#my daughter and I both had our grad pictures taken with her

[gfawkesphoenixchokingonashes]

Have some Lil Bit, 38 years old and going off to greener pastures today. It’s so hard to let them go. 💔

[slippinmickeys]

Five Seconds (1/8)

This is the sequel to “Of the Eight Winds,” which began from a small simple prompt from Sunflowerdeedsandscience: “Mulder is unhappily married when Scully is partnered with him, and while he doesn't cheat (because sorry that's not romantic), he falls for her so hard that he finally gets the courage to end the marriage and start fresh.” That prompt took on a life of its own that became ‘Of the Eight Winds.’ This fic immediately follows the events of that piece — I would encourage reading it first if you haven’t.

This is not written in the same Rashomon structure as the original — it is absolutely linear. Hope that doesn’t throw anyone.

I’ll be posting the first two chapters today, and then one chapter a day until next Monday. You can also find it on AO3 here.

PROLOGUE

They say in the heat of the moment, you have five seconds to make a decision. Five seconds between right and wrong. Five seconds between life and death. As Mulder stood watching one gun pointed at his children and another pointed at an immensely pregnant Scully, five seconds seemed an eternity.

XxXxXxXxXxX

6 Months Earlier

She watched the house from the shadows. Occasionally from her car. It was harder to follow the woman as she worked at a secure government facility, but the man was easy. He had a small private psychology practice in a townhouse in Old Town. He usually ate lunch at a Panera near the office or brown bagged it from home.

The kids both attended a private prep school out in McLean. The girl drove herself and her brother most days. The boy would often stay late for sports practice (ice hockey, if the equipment was any indication) and the man would usually pick him up. Their lives were pretty routine.

After two weeks, she finally made an appointment with the man’s scheduling service and waited nervously in the outer office. Right on time, he opened the door.

“Olivia?” Dr. Mulder smiled at her, “come on back.”

She passed him through the doorway and settled into a plush leather couch.

He sat down in a chair across from her and crossed his leg, looking relaxed. Up close, she noticed that his hair was starting to grey at the temples, but he still looked fit, and conveyed an easy manner.

“Thank you for seeing me,” she said, trying to calm her nerves.

“Of course,” he said, looking down at his notebook, “I see you were referred to me by Dr. Heitz Werber?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself,” he said.

She took a breath.

“I grew up here in DC. After grad school… My father worked for the State Department and I, uh, went into the family business.”

Dr. Mulder nodded, his expression neutral.

“I can imagine that’s pretty stressful work,” he said.

“It was,” she said, “I don’t do it anymore.”

He nodded again, waiting for her to fill the silence. She went on.

“The work I did… it hurt people. And I’m… I’m trying to make amends.”

His expression gave nothing away. She steeled herself, took a deep breath.

“Dr. Mulder, my name is Olivia Kurtzweil. Our fathers knew each other a long time ago. I’m here to warn you. You and your family are in danger. Your wife and her baby…”

His nostrils flared, but he maintained his composure.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out several pictures.

“I can prove it,” she said, “This is me and my father, this is me and your sister Samantha. And this is our fathers together.”

“I think you need to leave,” he said, his voice tight for the first time. He was not looking at the pictures.  

She rose.

“There’s not a lot of time.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a phone number on it, set it next to the pictures, which she left on the office’s small coffee table. “Call me at this number. Soon. I’ll tell you all I can.”

With that she left, her heart hammering in her chest.

CHAPTER ONE

Arlington Cemetery May 2nd, 2018

Mulder descended the stairs quickly, the leather bottoms of his dress shoes scraping loudly on the dusty grit of the steps. The occupants of the underground lair were the perfect people to call when you needed information, but good housekeepers they were not.

He entered the code on the security box at the door at the bottom of the staircase, and the door swung open.

“Guys?” he called into the cavernous space once the door sealed shut behind him.

“In here!” he heard a muffled call from near the back.

He stepped around gunmetal shelves awash in circuitry and computer parts and turned right into the sanctum sanctorum of the place: the desktop on which sat the AMD Threadripper 3000. Two men were hunched over the screen, one sitting, one standing just behind him.

Grease-stained napkins were wadded up next to the keyboard and crinkled butcher paper sat nearby, sporting the red-splotched remains of marinara sauce and a few errant banana peppers.

“You want a meatball sub, Mulder?” came the nasally voice of the man standing, “We got extra.”

“I don’t relish the thought of being up all night with heartburn, Langly, but thanks,” Mulder said, and Frohike turned from the chair, his wispy hair now more white than grey.

“They’re from Gino’s,” he said around a mouthful, “you’re missing out.”

“Tell that to Gino,” Mulder said, “didn’t he die of a heart attack in ‘04?”

“His wife is still running the place, bursting with health,” Frohike said, and reached for a styrofoam cup.

“But she doesn’t eat the subs,” said Mulder, and swung into a nearby chair. “Where’s Byers?”

“Staying with Suzanne for the weekend,” Langly said, like he couldn’t imagine why.

“Is that safe?” Mulder asked. The Gunmen had been hiding out in a government-built safehouse under their own graves in Arlington Cemetery for more than a decade.

Langly shrugged.

The three men looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Mulder spoke again.

“What did you find?”

“Enough,” said Frohike, turning back to the screen. Mulder stood and walked up behind him.

Frohike tapped a picture on the screen.

“Olivia Kurtzweil,” he said, “born December 4th, 1963, daughter of Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil and Ruth O’Brien Kurtzweil. Graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC in 1981, got a PhD in both Biology and Virology from Boston University in 1987. Employment records get kind of muddled after that, but it would make sense if she worked for the State Department, though what a Biologist/Virologist would be doing for State is troubling.”

Mulder leaned back. It was the same woman who’d been in his office earlier that day.

“And the pictures?” he asked, “of our fathers together? Of her and Samantha?”

“The real McCoy,” Langly said, “they don’t appear to be altered in any way. Sent them to Chuck Burks, too. He concurs.”

Mulder sighed heavily.

“What’s going on, Mulder?” Frohike asked, his tone serious.

“She came to my office today, Olivia Kurtzweil,” he said, nodding at the screen, “she told me that Scully is in danger.”

“In danger?” Langly said, puzzled, “how?”

“Scully is…” Mulder paused, “she’s pregnant,” he said, and he saw both men’s eyebrows go up. “This woman told me that our family... that Scully and the baby are in danger.”

Frohike and Langly traded looks.

“We haven’t told anyone about the pregnancy,” Mulder went on, “and Scully’s OB is an old friend from med school that she trusts implicitly. This Kurtzweil woman knows about the baby and insists it’s in danger. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Firstly,” said Frohike, who stood and put a hand on Mulder’s shoulder, “Mazel tov.” Mulder smiled at him. “Secondly,” he went on, “it appears as though this woman is telling the truth -- at least about who she is -- I would talk to her. See what you can find out.”

“How’s Scully taking this?” Langly asked.

“I haven’t told her yet,” Mulder said, and the boys traded another look. “I didn’t want to scare her without knowing more.”

Frohike squeezed his shoulder again and then let his arm fall.

“Let us know, huh?” he said, “However we can help.”

Mulder nodded and drifted back toward the door, a ball of worry sitting heavy in his gut.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“Where are the kids?” he asked as soon as he walked in the kitchen. He hadn’t even taken off his coat.

“I had a good day, thanks for asking,” said Scully with a grin. She was loading the dishwasher and turned to look at him. Her face fell, turning serious. “The kids are upstairs. What’s wrong?”

“I had a patient come in today…” he started, and her features softened. She probably thought it was just empathy for one of his patients, a tough case. “Scully, she showed me a picture of herself as a kid. With Samantha.”

“What?” Scully said, standing up straight, “how?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and moved past her and into the living room, making for the bookshelf that held old family photo albums. He pulled one out and skimmed through it. Pulled out another. Halfway through, something caught his eye and he flipped back a couple of pages until he saw it. A picture from the same 70’s-era party at his childhood home on the Vineyard that Olivia had shown him. There was his father standing next to Alvin Kurtzweil, and down in the corner, both wearing swimsuits and gap-toothed smiles, pigtails frizzy and wet, sat Samantha and a 7 year-old Olivia Kurtzweil.

He felt his breath leave him.

Scully had come up quietly behind him, put her hand on his arm.

“Mulder?” she said.

“I need to make a call,” he said.

He pulled the note Olivia had left with him out of his pocket. She picked up on the first ring.

“Olivia, this is Dr. Mulder,” he said. “We need to talk.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

The next morning at 9:00am, they found themselves sitting across their kitchen table from Olivia Kurtzweil, Special Agent Monica Reyes, ASAC John Doggett and Assistant Director Walter Skinner.

Scully was sitting, arms crossed in front of her defensively, at the head of the table. Reyes sat next to her, looking at Kurtzweil with an equal amount of curiosity and distrust. Doggett was too amped up to sit and paced through their kitchen. Skinner sat, quiet and still, looking as menacing as ever at the far end of the table.

Mulder felt a certain odd protectiveness toward Olivia, and couldn’t help but treat her a bit like a patient.

“Olivia,” he said calmly, “why don’t you start at the beginning.”

The tale she spun was as fantastic as anything they’d ever heard in their years on the X-Files. Olivia had been groomed from childhood to work on what she called “The Project.” When Samantha Mulder had been abducted, The Project had used her DNA to create alien-human hybrids. Throughout the years, these hybrids had been used by different factions of The Project to further their agendas in relation to a colonization project that Olivia said once threatened the world. She had fought with others to bring it down and now, The Project’s last ditch effort to resurrect itself lay in the cells of the child Scully was carrying.

“How was my father involved?” Mulder said, his voice like ice.

“Your father did everything he could to protect you and your sister,” Olivia said after a pause. “He was the person I initially approached when I became disenchanted. He and I worked together for years dismantling everything we could.”

Mulder narrowed his eyes at her.

“You were at my father’s funeral a couple years ago,” he said, recognition dawning on him, “I saw you at his wake.”

Olivia nodded.

“He couldn’t save your sister,” she said, “but he saved you. And in the end, he saved me.”

“My sister,” Mulder said, his stomach feeling as though it were in his feet, “is she alive?”

“No,” Olivia said, “I’m so sorry. And that’s the problem. Your sister’s DNA was the only one that was able to create viable hybrids. Her DNA was the key. And the last living hybrid sacrificed herself before a rogue faction could get her. That rogue faction is after Scully and your baby for the DNA markers particular to your family.”

“Then why aren’t they after me?”

“The particular markers they’re looking for are rendered dormant after a baby is born. The genetic material they can use is only found in--”

Scully spoke for the first time, finishing Olivia’s explanation. “Embryonic stem cells from our baby.”

Olivia looked pained and nodded. “It’s their last, best hope for restarting the program,” she said.

“How do they even know about the pregnancy? We haven’t told a soul.”

“A hack on your medical records is my guess. HIPAA means nothing to these people.”

“I’m less concerned with the how and more concerned with the why,” Mulder said. “You say embryonic cells. That means they’re on a clock, right? Once the baby is born...”

“Destroy the umbilical cord. The placenta. Those cells are only found in a few places. Destroy anything they might be able to use. After that… you and your baby will be safe.”

“So no one else in our family is in danger?” Scully asked. Her eyes darted unconsciously to a family picture that was framed on the wall above Olivia. It was a candid photo, taken the year before when they had hired a photographer to take Lily’s senior portraits. In it, Mulder and Scully were holding hands, looking at their two kids who were laughing about something Will had said. They were all smiling and carefree. In the moment, it felt like a world away.

“I know the technology and the biology it draws from,” Olivia said, “I helped design it. Their only hope is getting their hands on the embryonic stem cells from your baby. If you were planning on getting an amniocentesis test -- don’t.”

“Why not?” Skinner asked, “why not just give them what they want?”

“Because they’ll never stop,” Reyes said.

Olivia shook her head sadly. “She’s right. They take and they take, and they don’t care who gets hurt or what is lost.” She looked to Mulder. “Your father and I worked for years to shut it down. Finish it. Hide your wife. Protect your baby. Once it’s born, you should all be out of danger.”

“Tell me about this rogue faction,” Doggett’s voice coming from the corner of the kitchen startled everyone.

“Mercs for hire,” Olivia said, “Only one of them that I know of is familiar with the working pieces of The Project. I don’t know him well. I only ever saw him in the periphery.”

“Do you have a name?” Doggett asked.

“I doubt it’s his real one,” Olivia said.

“We’ll take whatever you can give us,” said Reyes, who shot a look to Doggett.

“I only ever heard him called ��Krycek,’” she said.

Mulder felt his gut drop.

XxX

“What do you think?” Mulder asked Scully, as they sat together around their empty dining room table. Doggett, Reyes and Skinner had left and it was nearly noon, the sun bright outside their windows. Nevertheless, the room felt cold. Mulder could feel anxiety press on him from all sides as though he were under water.

“I don’t know what to think,” Scully said, a hand resting unconsciously on her stomach, which had just started to push out. “Mulder, for almost fifteen years our lives have been ordinary, calm. After all this time…? It strains credulity.”

“Scully I would agree with you. But… some of the things we saw when we were on the X-Files… We know credible threats. This feels like a credible threat.”

“Do you really believe everything she said? About your sister?” He could see her skeptical reserve crumbling.

Mulder let that question sit in the air for several long moments. “Just tell me if the science checks out,” he finally said.

Scully huffed an almost amused sigh. “I couldn’t even begin to-” she started.

“Scully, you yourself were filling in the blanks of Olivia’s story. If what she says is true, does the science check out?”

Scully gave him a long look. “Yes,” she finally said.

He held her gaze, a feeling of overwhelming affection coming over him. “Scully,” he said quietly, “we have to get you somewhere safe.”

She looked down, added another hand to her abdomen so she was cradling it with both. On the countertop, there was a half drunk bottle of Deer Park and a single yellowing banana. Someone had left their iPhone headphones sitting in a semi-coiled loop, and there were crumbs in front of the toaster, dishes in the sink. They sat in the middle of a half-lived life.

“I won’t leave without you,” she finally said, “without you and the kids. We all do this together. If the threat is really what Kurtzweil says it is, I couldn’t bear the thought of them trying to use you or the kids to get to me.”

Mulder nodded curtly.

“I’ll go to the guys,” he said, “see what they can do for us. Skinner and Doggett and Reyes will do what they can to protect us, but I think given everything we’ve heard, it’s best to avoid… governmental oversight.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Scully said.

“We need to leave soon. We can’t wait.”

Apgar jumped on the table then, looking for affection. Scully, who normally wouldn’t tolerate a cat on any eating surface, reached out and pet the cat absently, her eyes far away.

“Where are we even going to go?” she asked.

[theartofimaginaryfriends]

A Whole Latke Fun (Part 8)

Fic series: Hanukkah Oneshots

Characters: Jewish!Percy Jackson x Jewish!Reader, Jewish!Sally Jackson, Paul Blofis

Premise: Percy celebrates Hanukkah with his partner, parents, and kids.

Masterlist

taglist: @pjsolympians

word count: 768

A/N: I mentioned a show on the first night in my Author's Note, and it's really worth mentioning again. Hunters (Amazon Prime) is about a group of Jews in 1977 that hunt Nazis who are living in America. Logan Lerman plays the male lead, Jonah Heidelbaum, and his performance in the ten episodes that are currently available is his best one yet. There's mixed reviews within the Jewish community, I'm one of the people that praise it. HIGHLY recommend it to everyone that loves PJO and especially Dark!Percy because it's the Dark!Percy content that we barely see in Rick’s books. It’s also the Percy Jackson performance from Logan Lerman we never got from the m*vies. I’ve created a blog dedicated to the show called @simpingforthehunt and will be posting my full thoughts on the show sometime soon! Something in regards to a small bit of this fic: Something From Nothing is a Jewish Children’s book that I absolutely love. On that note, Happy last night of Hanukkah! It’s been a tough one this year. Hope you enjoy this last fic :)

For the Eighth Day: the eighth light is the light of Courage. Let truth and justice be your armour and fear not. Judah Maccabee, the hero of Chanukah, lived by the words Moses spoke to Joshua: "Be strong and of good courage."

While the kids were out of the house for the day, Percy and his partner wrapped their gifts and placed them in two different piles in the living room. While both parties grew up with their parents giving them one present on each day, they had decided to wait until the last day of Hanukkah to open the gifts.

They weren't sure about the new tradition at first, but it ended up being fun. It was entertaining to watch the two siblings searching the house trying to figure out where everything was hidden. One day, Y/N walked into their room to see their kids snooping around and the sight made them burst into laughter. Not only were they trying to be sneaky, but it was also clear that both of them got into their parent's makeup. When Percy came home from work, Y/N rushed over to him to show the pictures they took before removing the makeup off their faces.

Every year was an eventful holiday, and this year was no exception. The adults had just finished tying bows on the final gifts when the kids ran into the house, followed by their Safta and Saba. "Abba! Nibi!"

After having to be reminded to take their shoes off, the kids ran into the arms of their parents. "How was your day with Safta and Saba?"

"It was so much fun!" Their daughter, Silena, gushed on about the day they had. Their son, Jason, added his own tidbits into the story as his sister rattled on but mostly stayed quiet. Sally and Paul had taken the kids to the ice rink for the day and treated them to some sufganiyot from the Kosher bakery nearby.

"Can we open our presents now?" Jason asked, excitedly. While Silena was giving her parents a play-by-play of the day, her brother had noticed the two piles and was itching to get to his.

"After dinner, bud," Percy chuckled. "We made a new batch of latkes."

"Yay!" the kids chorused and ran to the dinner table.

"Apparently lighting the candles can wait," Y/N said, smiling at their husband. Silena and Jason moved from their spots at the dinner table to the two menorahs that were set up on the island in the kitchen. Sally picked up the matchbook and lit the shamash on both menorah's, and the family recited the brachah together as Percy and Y/N lit their respective hanukkiah.

During dinner, the adults had a chance to talk while the kids stuffed their faces with the fried heaven. "Where's Estelle today?"

"Celebrating Hanukkah at Emma's house tonight," Paul explained. "They haven't seen each other much since Grad."

"She said that she'll visit next week," Sally said, watching her grandkids in amusement.

Jason and Silena both opted to put applesauce and sour cream on their latkes and were decorating the food to make it look like a surprised face. Y/N laughed and turned to their husband. "I remember when we did that."

"The only difference is we were twelve," he smiled at the memory. The first latke lunch he joined when Gabe was gone consisted of the B'Nai Mitzvah class fooling around with the food rather than eating it. All of them grabbed three each and arranged them so that they could make emoticons with the applesauce.

"Can we open our presents now?" Silena asked, looking at the living room. Everyone was finished dinner, so they agreed. Deciding to deal with the dishes after the kid's bedtime, they followed and took places on the couches.

There was wrapping paper all over the room in an instant. Silena's eyes lit up at her new American Girl doll, this one with black hair and green eyes just like her. Jason seemed to be itching to open his brand new set of hot wheels and play with them on the racing track he got for his birthday.

As more gifts were opened, a bigger mess was made. Y/N took to slowly cleaning it so that there wasn't much to do later. By the time all the gifts were open, Silena and Jason were tuckered out. Y/N and Percy carried both of them upstairs and waited as they got ready for bed. As soon as Jason sat next to his sister on her bed, they insisted on their Safta reading them Something From Nothing.

When Percy and Y/N made their way back downstairs, they immediately got to cleaning up before wishing Sally and Paul goodnight as they were leaving. This was by far the married couple's favourite Hanukkah.

[atlafan]

Take it Slow - Part Twenty-Eight

a/n: okay this is my first shot at a harry:y/n fic, and it will be multiple parts. y/n had a bad experience with an ex over a year ago, and finally accepts her coworker and good friend Niall’s invitation to go on a blind date with his friend Harry.

Warnings: TW- Mention of past abuse. Smut.

Masterpost (all previous parts can be found in the masterpost)

Your day with Harry was nice. You got in and out of Walmart as soon as you could so you could get back home to love on each other. You lost track of how many times you made each other come. You weren’t sure what came over him, or what came over you really. Maybe you both were trying to get five days’ worth of pleasure in before your period came.

Right on cue, you got your period Monday morning. You were fully prepared, so no waking up to a crime scene or embarrassment. Your body felt tired from your day of being worked over repeatedly. Harry knew you were getting close to being ready for him. The fact you let him rub his tip against you, even if it was just your clit, made him so happy. He knew you wanted him badly.

You wore your hair down and wavy, and made sure to wear a scarf with your outfit. There was one love bite you had to put some makeup over to cover up, it was just too high up to cover. You felt like the makeup just made it more obvious, but your hair would cover the rest. If anything, you could just tell anyone who asked it was from your curling iron. A lame excuse, but a viable one.

When you walk out of the bathroom, you see Harry sitting up on his laptop. He was starting to edit the photos he took of your family.

“Can I get a peak?” You ask walking to him. He smiles at you and shows you his screen. “Oh, Harry they’re going to love these. I can’t believe these were taken in their living room.”

“Thanks babe. I’m excited to get these over to them.” He looks at the time on his computer and sighs. “I need to shower before I leave for work.” He gets up and stretches. “How’s aunt flow, she show up yet?”

“Yes.” You groan. He gives your lower stomach a little pat, and gives you a kiss on the cheek. “Will I see you tonight?” He raises an eyebrow at you, as if you’ve offended him.

“Course.”

“Well, I didn’t know. We barely saw each other last week.”

“I’m caught up on a lot, won’t be as busy, love.”

“Alright. Well, we didn’t go grocery shopping yesterday.” You blush.

