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jungwonenthusiast · 4 years ago

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Field Trip

A/N: I’ve been working on this pic for a while, I hope you guys like it :)

Pairing: Jake Sim x fem! reader

Word count: 5.2k

Genre: fluff, high school au

Warning: mentions of virginity loss and porn, occasional swearing, nothing else I think

“How many shirts should I take?” Jake asks you through your phone.

“Uhm, we’re there for three days so take four just incase.” you reply and you pack your suitcase as well.

You two were preparing for your five day field trip to New York which was happening tomorrow.

You packed your favorite jeans and hoodies and even a dress just in case. You can't help but romanticize the hell out of New York after being stuck in this small town all your life.

“How many pairs of underwear should I take?” he asks again and you giggle. He’s like a kid sometimes. “How many times do you think you’ll change your underwear?” you say while sitting on your suitcase to get it to zip closed.

“Probably three but I’ll take four just in case.”

“What a quick learner.” you say and you hear him scoff.

Jake has been your best friend since elementary school when you scraped your knee during tag and he took you to the nurse’s office. He’s been a sweetie since day one.

“I doubt I’m gonna get any sleep tonight,” you sigh. “I’m too riled up.”

“Same,” he sighs. “I wonder how many flashers we’ll run into.”

You laugh. “Why is that the first thing you think of you creep.”

“Hey now,’ he chuckles. “I thought that was the stereotype.”

You hop onto your bed and pick your phone up, it looks like Jake’s doing the same. All you can see are his eyes and a bit of his nose bridge. His dark hair has started to grow out and it was poking at his eyelids.

Your phone pings with a text from Jake. It’s a horrendous screenshot of you climbing over your phone to get into bed. You gasp.

“I’ll kill you.” you tell him as he’s holding in his laugh. “I will do it.”

His laugh bursts out of his throat, jolly and warm. “Why I love it.”

“I hate you so much. Delete it.”

“No way,” he bunches his brows. “You have an entire photo album dedicated to bad pictures of me.”

“And I also have an entire album dedicated to good pictures of you.” you roll your eyes.

“You do?” he asks. “That’s a bit fangirly of you.”

“Me? A fangirl? Maybe Madeline but not me.” you scoff.

“Madeline?” his voice perks up. “She likes me?”

“Yeah, I thought you knew this.” you swear that you’ve brought this up before. Maybe he just forgot.

“Nuh-uh.” he says.

“Well...” you say. “do you like her back.”

“I mean she’s nice but,” he hesitates. “not really.”

“Why not? She’s smart and super pretty. I'm so jealous of her hair.” you say. Madeline was a tan ginger girl with curly fiery hair down to the small of her back.

“You have nice hair.” he says nonchalantly.

You touch it and rub it between your fingers. “It’s whatever.”

He scoffs. “You’re too hard on yourself all the time.”

“I’m a teenage girl, I can’t help it.” You defend yourself, but he isn’t lying.

“I’m bored, can I come over?” he says suddenly.

“Tonight? We have school tomorrow.” you reply.

“Maybe I’ll just sleep over.” he says while turning over in his bed. “I don’t think our parents would care.”

Sleepover? You two hadn’t done that since you turned eleven.

“Where would you sleep?” you ask him, already imagining how this would go.

“I don’t know on the floor.” he shrugs.

“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor I’ll feel bad.” you argue.

“I don’t care, I’m the one who suggested it, plus I miss you dude, I wanna hang out.” he says and you smile.

“I saw you on Friday.”

“Yeah, a whole two days ago.” he gets up off his bed. “Okay I’ll be there in ten.”

“What-” you start but he cuts you off.

He brings the camera up close to his face and he flashes you a smile. “Bye!” he hangs up.

Your palms feel a bit sweaty and you brush them off on your pants. Why am I nervous? You guys have had plenty of sleepovers before but the rest of the boys were always there, probably passed out from beer or a sugar crash.

You tidy your room up a bit and prepare a little blanket bed on the floor right next to your actual bed.

You hear knocking at the door right when you expected, Jake was hardly ever late.

“Hola~” he says as he walks in with his backpack on. He takes his shoes off before skipping over to your room. You giggle to yourself.

He falls back onto your bed with a big sigh. “I missed being here.”

“Why? There’s nothing cool here. Your house is way cooler.” you say and he smiles.

“Well I can’t deny that,” he shrugs and you punch him in the arm. “you’re the one who said it.”

“We get it rich boy.” you roll your eyes and sit down next to him.

“I’m just playing,” he sits up. “you know that.”

“I hope you showered after practice,” you say. “I don’t want you stinking up my bed.”

He whips his head to you, looking a little bit offended. “I am very clean alright? Here smell my hair.” he shoves his head into your face.

You let out a strangled noise and try to push him away. “Okay, okay!”

“No smell it,” he keeps his hair up in your face, it’s tickling your nose. “smells like mangos right.”

Admitedly, he's right. It smells like mangos.

“Yes it does,” you squeak out. “now please respect my personal bubble.” you spread your arms out and create an imaginary bubble between you two. He tries to tug at your arm but you bellow in a robot voice. “PERSONAL BUBBLE PERSONAL BUBBLE.”

“Fine, fine.” he falls back onto your bed again, laughing. “Lets watch something.”

You follow suit and tug your laptop into your lap.

“Hold on,” you get up and close your window, it was starting to get too cold.

You shimmy under your covers and pull up Netflix.

“Scary movie?” you click on the horror section.

“Sure but you probably won’t be able to sleep.” he teases and you roll your eyes.

“That was years ago.” you start to scroll through the movies.

“Mhm, and I’m never letting you live it down.” he says with pride.

During freshman year the gang decided to go to Jay’s house to watch It together and it freaked you out so much that you went to sleep in the boys room rather than the guest room.

You click on Hush, a movie you’ve been avoiding because it’s about one of your biggest fears, a home invasion.

“I thought you hated this movie.” Jake says, crossing his arms. “I do, but I need to face my fears eventually right?” you click on it and get up to turn the lights off.

Jake soon gets under the covers as well. You both cringe and slap each other every time your feet touch.

“Yo yo yo yo watch out!” Jake whispers and pulls his hood over his head, something you both do when you’re nervous. You weren’t wearing a hoodie so you settled with a spare blanket and draped it over yourself like a cloak.

“Oh shit,” you whisper. “look behind you!” you yell at the main character.

By the end of the movie both of your bodies are stiff and sore from being so tense for two hours straight.

“I thought she was gonna die.” you sigh and you shut your laptop.

“Nah, they couldn’t kill the main girl.” Jake says, comfy and cuddled up in your duvet. “She was so smart.”

“Yeah she was.” you yawn and then kick Jake in the side. “Go to your bed.”

He groans. “It’s warm here though.”

“Go and I’ll make pancakes tomorrow.” you say.

He perks up and follows your orders.

You relax into your mattress, but you miss his warmth next to you. You ignore that.

Your alarm goes off at 6:30 and Jake sleeps right through it.

“How the hell does he get up in the morning?” you whisper. “Probably Leila.”

He’s sleeping on his side, cuddling a stuffed animal he must’ve stolen from your bed while you were asleep.

You stretch your back before washing up.

Jake’s POV

My serene sleep is interrupted by pokes at my shoulder.

“Get up poop.” she says. I almost forgot that I was at her house. I crack my eyes open to find her crouching next to me.

“Good morning.” I croak out.

“You stole ginger.” she points at the stuffed bunny in my arms.

“I was lonely.” I say before sitting up and rubbing my eyes. “What time is it?”

“7:30,” she says holding in a giggle. “go wash up so we can eat.”

“What’s so funny?” I ask her as she walks away. “You’ll see when you look in the mirror.” she says.

My eyes widen. Did she draw a dick on my forehead or something? I thought we swore to never do that.

I scramble to her bathroom to meet some gnarly bedhead. I have no clue how guys have good messy hair, my hair is either boring and flat or just messy.

“Jesus.” I say to myself and try to run my head under the sink.

I brush my teeth and secretly use her facial cleanser.

“So fancy.” I whisper while lathering it up on my face.

I can already hear her voice in my head when I’m drying off saying “don't forget to put lotion on, and face lotion, not body.”

A stack of pancakes is waiting for me in the kitchen, just as she promised.

“Thank you mom.” I say to her before digging in.

She sits across from me with her own plate of flap jacks. She looks so pretty this early in the morning. Her face is fresh and sparkly and her eye bags somehow just make her prettier. It’s cloudy out and I can tell she’s cold she way her body is bundled up in her chair.

I still remember the moment I realized that I liked her. It was seventh grade and we were at our town’s annual fair. She got a bit sick after a ride with a lot of loopdey loops so I stayed behind with her while the rest of the boys continued to go on every ride they pleased. She told me to go with them and that she didn’t want me to miss out but I said that it was fine and that I liked hanging out with her anyway. She smiled her bright smile at me and rested her head on my shoulder for a moment. Then she threw up on my shoes. Like projectile cotton candy, funnel cake, and other miscellaneous fair food vomit. And I didn’t even get that mad, I was more concerned for her. After that I figured I liked her, because if it were Jay I would’ve beat him up.

“Did you have any nightmares?” I ask her and she shakes her head.

“Nah, I dreamt that Sunghoon married a dolphin. It was weird.” she sighs.

I choke on my pancakes. “A dolphin?”

“Yeah,” she laughs. “his name was Jerry.”

“And it was a guy too?” I hold my chest, trying not to choke.

“Don’t judge their interspecies homosexual marriage. It was beautiful.” she laughs and takes a big gulp of water.

I’m almost crying at this point. “Best dream ever. I can’t wait to tell Sunghoon this.”

“No!” her eyes widen. “He’s gonna think I fantasized about it or something.”

“What?” I cock an eyebrow. “Everyone knows that dreams are uncontrollable sometimes.” “Still it’s weird. Imagine if someone told you that I dreamt of you marrying a dolphin. It’s be weird.” she says through a mouth of pancake.

“Did they have kids?” I cackle,

“I don’t know. How would that even work?”

“Maybe they had a surrogate or something.” I suggest.

“Oh god,” she shakes her head, smiling. “we need to stop. I feel like I'm violating him.”

“Alright, alright.”

“Should I wear this shirt or this sweater.” she asks me as we’re getting ready in her room.

“Sweater. It’s probably gonna be cold.” I say while tugging socks on.

“Shit you’re right. Then I won’t be able to wear this dress.” she holds up a little dress that flows out a bit from the waist.

“Bring it anyway and maybe you can wear it for a second so I can take pictures for you.” I suggest and she smiles.

“Good idea.”

We both settle of hoodies and jeans and say goodbye to her parents before hopping in my car.

We get to school right when people start getting on the bus to the airport. We throw our luggage into the bottom carrier and get in line.

“Yo!” I hear a familiar voice call as we get on. “We saved seats for you guys.”

Jay, Sunghoon, Heeseung, Jungwon, Sunoo, and Niki have already gotten comfortable in the back of the bus. Niki was already asleep. Y/N couldn’t help but pat his head before settling down next to Jungwon. The bus wasn’t a school one but one of those fancy ones they bring out once a year.

I sit down next to Sunghoon and dap him up.

“What’s up.” I say while putting my backpack down by my feet.

“Tired.” he says. “Valentina kept me up all night.”

I raise an eyebrow and he smirks.

“For real?” I ask and he nods. “No way.”

“Yeah way.” he says and holds up a fist.

I fist bump him and pat him hard on the shoulder.

“You’re a man now Sunghoon.” I congratulate him and he snickers.

“What does that make you then?”

“I’m taking my time alright? I’ll get there eventually.” I say, a little embarrassed.

I look back to check out what she’s doing when we start to drive off. She’s fast asleep with her cheek pressed against Jungwon’s shoulder. He looks like he’s about to dose off too. Cute.

Sunghoon and I watch a couple episodes of Death Note before we arrive at the airport. Sunoo shakes Y/N and Jungwon up.

She’s still groggy as we walk into the airport and grabs onto my arm for leverage. My heart jumps a little. It’s not often that we touch despite how much I think about touching her. I could stare at her back all day. She could ignore me for the rest of my life and I’d still be happy to be in her presence. Mental note to all of you: do NOT let your feelings get to this point.

Soon we’re on the plane and she chooses to sit next me. I silently celebrate. Sunoo and Sungoon behind us, Heeseung and Niki next to us, and Jay and Jungwon in front of us. Sunoo pokes his head over her seat.

“Do you have chapstick I can borrow.” he asks with his blonde hair flopping over his forehead.

She digs into her bag and hands him a small tin of lip balm.

“Thank you!” he says and she nods.

“Are you that tired?” I ask her.

“Mhm,” she sighs and shuts her eyes. “I forgot to drink coffee this morning.”

I put in my AirPods and start to watch Lady Bird. She looks over and takes an AirPods out of my ear.

“I wanna watch too.” she say and puts it in her own.

We take off for the six hour trip and soon Y/N is sound asleep. Her head kept dropping forward so I pushed it up and pulled it to rest on my shoulder. This was not on purpose. I can’t help but snap a picture of her and add it to the good pictures of her album. She looks so peaceful and comfortable and gorgeous. I lay my head on hers for a moment before continuing the movie.

Y/N’s POV

After two hours of unsatisfying sleep, and hour of gossip with Sunoo, and three hours of chit chat with Jake you finally arrive. You sit up and stretch as best as you can in the plane. You pull you backpack onto my back and get you luggage down from the overhead bin. It’s already five p.m. when we get off and your stomach is growling.

We take another bus to the hotel and you can’t help but admire the city life as we drive there.

You’re roomed with two other girls at the hotel but you don’t even bother unpacking. You know you’re gonna be in the boys’ room anyway.

Mrs. Gilroy gave us tonight to do whatever we wanted as long as we were back at the hotel by ten p.m.

You sneak into Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon’s room as soon as you can. And when you get there, it’s already a mess.

“Good lord.” you say as you’re met with clothes all over the floor and mini bottles of liquor on the beds.

“You guys are drunk already?” you scrunch your nose and drop your stuff in a corner of the room.

“No.” Sunghoon says to you lazily with a little smirk on his face. You can’t help but giggle. Sunghoon is pretty adorable when he’s drunk.

“Are you drunk too?” you turn to Jake and he shakes his head. His pink cheeks give him away though. “You’re all bad liars.”

“Lets go swim.” he says excitedly.

“There’s a pool? I didn’t bring a swim suit.” you say, bummed.

“Can we go later, I’m hungry.” Jay says and you agree.

“Me too.”

Jake tugs at your arm. “Come on~ we can order room service or ask Jay to get us something.”

“We can get you guys something.” Sunghoon says, pulling a hoodie over his head.

“Please?” Jake looks at you with shiny eyes. He’s and adorable drunk too.

