This might be a little far-fetched, but it's kind of like when you give someone you really care for a present for their birthday. And it's not just any kind of present. It’s a present that you put all your time, thoughts and heart into. And then one day you randomly turn on the TV. Look who's there. Is that special person that you gave the present to. She’s actually wearing that sweater that you spent five years learning how to knit. After endless attempts, you finally managed to knit a sweater that you would give her without being scared that she would think it was a joke. She’s not wearing it because she feels like she has to, because you’re on a date with her. She’s wearing it because she likes it. And she just put it on that day that she randomly got stopped by the tv-station and interviewed in the streets of your hometown. That is close to the feeling I get when I hear my songs on the radio. And no, I have no clue how to knit a sweater, but I like the image.

6. The past year in the pandemic had a lot of its own challenges but it also had some beautiful moments like the drive-in concert you organized in Denmark last May. Why did you feel it necessary to put something like this together during that time? Being the first one to do so, how did you figure out logistics, etc. for the entire event? Anything you would’ve changed about it looking back?

ML: I had just started touring when the pandemic hit us all. I had spent months preparing the show and I was extremely disappointed when I had to turn around the tour bus and go back home after only playing 10 out of 100 shows. I had a couple of weeks where I was feeling really depressed. But then I decided to see if I could turn this whole thing into some sort of an adventure. I made a list of stuff I wanted to do. On that list I had drive-in concerts for some reason. I know a couple guys who are really good at putting together big events that include live music, so we talked about how we could make this happen. All credit to them for putting logistics together. I just played the shows. I had no idea that I would be the first one in the world to do a drive in concert. But it was really fun and I would not change a thing. In my shows, everyone was on the same video conference call. I loved that because I could talk to the people in the cars in between the songs. The people in their cars requested what songs of mine that they wanted to hear. And often they had really personal stories to the songs that I never heard before. So that was something that I will never forget.

7. The past year also brought about a new baby for you – congrats! What’s been the most surprising thing about having a baby that you might not have known before?

ML: Thank you so much. Yeah, that's truly a life changing event. My little daughter is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I'm so grateful that I got to receive a little soul with my wife. Even though it has happened billions and billions of times already it still feels like a miracle. I think the biggest surprise is the fact that your whole perspective changes in the blink of an eye. She is now the single most important thing in my life. I thought that would be something that would happen gradually, but for me it really happened at the moment that she was born.

8. What do you hope to accomplish with your music in the future that you may feel you have not done already? Have any of those goals or aspirations shifted with the new addition to the family?

ML: I really hope that people will recognize themselves in my songs. Obviously, the goal is that my songs will travel and become part of people's lives in new territories. I have spent so much time in the US since I moved away from home. I lived in New York City and in Los Angeles and I spend at least three or four months a year in the US working with all the talented people that I have met over the years. Building an audience in the US is a huge dream of mine. Hopefully this album will help introducing me to people all over America.

9. If you could only listen to (5) artists for the rest of your life, who would they be?

ML: 

The Beatles

Pink Floyd

Keith Jarrett

Mozart

Radiohead

10. What’s the rest of 2021 and beyond look like for Mads Langer?

ML: My album comes out in October. That is obviously a huge event in my life, and it looks like I'm going to be very busy talking about the album and singing the songs from it in many different places all over the world. Apart from that I will be changing diapers on my newborn daughter. Kissing my wife. Learning Chinese and writing my first score for a movie that comes out in 2022.

A HUGE shout-out to the talented Mads Langer for hanging for this latest Too Good Ten interview. Keep up to date with everything he has going on by following the links below and be sure to be on the look out for his latest EP, Where Oceans Meet due out October 1st. 

SOCIAL LINKS:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

MUSIC:

Apple Music

Spotify

[n-a-d-ll-l-e-a-r-s-i]

“What is Frozen can be melted”

   Recently I’ve been watching videos on how to be more productive and how not to procrastinate in everything that we should do and what we should be doing. I find those videos motivating in my side where as I do find myself a little bit more productive and I can honestly say I did somehow improve unlike back then. I’m not saying that “how to be productive” videos are the way to go because sometimes I do find myself watching those kinds of videos almost whole day and thinking that I can accomplish almost everything once I started doing those Home Works. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way obviously. I have spent my time watching those videos instead of already start working. So, either way I still procrastinate and somehow don’t get things done. Every day (yes including Saturdays and Sundays) there are just somethings that will be reminding me, “Hey! You remember about Science? Yeah, I know. Now get up and start it!” I end up procrastinating and I really do feel a lack of motivation to start it.

   That actually continued for about 2-3 weeks of online class until one time. Recently we went outside to go visit our grandma and grandpa at the cemetery with my family and 2 cousins. I was excited well I mean, going to visit a love one who already passed away isn’t but due to the fact that I will see the “outside world” once again. So yes, we’re on our way to Manila Memorial park Governor Drive, Dasmariñas, Cavite, when I found out and had a realization of, there were kids on the street about 5 – 8 years old kids. Now usually I know that we are not allowed to go outside but for some reason those kids on the street that we went through to go to Manila Memorial park is different because their house is literally right next the road or the main road taking a bath so I was like, “Something’s not right.” I know that poverty here in the Philippines was long an issue before but the fact that we are in the midst of this pandemic is something else.

   I know that the Government is helping in all but, I was wondering. How about the families who got their children to go to school with almost sacrificing 100% of their time working just to sustain and help their children finish their studies? How about those kids who really wants to finish their studies but they don’t have the materials to do so? It made me sit back and think, “Wow…Good Lord thank you for I am blessed.” I mean really, look at the situation today. Those students who have the initiative to pursue and finish their studies but lack the materials to do so are risking their lives dangerously from climbing to  a high place to get an enough amount of signal for their online classes to kids or students who are exposing their lives itself just to earn money and have the materials at hand to just somehow get to class. It is sad but true.

   Now all throughout the time staying and just having talks about our grandparents on the cemetery, the thought of not all of us students in general that can afford to attend classes are experiencing the same education really. In fact, some students back then that is a face-to-face education are already having a hard time in schools. What more if it’s only through screens? Let’s say we’re on the phase of adjusting. Okay fair enough. Since this was the first time that locally (here in the Philippines) implement that online classes are the new norm now. Okay I get that but, if it’s the new norm why can’t everyone afford it? Why can’t every student have the same education as students who can afford the materials at hand go to class? Obviously if anyone who would to answer those questions, their answer will probably “Well, it’s because poverty was long an issue back then in the Philippines yada yada” or “Well because it’s their fault that they didn’t have that amount of-…” I get that! I know that because other families couldn’t afford their children to go to school. But does mentioning pass issues solve the problem? Does pinpointing the wrong doings of our people back then solve the faced pandemic today? Absolutely not. There’s nothing we can do about what happened but I am certain we can do something about what will happen, what can help our economy progress. When literally all of us have the same goal there is nothing that can stop us whether it be crisis or what. It’s one of our characteristics of a Pilipino that we don’t leave anyone behind and that every single one of us will rise and we will do anything with the best of our abilities altogether.

   Academic Freeze. It has been and it’s still continued to be an issue up until now. Whether we include Academic Freeze as one of a solution in the midst of this pandemic or not still there are a lot of parents, students, children, families and also teachers that suffers the same problem. So why not take it into consideration that Academic Freeze is not a symbol of quitting and losing hope but a time for us to gather our senses and know that learning doesn’t stop up until we finish studies. Learning is what we basically do every single day and schools are just there to amplify our learning. Let’s make this Academic Freeze a time for all to prepare and face what is to come when everyone is altogether in one mind and one heart. Academic Freeze doesn’t mean to cease all learning. I tell you, what is Frozen can be melted.

[purplesurveys]

754

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? I don’t even have one of those yet.

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? I'm not sure. I know she's told me before about being diagnosed with depression, but I’ve forgotten if it’s mild or severe, or if she has the whole thing or is just showing symptoms of it. She only mentioned it in passing so I figured it wasn’t something she wanted to touch on further.

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? Probably but I’d have to be really careful to not end up shattering my legs or any other part of my body haha, but knowing me I’d probably land badly. I live on the second floor but the house isn’t that high, so I think I could give it a shot.

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? I’d be very confused because she’s very gay and also because she’s only been staying at home since March.

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? I wouldn’t be able to relate since store brand’s not really a thing here. Only SM makes their own stuff but they’re purposely cheaper because they’re meant to be of lower quality to begin with. Other than that, we don’t really have a choice but buy brand name.

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? Just the tampons, probably. I never need condoms so I have no reason to feel awkward buying them, and in fact I’ve volunteered to buy them for Angela whenever she feels shy haha; I definitely have no reason to be embarrassed buying pads because periods are a thing. I will likely feel most awkward getting tampons since I don’t know any one person who uses them where I live and it’ll most likely be seen as an unusual purchase since they’re quite uncommon.

If a stranger went in your room, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? Probably. I have a poster of Nam Joo Hyuk, several Audrey Hepburn memorabilia, and a lot of pink stuff so it very much looks like a stereotypical girly room. I do think it’s kinda balanced out by the amount of WWE merch I own, but yeah otherwise my other stuff screams girly.

Are your parents gullible? When it comes to home stuff my mom is basically a witch; she can immediately tell if my dog peed somewhere, if I lost something, or if a dining chair isn’t positioned right. But when it comes to fake news on Facebook she will occasionally flock to them hahaha I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to remind her that phones DO NOT emit radiation from 12AM to 5AM and that it’s only a ploy to get people to sleep early lmfao. My dad is pretty intelligent and won’t be easily fooled about anything.

Do you still own a VCR? I know my parents owned one but I don’t know if they still brought it here when we moved 12 years ago or if they already threw it out.

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? :( Zero pesos. The only thing I’ve spent on this entire quarantine was a bottle of soju I asked my dad to buy and I paid him after.

If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? Yes.

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? UPTC since they have like ten shoe stores there.

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? I haven’t had a new pair in like a year now, but the last one we bought cost arounddddd ₱4200, if I remember correctly.

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? Gray. No, it was a gift from my parents.

Do you have a second home? I guess I count my childhood home my second home. My grandma and cousins remain in that house, so we visit from time to time and when we’re there I’ve noticed that I still retain the same tendencies and habits from when I still lived there.

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? I’ll use the last person I chatted in this context since I haven’t texted in a hot minute, and that person would be Andrew. I’d be quite concerned since they’ve told me they’ve quit smoking, so there must be something extremely stressful going on for them to start smoking. I’d check up on them immediately.

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? I do super hate the smell of beer even though I have no other choice but to drink it sometimes; I still find the smell of cigarettes disgusting although my contempt for them has lessened over the last few years seeing as a lot of people I know are smokers so I’ve been around that smell a lot, and also because I’ve started too. I’ve never been around weed and I don’t know how it smells.

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? Younger by a month.

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? Not really? What I get most frequently is people thinking I was grumpy at first, but tbh I am pretty grumpy so they aren’t far off from the truth. With me it’s usually a what you see is what you get thing whether someone’s meeting me for the first or the 78th time.

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? Nope, not a thing here. I’ve always found the variety of cookies so fascinating though and I’ve always wanted to try the Thin Mints and Samoas since they’re what I hear about the most :(

Do you like waffles? They’re okay, though I only ever eat waffles with fried chicken and never just by themselves. I prefer pancakes.

Do you watch birthing videos on a day-to-day basis? Nah man wtf? I have no reason to be doing that lmao.

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? I don’t find either attractive. I get curious when I see tattoo because I wonder what the story behind it is and what it means to the person who has it, that’s all. As for piercings, I don’t really like them < Pretty much. Like I don’t go looking around for tattoos on a person to find them attractive; I just like hearing the histories behind them. Same with piercings, I don’t need them to be attracted to someone.

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? Only on social media that I’m already familiar with and comfortable in, like on this Tumblr, or Twitter, sometimes Facebook. I wouldn’t go to like Quora to ask something or join forums or even post anything on Reddit.

How often do you drink Monster? Never. Energy drinks scare me lol.

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? I’ve made those for myself, but not with friends. I remember filming a house tour with my flip phone’s video camera back when I was like, 8 hahaha I was ahead of our time for sure.

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? I don’t even know those existed. I just knew of Warped Tour and that all the cool bands of the time would play there, but that’s it. I’m clueless about everything else that goes on in there.

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? You mean just a restaurant? Inside, for sure. I would never agree to eating outside and am always willing to wait a few extra minutes. I hate having to contend with passersby while I eat my food as I feel that it ruins the experience as well as the time I have with the person/s I’m eating with.

Do you own a nightgown? No but I had duster dresses that I’d wear to bed as a kid, if that counts lol.

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? Probably not. My mom wouldn’t allow us to play with those and she’d immediately view them as trash that needs to be thrown out.

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? No. I usually used the sheets as a cape or robe, then I’d pretend to be a queen.