“Don’t know how we could’ve forgotten.” He says facetiously.

“I’d like to go to the gym after work, and then I can stop quickly to pick something up.”

“I can go grocery shoppin’.”

“You’d have time?”

“Sure. S’not a big deal, I know what we both like to eat.” He yawns.

You give him a little hug and a quick kiss in appreciation.

“Have a good day.” He says, patting your bum as you leave.

“You too!”

//

Around ten in the morning, Niall comes bursting into your office and closes the door behind him.

“They’re makin’ me the director!” You stand up and run into his arms. “And, and they’re makin’ you the associate director!” You both jump up and down giddy while hugging. He lets go of you and furrows his brows. “How dare you keep a secret like that from me.”

“They told me not to tell you! You have to apply for your position.”

“I know, but I’m sure to get it. And you! Congratulations!”

“Same to you! Can you believe they’re going to pay for grad school?”

“This is seriously the best place to work. I’m over the moon. We need to find a night to celebrate.”

“Yes yes yes! Hmm, I’m not really free this weekend, it’s my uncle’s Hanukkah party.”

“Is that Saturday?”

“Mhm.”

“How about Friday night? We could just do somethin’ simple.”

“Why don’t we have like a movie night or something? Been ages since we did something like that. We could have wine and junk food.”

“Ooo, I like that idea. How about Friday night then?”

“That should work, I can check with Harry.” You two hug again. You let go of him when you feel like you’re getting kicked in the stomach. “Shit.” You clutch at your stomach and walk over to your desk, and open the drawer where you keep ibuprofen.

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me.” He rolls his eyes.

“What? A girl can’t pop pills in her own office anymore?” He laughs.

“No, you and Sarah are on the same cycle.”

“Still? That’s funny.”

“Great, so Harry and I will be with two women who have their periods at the same time on Friday, wonderful.”

“Oh stop, should be done by then.”

“How about you and I go out for lunch today, as a little pre-celebration?”

“Love the way you think.”

//

You enjoy a good session at the gym. You did mostly weights standing up, and got on the treadmill for a quick run. You didn’t love working out on your period, but it helped with the cramps. It was starting to get really cold out, but you hated putting all of your warm clothes on after sweating. As you sat down to wipe your neck and chest with a small towel, you noticed a couple people looking at you. You had completely forgotten that with your hair up, and a loose tank top on, all of your love bites were visible. You tried to ignore it, but an older woman sat down next to you to change her shoes.

“You really shouldn’t let someone do that to you.” She says.

“Pardon?”

“Your neck.” She points to one of the marks. “I’ve seen you around here, I’ve seen you with those before, but never quite so dark.”

“Oh…Um, it was just from-“

“Those are not from a curling iron.” She scoffs. “My teenage daughter says the same thing to me. That looks borderline abusive honey.” You stand up, feeling a pit of rage come over you. This woman picked the wrong day to fuck with you.

“Excuse me, but my boyfriend is not abusive.” She stands up.

“Listen, if you don’t feel safe to speak up-“

“I’ve been abused before, so I think I would know the difference between someone intentionally trying to hurt me, and someone simply biting me.” You gather up all your things. “And I’ll have you know, I enjoy it, so why don’t you mind your own damn business. Worry about whoever your daughter is fucking, okay?”

You storm out of the gym, leaving the woman stunned. How dare a stranger come up to you like that, even if she meant well. You drove home, and couldn’t wait to change into some loose sweats, and see Harry. You smiled at the thought of him being in your apartment when you got there.

When you keyed in you smelled something delicious coming from the kitchen. You saw him at your stove, making some pasta and veggies.

“Hey babe.” You smile.

“Evenin’.” He smiles back. “Dinner’s just about ready.”

“How much I owe you for the groceries?” You ask, taking out your wallet. He scoffs. “Harry.”

“It wasn’t expensive, don’t worry about it.” You go to stand behind him and stick your hand in his back pocket, taking his wallet out. “Oi! What do you think you’re doin’?”

“I am putting some money in here.” You take forty dollars out of your wallet, and open his up.

“You don’t have to, and it wasn’t that much.”

“Harry, you are not…” Your voice trails off when you open his wallet. The picture of you Harry from your weekend away was in there. It was the one of you two laughing. “You had this made into a wallet size?” You look at him with loving eyes. His face was beat red.

“Um…yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair. You hand his wallet back to him, and he shoves it into his pocket.

“Do you have more? I’d like one for mine too.”

“I could print one for you, yeah.” He coughs. “Dinner’s just about ready.”

“I’m just gonna go change.”

You peel off your sweaty clothes, and run over your body with a hot wash cloth quick. Then you throw on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Harry squints at your shirt when you come out.

“What?”

“Are you seriously wearing a Jonas Brothers concert shirt?” You look down at yourself. You didn’t really think about what you had put on.

“Well…yeah. I saw them this summer when they came around for their Happiness Begins tour. It was amazing, the girls and I went. I hadn’t seen them since 2010. They really put on a good show.” You shrug, and sit down at the table where your plate of food was waiting for you.

“You really have a variety of music taste, don’t you?” He chuckles, sitting down as well.

“I guess so. We mostly went for nostalgic purposes. I was living, it was so much fun to actually get drunk at a Jonas Brothers concert.” You take a bite of food. “Mm, so good Harry, thank you.”

“So which one is your favorite?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone has a favorite brother, which one’s yours?” You point to Joe Jonas, who is in the middle of the shirt. “Which one’s he?”

“Joe.” You swoon.

“Why’s he your favorite?”

“He’s just a really good front man.” You shrug. “I also think he has a better voice than Nick, I mean, it’s like butter. I saw his group DNCE live a couple years ago, and they were so good. He sounds better by himself.” You laugh. “But I’m glad they’re back together. It like, gave me hope in a weird way.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah, when I heard they got back together it was one of the first time I felt overjoyed about something. And they all just looked so happy. It was a great way to start off 2019.”

“Sarah, Rachel, and Kate…you didn’t know of them from high school right?”

“Nope. Only met in college.”

“Do you have any friends from high school you still talk to?”

“A couple here and there. I have one childhood best friend that it’s easy to pick up with when we get together. I had a very small group of friends in high school. I sort of jumped around from different friend groups too. I didn’t really find my people until I went to college. What about you?”

“Yeah, I’ve got some mates back home I’m still close with. Try to face time once in a while. I suppose that Lou and Niall are my best mates though.”

“Maybe after we get back from our trip we could find some time to go see Louis and Eleanor.” He gives you a half smile. “I can keep her preoccupied while the two of you catch up.” You giggle.

“She’s really not that bad, I just don’t like competin’ with people for attention.” Niall was right, Harry is a bit clingy. “But yeah, we could plan somethin’ for after we get back.”

//

Tuesday after work, you had your appointment with Dr. Mara. You had a lot to tell her.

“That’s wonderful news about your job!”

“Thanks, I’m so excited. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two different schools. If I can get this figured out soon, I could enroll for the spring semester.”

“How do you think your stress load will be? Adding something on like that?”

“Well, I’d really only be able to take one or two classes a semester. One school has these great eight week courses. I’m going to speak with my supervisor this week to see what she thinks.”

“What did Harry say when you told him?”

“He was over the moon! He said he was really proud of me, he even took me out to celebrate. He’s very supportive of my career.”

“That’s great. How long have you two been together now?”

“Four months now.” You smile. “It’s been amazing. Not all of it has been perfect, but nothing ever is. There’s so much that’s good between us.”

“Speaking of that, anything new with him you’d like to tell me?”

“Um…I had a trigger recently, a week or so ago.”

“I see, what happened?”

“I was…um…well…” You were used to talking to her about all of these things, but it always took you a minute to find the words. “I was pleasuring him, and my hair was up in this ponytail, and he, well, he yanked me by that hair and he did it a little too hard. And…”

“You saw Jake…” She frowns.

“Not so much that I saw him, but I had flashes to his hands pulling my hair harshly. I ended up biting down on Harry.”

“Did you tell him what happened?”

“Yes, he was very understanding. I was shaken up, but I was fine afterwards.”

“Anything happen since then?”

“No…I feel like I’m getting closer with him. I let him rub his tip against me.” You look away. “Only on my...well...you know, so not all over me, but it didn’t scare me.”

“That’s very good. Did he ask you to do this, or did you initiate?”

“I initiated. I’ve found myself wanting him more and more, but I’m still terrified. I mean, I didn’t even know him pulling my hair was going to trigger me like that. What if we’re doing it, and he jerks the wrong way, or hits too hard by accident?”

“You can think of these what ifs and keep scaring yourself, or you could do what you’ve been doing and just let things happen as they happen. You’ve made a tremendous amount of progress. The truth is, you may not know what’s going to set you off, but I think as long as you two talk it through together, you should be fine.”

“I just feel like talking the whole time takes the heat out of it. Is this okay? How does that feel? Doing alright?” You mimic his accent. “I love that he checks in with me, but I also don’t want him to feel like he’s going to hurt me.”

“Just tell him you’ll let him know if you don’t like something.”

“I do! But he still checks in with me, he gets this worried look on his face every time I make a sound he hasn’t heard before. I feel terrible. I’d rather he be more cautious and careful than not, but…” You sigh. She nods in understanding. “I think I just get frustrated because I just wish I could go back to the way I was before. When I’m with Harry, I feel that way, and then these things happen. And I know he’s frustrated too…”

“How can you tell?” You take the scarf away from around your neck. She gasps. “Christ, he isn’t hurting you is he?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. They look a lot worse than they feel.” You give a small laugh. “But I can tell he does it harder when he’s…trying not to show how frustrated he is. I think it’s a way for him to release some tension.”

“And you just let him do this? In such visible areas?”

“Well, I talked with him about it and he said he’d try to be more careful…he did say something interesting though.”

“Interesting how?”

“When we were talking about it, he said if he didn’t do it here.” You point to your neck. “Then how were other people supposed to know I had a boyfriend…”

“How did it make you feel when he said something like that to you?” Your cheeks heat up.

“Um…well, I sort of liked it. You don’t think it’s possessive do you?”

“Does he talk to you like that often?”

“Not really, once in a while he’ll say something sort of flirty in that context.”

“Hm.” She pauses, clearly thinking over what she’s going to say to you. “Have you and Harry ever discussed what you like or don’t like during sex?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at…”

“Kinks, has Harry ever talked to you about his kinks in the bedroom?”

“Not really…I mean the biting is definitely one of them.”

“That, the hair pulling.”

“He more so likes it when I pull his hair.”

“I think this is something you two should discuss. It seems he may be into some things…that may be a little more aggressive, which is fine, but you’ll sort of want to be prepared.”

“It’s not like he’s into BDSM Dr. Mara.”

“He could be. How do you know? You haven’t discussed it. He could easily be holding a lot back because he wants to make sure you’re alright.”

//

You drove home wrapping your head around everything Dr. Mara said. She could easily be right, all of the signs point to Harry being a little kinky…although you weren’t sure how to bring something like that up. You two usually just discovered what the other liked while you were doing it. But if you were going to have sex with him soon, you needed to know ahead of time what he might do to you.

Harry was watching TV when you walked in. He was wrapped in a blanket, laying down. He sat up when you came in. You walk over and kiss him on the cheek.

“Hi love. There’s some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Thanks, I’m not super hungry right now.” You yawn. You usually didn’t feel hungry after therapy. “Maybe later, but thanks for making something.”

“How was your session?” He asks, adjusting himself to lay his head in your lap. You run your hands through his soft hair.

“Good.”

“That’s it?” He looks up at you.

“She was, um, concerned about my neck.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure really.” You didn’t like lying to him, but you didn’t really feel like having the conversation in that moment. “She just pointed it out, a couple people have actually.” Harry sits up to look at you.

“What people?”

“This random woman at the gym last night…she usually goes around the same time. She was like you shouldn’t let someone do that to you, and all this other shit.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He puts a hand on your thigh.

“I don’t know…because I don’t want you to stop doing it. I like it.” You groan. “Just wish they were better accepted in society. I mean, it really is just a way to show affection.” You look at him for a moment. “Does anyone ever say anything to you?”

“Not really…you don’t bite me as hard as I bite you. It’s already healed up.” He reaches his thumb up to run over one of the spots on your neck. “Guess I should take a break from this spot.”

“Why do you like to bite so hard?”

“Don’t know really, I don’t think I realize how hard I’m doin’ it.” He shrugs. You squint at him, not really believing that’s the whole truth.

“I think you do realize. I can tell, depending on how hot and heavy we’re going at it.” Harry was starting to sweat. “It’s okay if you have a reason, I’m not mad…curious mostly.”

“You really wanna know?”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“Turns me on when I see your skin turn that dark purple.” He says matter of factly.  

“Why?” You say blushing. He doesn’t answer at first. He runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know.”

“Harry.” You smile and put a hand on his knee.

“I really don’t! Just somethin’ I like doin’. Can’t really explain it.”

“Do you think it’s an, um, territory thing? You said the other day, like, how would everyone know I had a boyfriend.”

“I was just jokin’ when I said that. I’m not a possessive guy.”

“I don’t think possession and territory mean the same thing in this instance. Like, you’re marking your territory so everyone knows they can’t have me.”

“That doesn’t sound possessive to you?”

“No? It’s not like you’re controlling me. Like, I think if you were possessive, like, oh! Like, over the weekend, if you were possessive, you either would have told Rachel to leave, or you would have stayed to hang out with us, and wouldn’t have allowed me to see my friend.”

“So, you’re okay with me marking my territory?” You felt your pulse rising. Earlier, you weren’t sure how you felt about it. But now that you two were talking about it, it did sort of turn you on.

“Yes.” He leans forward to kiss you, but you press your hands against him. “But, we need to cool it with how visible these are for a couple weeks. We see my family Saturday, and then a week after that we head to England. I am not meeting your mother with a giant, purple hickey on my neck, I’m just not.”

“Okay, but you’re gonna have to let me do it somewhere else then.”

“As long as it’s somewhere discrete, that’s fine with me.”

Harry’s shit eating grin grew over his face. He scoops you up, and carries you to the bedroom. You giggle as he puts you down on the bed.

“Take your clothes off.” He stands and waits for you to undress. You suddenly remember your period.

“Babe, I have to leave my underwear on. In fact, let me just put some shorts on.” You throw on a pair of cotton shorts. “Aunt Flow’s here, remember?” He nods yes.

He walks around your half-naked body. “Hmmm.” You feel goosebumps raise all over you.

Harry wraps his arms around you from behind, holding you in place as he sucks on the top of your left shoulder. You shiver as his teeth slowly sink into you, sucking the skin into his mouth. He lets go of it, and you hear a pop come from his lips. He moves to the back of your right shoulder blade, and does the same exact thing, leaving a nice purple bruise behind. A loud groan escapes. One of his hands slides down to your stomach, and you feel his smile against you.

“Feels that good, huh?”

“You know it does.” You say blushing.

“So I can keep going then?”

“Yes.”

“Lay down on the bed.” He watches you get on the bed as he takes his shirt off. He smirks at you. “Ass up, please.” You blush and flip over.

He climbs on top of you, and leaves gentle kisses on your shoulders and neck. His kisses move down your back, and takes the skin on your lower back just above your ass cheek between his teeth. You gasp as he bites down hard and sucks on the skin.

“Doin’ okay?”

“Yes.”

His hands reach your hips, and flips you over. He gazes at your body, not sure where he should start first.

“What are you going to do to me, Harry?” You seemed so innocent in this moment, it was a massive turn on for him.

“Just gonna kiss ya all over, you okay with that?” He coos. You nod your head yes.

He kisses you on the lips, and runs his thumb over one of the marks that already exists on your neck. He kisses down to your chest. He takes the skin just above your best between your teeth and sucks hard. Your hands grasp at the sheets. You didn’t realize you loved the sensation quite so much. Maybe it was just because it was Harry doing it, and you knew he liked it.

He sucked on both of your nipples pretty hard, and worked his way down your stomach. He nipped at the skin just above your hips, paying equal attention to each one. He spreads your legs, and sinks his teeth into your inner left thigh. Your breath hitches when you hear the popping noise as he lets go.

Harry looks up at you, and scans over your body. He’s extremely happy with his work. You had nice purple splotches all over your body. His lips were swollen and a shade of raspberry.

“What do you think?” He asks. You lean up on your elbows and scan over yourself. “Your body was the perfect canvas for my art.” You giggle at his joke.

“Well…I have to say, looks pretty good on me.” You lick your lips. You wished you didn’t have your period, you wanted his mouth back on you so bad.

You give him a devious smile. He raises an eyebrow at you.

“What?”

[i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend]

Stardust and Starfish ~ Chris Beck x Reader

A/N: Hi my lovelies! I hope you’re all doing well in these crazy times. I hope you are staying safe and healthy.I apologize for the radio silence. I’ve had a lot going on, and I haven’t been able to really write anything. But I’m trying to chug along, and I’m focusing on finishing out my WIPs, so hopefully I’ll have more to share with you soon. 

Without any further ado, this is a fic for my Whippersnapper Daughter @captainscanadian​ ‘s CBC 1K Writing Challenge, which I was supposed to complete a million years ago, but I didn’t quite manage it. So here you are love, I hope you enjoy. This is my first time writing Chris Beck. I’ve never seen the Martian. I literally only know that he’s a fluffy space nerd (at least based on fics), so hopefully this is okay. 

Enjoy!

Prompt:  “Hey we kissed once in kindergarten but I haven’t seen you since and I couldn’t remember why you were so familiar.”

Rating: T 

Warnings: Language, I think that’s it. 

Word Count: 3251

Ahh graduation. A time of endings. A time of beginnings. A time for throwing caution out the window and kissing boy you’ve had a crush on all year.

You were clutching your diploma as you dodged around the other graduates looking for one classmate in particular. You finally spotted him munching on a handful of goldfish by the refreshment table.

“Hi, Rocket!”

“Hi, Bubbles!”

“Oh there you kids are. Come on. Get close. We need a picture.”

“Smile, Chris!” his dad coaxed before shuffling the two of you together.

“Big smiles!”

You each threw an arm around the other grinning wildly.

“Say, I’m ready for first grade.”

“I’m ready for first grade!” you both chorused.

“Well, we should get going. We’ll go get your stuff. Say goodbye to Chris, sweetie.”

“Okay, Mom!”

You hugged him tight.

“I just wanted to say that I really like you and I really like your book of stars.”

“Thanks! I really like your book about the ocean!” He grinned, blue eyes lighting up.

Before you could chicken out you leaned forward and pecked him on the lips like you’d seen your mom do with your dad whenever she said goodbye.

Chris squeaked in surprise and went rigid and red as a tomato. Before either of you could say anything your mom returned with your backpack.

“Y/n, honey, time to go.”

“Okay. Bye, Chris! Have fun at camp! See you next year.”

“See you,” he waved absent-mindedly, still wide-eyed.  

“Come on, we’re gonna be late,” your best friend whined as she waited for you to finish feeding your starfish.

“We’ll be fine. The talk doesn’t start until five.”

“It’s four-fifty.”

“Seriously? Shit okay. This is the last tank.”

You tossed in the mix of their food, scrubbed your hands before following AJ out of the lab.

You raced to the auditorium halfway across the campus, grateful for the reserved seats Casey had promised you. You looked around for the postdoc in question once you’d settled in, and you spotted her at the edge of the stage chatting with the distinguished speaker, Dr. Chris Beck.

“You’re staring,” AJ whispered. “Are you crushing on the guest speaker too?”

”He just seems really familiar,” you muttered back, squinting.  

“I mean he has been all over the news for the past few years.”

“No, it’s like I’ve met him before.”

“Maybe you saw him during your sting at Yale?”

“Maybe,” you shrugged.

You weren’t totally convinced but it made the most sense, even though you were pretty sure that your times didn’t overlap.

Before you could think too much more about it, the dean of the medical school started introducing him. Not that he needed it.

You, and nearly everyone else, were completely captivated by Dr. Beck. When it was announced at the end of the talk that Dr. Beck would be taking the equivalent of a sabbatical at the university and teaching a short seminar series starting in the Spring the excitement was palpable.

“I can’t believe astro-hottie is joining the faculty,” AJ giggled.

“I know right. That’s going to be fun.”

The crowd was slow to exit the auditorium, and you were surrounded by excited chatter.

“So do you want food first or should we try to score an intro?”

“Food. I’m sure he’ll be swarmed for a while. Besides, Casey is his host, I’m sure she’ll get us a chance to talk to him.”

“Perks of being friends with astrophysics postdocs.”

“True.”

After the formal dinner with the grad students and postdocs, Chris was enjoying himself so much that some of them continued the evening at a pub just down the road from the campus. He had been happily listening his company discuss some of his more interesting results when he happened to notice you walk in. You had changed into a short black dressed and donned a deep blue leather jacket against the cold.

Casey noticed his distraction and silently cheered. Clearly the newest faculty member was interested in her friend, and judging by your reaction to him at the reception you were interested as well, so she excused herself to join you at the bar.

“Hey, Case. How’s it going?” You greeted her.

“Good. Didn’t expect to see you two here tonight.”

“We were supposed to go to the new restaurant down the street, but they lost our reservation,” AJ explained.

“So, we decided to keep it low key,” you continued.  

“Gotcha. Well, do you want to join us?”

“Who’s us?”

“A few of the ones who went to dinner and Chris.”

She glanced over her shoulder and you and AJ followed her line of attention.

“Oh, so it’s Chris now?” you smirked, though it faltered when he caught your eye and smiled.

“He told us to. He’s really chill actually. You should come hang out,” she pressed.

“We’d love to,” AJ answered for you.