You purse your lips and sigh. “Fine. But I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Just wear shorts and a shirt.” Jake says as he tugs his swim trunks out of his suit case.

“I didn’t bring shorts because you said it was gonna be cold.” you complain, crossing your arms.

“Uhm,” he stops for a moment. “you can wear my boxers then.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Huh?”

“What?” he looks at you. “They’re basically shorts. And they’re clean.”

You hesitate but then comply as always. He tosses you a pair of black Calvins.

You steal one of Jay’s shirts and make your way into the bathroom to change. You’re wearing a simple cotton bralette which should be fine for the pool. You bundle up the rest of your old clothes and stick them behind your backpack before heading out with Jake.

The pool is empty and huge and is only light by the lights inside.

“It’s so cold.” you rub at your arms as Jake sets your towels down at a seat.

“I’m sure the pool is heated.” he says and dips a toe in. “Yeah, it’s warm.” Before you can even reply, he tugs his shirt off and canon balls in. You turn your face to avoid getting splashed.

“How is it?” you call out as he emerges from the water. He shakes his hair around like a dog.

“It’s warm so come in, you look funny standing there.” he teases and you roll your eyes. You kick your sneakers off and try to make a peaceful jump in but you didn’t realize you were in the deep end. It takes you a moment to get your senses together and swim to the surface.

“Why is it deep?” you say, a bit out of breath.

Jake giggles at you. “Remember when we used to play and you were the mermaid and I was the-”

“Turtle companion.” you finish his sentence. “Yes, as clear as day.”

“Why couldn't I be a mermaid too? Why was a I a lame turtle.” he fusses.

“I’m sorry okay?” you laugh. “I was a mean child.”

“Yeah you were. I’ll never forgive you for shoving that clump of dirt in my mouth.”

You burst out laughing, flailing your arms in the water to try to stay afloat. “You deserved it!”

“I did not!” he protests.

“You cheated in handball! It was one hundred percent deserved.” you say, swimming over to him.

“I barely cheated!” he calls out, starting to swim away from you.

“Barely? I would’ve won and been champion of our grade if you hand’t pulled that shit!” you say, still laughing and swimming after him.

“Why are you chasing me?” he says while hopping around the pool where he can touch the ground.

“So I can shove another clump of dirt in your mouth.” you try your best to get him but your heavy cotton shirt is holding you back. You don’t let it stop you though.

You finally get to him and tug his arm. He yells as you push him underwater. He finds the ground though, and shoots up soon after.

“Are you trying to drown me?” he looks at you, astonished but giggly.

“Maybe.” you shrug before tackling him again. It had been a while since you two wrestled like this.

You’ve got him under water for a bit until he finds your rib cage and plunges you in. It’s hard to hold your breath while you’re laughing. You feel around for him and pinch his thigh only semi hard. He lets you go after that.

“I won!” you celebrate with your fists in the air.

“You used pain, that isn't fair.” he rubs at the area that you pinched.

“Don’t be a sore loser. I won fair and square.” you cross your arms. “Fine.” he admits his defeat. “that pinch hurt though, come kiss it better.”

Your face twists. “Nuh uh.” you say plainly.

“Please?” he asks. “I will drown myself right now.” You laugh at him.

“I will do it!” he insists.

“Okay, okay! I’m not to going to kiss your leg you weirdo but I’ll give you a hug.” you float over to him and wrap your arms around his shoulders. “I even pinched you lighter than I normally would.”

“I’m sensitive.” he says into your neck and you giggle.

His arms feel so right around your waist and you struggle to decide when to let go, so you just don’t, and neither does he. He holds you decently tight and you feel him pat your back.

You’ve hugged plenty of times before but it felt a little different this time. Probably because you’re pressed up against his bare skin. It makes you feel a bit sheepish.

You pull away from him. “Feel better now?”

He nods with a smile. His cheeks are pink, but this time it’s not from the liquor.

Jake’s POV

I can’t help but feel disappointed when she lets go of me.

I shouldn’t have patted her back that's a dad thing to do.

Her makeup has started to run down her face which makes me giggle.

“What?” she asks.

“Your mascara is making you look crazy.” I say and her hands fly to her face.

“Shit I forgot I had it on.” she attempts to wipe it away but all it does is smear it across her face.

“Here,” I say and float over to her. “I’ll help you.” this was not on purpose.

I hold her face as gently as I can in my hands and rub the runny mascara off with my thumbs. I dip my fingers into the water to get all of the bits off.

I want to kiss her so badly, but I know that I’ll never do it. Sometimes I get irritated at myself for not being able to confess. I think Jay and Sunghoon get irritated about it too.

“You talk about her all the time man just ask her out.”

I don't know why I can’t do it. If she rejects me she’ll do it nicely and things would go back to normal pretty soon. But I don’t think I could live knowing that my feelings would never be reciprocated. Sometimes I get a feeling that she likes me too but I can never be too sure.

“All gone.” I say and she thanks me.

She lets her self float on her back. She has a small smile on her face and she’s so pretty I could cry. There have been multiple times where I nearly cried over how much I like her.

“What are your thinking about?” I ask.

“You know I never know how to answer that.” she bleats. “My mind always goes blank when you ask.”

“Well try to remember what you were thinking about then.”

“Us.” she says plainly. “Us?” I questioned. “What about us?” “I don’t know, just how I met you guys and how happy I am to be friends with you all.” she says.

Oh. She meant all of us.

“Yeah me too.” I agree, trying not to sound down. “Who’s your favorite?”

She snorts. “I don’t have a favorite.”

“Of course you do,” I say. “and it better be me.”

“Why would it be you?” she jeers.

I frown. “Because we met first.”

“I’m kidding, of course you’re my favorite.” she admits.

“And why is that?” I egg her on and she rolls her eyes.

“Because we met first.”

I sigh. “Is that all?”

“Mhm.” she says.

Y/N’s POV

You’re met with InNOut that Sunghoon and Jay got and also a room full of teenage boys. The younger ones were laying on their stomachs on a bed together, watching something on a laptop. Sunghoon and Jay were trying to watch t.v. You say trying because of the furious clicking on the remote.

“What the hell are you guys trying to do?” you and Jake plop onto the one empty bed.

“Trying to find the porn.” Jay grumbles.

“Infront of the children?” you look over at the younger ones.

“They don’t care they’re watching YouTube.” he says, still clicking.

You take a bite of your burger. “You have an endless arena of porn on your phone why do you want the t.v. one?”

“The t.v. makes it special.” Sunghoon says.

“Weird.” you mutter to yourself. “They’re probably gonna make you pay for it too.” Jake chimes in.

“Do you think it’ll go to the school’s credit card or whatever?” Jay asks with wide eyes.

“I don't know but if it does they’ll know it’s from our room.” he says through a full mouth.

You grab pajamas out of your bag and head to the bathroom to shower.

You come out feeling fresh and the younger ones have gone back to their room now.

“My turn,” Jake says, walking into the bathroom.

You sit next to Sunghoon on his bed and start scrolling through your phone.

“Should I get this sweater or this one.” he holds his phone up to you and shows you light blue sweater and a black one.

“Second one.” you say.

“Really?” he questions. “I feel like it’ll make me look emo.”

“You should become emo honestly. It would look good.” you reply and he chuckles.

“You’d have to help me with my eyeliner every morning.”

“Yeah,” you giggle “wait can I do it right now? I wanna see how you’d look.”

“Right now?” he cocks a brow and you nod. “Okay but don’t give me raccoon eyes.”

“I won’t I won’t.” you rush over to your bag and bring your make clutch to the bed.

“Hold still.” you tell him as you give him smokey winged liner.

“It tickles.” he says, trying not to blink too much.

“Beauty is pain.” you clean up the wing with your nail.

In a couple minutes you’re done. “Finished." you say.

“Lemme see.” he grabs a hand mirror from your clutch and holds it up to his face. “Hold on. This looks kinda good.”

“Right?” you had to admit it; he looked gorgeous.

“Why are you so pretty?” Jay says from his bed.

Soon Jake came out of the shower and it was hard to deny how good looking he is especially with his damp hair. How could someone make a t-shirt and sweats look so good? He dumps his laundry by his bag.

“Does Sunghoon have makeup on?” he asks, settling onto his bed.

“Yeah doesn’t it looks nice?” you ask and he agrees.

“Y/N are you gonna sleep here or in your room.” Jay asks.

“I thought I would just sleep on the floor here.” you suggest and he furrows his brows.

“No that’s mean. Share a bed with someone.”

“You should sleep with Jake.” Sunghoon elbows you in the side and you shoot him a dirty look. “We all know he wants you to anyway.”

“Fuck off Sunghoon.” Jake looks over at him with a piercing stare, a contrast to his pink cheeks.

“Is it okay if I do?” you ask him and he nods.

“Yeah for sure.”

Sunghoon snickers.

“I hate you.” Jake scowls.

After a couple hours of watching movies and horsing around it’s nearly midnight and your eyes are getting heavy.

You crawl under the covers and scroll on your phone a bit before trying to sleep. Despite how tired you are it’s hard to sleep with the boys chatting and snickering to each other.

“Can you guys quiet down?” you ask them.

“Sorry.” Jay says.

After maybe an hour of sleep, you feel someone get on the bed. Probably Jake, you think to yourself. His little sighs as he gets comfortable are cute.

“You awake?” he whispers.

“Mm?” you turn on your side to face him. “Yeah.”

“Cool.” he says. The room is dark but the moonlight helps you make out the outline of his face.

‘What’s up?” you ask.

“Nothin.” he says and you giggle.

“Okay weirdo. Go to bed.” you close your eyes, stilling facing him though.

“I’m not tired.” he says.

“Count sheep.”

“That never works for me.” he sighs. “Sing me to sleep.”

You try to slap him in the arm but you end up hitting his face. “Oh shit sorry!”

“Ow!” he whines. “Why do you keep hurting me?”

“It was an accident!” you whisper and rub at his cheek a bit.

“Now I actually deserve a hug.” he pouts and you roll your eyes.

“You are not five years old.”

“I still want the hug.” he says plainly and you sigh.

“Fine.” you scooch over to him and pull him into your chest. You pat his back. “There there. Better now?”

He shakes his head. “It still hurts.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.” you scoff.

“I have no shame when it comes to your affection, you should know that by now.” he smiles.

You feel his arm fall over your waist and his hand slide up your back. It gives you goosebumps.

You’re cuddling with him. You guys are cuddling right now. You think to yourself. No you’re not, you’re just...hugging. Right?

Jake pulls away to look at you. “I need to tell you something.”

“Are you gonna say your mom again?” you ask and he shakes his head.

“No,” he says giggling. “it’s something for real.”

“Okay what is it?”

He takes a sharp inhale. “I like you.” he winces.

Your heart jumps a bit. “I know.”

“What?” he laughs. “You’re very obvious about it.” you chuckle. “Are you rejecting me?” he asks and you shake your head.

“I would never.” you pull him in by the back of neck and push your lips against his.

#enhypen #enhypen jake #ehypen fluff #enhypen Jake fluff #Jake Sim fluff #Kpop fluff

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lindstromm · 4 years ago

Text

Simplified Bookbinding: Font and Text Ornaments

In the first post in this series, How to Make a Cheap First Book, I set out the four steps of bookbinding:

1. Format the text and print it. (This post is all about this step.)

2. Create the text block.

3. Create the case.

4. Attach the case to the text block.

In this post, I’ll give some pointers to get your story from a word processor, or an AO3 story, to a printed page. There are two main formatting sections: (1) the intro pages like the title page and the “about this book” page:

And (2) the text of the book, which may include specialized chapter title font and text separators:

Formatting tips and pics under the cut.

I use Microsoft Word for formatting and printing. I know one method and I stick to that, and I use basically the same formatting process on every story. I get overwhelmed if I have to do something specialized every time or have too many choices. So look at this tutorial as your starter pack, and once you get comfortable, branch out and get as fancy and specialized as you want.

In the Simplified Bookbinding method, we print on A5 pages, which makes the pagination a whole lot easier than printing signature booklets. I have two separate files per book - the intro pages are one file; the text is a second file. This way I don’t have to figure out how to suppress page numbers on part of a file. The intro pages file does not have page numbers; the text file has page numbers.

Page Setup in Word

1. Open a new document.

2. Click “Layout” then “Size.” You need to tell Word that you’re printing on A5 size paper. If the dropdown menu doesn’t include A5, then click on “More Paper Sizes” at the bottom of the menu and fill in the A5 size manually. It’s 5.83 wide by 8.27 high:

Click ‘OK’ and let’s get started putting text on the page.

The Intro Pages

Go pull a professionally published book off your shelf and look at the title page. You’re going to format your title page basically the same way. It’s going to have the title, the author and maybe a text ornament. Center it on the page.

I googled the name of the fandom to get a text block that says “The Old Guard.” A recognizable symbol for that movie is the main character’s labrys, so I googled “labrys line drawing” and snipped it. I titled my story “The Next Job” because I lack the fanfiction ability to select beautiful lines of poetry for story titles. Not as lovely, I’ll grant you, but it fits better on the spine of a book. Anyway, play around with your formatting until you like how it looks. Print a test page.

This is a good time to find out how to print on A5 paper. My printer has a paper size option in the menu, in which I could select “A5″ and then just push the paper holder in the tray for the smaller paper. If you don’t have a printer or can’t connect it, then . . . um, problem. Some bookbinders send print jobs to Staples or other office supply shops. You would have to ask them about printing on custom sized paper and see what they charge. (If you’re going to have it printed at a shop, don’t use easily identifiable text ornaments unless you want to explain to the print shop employee why you aren’t violating copyright laws.)

Depending on your fandom, you may be able to find a fun text ornament that identifies your fandom, like the Avenger’s symbol, a Star Trek symbol, Star Wars, whatever fandom you’re in, I’m sure there’s a graphic you can use. Things like these:

Now we’re going to format the “about this book” page. Look at a professionally published book. This is where you have the copyright information and publisher information. I put in basic information in a list format. In most of my books, I put in a word count and which font I used, just so I can keep track of about how many pages a word count will be. You can put in different info.

On a third page, you can format the author summary and any author notes you want to include. I keep author notes that talk about what the story means to the author. I don’t keep author notes that are basically apologies for not updating often enough. That’s entirely up to you.

So those are your intro pages. It’s 2-4 sheets of paper. I always set 4 blank pages in front of the title page. You’ll notice that professionally published books have a few blank pages before the title page as well. I also put 4 blank pages at the end of the book.