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? My paternal grandparents do. My maternal grandfather used to regularly use a phone before he passed. My maternal grandmother refuses to learn :(

Have you ever had sex or something like it? Hahahaha ‘something like it.’ Yeah, I’ve had sex.

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? I tried reading 1984 when I was like 13 but didn’t understand it from the get-go. I haven’t continued it since but honestly I’m very open to revisiting it one of these days.

Have you ever worn fishnets? I don’t remember ever doing so. I feel like it’d be so uncomfortable; I hate wearing stockings as it is.

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? I only have my ears pierced and no tattoos < Sameeee.

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? Nope.

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? Hahahahaha yeah, just out of curiosity. I’ve never seen anything interesting, but I keep trying.

Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? Be eaten out right now. I’ve had too much abstinence from sexual activity for my own liking lol < Ok it’s 1 in the afternoon but SAME lol

Do you always wear your seat belt? Honestly, no and it’s a shitty habit that I need to correct ASAP. I never notice that I’m not wearing them until it’s one of my parents riding with me and they scold me for driving out of the village without a seatbelt. I do put it on when I enter bigger cities with more police patrolling the area like Ortigas and Makati, or when I drive out of town, but usually it stays off.

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? No. I’ve had a crush on a teacher, but I obviously didn’t legit like him haha.

Have you ever been in a play? Just the annual school plays we do that all students are required to be a part of. I forgot to mention this in a recent survey but I was in an acting club in Grade 1 and I played Cinderella’s prince in our culminating play, heheh.

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? Sure.

Is there ice cream in your freezer? Yeah. My parents love ice cream so we always have an ample supply of their favorite flavors. Sometimes we’ll also have a tub of cookies and cream since it’s our (the kids’) favorite flavor.

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? For sure. I always laugh at inappropriate moments so I do fake coughs a lot.

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? I suppose so. Hate is a strong word and I’d rather not use it, but while the music my girlfriend listens to wouldn’t be what I’d tune into on a regular basis, the lyrics are admittedly very well-written and intelligent and reflective, and I don’t mind it when she shares her favorite songs with me :)

Does your bathroom have a window? Yes but they’re high up on the wall.

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? No, I’m really scared of threading :( Everyone always gets out of the salon with their eyebrow area all red and tingling and it’s enough to scare me off of threading forever lmao. I’m not very conscious about how my own eyebrows look, so I just let them grow out.

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? I’ve only seen snippets of the movie.

Who was the last band you saw live? Paramore. I miss them already.

Do you believe prayer really works? I’m not gonna invalidate the fact that it works for a lot of people. But it’s just not my cup of tea, and I honestly don’t know how to feel whenever someone says they pray for me since I don’t believe in it anyway. Of course I thank them, but on the inside I’m always a little puzzled.

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? Never been. I know Stereo Hearts and that was always a fun song to sing, but it’s not my favorite either.

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? I don’t really have either, but I’d go with frosted flakes I guess?

Have you been on a date in the park? I would love to have one of these if we actually had parks. How nice would it be to take a long stroll, have a picnic, and just sit on a bench talking for hours?

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? Yes. At first I didn’t want to risk it since we were reeeeeally close, but I don’t regret asking her out.

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? Thankfully no. Although my grandpa and his sister did pass from heart attacks and I’m starting to be scared that it might develop to be a pattern for some of us. But other than that, both sides of the family are relatively healthy.

Do you have asthma? No. But Gab does and I get really worried once her breathing becomes labored at night. I keep telling her to get a new nebulizer after her old one broke, but I dunno what’s become of that request of mine.

Are tongue piercings slutty? No, and it’s not like being slutty is a bad thing lol.

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? No one in real life but I do still have a crush on CM Punk who’s turning 42 this year hahah. I don’t think that crush is ever gonna go away.

Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Gab.

Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? I knew about markers and ballpens, but not highlighters.

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? No thanks. I’d rather have somewhere to go home to or rest at by the end of the day, and if I was gonna do this I prefer to be with someone who knows a thing or two about surviving in the woods.

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? Nope. The worst thing I’ve done was write on one of the desks in grade school.

Least favorite alcoholic drink? Out of the ones I tried, I didn’t like whisky at all. Too bitter for me < Twins. I hated the ever living shit out of Jim Beam and Jack Daniels when I tried them.

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? I haven’t. I have a cousin named Luke that I used to babysit and I kissed him a lot when he was a baby, if that counts lol.

How did you meet the last male you texted? I met them at the Marcos heroes’ burial protests. I have no idea how I started talking to them, but I think it was because they were wearing a Nexus shirt and I told them I like it, and we started talking from there.

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Yup. I wasn’t allowed to make an email address when I was young so I had to sneak around and make a fake Yahoo username so my parents would never find me. I don’t remember what it was anymore but it was for sure embarrassing so I’m just grateful my brain threw that memory out.

Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? OMG this survey is so long. I put it on my left hand.

Do you have a bull ring through your nose? Nope, no piercings.

Do you and your dad get along? Better than my mom and I.

Can you see your purse right now? Nah, it’s in my room upstairs.

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? I am not. I haven’t had a reason to in a while.

Are there products in your hair? Just shampoo and conditioner.

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? No. Whaaaat, those exist? I just blow my nose or just live through the stuffiness.

Do you actually like sneezing? I love it, it’s such an underrated sensation lmao. It feels better when you’ve actually been needing to sneeze for a while and it finally comes through.

Have you taken a shower yet today? Nope, I usually take them at night.

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? I have two.

Do you wear skirts a lot? Not really, I don’t like skirts because I feel exposed wearing them. I prefer shorts.

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? Nope.

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? I can remember five pairs right now, but I have many other kinds of bottoms in my closet like culottes and leggings.

Do you like hoodies? They’re okay. I find them more comfortable if they belong to someone else, hah.

Big ones or the form fitting kind? Form-fitting if I’m buying for myself; big ones if I’m borrowing from Gabie.

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? I never wear them. My mom made me wear them often as a kid and it made me feel like a boy, so I’ve kinda had a predisposition to be wary of them as I got older since I was teased frequently enough about being a tomboy as a kid as it is.

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? I think we probably did.

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? I have one big regret and the rest of my ‘regrets’ are small and are stuff like “I regret not picking up food on my way home because I’m now hungry.” The way I’ve always thought is that I did the things I did before because I chose to do them and I was happy to do them, and I’ve honestly felt barely any regret even though things didn’t turn out the best. There’ve been mistakes but I’ve just chosen to learn from them instead of regretting them at the same time. Do you love your computer? Love it.

Do you drink coffee? Yeah. I’ve been doing it a lot this quarantine but I think it’s been giving me headaches, so I stopped for now.

Do you basically like all of your clothes? No. There are some at the bottom of the pile that I’m no longer crazy about anymore.

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? My mom. She tends to know what looks best on me, and she also pays for the clothes hahaha.

[antigonies]

Summer highlights

I haven't found the right words for a while, but I especially don’t know how to do justice to this summer. Everything seems to have happened. But if I don't  actually force myself to write something down now, I never will.

It all started still in Paris, with C and J inexplicably ignoring me whenever I mentioned planning a trip. And then the uncertainty of whether or not I would be hired to work in England again, something I had been looking forward to all year round, but I somehow decided that I would not get hung up on it, and believe that whatever happened was meant to happen.

The second day after flying home, C picks me up for lunch. Her hair is so short you can somewhat see her scalp, but she looks as lively and happy as usual. Meeting B at the restaurant, 10 minutes later, C tells us that she has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She did not tell us before because we live abroad and wanted us to see that she was ok. I manage to not cry then. But B reveals that the reason she was home early this year is that she woke up one day not remembering anything, covered in bruises; according to her roommates, she came home crying and screaming hysterically. She thinks she may have been drugged but none of us dare to talk about what we all are thinking. Heartbreak upon heartbreak. Holding my friends' hands, hugging  them, crying on the lunch table. 'We are too young to live through this, aren't we?', except no one actually says it, knowledge that tragedy has been happening to us already and will continue to happen. I want to never be away from them again. (I remember having written something about C back in January, something about how "I would not want to live in a world were she doesn't exist". Did I know, somehow? Does love do this to you, worrying always so much that you breathe your fears into life? I have long suspected that dreams, sometimes, are small windows into the future.)

Everything blurry after, hours of just sitting in J's car listening to him talk about the first boy he's ever really liked; going to a pride event (in honor of Garcia Lorca, my heart) with him and C; driving lessons, endlessly, my anxiety getting the best of me. Stopping a class just to call C to check if she needs help with her birthday party.

I'm clingier than most nights. C, tired of hugging me, points at this friend of hers, L, and says, half-jokingly: "He can cuddle with you". Fast forward an hour later and I'm grabbing him and kissing him in the dark of C’s front porch, clumsy and a little desperate. This may have nothing to you with you. I don’t even need to see you again, to be honest.

C and I dress up and surprise J at his graduation. He spots us in the crowd and just shouts "¡Cabronas!", which we take to mean, "I love you with all my heart". Taking cute pictures of C and her ex, because the love is still there, albeit a bit changed; everything transformed into something else.

Is this guy seriously texting me? Are we making conversation now? At first, I'm just being polite, but very quickly I'm laughing wholeheartedly at his jokes and sending him pictures of my favourite artwork at this exhibition from which C, B and I almost got kicked out because we were laughing too hard. Cheap food and two huge pints of cheap drinks later, all three of us are spilling secrets we never thought we'd share. Mocktails after because C is not supposed to drink, talking about everything we have survived in turning from girls into women, all the traumas we've fought and will keep fighting. You never know when one of the best nights of your life can happen. This is one of them.

The best nights of my life just keep piling onto each other, like the time C and I go to see 'Love Simon' and have only fries for dinner (just  like when we were thirteen), then singing our hearts out to Cristina Aguilera, thinking "this is the happiest I've been in months, maybe years, and also, I love you so, so much".

Purposely forgetting France, but also everyone I love there. Finding out that it is impossible to be present everywhere and for everyone. That perhaps you'll always be missing somewhere.

Telling my parents about J's new boyfriend and half-accidentally coming out as bi to them in the same breath. Getting just a surprised comment and then the insinuation that I'm just doing it to be like my friends. Being too scared, or too tired, or too indifferent to tell them my story, so there we are, after a brief moment of silence, at the sushi restaurant, middle table, arguing way too loud over something 'completely unrelated' that has obviously everything to do with It. Still feeling lighter after, somehow, not having to constantly look over my shoulder.

Talking to L about whether of not he should come out to his parents, too, him telling me about this boy he likes in his hometown, me telling him about how this girl keeps ghosting me. This is what my parents were scared of, I guess. This freedom. And this is just the midsummer. The only poems I care about are about the sun.

Sending C flowers after her last chemotherapy session, thinking the worst has passed already. She keeps getting weaker, though, her smile still on, but needing days of sleep. We've all become used to planning our weeks around her good days, that is, always after Wednesdays. When she starts coughing too much, though, she is admitted at the hospital, the same week we were all supposed to go partying again. The little room inside the patient area where her bed is smells of antimicrobial gel even, with the mask on.

When she tells me not to come visit the next day, my heart feels so heavy in my chest that I must find a way to distract myself from all this. Texting a former friend I am just getting back into contact with after two years since our falling out. "Hey, are you going to the fair? I really need to go out". Oh, L is coming too.  Only half-flirting, we share whatever drink he was having and I ask him about his crush; the reply makes me laugh because it may have been more than I bargained for. Of course, an hour later, we're making out at the Cuban bar after I just put lipstick on his ex. We didn't know how to dance when the night started, but we're getting better now, or more oblivious. He asks me to take him to the city center somewhere, just the two of us. I show him the best view of the city, we get breakfast together, I tell him about how the character I relate to the most is Sabina from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, because she always wants to flee, always looking for something somewhere else. He doesn't understand why I ask the things I'm asking, why I talk about loving my friends so much but seem to hate romance. I really don't know, man, I have a doctor's appointment. Straight from the party, I fix my smeared mascara and sit patiently in the waiting room for her to tell me about my blood. Unable to sleep, then, I think I'm experiencing my first hangover. The second night, the other guy in the group points out he's the only one there who hasn't had anything with L, so of course we all chant for them to kiss. Everyone is and is not tired. I don’t go home when he does because I want to keep dancing. No one knows where this is coming from. Not even me. I just want to forget myself a bit, I think.

I seriously don't know which day it is, at this point, or what happened before or after. J's birthday, with very inappropriate presents that we wanted to give him so badly. I keep re-writing C's poem but my handwriting is never pretty enough, never the perfect gift. I have, somehow, not argued with my parents in almost a month. I say I feel like a different person, and C acquiesces. My friends in France wonder where I am, what I have been doing.

I go online while half-asleep one night and seem to read that Marta (@tosfumarewords) is leaving tumblr, something with which I cannot deal at that point and I hope I just misread, trying to go back to sleep. Wondering how I can be so sad over losing someone I have never met in real life, but frankly I am too depressed about it to log on again and find out if it's really happening, and why.