“Great. Grab your drinks and come over.”

She happily flounced back to the table, rejoining the conversation.

“AJ,” you hissed.

“What? Are you gonna tell me you don’t want to hang out with hunky space doctor you made goo goo eyes at all afternoon?”

“I did not make goo goo eyes at him.”

Your best friend rolled her eyes.  

“Yes you did. Y/n, come on. Live a little. It’s just a few beers with a bunch of grad students.”  

You looked at them, listening intently as he spoke. It looked more like a study group than anything which put you at ease.

“They’ve been talking for like five hours. I’m sure it will break up soon and then we can just hang out with Casey.”

“Okay. That sounds good.”

“Good,” she grinned before leaning on the bar to order your drinks.

You discretely checked out your hair in the mirror behind the bar and swiped on a bit of lip gloss.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” AJ smirked as she handed you your gin and tonic.

“Shush.”

You bumped your hip against hers as you made your way to the table.

There was a pause in the conversation as you approached.

“There you are. Come sit.”

AJ had already taken the one open seat next to James, the med student she had been crushing on, which left you to join Dr. Beck on the bench seat. He scooted over to give you more room when you sat down.  

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiled shyly.

You momentarily got lost in his eyes.

“Did you three meet earlier?” Casey asked, breaking you out of the moment.

Heat clawed up your neck in embarrassment. Though you were relieved to see Dr. Beck seemed equally flustered. He cleared his throat twice as he bobbed his head in the affirmative.  

“Yes, Y/n and AJ right?”

“Yes. So, Dr. Beck, what were you all discussing?”

“First of all, please call me Chris. And second, we were discussing my research on the effect of zero gravity on muscle development.”

“Fascinating.”

You were easily caught up in the conversation as he explained his results and discussed data sets. His passion for research seemed to pour out of him. The discussion was lively, although you found yourself dominating the conversation. It contrasted nicely with your own research on technology for deep sea research. You were so invested that you didn’t notice the others leaving. At least not until they rang the bell for final call and you actually paid attention to your surroundings.

“Umm, when did everyone leave?”

Chris looked as confused as you were.

“I have no idea. I guess I am boring. I hope they don’t do that when I start lecturing next semester,” he chuckled.

“I’m sure they won’t. You’re an excellent presenter. Probably they got tired of me monopolizing you. Sorry about that,” you sighed as you played with a straw wrapper.

“Please don’t apologize. I was actually hoping to get a chance to talk to you.”

“Really?”

You wanted to smack yourself for the hopeful tone.

“Yes. I was disappointed when you left the reception early.”

“Oh, well, one of the octopuses next door escaped and that’s no good for anyone in the department.”

“I can imagine.” He smiled crookedly as the few patrons remaining started to pay their tabs.

“I guess we should go,” you pointed out reluctantly.

“Yeah. We should,” he agreed.

You both closed out and exited the bar.

“So, do you want to split an Uber?” he offered.

“I don’t live far. I was actually going to walk it.”

Chris looked appalled.

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I’ve done it before,” you argued.

He appraised you closely, trying to determine how stubborn you were. The conclusion… very.

“Can I at least walk you back then?”

“You don’t have to,” you assured him.

“I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight if I don’t know you made it home safely. Please?”

He pouted at you. Who could resist those blue eyes?

“You really don’t…”  

“I want to,” he admitted. “I uhh I’m not quite ready for the night to be over.”

Your answering smile was wide.

“In that case, I could use the company.”

“Excellent. Lead the way,” he offers you his elbow.

You looped your arm through his and started walking back towards your apartment.

You made the five minute walk in companionable silence. The feeling of familiarity had deepened over the course of the evening and you felt like you were walking with an old friend.

“Well, this is me,” you sighed, not ready to say good night.

“It was really nice getting to spend time with you, Y/n.”

“You too.”

“I know it’s late, and I’m sure that you want to get to bed, but would you mind terribly if I waited inside for my uber. I’m not sure how long it will be to get someone willing to go all the way to Hartford.”

“They have you staying in Hartford while you’re here?”

“They offered me a hotel room in New Haven, but I opted to stay with my folks. Wasn’t planning on closing down a bar after my talk,” he smirked.

You debated for a moment.

“I have a guest room. You are welcome to stay if you like. I have to go to Hartford tomorrow, so I could drive you back if you want.”

“I don’t want to impose.”

“You’re not. I promise. You’re never going to get an uber that far this late.”

“If you really don’t mind. That would be great.”

“Come on in.”

You unlocked the door and flipped on the lights, leaning on the edge of the couch to take off your boots.

“Are you hungry or thirsty?”

Before he could respond, your stomach growled for an embarrassingly long time. He bit back laughter.

“Well apparently I am.”

You looked at your stomach as if it were a traitor.

“I could eat.”

“Alright, let’s see what I have. It’s been a while since I went food shopping.”

Chris smiled as he took in the warm surroundings, and he found himself drawn to the art on the walls next to your desk. He could hear you rummaging around in your refrigerator while he tried to figure out why he recognized the image.

“So I threw in a frozen pizza and I’ve got Oreos.”

You shook the pack at him as you planted yourself on the couch.

“Excellent.” He grinned, joining you on the couch and taking a cookie. “That print is amazing. Where did you get it?”

“It’s figure 3A in my Nature paper. I had it blown up when it made the cover.”

“That’s why I recognize it. That was an excellent paper.”

“Thank you. It certainly has been a highlight of my career so far.”

“So what drew you to marine biology?”

“I was obsessed with the ocean as a kid. And adventure books. I wanted so desperately to explore the part of our world that’s so vast and unknown. I wanted to work on a submarine or at least at sea.”

“So how did you end up in a lab on land?”

“I did a semester at sea which was amazing but permanent spots on research ships and subs are few and far between. But I am also working with the engineering department on deep sea equipment.”

“Hence your expertise in muscle mass in high pressure.”

“Precisely.”

You chewed on an Oreo thoughtfully as you regarded him.

“So, why did you become a space doctor? It’s not the most traditional job in the world,” you mused.

“I suppose it isn’t. Well I wanted to be astronaut first. Like you, I was obsessed with space from really early on. But as I got older I grew to love physiology and anatomy over engineering for example. For a little while, I thought I’d have to give up my dream. And then I realized they had flight surgeons.” He smiled at the memory. “So I worked my butt off and ended up actually going into space.”

Chris shifted leaning his head back and looking up as if he could see the stars through your ceiling. You propped your head in your hand as you leaned on the back of the couch.

“Is it surreal being back on earth?”

“That’s a good word for it.” He let his head loll to the side to look at you. “I’m glad to be home, but it’s so strange. Sometimes I spend all day in my room because I forget I can leave. And noises of the city – that’s trippy after months in space.”

“I bet.”  

Your conversation flowed easily as you scarfed down the pizza. The sun came up and you were still talking.

You’re not sure how or when, but you must have fallen asleep talking, because you woke up tucked under a blanket on your couch to the smell of pancakes.

“Good morning,” Chris called, when he saw your head pop up.  

“Morning. What time is it?” you asked, rubbing at your eyes.

“A little after eleven.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Since around eight.”

You stopped mid-stretch to stare at him.

“We didn’t fall asleep until like 5.”

“I’m still used to really short sleeping shifts. I hope you don’t mind. I made breakfast.”

“I do not mind at all.”

After washing up and changing into some fresh clothes, you enjoyed breakfast together.

“So what do you have to do in Hartford?” he asked, taking the clean plate from your hands to dry it.

“Going to visit my sister and my favorite baby nephew.”

“Aww. How old is he?”

“Four. So not actually a baby, but…”

“I get it. What time do you need to leave?”

“Around one.” You shrugged. “We’ve got time.”

“Thank you for letting me stay. Last night was wonderful,” he added, quietly.

“Yes, it was.”

“This might sound strange, but I feel like I’ve met you before.”

You froze, water spilling off the plate.

“Sorry, that was weird,” he mumbled quickly avoiding eye contact.

“No. No, it’s not that.” You dropped the plate into the sink and turned off the water. “I thought the same thing when I saw you.”

“Oh thank god.”

“AJ was convinced it was just because I’d seen you on the news. But if you feel it too…”

“But where we would have crossed paths?”

He crossed his arms as he considered it.

You spent the next twenty minutes trying and failing to find a single place you might have run into each other.

“Junior Leadership Conference?”

“In D.C. in 2014?”

“Yeah.”

You racked your brain.

“It must be that, right?”

“I can’t think of anywhere else.”

“Huh.”

You both watched each other, not quite believing it, but also unable to come up with a better answer. You let it stand as you got ready to drive to Hartford.

“Do you mind grabbing the books off the front table?” You grabbed your keys and your bag. “I don’t want to forget them.”

“Sure thing.”

He shuffled through the pile of children’s books, smiling when he came across the National Geographic First Big Book of the Ocean as you walked to your car.

“Oh these books were awesome.”

“Which one?”

“Big book of the ocean.” He held it up for you to see. ”I had all of them, but the space one was my favorite when I was a kid.”

“I’m shocked,” you deadpanned as you started the car.

He mock glared at you.

“No but seriously, I took the space one with me everywhere. I was obsessed. In kindergarten, the other kids started calling me-“

“Rocket,” you murmured.

“Good guess.”

“Not a guess. I know how we know each other,” You announced, desperate to look at him, but keeping your eyes straight ahead. “You went to Aldrin Elementary for Kindergarten didn’t you.”

“Yeah. Wait,” He looked at the book in his hands before opening to the back cover.

“Rocket and Bubbles,” he hummed, running his fingers over the crayon scrawl. “I can’t believe it. It’s you.”

You glanced at him at a stoplight. He had a fond look in his eyes.

“I knew you were familiar. But I don’t remember your name being Chris. Even before we started calling you Rocket.”

He bit his lip rocking slightly in embarrassment.

“I convinced my mom to let me go by my middle name Richard, which I made into Ricky, because there were four other Chris’ in our class.”

“Oh my god. That’s right. You were Ricky the Rocket. We thought we were so funny.”

Neither of you could contain your smiles.

“What happened? Why did you leave?”

“My dad had to move to Boston for his job. We didn’t find out until like a week before school.”

“I thought about you for the longest time. I was so bummed when you didn’t come back.”

“I was too. I cried all the way to Boston.”

“And now, all these years later.”

“Together again.”  

You reached over and took his hand, and he twined your fingers.

You were both quiet for the rest of the ride, lost in thought. You only spoke to ask directions to his parent’s place, which you remembered quite well.

“Can I take you to dinner sometime?”

“I would love that. Tomorrow night?”

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

You bit your lip as you both hesitated, before you leaned across the armrest and kissed him. His eyes went wide and his cheeks turned pink, and you suddenly didn’t know how you ever failed to recognize him.

“You looked the same way the first time I kissed you,” you giggled.

“Not my fault you keep surprising me.”

“You’re cute when you’re mmf.”

You were cut off by his lips on yours. The kiss was passionate and you felt yourself melting into it as his hand cradled the back of your head.  

“You were saying…” he smirked at you when you both pulled back panting.  

You started to respond when you looked over his shoulder.

“That your mom totally just saw us making out in my car.”

He glanced over his shoulder before letting his head drop in embarrassment when his shocked mother turned on her heel and hurried into the house with her groceries.  

“On that note. Six o’clock tomorrow?”

“You’re on, Rocket.”

“See you, Bubbles.”

He pecked you once more on the lips before getting out of the car, whistling his way up the walk.

You smiled to yourself as he waved from the porch and you drove off.

This was going to be an adventure. Your biggest yet.  

A/N: Yeah, so this ended up very differenlty from how I planned, but I hope you all enjoyed! I had fun writing Chris Beck. Congrats again on the milestone that was like 3 milestones ago lol. Love you @captainscanadian​

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[alexiarexia-blog]

04.13.2019

Please be aware that I will not be responding to any messages, asks, or replies at this time, or for the foreseeable future. Please respect our privacy and need to grieve. Thank you.

This is not an easy post. Our journey does not have a happy ending.

At 2:08PM on Saturday, April 13, 2019, our beautiful Camryn Rose made a very early debut into the world. She died in my arms at 2:13PM without ever taking a single breath.

Camryn Rose was born a full 21 weeks early. They don’t even call it a live birth at that point. Even though her heart was still beating until they cut the cord, it’s considered a second trimester miscarriage.

Regardless of what they call it, I call it heartbreak. I call it impossible.

I call it agony.

Camryn Rose. She was a girl. I don’t think I had even publicly announced that yet on Tumblr. Only a select few knew that detail. Only a select few knew I was experiencing complications. To those few, I am eternally grateful for your positivity and being there when I needed you. Especially @randomgirlusername. You were definitely my virtual rock when I needed to be completely honest with where my head was as we were playing that torturous waiting game, and in the weeks since.

To others, I need to tell my story. I know I don’t owe it to anyone, and I have a right to keep it private, but writing it out has been cathartic, and I want you all who have been so supportive and encouraging to know.

So, here’s my story.

WARNING: This story contains frank, graphic descriptions of a second trimester miscarriage. I can’t sugarcoat any of the details. If you’re at all squeamish, this may be hard for you to read. Proceed at your own risk.

On Thursday (April 11), I stayed home from work because I was feeling a bit off. But I’d been having trouble sleeping because of my asthma and allergies (both made worse by the pregnancy), so I figured I just needed a day or two to rest and catch up on my sleep. The morning was pretty smooth, just some mild discomfort that wasn’t usual for me. Mostly lower back pain that I typically attribute to the weight of my chest. I’ve felt that pain since my teenage years, so it wasn’t unusual.

Claire was still home. She’d cancelled her late morning office hours, but was still planning on heading to work for her two afternoon classes. We’d planned on ordering Chinese food for lunch and watching Lost Girl on Netflix.

Around noon, I began feeling a bit worse. My lower back pain had morphed into what felt very similar to bad period cramps. When I went to pee, there was spotting. Spotting during pregnancy isn’t unusual, but combined with the lower abdominal cramps that were continuing to worsen, we made the decision to call my OB and see about getting a same-day appointment to get everything checked out. The receptionist told us to hold for a moment, then she was back on the line in two minutes and told us to go straight to the emergency room as quick as we could. Claire drove like a mad woman and got us there in under fifteen minutes.

I was admitted fairly quickly and they did a pelvic exam where it was discovered that my cervix was extremely short. An incompetent cervix is the technical term. A normal cervix length at 17.5 weeks is about 3.5cm, but it can vary for each pregnancy. Anything less than 2.2cm is considered in the danger zone. My cervix was 1.1cm upon admittance. Essentially, my body was preparing for labor. I was only 17 weeks and 4 days. The earliest viability for a fetus is 22 weeks, and survival rates at that point are still incredibly low. There was zero chance she’d make it if they didn’t stop it.

I was given IV medication to try and stop active labor, but it didn’t work and by the following morning, my cervix was 0.8cm long. The next step was a cervical cerclage, which is a procedure where they literally sew your cervix shut with a thick suture. It sounds painful because it is. I was given an epidural to numb me, but when that wore off, I was in so much pain that I passed out from it a few times. I could only receive so much pain medication to help because of the baby. But it was worth it, all the pain and agony was worth it, to save our baby.

But it didn’t work. I developed a pretty nasty infection quickly (expected with this procedure) and it was being resistant to antibiotics. And then, at just past noon on April 13, 2019, my body gave up and my water broke. The force of it ripped the stitch from my cervix, and it felt like a red hot poker was being pushed out of my vagina. I’ve never felt anything more painful in my entire life. Physically, at least. What happened next was easily the single most painful experience, physical or emotional, I’ve ever had to endure.

There was nothing more to do to stop my body from labor. They gave me another epidural to numb me, then they delivered sweet little Camryn Rose. She was so tiny; I didn’t even have to push. She was already crowning. She weighed just over 6.5 ounces and was only 5.4 inches long. I held her as I cried. As Claire cried with me.

In all the years I’ve known Claire, I’ve only seen her cry from sadness two other times. Once was when her mother died last summer, the other when the grad student she was mentoring died in a horrific car accident several years ago. It seems death is the common denominator here. Claire is a solitary crier. I know she’s had more moments than I’ve been privy to than just what I’ve seen. It’s not that she doesn’t want me to see her break down. Or, well, that’s exactly what it is, actually. She’s stoic and a protector. She feels the need to be my rock, so she has to always be strong.

But she was crying freely as she held me the entire time, uncaring that all the medical personnel could see her. That my mom could see her. (My mother had flown out as soon as I’d been admitted to the hospital the day before.) She didn’t care, and for that I am grateful. I needed her to be vulnerable in that moment, just as she needed herself to be vulnerable.

My heart hurts for the loss of our baby, but it hurts even more for the pain it causes my incredible wife. She’s been through so much and I just don’t understand how she can keep going after all of it. But she does, and for that I am so utterly grateful and in complete awe.

Camryn Rose. We decided on the name as I held her. “We should pick a name.” Claire spoke those words as she brushed a finger across our daughter’s paper-thin cheek. We’d discussed a few names, but Camryn really stuck out in that moment. She felt like a Camryn. And Rose in honor of Mama Rocío, Claire’s mother’s, memory.

After we said our goodbyes, I had to be taken to the OR for a cervical repair. It’s as nasty as it sounds. They stitched my cervix back into place, but only after they had to perform a D&C (where they remove the placenta). I was thankfully still numb from the epidural, but after that wore off, it was more pain.

The physical pain, as bad as it was, was nothing compared to the emotional pain I felt. The emotional pain I still feel, and will for a long, long time.

I can’t become pregnant again. There was too much damage to my cervix. I’d never be able to carry a baby to term, no matter how much precaution was taken. That’s something I have to make peace with, but that’s also going to take a long, long time.

The mental trauma of this miscarriage has left me raw and sensitive. The smallest thing can set me off into a sobbing mess. The thing that gets me most right now? Mirrors. Yes, mirrors. Or photographs of myself. Because, even 3+ weeks later, I still look pregnant. The body doesn’t magically morph back to its pre-pregnancy state after miscarriage. I still have the rounded belly (not quite as much now, but still there) and puffy cheeks. That will take a while to go away. So for now, mirrors/pictures of myself are the sworn enemy.

Claire is incredible. She’s grieving as much as I am, yet she’s been my rock this entire time. Her and my mother. And my dog. Sasha the GSD has not left my side since I returned home from the hospital. Dogs are incredible, and we don’t deserve them.

Therapy has been a godsend. I’m nowhere near okay or ‘back to normal,’ but I can function day-to-day, and that’s a huge improvement for me compared to two weeks ago. It seems like it’s been so much longer than just over two weeks. It seems like it’s been a lifetime. Getting through the next days, weeks, months, years… seems impossible at times.

My saving grace is my support system. In particular, five people. Claire, my mom, Sarah, my therapist, and @randomgirlusername (seriously, y’all, if you didn’t know how incredible she is, take my word for it--she’s been a literal life-saver and I cannot thank her enough). I have my bad days and I have my good days. All days are emotionally trying, but some are less painful than others. Those good days are all because of this support system that I have.

And on the bad days, my support system knows exactly how to help me cope. And for them, I’m eternally grateful. I don’t know where I’d be, mentally, without them.

I’m okay. Or, I will be, at least. Even though this is the most difficult thing I’ve ever gone through, I have the support system to get through it. And because of that, I know I’ll be okay. I know there will be hard days and not-so-hard days. I know it won’t be all rainbows and sunshine, but it also won’t be all stormy weather. I remind myself in those bad times that it won’t remain like this. I will feel joy and happiness again.

It will just take time to heal, physically and emotionally.

[fatgalfitness]

Tonight I jumped waaaay outside of my comfort zone to support a terrific cause. Tonight was Spin For a Cause to support Rahab's Daughters, an organization that fights human trafficking. My good friend Erin volunteers with them, and it was at a neat gym I've always wanted to check out in Dyer, so I figured why not?

I haven't taken a spin class since I was in grad school. And that was just because I had to learn how to teach it in case I ever had to cover for another instructor. Thank goodness that day never came.

Spin has NEVER been my thing. With lead balloons for quads, it's always overwhelmed me. It has always come across as a thin person's workout. When you picture a spin class, what do you picture? For better or worse, for me it's slim, wealthy, white women, and it's a space I haven't felt comfortable taking up. But I'm really passionate about fitness and people finding joy in how they choose to move. It's unfair of me to hold onto that assumption of who spin is for, and it was time for me to jump in with both feet.

I knew Cheryl, the instructor, was a kindred spirit the moment I met her. She was kind, energetic, and warm. She helped me adjust my bike, we chatted about Revolution Fitness and our mutual love of the gym, and then it was time to go.

Y'all, let me tell you about the extra level of nerves that comes from being an instructor/coach/trainer and taking someone else's class. You DO NOT get to half ass anything. You gotta WORK.

And so I did. I increased my intensity when she told me to, I got low, I pumped my arms, I shook my booty (Cheryl's type of spin is AMAZING.) and I DID IT. I was DRENCHED in sweat by the end, but I accomplished something.

When we finished, we had the chance to hear more about the organization and how we could get involved. We chatted with folks from Rahab's Daughters, and spent time congratulating one another on surviving.

Today, I left my comfort zone far behind, along with my assumptions about who spin is for. Spin is for everybody. Fitness is for everybody. And we need to create more inclusive spaces where people can discover that.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Universe Falling

genre: sci-fi fantasy, wlw

words: 7k

summary: A young scientist starts communicating with the night sky, a love story across the universe

So it looked like I was going crazy. Actually, legitimately crazy.