Story Text Pages

Now we’re going to format the actual story. There is a page limit to how much you can bind into one book when using this Simplified Method. You’re limited by the size of the binder clips used in perfect binding. Yep, true, binder clips are your limiting factor. The most I can usually get into big binder clips is about 225 sheets of paper. It varies depending on your paper weight. Take out about 12 sheets for intro and end pages, and that leaves me about 210 printed pages, which double-sided is 420 pages of text. The max word count I’ve bound in one book is 140,000 words. You can bind lengthy works but you will have to play around with margins and font size to keep the number of pages to something that fits into the binder clips.

1. Open a new Word document.

2. Set the paper size to A5 the same way you did for the intro pages document.

3. I always set all four margins to 0.7 just to get more words on a page. I wouldn’t go much smaller than that. You can keep your margins at 1 inch if you want, and I would recommend it if you’re printing less than 50,000 words.

4. Insert page numbers.

5. Go to the story on AO3. Make sure you’re in the “Entire Work” view because it’s a pain to cut and paste chapter by chapter. Press Ctrl-A to “Select All.”

6. Navigate back to your document. Press Ctrl-V to paste the entire mess into your document.

7. Save the file. Save often. You don’t want to lose your formatting.

8. Delete all the stuff that isn’t story text. The “Select All” will have picked up all the buttons and the kudos list and comment box and everything. Just delete it all until you only have text left. The text will have spacing between paragraphs, no indents, chapter headings in the middle of pages, and so forth.

9. When you’ve got nothing but text, press Ctrl-A again to select all the text and we’re going to do some basic formatting. With all the text selected, make these changes:

a. Change the font to Gentium Book Basic 12 pt. (There are hundreds of fonts to choose from. I stick to Gentium Book Basic 12 pt or Book Antiqua 12 pt for the text of the story.)

b. Get into the paragraph format menu. Change the spacing Before and After to 0, and add a first line indent of 0.3. On an A5 page, the standard indent of 0.5 is too deep.

Click out and your page count should change drastically to something pretty close to what your finished page count will be.

10. Now we’re going to format the chapter headings. If you’re in a highly merchandised fandom, you’ll be able to find custom fonts that you can use for chapter headings. Some are free to download. I’ve got the font for Frozen and another one for Star Trek.

Fun, right? If you don’t have a fandom-specific font, I recommend using Narkisim or Baskerville Old Face for chapter heading text. Both are included with Word.

a. If you have more than a couple chapters, it’s easier to set a Heading to auto-format your chapter titles than it is to select text, change font, and center for every single chapter. To do that, format Chapter One the way you want it. Select font, font size, center it on the page (you’ll have to turn off that 0.3 first line indent for just the chapter heading text). While you have your chapter heading text formatted and selected, go to the Home menu and right-click on Heading 2, then select the top option: “Update Heading 2 to Match Selection”. I couldn’t get a snip with the right-click, but this is what you want to right-click on:

Then for your next paragraph, just select the text of chapter number and title, click Heading 2, and it automatically applies all the formatting for you. Yay!

b. With the copy and paste we did to get the text from AO3 into Word, the chapters may start in the middle of a page. Make sure you press Ctrl-Enter at the end of a chapter to start the next chapter on a new page.

c. If you want to insert a text ornament at each chapter heading, that can be fun. If that’s too much right now, don’t worry about. I didn’t start using text ornaments until I had done about 15 books. You’ll have to work to get the text ornament the right size and positioned under the chapter heading text.

Are you done with chapter headings? Moving on!

11. Scene breaks. You know those places inside a chapter where there’s a scene break? Go look at a professionally published book. Many will just have a double space between paragraphs to mark a scene break. That’s probably the easiest way to mark a scene break. Go right ahead and do it that way.

12. Text separators at scene breaks. If you want, you can put in a text ornament to mark a scene break. There are full line text ornaments, or tiny text ornaments:

I found all my text separators by googling ‘images text ornaments’ or ‘text dividers’ and then snipping from the screen. Here are a few I haven’t used yet, which aren’t quite as blurry as everything I take a photo of (sucky camera phone):

To get a text ornament on the page of a Word doc, you go to “Insert” and click on “Pictures” and then select your image file. Then you have to resize it and position it, plus curse because it knocked all your text out of alignment, wonder what the purpose of image anchors are, drag, accidentally drop it in the middle of the paragraph, discover that Word has green guidelines that appear at random. I tell you what, text ornaments are a real treat. I just like them, okay? I like the way they look, I mean, they are annoying to work with. I did discover that once I have it resized, I copy that image, and then paste it into the next scene break rather than inserting the image from file again. That way I know all the text ornaments are the same size.

All done? Got it all formatted? Looks so great, doesn’t it?

Take a deep breath. Take a few days off. The hardest part is yet to come.

Printing

You’ll have to figure out how to print double-sided on A5 paper. I have very little advice here. It’s going to be you figuring out how to get your printer to cooperate. I’ve discovered that auto-double sided printing does not work on A5 paper. The print rollers just aren’t designed for little pieces of paper. My inkjet printer would auto-double-side on A5 paper, but it would offset the text on the front and back by a centimeter. My laser printer won’t auto-double-side at all on A5 paper. I manually double-side the pages. I can do it in batches of 20 pages at a time, so it’s not so bad.

If you are manually double-siding, make sure you know how to orient the pages when you stick them back in the printer. Instead of practicing on your actual book, just print pages that are blank other than the page number. Print pages 1-10 double-sided and see if you have to rotate the pages 180 degrees, or flip them over before putting them back in the paper tray.

Printing is a pain in the butt. Especially if you run out of toner partway through, or your printer starts printing a black line down the middle of every page. WHY??? It just does. It takes me about an hour to print about 80,000 words. I hope you will someday be more efficient than I am, but that’s how long it takes me.

Phew. Okay. Formatting and printing are done. Yay!! I’m very proud of you. That’s a huge job.

#simplified bookbinding #bookbinding #bookbinding for beginners #renegade publishers #renegade bookbinders #font and text ornaments #lindstrom2020 #op

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azaffranist · 5 years ago

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Frozen 2 deleted/early content

On the road to F2 there were tons of leaks and I saved as many of them as I could in the fear that Disney would delete them (because they loved to shut down whole websites because of that back in the day). As a result I have a lot of pictures saved on my phone and looking back on them... some don’t sound quite right because it’s definitely not what I saw in the movie. So here’s everythinggg I have. I did my best to organize stuff a bit but there are so many things it was... hard. Feel free to add more stuff in reblogs, replies and such!

Something to note is that we won’t take into account the “officially” released deleted content, which would include everything that’s in the Blu-ray, because basically everyone already saw that (Home, I Seek the Truth, Get This Right, Unmeltable Me, the Secret Room scene, Hard Nokks, etc). Generally, we won’t be analyzing deleted scenes from the official trailers, either, because of this very reason. Something “official” that we will consider, though, are the deleted clips animators have been releasing on Instagram and other sites, because those aren’t that popular.

Before starting here’s the link to all the deleted F2 lines I could find as well as some other additions. The post itself has even more links to other posts containing deleted content so have fun clicking on links.

Last thing to mention, none of the merch photos here are taken by me. I got most of them from the leaks channel of the Arendelle Kingdom server during 2019. If any image in this post belongs to someone here and you want to be credited please let me know and I’ll edit the post.

This post is long. Like really, really, lagging-my-browser-as-I’m-writing-it long. So grab some popcorn and get comfortable or just take a look at what interests you.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

Deleted Artbook Content

One of the most exciting leaks we got were definitely these sample artbook excerpts. None of these pages made it into the final artbook, though.

This piece definitely belongs in Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory, in which the Northuldra leader wasn’t an ordinary man but a shapeshifter.

The biggest picture in this page points to yet another version of Iduna and Agnarr’s backstory. It’s possible to deduce Bruni hadn’t been fully developed yet or created at all since the fire isn’t pink.

The one on the bottom right seems to be an earlier version of the “forest freed” scene in the final movie, or maybe it happened in another moment altogether.

The most interesting of the three, though, is this one. Nothing in the movie points to the existence of a place like this. It’s interesting to note that this peculiar house looks very similar to Iceland’s “elf houses”, tied to the myth of the Huldufólk, “hidden people”, who were said to be small and live in a parallel world, being able to make themselves visible at will.

These are definitely the inhabitants of the Enchanted Lands, who look completely different than in the final movie with their long cloaks, hoods and staves. They look like mages. Were these the very first concepts of the Northuldra, or another group of characters altogether that ended up being scrapped? Only Ahtohallan knows...

Even though the tree and the vegetation illustration is in the book, there’s one missing and that one is the bottom left. One of the most popular theories in the fandom regarding that illustration is that it was an Arendellian military camp tied to the expedition to the Enchanted Lands. I think what we got in the movie is a watered down version of a much more violent and sinister endeavor to invade the Northuldra. The above mentioned deleted scene of the battle of Arendellians agains Northuldrans is proof of that.

This one shows the Arendellian gang and most likely Mattias looking at the walls of a cave with drawings on it depicting the Nokk among other things that I can’t quite make out. I’ve heard people say that an earlier version of F2 involved the gang encountering Mattias in a volcanic cave and that’s where this scene would go, but I don’t know if those are rumors or there’s an actual source. If someone happens to have knowledge on this topic in particular please let me know and I’ll update the post.

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Incomplete Frozen Fan Fest books and their alternate scenes

As I’ve mentioned in another post, Frozen Fan Fest happened on October 4th, 2019, and it was the official release of the movie’s first merchandise. We were all super excited to look at the storybooks and read the ending!

Except there was no ending and the books ended abruptly right before Olaf’s death, completely skipping over Show Yourself.

You hear that? “Elsa bravely dives into the Dark Sea”. We know the Dark Sea scene was shortened and that’s more proof.

This section of a Frozen 2 storybook explains how it went a bit better. After Elsa was defeated twice by the ferocious waves she climbed up some giant rocks and dove back in. Only Ahtohallan knows how that would be effective in this situation and not a waste of strength, but hey, I’m sure it looked super cool and I’d be down to see it.

”Elsa trudged through terrible winds and thick snow”... um... she didn’t? This might’ve been created when Show Yourself wasn’t a thing yet and her path through Ahtohallan was just that, trudging through terrible winds and snow, and not an inspiring song about self-love and finding yourself. I wonder how that scene would’ve looked.

Maybe we can find something relating to that “unused” section of Ahtohallan in a book called “Anna, Elsa and the Secret River”. Basically Iduna tells them that there’s a secret river out there and after the lullaby Elsa and Anna go nuts and try to look for the river outside. Seems like it was all a shared acid trip because next morning they seriously consider it was a dream.

Maybe here they didn’t realize they were in front of a river, because “Glaciers are rivers of ice” and this is what that Ahtohallan Elsa ventured into originally would’ve looked like? The white river doesn’t know...

This is by far one of my favorite ones. I wouldn’t exactly describe post-Show Yourself as a moment of calm and peace. Maybe peace but definitely not calm. Then it says that the signal meant that “she managed to cross the sea”. That’s a really weird way to describe “horrifying ice statue of colonialist grandpa killing an innocent native man”. I don’t know if they’re hiding the actual plot here of if they hadn’t yet worked out all the details of SY and the moment Elsa found the truth.

Anna has her cloak on as she finds the truth. Readers have no idea what this enlightening truth is because the ice statue is indistinguishable.

As it shows here, the original Iduna being Northuldra reveal was going to happen in a different way. I’m glad we got that final version... Because wow, Elsa and Anna are completely unable to connect the dots here. Anna was smart enough to figure out what to do after receiving Elsa’s message, c’mon! This should’ve been piece of cake...

Iduna called Elsa “Little Snow”. This points to an alternate All is Found scene and we’ll talk about that more in depth later.

Same scene. Translation is:

“While tucking the little princesses in, Queen Iduna sang them a lullaby about a far-away river called Ahtohallan, which holds all the answers about the past.

“Does Ahtohallan know why I have powers?” asked Elsa her mother.

“If it exists, it definitely knows that and much more,” answered the Queen.

So in this earlier version, Elsa has always asked herself if Ahtohallan had the answer to her powers... Doesn’t this make Show Yourself work even better? Here she always looked for that answer and she’d learn that she is the answer. I wonder why they took it out because it makes a lot of sense and would give buildup to Show Yourself.

Here what really matters are the squares with text. Olaf never ran through moss or became covered in it. Olaf never looks down a brook to be met by Nokk’s gaze from below. Maybe it’s an alternate When I’m Older?

And relating to that particular piece of merch:

Seems like in an earlier version, the Nokk was associated with waterfalls.

Everyone shut up there’s SWORD ANNA here. Found in a coloring book. I don’t speak Italian but Google Translate says:

“Anna is a brave one: she does not hesitate to draw her sword to defend her sister Elsa and her friends from any new threat.”

GOOD FOR HER! This is definitely from the version we were shown in the teaser, when Anna wielding an actual sword and slicing someone with it was still a thing. Man, how I wanted that to happen...

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Alternate fully animated scenes found in animators’ posts

After the release of Frozen 2, animators started to post scenes they had worked on and showing the process behind them. Some of them were deleted, are different in the final movie, or have a completely different score accompanying them.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adam Green (@agreenster) on Apr 6, 2020 at 5:31pm PDT

A completely different dialogue during the boat scene. Pretty heartbreaking and it’s even more buildup for TNRT, when Anna was left by literally everyone she loved in the planet.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Apr 14, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

Apparently, for whatever reason, Gale was going to appear in the castle first.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trent Correy (@trentanimation) on Mar 29, 2020 at 10:51am PDT

Olaf’s revival was going to be way different, and this implies that his death might’ve been different, too. Maybe his snow just dissipated and didn’t go anywhere? Maybe instead of being neatly placed by a waterfall, it fell all over the Enchanted Lands? I have no idea.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Mar 21, 2020 at 7:11pm PDT

I absolutely LOVE this one, okay, and I have no idea why they’d leave it out. Turn your sound on and listen to the much more tragic alternate score. But more importantly, pay attention when she turns to solid ice: just like in F1 with Anna, her last breath is visible. Beautiful parallels, poetic cinema, and I’m hurt and confused and I want it in the movie. Excuse me while I call the police.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mariusz Furmanczyk (@mariofurmanczyk) on Feb 26, 2020 at 5:47pm PST

Here the only change is the different score as she unfreezes. I love it so much. It’s so tragic, heavy and powerful. You can basically hear the fragility of Elsa’s fate as the ice breaks and she falls. Help. Here, here, and here, you can see other glimpses of this beautiful alternate score. Once again I’m calling the police and telling them Disney hurt my feelings by leaving this out.

I’ve hit the 5 videos limit already, but here is a link to an animation by jdublish. The change isn’t the scene itself but the completely different siren call Elsa hears. Much more ominous and creepy and I also love it, even though I have to admit the final siren call sounds catchier and more iconic. Also, kids under five won’t start crying of fear when they hear it.