Everyone is going back to studying, so I am alone more. I don't want to be alone. I also don't want to think about it. J takes me up to the mountain to go stargazing. I don't think I could be more in love with the night sky, or with the moment we cuddle in the backseat of his car,  telling him about how I don't want to die anymore, although maybe I would not have chosen to be born, not yet anyway. The clouds have come by now but it doesn't matter. We softly hum to the radio on our way down.

At my grandparent's village, the familiar routine of getting to know old friends again and being too afraid to ask about the war-full past marks the beginning of the end of the summer.

I've started to reread the bad literature of my teenage years over which C and I first bonded over. She is too busy to go out now, back into the hustle. I talk to B about relationships, how they seem to be in a language that is foreign and distant to me. She asks me to let her and her friend sleep at my house in Paris in November, and of course, everyone is welcome to come. The same day, L tells me he is getting tickets to come visit the city. I guess everything happens at once.

This, the first time I write anything new in months, and now it's five pages long, three hours later. I apparently don't know how to do anything in moderation. Getting ready for new farewells, again, and already, things that seemed to be over come back. Reunions on the horizon. Nothing ever leaves completely. Everything transformed into something else. Even summer, time, even me.

[lilacmoon83]

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 152: Hyperion Heights

Storybrooke

2018

"Henry Daniel Nolan," the Principal of Storybrooke High School announced, as eighteen-year-old Henry made his way across the stage at commencement. Upon the announcement of his name, his family cheered loudly and at a slightly embarrassing octave. His cheeks colored, as he shook hands with the Principal and received his diploma. Following commencement, there was a big celebration at Granny's, with all his family and friends in attendance. If there was one thing he knew, his grandparents would go all out when it came to celebrating the accomplishments of their children and grandchildren. And he proved to be no exception.

That evening, they finally came out of Granny's after an afternoon of celebrating.

"We're so proud of you, kid," Emma gushed, as she hugged him again and Neal patted his shoulder.

"Yeah and don't worry if you don't know what's next for you. There's plenty of time to figure all of that out," Neal added.

"And in the meantime, we think we have something to help fill the void," David added, as he walked over to something that was covered by a tarp.

"What is this?" Henry asked, as David and Neal pulled the tarp off, revealing a motorcycle. Henry's mouth dropped open.

"You got me a motorcycle?!" he exclaimed. Neal chuckled.

"Sure did...obviously it needs some work," he added.

"Yeah, we thought about just getting you a new one, but we thought that this might be a nice summer project for the three of us to do together," David added.

"This is awesome!" Henry exclaimed, as he hugged them both.

"Can I help too?" eleven-year-old Summer asked excitedly, as he looked up at her father. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

"Of course, peanut," he agreed, as his wife sided up to him and he put his arm around her.

"I still can't believe I let all of you talk me into letting Henry have a motorcycle," Snow mentioned nervously. He smirked and kissed her hair.

"Well, I was pretty convincing," he whispered to her and wriggled his eyebrows playfully. She grinned and lay her head on his shoulder.

"Well...he is happy," she mentioned. He nodded.

"He'll be fine," David assured.

~*~

A few months later

Henry turned the wrench, making the final adjustment on his bike.

"There…I think that's going to do it," he said, as Neal and Emma looked on.

"Okay...fire it up," Neal replied. Henry got on and the engine started right up. The bike was completely restored, complete with a fresh coat of paint.

"It works…" he said, grinning at them, before killing the engine.

"Yeah...so any decisions on the college front?" Emma asked. Henry looked at them.

"That's actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you both about," he replied. They exchanged a glance.

"Sounds serious," Neal said, as they sat down together.

"I know we went on a few college visits and that we have Storybrooke University here...but I'm not sure that any of that is the right path for me," Henry replied.

"I'm sure any of those writing courses would be great...but let's face it. I'm the author and I've penned all these stories over the years," he continued.

"Yeah, and you're a great writer, buddy," Neal said.

"He's right," Emma agreed.

"I know...but I'm not really in it. I don't really have a story," he replied.

"Sure you do...you're in the book," Emma reminded.

"Yeah, I'm in it as the grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming...the truest love in all the realms. I'm in it, because I'm the son of the Savior and son of the son of the Dark One," he retorted.

"I'm in it, because I have the heart of the truest believer and I'm the author...but that's it. And I guess I'm looking for more. Is that wrong?" he asked.

"Of course not...I get it. You want to leave home to find your own path," Neal replied. Emma nodded.

"As much as it breaks my heart, I get it too," she agreed, as she hugged him.

"So...you're going to travel the country? Maybe the world? I've got some spots you should visit," Neal stated.

"Yeah...not this world exactly. I mean...I'm the author and something tells me that my story isn't out there in the Land Without Magic," Henry replied.

"You want to travel the realms," Emma realized.

"Think about it, Mom. The only reason that I recorded Rose Red and Fandral's story in the book was because they came here. Think about how many other people there are out there waiting for someone to record their stories. And maybe while I'm doing that...I'll find mine," he said. She sighed and swiped a tear away.

"Oh, I'm gonna miss, kid. But I know you have to do this," she agreed.

"I'll miss you too and it won't be forever. Tiny has so many beans now that traveling the realms isn't hard at all anymore," Henry reminded.

"Yeah...it's a really good crop," Neal said, eyeing him suspiciously.

"The author wouldn't have anything to do with such an unusually big crop, would he?" he teased. Henry rolled his eyes.

"Come on Dad...you know that would be against the rules. But Tiny does get plenty of magical Phoenix fertilizer from Leo at the reserve, so that might have something to do with it," he replied. Emma wrinkled her nose.

"Ew...I didn't need to know that," she complained, as they laughed.

"Well...I guess we should break the news to everyone and you should get packed," Neal said, as he patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I better go tell your Grams so she can go crazy with some outlandish going away party," Emma joked.

"Can't you reign her in a little? My graduation party was insane," he complained. Emma laughed.

"You know your Grams...in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she throws a town ball like she did when I graduated," she joked.

"Please don't give her any ideas," Henry pleaded, as his parents chuckled. He sighed.

"Can you at least make sure she doesn't line the walls of Town Hall with gigantic blown up baby pictures of me like she did at my open house?" he asked. They snickered.

"I'm still scarred by the bathtub pics," he complained.

"Hey, she did it to all of us, so if you think you're an exception...think again, kid," Emma replied. He sighed and shook his head, as they went inside.

~*~

A few days later, Henry was packed and readying his bike, as his entire family was there to see him off. His grandmother was already crying in his grandfather's arms and he went to hug them.

"It's okay Grams...I promise I won't be gone forever," he said. Snow sniffed.

"I know...but you know me, I have a really hard time when one of my babies or grand babies leaves the nest," she sniffed.

"A bird metaphor? Really?" Regina teased, as she hugged him too.

"Good luck," she said.

"Thanks Aunt Regina," he replied, as he hugged Snow and David again.

"Thanks again for the going away party. It was great," he said.

"See Charming...it wasn't too much," she chided.

"You were right...a carnival wasn't too much," he replied, as he and his grandson shared an amused look. Henry then hugged his parents, as well as Tink and Hook as well. Then Rumple and Belle. Then came time to say goodbye to all his uncles and aunts. Once that was done, he mounted his motorcycle and tossed the bean in front of him. A vertical portal appeared and with a wave to his family, Henry Nolan set off on his new adventure to a new land…

~*~

Seattle

Hyperion Heights

The past - September 2018

David pulled up to the building in his old truck. The old red truck had seen better days for sure, but it sufficed to get him and his daughter around, especially since he spent much of his time on the job driving his work sedan. Bobby hopped out of the passenger side and came around to the other side, before looking up at David. This old red truck brought memories back of his dad's old brown truck back home. It was good to know that some things didn't change.

"This place doesn't look so bad," David said encouragingly.

"That's because most people only see the outside, so Dr. Samdi makes sure it looks really nice so everyone thinks his patients are taken care of," Bobby replied.

"I take it you're not a fan of the care he gives your mother," David said.

"If you can even call it care. I told you, she's locked up all the time and the orderlies force pills down her. She has bruises on her arms where they hold her down," Bobby told him, with tears in his eyes. David instantly felt the instinct to put his hand on the boy's shoulder and followed that feeling.

"Okay...let's go help you Mom," he agreed in a softer tone, as they strode into the building.

The reception area was dark, given that it was technically after hours and David followed Bobby, who seemed to know exactly where he was going. They traveled through the labyrinth of stark, white corridors and eventually rounded the final corner. That's when they heard screaming coming from one of the rooms.

"That's my Mom!" he cried, as he hurried to her room and David picked up the pace to follow.

~*~

She sat in her tiny room on the bed, legs curled up against her chest, as she gazed out at the same dreary landscape that she had for the past two long, horrible years. Another curse plagued them, but this one was perhaps the worst one of all, at least for her since she was aware of it part of the time.

Her curse this time was having two lives in her head and two identities. Part of the time, she was timid former school teacher, Mary Blanchard, who sadly was institutionalized when she became disillusioned with reality and her mind split into two personalities. At least, that's what her file said. Dissociative Identity Disorder is what they officially called it. And her alter was none other than Snow White.

But the reality was that she didn't actually have D.I.D at all. She had a real identity and a curse identity. She had a feeling that this is not what they had actually intended for her under the curse. She wasn't supposed to remember at all, but somehow she did. And when they discovered this, she had been snatched up and locked away to prevent her from finding her family and unraveling the curse.

But they also hadn't intended for Bobby to remain with her either. Clayton had to manipulate hers and Bobby's records to claim to be her brother and thus wrestled custody of her son away when she was committed.

She didn't know where the rest of her family was and she almost relished the days where she was Mary. Her existence was miserable, but at least as Mary, she didn't remember anything except her son. Because when she was Snow, like now, she remembered it all and everything that had been stolen from her once again. She cried through the nights for Charming, begging and pleading with the powers that be to let him hear her. But it was no use. There was no magic here and it was likely that he had no memory of her, which further broke her already shattered heart.

She hated that Clayton had Bobby, but at least she knew he was relatively unharmed. She had no idea about her other four children and that was perhaps the worst part of all. She had no idea if they or her husband were okay. And if they were physically okay, she had no idea what kind of lives they were living. Were they sad? Were they with people they shouldn't be? Had her husband been cursed to be with someone else? She shuddered at that. She wasn't sure how much else her heart could handle and every day seemed as hopeless as the last.

As her cell door opened, fear gripped her again, as it did every night. The two orderlies that worked for Facilier's grandson entered with her meds. The meds would cloud her head and give her terrifying nightmares, as they usually did. She would fight them, but they likely would win and she'd been in for another bout of night terrors in which the horrors of her past plagued her. And Charming could not rescue her from these, for they had been successfully separated again. It made her heart ache so badly that she almost wished someone would just rip it out of her chest and end her misery. But then she knew that she didn't actually want that, for Bobby kept her going. Clayton tried to keep a firm hand on his whereabouts, but he was busy with his museum full of the priceless things he loved and her son was very good at sneaking in to see her.

"Well Princess...it's time again for our nightly battle," Horace said.

"Then I hope you're ready for the fight," Snow replied and then yelped, as he roughly grabbed her arm. She struggled, as he pinched her cheeks by grabbing her face.

"If you bite me again tonight...I'm afraid I'll have to get really rough. I'll make that split lip I gave you last week seem like a tickle," he growled, as Jasper handed the pills to him.

"Hold her Jasper," he ordered. Snow screamed, as the portly man threw all his weight into her and pinned her against the wall. He forced the pills into her mouth and she spit them out, only to earn her a backhand across the face.

"Damn you…" Horace growled, as he put his hand around her neck and she gasped for air. His smile was sadistic, as he watched her try to breathe and her lungs burned for air.

"Mom!" Bobby cried, as he saw what the two men were doing to her. David's eyes widened, as he saw it too.

"HEY!" he called and without thinking, he peeled the skinny man away from her. She gasped for air, as Bobby hugged her around the waist and she sat down, before pulling him into a crushing hug.

"I did it, Mom...I found him…" he said, as he looked at her. Snow could barely breathe again, but this time, it was not because she was being choked. It was because the man that owned her heart and soul was here and currently handcuffing her assailants. She stared at his profile, her breathing now coming in ragged gasps. He still took her breath away; that certainly had not changed and never would. Her heart felt lighter in her chest and she knew that was because the other half of it was once again the same room.

"Does he…" Snow uttered.

"Not yet...but he will," Bobby insisted, his voice full of faith; the same faith that his father had always had an abundance of.

"You're under arrest for assault," David said, as he looked at the woman and her child. His breath caught, as she looked at him with the most mesmerizing green eyes he swore he had ever seen. He was purely captivated by her in a way he was sure he never had been and that stunned him. He had barely looked at any women since Iris' mother...died.

"What is going on in here?" Dr. Franklin Samdi exclaimed, as he rushed into the room. Mary clutched her son close, as David flashed his badge.