Not the fun kind of crazy when your great aunt takes off her wig and dips it in the stew at family dinner in order to make your uncle shut up about his problem with bell-bottom jeans. Not evil crazy like your math teacher making everyone re-do their multiplication tables eighty times in a row after one kid swore.

It was crazy crazy.

My name is Francine Wesley.

And this is how I started talking to the night sky.

————————————–

When I was twelve years old I had a transfer student ask me if I was a pirate. I’m not sure if she meant it in a bad way or not, she hadn’t learned the pecking order yet- which was me and then everyone else up ahead. She asked me if the bandage over my left eye meant I was going to get a parrot and sail the seven seas.

I wish.

It was the year of the second surgery on my left eye, trying to correct it before the smudges at the edge of my vision started to devour everything else. My glasses were -25 and took up 55% of my small face at that age.

I was 12 and playing pirates and princesses with people who didn’t know why I couldn’t catch the ball when they threw it at me.

My father bought me my first official telescope that year, the year my grandpa passed away and left me all of his star charts and a broken down radio. I fixed the radio, I built the ladder up the tallest tree in my yard.

I traced the charts he left with my fingers, taking out a magnifying glass and looking and looking.

————–

They say math is the handwriting of God, that it breaks the world down into patterns and sense and definable movements.

I wasn’t sure about that, it felt more like God’s bad treasure map, one he put a lot of effort into making particularly unreadable sometimes. My mom was a math teacher, so it both helped and didn’t help at all. I hated most my other math teachers, they taught it wrong, I wasn’t fond of imaginary numbers, I never liked pi more than the average person, infinities were a headache. That didn’t stop me from beating all the boys at pop quizzes by the time I was in algebra one.

It was easier for me I think, smoother, faster, they said I was the quickest girl this side of the Cherry Creek. I didn’t know how to respond.

I didn’t like math, but I did like being told I was good at something, I did like what I could do with it, numbers and movements and the whole universe laid out. It got easier every time I did it.

That was the year that Cindy Claire took me to her birthday party, lifting me from the depths of social rejection, she said I was too pretty for the boys to be that mean. She wove flowers into my hair and asked if I liked anyone. I told her I didn’t know and we watched a movie with the captions on right in front of the screen.

That was the nicest thing anyone had done for me and Ratatouille is a beautiful movie when you’re barely looking.

She had a button nose and a splattering of freckles that curled and crawled around her body like paint flecks. I wanted to lick it up and watch her eyes light up, green as green fields and as wild as the western sky.

I entered a math tournament, she came and got asked out by every boy there, she laughed and said she already came with someone. I might have burst from joy if everything else inside me didn’t ache.

She grabbed my hand and said we were best friends and by that time next year she was dating the man she was going to marry and I was staring at the constellations in the sky like they were freckles. It’s easy to be in love with the sky and it’s easy to feel like breaking.

My dad was teaching me how to read his books under bright lights and a giant magnifying glass, my family always said I was like him- for better and worse.

———————-

I was seventeen when I had my license taken away, I only had it for one year but my mom told me she wouldn’t risk it. Not with a -30 prescriptions.

I was my father’s daughter and she wouldn’t see me driving myself off the side of the road when a blizzard rolled in. I lived in Northern Massachusetts, it snowed a lot that year.

I went to prom with Billy Eccleston, he didn’t know my middle name and I didn’t know his, but we sat in the back of his van and made out until my mouth went numb. I told myself this was probably how it was supposed to feel.

He tried to push my dress down and I wrinkled my nose and told him I was waiting for the right moment (and this wasn’t it), he rolled his eyes and reached for my glasses next, I bat his hand away. Now I was waiting for marriage.

He snorts and asked if I was still ‘actually getting out of this town soon?’ I nodded because this is why I accepted his prom invitation in the first place. We both wanted out- we could almost relate.

We both sigh at nothing and he kisses me again as I look over his left shoulder and watch the lights dance behind the cityscape.

I applied to 8 colleges and go into 6, my mom cried and my dad patted my head and I asked if I needed anything else- anything at all. He told me to get a dorm on the first floor and that he’d be there every weekend.

I cry, just a little bit.

———————————-

Everyone thinks it’s black, black like a setting sun or black like an airtight empty room. That it’s the night, the moment when you close your eyes and every color in the world is snuffed out.

A dark curtain, the thickest shadow over the world. But it’s not. It’s white.

Bright terrible light that floods and fleets into my vision, wavering colors and streaks of pure white, distracting as it is nonsense. I grit my teeth, it’s my sophomore year of college and I am squinting at the board and screeching in my head.

I was in the front row of the lecture and the professor was writing formulas on the board like his hand was on fire. I had a growing headache in my frontal lobe, I tell myself as I narrow my eyes at the board that I just needed to go to sleep, that it would be better in the morning.

My lip trembles and I take out my phone to get a close up of the board with my camera, trying to write and zoom at the same time.

“Any questions?” The professor asks as he turns around sternly, “this last one will be on the test.”

I flinch, was it too much to ask the world to iron itself out into a flat surface instead of a series of smudges and blurs? I see the professor turn in my direction and my stomach drops as I try to fix my expression.

Professor Chadwick was the ‘hardest bitch’ in the department as they called him and I couldn’t keep asking to come closer to the board in the middle of class. Soon I would just be licking the ink off of it to figure out what he had just written.

‘WRITE BIGGER’ is always on the tip of my tongue, but I just take another picture and wait.

“Got that?” He lets out a slew of theory before pointing at the clock as class comes to a close.

I’m almost up and out of my chair faster than a snap, I hurry to the board and finish taking pictures.

“Miss Wesley,” I jump at his voice. I barely turn my head as the five foot eleven man comes up to me, portly and round with a heavy dent in his forehead. He pats me on the back, “I saw your last test.”

I gulp and my lips pinch together, “uh, is this about Mrs. Dubois contacting you? Because I promise it won’t be distracting, I’ll just keep it on my desk.”

“I don’t care if you need five enhancers miss Wesley, that was some damn fine math.”

I raise my eyebrows, “thank you. I… studied?”

He chuckles, “you’re quick.” He pats my shoulder again, “and Mrs. Gregor says she likes the way you think. How would you like to intern for the department this summer?”

I blink only a couple times, “really?”

He nods with a sniff, “I see bright things in your future.”

My mouth was a little open and resist making the joke that I would be seeing a lot of bright things in my future too. I just nod instead, “thank you! Yes, I’d love to.”

That is the year I start working for Professor Chadwick and the university, it’s also the year that the government declares me legally blind.

—————————–

I had seven coworkers, two interns, and one sandwich place next to the observatory.

I was turning 28 in March and I hadn’t had a boyfriend since the last disaster of 2021. I was with sitting my back to the computers and a sandwich in my hand dripping mustard onto my lap.

The radio was on, playing ‘Winds of Fire’ as loud as it possibly could as I hear Sai Bhatia tapping her foot like she wanted to start a miniature cockroach band on the floor with it.

I moan loudly into my sandwich to let her know that it was both alright to take a break and hopefully expected. I had a feeling she resented me, but I also had a feeling that my next door neighbor was trying to summon ghosts in my driveway, so I wasn’t always a great judge of circumstance.

I was 27 and that still felt like it meant something.

“Woah,” both me and Sai pause as we hear a voice gasp from the other room. “Woah!” I sit up straight, “Dr. Wesley,” he says shrilly, “oh man, Dr. Bhatia!”

My skin was prickly as I stand up straight, “Rory, my boy, use your words.”

I hear some stumbling and chair screeching from the other room, “come look at this!”

I navigate my way into the next lab room, Rory, our grad student intern was standing next to the ROSTA computer and gesturing. I squint my eyes down and look both ways.

“Can you read it to me?”

“Yes, but you’re going to have to take a seat for this.”

I shake my head, “let’s get to the reading first, then we can see if any chairs need to be involved.”

“Let me see,” Dr. Bhatia clicks her heels over in a few strides, “did you locate the nearest asteroid cluster wavelengths?”

“No, but this electromagnetic field is enormous, and… weird? Really read. Listen to this,” he starts reading off the numbers and I perk up.

I only start leaning forward and my thoughts start racing, “This is saying it’s only a couple light years away, how the hell is that so close?” I turn to him, “Have we ever seen this before?”

He makes a couple non-committed gestures and points, “I’ve recorded it, we have to send this immediately.”

I nod quickly, “I’m going to scan some journals to see if this has ever been recorded before, how fast is it moving?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs, “but the camera picked up on some objects in it too.”

“Comets?” Dr. Bhatia was glancing over the numbers too.

“Dunno.”

I ruffle Rory’s bright red head, “hang in there kid.”

“Promise I’ll keep looking!”

I laugh and crack my knuckles, “let’s get to work.”

That was the first night, and it was a very long one at that.

—————–

Rory left around 3am, he said he needed to get back to his girlfriend, but even I could tell there were bags weighing his eyes down and a slump to his shoulders. And that was saying something.

Dr. Bhatia left just before dawn, not because she wanted to but because she hated the only donut place that delivered to our facility and someone had to eat a proper meal she said.

I was waiting expectantly for my Krispy Kremes when it hit six in the morning on a chilly fall day. I heard it first.

A radio buzz, bursting and calling as if this was a 1950s spy movie and the Russians were trying to jam our equipment, my eyebrows spike. I go to turn on the audio function to read the recent findings and digital images.

I pause when I start hearing the same repeating numbers: 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100

I furrow my brow, “what the hell?”

I bend down and try to squint at one of the digital pictures from our probe, I make a face. It was a very pink, a very large and pink blur.

Our mother university had called and told us to keep on an eye on the phenomena, it might be just a series of comets with some odd readings, but I was staring at something entirely different now. I couldn’t quite make sense of it, or make it out. But it was pink and bright.

01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100

I shouldn’t be getting numbers in this way.

“Okay computer,” I say stiffly, “but why?”

I sit down to start looking for the main patterns in the data as the numbers keep repeating and repeating.

—————————

I was going crazy, legitimately crazy.

There was only one pattern in the repeating readings of the magnetic field that made any sense, it was binary, of course it was binary. And it didn’t make any sense, why would our computer translate coordinates into binary?

Why would it read it out over and over? Our stuff was either breaking OR, unfortunately, the sky was somehow writing ‘hello’ to me.

Which was either first alien contact or a very sad local news article: bravely differently-abled scientist makes her way to the nut house.

Sky’s. Didn’t. Say. Hello.

Especially comets, what even lived in comets? There was a lot about the universe we didn’t know and the sudden small chance this was it sent a giddiness through my veins like no other.

It was new. It was never seen before. I don’t go home that night.

————–

I wake up on my desk the next morning in a puddle of my own drool and in front of a whole slew of numbers and a binary-language program open on my computer. Alongside a whole box of Krispy Kremes as the site of a tragic graveyard massacre of crumbs.

“What are these?” I hear a new voice enter and I wipe at the crust in my eyes.

“We’re being visited by aliens, haven’t you heard?” I yawn, “they’re very pink.”

“No, I mean, really, what am I looking at?” Dr. Chadwick had returned to the facility.

I crack my neck and stand up, “hell if I know.”

“Haha.”

“Just a little joke for your morning doctor.”

He sniffs loudly, “please come in here.”

I find my glasses and lurch my way to the room that I had just spent the last eleven hours in. I clear my throat, “Did you see the readings? It’s like the computer is possessed or something.”

“And by that you mean possessed by an angry ghost that erases our equipment?”

My eyebrows shoot up, “what?”

“Tell me what you see? And no, that isn’t a joke invitation.”

I lower my face into the paper and see nothing but an empty blackness. It was empty, a nothing, a black picture.

My head falls down, “what.. What?”

I was going crazy.

——————————-

I try not to be at the office the next day. Or the next.

I take some time off to scroll through my tinder notifications and visit the nearest pool to just sort of stick my feet in and sit in the sauna room until I melt. It was funny I left my small town in Massachusetts just enter another smaller town in Maine.

Who even went to Maine?

Scientists and bad decisions.

All of the data from the night before had been scrambled, we had still sent off the original points of magnetic radiation, but we were told it was just a phenomenon. An off reading.

I still had a couple handwritten notes, sloppy, large, and with one word in the middle: HELLO.

Fuck, hello. I tried that one on a few of my tinder matches and it didn’t quite feel the same after hearing it from the sky. Aliens existed and so did English binary in space apparently.

Or ghosts that knew computer binary and possessed equipment. Stars that could speak. The end of the world? And I was that one scientist who had to warn everyone about the danger and yet no one would believe me.

The film tagline: The Blind Girl Saw it All! But No one Could believe their eyes. The stars were speaking now, and they were pissed. Disaster movie 2028.

I lie on my belly in the sun and listen to an audio book about magic and intrigue. It was my second time trying to finish the Wheel of Time series and I was halfway asleep in the grass.

Something buzzes inside me: I should send something back, I blink a couple times. I should definitely try and send something.

Said every normal person right before they are eaten by space monsters.

I roll over and crawl over to my porch, it was time to break out my old CB radio that my grandfather left me. I take my time arranging the frequency and sitting on my roof that night, thinking, writing.

I tap out one clear, dotted message: hello.

I knew it wouldn’t carry very far, but somehow that wasn’t the point for me. I wait.

————————

It was the next day when I hear Dr. Bhatia in the next room. “I’m leaving.” She says loudly, “I’m not doing this again.”

I lift my eyebrows and turn around toward the computer room. “More weird numbers?”

Her heels click as she walks in, “it’s getting closer. I emailed the data points away quickly this time, but the second time I looked they all came up blank.”

I wrinkle my nose, “we’re being haunted.”

She sniffs, “And I’m not going to be the first brown person eaten in the movie.”

I laugh, “it’s okay. I’ll be the blind girl that tragically stumbles into the queens nest first and gets fed to her young.”

Dr. Bhatia snickers to herself, “yeah. And then Rory saves the day, it’s a blockbuster.”

We laugh together and I’m hoping the passive aggressive PhD comparisons fades. Even if I did get magna cum laude a year ahead of her- just for the record.

She pats me on the back, “go home too.”

“No way,” I stand up and crack my back, “finding new and unusual things is why I’m in the field. I’m like Velma from scooby doo, but sexier.”

“Sure,” she leans over my chair and points at my glasses, “an appropriate comparison.”

I grin, “extra hours never hurt.” I sing and I can make out her shaking head.

“I’m calling maintenance tomorrow to check for pigeons in the observatory dish again.”

I laugh, “I love talking to pigeons you know.”

She pats me on the back and the only thing left to do was hurry over to the next room, I turn on the audio readings and take out a pen. I jot down the numbers faster than the computer can speak.

It reverted once again from its usual numeral coordinates back into ones and zeroes. It was happening again.

But it was different.

Night number two: ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’

I use the lab radio this time: yes, yes, yes. Yes.

The hard drive is all blank in the morning. Everything from the emails to outdoor cameras in the parking lot were left blank.

Maintenance was sent in twice, Rory jokes that the FBI was coming next with Scully and Mulder.

I tell him he’s Mulder already and that apparently makes his week and he makes coffee for me first for the rest of the night. But my skin is crawling, I wait for them to leave again.

Our equipment was breaking or I was talking to something, I consider bringing in more experts, new pairs of eyes to watch me contact it. But I have feeling it wouldn’t speak then, and I have a deeper fear that I didn’t want anyone else to see it anyway.

I wait until 3am, tapping, looking, waiting, the computer starts reading binary again, I translate quickly through my other computer.

‘I’ve seen you before, I’ve seen you before, I’ve seen you before.’

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. So this is the part of the movie where the alien comes down and uses me as it’s first meat puppet.

But it was also the part of the movie where every part of my being lights up.

‘Where? Why are you deleting our files? What are you doing? Who are you?’ I had prepared all of these binary questions the day before.

I only get back one word: ‘again. Again. Again.’

I hold my breath and write down as much as I can with pen and paper. The equipment is blank as a newborn baby the next day but I have the one word: again.

——————————-

November 10th 2028: the messages start. And it’s not possible, it should not be quick or easy or fast.

I knew something was wrong. But the binary in the sky comes back just as I type out a new message on the lab radio.

‘It’s been so long.’

‘How long?’ I ask, ‘Where are you?’

‘Too long.’

‘What do you see?’

‘You. It’s been so long.’

‘That’s kind of freaking me out.’ I finally tell whatever it is the truth.

‘Haha.’ I get back some sort of strange binary laugh. ‘I don’t mean to. You’re so small this time.’

‘Now you are really freaking me out. Why are you deleting the data?’

‘Goodnight my love.’

I don’t sleep that night or the next day or wonder why ‘my love’ was written in my notes as if my fingers were going through an earthquake. Of course, I could finally add: ‘at least the sky loves me’ on my next dating profile.

——————

November 11th 2028:

I ask first this time.

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘You may call me Heaven’

I sit up in my chair and my mouth hangs up, “Oh fuck,” I swear up and down and suddenly stop being an atheist for a second.

‘Heaven?’

‘Haha.’ I get back the same metallic laugh.

‘Heaven?’ I send again.

‘No.’

‘You made a joke.’

‘You are very funny when you are surprised.’

‘Can you see me?’ I write first.

‘Can you see me?’ Is the return.

I send a very short message, ‘let’s just say ‘no.’

‘You may call me ‘Texca’ until we meet again.” I translate the name over and over again until it looks like I got it right.

‘Texca?’ I send out quickly, some part of me knows it shouldn’t be this quick. It was light years away.

‘Yes. What is yours?’

‘What do you mean by ‘until we meet again?’ It was a long message to get out, it was almost five in the morning now.

‘That is a very long name.’

‘Haha. My name is Francine.’ I tell her quickly and the response is immediate.

‘Francine, Francine, Francine.’

‘Please,’ I type, hoping that weird ghost/deities/aliens knew begging. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Francine.’ Is written back, ‘goodnight my love.’

I lie on the floor and trace lines in the ceiling. I was surely losing it, but they would have to come shut me down before I stop.

——————-

November 12th 2028.

‘Francine.’ She (I now call it she) messages first.

‘Good morning!’

‘It really is.’

‘Is it morning where you are?’ I try to decipher where she is.

‘It’s always morning when I see you.’

‘Oh.’ My hands hover over the ‘dot dot’ button. ‘Are you making more jokes?’

‘No.’ Texca writes.

‘Can you really see me?’ I write again.

‘Yes,’ it says, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

‘How?’

‘You are very much a scientist.’

‘You know what a scientist is?’

‘I know what you are.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Up above.’

‘Okay?’

‘You’re confused.’

‘Yes!’

‘Haha,’ it said again and I sigh heavily, ‘give it time my love.’

‘I am frowning. Do you know what a frown is?’

It took a good ten minutes for me to translate the next couple messages, I groan when I find the right combination.

‘:)’

‘An alien with a sense of humor,’ I write back and stretch out as I savor my time in the ethers of nonsense. Of the impossible.

‘A human with one too.’

‘How are you doing this?’

‘Keep looking.’

‘Where?’ I sit up completely, ‘where?’

‘Goodnight my love.’

I put my head in my hands, hunch over and then groan so loudly I think it echoes off the lab walls.

I’m looking for something in a forest of weeds it feels like, no up, no down, just roots and questions.

———————

“So,” Sai Bhakti was sitting with her back up straight a pastry in her hand, “I hear you’ve been keeping long nights.”

I put my elbows on the table and lean forward, “can’t we talk about Game of the Thrones or something? We’re out of work for once.”

She cracks a smile, “I just hear you’re talking to ghosts.”

I sniff, “The ghost of the second monitor? I guess so.”

She pushes a pastry over to me, “God. We really did need to be kicked out of that office. Thank God for maintenance days.”

I bat a pastry back and forth in my hands, “do you think there’s a chance… I dunno, it’s not broken?”

She makes a face at me, “how? It’s erasing data points.”

“Well,” I frown, “there’s a lot in this universe we don’t understand.”

She leans forward, “like ghosts.”

“And aliens.”

“And bigfoot.”

I snort, “bigfoot is definitely involved.”

“You know,” she tucks a piece of long dark hair behind her ear, “you’re right. We don’t have to talk about work.”

We both stare at each other for a second and she leans back, I clear my throat, “how’s your husband?”

She shrugs, “the usual burden.” I raise my eyebrows and open my mouth, she puts her hand up, “lovable burden.”

I listen to her describe the problems of laundry day and having to share a bathroom with a man who cuts his toenails on the counter. But he made her dinner every night even on the nights she didn’t come home, so she assures me it’s working.

I nod, she starts eyeing me, “and you?” She narrows her eyes, “you’ve been more… chipper.”

“I’m always chipper,” I defend, “like a cheap socialite at an invite-only event.”

She smiles, “how’s the love life doctor?”

I stick my tongue out, “I can be chipper without another person involved.” It surely wasn’t a person anyway.

She studies me, “eat your pastry then.”

I take a bite and sigh into the sky, “okay. I mean. Something is… going on.”

“Something?”

“Something. But not like, dating something. Just something.”

“Ooh,” her features get sharp, “one that rhymes with one night hand?”

I couch on my own spit, “oh my God.”

“I’m not that young Fran.”

I crack a smile, “I mean. There have been a couple long nights,” I say mysteriously, “but nothing happens. And I think… I mean, I don’t know much about her.” Like if she had a body or ate or walked or breathed air.

I take a deep breath, “But she seems to like me? A lot?”

Sai hums loudly and sits up, “and how do you feel?”

I pause for the moment and stare up at nothing, “good?” I say slowly, “confused.”

“Ah, does she like you more than you like her?” She taps her chin again.

I tilt my head to the side, “I don’t know her.”

She shrugs, “then give it a chance.”

I smile down at my hands, “I’m not sure you’d say that if you knew her.”