Then there were also plenty of changes in the Elsa vs Nokk scene and we got to see one. Thanks to @justlookatthosesausages for pointing this out and letting me use her gif! The original video was set to private for some reason so I can’t post a Youtube link, but this is @justlookatthosesausages‘ gif:

Elsa struggled way more in the original version. Go to her post to see a comparison with the final version.

And now the awaited All is Found alternate scene! Thanks a lot to @lovewillthaw-j who helped me collect all the scenes.

First two scenes from the trailers: the Official one, Elsa looks up and Iduna gazes at the northern lights.

The Japanese one, in which Iduna kisses Elsa’s hands. @catloafs pointed that out after F2′s release so thanks!

And the last two were found by @antoineharrakblog, so thanks for that! Here and here.

BUT there’s no need to click a bazillion links because @lovewillthaw-j‘s post reconstructs in a single video what the original scene would’ve been like. Go watch it!

UPDATE: Additions by @antoineharrakblog. Thanks a lot!

Here we can see that originally, as the elements fled and Kristoff held Olaf, he yelled, “Wow, you’re heavy!”. Don’t know why this would be removed. Maybe they wanted to keep the scene serious? Maybe they needed to shorten the movie so that it didn’t exceed 100 minutes and cut little jokes like that?

And here, showing Elsa seeing how Iduna saved her father, there’s some deleted dialogue: “Get the prince out of here!” “King Runeard, what did you decide?” in addition to a much more tense score in general.

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UPDATE: Screencaps of deleted/alternate scenes

Thanks a lot to @antoineharrakblog for bringing all of these pictures to my attention! Multiples screencaps have appeared in different magazines or books that clearly didn’t make it to the movie.

Anna never makes that movement in the final movie. There’s more proof of an alternate/extended “Elsa and Anna talk” scene.

This is another one. There exists a lower quality version of this picture which I can’t find right now, but it shows that Anna and Elsa are sharing kransekake in this particular scene (the particular food that we can see at the beginning of OFA).

These are all part of the All is Found scene we’ve been talking about. In the final movie we can see that All is Found serves as a sort of “bridge” between the past and the present, as it transitions from Iduna singing the song to Elsa to Elsa in the castle, reminiscing. But originally, Iduna finished singing All is Found in the past. There’s proof of this here.

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UPDATE: Novelization deleted content

This information was provided by @theupsidedownpyramid so thanks a lot! There are some really interesting deleted scenes in the novelization.

In this one, Elsa felt the urge to release her magic after hearing the voice at the end of All is Found.

In the novelization Mattias and Yelena’s (or Yelana? Disney will never decide) relationship was a lot deeper than what was shown in the movie.

For more information and a more thorough analysis, read @theupsidedownpyramid‘s reblog!

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Miscellaneous

So there’s only one image in this section but believe me, it’s so worth it.

An animator casually mentioned that there was going to be a head kiss scene. Process it. Can’t? I can’t either.

_________________________

Wow I’m TIRED. I must’ve missed something but that’s all my brain can handle as of now. Thank quarantine for giving me the opportunity to work on this post all day.

Disney committed war crimes when they deleted some of these scenes. I have only one question: Why in the world would they do that? And more information might see the light of day in the future. I’ll never get tired of trying to piece together the convoluted puzzle that is the original Frozen 2.

I will update this post if I remember something else or if someone else has more content to share. Let’s reconstruct F2 together to visualize that movie Disney deemed too cool for us!

UPDATE: Into the Unknown: the Making of Frozen 2 Documentary finally has a concrete release date, June 26th. Let’s hope we can see more stuff then!

#frozen 2 #frozen #elsa #anna #frozen analysis #frozen 2 analysis #kristoff #sven #olaf #frozen 2 deleted content #disney

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Magnetic Moon (Jankie) - Mumu

A/N: My poetry roots showed in this one. It’s inspired by Magnetic Moon - TIffany Young. Read it on AO3 here.

Summary: Some nights are hard for Jackie, but Jan makes it better. (or: Jackie stops fighting the moon’s pull.)

The first time Jackie stays over it’s because she’s lonely. Her roommates have both gone back home for Christmas break, so it’s just her and her blankets and an empty apartment and the cold air that comes through the gap in the window.

Jackie doesn’t know why but the tears find their way down her cheeks, cold and salty, and there’s a metallic taste in her mouth. She can feel the unease brewing in her gut, her breaths getting shorter and her vision going staticky, so she does the only thing she can think of: she goes over to Jan’s.

The blonde girl doesn’t ask questions when she opens the door to find Jackie there. She just takes one look at Jackie’s shivering frame and ushers her in, wrapping her in a thick coat and bringing Jackie her signature “magic hot chocolate.” The name makes Jackie smile softly through the fog in her head.

Jan stays with her through the night, arms wrapped protectively around her, the tv playing at a low volume so that it’s not totally quiet. Jan knows Jackie doesn’t like it when it’s quiet. Her thoughts get too loud.

When Jackie wakes up in the morning, her mug of hot chocolate is sitting at her feet, cold, and the marshmallows are melting.

The sunlight makes everything too real. She splashes her face with cold water in Jan’s bathroom and slips out, mind already working double time at the mere thought of how much study time she missed. When Jan catches her eye in Psych 101 the next day, she pretends not to notice.

Jackie’s fine. She always is.

The second time it’s because Jackie stays too late at the library by accident and misses curfew. She’s still carrying her textbook and notebook when she knocks on Jan’s dorm door, praying that Jan’s roommate is out.

Jan lets her in. She holds Jackie’s hair back when she throws up into her trash can, covers Jackie’s shaking hands with her own and sings Ariana Grande lyrics to her softly. They might have some kind of meaning, but Jackie’s too drained to understand.

She still doesn’t ask questions, and Jackie’s grateful for that. Nighttime is always hard for her. Something about the crisp air and moonlight always seems to make her feel so insignificant, like everything she’s done isn’t worth anything at all.

Jackie doesn’t sleep that night, but Jan stays up with her anyways, braiding her hair and then unbraiding it again for hours. They don’t speak, the atmosphere too sacred, both of them too worried about spooking each other. Jackie swallows over the fuzzy feeling in her mouth and the half-formed words in her throat.

In the morning she swishes coffee to get rid of the remnants of those unripe confessions, relishing in the way the ice clinks against her teeth and goosebumps rise on her skin. There are three unread texts from a number Jackie doesn’t have saved in her phone, but one that she’s memorized. It’s Jan, and Jackie presses delete without reading them.

She skips her classes, cramming for her next exam in her apartment on her own instead. She doesn’t eat, basking in the lightheaded feeling for the rest of the day. When she feels sleepy, Jackie presses tea bags to the purple skies under her eyes and rubs lemon balm on both her wrists to get rid of the peach smell of Jan’s perfume.

She tells herself she can’t afford to go back to Jan’s again, not when it’s getting harder and harder to leave.

Jackie ends up at Jan’s two weeks later anyway. It’s raining outside, and she doesn’t have an excuse. Does it even matter why she’s here anymore?

Jan pulls her into her lap and lets her cry, lets Jackie be childish and make grabby hands at her every time she shifts positions, scared that Jan will leave.

Jan’s skin is warm against hers and Jackie likes it, likes how she feels safe in the familiar cloud of Jan’s scent, likes the smoothness of Jan under her fingertips. Jackie wants her over her skin.

“Jan,” Jackie whispers. Her voice comes out hoarse, and she regrets speaking as soon as the other girl’s name passes her lips.

Jan’s fingers still. There are a few moments of silence, and Jackie feels cement start to set in her veins.

Jackie turns her head to face Jan, and their lips collide softly. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in a rush. Jan sweeps a hand over to the back of her neck, fingertips sliding against Jackie’s hair.

Jackie’s convinced her skin has gone translucent where Jan’s touched her, that all the colour has been leached from the section and if she were to hold a mirror up that spot you would be able to see a spider web of veins, all the purple and blue and red in all its glory: the inner workings of herself laid bare for Jan to see.

Jan’s free hand falls from her hair and the feeling makes Jackie panic, makes her come back down to earth and slide off of Jan’s lap.

She feels the soreness build at the back of her throat, the familiar shaking of her hands when she goes to gather her stuff. Jan’s saying something, voice soft and gentle like she’s speaking to a toddler, and Jackie can’t make out any of the words.

She’s out of the apartment as quickly as she got there, barefoot on the dirt lawn. She can’t suppress the shudder that racks her whole body when the wind envelopes her. Jackie’s cold without Jan’s skin over hers, and the thought makes her hurl Jan’s hot chocolate up into the bushes.

The streetlights are reflected in the puddles on the ground, and Jackie catches her reflection in them too. She’s not sure whether to laugh or sob at the sight.

Her hair is wet, her clothes completely soaked. The sky hasn’t fallen, and the world is still turning, and the revelation makes her even more horrified.

Jan’s chased her outside, trying to get close to her. Jan’s hands go to hold her, to lead her back inside, and Jackie flinches away, rambling something about I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

At some point, Jan gives up and just stands there. The moonlight accents her cheekbones, backlights her until she looks some sort of angel. Jackie can’t meet her eyes.

“Stay,” Jan says.

Jackie shakes her head, feels her whole body tremble with a sob. She bites it back, choking on the pain when her teeth sink into her left cheek.

“Stay,” Jan says again.

The rain pours down on them. The two feet between the two girls feels so far now, like the ground’s opening between them, cracking and heaving until they are continents away from each other. Jackie’s bangs are stuck to her forehead, dribbling a thin stream of water into her eyes. The feeling of Jan’s hand in hers has begun to fade, and the smell of mud overpowers the peach that usually trails Jackie after each visit.

Jan goes back inside.

It doesn’t hurt like Jackie’s expecting it to, not when the rain is heavy enough that she can convince herself it’s washed everything away, even the last wisps of whatever they were.

A month passes.

Jackie goes to the grocery store and buys a bottle of wine. She doesn’t mean to drink it all, but there’s no one to share it with. She falls asleep with stained lips, tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth like the tension might keep the tears at bay, body curled into an absent form. Her pillow’s too cold, and her blanket too warm.

She’s been skipping her lectures, grades only kept afloat by her previous scores. She trails the campus like a ghost, afraid that touching anything will make it all too real.

Another month.

It’s been a year since that first visit. Jackie feels hysteria bubbling against her teeth every time she sees a flash of blonde hair. Sometimes she dreams of Jan’s voice, softly singing, and afterwards, she wakes up with sticky cheeks.

Maybe they’re just out of time. And words.

Jackie doesn’t know how she ends up at Jan’s that night. They click into place, and nothing shatters.

Jan’s hand snakes to her waist, her body on top of Jackie’s. They’re on the rooftop, under the night sky. The air is sharp, and Jackie’s delirious off of their gentle sin.

Look, she wants to call out to the universe, I’m still here. Why haven’t you struck me down yet?

She couldn’t leave right now if she tried.

“Stay,” Jan says, when they’re done. (Or undone, Jackie supposes.)

It’s not a question this time. The moon is softer tonight, and something pepperminty and midnight blue is blooming under Jackie’s fingernails. Jan runs a fingertip over her bottom lip. Two bass notes sound in Jackie’s head, and then static.

When the morning comes, Jackie’s still pressed against Jan’s chest.

#rpdr fanfiction #jackie cox #jan sport #jankie #lesbian au #university au #college au #hurt/comfort #angst #magnetic moon #s12 #mumu #concrit welcome #tw mental health

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cosmicbash · 4 years ago

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Hey, So I'm having a bad week and would really like an outed Kells and Em fic, it could be as angsty or fluffy as you want, I just need a happy ending. A little joy from a situation like that would be really nice right now, Thanks P.S. I've been reading your writing for a while and I think they're really great!! I hope you keep having Inspiration to do so!!!

Sorry I'm so late replying to this!! Ive had a shitty busy week myself and i feel horrible its taken me so long!!

I feel like instagram would be Em and Kelly's downfall. Just because the younger rapper is constantly on it, posting little snippets to interact with his fans, going Live, and of course posting pictures.

Slip ups are inevitable once he and Marshall start spending more and more time together.

Because Colson can't just cut back, when he does that fans start speculating. Questioning why exactly he's suddenly getting more secretive or searching through what he does share with a fine tooth comb to spot a new mystery girlfriend.

So Colson continues posting away on instagram and filming his lives, even when he and Marshall are together. Ignoring the headshakes and looks the older rapper shoots his way everytime he's on live laughing it up.

At first it's awkward, Marshall and him keep alternating who's going to duck into the bathroom or step out for coffee. But eventually they get used to it and comfortable enough that Colson can walk around their hotel room filming while Marshall naps on the couch.

The blonde even gets cheeky enough to start teasing his partner, like snapping photos of their shared brunches, or taking after sex selfies that always get Marshall hiding under the blankets or kicking him.

Really Colson should have seen it coming. You can only fly so close to the sun before you get burned afterall.

The mistakes start piling up soon enough.

Marshall accidentally yelling to ask him something when he's recording a live, Colson walking a bit too close to the couch and flashing the hoodie clad rappers back, the bottom of Marshall's AA necklace in the back of a breakfast shot, and more minor incidents that branch out from there.

At first Colson can just brush the unfamilar voice and thankfully covered up body as one of his assitants or friends. But as soon as that necklace peek gets out the internet does its thing and speculation over a possible collab strikes up.

The assumption being he gave everyone the glimpse on purpose.

Of course he's relieved the public isn't immediately jumping to the crazy possibility of them banging. Even though thats exactly what theyre doing. But him and Marshall AREN'T actually making any music together, and neither of them has publicly squashed their beef. Afterall, what better cover than pretending to still hate eachother?

But now that's all out the window. Colson's lack of an immediate excuse and rapid deletion of the photo just convincing the media their theories are correct.

Paul is of course furious, reaming both of them out over the phone about how they better get on a track together or figure out some new cover. And Diddy, well Diddy rarely comes off his self made throne to speak to Colson, let alone acknowledge most of his success, but the rapper actually does inquire to him about the whole spectacle. And Colson can't help but find himself wishing he had a guy like Paul who knew about them and could just simply yell at him because he still has no idea what to even say.

They settle on quiet ambiguous statements from their labels about how the two of them are working towards mending their beef and that a collaboration isn't exactly out of the question at this moment.

It works. For about a month or two, mostly due to them being apart yet again. The major hype dies down and Colson avoids any and all questions relating to Marshall in his lives and on twitter. The two of them are able to breathe a sigh of relief as temporary as it may be.

Until the next time they make time to see eachother. Colson's got a small charity event in Detroit that he plans on using as an excuse to linger around the city and steal some much needed time with his secret boyfriend.

Of course all eyes are on them yet again, questioning whether the young rapper might also be stopping in to work in some music with his rival.