"Detective Nolan...these two are under arrest for assault," he replied.

"Detective...this is not necessary. I assure you that my orderlies were only doing their jobs," Franklin refuted.

"Their jobs? Because if their jobs include abusing a woman, then I'm going to have to arrest you too, doctor," David growled.

"Miss Blanchard is a very difficult patient. If they have to get rough with her, it's only because she is very unruly about taking her mandated meds," the doctor replied.

"I don't care how difficult she is...a man should never put his hands on a woman like that and I'm going to make sure these charges stick," David said, as another officer in uniform arrived, having been called.

"Good...you're here. Take these two down to the precinct, Officer?" David questioned.

"Officer Rogers, sir," he answered in an accented voice.

"Rogers...I'm going to escort the witnesses to the station. I'll meet you there," he said. Rogers nodded and escorted the assailants out.

"Detective...I must protest. Miss Blanchard is a very disturbed woman. She can't be let out," Franklin protested.

"The law supersedes your protest, doctor. She's the victim of a crime; a crime which happened in your hospital. Expect a full investigation when Captain Weaver gets wind of this," David said, as he turned to the woman.

"Mary, is it?" he asked. She stared up at him and then swallowed thickly.

"Yes…" she answered.

"I'm going to take you down to the station. You need to make a statement about what happened here tonight," he told her. She nodded and stood up, as her son helped her. But she felt woozy and her head hurt, so it was no surprise when she stumbled. Fortunately, his reflexes were quick as ever and he caught her in his arms. They stared at each other, utterly captivated, as he helped her back to her feet.

"I'm sorry…" she finally said.

"Don't be…" he responded, as he led her out. Bobby smiled smugly at Dr. Facilier and followed them. Franklin looked livid and quickly took out his phone.

"It's me...we have a serious problem," he hissed into the phone.

~*~

Henry pulled up to Mr. Clucks in Hyperion Heights.

"Well...here we are," Henry said, as he killed the engine and they got out. Henry followed Lucy into the restaurant and looked around. Lucy went to the counter, but before she could ask one of the other employees where her mother was, they heard yelling.

"I've had it, Jacinda. First you're late...and now you want to leave early?" a portly man questioned, as he burst out from the back room.

"Please...my roommate just told me that my daughter is…" Jacinda started to beg, but then saw her standing there in the restaurant.

"Lucy!" she cried, as she scooped her into a hug.

"This ain't the place for your little family reunion. Get back to work or don't bother coming back!" the boss said testily, as he went into the back room.

"Lucy...I've been worried sick since your Aunt Sabine told me you sneaked out," Jacinda cried.

"I'm sorry Mom...but I had to. I found my Dad," Lucy said. Jacinda stared at her and then looked up at the man with her.

"Uh...I'm really not sure why she thinks that, but I thought the least I could do was make sure she got home okay," Henry stammered. Jacinda sighed.

"Thank you...that was kind of you. Lucy has a...very vivid imagination," she said, looking slightly mortified. He smiled kindly.

"It's okay...there's nothing wrong with that. I had a pretty good imagination too when I was her age. I hope she holds onto that...longer than I did," he replied, as she smiled too, before turning to her daughter.

"I'm calling your Aunt Sabine to come and get you. Hopefully, if we're lucky, your grandmother won't find out about any of this," Jacinda said, as she took her phone out of her pocket.

"Oh, she already knows and you can put your phone away. Lucy will be coming home with me," another voice said. Jacinda looked up to find her step-sister there.

"Ivy…" she uttered.

"Mother is, well to be blunt, pissed. She's tired of your irresponsibility and it's quite obvious that you can't handle Lucy," Ivy stated.

"Hey...take it easy," Henry chimed in, not even sure why he was getting defensive. Her eyes flicked to him.

"And you are?" she asked.

"Henry Mills...I brought Lucy back. She wasn't in any danger," he replied. Ivy snorted derisively.

"Right...she wandered off into Seattle alone one a bus and then was in a stranger's car. That screams of harmless," she replied sarcastically.

"He's not a stranger! He's my Dad! And I wasn't alone on the bus! I was with my...friend Bobby," Lucy interjected. She was reluctant to call Bobby by his true title, for he was around the same age, thanks to the fact that time passed so slowly in Storybrooke. So telling them that Bobby was actually her great Uncle sounded crazy even to her, for their relationship was much more like cousins.

"Really...you're the drunken one night stand that Jacinda had ten years ago?" Ivy questioned derisively.

"No...he's not," Jacinda chimed in, as she took Lucy's hand.

"Please...just let me take her home. This whole thing is just a big misunderstanding," she pleaded.

"Sorry...but Mother has ordered that she come home with me. She'll be filing a motion with a Judge in the morning on custody. And I'm sure they'll be some kind of investigation to prove what we already know. You're an unfit parent," Ivy replied.

"I am not unfit...please don't do this, Ivy. You know what she's like," Jacinda pleaded. The other young woman looked at her and she thought she saw a brief flash of sympathy in Ivy's brown eyes.

"I do...but when she's focused on you and all your problems, that means she's leaving me alone," Ivy replied, as she took Lucy's hand. The girl looked devastated and her eyes never left her parents, as Ivy led her out to her car.

"I'm so sorry…" Henry offered. Jacinda nodded.

"Thanks, but this isn't your problem. Thank you for bringing her back," she said again.

"It was no trouble," he insisted.

"Jacinda...get back to work!" the boss called from the back room and she winced.

"I have to go," she said, as she returned to the back room, leaving Henry alone.

He left the restaurant and got into his car, sighing, as he thought about everything that had happened. He glanced over to the floorboard of the passenger seat and instantly noticed that something was missing. His bag with his laptop was gone. He looked all over the car and then realized what had probably happened. Instead of being angry, he found himself shaking his head in amusement.

"That little sneak," he muttered, as his phone chimed and he read the text. It was from a number he didn't recognize, but somehow he knew it was Lucy.

"If you want your laptop back...meet me at Roni's bar tomorrow after school in Hyperion Heights," Henry read from his phone. He shook his head and found he wasn't really all that upset, especially if seeing Lucy again meant also seeing Jacinda as well.

~*~

Storybrooke

2021

A portal opened and deposited a young blonde haired girl in her teens upon the pavement. She looked around in bewilderment and started walking along the street. Few people paid her much mind. It wasn't like portals were an uncommon thing in Storybrooke now.

"Excuse me...can someone help me, please?" she called. But people just kept going about their business and she kept walking, until she saw a building with a star on the door. Henry told her about this building and that his mother and grandfather could often be found there.

"Can someone please help me? Henry Nolan sent me for help," she called. The three shorter men that were loitering around a very strange looking carriage eyed her suspiciously.

"How do you know Henry?" the one with a beard asked.

"I'm a friend and he sent me here. He told me to find his grandparents, Snow White and Prince Charming. And his mother...the Savior," she replied.

"Or so you say…" Leroy said suspiciously.

"Yeah...maybe you're really a spy," Sleepy said, as he yawned.

"She doesn't really look like a spy," Happy chided.

"That's why it's perfect," Sleepy argued.

"Can it, morons...what's your name, girl?" Leroy questioned.

"Alice…" she replied. Happy snorted.

"From Wonderland?" he joked. She looked offended.

"And other places!" she corrected hotly.

"You know I've been to all kinds of places, but one little trip to Wonderland and suddenly that's all I'm known for," she complained.

"Shut it...look if you want to see Charming, then you need to come inside and answer a few more questions. Too many nut jobs have come here looking for Snow and Charming, so we need to make sure you're on the level," Leroy said.

"We appreciate that, Leroy, but that won't be necessary," David interjected, as Alice looked passed the shorter man to see an attractive couple there, holding hands. Behind them was another attractive couple as well and her breath caught in her throat. Could it be?

"Papa?" she asked, looking at Hook. The former pirate and now deputy's eyes widened and he looked utterly flabbergasted.

"It is you! It is you, papa...she said you were dead!" Alice cried, as she started toward him. But unfortunately, that was when Hook suddenly felt a pain in his chest and he collapsed in agony.

"Killian!" Emma cried, as she knelt beside him. Alice started to cry, as she backed away.

"Oh no...your heart is still poisoned and now you don't even remember me," she sobbed.

"Hey...it's okay, it's okay…" Snow said gently, as she managed to get the girl to allow her to hug her.

"Take deep breaths and maybe start at the beginning," Snow urged.

"My name is Alice and he's my Papa. The evil witch that is my mother poisoned his heart, so he had to leave me or he would die. Then when I finally escaped the tower she imprisoned me in, I couldn't find him. She told me he was dead, but I should have known she was lying," Alice cried.

"I should have known she'd do worse than that. He doesn't even remember me," she sobbed.

"It's okay...fortunately, around here, we know quite a bit about stolen memories and I know someone that might be able to help restore those memories," Snow said. Alice looked at her in confusion.

"You'll help me?" she asked.

"Of course we will," Snow replied.

"But you don't even know me," Alice argued. Snow shared a smile with her husband and daughter.

"Your a friend of Henry's, so that makes you a friend of ours," David replied.

"He's right," Snow agreed, as she took out her phone.

"Regina...we have a bit of a situation. Can you come down to the station?" Snow asked and there was a puff of purple smoke, as the other woman appeared, before Snow could even hang up.

"What's going on?" she asked, as she saw the state Hook was in.

"Sounds like a poisoned heart and stolen memories," Snow said.

"So you called the dark magic expert," Regina replied, with a coy smile.

"Okay...let's get the hand-less wonder into the station and see what we're dealing with," Regina agreed.

"Can I just say that this whole thing reeks of trouble?" Leroy asked.

"Easy Leroy, I need you and Happy to take my afternoon patrol. I'm sure this will all be cleared up by the end of the day," David replied.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, handsome. Come on boys," Leroy said gruffly, as they left to run patrol, while the others dealt with this new crisis.

[bossbabyjesus]

I used to think I had 2 brothers. Now I only have 1. I wish the rest of my family only recognized the 1.

My former brother did something pretty terrible to me years ago that made me uncomfortable around him ever again. I didn’t tell anyone until after he blew up the family and black-sheeped himself in a completely separate incident. He moved out of state and blocked everyone on social media. After a year, maybe 2, of him being gone I decided it was safe to finally tell my parents what he did, since we’d never have to see him again anyway. I thought it would feel good to have that long-kept secret off my chest and be able to openly hate someone who was out of our lives for good by his own choice.

Well, unluckily for me, he moved back to town only a few months after I told my truth. He was in a serious state of depression and needed lots of familial support. The family was willing to forgive him for that incident that made him leave in the first place, since it was a result of his mental health. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him because now my parents know what he did and I wouldn’t have to pretend to be okay at family gatherings or whatever. So I asked them not to talk to me about whatever he was going through and not to invite him to events I would be at. My mom wasn’t very good at keeping the “no gossip” boundary and let me know when he was put on suicide watch, when he was hospitalized, when he was released from the hospital, when he got a girlfriend, when he moved in with my grandparents. I was still hoping that he would leave town again and cut off the family so that I wouldn’t have to hear about him anymore.

Then last year my parents and my real brother and his kids all moved multiple states away, so the only family I have left in town are my grandparents. My grandma and grandpa also know what I told my parents, but that won’t stop them from supporting a grandchild in need. So in order to avoid him, I have to call grandma each time before I go visit them to ask if he’ll be there or if it’s safe to come by. If I call my grandpa, he won’t tell me whether or not he’s there. He’d just say “we’re not busy, come on by.” I hardly get to see my grandparents, my only family who live nearby, because I don’t want to encounter this man. It really sucks.

My mom came to visit for 2 months this summer. She was borrowing my car when I wasn’t using it, or else I was driving her to where she needed to go. She obviously wanted to spend a lot of time with her parents, my grandma and grandpa, whom she’d never lived more than 10 minutes away before this past year. A few times he would show up, and she would expect me to ignore his presence. A few times I would leave my keys in her purse and call my husband to pick me up. She hosted her birthday party at my grandparents’ house, and she told me beforehand that she asked him not to come because she really wanted me to be there and enjoy it. Grandma asked me to bring the cake and some sides for dinner, so I went to the party feeling safe in the assumption my former brother wouldn’t be there. He was there the whole time! Not involved in the actual party, but coming in and out of the house and working on his car in the front yard. Every time he walked in the house I tried to walk in a different direction and avoid him, but it’s a small house overcrowded with party people. It sucked. I stayed until after dinner and cake, and left with my husband and what I deemed a reasonable time. And I cried at home all night.