Sai laughs softly, “is she odd?”

“The oddest.”

“Good,” Sai slaps her hands on the table, “you’ll match.”

I blow a stray piece of hair away from my face, “local pirate falls in love with the sky.”

She gives me a strange look, “come again?”

“Nothing.”

I wait for maintenance to check our equipment and I hope nothing changes.

————

November 15th 2028

‘How are you Texca?’ It’s the first night I have alone again.

The response is immediate, ‘where have you been?’

‘I thought you could see me?’

‘I was so worried.’

‘I’m here now. They were checking our observatory. You’ve caused quite a stir.’

‘I’m close.’

I sit up completely straight in my seat, ‘oh?’

‘I’m so close my love.’

‘Where? Where are you?’

‘Above,’ it says again and again, ‘I have something to tell you.’

‘Please,’ I say quickly, ‘yes, I am listening.’

‘I know you don’t remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘But I am Texca,’ there is a long pause between those words, a buzz that comes across the speaker as the computer seems to almost fritz. ‘I have always loved you.’

My mouth is hanging open and I feel like the world will become completely white and empty after that second. ‘Why?’

‘Always,’ ‘always, ‘always.’

A screech comes over the speakers, the two programs working together to translate the binary into words starts showing numbers, symbols, nonsense, gibberish.

‘Always, always.’ It forms a simple elegant formation. And one last word, in English, no filter. ‘SOON.’

I hold my breath and wonder if this is when I walk into the alien queen’s lair and get eaten. I knew then that I would go willingly.

“Soon,” I whisper the word to myself like an electric thrill, something was happening, something I could never explain.

I fall asleep sitting against the cool wall of the observatory and try to make sense of things I see in the telescope, blurry shapes. Something pink.

———————

I wake up the next morning and the computer was smoking, Rory was dancing from foot to foot and trying to explain it to Dr. Chadwick.

“I didn’t do it!” He says shrilly, “I promise, I promise professor, please don’t fail me.”

Bob just sighs, “someone get maintenance in here again. And figure out what these damn numbers mean.”

“Wait,” I limp back up and feel the bruises on my body from spending the night against the wall.

Bob turns around, “and if it isn’t our favorite Cinderella. You do own a bed, don’t you? God knows I pay you enough.”

I shake my head, “wait.”

“Dr. Wesley didn’t do it either!” Rory defends quickly, “in fact, I did do it.”

“That’s very kind kid,” I make my way over and fumble for the audio button, “let me hear the numbers.”

“64.2008, 149.4937.”

I wipe at my face and stand up straight, I knew it in my gut. “Oh.” I blink, “someone get a map.”

“You think the numbers are for here?” The doctor asks and I nod.

“How do you know?”

I turn around, “I have to go.”

“Doctor?” Bob Chadwick turns to me, “are you alright, wait, Fran.”

I wave listlessly, “I’m taking a few days off.”

I don’t stop as they call after me, I knew it then. There was no going back.

I leave them a long note and all my coupons for the local restaurants.

————————–

The plane ride was $200 for one way since I was buying at last minute, I choose first class because why the hell not. I was treating myself as I chased strangers that were either playing the longest game prank ever. Or something else.

I was going to Nome Alaska on a Tuesday night.

The trip over is a dreamless hush of sleep that leaves me feeling empty and anxious in every crevice of my body. I was chasing something that erased data points and communicated in binary and had been watching me.

Which might say more about my mental state of being rather than things in the actual realms of possibility. But I had to go, I had to find out.

I get off at Anchorage in a wobbly daydream of consciousness and board a second tiny plane.

I sit between an old man with his cat under the seat and a teenager who talked on the phone with his mom before we took off. He was visiting his dad and she was worried about the spider bite he got last time he was there.

I almost start crying after we take off, I don’t know why.

We arrive at seven in the morning, the old man shakes me gently awake as we land and there are tear stains dripping down my cheeks again, I wipe my face and don’t say anything as I enter Nome Alaska.

It was another world if I had ever seen one, small colorful houses and empty streets. It was the middle of the winter so no one was out of their houses and very few visitors made it this far out.

I was lucky it was warmer than usual, but it still numbed my cheeks and shook my teeth to their roots as I stepped outside. I hurry to get inside the airport and pick up my simple bag- a large radio inside.

I took a long look out the airport window before tugging a hat further down on my ears and finding the nearest tourism desk.

A smiling yet surprised looking woman greets me, “Welcome to Nome Alaska! What can I do for you?”

I lift my chin up, “just a little help.”

“Will you be needing lodging miss?”

I just nod before taking a deep breath, “Yeah. Also, I have a question.”

She leans over the desk, “go right ahead.”

“Where is the best place to the see the sky around here?”

———————————–

I booked a room at a motel named ‘Linda’s’ met Linda and took a very long walk until my toes went number, which wasn’t very hard at all. I was living in Maine so I wasn’t not used to the cold.

But Nome Alaska was a different type of cold altogether. It wanted to eat you alive and leave the bones to freeze.

I kept walking.

The tour guide gave me some helpful tips: there’s a lot of great places with natural beauty around Nome! The snow and trees and little squat rural houses.

And snow.

I didn’t mind the snow and there were more stars here in this tiny chunk of the world than in all of Massachusetts combined. Nome had a glittering sky that went on in all directions, it was mostly all a big blur to me, but a beautiful one nonetheless.

I use my camera and magnify and magnify, following the path as far as it will go.

I follow it until I find a low hill with a view of the city just behind me, I sit down. I wait.

———————

November 20th.

Nothing on the radio, I call Dr. Bhatia, she says the equipment has returned to normal, though they had to throw out monitor two.

A woman at the local dinner refills my coffee five times and someone buys me a piece of cherry pie.

I pet someone’s Husky malamute in the street and wait.

———————

November 21st.

The sky is so big sometimes I’m afraid it’ll swallow me whole when I look up into it. I start shaking at night, the tear stains pepper down my cheek each morning I wake up.

There is silence at the other end of my radio and I wait. Perhaps there was a lead leak into my local water back in Maine. I dream of mad kings and beautiful pink princesses that never wake up from their enchanted slumber.

————————–

November 22nd.

Someone takes me out snowshoeing and the first winter storm rolls in that night, I don’t see any sky for days.

Linda’s says she’s going to stoke a fire in the common room if I want some strong whiskey and a game of poker. I lose thirty-two bucks that night and any sense of purpose.

“What are you doing here miss?” The man at the poker table asks twice.

I just shrug twice, “I dunno.”

They hum at that and then I lose thirty-three bucks that night.

——————–

November 25th.

The storm clears up and I don’t know how to tell the local residents that I am both Jewish and not here for Christmas. They are having a small parade in the city center nonetheless and every other person I meet tells me to come. I watch a tiny girl bundled up to her neck sing a Christmas carol as high pitched as a silver bell.

I clap, and I wait.

The sky is so large I’m afraid if I don’t hold onto something then it will suck me up into the vast cold above, sometimes I try to let go though and let it happen.

I’m afraid I really have lost my mind.

———————

December 2nd.

“They’ll be an aurora tonight,” Linda tells me that morning and I perk up, just a little bit.

“Oh,” I blink a little bit, “really?”

“I feel it. Yeah, will you still be around for that young lady?”

I hum, “I’ll try. I’ve booked a flight home on Thursday.”

She gives an old wizened smile, “shame. My son really liked your singing voice.”

I wipe my face and adjust my thick glasses, “that’s why I don’t drink whiskey anymore.”

“It’s always nice to have more people out this way!” She wipes the counter down and watches me, “for whatever reason they arrive for.”

I shrug listlessly and give an almost-smile, “early mid-life crisis.”

She chuckles, “hope it was a good one!”

I laugh, “it was.”

I wander around the city all day and hug the first loose dog I see, “do you know where you’re going sir?” I ask the dog as I pet his ears and he laps up my face.

Neither of us has much of an answer.

—————–

December 3rd.

I hear it before I see it. A buzz, a whistle, something like a whisper and a clanking sound all at once. “Told you, stranger!”

A crowd is pointing and picking up cameras, it’s night and I had missed my flight home, I start walking in the opposite direction of the crowd.

The buzzing and chiming increases like a soft caress eating away at me. I look up.

“Texca?” I call out into nothing as I hear it, the something. “Texca.”

There is something pink on the horizon, I start running, my eyes are prickling. I see the same hill I had found the first night I had arrived here.

I stumble and hobble through the snow, climbing and clawing my way to the top as I keep the colors of the night just in front of me. I can see their smears of greens and blues kissing the earth.

I squint and call, my voice rising in the wind. “Are you here!?” I raise my arms up, “were you real…?”

Maybe I already knew the answer. The greens shift to blue and yellow before my eyes, and pink, pink like flowers, pink like cats noses, pink like the universe.

I gasp and see something morph and shape above me, large enough so even I could make it out, large enough to steal my breath away. The night sky was alive with one word: my love.

The tears start freezing on my cheeks as they won’t stop flowing, “it’s been so long.”

I reach my shaking, hungry fingers up and grasp at the light. I see it, a figure, a being, something I couldn’t describe. Maybe we all were made of souls and stardust and perhaps soulmates exist in feral untamed universes.

Even if they must cross the galaxy to meet again.

My fingertips grace over something warm and I am overcome with something morphing out of the nothing. “My love,” a whisper, like a wish and a prayer and the rev of a car engine. “You came.”

I am enveloped in warmth and something drips down my body like melting candle wax, I close my arms and wrap my arms around the light.

“Hello, my love.”

And the sky devours me whole.

------------------------

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[fanfics-for-the-hockey-fan]

Dreams of the Future- Josh Anderson

Hi can I ask for a Josh Anderson where someone makes a comment about what good parents you are not knowing it's your niece/nephew and he starts thinking about kids with you??

I hiked my niece onto my hip, making sure she was secure as we started into the crowd of people entering the arena. Josh was walking in front of us, trying to make a path as we tried to move around the crowded arena to get food before the show started. “Josh, hold on a second. I have a wiggling 4 year old who is trying to escape my arms.” Josh nods, stepping off the side and I was able follow him so we were standing against the wall.

“Do you want to split up so we get to our seats faster?” I think about it and nod, tightening my grip on Amelia. “I can go get the food?”

“No, I’ll go get the food.”

“I can take Amelia then.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we are just going to go to our seats. I’ve got her.” I nodded and let Josh take my niece, getting her settled on his back and making sure her arms were firmly around his neck. “I’ll see you in a few, just get me whatever you are getting to eat.”

“Okay, love you.” I kiss him quickly before watching them move smoothly through the crowd toward the section we were in before going off to find food for the three of us. 20 minutes later I made my way into the seats with my arms filled with food. Josh stood as soon as he saw me, moving to take some of the food from my arms before letting me into the aisle. I handed Amelia her hot dog before noticing something already filling her small hands. “What do you have?”

“Olaf!” She holds up the plush snowman to me, causing me to lift my eyes to Josh.

“What? How do you say no to a snowman that likes warm hugs?” I roll my eyes at him, causing him to stick his tongue out at me.

“You can explain that to my sister when we drop Amelia off.” He smiles and I have to draw my eyes away from him to looks at my niece. “I know Olaf likes warm hugs but I don’t think he likes hot dogs, so how about he sits in my purse while we eat and then he can come watch with you?” She seems to me thinking over what I say before nodding and handing me the snowman, reaching for her hot dog. The three of us eat quickly, getting excited for the ice show to start. A month ago when I had mentioned to Josh that I was looking for something to do with my niece for the next time I watched her, he had suggested Disney on Ice.

“I’ll take the trash.” Josh takes all of our trash after I wipe the ketchup off of Amelia’s hands and face, kissing her forehead as she hugged Olaf to her chest. When he sat back in his seat we tried to get a picture of the three of us and as Josh was holding out his phone a woman in the row in front of us offered to take on for us.

“You three are such a cute family! Your daughter is precious!”

Josh’s pov

When the woman in front of us took are picture and assumed we were a family it got my mind spinning about that in my mind. Dating Jess for close to 2 years now, I had met here right after joining the Blue Jackets, I had just always assumed we were headed in that direction. Marriage, house with the white picket fence, a child or two that were the perfect combination of us. However, looking over at Jess she had a tight smile on her face as she showed me the picture, the usual glow in her eyes gone when she looked at me.

Her niece Amelia didn’t seem to notice any of the tension that felt like a brick wall between us. Jess handed me a water bottle from her purse before also pulling out some cotton candy, feeding Amelia small piece as her eyes followed the figure skaters that had just taken the ice.

I kept trying to sneak glances over at Jess during the show but she wouldn’t meet my eyes, even once the show ended and there was a sleeping 4 year old between us. “I can carry her out to the car, I know you said you back was hurting.” She finally met my eyes, giving me a smile of thanks as I picked up Amelia who had a death grip on the snowman I had bought her. When we had passed the stand on our way to our seats she squeezed my neck tighter as she saw the stuffed snowman and I was happy to buy it for her.

Coming back to the present I followed Jess out to her sister’s car, we had left Jess’s car at their house figuring it was easier to take their car than to switch out the car seat. “I can hook her in.” Nodding I gently place her in the car seat, before climbing into the passenger seat. Once Jess was in the driver's seat and we were slowly making our way out of the parking lot, as we slowly inched

forward in the traffic I felt her reach for my hand. I took comfort in that small gesture as my mind pictured a little girl who was the mirror image of her wearing a jersey that had my number and daddy on the back. As I got lost in my day dream I must have missed something Jess said because she squeezed my hand and looked over at me.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I’m sorry for what that lady said to us, I hope it didn’t freak you out too much.”

“Freak me out?”

“Most guys run at the mention of commitment, let alone having kids. I love you, and I don’t want ruin what we have.”

“Why would you think I would run at the mention of commitment? We’ve been dating for almost 2 years now, I would say we are pretty committed.”

“Dating and having a child together are two very different things.”

“In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m in this for the long run and you are kind of it for me.” She gave me a huge smile, letting me lean over to kiss her as we finally got out of the parking lot and were now in traffic to get on the highway.

“Are you ready for kids?”

“Right now? No. But in a year or two, after we are married and both steady in our careers I could see us having a kid or two.”

“Married?”

“I told you, you are it for me. I don’t have an actual plan right now. I figured I would at least wait until you finish grad school, I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“I don’t know if I can just forget about this for now.”

“Then think of it this way, I am going to marry you and then when we are both ready we are going to have the cutest children the world has ever seen.” That gets a laugh out of both of us, stopping quickly so we didn’t wake up Amelia. “All you need to know right now is that I love you and you are the one for me.”

“I love you too, and I can’t wait to see how cute our future children are.”

I take request! Just send me a player and a scenario!

[afrimericanone]

Too Strong

Too Strong

This blog is a bit of a delicate one and because I am not an African American woman its takes on added difficulty. I have been constantly wrestling with the fine line between political correctness and the raw truth. So here we go, but as usual I do some research asking questions from my female family and friends before attempting to explain the phenomenon that only a woman can feel, so bear with me. I will use the strength of my African American mother to see me through.

Too strong is what is what I see when I hear a single mother complain about having to be a father figure to her son. Too strong is what I feel when I see her wake up to put food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads without anyone’s help. Too strong is the song I hear when the 5am alarm goes off signaling the start of a new day to take on all the responsibility without a tender hug from a spouse to make things just a little bit better. Too strong is the cry that screams out in frustration at the lack of a suitable male mate from her race.

I think we get the picture… the African American woman through no fault of her own has had to be the back bone and all the other bones in the African American family. For that sacrifice, she deserves all the praise and thanks we can muster. The natural questions now are asked. Why is the African American man letting the African American woman down? Is he so heartless that he would not even pity his mothers, sisters and even daughters? What phenomena has occurred to make the relationship between man and woman at the most primal level drastically different from their ancestors of only 400 years ago? Why is the African man so culturally different from the African American man? Why are there so many more African American women in college than their male counterparts?

These questions are too complex to handle in a simple blog; however, we can imagine that the systematic multigenerational racism should have something to do with it.  The African American male has been under attack since he arrived in the new world. From slavery to practices like ‘buck-breaking’ to the terrorizing Jim crow era lynching’s to today’s mass incarceration, the African American male has taken the brunt of the brute force aimed at his people. If you can emasculate the males the females will also lose hope was the sad reality of the tactics employed by the slave masters.

As I am half African I know how much I stand on the efforts of my fore fathers and their achievements. Their legacy is my legacy and because of that even my grad children will never be poor. Thus, I will always have an undying confidence based on the success of my family and in me being capable of leading my family for another generation. Leading until my Son … Jah willing… will take over from me with what I have left for him. Without the foundation to stand on, being greater than my efforts will not be possible and I can see how hard it would be to be a man to my mate and children. Without the tools to succeed like strong family values and mentors, multigenerational economic base, business acumen and a solid education… I really don’t stand a chance.

The women over the years of fending for the family, making up for the absence of the man who is under constant attack, become hardened and even ‘super women’. Having to be strong externally while longing to be taken care of internally. Many I see give up on the classical idea of family and traditional gender roles. Some tell me its not because they don’t want to be home to raise their kids or keep their homes or take care of their husbands, but they have no choice. Even those with spouses often find themselves being too strong to be the women they wish they could be. An ex-girlfriend of mine has never had a male figure in her life in the sense of a live-in father, husband or pro-longed live in boyfriend and we both joke that she could never now that she is over 40. Where does she start she often says? She has NEVER lived with a man.

In order to be with this ex-girlfriend, this strong African American woman expects me to be way ‘stronger’ than her. After all I’m a man. The issues arise because she really has no experience of living with a man after 40 years. In her being she has had to take on both roles raising her children, so when I come around there is always this feel out period of what’s my manly duty and when am I stepping on her man toes. I learned to just shut the hell up…it was safer…lol. So how much stronger do I have to be than a ‘super woman’ to be a ‘man’. To many its unrealistic… we men simply can’t compete with the ‘super woman’ so we digress, disappear or she learns to live with our major flaws because she knows we are under constant attack.

Is this absolute truth for everybody? … of course not, but many will identify with the Too strong women we have relied on for our very survival? And if you’re like me, you thank Jah for the woman’s strength every day. Love your grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, be tender, caring and sensitive to their needs … learn to lead with clarity, feed with love and provide security like a rock quiet and unmovable and she will ALLOW you to be the man she knows you can be…. once she trusts you.

Stay blessed & stay strong ladies ...thank you.

[phantumpoftheopera]

Some words in memory of my grandmother

Born on March 7, 1929, my grandmother Helen, known to her loved ones as Nanny, was the eldest daughter of 7 children. What that meant, being born as the oldest girl in a large family at the start of the Great Depression and growing up and entering her teenage years during World War II, was that most of the household responsibilities fell to her. Her daily chores included getting her younger siblings ready for school and taking care of the chickens before she was allowed to prepare for school, herself. As she grew older, she was forced to get a job to help support the family, but relied on her father and brother to see her to and from work. She would go to school all day and then go to work at a local drug store, often getting off work late in the night, waiting for one of them to pick her up. Still, she received top grades in school, despite having to work much harder than some of her classmates.

One time, she got off work late at night and waited outside the store for her brother, as usual. Hours passed, and he never showed up. She didn’t know what to do. Nobody had a telephone and she was miles from home in the middle of the night. As she began to cry, a police officer drove by, stopping next to her, and asking her if she needed a ride home. She got in the car with him and on the way home they passed the scene of a car accident. A car had crashed into a gas pump; fortunately, the driver was not injured, but had been taken to the hospital, the officer told her. Nanny was horrified to realize that it was the family car, the one her brother had been driving on his way to pick her up. As it turned out, he had been drinking (a common occurrence for both him and their father) and was lucky to be alive. This kind of thing unfortunately happened more than once, and despite her older brother’s drinking problems, he was still the most-loved child in the family.

As Nanny graduated high school, she was expected to work even more, while still taking care of her younger siblings. She had received a full scholarship to college and planned to become a nurse, but her parents would not help her pay for transportation or release her from her chores, so she sadly had to abandon her dream. She would be lucky to make $15 in a week, $12 of which she was required to give to her mother for groceries. The remaining money was often spent on cigarettes for her father or brother, who never paid her back. If she had any money left that her family did not take from her, she sometimes went to the movie theater between work shifts. She loved to tell me about going to see movies and paying just fifty cents for a ticket.

The war had just ended and Nanny’s high school sweetheart, Donald, or as my family called him, Pappy, came home. Standing at a diminutive five feet four inches tall, he was a good three inches shorter than Nanny, but had enough personality to make up for it. They were married shortly after he arrived home, moving into a small cottage behind Nanny’s parents’ house that they were allowed to live in as long as they fixed it up. Nanny and Pappy put all their money and energy into renovating the little house, but when they were finished, they couldn’t enjoy it for long. Her older brother had also decided to get married, so Nanny and Pappy were forced out so they could move in. Instead, they rented a series of houses for many years as they started to have children, first my aunt Sandra, then my aunts Sharon, Donna, Diane, my uncle Donald Jr., and finally, my mother, Sheila.

They both loved their children dearly and their children loved them in return, but Pappy loved other things as well: Alcohol and women. Nanny was forced to work for Giant Foods and save money in an account she kept hidden from Pappy, because otherwise he would spend everything they had on whiskey and beer after work. Sometimes he wouldn’t even go to work at all because he was still drunk from the night before. And on multiple occasions he didn’t come home. Nanny knew where he was, of course. She knew he was seeing another woman and as much as it hurt her to know that, she stayed with him because he was a good father to the kids and she knew she couldn’t support them alone.