With paparazzi tailing him more than ever it's impossible for him to just go to Marshall's place like he'd planned. Instead forcing him into renting a suite and wasting most of the day stressing over just how the hell he's supposed to sneak Marshall in with the bastards sitting outside the building like hawks. The other rapper isn't exactly helping either, just sending his usual cryptic texts telling Colson not worry about it but never expanding on what his plan is either.

By the time the blonde finally finishes his busy day and drags himself back to the room he has fully accepted that their rendezvous is not going to happen. Marshall had stopped texting him more than two hours ago and he wasn't about to act even more like a spoiled child by blowing the man's phone up. Colson's just given up. He can't even muster the energy to give the paparazzi outside his hotel more then an annoyed comment about how his life doesn't revolve around collaborations and the finger before slipping inside.

Marshall's presence in his hotel room, already stripped down to his night tee and briefs almost looks like a mirage. But when he shuts the door and crosses the room to bury his face in the other man's neck he smells like ivory soap and that woodsy beard oil the blonde bought him and Colson can't help but hug him closer.

He's so relieved to see him he doesn't even snark back at Marshall's muffled comment that he looks like shit.

The moment is sweet and Colson honestly should have realized it was just the calm before the storm but he's too caught up in complaining about the media and basking in his partner's soft agreements to care.

Before taking off to take his shower he hands Marshall over his phone, suggesting the brunette look through the mess his instragram comment section has become, all the questions and posts he's been tagged in over that little picture and their statements. Because why not? They would inevitably end up laying against eachother in bed scrolling through them all together anyway, at least this way Marshall can get a headstart.

And Marshall does actually swipe through them for a bit, spending more time admiring some of his partners pretty posts than he does reading the never ending stream of comments. The rapper rarely gets on the app himself except to post the occasional merch drop and promo. Social media isn't his forte, and it's not like he could follow Colson's account anyway. Navigating the app and searching for his boyfriends account was too much work when he could just asks for selfies over text.

Thats why when Marshall finishes his browsing and begins backing out of a post back to Colson's homepage he doesn't even care to pay much attention to what he's tapping. The flash of black and loading wheel that lights up the screen completely missed when he tosses it across the bed in lieu of playing around on his own phone.

The livestream he accidentally starts mainly films a blank ceiling through the rest of Colson's shower. The occasional creak and shift on the bed from Marshall's weight and blare of music from his own phones speakers all anyone tuning in can hear.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon for fans to realize the Live has been started unknowingly, but thats not going to stop any of them from filing in.

Maybe if Colson hadn't set his phone to silent the string of text messages might have alerted Marshall to his mistake. But the older rapper relaxes back on the bed less than a foot away blissfully unaware until Colson finally exits the bathroom.

Neither of them notice the phone when Marshall sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed, his body briefly flickering past the frame. They don't see the explosion of comments flying past the screen while they talk and Colson shoves the other man back onto the bed again. Bouncing the phone high enough to almost flip it if fate didn't decide to just scoot it closer to their tangling bodies.

Colson's whole upper body and face is in frame from then on. His cheeks flushed and smile cocky while he straddles his unseen partner. Marshall's fingertips peeking onto the screen where they're tickling the skin covering his ribs.

Its not until after Marshall's sat back up and begun peppering kisses down the front of his throat that he finally catches sight of his half blanket covered phone. An amused accusation about the other rapper trying to sneakily film them prompting Marshall to scoff and reach out for it.

"Probably just the app, shits always opening up to the camera on my phone-"

The rush of comments speeding past the screen and the unmistakeable red dot next to LIVE has Marshall freezing. His wide eyed face fully on screen for 10 seconds before Colson finally pries the phone from his hands to see whats got him so spooked.

Instead of panic, anger is what rushes through Colson's veins. A slew of curses leaving his mouth, before he finally manages to end the live. Phone promptly flying out of his hand against the wall afterwards.

The blonde wants to scream and thrash around. And thats what he does, fingers tearimg at his hair in frustration.

It takes Marshall's fingers softly prying them down for Colson to finally open his eyes again. The utterly terrified look on his partner's face chasing away his residual rage. "Fuck Colson I'm sorry-" its not the first time he's heard Marshall apologize, but it is the first time the man has ever done it while looking so scared of his response.

All the months he'd spent dreaming about his rival making such an expression have nothing on the real thing. And that smug powerful feeling he'd imagined was completely absent now. Just an uncomfortable knot seizing up his chest in it's place.

"I'm not--" his own voice feels tight. Tears threatening to bubble up in his eyes while the reality of the whole situation continues to wash over him. "I'm not mad at you, alright?"

He's mad at the media, at his fans, the rap industry, everything that makes him feel like this little slip up and intimate moment of theirs going viral will ruin their lives.

Colson's sick of hiding who he is and who he's with. Its utter bullshit. Its 2019 for chrissakes, who gives a shit who's banging who? They both make bad ass music either way and liking dick shouldn't change that.

Pushing up off of Marshall, Colson moves to climb off the bed. His hopefully not smashed phone across the room his current focus. But the older rapper snags his wrist and wont let him take more than one step.

And thats when Colson realizes just why Marshall looks so terrified. The man's worried that this is it, that he's going to just leave.

Run away from their problems and abandon the relationship they've been cultivating. Just go full scorched earth.

And that hurts.

So instead the blonde softens his expression and climbs back into bed, onto the other man's lap to hug him tightly. "Fuck Marsh--" He's not about to let the media ruin another relationship. "I love you."

The responding hug is so tight it hurts but Colson doesn't stop. "I fucking love you."

They're falling back onto the bed, legs tangling and Colson's teeth grinding while he rubs his face along the older rapper's shoulder. "I love you"

He doesn't even know what else to say. Now that the words are out it's all his tongue can shape.

"Colson-" Marshall's warm palms are cupping his face, pulling him back so they can stare at eachother

"I love you-" that one hurts the most, maybe because they're eye to eye and just looking at Marshall's soft expression and the possibility of losing it makes him want to crumble. "Please-"

He chokes back a wet sound in the back of his throat before they kiss. Pressing as close as he can, practically trying to glue their mouths together permanently.

Marshall's afraid to lose him just as much. They're idiots for ever thinking it might be a possibilility.

The media can get blown, and so can the industry and their so called fans. The cats out of the bag now and theirs no turning back. If they don't like them together than tough shit. They've both dragged themselves up out of the pits before, this will be no different.

Except, this time they have eachother to lean on.

"I love you to you cornball."

(((Ffffff this sat in my drafts cuz I got distracted by work and life. Im so fucking sorry anon!!!)))

((Also! Thank you anon! For the compliments! Im glad you enjoy my works!))

#emgk #ehhh i dunno where this went #sorry if its not great #been real distracted and busy with work lately #but i hope you can still enjoy it #prompts #asks #i love asks

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1ddiscourseoftheday · 5 years ago

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Thurs 5 Sept 1/2

“Happy release day everyone, exciting stuff!”

Too right Louis! Kill My Mind is out and it's awesome and the world is all over it, hell yeah. KMM hit the charts high and climbed all day, hitting #2 on iTunes and getting great press, with LTHQ going hard on the global focus.

He did the first of many radio appearances, notably the Indie House Party spot, genuinely the Louis interview of DREAMS, a full hour of real music talk and respect and Louis just relaxing and talking about what he loves with someone knowledgeable and smart who takes him seriously as an artist, I'm... overwhelmed. And Louis playing music for us? Please just give Louis his own radio show I want this content always! He also did an earlier show, played the rom com game, fun stuff but no room to get into it sorry highlights below. The Notebook still isn't a rom com though, where's the comedy? Someone needs to talk to him and Harry about that.

MTV calls KMM "bigger slicker and rockier than anything he's ever done", and talks about his note of intention, Rolling Stone published a write up and tweeted about the song (as does Rob Sheffield, "KMM is the No Control sequel I did know I needed"), iHeart says "think LBD and No Control vibes with an Oasis twist," Euphoria calls the song "a new age Britpop banger that'll shine even brighter in a live setting" and Louis "your new Britpop icon," he got a twitter moment, Power Radio UK is gonna play the song hourly all weekend, and the Comic Relief breakfast footage is finally dropping, teased today and out tomorrow.

Louis says the song is about experimenting when you're young, fun nostalgia, and looking back at being juvenile. He says it can be read as being about a toxic relationship but mostly that it's about going through an experimental phase in your youth and doing things that might not be good for you but are exciting, about "... uh... being naughty" (it's at least in part about drugs like yeah I'm saying it. It is and you know it, fight me, and also who cares, it's not a big deal.) He says, "the next few songs I have coming out represent me as an artist," "this is the most comfortable I've felt musically," "this is the vibe from now on," about the song being loud and in your face, "as promised!" and that he is "proud and excited"- yeah! Us too!!

He thanks the fans more times and in more ways than I can count but yeah bunches of tweets, radio mentions ("they're smart yeah?" *taps head cutely*), re: the fan project of a BILLBOARD IN TIMES SQUARE (can you believe?!) he says, “so fucking incredible,” he did a thank you video, and a final tweet to finish out the day "even if I don’t always see you all I feel your presence and your backing" and signed off by saying fuck fandom factions with his emphasis on how much he loves ALL his fans.

An Arista release about KMM calls TOU “the first single off (Louis') album” and Louis said today that he wouldn't be playing Miss You in Madrid- he said he will play five new songs not counting KMM yiiiikkkes and OMG. He says he will be covering one of the songs he deleted on the radio show keep or delete game! (But not the Arctic Monkeys one so that narrows it down to what like three? My money's on the Libertines) (FYI I hope yall know I'm taking that day off just getting that out there now.) About the 1D ten year anniversary he says, "we should do something for that." And yeah what about those guys? Let's be real, we need a special section for this; he's talking about Harry. He's saying his name and casually talking about communicating with him! Asked about being in touch with the boys- he said he "saw Liam most recently," that he talks to him on the phone, that he hung out with Niall at Glastonbury, in fact he really gets into specifics and details for them both, exactly when and where, and then he says he hasn't seen Harry in "a while" but "I've been in contact with him recently, it's proper nice. Proper nice." Okay okay... by nighttime radio slots we had progressed to chatting about Harry's hair. He's asked about Harry's new haircut looking like his and he says, "I'll be telling him that yeah," and later, "I'll be sending Harry a text about his hair." Listen NBD right ....unless maybe you've been force fed a narrative of them not even being friends anymore for years. So are we seeing an end to that nonsense? HELL YEAH bring it on! A good start, KMM cowriter Jamie Hartman casually dropping the factoid that KMM was recorded at Shangri La, yes, the same studio where Harry was holed up to taking all those shrooms and recording HS2. Louis also named Japan as where he'd most like to go on tour, lol. Not mentioned once today: Eleanor or Freddie. I mean why would you mention your girlfriend during a whole radio segment about rom coms and romance amiright? Mhmm. I'm not saying we've heard the last of them but it definitely wasn't a focus today.

The lyric video exists and is cool and I don't have time for it but it shows him dressed as Liam Gallagher onstage, cute, and tells the story of a couple meeting at a Louis show and in the end smooching by a, uh, lighthouse. Maybe we'll have time for video analysis in full by the weekend? Let's go girls!

Finally, when promo was done for the day he parked himself on twitter to see what was up- he responded to a fan teasing about the Real Madrid shirt- “beaut shirt tho.” It was beautiful, the rainbow especially. He defended his height, ("to be fair he's a tall fucker"), says he liked Florence and the Machine, thanked Rolling Stone and various others and a few other things.

There were also lots of pics look go check a UA or something I'm done for I mean I also left out so much interview stuff and you all saw all this anyway! Whatever! Goodbye! Goodnight to Louis only THANKS FOR THE TUNE

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cfiesler · 5 years ago

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the tenure-track detective agency

I tweeted about a dream, then realized it should be a television show, so I tweeted the whole first season plot. Featuring an academic who has to solve a murder so she doesn’t have to teach another class, and her librarian sidekick who is very helpful because of the research she’s done while writing Sherlock and Veronica Mars fanfiction. The whole thread is on Twitter, but copied in plain text below the cut for your reading pleasure. #sixseasonsandamovie

The Tenure-Track Detective Agency: Season One

I recently dreamed that one of my colleagues was wrongfully accused of murder, and because of the trial, could not teach their fall class. I feel like an "oh god I have to solve a murder so I don't have to teach an extra class" anxiety dream is like next level #academiclife.

S1 opens in mid-summer when a tenured computer science prof is found in his lab surrounded by simple robots testing conversational agents, busily chatting about top-voted reddit posts while he dies from blunt force trauma. The murder weapon is a dusty teaching award.

Our hero, an overworked assistant prof, is updating the syllabus for her machine learning class that just doubled in size, when she receives news that she has to pick up a section of intro programming b/c the instructor was just arrested for murdering another faculty member.

Our hero has THREE WEEKS to exonerate her colleague so that he can teach the class as planned, instead of her. Her tenure case hangs in the balance. What follows is a montage of frantic syllabus writing and murder investigation.

She visits the scene of the crime. A PhD student is frantically deleting data from a hard drive, and claims the IRB made her do it. Our hero distracts her and pockets one of the prototype conversational robots in the hopes it might have been a witness to the murder.

Our hero has a conference call with the set of brand new PhD students who will be teaching assistants to the intro programming class and informs them that their jobs start now and they need to dig through Lexis Nexis for case law about chain of custody and robots.

She visits the library and finds the librarian who usually answers questions about copyright, because she must know the most about law. Cue enthusiastic quirky sidekick, who actually doe knows a lot about murder investigation because she writes Sherlock fanfiction.

She visits her colleague in prison. She should probably be investigating the murder he is wrongfully accused of, but instead has many questions about the syllabus for his class she is now forced to teach. She tries not to sound bitter as she asks him for his slide decks.

Her colleague, clad in his orange jumpsuit and holding a prison phone, is understandably very upset about having been wrongfully accused of murdering another professor. But as she stands to leave, he calls out, "Wait! Do... do you think this will hurt my tenure case?"

She visits the detective in charge of the case. He says that her colleague's alibi for a 3-hour time period surrounding the time of murder is damning. "Who spends 3 hours answering email?" he demands. "Besides, professors don't work in the summer!" She fears this may be hopeless.

With the help of her librarian sidekick who convincingly impersonates a lawyer, our hero gets her hands on the the transcripts from the police interview of her colleague after his arrest. She assigns a PhD student to conduct a rigorous grounded theory qualitative analysis.

Word has gotten out that she is investigating the murder. Someone pins a note to her office door: "FOLLOW THE GRANT MONEY." She pulls up the dead prof's CV on his website only to find that it was last updated in 2003.

She interviews his PhD students after (out of force of habit) having them sign consent forms that detail data storage practices. None of them had seen their murdered advisor in person in years except when he mysteriously appeared to add his name to their published papers.