I felt betrayed by my mom. I told her I didn’t want him in my life. I spent way less time with my grandma and grandpa in order to avoid him. And she came for only 2 months and kept putting me in uncomfortable positions where I’d have to keep seeing him. He doesn’t approach or try to talk to me, but it hurts still just seeing him. I thought I wouldn’t have to see him again. After he left I was so relieved, and when he came back I was so angry. I know he’s never going to move out of my grandparents’ house. He’s always needed extra support from my parents and grandparents. I will never get to have normal family gatherings without fear of seeing him. I was hoping my mom would help me avoid it, but she seems careless about my boundary. I’ve always been really really close with my mom, so her supporting him after knowing what he did and not keeping him away from me makes me cry way too long and way too hard. I knew she wouldn’t be able to cut him off. That’s why I didn’t tell her anything until after he cut himself off. Why couldn’t he just stay gone? That would have made my life so much easier.

Why couldn’t he just stay gone?

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #142

“and how can i blame you when it’s me i can’t forgive?”

What was the longest time you’ve liked someone?  Like... five years. Do you have make-up on?  No. Have you kissed anybody in the last 4 days?  My kitty. When you are out with your friends, are you loud and outgoing or shy?  With Colleen, like the only friend I hang out with, I'm definitely more outgoing. Would you prefer to date someone taller, shorter, or the same height as you?  I couldn't care less about your height. Ever spent the night in a tent?  My sisters and I used to do that with Dad a lot.  We'd "camp" out in the yard. Have you ever cried while reading a book?  Yes. Do you have anyone who is a surrogate parent/sibling to you?  No. Can you snap your fingers?  Yeah. Can you wink?  Only with my right eye. Have you played mini golf recently?  Nooo.  The last time I did that was on a date with Jason for I think our... two years?  So in other words, a long time ago. Who were the last three people you texted?  Sara, Mom, and Colleen. Cereal or bagels?  Bagels. Have you ever seen a stand up comedian?  No, but I'd love to. Corn on the cob or canned corn?  Canned I guess, the fact on the cob is very difficult to eat with my lip ring being a factor. Who’re your top five favorite singers?  Uhhh Brendon Urie and Patrick Stump are easily the top, but besides them, uhhhh... I love David Coverdale's voice, as well as Sebastian Bach's.  And then of course Ozzy's voice is the most unique I know, and I love his vocal range. What was the last amusement park you went to?  I couldn't tell you. Where did you last go swimming at?  Atlantic Ocean. Who was there?  Colleen and Bradley. When was the last time you changed in front of people?  Uhhh probably some time ago when Mom was present, I guess? What day were you born?  Apparently on a Monday. Is cheerleading considered a sport?  I think it is.  It takes effort to do. Do you have/had a treehouse?  No. What about a swing set?  Yes. Would you rather be buried or cremated when you die?  Cremated, please. Have you been hit by a car?  Whoa no. Have you ever seen someone die?  Animals. Do you have the right time set on your microwave?  Yeah. Do you like Tootsie Rolls?  Ew no. Do you or have you ever smoked cigarettes?  No. Have you ever jumped off a high dive into a pool?  No. Have you ever worn someone’s else’s boyfriend’s hoodie?  Not to my knowledge. Do you know how to play any card games, well?  No. Have you ever played any form of Zelda?  Tyler got me to try I think uhhhhh Ocarina of Time one time he was over, but I wasn't really into it. What’s your full heritage?  German, Irish, and Polish is what we're aware of. What shampoo do you use?  Suave. What’s your favorite t-shirt have on it?  That would probably be my Otep shirt since I like how it fits me.  It has a maroon Ouroboros on it with the band name. Did you like some certain bands before they got famous?  Yeah. How important do you consider your pets, if you have any?  They're the only children I ever want. When’s the last time someone of the opposite sex told you they miss you?  Sam, a month or two back. Are you more optimistic or pessimistic?  I'm definitely a realist.  I couldn't tell you which of those I lean more towards. Are you comfortable with your weight?  NOPE.  But I'm making an effort to get to the weight I want. How often do you listen to classic rock?  Frequently.  I'll get in the mood to binge classic rock and metal on my iPod. What about country?  Pretty much anytime I'm with Colleen. Is anyone in your family sick?  No. Whose house did you visit last?  Colleen's. Could you have sex with the last person you text messaged? We're both female, so.  Even I could, no.  She's just my friend. Have you ever kissed in the rain?  Yeah. Do you have any friends you have never gotten into an argument with?  Yup, Connie. Have you ever helped someone while they were drunk puking?  No. Do you prefer glazed or powdered donuts?  Glazed. Who did you last spoon with?  Sara. If you wear tampons, do you prefer cardboard or plastic applicators?  There's cardboard?????  Guess it's obvious which I use, that being said. Would you ever consider getting an abortion, under any circumstances?  If my life was threatened, I probably would.  I'm sorry, I'm not giving up my life for a child that would have to be the result of rape.  If I got pregnant having sex with my own consent (and my life wasn't endangered), I feel I'd likely go through it.  Then it's my own fault. When was the last time you felt turned on?  About a week ago when I was talking to Sara, only semi-joking that I had reason to believe she had a kinky side. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A boxer mix. Do you ever put fruit on your cereal?  No, it's gross imo. Were your grandparents present when you were born? Very doubtful.  They didn't live in NC. Have you ever played the game Angry Birds?  No. What is something unusual that annoys you?  I get way more annoyed than called for when people go in or out the wrong door. Name three things apart from trust and loyalty that you need in a relationship.  No desire for children because that would obviously cause an issue, good core values and beliefs, patience with my mental issues. Would you be upset if you had a child who decided to make “adult films?”  Um I'd be fucking furious. Do you prefer to be the big spoon or little spoon?  Little spoon with a guy, but I'm for either with a girl.  With Sara I've always been the big, probs because she's such a tiny thing. Do you prefer to be tied up or do the tying? (bondage) Ummm I'd probably like being the one tied up. If you just met someone and found out they were a psychopath, if you knew they would never harm you, would you like to be their friend?  No.  No.  And no. What do you think makes you the most different compared to everyone else your age?  The sheer level of my anxiety.  It's kept me from a job, from driving.  It affects so many parts of me. What personality characteristic gets you in trouble the most?  Just how sensitive I am. What personality characteristic gets you the most friends?  Probably how open-minded and tolerant I am. If you are in a relationship (or in your last relationship), how many times have you considered leaving?  I've never considered it. Of all of your friends' significant others, who do you get along with best? And least? I legit have one friend here who's in a relationship, and that's Colleen.  Her husband's great. If marriage is something that you see in your future, is there anything non-traditional about your ideas (for example, a non-diamond ring, no proposal, eloping, etc.)?  Uh I guess the fact I doubt I'll wear white, nor will I marry in a church? What would your life be like if you had married your first love?  Jc I don't even wanna picture that.  I'd be with a dick who didn't have faith in my abilities. Have you ever been told off for the way you were dressed (by a parent, teacher, spouse, etc.)?  No, not "told off."  People have voiced their disapproval of some choices, but no one's ever gone that far. If you have siblings, are you closer now or were you closer as children? As children.  Well, maybe I'm closer to Ashley now. Have you ever had a platonic friend that everyone insisted you should be in a relationship with?  That was the story of Girt and me. Is there anything about a person's sexual past that might stop you from wanting to date them?  Yup. What was the biggest mistake of your life? Did you rectify it or just move on?  Letting Jason become my entire universe.  I corrected it. Have you ever done something sexual that you regret?  Ummmm no, I guess. Ever been close to dying?  Umm I'm actually not sure... I don't know what would've happened if I didn't go to the ER after I overdosed.  Don't know what would've happened without drowning me in fluids. Can you drive, and if you can, do you like it?  I have a permit, and I hate driving.  It's terrifying.  I don't trust people.  I mean I've been told by Mom I usually drive fine, save for the fact my speed goes up and down by about 5 mph, and I canNOT park around others and have very little perception of how far away the hood of the car is from what is in front of it. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret?  Yeah. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies?  Soft cookies. Have you and a friend ever gone after the same person?  Not to my knowledge. What is your cell phone wallpaper of?  My lock screen and home screen are different pics of Sara and me. Has the electricity ever gone out when you were at school?  Yes. Do you lead people on? Noooo. Do you want someone dead?  Not anyone I know specifically, but like.  Rapists, pedophiles, and the like, I do. Have you ever been told that you were going to Hell?  She pretty much did. What was the last movie you watched?  I fucking FINALLY watched Johnny Got His Gun. What’s the latest you have ever stayed out?  Good question.

[qqueenofhades]

things fall apart (the center cannot hold)

This will absolutely be jossed in a month when s2 comes out, but I had a Need. Based on spoilers/press releases/promos/etc. Apparently my muse lives. Welp.

Wyatt Logan has always been well aware that war is hell.

He’s a soldier, after all. He’s been in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s seen some shit that stays with you. He’s served with the grunts wearing camo, battling through the desert dust with jeepfuls of Taliban on their tail, and he’s tracked down high-value targets wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit in Dubai. When you’re Delta Force, the job description is flexible, and while Wyatt has moments where it comes back – the Alamo mission, for example – he likes to think he’s, on the whole, mostly good at handling it and remaining mentally competent and unaffected. He’s not, no one ever really is, but everyone who makes a career in the service has to believe that lie. They’ll come home and find that it is one too damn soon.

Nothing, however, has compared to the shrieking artillery shells, the tangles of barbed wire, the distant yellow haze of mustard gas, the flaming bi-wing planes overhead, the endless mud, the kids who can’t be more than seventeen dying with their guts spilled out and sobbing for their mothers, and the hellhole trenches of the French front of World War I, 1918. Or maybe because it’s more than that, this time. It’s not just the Great War, it’s – impossibly – a Great War. Because someone already tried to kill Wyatt and Rufus back at Mason Industries, when the damn place blew up, and Lucy still hadn’t come back from her visit to her mom. It’s been a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants sort of thing. They haven’t put it all together yet, can’t figure out why Lucy’s on the Mothership, who even has the Mothership, and why –

This, of course, isn’t the important thing. They just need to catch up to her first, and they’ve put all their energies into doing exactly that. Only to find, of course, that Lucy has already rescued herself, tried to recruit Marie Curie to help, and wants to save a wounded soldier named Nicholas Keynes. This is still a bit too much for Wyatt and Rufus to process, given that less than twenty-four hours ago, they thought their job was done. Rittenhouse’s head honchos (and Flynn) have all been arrested. What the fuck are they doing back here now?

“It’s…” Lucy’s eyes look odd, as they sit in a grimy canvas tent by the light of a camp lantern, and listen to the distant thuds and booms. “It’s complicated.”

Wyatt and Rufus look at each other. They have picked that up for themselves, funnily enough, but they can tell that something is terribly wrong, and not just the obvious. Finally Wyatt says, “Your mom – ?”

The flare of Lucy’s nostrils alerts him that she really doesn’t want to talk about this subject. Her fingers twist in her brown serge skirt. At last she says, “She’s here. She and Emma Whitmore took me here. My mom – my mother is – is Rittenhouse. She’s always known. About all this. She arranged to have Emma steal the Mothership, and…”

Wyatt starts to say something, then stops. There is not much you can answer to that, and any words of comfort sound trite and stupid in his mouth. He reaches out, gripping her hand, and Lucy squeezes it quickly, then lets go. “There’s more,” she goes on, coolly as a battlefield surgeon. “Nicholas Keynes, who I was trying to save – that’s exactly what they wanted me to do. It turns out he’s my great-grandfather. They want to bring him to the present to be Rittenhouse’s new leader.”

“What?” It’s Rufus’s turn to try, and fail, to get his head around this. “What, more of your relatives? Have the whole lot of them been Rittenhouse this entire time?”

Wyatt shoots him a warning look, but it’s clear he has the same question. “Wh – your great-grandfather? How can they take someone who lives in 1918 to the present?”

“They can do anything they want, can’t they?” Lucy bursts out. She jerks to her feet, whirling on them, though it’s clear that Wyatt and Rufus aren’t the one she’s really angry at. “They have the Mothership! Everything we thought we did, we – ”

She stops, closing her eyes, breathing hard. Another boom goes off in the distance.

“But your – your great-grandfather,” Rufus says uncertainly. “He’s supposed to get married and have a kid, right? Has that already happened? Or do they take him, and then you don’t –”

Since they have already skated perilously close to getting another of Lucy’s grandparents killed, thus possibly erasing her, this is obviously a question of considerable interest. Finally Lucy says tightly, “I don’t know. I don’t know which of my biological parents he’s the ancestor of. I don’t know if he died here originally. I don’t know.”

This is the worst thing for a historian, for someone who has made her living, and saved them so often, by being familiar with all the secrets of the past, and realizing that her own is such a huge and terrible mystery. Obviously, the Time Team is going to have to keep fighting, but that’s the only certainty they have, and the false hope of thinking everything was over is making this bitter pill still harder to swallow. They exchange looks. More explosions.

“Fine,” Wyatt says grimly. “Let’s kick some ass.”

This is indeed what they try to do. It’s a noble idea.

It turns out to be totally disastrous.