Things did eventually start to unravel at one point, when my mom was a teenager, and Pappy took her with him during a camping trip. He met up with a strange lady my mom had never seen before, and my mom, becoming suspicious, talked to Nanny about it later. Nanny confronted him finally, telling him that she had let it slide for long enough, but now that the kids were suspicious, he needed to stop or she would leave. Amazingly, he did stop, although the drinking continued.

Eventually, Nanny saved enough money to afford the down payment on a house, using money from the secret account Pappy never knew about. She hadn’t originally planned on using it to buy a house, but was saving it in case she ever needed to leave him. She never regretted her choice to stay with him, because shortly after they bought their house, Nanny was diagnosed with a brain tumor. While she recovered from an operation to remove it, Pappy vowed to stop drinking, and amazingly, he did. The operation left her with facial nerve damage to her left eye and ear, but she survived. They lived the next 8 years together peacefully, saving enough to buy a vacation house in North Carolina, as well. The entire family often visited the beach house and life was finally good. With all her children grown and many of them having children of their own, Nanny’s house was full of life and full of people.

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last long. On November 12, 1988, just two months after I was born, Pappy had a heart attack at the beach house and died. Over the next few years, Nanny and my aunts and uncle worked on preparing to sell the beach house, since it carried too many sad memories. Nanny continued living in the house they had bought together for five years, until my aunt Sharon had a house built with an in-law unit for her to live. Eventually, she sold that house, and Nanny moved into my uncle’s basement, until she grew tired of living under someone else’s roof and rented her own apartment instead, where she lived until passing away a week ago.

Nanny’s house was always warm and inviting, but also immaculately clean. That’s the first thing anyone ever noticed when walking in. She hated clutter and was constantly cleaning. As her health started to fail after a series of strokes, she was no longer able to do all the things she used to do and a housekeeper was employed to clean the apartment once a month. She could no longer drive, so she depended on her niece to pick up groceries for her. My aunts would take turns doing her laundry. She found it frustrating to rely on others, but she also knew her limits. She was determined to maintain as much independence as possible and refused to be placed in a nursing home, and she never was, even when doctors recommended it. She was nothing if not stubbornly independent, until the end.

She loved Judge Judy and NASCAR. She hated listening to the other ladies in her building gossip, but she secretly loved to engage in it herself. When she was younger, she loved baking and interior decorating. She rarely used curse words and when she did she would immediately cover her mouth and say “oops.” She never wore makeup but she was still pretty vain. She hated getting pictures taken after her botched surgery left her with nerve damage, although she became less concerned about her disfiguration as time went on. She was always willing to help family, even when she had little herself. She would always listen to my problems, never belittling me or treating them as insignificant. She understood me better than anyone else in my family. She was the first family member I came out to, and only told me that she wanted me to be happy. She was the only person in my family who supported my decision to go to grad school and didn’t treat it like a waste of money or tell me I couldn’t do it. She always kept my favorite foods in her refrigerator, because she knew I was struggling and couldn’t always afford food, myself. She never let me leave without taking some home. And when we went to lunch, she insisted on paying, often snatching up the bill before anyone else could. If we tried to slip money into her purse to pay her back, she always found it and slipped it right back in our own somehow.

I could say so much about my grandmother, but thinking about how she isn’t here anymore and how I can’t listen to her stories and talk to her about the latest political scandals hurts too much. She was amazing, just the most wonderful person I have ever known, and the kind of person I aspire to be: the kind of person who never gives up and is always willing to help others, even when she has very little to offer. She was a wonderful woman and I miss her dearly.

[rachelkulagodfrey-blog]

Hell Hath No Skepticism Like A Black Woman Impoverished

Originally published on July 1, 2019.

“Home” is a contentious concept for me to think through. That’s mainly because it’s always been nothing more than a concept to me. I wish this was just my post-grad angst speaking, but hell hath no skepticism like a Black woman impoverished.

Somewhere buried deep in that skepticism is sorrow BUT also present is my resilience. I think. Or maybe the resilience is a thin wax layer over what’s actually just a lot of pain. Either way, I can’t see it right now. I can’t access that little “keep going” tank and I’m a little unsure as of what to do. Consider this a small, wordy scavenger hunt. I’m just trying to find the spiritual blocks and clear them.

Within the last eight years, I’ve had the privilege of getting full scholarships for both of the private schools I’ve attended. And as much as they’ve both tried to fuck me up, I wouldn’t trade the housing stability I had access to over this time period for anything. These institutions, in that sense, gave me access to uncanny conceptualizations of “home” – close, but off in a way that does not let you sleep at night. Unless you, like one of my old housemates, are an avid NyQuil drinker. (Someone please help that man.)

When I wasn’t boarding at schools, I was coming home to a new location around every two breaks. Frequent moves became the norm after losing our first NJ residence, due to my late father’s gambling addiction. My mom would send me the new address of a family friend or a friend of a friend who was offering short-term accommodations, and eventually those of my brothers’. I had little to no reason to complain; how many people did I know who had no family and no friends to go to for help? That would offer up their floors to an older, unemployed woman and her anxious but nosey daughter? Very little. It’s what kept me safe from “absolute poverty,” as the scholars call it. And so no matter how moldy the basements, no matter how cruel our hosts may have grown, I kept my mouth shut. I don’t regret my choice to do so.

The schools were paradise, in this sense. A terrible roommate in my freshman year of high school meant nothing to me. It was a gift to have kinder roommates/housemates for the rest of my high school and college career. And to have a dining hall that was open all the time? To eventually have a meal plan that gave me the opportunity to have meals literally every single day? Fucking wild. I used to think it was kind of funny when financially stable kids tried to pass as being poor… Like, bitch…Ain’t you dizzy? I would be enjoying the SHIT out of EVERYTHING if I were them. But now I’m kinda just ready to receive CashApp payments from them. They soiled all of these moments.

Not a digression. I want my money.

There is very little in my short lifetime that I can say I did all by myself. My bravado knows I can only claim so much. My mom’s resilience has kept us indoors for so long. And I know it takes a toll on her pride. On her body. On her everything, I’m sure. It’s why I’ve let her comments about the money I’ve made and wasted throughout my college career, among other things, roll off of me. Some nights, though, are harder than others. My body tenses up and I picture myself giving breath to my honest thoughts, about me carrying myself through my education; securing scholarship and grants on my own; committing to my own literacy and mobility while simultaneously being my father’s caretaker; about me just wanting a break. They are all truths, and they are all truths that I should flesh out. But I’m trying to let these truths be used as stepping stones instead of weapons.

Fuck. That��s it. We’ve arrived.

What do I have to gain/lose if I begin to use these truths as motivations? How can I release the tension that builds up in me, every day that I am waking up and falling asleep to varying levels of hostility from everyone in this household? The hostility that I’m certain only has to do with me 10% of the time? How can I put forth that I don’t fuck with the energy that is around me, without making things more complicated than they already are?

What the fuck is balance, and can I get her fucking number?

It’s hard to explain any of this fully to friends I’ve made at these schools. A lot of them -regardless of race, and fully regarding their parents’ pockets – know financial stability as a given within their lives. That’s kind of what happens when you attend schools like these. I’ve tried to explain, but they take my words to mean being “broke.” And they take me denying their requests to hang out as denial of their friendship. But that’s not it. And it’s especially weird when they try to relate (“Oh yeah, my parents are, like, really annoying, too…” or “Yeah, I’m, like, so broke. I need to ask my dad for…”) And so I’ve taken to directing the energy to my own hustle and bank account.

My “home” situation is arguably the best that it’s ever been. There’s food, there’s hot water, and there’s my nephew. It’s impossible to move through this apartment without feeling the tension that comes from the people actually paying rent wanting me out. They, like me, probably thought my B.A. meant never seeing me again after graduation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think the same. But still. It has what I need to start stacking this freelancing coin. And I know the people “providing” are talking badly about me, but it’s not to my face and so I carry on. I’m still located close enough to the people I need to be by right now.

The people outside of these walls, the people who have loved me consistently throughout all of these changes, who are close enough to hold me when necessary? They’ve taught me that “home” is a very fluid notion in the context of this life I live.

And to be able to experience this, this kind of joy, and this kind of “home”? That’s proof to me that there’s some kind of higher power rooting for me. Or maybe it’s that resilience, burrowing its way through.

[datinglove07-blog-blog-blog]

50 Meet-Cute Couple Stories That Will Make You Believe In Love Again 

New Post has been published on https://onlinedatingloves.com/awesome/50-meet-cute-couple-stories-that-will-make-you-believe-in-love-again/

50 Meet-Cute Couple Stories That Will Make You Believe In Love Again 

1.I was waitressing, he came in all the time with his friends. Him and I became friendly, played jokes on each other, he grew to be one of my favorite regular customers.

Then, there were a few weeks when he didn’t is an indication at all, and I realized that I actually missed him. I didn’t have any of his contact details. I told myself that if he ever came back in, I needed to take the chance and ask him out.

Next night he came in, I guess we both had the same idea. He asked me before I could. I wrote my number down on a piece of receipt paper( which he still has ), we went out the next night, and we’ve been together ever since. He’s the love of my life.

2.Way back in 1980, I was working in south FL. A guy I worked with was retiring soon and had bought a vacation cabin in north GA. He showed me a picture of the cabin and posing in front was a dark haired beauty who he identified as his daughter. I remarked she was very attractive.

Forward a few weeks and he tells me the daughter had just broken up with her boyfriend, was in the dumps, and asked if I wanted to ask her out.

We went on a blind date, were married 2 years later, and now have three grown children and scheming where to go for our 37 th anniversary.

3.We were at a business networking event where the rule was that you were not allowed to buy drinks for yourself, whatever you bought you had to put it into someone else’s hand as an opener to dialogue. So this gorgeous brunette strolled up to me, put a gin-and-tonic in my hand, and introduced herself.

Hello, wife.

4.I considered him in the grocery store, and I thought he was handsome. I approached him in frozen foods as he was looking at a 5 lb. container of chicken nuggets. I asked if he was married, and when he said no, I asked if he would like to take me out some time. He set the bag of chicken nuggets on his head like he was about to pass out and we both chuckled. We are married with 4 year old twin boys now. :) 10/10 would recommend approaching a handsome stranger in the supermarket.

5.Soccer game. I was watching my good “girl friend” at the time play. Game ends and I go down to the field to congratulate her. Asked her where the other team was from, and I never heard of the place, so I said fuck it, went over to the cutest daughter on the other team, gave her my number, and here I am 4.3 years later with a girl I hope to marry. Having a pair of balls and saying fucking it can either pay off tremendously or back fire horribly.

6.I am a Match.com commercial for the wife. I had sent her a message after her account expired. She renewed her account, got my message, and 10 years later we are married with 3 kids and a dog.

7.We were both character musicians at Disney. We danced down the street together and couldn’t even ensure each other’s actual bodies at all, but the sweaty banter afterwards did it.

8.Online dating. Moved half-way across the country to be with her. I always wanted a nerdy-gamer daughter for a girlfriend and I got my wish.

Totally worth the move.

Cannot underline how fantastic online dating is to introverts, once you get over the ridiculous sum of rejection, and had recognized that patience is your friend, and lastly, learn to be honest and put endeavour into your messages/ profile.

9.OkCupid. After wafting through about 2 years of bullshit, failed dates, ghosting, etc I messaged this daughter. At that phase I was desensitized; why bother putting endeavour into your first message when 95% of daughters don’t reply?

I hit her with some genuinely corny father joke and she did answer and giggled. We got to talking, eventually agreed to meet up for a beer.

We agreed going in that we’d began with only a beer and lay everything out on the table. If either of us wanted to cancel the date we would , no hard feelings. A brew turned into two, was transformed into dinner. That turned into a second date, then a third. The first year was transformed into a second, then a third.

Now we’re engaged and simply booked a wedding venue.

10.That bitch t-boned me. She said she’d let me take her to dinner if we didn’t get the insurance involved. Having typed that out, I now ensure I get fucked that day on so many levels.

11.Worked together. I was supposed to have a party for all people at the job. My heat went out that day so I had to cancel. She didn’t get the message and presented up. Asked her if she wanted to take some shoots of of Jack Daniel’s and get “warm”. Twelve years later still taking shots and getting “warm” on a regular basis!

12.No idea where I got the nerve but she was sitting on a blanket alone watching a group of us doing medieval combat reenactments. Didn’t get a good look at her before I plopped down beside her and said hi. She turned and smiled and I immediately supposed,” Oh hell. She is way out of my league .” Turns out I get her on the rebound nearly 32 years ago. Still out of my league.

13.I was at a birthday party for a friend. He was the friend of my friend’s boyfriend. We hit it off right away.

14.We were both in a psychiatric hospital. We’ve been together almost 13 years. I was there for depression and anxiety, he was there to avoid a homeless shelter. I know it sounds crazy, but it kinda works out for us. We’ve gotten in a much better financial situation.

15.We met at a friend’s Halloween party- I have always been a huge Harry Potter fan, and of course, he was dressed as Harry Potter. The rest is history!

16.We all met up at the home of a mutual friend to go to a festival together. I arrived first and was told to open the door when she knocked. She saw me and said “You’re not mutual friend! ” We drunkenly hooked up at the party subsequently that night and are now merrily married with children.

17.I sat in the parking lot at a gas station. He parked his truck on the corner where you aren’t supposed to park. I screamed at him. We got married.

18.College! We had a few class together and he kept staring at me from afar. I went up to him one day and said hi, he fell the bagel he was feeing and I knew he had it bad for me. That was almost 9 years ago and we’ve been married for nearly 5 years. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me…

19.Reddit, actually! We were both active in a dating sub( a sub about a dating app , not a sub specifically for dating) which objective up creating a fitness challenge( members of the general notion began as, improve yourself so you can be a better partner and find someone !) We were placed in the same fitness group and genuinely hit it off. 3.5 years later, we’re planning our wedding.

20.On the train. He was on his style back from find a client, I was on my way back from working at a trade carnival. Neither of us felt especially like talking but somehow we didn’t stop talking once we started. We exchanged numbers and kept messaging/ talking backward and forward and started dating not quite a month subsequently. That fateful train ride was 4 years ago. We’ve been happy with each other( and uncharacteristically talkative around each other) ever since and got married last year.

21.First day of grad school, she was sitting behind me and I was typing on my iPad. She showed me that if I took two thumbs and slid them apart over the keyboard the keyboard would shift and I could use my thumbs easier to type. We are now happily married and typing on my iPad is much easier.

22.In the work infringe room. He was putting a Totinos party pizza in the microwave( poor college kid) and I was like, “Those don’t go in a microwave.” Married almost 12 years now, I’m still bossy but his cook abilities have improved.

23.I had a coworker who defined me up on a blind date with his sister in statute. It was a bbq at his house. When I got there, I saw this gorgeous female with an ass so fantastic it brought tears to my eyes. And speaking of eyes, hers were magical. So bright and when she smiles, her entire face illuminated up. Unfortunately this was his wife. Her sister was nice but not for me. I thought about the guys spouse almost every day. But I never acted on my feelings. A couple of years later, he got divorced and she called me. She had been thinking about me, too. We dated for 3 months and got married.

18 years later, still going strong. And dat ass … mmm mmmm mmm.

24.She was the first person to get in my taxi the first day I started driving cab. We’re still married 25 years later.

25.We both worked component hour at Macy’s while going to school. Unbeknownst to one another, we both had a rule of not dating anyone that we worked with. I casually knew her since she was a flyer and worked different departments, but I would find her every once in a while working the department that was on the way to the punch in/ out clock. One day, while entering the store for run, she was leaving and she tells me tomorrow is her last day. I asked for her number and we’ve been together ever since. That was back in 1985.

26.She worked at the cookie store in the mall, and I ran at a knife store nearby. I would close my store for hours on end to hang out with her.

27 . She was a personal shopper at Macy’s. My mom, appearing out for her son, told this really cute girl she was helping find a jacket for to” look up my son on facebook.’

Well, she did, and 6 years later( 2016) we got married, and my mommy died 6 weeks after our wedding. She was so proud of what she did. As we sit here expecting our first infant, I wish she was here every day. She would be so proud. I miss her so much.

28.Ok Cupid. First time I tried online dating, and I was the LAST person he tried fulfilling on online dating. I didn’t put a painting up, and “hes taken” a chance anyways. Married with a kid and a home 7 years later

29.We met at work and casually dated for a few weeks before I got really sick. I was hospitalized for a while and it was very traumatic. He insisted on remaining by my side throughout the whole ordeal, and we are merrily married 10 years later.

30.A few weeks after a really rough breakup my friends decided to take me out to cheer me up. I met my current SO at the bar that night and we hit it off. I aimed up taking him home that night supposing perhaps I just needed rebound sex( I had never taken a guy home from the bar prior to this ). He objective up texting me early the next morning and we’ve been inseparable ever since. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

31.I was unemployed and had a job interview in the city( NYC) and was a few mins early for my interview so I stopped by a Starbucks to get a beaker of coffee( I know Starbucks is terrible but I wanted a cold brew) while on line I noticed her but didn’t do anything because I was focused on this interview. Anyways she had an issue with her order and turned around and accidentally bumped spilled her coffee all over me, she apologized and offered to pay for my dry cleaning and we exchanged numbers and talked texting and objective up dating. Aimed up didn’t going to that interview but aimed up get a better task so is not merely did I get the girl I also got a job.

32.I’m a commercial airline pilot and she’s a flight attendant. We fulfilled working together years ago when I was first start now as a co-pilot.

I’m planning on retiring early in a few years, she quit her job about 5 years ago to stay home and take care of our kids.

We own a bed and breakfast out in northern California my spouse runs while I’m away, and I’m looking forward to retirement so I can spend more time with her and the kids and helping her operate the place.

33.I was enjoying a cigarette on the smoking deck( designated smoking area) when a girl “re coming out”, sat down and said, “God dammit, fuck this.” I told her to watch her mouth. She said, “Fuck you motherfucker, I can say whatever the fuck I want to say.” We have been married for 10 years last February.

34.My church choir( college freshmen congregation) had seven women in it. I was the only human. After our first performance in a service, a girl came up and asked me who I was, and complimented me on being brave enough to sing in front of everyone.

A few weeks later she’s leading a mid-week venerate thing, and asks if I could sing something solo. I tell her yes, but I require an accompanist. She says she plays piano. I already thought she was cute, but when she started playing at our run-through, I was so breath-taken I missed my entrance.

It took me a while to ask her out, but four years later, we’re blithely married.

35.We met on Neopets as kids and became best friends. Years afterward we realized we were both into daughters so it worked out perfectly and we’re engaged.

36.Staring at her boob to drive a pervert away.

So we were in stage crew in high school. There was a healthy divide of 40+ girls and 4-5 guys including me. There was a lot of flirting, and well … Just naughty behavior all around. Usually boundaries were well respected and everyone had a good time constructing sets and props.

My friend, the perv in this story, is annoying this daughter and I can see her inconvenience. I walk over and ask what he’s doing and she responds :P TAGEND

” He’s staring at my boob and he’s not allowed to !”

To which I answered,” Am I allowed to ?”

She said yes and I proceeded to enjoy the sight of her massive boobs for a few seconds until I watch him in peripheral walk away pissed off. Afterwards, I apologize for his behavior and go back to work. She started talking to me more and eventually we discovered ourselves in a relationship now going on 7 years this July!

37.The day I gratified my husband in a college acting class. Our first class ice breaker was to walk around, and every time the prof said stop we had to stare into the eyes of the person closest to us.

We did this for 5 rounds. Guess who I had to stare at all five times?

We somehow got partnered up for our final acting scene despite not picking each other. We practiced for a few weeks and got to know each other and started going on dates after that. By the time we finished the class we were all over each other.

38.The scene: a shitty three tale home with a sinking floor supported by a makeshift pillar in the basement. Every surface is sticky.

I’m in the back, taking a break from my friends in the midst of a small party. I love them deep but also really wanted everyone to just sort of disappear for a little while. You know, how you usually feel on a Friday night that feels exactly like the last two dozen Friday nights.

I needed someone to complain to about how much I disliked everyone else at the party at that moment. Assure a cute redhead I vaguely recollected from one class and was drunk enough to launch into a little ranting without much of an introduction. Turns out she need to rant too.

39.First class on my first day in college, I see this beautiful girl waiting outside my class for the professor to unlock the door, and realise I have to be with her.

We started dating after a few weeks, and are married now.

Love at first sight.

40.We met at work! We get hired 6 months apart to design bridges and neither of us had ever designed a bridge before, although we had all the needed qualifications to make our boss believe we were capable of learning this.( In other terms, we were both fresh out of engineering grad school and had a strong background in analysis .)

Our desks were side by side, and we liked each other immediately. Our dynamic was very much” office spouse/ office spouse “. It stayed like that for two years. He was very good at designing bridges, as it turned out, and moved up speedily. I was merely ok at designing bridges, and was not moving up, so I took a chore in a different department( thankfully, I have moved up well here ), and after I left, we realized we missed each other, and started dating.

We live together now, and couldn’t be happier.( He still designs bridges .)

41.College my sophomore year. I was on the men’s lacrosse squad and she was on the women’s lacrosse team. It was the first week of school( I only transferred from another college) and I was sitting with a few people at lunch. She strolled in and I asked my friends who she was and they let me know. I said ” I’m going to end up marrying that daughter .” She had a BF of 5 years( afterward found out that he was a dick) at the time and some guy that plainly liked her said ” good luck trying to get that …” She eventually sat down at the same table as me and we chatted. Apparently one of the other girls on her squad let her know what I said about marrying her later that day. I received a text a few hours later from a random number and it was her. That’s where it all started. We were very good friends for a while and she eventually aimed things with her bf and we started dating a few months later. We have been together for 6 years and we are getting married next year.