The librarian sidekick uses a bobby pin to break into an admin's office to retrieve grant spending records. It appears that the murder victim has been funneling funding earmarked for students and travel into "equipment." Almost $1m of invoices from a mysterious tech company.

(In case you were wondering, the librarian sidekick also writes Veronica Mars fanfiction and ABSOLUTELY knows how to pick a lock because of important research. She also wrote House fanfiction so let's hope she gets to diagnose Lupus by the end of this tale.)

Meanwhile, the PhD student has finished her grounded theory analysis of the arrest interview, and concludes (with an appropriate limitations section) that the interrogation was conducted under duress. The police officer promised to write him a tenure letter if he confessed.

Our hero buys many pizzas and puts the qualitative analyst in a room with the teaching assistants doing legal research and tells them to work on a motion to get the confession thrown out. She has to promise them they can all be co-authors on a major journal publication.

Cut to a scene where our hero spends hours answering emails from students trying to enroll in THE CLASS SHE SHOULDN'T BE TEACHING b/c they're on the waitlist but they need this class to graduate & also will she be taking attendance. Between emails she studies 18 U.S. Code §3501.

She visits a clinical prof at the law school to ask for help. You remember that this is TV so wonder if he is the obligatory love interest. He suggests they discuss 18 U.S. Code §3501 over drinks. She laughs: DO YOU THINK I HAVE TIME FOR THAT. You write hero/librarian fanfiction.

She interviews more students. Admins. Faculty. They initially were shocked the murder victim got tenure, but he'd seriously stepped up his game in the last couple of years. Not just more productive research, but he spent time on his teaching! And service! And apparently... sleep!

This trend becomes more shocking when she finally visits the victim’s family. They too noticed a change. They’d seen him *more often* in the year leading up to his tenure review. Now our hero doesn’t just want to solve his murder, SHE NEEDS TO KNOW HIS SECRET.

Meanwhile, the librarian has tracked down shipments from Mysterious Tech Company not to the victim's office but to a Mysterious Storage Unit. This is a clue! They brose YouTube videos about breaking into storage units. (YT tries to show them flat earther videos but they resist.)

HOT ON THE TRAIL, our hero makes the mistake of checking her email. She has a nastygram from a journal editor who reminds her that her promised review of a paper is 1 week overdue. The murder investigation halts while she spends hours on labor for which she will not be paid.

Our hero reluctantly suggests "major revisions" even though she knows this means more unpaid labor in a few months, and then regroups with the librarian. They head to the storage unit; we discover that the librarian drives an impala convertible.

They are nearly there when our hero's phone dings with a calendar reminder; she has a committee meeting in fifteen minutes. She can't remember which committee it is, but they turn around anyway. After the meeting, she still isn't sure which committee it was.

Our hero gets a phone call from her colleague who is wasting away in prison while wrongfully accused of murder. He doesn't ask about the progress of her investigation. He's just called to ask her if she can take over some of his committee assignments.

FINALLY our hero & the librarian get to the storage unit, which with the help of YouTube videos they break into & discover... rows of gently humming servers, and also robot parts everywhere! It's very uncanny valley in there, y'all. You're like, woah is this show actually scifi.

Our hero sits down at a computer. Did you know that even CS profs can have terrible password practices? Our hero read @lorrietweet's papers so the first thing she tries is "monkey" and VOILA she is inside a private github repo. (She has an ethics-related twinge, but he IS dead.)

Our hero emails the students enrolled in her machine learning class, sends them the github repository, and offers them extra credit for a forensic analysis. This is the best service learning activity she's ever come up with.

Our hero checks her email again (WHY DOES SHE KEEP DOING THIS) and has a message from her department chair reminding her that murder investigation does not count as a service activity. ('We've already had discussions about tweeting as not a good use of your time' he reminds her.)

We're getting very close to the season finale, and there's another montage: meeting with student investigators, tinkering with robot parts, answering emails about course overloads, talking to the police, revising a journal article that is due soon, formatting a new syllabus...

Over a bottle of wine in her office, our hero and her librarian sidekick put together the final pieces by doing rigorous affinity diagramming on a whiteboard. There is one final thing to verify. They enlist one of the murdered prof's PhD students to help. This is very exciting!

She visits her wrongfully accused colleague one last time in jail to give him the good news about her findings. He doesn't listen, far more concerned with making sure that revisions on his latest journal article get in on time, so she helps him & then leaves to go exonerate him.

Our hero gathers the relevant parties: detectives, faculty, PhD students, a public defender who she forgot existed. They meet in a windowless conference room. She has prepared a powerpoint presentation. It shows a table of contents: Intro, Methods, Findings, Discussion.

She speeds through the beginning (stopping to answer a question from a prof about the sample size for the qualitative analysis) and finally gets to the point: "I have discovered that the murder victim had a dark secret. And in the process uncovered the REAL killer!"

(Her librarian sidekick cheers from the audience. She is wearing the deerstalker from her Sherlock cosplay, which our hero reluctantly refused, saying that she probably shouldn't cosplay at work until after tenure.)

Our hero continues: "Our analysis of his private github repo revealed the REAL source of increased productivity in the year leading up to his tenure case - particularly striking since he also managed to save a failing marriage. Impossible, you say? That's what I thought! But..."

"It turns out that he solved the problem of not enough hours in the day for assistant professor levels of research, teaching, and service with ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE!" The department chair nods. Artificial intelligence can indeed solve all problems.

Our hero reveals a beautiful powerpoint slide that details their analysis of the code and its conclusion: Prof. Murder Victim had programmed an AI to do all of his service and administrative work, most of his teaching, and a big chunk of his research collaboration.

From answering emails to grading assignments to delegating tasks to student collaborators to reviewing papers (ESPECIALLY reviewing papers), Prof. Murder Victim had managed to streamline his duties into the things that were most important for tenure & avoid everything else.

And he was able to do what can be so rare in some departments - have a lot of time for himself, which repaired his relationship with his family. "But then..." our hero began ominously, "he thought... why can't I create an AI for that too so I can spend more time on my research?"

Our hero gestures at the door, and in walks a PhD student with a humanoid robot in tow. It is a half-finished, uncanny valley nightmare of the murder victim. "He was murdered by his own creation!" our hero shouts, as she reveals her final slide with a list of collaborators.

There is a long, heavy pause in the room. The detective looks stunned. The librarian sidekick pulls out a flask and toasts our hero. Then suddenly, the department chair leaps to his feet and says, "HE WORKED FOR THE UNIVERSITY, WE OWN THE PATENT!"

The room erupts into a flurry of activity. PhD students start updating their CVs. The prof who teaches tech ethics immediately starts writing a paper. The department chair posthumously grants the murder victim full professor status in recognition of his contributions to robotics.

The detective quietly comes over and asks our hero for her evidence. She produces a full paper with 12 figures, 78 citations, and 17 authors. He says that it may take some time to sort this out. She says, the guy you arrested starts teaching in one week, better be sorted by then.

Our hero has approximately thirty seconds to bask in the glow of her triumph when her phone dings informing her she has a committee meeting in 10 minutes. She checks her email and 4 students are asking for copies of the syllabus for the class she's hopefully no longer teaching.

That night she receives an email from the dept chair: (1) Remember this is not part of your tenure case; (2) Our colleague has been released from jail & will resume teaching his class; (3) The ethics instructor just got a grant with a course release so you'll need to teach that.

Before she can start sobbing, she opens an email from one of the students in her machine learning class, telling her that the work they'd done analyzing that code was the most amazing learning experience of his life and can they please do more stuff like that.

After a long moment, she opens up a new document so that she can start creating a syllabus for Computing Ethics & Responsibility. She adds a sentence: "You may be occasionally asked to participate in real-world problem-solving activities as part of your grade."

The season finale ends with the librarian joining our hero in her office and producing a sign to hang on the door: THE TENURE-TRACK DETECTIVE AGENCY. It is a joke, of course. ... or is it???

If you read to the end, I feel like I should mention how difficult it is to write a story linearly while not knowing the plot and without the ability to edit at all, and also that it would make my life to see hero/librarian fanfiction on AO3. :D

And if you’re a TV exec or literary agent:

(And if you’re someone who is going to write tenure letters for me: don’t worry, I also did a lot of research, teaching, and service today. ;) )

#academia #murder #fanfiction #mystery #sherlock #veronica mars #faculty life #archive of our own #twitter #fiction

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cockbiteproductions · 4 years ago

Note

multiples of 8, except in the misc section. all even numbers for the misc section

200: My crush’s name is: well well well this question again. you’re not getting anything out of me!!! they fucking use this website!!!

192: I am allergic to: nothing. but i found out like yesterday not everyone gets dermatographia and im kinda annoyed. what do you mean your skin doesnt get red and puffy the moment you touch it......

184: Xbox or ps3: xbox solely because of ah

176: Last YouTube video watched: my watch history says this, which is a scene from a show called billions. this scene in particular is about my favorite character asking about their introduction scene with their former mentor figure that they quickly outranked and asking why they were picked for the internship that lead them down this [entire shitpath].

168: Luck: [long sigh]. [puts on clown makeup].

[obi wan voice] im my experience there’s no such thing as luck.

[rian voice] luck? there’s probability plausibility and actuality. luck is superstition. luck is lazy math. [winston voice] that’s what i always say.

160: Soul mates: again souls arent real..... nor do i believe that people are “meant for each other” on any sort of cosmic/larger level. you are more compatible with people based on your upbringing and your interests and your values and those are adaptable over time though some people are so different that they will never get along and other people match/complement each other incredibly well.

152: Phone or Online: lmaoooo this questionnaire once again showing its age. throwback to when these things weren’t synonymous. online for sure. what am i gonna do with a phone? talk to someone with my fucking voice? i think not.

144: Oranges or Apples: to eat by themselves? probably apples since they are easier and less of a mess. and apples are more consistently better than oranges. oranges, it’s easy to get a batch that just sucks. juiced? probably orange. i love me some fuckin orange juice. but i like apple cider more than orange juice.

136: Hillary or Obama: lmaoooo again.. the age of this. 2008 or 2012. going to guess 2008. obama but not like. enthusiastically. while he was certainly better than [what we got going on now] he still bombed the hell outta some countries......

128: Manicure or Pedicure: ive never had either but i would probably be more comfortable with a manicure. people touching my feet would make me ticklish.

120: Gay Marriage: the only type that should be allowed. sorry straights youre no longer allowed to get married. /s obviously.

112: Facebook: oh BOY are you fucking ready. are you???? im starting the readmore NOW because this is going to be something. i doubt anyone except robots maybe will actually read my deranged pro-privacy anti-facebook/social media/surveillance rant but im angry every time i think about it and if i were a more important person than a rando on the internet with a keyboard im sure facebook would hire someone to kill me one day.

FUCK FACEBOOK. FUCK THAT SHITTY ASS WEBSITE THAT AT EVERY TURN HAS BEEN REVEALED TO HAVE HORRIFYING PRACTICES OF DATA COLLECTION.

but before that, they need to pay some goddamn fucking taxes. they are profiting off the data of billions of people and getting away with paying SO LITTLE back.

you ever hear about deepface? no this is not the beginning of a prequel meme. deepface is facebook’s facial recognition technology and facial recognition is fucking terrifying. that shit is as good as humans at facial recognition at this point. does that not scare you? that a bunch of computers can figure out if this photo contains you or not? it’s one thing if humans recognize each other, but another thing when computers who can process data almost infinitely faster than humans can are able to do it. the scale and speed at which these fucking nightmares operates is hard for us to imagine and so we are all not scared enough of what they can do. this kind of technology is so deeply privacy violating it’s hard for me to stress it enough. every image of you ever uploaded on the internet could possibly be put through facial recognition tech. and with the fact that there are cameras literally everywhere at all times now at this point it’s so fucking possible that if desired, someone could find out where you are at all times. and that gets SO scary when used by governments. are you comfortable with your government knowing where YOU are at all times? yes? what about if tomorrow your government is overthrown by a group of radicals you completely disagree with? you still comfortable with that? facial recognition is kind of a fucking pandoras box that we are opening and now that we have the technology available to us, unless we actively take steps back from it, it WILL eventually/already is being used in malicious, intensely privacy invasive ways.

and everything in that above bullet point goes for ALL DATA COLLECTED ON YOU, EVER. everything you’ve ever said on facebook is probably put through some multi layered neural network fucking robot who is learning how to understand what humans say on your input and also cataloging things about you as a person. it is doing SO MUCH more than reading the exact text of what you are saying and then picking up on keywords. neural networks are an attempt to copy how humans think by making an artificial version of a brain basically. in simple terms it’s a map of points and connections and you feed it data for a while and tell it what the desired outcome should be. it will adjust those connections and the weight of those points based on your data and expected outcome. that change in connections and weights is how it learns. then after a while it has fed on enough data that it will begin to expect what your desired outcome is. now imagine millions and millions of connections and points. it’s fucking huge. you ever hear about how we don’t know how machine learning/deep learning/neural networks works? this is that. it’s because they are so large and they have changed their weights and points so much that we no longer understand how it makes its decisions. ml is on a deeper level starting to understand what you mean when you say words. like a human. and can pick up nuances humans cannot because of its perfect memory. do you understand how scary this is? do you? i really do not know how to express this better how absolutely buckshit wild and terrifying the idea that everything i say online can be scraped and put through a robot and a profile on me and who i am and my ideals can be gathered almost instantly. how hard would it be to write a scraper that goes to my blog and grabs the text of every post in my talk tag? and then there’s free and open source nlp software (or you can pay for it) and you can feed in everything ive said on this blog ever. you can go to my facebook. you can go to my twitter. you can find my profiles on every online platform ive ever used and take everything ive ever said and determine what kind of person i am based on that. and then you can then make further distinctions based on that data. (sidenote: facebook wouldnt have to scrape the data on my profile, it’s all in their databases already. they have everything ive ever posted on public or private, on my old profile i’ve deactivated, every photo ive posted or been tagged in, everything ive ever uploaded to their servers or have been associated with.) and someone or robot can make decisions about me based on that data. it could just be am i likely to buy [this product] or it could be something much more like am i a threat? am i dangerous to you, the person using this data about me? what are my politics? what are my views on [this topic]? are they too extreme? should i be denied [real life thing] based on what this machine has determined about me from my data online? not to sound fucking crazy, but you ever watch that episode of black mirror? nosedive? and its system where you can rate interactions with people? how this one girl was trying to increase her ranking so she would qualify for a cheaper price on housing? how we’re already starting to see things like this in real life with china’s social credit system?

call me a fucking wack job but i think it’s so deeply creepy that we have digitized so many aspects of our lives and leave machines we no longer understand how they make their decisions to analyze every bit of data about ourselves.