Fighting Flynn was one thing. The Time Team got used to him quickly, could just figure he would adopt the straightforward expedient of going out and shooting whoever looked important, punching a few passersby, blowing something up, or otherwise favoring the scorched-earth approach. But that’s the thing about Flynn. He was a one-man wrecking crew, and a very efficient one at that, but he was one man. His assistants mostly existed to help him out, not to take any action on their own, and Flynn could usually be counted to burn through them anyway. As much as the team has had to fight to keep Flynn’s grubby paws off the good china, they’ve had an advantage: there have been three of them, working together. They outnumber him. Of course, albeit with effort, it’s been possible to thwart him.

That advantage is totally gone now. Rittenhouse has at least half a dozen trained operatives spread out to every side, led by Carol Preston and Emma Whitmore, and all of them are working actively according to whatever super-secret How To Take Over The World In 12 Easy Steps evil memo they’ve been given. Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus are utterly overmatched. They can’t run one place and beat out the embers only for them to flare up behind their back, can’t possibly attach themselves to everyone, and since Carol has ordered them to be on the lookout for her daughter, that puts Lucy at risk every time she steps outside. They’ve lost any hope of stopping whatever Rittenhouse proposed to do with Nicholas Keynes, and they’ve got no clue what else is on the agenda either. They don’t even know their enemy. Flynn was reliably recognizable, they could just ask for the tall dark Eastern European man, and someone was bound to have had a bad experience. All these agents are faceless, unknowable.

“You know,” Wyatt says grimly, as they’re trudging back to the Lifeboat, filthy and humiliated and footsore. “I swear, I’m actually missing him.”

He stops short, glancing at Lucy, as he also knows that this is a sore subject for her. That she shouted at Denise not to arrest Flynn as the SWAT team closed in, that Flynn believes she has personally and savagely betrayed him, and he’s been carted off and thrown in some black site to molder indefinitely. In Wyatt’s opinion, some moldering will be good for Flynn, and it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. Wyatt feels protectively that Lucy has been much more understanding to Flynn than could ever be expected, though he has to admit that the bastard had a tiny flicker of decency in 1954. But what good does that do them now, when –

Something occurs to Wyatt. Just a moment, just in passing.

No. No. That is a horrible idea.

Absolutely not.

(It won’t quite go away.)

Lucy has been watching him, and Wyatt has an uncomfortable feeling that she knows exactly what he was just thinking. Their eyes meet, then turn away, as they climb into the Lifeboat smelling like swamp ass, and Rufus starts firing up the controls to jump them home. Great. Back to the weekly Vomit Comet Power Hour. Just what Wyatt wanted.

Once they’ve landed back in 2018, try as Wyatt might, he can’t shake the idea. He and Rufus are very leery of staying around in the warehouse for long, given as it was exploding the last time they were here, and they shuck their 1918 clothes and leave as quickly as they can. Nobody feels safe on the streets either, or apart, and as they’re driving back to Rufus’ apartment, it being the only place that they can lie low for a while, Wyatt can’t hold back any more. “I – guys, I’ve been thinking. That was a total disaster. We keep up like that, we’re screwed. We need more help.”

“What?” Rufus looks at him warily. “Jiya? The last jump in the Lifeboat did something weird to her brain, we can’t risk that again. And given as someone tried to blow us up the last time we were in Mason Industries, I don’t think we’ve got a ton of options for – ”

“I wasn’t thinking about someone from Mason Industries.” Wyatt reminds himself that this is his last chance to come to his senses. “I was… thinking about Flynn.”

Rufus almost drives into the semi-truck in front of them, slams on the brakes just in time, is honked at by the person behind him, and cuts hard into the right lane with a screech of tires. “Are you out of your mind? Flynn?”

Lucy has gone slightly pale, but by the look on her face, Wyatt can tell this was in fact what she was thinking earlier. “I know it sounds insane,” he starts, “but – ”

“Yes,” Rufus says. “Yes, it sounds insane. It sounds idiotically insane. Flynn?”

“We know what he did to you.” Lucy’s expression is troubled and sympathetic as she leans forward from the back seat. “Trust me. But this whole time… he was right, wasn’t he? It was Rittenhouse that was doing all this. He knew more about them than we ever will, and he…” She hesitates. “Well, he got results.”

“Yeah,” Rufus says. “Like shooting Abraham Lincoln. Or were we talking about nearly blowing up your grandfather? Or – I don’t know, pick literally anything he’s done?”

“He might agree to work with us,” Wyatt says. “It’s got to be better than rotting in jail.”

“So he can kill us and go back to his own crusade?” Rufus was never going to like this, alas, and Wyatt has to admit, he might be the only thing saving their butts from a renewed approach, but still. “He’d shoot us in the back of the head and jack the Lifeboat the instant he got a chance. Don’t tell me he wouldn’t.”

“I…” Lucy sighs deeply. The insanity of approaching a man who thinks they betrayed him, who has been their enemy almost this entire time, is plainly obvious, and like Wyatt, she has no real good counter for Rufus’s objections. “I’m not sure. He still hates Rittenhouse. I can’t believe he really wants to sit there and do nothing, if he had a choice otherwise. And I reached him once. Changed his mind. I think I could do it again.”

Rufus shoots her an unhappy look. If it’s a matter of blaspheming Flynn, he will do that gladly, but it’s less easy to defame or distrust her. “Lucy,” he says. “I know you had that whole journal thing with him, and… all right, he used to hate you maybe two percent less than he hated us, but now that he thinks you set up the fuzz to nab him – ”

“I know,” Lucy says heavily. “But what’s our alternative?”

Everyone thinks about that. It’s an uncomfortable silence.

Wyatt says, “Anyone know where Denise lives?”

“No,” Agent Christopher says. “I absolutely cannot agree to that.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but we just got wiped out.” Wyatt looks at her levelly. “We’re lucky we didn’t come back here and find – I don’t know what, but it was bad. We are completely overmatched on the ground. The last time we tried to just rope in another soldier, it was Bam-Bam, and we…” He hesitates. Dave Baumgardner was his friend, after all. “Well, we saw how long that lasted. We don’t have time to train and brief someone else.”

“You didn’t have any training,” Denise points out. “We told you time travel was real, you got in the Lifeboat, and you went.”

“Yeah,” Lucy says, “and we learned on the job, but don’t you think the stakes are too high for that now? Last time was the beginner level. This is beyond that.”

“We can’t trust Garcia Flynn,” Denise says flatly. “If we let him out, and he goes rogue again – if he turns against you three – ”

“I know.” Lucy’s voice is quiet, but unyielding. “I know all the reasons, believe me. We’ve gone through them. But I told you not to arrest him in the first place. You owe me this.”

Denise takes that in. It’s hard to tell what she feels about being essentially rebuked by a subordinate to her face, but she says nothing. Then she turns to Rufus, having – accurately – sensed that he’ll have the most objections. “What do you think about this?”

“I hate it,” Rufus says, after a brief pause. His voice trembles. “I’m terrified of Flynn, I’m not going to pretend I’m not. But I think I’m more terrified of Rittenhouse, about everything they’ve done to me, that they could still do to everyone. And I trust Lucy and Wyatt. If for some crazy reason they think this the best choice, I support them.”

Denise has not expected that, and Lucy and Wyatt move instinctively to either side of Rufus, to make it clear they’re standing together. Of course, if Rufus’s decision was absolute to never see Flynn again, they would have respected it, but now that they’ve committed to, they aren’t turning back. There is a very uncomfortable silence as the Time Team and Denise stare at each other. Nobody seems inclined to be the first to back down.

“Just so you know,” Wyatt says. “If you don’t help us get him out, we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands. And I’m pretty sure nobody wants that.”

Denise glances away. “Fine. We’re going to take a ride.”

Technically, civilians aren’t supposed to know where the black site is, and of all of them, Wyatt is the only one who might have actual security clearance, but it’s nighttime, they’re not going to sit there with their eyes closed the whole time, and they’re a little past such things anyway. It’s a drive of thirty or forty minutes out of the city, until they pull up to a chainlink, barbed-wire fence, Denise rolls down the driver’s window and flashes a badge at the guard in the booth, and they roll through with a crunch of gravel. They step out of the car, follow her to another locked gate, and head in.

Inside, it’s cold steel and harsh fluorescent lights, doors marked NO ACCESS that probably contain the NSA agent spying on your search history, and other such charming aesthetics. Denise has phoned ahead, and leads them down the corridor to one of the interrogation rooms. The glass is one-way, so they can see who’s sitting inside before he can see them. He’s dressed in a grey inmate jumpsuit, a chain around his waist, handcuffed to the bar on the table, and if looks could kill, the entire Bay Area would be dead. Lucy has a too-late qualm. This is, in fact, a terrible idea. Her stomach has turned over at seeing him again, as she finds herself anxiously searching his face to see if he’s been beaten up. Not that it matters.

They step into the booth with Denise, and she presses a button. “Good evening, Flynn.”

His face twists. Even if he’s been informed that someone wants to talk to him, he has no reason to expect anything besides another round of questions. Much as he clearly wants to fire back, he just stares back at them. It’s insolent, but it’s also oddly heartbreaking. He doesn’t see any point in fighting. He had what he wanted, in his hands, and then it was gone. He’ll torment his captors to the end, because of course, but he has no real reason aside from habit. The glare of the lights bleach him of color. He looks half like a skull.

“Well?” he growls at last. “Get on with it. Or is this some new tactic to – ”

“Rittenhouse has the Mothership.” Lucy wasn’t going to speak, but she can’t help it. “They stole it about a week ago.”

At the sound of her voice – after all, he still can’t see them, he didn’t realize it was anyone apart from Denise – Flynn goes completely motionless. Then he half makes to get up, is caught by the chain, and crashes back down into the hard metal chair. “Lucy,” he says, curling his mouth viciously around it. “Well, well. Just you, or the other two idiots as well?”

“We’re all here,” Wyatt says shortly. It might have been his idea to do this, but he clearly isn’t going to stand for lip. “And she isn’t lying. Rittenhouse has the Mothership.”

Flynn stares at them – or rather, the glass. It’s impossible to say what is going through his head. Then finally he barks, “How is that my problem?”

“It…” Lucy bites her lip, feeling her finite confidence dwindling. “It’s not, but we…we had thought you might…”

At that, it seems to occur to Flynn what they might be here to ask him. It’s harder to say if he’s more amused or angry about it. “Let me make sure I have this clear,” he says, in tones of scathing derision. “Are you actually asking me to help you?”

Nobody can quite be sure that’s what they are in fact here to do, when he puts it like that, so there’s a brief and marked silence. There’s nothing they can offer him. There’s no way he’ll believe that they’ll actually help him get his wife and daughter back, the last time going how it did, and he probably doesn’t give a shit if he’s in jail or out of it. Once there was his – whatever it was, connection, fascination, destiny – with Lucy, but that’s gone too. All they have is his hatred of Rittenhouse, and that doesn’t seem like much.

“I’m not helping you.” Flynn’s eyes smoke. “Now torture me, make me disappear, or whatever you’re going to do. Then maybe you can learn what it’s like to – ”

“Flynn,” Lucy starts helplessly. “Garcia, I – ”

He tilts his chin up and stares so directly at her that she can’t help but feel he can momentarily see through the glass. “Get. Out.”

Denise and Rufus give Lucy and Wyatt looks as if that’s it, they’ve tried, they can safely chalk this up as a loss. They take a step as if to go, but then Wyatt leans over and hits the button that reverses the opacity on the glass, allowing Flynn, for the first time, to see the four of them. “Hey,” Wyatt says roughly. “Hey, remember when you had me tied up in a chair during the Watergate mission and would not shut the hell up? Remember how you told me what happened to your family? Those bastards are still out there. They’re still out there, and they’re gonna do to a lot more families what they did to yours. You’re really telling me that doesn’t matter to you? Huh?”

Flynn’s eyes are slits. “Don’t talk about my family.”

“You can’t stop me, can you? You’re chained to a table. You can come out here and make me shut up, or you can sit on your ass and let them win. And you know what? I don’t think you’re going to do that.”

The silence is smothering. Flynn continues to stare at them evilly. He doesn’t bother asking what’s in it for him if he cooperates; he neither trusts nor cares about anything they would say. Likewise, he doesn’t promise them anything, as he clearly has no intention of keeping it. If this is their best hope, it feels like Rittenhouse has already won.

“Well?” Denise says, into the silence. “Do you want to stay here or not?”

“No.” A mirthless smile twists up Flynn’s mouth. “I want to punch Wyatt. Let me out.”

The first mission was a disaster. The second mission is more of one.

Once the black site’s security cameras are conveniently scrambled, a second car follows Denise and the Time Team back to Mason Industries, the Lifeboat’s modifications for four people are checked over, and everyone they meet has the same reaction (“FLYNN?!?!”) it isn’t long until they get a chance to see how bad, exactly, this is. Rufus won’t come anywhere near him, Lucy and Wyatt aren’t too sure themselves, and while they finally have to get into the Lifeboat together and jump to a 1950s stock-car race, this does not presage any kind of improvement. Rittenhouse apparently wants to destroy the American auto industry (they could have just asked General Motors) and the instant they land, Flynn books out on his own. Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus are left to team up as usual and try to sort things out without him. “I have an idea,” Rufus says darkly. “Let’s just leave him here.”