42.She sat down next to me on the first day of grad school. We both were into Neil Gaiman and Modern Poetry. I let her borrow the first few trades of The Sandman.

After that we started hanging out more, I demonstrated her around the city( she was from out of township ). Bought her a develop pass with $20 on it, but I was slacken to make a move. If it wasn’t for her roommate saying,” Dude, guys don’t buy develop pass for you if they don’t like you ,” we might not be together.

Been together 7 years.

43.She was my waitress when I was out with some friends. I left my number( first and only time ever) she called and 19 years later we are still together.

44.I was really into Scott Pilgrim vs The World when it came out in theaters when I was in high school. Bought all the graphic fictions, find it 4 times in theaters, bought the soundtracks, and bought the video game when it came out. I was obsessed.

After classes aimed and as I would stroll to the bus, I noticed on occasion this daughter walking down the dorms wearing a Scott Pilgrim shirt. I had to meet this girl!

Well the day came during a field trip to Gettysburg and there she was wearing the shirt. I get so nervous, had to work up the heroism, and she was also with a friend who is best friend’s with my previous girlfriend. Oh boy this was going to be tough.

Ended up not being too bad. I asked her the obvious question if she was a Scott Pilgrim fan and we hit it off from there surprisingly. Even more a coincidence, when we got to the buses, all I wanted to do was talk to her more about Scott Pilgrim and we didn’t because she sat next to her friend but she was a seat behind me, this entire field trip. It was destiny.

Anyways we’re close to 8 years strong together and will watch Scott Pilgrim once a year.

45.We fulfilled online on this is something that cringey anime-themed roleplay website and have been together for 4 years and married now. We try to forget about the site but some times we reminisce and wince together.

46.His mothers bought the house next to my grandparents home when his mommy was pregnant with him and I was two. I assume that I satisfied him when he came home from the hospital? It’s not something I recollect, he’s just always been a part of my life.

There was a period of time where we hadn’t seen each other for over eight years, and one night I was Facebook stalking a second cousin of mine and my old childhood friend’s mommy popped up! Through her I detected him, reached out, and within three months we were dating. Next month we celebrate our third marriage anniversary.

47.We were in the same class for a program for people on welfare.

Soon after the conflicts aimed, I determined a task in the city. I recommended that she apply since we were still hiring, and she got hired too! Not soon after that, I helped her out by letting her know my home had a room open to rent( 1 house 5 bedrooms, I was a tenant ), and she moved in. I wasn’t seeking any kind of relationship with her.

One day I heard her chuckling while watching Youtube and it was the most beautiful and genuine laugh. I thought to myself “fuck”. A couple weeks later we were watching Stranger Things and we started holds hands and cuddling.

We’re getting married next year

48.Technically we shared a hospital room at birth. Both our moms were stuck together. My mom is his aunt’s best friend( 20+ years ). The session we remember came subsequently. About 6 years old. I told him he was ” super duper handsome” and leaned in to kiss him because I’d seen it on a show. He kicked me in the vagina and ran away.

The boy aimed up chasing me for years. We ultimately started dating at 18 and now 10 years and 2 beautiful sons later, we are still going strong!

49.In a hot tub. I was about 14 and her best friend was dating my best friend. I set my limb around her and said ” do you come here often ?” Knowing it was an extremely cheesy pickup line. Now, about 16 years later, I still use that line on her when she’s in the bathroom, in bed, in the kitchen…

50.I was very drunk at a house party in college and was building my way to the bathroom to run throw up when I insured a girl who just lost a drinking game, and had to chug a beaker of a bunch of different alcohols. She was like she actually didn’t want to, and I figured since I was going to go throw up anyway, I might as well do it.

Read more: thoughtcatalog.com

[feelingdylano]

Hurts So Good (Stiles Romance Sequel) ~Chapter 9~

THIRD POV

The seventeen-year-old girl broke through the leather straps that had been holding her back as her eyes continued their deep red glow. The Nogitsune gave a satisfied smirk, keeping his dark gaze on her.

Soon enough, they both stepped out carefully through the grounds, the nephilim keeping her graceful pace a few steps ahead of the boy. There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation as the guards threw themselves in the way, attempting to stop the two teenagers from escaping the closed unit. Adelyn, the young nephilim, reacted with quick reflexes and grabbed one of the guards by the neck, twisting him by the arm and kicking him away from her body. The other guard stared at them, wide eyed before attempting to take a swing at the boy this time. Stiles, or preferably, the Nogitsune dodged the attack before grabbing a hold of his wrist and ultimately breaking it with a single motion, causing the guard to fall back in excruciating pain. Adelyn pushed through the double doors, leading the two of them out of Eichen House. But where exactly were they head?

ORIGINAL POV

“LET ME IN STILES!” The voice grew deeper. “LET. ME. IN. You let me in. I’ll let her live!” Stiles shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face as he continued to struggle. “Let me in!”

“Stiles! No! Don’t!” I cried out, attempting to pull away from Oliver’s grasp as I noticed him stop. The Nogitsune had disappeared and Stiles laid back, having had passed out. My eyes widened as I blinked once and he was gone. Stiles was gone.

My eyes flung open as I gasped and sat up, not realizing where I was or what had happened. Had I dreamt everything? Was it all just some horrible nightmare? Clutching at my sheets, I shut my eyes tightly as I felt a fresh wave of sobs suddenly escape my lips, not knowing exactly why I was crying.

“Adelyn!” my mother gasped, rushing into my room before throwing herself into me, holding me tightly. “When did you get here? What happened?” I gripped at the sleeves of her nightgown, continuing my sobs. “Shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she whispered, running her hand down the back of my head, soothing me.

The surge of misery and emptiness hit me like a ton of bricks, causing me to continue shaking in grief. I was mentally breaking down. My own mind was starting to tear me apart with thoughts that seemed so long ago and distant.

Stiles was gone. And it was my fault. I didn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him. I was partially to blame and I couldn’t help, but to feel empty. I missed him. His eyes, his voice, his laugh, his sarcastic comments; I missed everything about him. I missed my best friend.

Shutting my eyes, my own mind tried to comfort me by imagining that the one holding me in that moment was actually Stiles, but I knew better. He was gone. I had lost him to the Nogitsune and I had no idea how to get him back.

~

I kept my place on the couch, my eyes narrow as Scott continued to explain what they had found out in the time that I was gone. According to him and Allison, there’s a scroll that can be used to exorcise the Nogitsune. However, it’s not clear exactly how to do so. The instructions were vague, only stating that the body of the host must be changed in order to rid them of the evil spirit.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked, grimacing as he caught sight of my appearance. “You look like you’re getting worse.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered, not bothering to lift my gaze.

“Adelyn. I talked to Deaton,” he began, lowering his voice as he shuffled his way closer to me before kneeling down and taking a hold of my hand. “He has an idea, but we need you.” I kept my silence, resting my eyes on the coffee table just behind Scott, not wanting to make any sort of eye contact. “And it’s sort of tricky.” He paused, hoping to get some form of response from me, but after a minute of silence he continued.

“Deaton thinks that in order to break free of the Nogitsune’s hold, it should be you to…” he hesitated, not being able to finish. “Deaton thinks that it should be you to defeat him. You’re the only one advanced and powerful enough to subdue him.”

“You want me to kill him?” I whispered, finally landing my bloodshot gaze on him.

“No,” he quickly answered. “There has to be another way—”

“There isn’t,” my mother’s voice reached us from the doorway. “Adelyn, you have to kill him. Only you can.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, feeling my own tears build up again, pursing my lips slightly.

“Deaton said—”

“Deaton is too much of a soft-hearted person to tell his prodigy to kill his own best friend,” my mother cut him off. My eyes finally flickered down to the case she held onto in hand. “Your father died protecting this town. Protecting you. And I’m not about to let a teenage boy cause any more damage and take my daughter away.” She made her way toward the middle of the living room, placing the case over the coffee table and opening it up.

“I’ve kept this around,” she began, displaying the sword that laid neatly in between the cushioned red velvet. “It was your father’s. His preferred weapon of choice. He asked me to pass this down to you once you had earned your wings at eighteen, but considering the way things have been going in Beacon Hills, I think now would be a better time. It’s more commonly known as the Angel Blade, carried and wielded by angels and nephilim. It comes in different shapes and sizes. Your dad preferred the length of a sword, so—” She tossed it to me and without thinking about it, my hand instinctively grasped the hilt and wielded it with agility. Despite its metal hilt, the sword was light as a feather. Her eyes widened slightly seeming almost impressed as her lips curved. “It responds well with you. It is one of the few weapons with the ability to kill any supernatural creature. Including a Nogitsune.”

“I’m not killing him,” I muttered, placing the sword back into the case.

“Then you’d rather kill for him?” My mother seemed to spit out. I looked up to her my brows slightly merging.

“I’d rather save him than become a killer in the first place,” I muttered.

“Adelyn,” Scott called out, his eyes glued down to his phone screen. I turned to him, waiting for him to continue. “It’s Stiles. He was at the school.”

~

I ran at Scott’s side as we finally burst through the double doors and into the empty school hallway. My chest heaved up and down as we both came to an instant halt before the history classroom. Mrs. Yukimura kept a hand over her husband as he tried to calm his panicked breathing. My eyes flickered over to Kira who only turned to us and grimaced.

“What happened? Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s gone,” Kira shook her head slightly.

“Nearly choked me to death with a fly before he left,” Mr. Yukimura cleared his throat as he turned his attention to us.

“Stiles really did that?” Scott’s brows merged together.

“He wanted the last kaiken,” Mrs. Yukimura nodded, pulling out a small dagger knife and displaying it for us. “I’ve kept this near me ever since your friend disappeared.”

“Mom, you need to talk to us,” Kira stepped back, turning her attention to her mother. “About everything.” She pulled out an old picture. My brows furrowed as I looked over her shoulder, taking in the image. It was of a woman and a soldier, an ordinary picture, except that the woman looked exactly like Kira.

“Where did you get this?” Mrs. Yukimura asked as soon as Kira handed her the picture.

“Malia,” Scott answered, turning to me and then back to Mrs. Yukimura. “She found it at Eichen House. Along with—”

“This,” Kira finished off for him as she turned her back to us and retrieved a katana from a nearby desk.

“She said that her and Stiles found it with—”

“A body buried behind a wall,” I cut Scott off, my gaze lowering to the ground as I remembered. The alpha nodded.

“The same backwards five that the Oni put on all of us was on the wall,” Scott continued, looking up to Kira’s mom. “This all ties back to you guys, doesn’t it?”

“And the woman in the picture, it was Grandma, wasn’t it?” Kira asked.

“No,” Mrs. Yukimura breathed out, looking back down to the picture. “It’s me.”

“Wait, if that’s you, then you’d have to be like ninety years old,” Scott’s eyes widened.

“Try closer to nine-hundred,” Mrs. Yukimura seemed to smirk as she looked up to all of us.

“Okay, sure. Why not?” Kira breathed out, in shock, her eyes landing on her father. “Dad, how old are you?”

“Forty-three,” he responded. “But I’ve been told I look mid-thirty’s.”

Kira huffed as she turned back to her mother, hesitating for a moment before handing her the katana. We all watched as the woman took in a deep breath and held it in both hands gently before gripping the hilt and pulling it away from its safety cover. Kira flinched as small broken pieces scattered around her father’s desk top.

“The blade was shattered the last time it was used,” Mrs. Yukimura explained, placing the hilt over the desk.

“When was that?” Kira asked.

“Nineteen forty-three,” The woman sighed, turning her attention back to us. “Against a nogitsune.”

“So, then, this has all happened before?” I asked, my gaze squinting slightly as I looked up to them.

“Yes,” Mr. Yukimura nodded. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“Where did it come from?” Kira asked.

“It was an internment camp during World War II,” Mrs. Yukimura muttered. “In Oak Creek. Not too far from here.”

“Hold on,” Scott spoke up, turning to our history teacher. “When Allison came to you to interpret a mysterious voicemail that she received in Japanese, you told her and Isaac that there was no internment camp at Oak Creek.”

“Allison’s family has a certain history of violence,” Mr. Yukimura shook his head. “I didn’t know if she could be trusted.”

“Okay, point taken,” I spoke up, stepping toward them. “So, what does this have to do with the Nogitsune?”

“For starters, there was a camp,” Mr. Yukimura continued. “But all the records were erased.”

“They covered it up,” Mrs. Yukimura added.

“When I was a grad student,” her husband continued, tugging at his desk drawer and finally pulling out some pictures of his own, “my passion project. Actually, more like an obsession, was trying to dig up the truth on Oak Creek.” His eyes flickered back onto his wife. “It’s how I met your mother, Kira.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I muttered as I grabbed hold of the first picture. It displayed a man with severe burns all over his body, laying in a cot.

“Where did the Nogitsune come from?” Kira pressed on, turning back to her mother.

“Isn’t it obvious yet?” She breathed out. “It came from me.”

“How is that possible?” I asked, my brows merging as I looked to her.

She ignored my question as she began fumbling with the pieces, trying to put them together much like a puzzle.

“Kira, I need your help on this,” she said, looking up to her daughter. “There isn’t much time. And this is something that needs to be done in the daylight.”

Kira crossed her arms and looked away from her mother.

“Not until you tell us everything,” she muttered.

The woman hesitated before her husband sighed and spoke up.

“Tell them, Noshiko. Tell them what they need to know.”

Mrs. Yukimura’s gaze turned to Scott as she grimaced.

“Wolves and foxes tend not to get along,” she began. “Not just in fables and stories.”

“But allies, however unlikely, should be welcomed. Especially in times of war,” Mr. Yukimura said, turning to his wife. We all stood around as the woman began to explain her side of the story. Her forbidden love to a soldier and the struggles of being inside the internment camp.

“Okay, stop,” Kira shook her head. “Just stop. We don’t want to hear your Casablanca story. We want to know how to save Stiles.”

“I’m trying to tell you—”

“You’re trying to stall,” I glared toward the woman.

“When the sun goes down, the Oni are gonna come after him again, aren’t they?” the alpha asked.

“Your friend’s gone, Scott,” Mr. Yukimura shook his head.

“No, I don’t believe that,” I spoke up. “I know Stiles is in there somewhere.”

“You brought the Oni. Can you call them off?” Scott asked.

“It’s not his fault,” Kira defended.

“Stiles may be your best friend. He might be like a brother to you,” Her eyes fell from Scott onto me, a sadness behind them. “Or he may be to you what Rhys was to me. But he is long gone. And he is Nogitsune now. He is void.”

“Can you call them off?” Scott raised his voice.

“When you hear the rest of the story, you won’t want me to,” Mrs. Yukimura shook her head.

“I don’t care about what happened,” I felt my eyes start to burn and my hands balling into fists. “I don’t care if history is somehow repeating itself. What I care about is saving Stiles. If you can’t call off the Oni or if you can’t tell me how to save him without killing him, then I’ll find another way to do so. Even if it means I have to protect him from you.”

With that, I turned my back to the group and stormed my way out. However, before I could get far, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. Brows furrowing, I came to an instant stop as I looked down to the dimly lit screen.

Meeting at our house. Sheriff is asking for you. – Allison.

Taking in a shaky breath, I locked my screen and put my phone away before heading straight for my car.

~

“The Specialist I saw in LA told me the thing that every doctor says when he’s trying to avoid a lawsuit,” Mr. Stilinski breathed out as he stood before me, Derek, Allison, and Mr. Argent. “‘We can’t say for sure.’ And then I spoke with Melissa.”

My brows furrowed as I watched him pull out two copies of the MRI scans, displaying them separately before putting them together.

“These are brain scans. My wife’s and Stiles’,” He handed them to me as I looked over them. “I knew they were similar. But those are the same. Exactly the same.”

“And I’m guessing this isn’t possible?” Derek asked.

“No,” I shook my head, feeling a wave of relief. “It isn’t.”

He wasn’t dying.

“Not even remotely,” The sheriff added.

“So, the trickster is still playing tricks,” Mr. Argent shook his head.

“But why this trick?” Allison asked, looking up to Mr. Stilinski.

“When I was in the army, an officer told me, ‘If you want to defeat your enemy, you don’t take away their courage. You take away their hope.’” He responded, crossing his arms.

“You don’t look like a man who gives up hope easily,” Mr. Argent said, looking up to the sheriff. That’s when I understood what Mr. Stilinski was trying to get at.

“But Stiles might,” I breathed out, looking up to the hunter.

“That’s right,” The sheriff nodded. “If this thing inside him, if it’s using his mother’s disease as some sort of psychological trick, then this isn’t just a fight for his body. It’s also a fight for his mind. Right?”

“It sounds like something a Nogitsune would do,” I agreed.

“You know, he’s left people severely injured,” Mr. Argent muttered.

“And others severely dead,” Derek added.

“That’s why I need all of you. I need people who are experienced in this kind of thing,” Mr. Stilinski’s eyes flickered onto me. “Adelyn, I know you’re connected to him somehow. You—you were the only one who was able to find him last time. I…” He hesitated for a moment as his eyes narrowed for a second. “I need you to do that again. But I need all of you to help me stop him.”

I pressed my lips together as I looked down, feeling my stomach drop.

“So, by stop him, you mean trap him?” Mr. Argent asked. The sheriff turned back to the hunter, simply nodding with a sigh.

~

“How exactly are we going to go about even starting this?” I asked my best friend while Derek, Mr. Argent, and the sheriff talked amongst one another.

“Well,” Allison took in a deep breath as she made her way over to her dad’s desk and gripped at a bag. “We’ve already thought of something.”

I stepped my way closer to my best friend as she began pulling out some rope and cuffs. My brows raised as I turned to the sheriff, who finally took notice of our conversation.

“It’s all non-lethal,” she tried to assure.

“Okay, so what exactly is the plan here?” Mr. Stilinski asked, his expression seeming uneasy.

“Our best shot right now is for Derek to try and pick up Stiles’ scent at Eichen House,” Mr. Argent spoke up, stepping toward the desk. “Especially if he went through something stressful there—”

“He did,” I confirmed.

“Should all five of us be going to the same place?” Mr. Stilinski asked.

“Where else has Stiles been showing up?” Argent asked.

“The school and the hospital,” I muttered.

“Okay, hold on,” Derek spoke up, his brows furrowing. “We did this already. He disappeared. We started looking for him. Then walked right into a trap at the hospital.”

“He’s getting us to repeat the same moves,” Mr. Argent agreed.

“So, what do we do? Wait for him to come to us?” Allison asked.

“We can’t,” I shook my head. “Especially since Kira’s mom won’t call off the Oni. So, that means they’ll be going for him as soon as the sun goes down.”

“I thought Scott was working on that right now with Kira,” Allison muttered, her expression hardening as she turned to me. I pursed my lips as I stared back.

“It wasn’t going well while I was there,” I sighed.

“Then that’s the problem,” Argent shook his head. “We’re all trying to outfox the fox.”

There was a moment of silence as we all stared at one another.

“Listen,” Mr. Stilinski sighed heavily. “I’ll understand if anyone wants to back out.”

I grimaced as we all turned back to the sheriff.

“It wouldn’t be the first wolf to run from a fox,” Derek said, looking up to us before reaching for a weapon from the table.

“Dad, you and Derek hit Eichen House,” Allison spoke up as she grabbed some gear of her own. “I’ll stick with Adelyn and the sheriff. We’ll be in the hospital. And from there we’ll meet at the school.”

I grimaced slightly as Allison took hold of my hand and lead me out the door.

“Allison, wait,” I called out as I pulled away from her and stopped. My eyes flickered over to the sheriff, making sure he had gone through the door before I spoke again. “I—I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean?” Her brows knitted together.

“I was there when he took over, Allison,” I began, tears welling up in my eyes. “I saw it happen right before my eyes and I couldn’t even stop him. How am I supposed find him and do this if I couldn’t even—”

“It’s okay,” Allison cut me off as she gripped at my arms. “You care about him and you don’t want him to get hurt. If you had tried to stop him, it would have ended up badly. It’s not your fault. We’re dealing with a trickster. It’s not your fault.”

Our heads snapped up as we heard rapidly approaching footsteps. The sheriff pushed his body through the door, one hand gripping at the knob while the other held up his phone.

“Someone’s breaking into my house,” he panted. Our brows furrowed as we stared at him oddly. He looked down for a moment before stepping toward us and pulling up an app.

“After Stiles started sleepwalking, I had some security precautions put in,” he explained. “Motion sensors. Cameras. That sort of thing.”

“Is that his room?” Allison asked, squinting at the phone screen.

“It is,” I confirmed my heart beat picking up its pace as my stomach dropped.

On his bed, in broad daylight, sat the freckled-faced boy, his eyes seeming tired, but his expression as ominous as ever. He looked straight into the camera before holding up a hand and slowly waving, almost as if he knew we would be watching.

~

I sighed heavily in frustration as we all stood around Stiles’ room, having hit another dead end yet again. He was long gone before we had arrived.

“What is all this?” Mr. Argent asked as he approached the chest board set up at his desk. “What are these sticky notes for?”

“It’s what Stiles used to try and explain to the sheriff about all of us. Hunters and supernaturals alike,” I muttered, crossing my arms and finally making my way toward the group.

“Well, maybe it’s a message from Stiles,” Allison said, looking up to me. “The real Stiles.”

“You think there’s any reason my names on the king?” Derek asked, his eyes landing on the chest board while Argent picked up a fallen piece with a sticky note on it.