by the fucking way facebook tracks data on people WHO DO NOT USE FACEBOOK. FACEBOOK TRACKS DATA ON PEOPLE. WHO. DO. NOT. USE. FACEBOOK. are you scared? i am.

i’ve been thinking about this tweet from @/malwaretech on twitter from a few days ago. text: On a serious note, social media tracking is more extensive than you may think. For example: those Facebook 'like' buttons you see on every website? They call home. If you're logged into your FB account, it records that you visited that web page, even if you don't click 'like'. doesn’t that sound a lil fucked up to anyone else? that facebook knows that i visited that webpage even though i did not tell it? that it will use that data to build a better profile on what my interests are and that it will use that data to better sell ads to me? i’ll be honest i am unsure of if facebook sells that information to other vendors. i think that might be not allowed but i wouldn’t be surprised if that data somehow got into the hands of people who arent facebook.

the fact that for the longest time you could NOT get your data deleted from facebook? that even if you deactivated your account facebook would still keep all of that in their shit ass servers forever? as far as i know, that’s changed now, but i would not at all be surprised if the next day it was revealed that facebook was Actually Keeping all that info anyways

the fact that by default facebook’s privacy settings are set to allow anyone to see most info about you? just this whole opt out culture is so fucking wack. it should be opt in. your privacy settings should default on the MOST PRIVATE and it should be up to you to ACTIVELY SEARCH OUT how to change them to public. it is ON FACEBOOK to actively cultivate privacy but of fucking course they don’t.

lmao cambridge analytica politics russia brexit trump. i don’t have the energy to even open this fucking can of worms but i will say that again, another layer of deeply fucked up that political campaigns can use that data to try to coerce or influence elections.

do you remember when in 2019. yes twenty. fucking. nineteen. 2019. two thousand and nineteen. 2019. i dont know how more to stress how recent but late this is. 2019. facebook admitted that it and instagram were still. STILL. STILL. S T I L L. storing passwords as plaintext? meaning your password that is “password123ilovedogs” is stored AS “password123ilovedogs” in their database. it is STANDARD AND EXPECTED PRACTICE that websites store SECURE hashes of passwords (not like fucking. md5 or something) meaning you do a bunch of fucking “irreversible” math on the password and store that instead of the actual password itself. so the db would be storing “298!79v@w8W#R;3,f9jf” instead of your actual password. anyways face. fucking. book. was storing passwords as plain text. which means if they ever have a data breach on their passwords db then all that data inside will just be your actual goddamn password. your actual goddamn password. what the fuck? what the fuck? and we still use this website? we? me? i use this website daily? i use this website on a daily fucking basis and allow it to continue to collect information on me? im so goddamn angry.

the fact that now in this day and age you are considered weird for not having any social media? super fucked up. the fact that employers will check your social media and if you don’t have one that is somehow a red flag? weird as hell. why must we participate in the world’s largest data collection scandal ever just to be a member of society? i cannot choose to opt out. facebook collects data on me even if i do not have an account. society expects me to have some form of social media and if i do not then that i am the weird one for it. if you choose to live a life of trying not to be tracked it is almost impossible. can you live your life in modern society without an email address? without a smartphone or laptop? there is an expectation that every person is available to communicate with digitally and if you find the practice of data collection abhorrent and don’t want to use websites that do so, then you’re the weird one who has a LOT of society’s services unavailable to you.

im not going to even touch on the psychological effects that facebook and social media have on people other than to ONCE AGAIN, say they are very real and deeply fucked up.

by the way check out haveibeenpwned. enter your email and it’ll check against databases to see if your email has been on recent dumps. i have been. lately there have been a few older accounts of mine that have been breached and it’s terrifying.

fuck jesse eisenberg man he fucked over spiderman crazy

fuck faang. fuck big tech. fuck data collection. btw edward snowden is a hero. fuck all of this.

104: The future: man we’re in for it. i am not optimistic about it at all. too much tech progression / not enough foresight / expansion/globalization of the world / global warming / political and economic issues are all coming to a head to make the world a fucking disaster.

96: Changed a diaper: never done it! i am not around children often.

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: having a vague idea of where things are locally. im very bad with directions.

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: answered already.

84: People call me: yeesa, apparently. i have a fair amount of nicknames but i just call myself teresa.

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: sure haven’t though i deserve one

80: The first person i talked to today was: soph because she wakes up at a normal goddamn time so i’ll sometimes have a text from her from a few hrs ago

76: Right now I am talking to: milo and a discord server im in for a group of friends i made when i was applying to college. though i havent responded in quite a while since i went on my angry facebook rant.

74: I have/will get a job: well i HAD a job for the beginning of the summer when i was a TA but i do not any more as that was first summer semester only. hopefully in the fall i’ll have a job as a TA again but who knows. and then after that when i graduate i hope hope hope hope hope i will have a job lined up.

72: Today: woke up. made a plum smoothie. played minecraft. took a nap. here i am. it’s all very riveting.

70: Next Weekend: it’ll happen for sure. odds are i will be waking up and eating food and coming on the internet and chatting with friends and doing a bit of writing and trying to learn a bit more html.

68: The worst sound in the world: answered already.

66: People that make you happy: will roland lmao.

64: My friends are: well it’s basically the same people i tagged in my last post on people who make me happy.

62: My School: you tryin to doxx me? it’s alright. not the best for my major. and also stupidly trying to reopen for the fall because theyre greedy and idiots. it was like my 5th choice school but it is what it is.....

60: I lose all respect for people who: already answered

58: Your hair color is: black as fuck. im east asian.

56: Favorite web site: controversial but archive of our own dot org i guess. i believe in their mission and like how they have advocated for fans and have created a fan-owned space on the internet. they’re not perfect but i overall support them.

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: answered already

52: My room is: a time capsule of what i liked in late middle school/early high school.

50: Where would you like to be: im fine where i am. maybe visiting friends though. i would like to Hang With Them and Do Fun Activities.

48: Ever been in love: who’s to say....... what is love? (baby don’t hurt me). but for real the concept of love is weird to me, especially romantic love. i don’t know. i’ve certainly obsessed over people. i’ve noticed i kind of “pick people” to have crushes on. i can’t really say why. but then it creates a feedback loop of i pay more attention to them -> i think more about them -> i like them more. so i’ve made conscious decisions that have lead to me obsessing over people.

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girl but that’s just because people in fandom spaces tend to be women and most of my friends ive made through fandom.

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: kaity is coming to my town but we cant see each other because of a pandemic so im kinda fucking miffed about that. i didn’t get to see maria before she left my state so i’m also miffed about that.

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: lmaooooo no. i would just like to be satisfied with my life. would like to see friends. do fun things with them.

40: Last person I got mad at: idk im not generally a mad person. mark zuckerberg probably.

38: I wish I was a professional: as in i suddenly have all the skills and talent needed to be a professional? i think a director &|| writer tbh. i would love to have the Creative Vision necessary to come up with dope ideas AND translate what i have in mind into real life. i would love the ability to be able to tell compelling stories that mean a lot to people.

32: Athlete: lmao if it was 2008 or 2012 i would ahve said ryan lochte but nevermind. idk. maybe katie ledecky.

24: Movie: am not much one for movies...... star trek 2009.

16: Book: i don’t know how to read.

8: Yankee candle scent: idk about yankee candle specifically but i love the smell of apple.

#not rt #teresa answers stuff #Anonymous

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onisiondrama · 5 years ago

Photo

PART 12 - videos #22 & 23

(Click here for video mirrors) - These are not my words or thoughts, I’m just summarizing what Greg / James is saying in his videos. Apologies for any offensive language or comments that may appear. - I am not repeating stories anymore and will replace these stories with brackets describing what he’s talking about. If you don’t know these stories you’re going to have to go back and read previous parts or watch his previous videos.

the past

- Another email. Person says Greg and Shiloh’s relationship reminded them of their relationship with their ex. Their ex would fake mental illness and fake episodes when they would try to leave. Greg says Shiloh would fake seizures around when they had arguments or when he tried to break up with her so that makes sense. [Shiloh popped out of seizure after he threatened to call ambulance story] He says that’s why he knew they were fake and why he didn’t take them seriously. He just thought that’s who she was and thought she was just weird. - Person says this type of manipulation only works on people who want to help. Greg says his hero complex is pathetic and he hates it. He doesn’t want to save people because it always screws him over. Except with Kai, but Kai didn’t need to be saved because he had his whole life planned out. He was going to be a surgeon, but instead Greg helped him get a bachelor's degree in psychology by spending $100,000. He says it was cool he got to help Kai with that. - Person says if Greg was still with Shiloh, he’d be living in fear. They list aspects of his life they believe she would control. Greg says the only thing she controlled was if he looked at a women, h-e-n-t-a-i, or p-o-r-n she’d freak out on him. She’s very jealous. - Person describes their relationship with their ex more. Greg says Shiloh didn’t try to ruin his life until she started doing interviews, 8 years after [Shiloh cheated story, he never jerked off to her crying] - Person talks about the impact their relationship had on them 6 years later, trust issues, avoid people, push people away. Greg says Shiloh did not have that impact on him. - Person says what Shiloh did to Greg was abuse. Greg says he feels putting the label of abuse on what Shiloh did to him is not what he wants to do right now. [Shiloh wrapped arms around him story.] He says she wanted him to do something bad to her so she could use that to guilt trip him. He realized in that moment some guys lash out and hit because they are backed into a wall and don’t know what to do. He was tested and he doesn’t hit. He giggles like the Joker, but in more of a pussy boy way. Shiloh weighed the same as him and was very strong and he didn’t want to fight it because he was afraid he’d hurt her. He doesn’t want to say he was abused because as a man it doesn’t feel normal. - Another fan email. Greg says he doesn’t have a perfect memory, but he has a pretty good one, he doesn’t have BPD, doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, so he has a normal brain besides his depression that he was diagnosed with. He says no one knows all the facts. If there’s a god, he or she might. - Person says they think there are details on both sides that aren’t being told. Greg says he doesn’t know what that means. He tells us stuff as it comes to his mind. - Person says Greg doesn’t have to prove his innocence unless he’s charged and even then he doesn’t have to prove himself to strangers online. Greg says the problem is the strangers online can harass you, SWAT you, send you horrible things in the mail, constantly make meat pizza deliveries to you. Every pizza company in the area should know by now not to deliver pizzas to him because they’re pranks and they’re wasting time and money. People don’t care if they’re stealing from companies, or if they make illegal calls to emergency agencies, or if they’re wasting animal control’s time. That’s why he has to establish innocence to the general public. [Internet is guilty until proven innocent when it should be innocent until proven guilty rant] - Person says they are 37 year old woman who works in law enforcement and it makes them sick that people are going so hard on someone who has yet to be charged with a crime. She says she wanted to show support and tells him to stay strong. He says that’s cool. [People don’t care about real crimes rant.] - Says his relationship with Shiloh was toxic and he’s glad he broke up with her. He should have broken up with her sooner. [Called police on Shiloh story, he ran away to LA.] He says a month ago he found out he could have gotten a restraining order against her. [Shiloh made him feel like she was the one, cheated.] If you raise someone else’s baby and they got pregnant with someone else you never met before while you were dating them, you’re a cuck. He’s happy to date a single mom, but not in that situation.

reality

- He want to bring some of you to reality. He says if you search “onision jail” on twitter you will see the worst things ever said to him. He received an email that said “I can’t wait until you die in jail.” -This is the reality check he hopes we all face: there’s no crime. [Sarah admitted nothing happened until she was an adult, NDA, blackmail.] Billie and Sarah both admitted Sarah was never groomed. People were around and saw them with Sarah so it was obvious she was never groomed. He was mean to her. - People talk about photos being exchanged. They’re talking about Kai, not him. The laptop belonged to Kai. Phone text exchanges is what Kai’s accused of. He 100% believes Kai wouldn’t want to send photos of that nature to someone who is not of age. The photos were not obtained through honest means in his opinion. It’s disturbing someone held onto and released those photos when they knew Kai didn’t want them to have them. He says there were two pictures and they wound up on instagram with parts cropped out. It was not sexual. - Says Regina says photos were exchanged, but he was informed Regina is a liar. Regina has no proof this occurred. He says he doesn’t know about this exchange because he is disinterested in Regina. - [Doorbell rings and dog barks.] Greg comes back and says once again you guys pranked the pizza place, defrauding pizza companies by having them make pizza and not paying for them. They got sent away once again without being payed. You guys are absolute scumbags. - Says Regina is a very ugly girl. He says he knows it comes off as mean, but he doesn’t believe in filters or PC culture. He’s allowed to think someone is ugly or gross. He saw her in a video thumbnail. He’s not trying to get our approval. - Greg says crimes typically have to happen in order for someone to go to jail. What he’s accused of is grooming. It didn’t happen and if it did it’s not a crime. - Greg and Kai backed up all their texts on a cloud so there is no escaping the evidence. He says they would show us, but we would probably try to get him canceled again for “doxing” [air quotes]. If he tries to show proof and defend himself you guys say it’s doxing. If it ever goes to court he’ll unload all the texts from day 1 to the last day. It’ll prove she said she groomed them and there were zero inappropriate photo exchanges. [Kai’s not into p-o-r-n] Except he thinks Kai had guys kissing on his tumblr. - Sarah is a shameful liar. She keeps saying she has evidence yet they’re still free. Greg have her $150 for her birthday because she helped him build a chicken coop. He says it’d be cool if she gave that back because she’s done more than $150 worth of damage with her lies. She also apparently made tens of thousands of dollars off of you guys being gullible. - [His forums were 18+ only] Says there was a rumor the forums were deleted last year when the forums where people submit stuff, onision.xyz, haven’t been around since 2016. There were dead forums up that no one was using. All the submission sections were deleted 2 years ago because there was too much controversy around adults sharing photos. He was just telling people if they were fat or ugly or not. - His discord is adults only and doesn’t even have a selfie section. - He never exchanged inappropriate picture with anyone. - He says the police representative that was spoken to was the craziest thing because he doesn’t know why you’d comment on an open case. People say there’s 19 calls or investigations. The police have only been to his house 6 times. They’re talking about how many times people called the police, but most of the time they don’t come because they’re sick of people making shit up. - [Sarah was rejected, apologized for r-a-p-i-n-g them, left] He says he bought her the movie Dodgeball. She was mad he didn’t want to watch it with her and that was one of the last interactions they had. He made it up to her by watching another movie. He was trying to make her happier before she left so they wouldn’t be on horrible terms. [His BPD video upset her.] - He doesn’t know why Sarah would watch this video, but if she does he tells her to move on with her life so he can move on with his. He tells her when he was talking about gross smokers, he wasn’t talking about her. She never smoked around him so he wouldn’t be able to taste any smoke nastiness on his tongue. He was talking about Shiree who took his virginity. Sarah internalized everything he said as if it was about her, which is probably part of her mental thing. - If the accusations against Kai were real, they would have went to the police, but instead they went to the internet. As far as he understands Regina promoted a plastic surgery operation, Shiloh promoted a new album, Sarah promoted a Venmo with tens of thousands of dollars. Everyone’s promoting something. - The crime accusations are against Kai, but people don’t talk about Kai because he’s not popular to talk about so they blend what people say Kai did onto him. None of this will hold up in court. The police are being pranked. - [He repeats his earlier points and stories a lot.] Asks if his crime is getting blackmailed and sexually extorted by someone? Says he has witnesses, but not to Sarah apologizing. That was just to him. - He says someone tried to SWAT them but it failed. The police department is fed up by how much people try to troll them. Someone tried to send him mail with powder in it and they shut down the post office because it was dripping liquid and had a hate messages. He says no doubt from one of the moron commentary channel viewers that believed everything they said. Basically threatening his life. His house was egged by teenagers and they looked in his car. He would show us the footage, but he’s saving it for court. They thought they weren’t home because they covered up their windows after Hansen.