Lucy and Wyatt give him looks that remind him they can’t do that.

“Be honest,” Rufus goes on. “Does anyone actually feel any safer now that we have Flynn and Rittenhouse running around? Now we just have more baby-sitting to do that we couldn’t afford in the first place. Flynn isn’t going to save us if we get into trouble, or have our back, so why do we have any obligation to have his?”

“We don’t,” Wyatt says heavily. “But we got him out of jail and made him part of the team. And that means we don’t leave him behind.”

Rufus looks as if he still has plenty more to say to this, but sighs and gives up. They don’t see Flynn again until the end of the mission – in fact, when they get back to the Lifeboat, he’s leaning against it and waiting for them, scowling. “Took you long enough.”

“Great.” Rufus throws up his hands. “We’re all back together.”

“Where have you been, Flynn?” Every time Lucy asks him anything, he’s pretended to be deaf, and she doesn’t want to sound like a chiding schoolteacher, not that any variation of tone or manner would help her at all. “We were – ”

“I was out killing Rittenhouse agents,” Flynn snaps. “The thing we’re here to do, aren’t we?”

That catches them short. They exchange looks. Finally Wyatt says, “You were…?”

“You’re welcome.” Flynn stands up with a jerk that makes Rufus back away. “I killed three, by my count. I’m guessing you had no idea who they were, did you?”

Wyatt, Lucy, and Rufus look at each other. It seems hypocritical to smack Flynn on the wrist, when they got him out of jail precisely to be a blunt-force weapon, but still. Finally Lucy says cautiously, “If you could tell us, maybe we could – ”

“No.” Flynn sneers. “We are not a team, and we are never going to be one. This is how it is going to be. We’ll travel out and back together, that’s it. Whenever we get somewhere, you three go do your version of fixing the problem, and I’ll do mine. We can compare notes at who’s more efficient later. That clear?”

“So what?” Rufus snaps, surprising everyone. “You think we’ll just give you a ride wherever you want to go murder someone next, then come pick you up when you’re done? I’m the only one of us who can actually drive your butt home, so what are you going to do if I refuse? Get me shot again?”

Flynn eyes him as if he’s thinking about it, and Wyatt tenses, trying not to reach for his own gun too obviously. There are a few very unbearable moments. Then Flynn whirls on his heel. “Get in the time machine, Carlin.”

“Yeah,” Rufus mutters, with a very black look. “We’re screwed.”

And then, Salem.

There has been Hollywood, and Flynn once more disappearing to do things his way, and a few more Rittenhouse agents turning up dead on the beach, and other things have gotten a little complicated between Wyatt and Lucy, and it’s spooked both of them. Not that they have time to focus on it, especially given that they next end up in the middle of the frigging Salem Witch Trials. For the first time, Flynn can’t just thunder out and murder the nearest Rittenhouse agent, because Rittenhouse has been very careful about not making an appearance. They’ve just stayed out of sight, pulling strings, inflaming the existing public hysteria, and letting that do the work, and it doesn’t take the Salemites long to latch onto these four strange newcomers as Clearly Up To No Good. One of Cotton Mather’s goon squads grabs Lucy, and no matter how much she kicks and struggles, she soon finds herself shut up in a small room with a number of the other accused women.

The hangings have already started, and everyone is terse and worried, Lucy not least. None of the boys know where she is. If she tries to play the trick she used on H.H. Holmes, it will be indubitable proof of witchcraft. She will think herself out of this, obviously, but even she is running low on ideas. She’s just about to ask the women if one of them should feign a swoon, or sickness, if there is anything they can do at all that will not be taken as proof positive of their demonic ways, when she hears a muffled thump outside. Then after a moment, another.

The women look up anxiously, some of them grabbing each other’s hands, thinking that the entire mob of outraged citizens is storming in here to lynch them on the instant. Lucy bolts to her feet, ready to fight if need be, even if that is clearly not her forte. Then there is a third thud that is unmistakably a body hitting the deck, and the door flies open.

The women utter small screams, stop, and stare at the newcomer in confusion. He strides across the floor with creaks and thumps, leather duster swirling (of course he’s wearing a leather duster in 1692, because he is just that extra) and reaches Lucy, grabbing her roughly by the arm. “Let’s go.”

“I – ” Lucy stares at him. Through the door, she can see several Puritans knocked out for the count, and one more groaning, but clearly not able to get to his feet. It is clear that Flynn just punched his way through the lot of them. “I – are you – ”

“Go!” Flynn barks at the other women. “Before those bastards wake up. Now!”

The women stare at him, at each other, and at him again. Flynn must not look too far off from the Devil Himself, bursting in here on behalf of his detained servants, and if nothing else, nobody wants to be spotted with him. They scurry out in white flashes of collars and mob caps, and Flynn watches them go with grim vindication. He blows on his scraped knuckles, then tightens his grip on Lucy’s arm. “They hurt you?”

“I – no.” Lucy has no idea what’s going on. “No, I’m fine.”

Flynn’s eyes flicker over her briefly, as if he has to make sure, and then snorts, letting go of her. “Come on.”

Lucy picks up her skirts and follows him through the prone Puritans. She can’t think this will do anything for their prospects of not getting convicted, but that was always going to happen anyway. What’s more baffling is that Flynn, who has been reminding her at every opportunity that he could not give a shit about her or any of them, has just torn apart a roomful of men on her behalf. She supposes she’s lucky he didn’t shoot the lot. But for her –

It’s strange. She could be entirely and horribly mistaken. And yet, for the first time since the war began, Lucy Preston thinks there might be a chance to win.

[midweekupdate]

10/14/15

I saw my parents for the first time since before Sandra’s death. The timing of the funeral was “too inconvenient” for them so they came on their own time. I don’t think they believed me when I made that phone call. Now they believe me. I mean, yes, I am sometimes known for exaggerating and lying to them but seriously: why would I lie about this?

My parents have never been super supportive of the kids. When my sister was first incarcerated they put up a fight for custody and after they lost, they did try to visit but that was it. From everything I’ve seen of their interactions with the kids, even when they were living with my sister, my parents are more about the presentation than the actual human contact.

They don’t care about the kids; what they care about is how it looks to see a grandparent caring for their grandchild. Thankfully neither Sandra nor Jason seemed to buy into their charade and very quickly refused to see them once they were aware enough to speak their minds. I’ve always been very grateful to use my children as an excuse to avoid my parents but this weekend was apparently an exception.

They called me on Friday to remind me that they were driving in the next day which absolutely stunned me since I had no knowledge of any arrangement to visit. I mean, it is entirely possible that I forgot or that they were mentioning their “plans” as a way to confuse me into accepting their arrival but for whatever reason, it just wasn’t sitting right with me. I asked Jason when he got home and he told me that he had invited them. He was absolutely serious. No hints of anger or malice or humor; just straight-faced and determined. For whatever reason – one I still don’t know, by the way – he decided that it was the best idea in the world to invite his absentee grandparents to dinner after they couldn’t be bothered to show up to his sister’s funeral.

Regardless, they showed up just after 2pm on Saturday and immediately made known their dissatisfaction at the state of my home. For once, when I knew my parents were coming, I didn’t spend an entire day scrubbing and reorganizing the house. I just left it in the horrible, disgusting mess that it was. I felt free to say the least. It was so satisfying to see my father wide-eyed and white as a sheet, completely lost for words. I think he was so overwhelmed by every little detail that was out of place that he just kept his mouth shut. Admittedly, I was fascinated.

My mother, of course, didn’t let herself be stunned for too long and quickly went on a tirade around the house, ranting about the state of affairs and “how could it get this bad since my last visit?”

That’s when Jason finally came down from his room and things got interesting. For starters, he was polite – while projecting his voice – and greeted my parents by name. He invited them into the living room where he would be happy to get them something to drink while I continued preparing a “light lunch, as a courtesy”. I mean What the Fuck? Whoever possessed my son was obviously part English butler. I’ve never heard him string along more than a sentence with my parents before he started to become moody and cussed them out under his breath while his sister shielded him.

Sandra was always very good at protecting her brother from the big evils of the world – their grandparents included – I wonder if this polite and passive aggressive stance is his way of coping without her.

Anyways, he helped me make sandwiches and a veggie platter in silence while my parents watched the T.V. channel that plays nothing but nostalgic reruns. I asked Jason what had gotten into him and his only response was a very serious look of determination and a hint of a smile.

Naturally, as lunch began, I was prepared for a slew of criticisms and judgements to pour out of my mother while I had resigned myself to dead silence on my father’s end today and that’s exactly how it began.

Mother’s first question after “pass the dip” was: “so where’s James?”

Jason immediately tensed and I grabbed his hand under the table to keep him from doing anything stupid. I told her that James was at work which obviously wasn’t a lie but I’ve no doubt she noticed that some of his things were missing from the bathroom and front closet so my answer wasn’t sufficient.

“He’s on his way out the door because of you.”

That’s what she said to me. My mother. Blaming me because she thinks my husband is leaving me. I’ve never had the energy to argue with my mother so I just ate my turkey and cheddar sandwich and let the statement linger between us. Of course that didn’t stop her.

In fact I think she waited until I was chewing to apologize for not attending the funeral, stating that if I talked to her more often, they’d have been able to make it. There was dead silence for a long time before my father spoke up for the first time since greeting me.

He asked about the funeral. He asked how it was, who attended, that sort of thing.

I was too stunned to offer him anything but short statements of fact. I find myself baffled by my father. He’s always carried himself with a sense of military discipline despite – to my knowledge – never actually serving. He’s the strong, silent, and judgmental type who never made me feel good enough and out right terrified me as a child. He still scares me but I know he would never lay a hand on me. He’s a man of few words who prizes order and discipline above all else. I have a lot of respect for him.

So, why the hell did he marry my mother?

In any case his questions shocked me. All I could give were basic answers. Before I could go into any detail, Jason slammed his hands on the table and stood, his body tense and defensive.

The table was stunned into silence – something I never thought I’d hear from my mother. He just attacked her. He called her out on all her bullshit for the last 5 years: The passive aggressive assaults, the constant victim-blaming, the manipulative, egotistical personality that landed his mother in prison. All of it. And she took it because he is her grandson and if it were anyone else she would have fought back. Hell, I would have fought back. But because it was her, and him, I just sat there and watched. I admit to a small speck of satisfaction at seeing my mother’s face turn blue.

The dinner was an emotional rollercoaster ride: my father’s sudden humanity, my son’s abrupt decision to stand up for himself; but the thing that really shocked me was that after Jason was done scolding my mother, she apologized. Not her usual apology were she pretends like she doesn’t understand why we’re angry at her. She seemed sincere.

They left shortly after that so I didn’t actually get a chance to talk to her but she promised to stop by next weekend. Whatever made Jason finally stand up for himself worked.

After all these years, I think someone finally got through to my mother.

I have renewed respect for my son.

And speaking of improving family relations: I’m having coffee with my mother-in-law today after work. God knows how well that’ll go over.

Wish me luck.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

[faunahudson]

settle | self para

Who: Fauna Flanagan and Percy Flanagan with mentions of Rory Flanagan, Conor Flanagan and Sawyer Hudson Where: Belfast When: Feburary 2020 What: Fauna and Percy discuss his opinions on her future Warnings: emotional abuse, derogatory language, Percy Flanagan

It’s pouring with rain the night in February that her father comes to collect her from uni. It was an odd thing that in her adult life she’d begun to rely on lifts, since her and Rory had almost never been collected from school beyond primary. This had partially been because Percy had accused Mary of coddling them by doing so, but mostly because they liked the independence of walking or getting the bus. Fauna had always enjoyed the opportunity to read one of the many paperbacks that she kept crammed in the bottom of her bag. While Rory claimed to like the social aspect of the bus referring to him and Dobsy accusing Tired Pete in the year below of having a gay love affair with the bus driver because he always got off with an under twelves fare way into his teens. It also made people suspect them less of being Tories because their parents didn’t drive them, made them seem more normal. Fauna had liked it that way less reason for people to look at them, and with her headphones in she could ignore the commentary on her sex life that had always followed her back then.

It had been funny, appearing at uni in Belfast. Despite being the new girl things actually weren’t all that weird, she wasn’t ostracised the last way she had been during high school, everything was different in her new classes. In the weeks leading up to her first day there had been the bubble of fear that it would be like it had been in Dublin, that the videos would be found and the rumours would start up all over again. But instead she had been greeted warmly. After classes there were invites to pubs and cups of tea offered, everyone wanted to get to know Sawyer. A few people had even asked about Alexis, which they laughed about over their daily FaceTimes. How funny it was that people liked her when she didn’t really need them to anymore. This new warmth from people had meant that she seldom needed to walk or to take the bus because there was always someone’s car she could cram into, but on this particularly rainy Tuesday she’s been at the clinic later than she expected and there’s no bus for an hour. She knows Sawyer will be working, so she calls her home phone hoping to catch Maurie or her Ma to beg a lift and maybe some dinner. The phone rings twice, when it picks up she goes to talk immediately the way she usually would but she’s halted by.