“Well, you’re heavily guarded,” Mr. Stilinski explained. “Though I guess the alarming detail is that, you’re one move from being in checkmate.”

“It’s not a message from Stiles,” Argent shook his head, his expression hardening as he dropped the piece back onto the board, finally revealing the name placed over it. Isaac. “It’s a threat from the Nogitsune.”

My eyes widened as I looked up to the sheriff, my eyes flashing for a moment as a cold shiver ran down my spine. I knew where he was.

“He’s at the loft,” I gasped.

“That’s what he was trying to tell us,” Allison uttered, turning to me.

“And he wants us to come there,” Argent nodded.

“Night’s falling,” Derek added.

“Which means we’re running out of time,” I spoke up, turning to the hunter.

“This couldn’t sound any more like a trap,” he continued.

“I don’t think it is,” Mr. Stilinski shook his head.

“I think your opinion might be slightly biased, Sheriff,” Argent sighed.

“It isn’t,” I defended. “He’s there. He’s lucid. I saw him for a second. He’s scared and confused. It isn’t a trap. I—I can feel it.”

“What if that’s what he’s making you believe—”

“Even if it’s a trick. What we’re dealing with here is basically someone who lacks motive,” The sheriff cut Argent off. “No rhyme, no reason, right?”

“Meaning what?” Allison’s father asked.

“Our enemy is not a killer,” Mr. Stilinski continued. “It’s a trickster. The killing is just a by-product.”

“If you’re trying to say it won’t kill us, I’m not feeling too confident about that,” Derek spoke up, crossing his arms.

“It won’t,” I shook my head. “The Nogitsune feeds off chaos and strife. Not death.”

“It wants irony,” The sheriff agreed. “It wants to play a trick. It wants a joke.” His lips curved slightly. “All we need to do is come up with a new punch line.”

“The sun is setting, Sheriff,” Argent said. “What do you have in mind?”

~

Pulling into the apartment complex, I was the first to run out and hurry my way up the stairs, hoping I wouldn’t be too late as the sun began to set even faster. Time was running out.

Reaching for the door, I slid it open with all the strength I had, taking notice of Stiles standing in the middle of the room, his back to me. As if he sensed me, he turned back slowly, his eyes seeming frightened and lost.

“Stiles…”

Chapter 8 / Chapter 10

(A/N: As promised I have posted this chapter in dedication to those of you who have stuck around this journey with Adelyn! A lot is about to go down in my personal life and this story has been my escape from daily life stress. So I hope you guys enjoy! And I’ll try and post the next part as soon as I can. As always, I apologize for any mistakes I have missed. And here’s a question for the next part... Should we trust Adelyn?)

[lunar-stories-blog]

Not Your Submissive Asian: Sam Soon

Graphic Designer Leslie Xia for the Sad & Asian project (2017)

You may have seen photos from Sam Soon’s series Sad & Asian floating around online spaces lately. They’re eye-catching, vibrantly colored portraits of members of Sad & Asian, a 4,000-strong Facebook group that serves as a community for those identifying as creative Asian femmes, and a catalyst for dialogue on contemporary issues. Sam is a junior at NYU Tisch majoring in Photography and hails from San Mateo, CA. We chat about her vision and inspiration for the series, Asian representation in the media, and her ties to the West Coast.

What do you do?

I am a photography major in Tisch right now. I've done a lot of documentary work around feminine identities and queer identities but now I've kind of shifted my focus into Asian-American identities that encompass all of those.

How did you get started with your Sad & Asian series and what inspired you?

I'm documenting the group Sad & Asian, which was founded by Esther Fan and Olivia Park at RISD. Now it's got over 4,000 members. I'm doing an open call for subjects in the New York City area and photographing them. I posted in the group awhile back and since then I've had 9 or 10 people. Because of the posts I've been doing since then, more people have been contacting me.

I joined the group in November, and I thought it was such an interesting way of interacting with one another, and such a way of supporting each other that I had never seen before, so I thought it would be interesting to take people out of that online space and see what they're actually like and what they're about.

So after you contact them or they contact you, how does it usually play out?

So I’ll ask them how they want to be portrayed in the photoshoot and when they see a photo of themselves, what they like about it. And if they have any props that further that vision, to bring them in, and if they have any other outfit ideas to bring it all in. And then we shoot.

I've noticed that a lot of the photos have a similar theme--you play with lighting a lot. Do you want to talk a bit about the aesthetics?

Yeah, for one thing I never shot that much in studio before so this is also a challenge for me. But I really wanted to do something--it sounds lame to say edgier, but I thought it would be a good juxtaposition especially because when I started shooting, the whole Karlie Kloss Vogue thing had just come out. The lighting there and all the saturation is really subdued, which furthers the whole typical representation of submissiveness. And so I really wanted to counteract that, so in some ways it's an open response to that, but not really. I just wanted to make it really vibrant and really in your face. [Amy: That's so interesting, I never thought about the subdued colors along with the submissive stereotype.] Yeah, it's all subconscious. You can do so many different things with color.

"I thought it was such an interesting way of interacting with one another, and such a way of supporting each other that I had never seen before, so I thought it would be interesting to take people out of that online space and see what they're actually like and what they're about."

Do you do a lot of intersecting identities in your own work?

Yeah, for sure. I didn't work with the intersection of race until this year, but I worked with what it means to be non-binary or female-identifying, and queerness, and my work from last year which was my first year in Tisch, I actually did a project at the end of last year about female-identifying and non-binary people in the city and where they go to find calmness and quiet.

When I was doing that project I was thinking about things that are important to me, even when I was applying to Tisch. My whole application was about the concept of quietness and places I can go to find that, especially living in cities because I was living in London, and here. I think starting out a project by thinking about what's important to you, and wanting to explore that in other people, is a really good place to start. At least that's where I've started in all of my projects.

Are most of these projects mostly just things you come up with on your own or class assignments?

They're for class, mostly. But my latest one that I started back home is a bunch of self-portraits, holding a mirror in natural settings. That was just an independent project.

Do you do film, or digital, or everything?

I do both, but mostly digital. Just 'cause film is more expensive. I wish I could shoot film more and that I was better at it.

Architecture student Joyce Li for the Sad & Asian project (2017)

Can you talk about where you're from, and a bit about your background?

I grew up in the Bay Area in California, in San Mateo. I was originally adopted from Chengdu, China, but I was adopted into an all-Chinese family so there wasn't much discord because of that, and I always knew I was adopted. My high school was like a third Asian. I never felt like that part of my identity was challenged or that it was that big of a deal until I moved to London for my freshman year, then people would start shouting "nihao" on the street and like, ask me what kind of Asian are you? And then I was like, oh, things are a little different outside of my very liberal Asian bubble.

Have you always been into photography?

No, when I was like 13 I'd take my mom's camera and take pictures of flowers really up close (laughs) like everyone did. I'd be like, wow, I'm such a photographer! But freshman year of high school I applied to be on our school's newspaper as a photographer on a whim and I got in, which was cool, and so that started me on a photojournalism route.

By my senior year I was really tired of it, of telling stories that only other people wanted me to tell. I was in AP Photo junior year and I finally got to construct my own narrative using visuals. So that was a huge turning point for me, even though my photos were not that good. It was really important to gain that level of communication.

So did you know you wanted to be a photography major when you applied to NYU?

No, not at all. I went into the LS program kind of on the fence about being a photography major, so that's why I went to London and took all of these GE's. But by the end of the year I had taken so many photos and there's nothing I want to do more, so I just applied to Tisch and got the internal transfer.

Untitled self-portraits from an in-progress independent series (2017)

What made you want to go to NYU?

Originally, when I was in high school applying to colleges, I was like, I gotta get as far away from California as possible. But now I'm like, aw, I really miss home and kinda wanna go back. I really want to go to CCA for grad school in Oakland. I think a lot of people that I've talked to from the West Coast want to go back.

I don't know if I want to settle down in San Mateo, where I came from, because I feel like it's too small sometimes. Like being around my family too much is going to get too claustrophobic. When I was a kid, my mom wanted me to be close to my grandma and having that relationship was really important to me and to her, so I would want that for my own kids. But I don't want to be too close.

"I never felt like that part of my identity was challenged or that it was that big of a deal until I moved to London for my freshman year, then people would start shouting "nihao" on the street and like, ask me what kind of Asian are you? And then I was like, oh, things are a little different outside of my very liberal Asian bubble."

What do your parents think of your photography in general, and are they supportive of it?

My mom is really supportive of it. I did an archive-based project of my grandma's old photos a while back and my mom was really supportive. So was my grandma, she gave me all her old albums to bring back to school. They were like 70+ years old and falling apart, and she trusted me to lug them across the country. But I think they like it because I'm also preserving our own family history and in the process of creating my own, which I think they appreciate.

But sometimes I think they think I'm a little too radical (laughs). Which is bound to happen. [Amy: That's awesome. I feel like for a lot of Chinese families, we don't have a lot of family history or records because they burned everything. Like I always asked my mom like, what did your grandparents do, where were they from? Who are our extended family members? I know people who have family books with their family trees handwritten, but we don't have any of that. Elaine: Yeah, I've never even seen a photo of my dad when he was a kid. Amy: Me neither!]

I think with Dads especially, there's a particular silence. Which is kind of hard to overcome. I found that's harder to overcome in a father-daughter relationship than a mother-daughter relationship. I'm just speculating because of Asian masculinity standards, they don't want to talk about things that are a little more difficult when it comes to things about family history.

A single frame from Tell Me Who You Are Pt I, the archive-based project focused on Sam's maternal grandmother. (2016)

Is that something that you've explored in your work, Asian masculinity?

I definitely want to. I definitely was thinking about doing that for my thesis, but I think there's so much that I still want to do surrounding my mom's side, like with my grandmother, that I want to get to a point where I feel content about the work I've done, or the things that I've figured out before I move on to another side.

How important is it that in photos or other types of visual art, that people have some kind of social or political message, in your opinion?

I never really go into a project thinking about the political repercussions of it, even though I know that's unavoidable because of what I look like, what my subjects look like, who I am, who they are. I just think about qualities of myself that I have a hard time understanding and I want other people to not feel so alone. And that they can see a picture and identify with it. I think that's really important for all visual artists, to be creating something like that, not necessarily creating work for other people but creating work that's telling some version of their own truth.

With your current project, Sad & Asian, what kind of message are you trying to portray, if any?

What originally piqued my interest about doing a project like this was that other people in the group could see other members that they maybe could interact with and become online friends with in a way that's really powerful and dynamic, that brings them to life a little more. Maybe see their own professions represented, aspects of their own cultures represented that they have a hard time communicating about themselves.

What are your thoughts on representation in the media?

This is a very good question because Ghost in the Shell just came out. I mean, obviously there's a problem with representations of Asian-Americans in the media. I guess I'll keep it centered on the group 'cause that's a little easier, but representations in the media are hard to talk about from an East Asian perspective because East Asian perspectives are the ones being told, but they're being told really poorly. So there's that level of disappointment but a level of disappointment that not all of what it means to be Asian in America is being told. And then the constant erasure by whitewashing is consistently disappointing but not surprising. I don't know if you guys saw the casting call for the new Mulan movie, but it actually gave me a little bit of hope because they wanted someone who's 18-20 and who is Chinese and speaks fluent Chinese.

"I think that's really important for all visual artists, to be creating something like that, not necessarily creating work for other people but creating work that's telling some version of their own truth."

Do you think you're a part of any creative community at NYU or in Tisch?

Not really. I mean there are some people I'm friendly with in the department, but we've never hung out outside of class, and it's hard especially because I was a transfer so a lot of those bonds had already been formed before I got there. And I have a lot of friends who do their own creative things but it's not the same things as I do. But it's good to have those kinds of friends to just knock around ideas with. Especially when they come from different backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Do you have any specific photographers or people you look up to in general or that you get inspiration from?

Yeah. I've been getting a lot of inspiration lately from Carrie Mae Weems. My work is not like hers at all, but just the way that she approaches different concepts of black feminine life...it gives me new perspectives about how to think about my own life, even though I don't share many identities with her. But just to look at her work and know that she's so successful gives me a lot of hope.

Do you feel like Tisch is a supportive environment? Like you're free to do whatever?

With my professors, for sure, yeah. Sometimes I feel more alone, which I feel like is common with NYU, but when I think about all the professors I've had and all the individual support I've gotten from them, I really wouldn't want to go anywhere else. I'm lucky because the photo department is small so I get to have the same professors once or twice in my college career, so they're familiar with my work and I'm familiar with theirs. Interview by Elaine Lo and Amy Ni.

For just Sam’s work, click here.

View Sam’s full portfolio at samanthasoonphotography.com.

Follow her Instagram at @samsoooooooon.

[mrmichaelchadler]

A Tribute to Olivia, the Scene-Stealing Dog of Widows

There’s a moment, toward the end of “Widows,” right before the climactic heist, when we check in on the members of our titular crew before they don their black masks and holster their Glock .9mms. It’s that quintessential pre-heist montage of the players saying goodbye to their loved ones, just in case the job goes bad: Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) kneel before an altar with Linda’s children, lighting candles to the Blessed Virgin. We’ve already seen Belle bid her daughter farewell, and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) have one final drink with her kinda-sorta boyfriend/definite Sugar Daddy. So, the montage ends with Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis) standing in front of a doggy daycare, preparing to drop off her beloved Westie terrier, Olivia (Olivia the dog, continuing the tail-wagging charm offensive from her debut in “Game Night”). Director Steve McQueen lingers on this moment far longer than the other farewells—he pulls his camera back wide, and in the dark of the evening, Veronica’s body becomes a knife-blade of a silhouette: She lifts Olivia up in her arms and holds her with a tenderness that is more poignant, for its openness, its earnestness. 

This image of a hard-edged woman cradling her little dog, perhaps for the last time, is one of the rare pure moments of emotional unguardedness in a twisty film that is preoccupied with power: who has it, who wants it, and who gets to take it, against all odds. It’s also one of the few and precious instances I’ve ever seen, on-screen, where a woman’s relationship with her pet, especially her dog, is regarded with the emotional depth and intensity as her bond with child or spouse. Veronica is very much a woman alone, and angry about it—arguably, even before her husband is exploded off this mortal coil (or, at least, when he seems to have exploded off this mortal coil)—yet, her bond with Olivia isn’t a low blow of a portrayal, meant to show how sad and pathetic she is.

Olivia is her pampered, cherished, and oh-so-adorable companion; more than this, though, Olivia is Veronica’s connection to the parts of herself that long for love and connection—even though her life experience has taught her that love and connection can be the double edges of the sword that pierces her breast and lances her heart. Olivia is not just “the dog,” a fluffy entity for the audience to fret over, or a cuddly convenient way to thaw out an arctic woman and make her “more likeable”: “Widows” uses Olivia to tell a deeper, more nuanced story about loneliness and longing, a story that feels achingly familiar to people like me, who have turned to our pets to ameliorate both.

Tova

I am, to quote the kids in my neighborhood, “that dog lady.” I’ve lived alone for the better part of my adult life (since my mid-twenties), save for a German Shepherd named Tova (pictured above), who I adopted just after I finished grad school and started the I-guess-I’m-a-grown-up-so-what-now phase of my life, and, after Tova passed away, a wily Lab-mix named Mina, whose need for training helped me concentrate my grief. Tova was a gorgeous, martial-looking dog with a gorgeous, martial spirit. She was a pinnacle of her breed in solemn protectiveness—I remember how she dismissed one particularly tedious and callous beau of mine when he left my apartment for the last time; she stood with the length of her body pressed against my legs, blocking him from a final embrace, as if to say, “time’s up, cowboy”—but I cherished her, mostly (and among so many other things) as a constant presence, as silent and consistent as a pulse. She was my first “good morning” when I woke up; my last “good night,” every day.  

In "Widows," McQueen and Davis evoke this most powerful element of the human and canine bond, that quiet confidence that comes in sharing a space and performing the daily rituals of life, not through broadly emotive displays like the goodbye outside of doggy daycare (which is more impactful because it is so strategically deployed), but in treating Olivia as a fixture in Veronica’s life. Olivia is there, burrowed into Harry’s (Liam Neeson) side of the bed, when Veronica breaks down before Harry’s funeral, her meticulously-arranged face cracking, for just a moment, in an expression of raw grief. Olivia is there, nestled in her dog bed, as Veronica reads through Harry’s notebook of jobs, and begins to plot the job that will get her and her fellow widows out of debt. If the Rawlings’ penthouse magnifies and reflects Veronica’s loneliness and vulnerability—rendered in cool, distant colors that feel catalogue-ready; overlong corridors that seem to mock her sudden singledom with their dramatic excess of space; and broad-paneled windows that all but scream “go ahead and look inside, she’s all alone”—then Olivia is the affectionate, inquisitive figure of comfort who brings sloppy, puppy-kissing life into the void.

Veronica’s insistence on bringing Olivia nearly everywhere with her may seem, initially, like a defensive display of rich bitch posturing—but even this posturing is a form of well-sculpted emotional armor. I’m terrible with strangers, fumbling-tongued and desperately uncertain; talking about my dogs isn’t even a back-up, it’s often my first, second, and third plan of approach whenever I’m meeting someone new: Telling that story about how Tova almost won the pet costume contest, or how Mina came in top of her class at obedience school (not that I’m bragging), feels so much safer than offering something starker about myself, something that could be weaponized—but it doesn’t feel entirely like hiding, either, because these stories matter to me, as much as anything I’ve done in my career or any film I’ve ever loved. Being a devoted dog guardian means assuming a complex, multilayered identity—one that all the “Dog Mommy” merchandise tries to flatten into something both cutesy and sad. 

Olivia doesn’t just allow Veronica to cosplay ladies who lunch (a pure-bred Westie puppy can cost upwards of 3,000 dollars, easily), which does, in and of itself, give this abrupt, awkward woman a role to play, a way to steady herself and stay focused and sane—she’s also a source of silent comfort, a ballast against the tenuousness of Veronica’s connection with the other women. It’s telling, for instance, that Veronica doesn’t bring Olivia with her when she rushes to Alice’s apartment after the Manning crime family murders Bash (Garret Dillahunt), the original getaway driver: Veronica is blisteringly open with Alice, releasing the full ugliness of her anger and her terror, sneering at the younger woman for taking a man into her bed when “your husband hasn’t even been dead a month,” slapping her and taking a hard slap in return, a slap that finally, mercifully, allows her to break down and cry. Alice is the most nakedly vulnerable of the widows—a battered bride, truly down and out, who thinks she has no smarts or skills to speak of—and it makes sense that Veronica, who must expend the constant energy of projecting an impenetrable guardedness, would feel some degree of subterranean interest in, even attraction to, her. The last scene in the entire film is Veronica, also sans dog, catching Alice outside of a bustling diner and slowly, genuinely, smiling at her, asking her how she’s been. 

But this is not to suggest that Olivia is a mere mollifier, a puppy placeholder until Veronica can graduate into real relationships—indeed, the film demonstrates, with a diamond-sharp, blood-culling clarity, that Olivia is a far better companion than Harry was (Olivia would never start a secret second family, fake her own death, and try to abscond with Veronica’s hard-earned ill-gotten gains). Olivia functions as an extension of Veronica’s feelings, so attuned to her guardian’s moods that she’ll act on them before Veronica is even consciously aware of them—Olivia is the one who first sniffs Harry out, in hiding at his paramour’s home, clawing and whining at the door in way that evokes the grasping need and desperation of Veronica’s grief.

Some of that immediate grief is about Harry, of course; however, Veronica has been shaped by a deeper grief, the murder of her son at the hands of a trigger-happy Chicago cop. This death is so obliterating, that it isn’t even mentioned until it is shown, in full—it’s like some fanged, thunder-hooved deity whose name must not be spoken until it’s offered a blood sacrifice—and yet, McQueen, Davis, and screenwriter Gillian Flynn have already allowed it to echo through everything that we’ve seen before it, which yes, includes Veronica’s relationship with Olivia. We sense a wordless history: Harry gifting Veronica with an extensive puppy as a reason to get out of bed, to go outside, every day, until the routine starts to feel something like normalcy, until the dog can ease her calcified heart open, even a little. That puppy steadily becoming Veronica’s little sweetheart, her comfort, as Harry begins to pull away, emotionally, at first, and then toward the arms of a woman whose baby won’t be targeted by the bigots who still rule this world. 

Mina

I’d never equate the loss of my Tova dog with the loss of a child, especially a child so cruelly taken. But I can say that her death devastated me, that my apartment became a whistling void. When I adopted Mina two weeks later, I willfully ignored her foster mom’s warning about how intensely she would “miss her people” when they left. That separation anxiety, manifest in clawing and scratching up the doors, the floors, the windowsills; howling in sorrow when I locked the door behind me; and drooling puddles everywhere, seemed to reflect the intractability of my own grief, a steady heartbeat gone frantic, erratic around one core need: Come back.  

Like Veronica, although in my own, less grandiose way, I had to move through my pain, I had to have “the balls to pull this off”—only the “this” was no heist, simply training my unruly girl to calm down, to recognize that she was not abandoned and I would, in fact, come back. A training that, through its meticulous consistency, gave me a purpose, a reason to get out of bed each day, to go outside—until finally, I found a new normal, a new, and no less special, love, to greet with “good morning” and end the day with “good night.” Two years later, she’s my darling; that sweet, happy face in the window; that gentle heft climbing onto the sofa beside me. It’s a powerful, even transformative, thing, to see that kind of bond enacted without mockery or condescension—given dignity, in fact—by filmmakers who understand that the magnificent spectrum of human pain and tenderness has room for canine companionship.   

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