“Fauna.” Her father says obviously having recognised her number, his tone not annoyed or accusatory for once which makes her immediately wonder if he’s drunk.

“Hey Da, is Maurie there?” She asks, hoping that if he is truly good and drunk he’ll just pass the phone over and she won’t have to prolong their interaction.

“No, her and your Ma went over to your grandparents.” He isn’t drunk, she can tell that by now. If he was drunk he would have put the phone down after delivering that message. “What did you need them for?” If he’d been any other person in the entire world she would have told him it was nothing and then tried to rummage around in her bag for enough change for a cab into town. But she knew if she told him that it was nothing then it would start a fight where he’d demand to know what she was hiding from him, and her feet ached too much for that.

“Oh I was just gonna try and beg a lift from the clinic, scran something from Ma. You know how I am.” She says, though it’s not true. He barely knows her at all. There’s a pause, which lasts longer in her head than it probably did in real life because she’s so fucking cold.

“I’ll pick you up, we’ll go for a pint.” Those were the last words that she expected to come out of his mouth, and she blinks in surprise.

“Why?” She asks before she stop herself, it’s always a terrible idea to question Percy and her heart sinks as soon as she says it. That’s always the problem with living with someone who you can completely be herself with, she forgets that she has to put her guard back up with other people.

“Because you need a fucking lift and I’m the only one in, god it’s not complicated Fauna Eloise.. sometimes I wonder what they teach you up there because it’s not bloody common sense.” Percy snaps.

“Sorry Da.. you’ve just never picked me up before.” Fauna responds, trying to mollify him. “Thanks though.” She adds, he’s not actually punished her since that time at parents week but she doesn’t really want to go through it again.

“Text me the address.” He says, and honestly even though she’s sure she’ll probably live to regret it right now she’s just grateful to think about getting out of the cold. A pint, is a pint after all. Though Percy hadn’t done anything particularly heinous since Sawyer punched Harold at new years, so she supposed she was about due for him to do something to remind her why she hated him so much.

Percy has brought his favourite Porsche coupe and it arrives a lot sooner than Fauna thought it would. She’d almost expected he’d keep her waiting, to punish her for questioning his motives. She dashes through the rain and slips into the front seat, to find Percy listening to the rugby. “Thanks for the lift Da, it’s vile outside.” The weather is usually a pretty safe topic, Percy hates the rain. There’s a brief conversation about the state of the roads, and what she was doing at the clinic before he looks at her and says.

“You can drive can’t you? Why don’t you have a car?” Fauna has to bite her lip hard to keep from laughing at this question. God he really didn’t have any idea what life was like did he? As if her and Sawyer could think about running a car when all they had to live on was the few shifts that she could take at the ER, his barely minimum wage earnings at the pub and what was left of her savings. They could barely afford groceries some weeks, and she’d been shoving the council tax bills underneath the freezer until Maurie had insisted that they take an envelope of ‘Christmas money’ to get rid of them.

“Yeah I can drive, you gave me a lesson once remember?” She reminds him. That was probably the last time that he’d volunteered to spend time with her that wasn’t to give her a bollocking. The lesson hadn’t been terrible to be honest, mostly because Percy liked feeling in control and like he was the smarter one of the two and Fauna didn’t mind learning when she thought the skill was useful. “Canne afford a car though, don’t really need one anyway I only really go to uni and to the pub. Sawyer borrows Glens car sometimes.. if we’re gonna go visit Nana or something.”

He grunts in recognition of the lesson. “You’d have more than enough money if you lived at home.” That’s the second time that evening that he’s stunned her to silence, and so she just stares at him like a fish. Was he really suggesting that she should move home?

“I mean.. I guess. But me and Sawyer are happy where we are I think. It’s nice to have a place of our own, weren’t really supposed to live together at school. ” She responds eventually, she wants to ask him why she would ever want to move home when he’d all but shoved them out of the door when they’d lived there for the month after Ohio. “Besides my single is a bit small for both of us. Sawyers a big lad.”

“Hm.” Is all her father replies it’s not like she expected him to laugh, she doesn’t think he’s ever laughed at one of her jokes but she does have to wonder where he’s going with all this. Her hands fidget in her lap as she waits for the penny to drop but he doesn’t press her on the topic. After a brief silence they pull up to one of the fancy country restaurants that Percy loves where the prices make her teeth hurt. She’s been uncomfortable with this kind of thing since she was a little girl who wore her wellie boots to church. As a kid she used to say she wasn’t hungry anymore and she didn’t want to go inside, which would usually cause him to call her ungrateful and all but yank her from the car while Rory wailed that he wanted Mcdonalds. Even now as an adult she wants to tell him that she’s not dressed for this kind of pint, and that she still stinks of the clinic. But again she knows that it’s not worth fighting over so she pulls the hood of her coat up and trudges with him inside. 

Percy knows the girl on the door, and he speaks to her in an odd charming voice that Fauna knew he had but had never experienced first-hand. She thinks about this version of her father occasionally though, when she’s wondering how Maurie or her Ma ever ended up with him. It’s this charming Dominant they thought they were getting claimed by, not the bad-tempered man who can never be wrong, that ended up raising their kids. They’re shown to a table, and handed expensive looking leather bound menus. Fauna almost doesn’t want to open the thing, but her stomach is growling so she scans the print for the cheapest thing on the menu.

“It’s on me.” Percy says as if reading her mind. It’s early in the dinner for him to declare this, one of his favourite games when he brought her and Sawyer out was always to order and then ask them to pay at the end of the meal. Watching them try to scrap around for enough money to cover the extortionate tab, before the waitress told them that Mr Flanagan had already paid. It was the kind of humiliating mind game that Percy specialised in, always reminding them that they relied on him, that they needed him. Fauna considers asking him whether or not he’s sure he wants to pay but that’s another question so instead she says.

“Thank you very much Da, you didn’t have to bring me out here. I’d have taken a half eaten bag of crisps.” She jokes, her stomach rumbling as her eyes scan over the options. While she’s not a fan of fancy places, she is looking forward to eating something that she didn’t make in that one pot that never seemed to have quite lost the burned crust that she’d created when Sawyer had distracted her while she was trying to make red wine gravy.

“I know, you’ve always been willing to eat any old shit.. Take shit from everyone. You shouldn’t settle though, not about food and not in your life Fauna.” Percy says, and Fauna is starting to wonder if this is all about Sawyer somehow. Percy had been awfully nice to Sawyer since the incident at new years and she now had a creeping suspicion that he’d just been biding his time, lulling them into a false sense of security.

“I mean I actually do just really like cheap food to be honest with you Da, I really enjoyed the American preoccupation with junk food while I was there. As for everything else, I don’t really think I’m settling. I thought I was doing pretty well to be honest, I left a school that I didn’t think was gonna give me a fair shot, I’m studying to be a doctor at the best school around and I’ve got an amazing boyfriend.. what more could I want?”

“You live in a pokey one bedroom flat and you can’t afford a car, you and Sawyer should be thinking about a house of your own.” Percy declares, and honestly Fauna is just glad that Sawyer was included in whatever weird fucking conversation they were about to have. 

“I mean once I’m qualified Da.. we’ll work on a claim and then we can start to think about getting a house and stuff. But I’m in med school right now, that’s you know.. expensive.” She wants to mention her trust fund, because it would solve every single problem that he keeps talking about. But she’d rather try to work out where he’s going with all this first. 

The waitress arrives at that point, and Fauna hasn’t even really thought about what she wants though she decides to use this to her advantage. “Can you order for me Da? You know what’s good here better than me” Percy actually almost cracks a surprised smile at this, letting a Dominant order for you is good manners in his book. Fauna has never been opposed to this kind of power exchange when it’s consensual, though usually not with her father. But she knows that he thinks she’s a terrible submissive, that she’s not willing to follow any kind of rules so little gestures like this can occasionally help with keeping him in a good mood. He orders her something with goats cheese that Maurie apparently likes and a regular pint. 

“I know you think I’m some kind of monster, because I won’t just let you and your brother waste your lives. And you act like I’m a cunt because Ive always tried to stop you from parading yourself around like a whore and acting like a nasty little brat.” Percy says, and Fauna takes a long drink of the pint that’s just been put in front of her. Vodka would have been better. Just when she was thinking this was going well. “But I push you because I know you can have more, and because I always wanted you to find a decent claim. Unlike your moron of a twin, I always knew you had potential. You’re decent looking like your mother, and nobody would ever shut up about how clever you were even when you were a kid. Though it was always like pulling teeth getting you to show it. Obviously there was no chance of you going into the business because you’ve always been submissive and overly emotional.. but I pushed you to do what you were good at.” Fauna wants to say that yelling abuse and emotional manipulation go a little further than ‘pushing’ and that if he really wanted to push her he could have offered to help with medical school but she holds her tongue. “I’ve always been trying to teach you not to be a chump and to be able to stand on your own two feet like I had to. Nobody gave me a hand out.” 

In a world where Percy wasn’t the worst person on the planet , Fauna might have spoken about him with pride. He was self made after all, his friends were always clapping him on the back and talking about his clever investments outside of the business. But he’d soured every page of his biography with his actions, and left her uninterested in knowing how he made the money that he so loved to hold over her and Rorys heads. The money that he used to manipulate her mother and Maurie into submission, and literally the only thing that made him any difference from the drunks that he sneered at on a Saturday night. 

“You’ve been making improvements though I’ve noticed, since our talk in Ohio. You’ve been more like a submissive should be, less crass, not dragging yourself out of bars like a tramp. Minding your manners.” Percy says, and Fauna raises an eyebrow. “And New Year reminded me something.. that I’ve been too hard on you particularly in a way. I always lump you and Rory in together because everyone else does. Which was never good for you, you don’t want people thinking you're a layabout junkie like him. I gave you the same treatment because I thought you needed the same push to succeed. But you’re a submissive and so I shouldn’t expect you to be able to do things for yourself. You’re supposed to be weak, you should be obedient.” In her mind Fauna punches him square in the jaw, and she stays visualising that as the waitress puts something that smells delicious in front of her. “But when the Yank fucking battered Harold, I realised that getting you under control was about finding you the right Dominant and shaping him. At first I thought the Hudson boy was a total waste of fucking air since he’s a skint drifter, with no decent family to speak of, American and he seemed like a pansy. But then I realised he’s got balls, and he seems to have enough of a grip on you that you’re no longer spreading your legs for anything that breathes.”

There’s a part of Fauna that feels some sort of twisted pride that her father is starting to approve of Sawyer, the words that are coming out of his mouth in many ways disgust her. But that stupid little girl who just wouldn’t give up hope that her Dad would someday be proud of her was jumping up and down that her Dad thought Sawyer could be a good match for her. 

“I am committed to Sawyer.” She confirms for the millionth time, always feeling a little sick when he brought up the idea that she might have sex with anyone else. “And he’s a really, really good Dominant.”

“Hm.” Percy responds as he tucks into his steak. “It’s his future I’m interested in, like I said you two can’t spend your life in that dirty little flat. You need to be looking ahead, and I mean to help with that. You need to keep focusing on uni obviously, and on being a decent submissive. But I can help give him a push in the right direction.”

Fauna has no idea how to respond to this decision making process, because on one hand she wants to try and shield Sawyer from everything that comes along with having Percys attention. But if Percy warming up to Sawyer meant that he might relax on his one strike and you're out policy, then it would help them both sleep a little easier at night. So she doesn’t really say anything for the rest of dinner, he makes a cruel remark about her being greedy when she wants to order dessert, and takes several very underhanded digs at how much Rorys rehab costs which she can’t ignore and has to bite back on. But it’s probably the longest they’ve ever been alone in a very long time. 

When he drops her off back at her apartment he reaches into his wallet, and pulls out a wad of twenties. “Buy yourself a bottle of decent booze.” He instructs. “You should be able to serve something that’s not shite when you have people over.” She has no intention of using the money for that, but she thanks him all the same and gets out of the car without feeling totally like shit for once. Which in turn makes her feel guilty, like she was betraying herself and Rory somehow for not totally hating every second that she spent with Percy. For letting him get away with at least half of what he’d said, Rory would never have sat there passively while he insulted the flat that her and Sawyer worked hard to afford and Sawyers parents who were good hard working people. Yet despite all that he’d said, Fauna considered the meeting to have gone well, and she just didn’t know if that made her a bad person or not. 

Glancing up at the apartment building she could see a light on, and that familiar relief of knowing that she could talk to Sawyer about what was worrying her spread over her body. So without agonising further, she punched in the key code and disappeared out of the rain. Leaving what she could of her guilt and unease behind her.