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sauveteen · 5 years ago

Text

Something Old, Something New | Stuck Together Epilogue

hi! this is a repost. grace and i co-wrote stuck together, and since she deleted her blog ( :(( ), i am reuploading all the extras! here’s 9.2k of our local Dumbasses and their happy ending.

if you haven’t read Stuck Together yet, it’s not too late my friends

There’s a lot of things people think they have to say when someone mentions a wedding, or rather, a wedding day. They're all stupidly cheesy quotes, always along the lines of ‘Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.’ or, Nadine's favourite: ‘When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.’ That one makes her want to throw up a little, because by the time you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, there's a very probable chance that you already are. Extravagant weddings to Nadine are like birthday parties; sure, they're fun, but you're turning a year older anyway. Does it really matter if you show the world? If it was up to her, Nadine would've dragged Shawn by his stupidly long curls and married him in a dumpster, but it wasn't up to her for that very reason. It was up to her mother and Shawn's mother and their friends and their pets and fuck — whatever. (At least Nadine’ll end up with some cool pictures for her private Instagram and exactly twenty seven followers. Content grind and all, you know?)

Point is, wedding days aren't all that. So when Nadine’s eyes fly open at the sound of her alarm, she immediately feels the persistent knot in her gut start to tighten. Gingerly turning to her side, Nadine reaches around for Shawn, heart sinking when she realizes that he isn't there. He’s probably somewhere with Brian and Andrew, still snoring softly into his pillow, because all he has to do is shower and put on a suit. Men have it so easy.

She reaches over for her phone, blearily scrolling through her notifications, face half sunken into her pillow. There’s some from family she hasn’t seen or heard from in a while, all different variations of Can’t wait to see you, congrats! Nadine replies to a few friends who say they’re so excited for her, and she scrolls through her notifications again. Unconsciously, she searches for her dad’s number, but it never shows up.

She doesn’t let it upset her, or really, she doesn’t have time to; Anaya bursts into the room like she owns the place, shooing Nadine up and out of bed. “Get in the shower!” she yells, pinching Nadine’s side. Nadine yelps loudly, jumping as she grabs a towel from the rack, shutting the door behind her. She leans against it, breathing heavily. She wishes Shawn were here.

Nadine closes her eyes and tilts her head back, thinking of exactly what he’d say to her if he was there. It’s fine, Nads. We can go to the courthouse if you want. Just me, you, and a random person off the street to be our witness. She’d shake her head and say, No, Shawn. We planned this wedding, we have to go through with it, as tempting as that sounds. And Shawn would nod and say, You’re right. But it’s the same principle. Just you and me, baby. Don’t think about anyone else. And she’d know he was right. So she lets those thoughts comfort her, stepping under the warm water, running the razor over her already waxed everything. Just to make sure.

Nadine lathers the soap in the washcloth and lets her thoughts wander. She’s going to blow dry her hair, and then her mom is going to go through it with a curling iron, and then someone’s going to do her makeup (maybe Karen?), and she’ll text Shawn to see how everything’s going on his end. She hopes her mom doesn’t try to do the ‘something old, something new’ tradition, because she doesn’t want to cry when she sees something of her late grandmother’s when her makeup’s just been done. She misses her grandma a lot, right now. Her grandma would probably tell her mom to calm down, and Nadine needs that right now. She needs everyone to calm down, because she isn't calm, and if everyone else isn't either then God knows how Nadine's going to get through this day. She rubs the soap in particularly harshly, and hisses. Not a day for her inner masochist to shine through.

“Deen, baby?” Anaya says through the door, and her gentle knocks are thunder to Nadine’s ears. She blinks, inhaling sharply, and shuts off the water. “Are you almost done?”

“Not yet, mum. Have to wash my hair!” she calls back, waits for Anaya’s footsteps to fade, and then she turns the water back on. Nadine tips her head back on the tile, letting the scalding water run over her skin, and tries to even her breaths. She imagines Shawn again, his hands on her shoulders, telling her to just breathe with him. Come on, Nads, he'd say, nothing to worry about, yeah? And he'd be right, because there isn't anything to worry about. It's her wedding day. She's getting married to the love of her entire fucking life, and she'll be damned if she lets herself ruin it. So she forces her thoughts down her throat, and wills some sense of gratitude into her head. Hums a tune to herself, recognizes it as Shawn’s, and softly smiles to herself. She's marrying him. She's marrying the man who’s made her life into one big, melodramatic song, and she's never been more in love.

She plays the thought over and over in her head, and her irrational worries and anxieties give way to the warmth and excitement that starts bubbling in her chest. Nadine practically grins as she rinses the shampoo from her hair, squealing giddily at one point. She’s marrying Shawn today. It’s actually happening. She’s really going to be his forever, and she can’t fucking wait. Once the whole thing is over and she’s in bed with him and she’s staring at him and they’re alone and together and married she’s going to kiss the living daylights out of him, and maybe fuck the living daylights out of him, too. And she can’t. Fucking. Wait.

Fifteen minutes and one shitty blow dry job later, Nadine’s walking out of the bathroom in a robe and nothing else, and her mom is brandishing the curling iron like a magician’s wand. It makes Nadine laugh, and the knot in her chest loosens. She's surrounded by people she loves, and she's in love with her best friend and so she has no reason to be sad. (Tell that to her head, though. Nadine's trying. She's trying, and maybe it's working, but the little flicker of sadness never goes away.) She starts to twist a loose thread on her robe, and then untangles it. And she keeps doing that, and pretends like it's the worrisome knot in her chest that she's playing with.

“Are you ready?” Anaya asks, and Nadine shrugs, because how could she not be? She’d have to be, anyway. Anaya sits her down in the chair, and runs a hand through her curls. She clicks her tongue, walking to the bathroom. “You did a shitty job with your hair, you know.”

“I tried!” (She didn’t, and she knows it.)

“I know you didn’t.” Anaya plugs the blowdryer in, working it in a way only she knows how to do. “How come you never learned to do this?”

“You always did it for me!” Nadine exclaims. “And now Shawn does it for me. I miss Shawn.” She sticks her bottom lip out, and Anaya blows the warm air in her face. “Hey!”

“Stop pouting. No worry lines on your big day.” They work together in silence, Nadine sectioning off hair for her while her mom dries it as best she can. Nadine looks up at her, her beautiful, amazing, hard-headed mother (she knows where she gets it from), and wants to cry. She takes a deep breath. Pull it together, Nads. She can’t cry just yet, she has to save it for her vows. “Nadine, love?”

“Hm?”

“Your father isn’t coming. I got an email this morning.” Nadine blinks, and she feels it. She feels the knot tying around itself, over and over again, and it gets kind of hard to breathe when her chest aches like that. Her mother didn’t even put piece of shit in front of ‘father’, meaning she’s serious. She's getting married and her father didn't even have it in him to at least call and let her down. He sent an email. A fucking email. Nadine takes a deep breath, exhaling loudly. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, mumma.” Nadine blinks again, and then she’s fine. She’s extremely totally fine and she doesn’t need Shawn at all. She's an independent woman and she doesn't need her stupid boy fiancé. She’ll see him later. For amazing post-marriage, pre-honeymoon sex. “It’s fucking whatever. I knew it was a long shot, anyway.”

(Just because she knew it was a long shot didn't mean that she wasn't hoping for it to happen. Camila Cabello got married recently, and Shawn took Nadine to the wedding, and Nadine cried. Camila and Shawn and literally everyone else in the hall and on the fucking internet thought it was because she was happy for Camila, and she was, but that wasn't it. She was crying because Camila’s father walked her down the aisle and he was crying because he was so happy and deep inside, Nadine knew she wouldn't have that. And then she felt bad, because she was making it all about herself, and so she put on a smile and helped Camila change into her reception dress. She knew what she was doing when she mailed her father the wedding invitation, knew that she was only signing up for heartbreak. But she had hope, because she still loves him, she guesses. He's still her father, and she still loves him, and she wishes now more than ever that she could've done something to have him stay.)

“You sure?” Anaya’s gentle voice plunges her back into reality. She unplugs the blow dryer, kissing the top of Nadine’s head, and Nadine lets her eyes flutter shut at the affection. Pretends like she isn't actually pushing tears back in. She loves her mother, her mother who stayed, and lets that thought consumer her. “It doesn’t have to be fucking whatever.” She turns the curling iron back on, waving her hand over it, and nods. “Good, still warm.”

“Well, it is. Fucking whatever, I mean.” There’s a long lull, Anaya working on Nadine’s hair while she sits and stares at herself in the mirror. The flicker of sadness in her chest is becoming more like a flame. Nadine shoots off a text to Shawn asking how he is just as Karen and Aaliyah come stumbling through the door. Nadine narrows her eyes at the both of them, and Aaliyah just smiles. “Does everyone have a key to this room?”

“Not Shawn!” Aaliyah says, smiling like she’s got a secret. Nadine rolls her eyes. “Anaya, will you do my hair too?”

“Of course I will!” she exclaims, finishing the last curl on Nadine. Nadine tilts her head, staring at the way the curls frame her face. She sighs, eyes narrow. Is her face always this puffy? Maybe she needs a cold washcloth. Why is she so red? She hopes someone has color correcting concealer, because she doesn’t. She thought she was going to be dark enough by this time of year to miss any weird redness. She shakes her head.

“I’m going to start my makeup, I think,” she says to no one in particular, and Karen looks up from her perch on the bed, where she’s been reading some magazine. (She's also tearing up, just a little. She can't believe the girl who cried in her lap years ago is marrying her son today. Anaya teases her about it, but Karen really doesn't give a single shit. It's not her fault that her best friend is made of stone.)

“Aaliyah said she would help you, honey.” Karen comes to sit next to her, and squeezes her hand. Karen always knows what she needs. She shuts her eyes tight. No tears yet. Why is it okay for Karen to cry while she has to hold it in?

“I will when my hair is done,” she hears Aaliyah say. Nadine nods, and she spreads the primer over her face, deliberately rubbing it in. She takes her foundation and a fresh, new blender, and smears it, making sure its as blended as possible. Karen smooths out a spot Nadine missed, and then kisses her temple, and she feels so loved and unloved at the same time that she might actually cry. But she won’t, because then her makeup would be ruined. Karen gets up, going to her best friend. Nadine takes a deep breath. Aaliyah taps her thigh, and Nadine turns to her. “Ready? Oh shit, you already did your foundation.”

“Shit,” Nadine agrees, and the moms laugh from where they’re doing their own hair. “Can you still do my eye makeup?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Aaliyah pulls out her bag, revealing what Nadine thinks is too many products. “Don’t worry, Nads. I got you.” Nadine closes her eyes and lets Aaliyah work her magic. Her mind wanders again, and she thinks about her mom.

Twenty six years ago her mom got married to her dad, and then two years later, there was Nadine. And then six years after that, there was no dad except for on birthdays and sometimes Christmas, but rarely. And Nadine thinks about that, and she thinks her mom might be the single strongest woman on earth for dealing with that, and dealing with all of Nadine’s questions about why ‘daddy won’t call back.’ Nadine sniffles, and Aaliyah cups her face gently.

“You okay?” she whispers, and Nadine nods, keeping her eyes closed. Her mom dealt with so much fucking shit, and she went through all of this, all of what Nadine is going through right now and will go through with. The cold feet, the wedding dress, the vows, the kiss. She got married to a man she thought was going to be her Shawn. That hits her straight in the heart, and suddenly it isn't a knot, it's a giant, massive hole in her heart that Nadine doesn't know how to fill. “Look down for me, Nads,” she hears, and feels her mascara being put on. She can’t cry right now. She can’t. It’s not— she reaches for her phone. “‘Kay, now up, please.” She unlocks it with her thumb, and Aaliyah pats her face, knowing Nadine needs space. Nadine loves her for it. “You can finish up, yeah? You’re good at blending your face.”

Nadine nods, texting Shawn. hello hi bb please answer me. She puts on her powder foundation, and then blush. Nadine blinks at herself. Her puffiness and redness is gone, replaced by Nadine-who’s-getting-married, and her phone buzzes.

Shawn <33

Hey, just saw this lol sorry! I’m great. You doing good? I hope Mom and Liyah aren’t being too wild

Nadine puts her phone down, slowly applying both liquid and powder highlight, and she sniffles again. She sees her mother frown out of the corner of her eye. “Are you getting sick?” Anaya asks, concern lacing her voice, and Nadine shakes her head. She knows she’s being uncharacteristically quiet and she knows they’ve noticed and that makes her want to curl into a ball on the bed and sob until they call Shawn and tell him to come over here because she’s hysterical but also, really, she doesn’t want that at all. She puts the highlight brush down a little too hard, and Karen jumps.

“Deen, sweetheat?”

Nadine shakes her head, blinking rapidly. She picks up her phone, willing her hands to stop shaking. need u, kind of sos. im ffine but i need you, she types and shakes her head again. “I’m fine. I’m fine, you guys.” Her voice is cracking, and she hears her phone buzz again, and again. She’s still blinking too fast, and she mists her face with the setting spray at a bad attempt to keep her mascara in place.

“Don’t worry, I used waterproof,” Aaliyah says, but she’s not smiling. Nadine laughs anyway, no mirth behind it at all. She shakes her head, puffs her cheeks, and lets out a long breath.

“Better Than Sex? The best.” She sniffles again, tucking her hair behind her ears, flipping it back. “I’m honestly okay.” There’s a knock at the door, and Anaya jumps up to get it. She opens the door and shrieks, closing it. An arm blocks it from closing all the way.

“Anaya, please let me in,” Nadine hears, and it’s Shawn, she knows it.

“Is that Shawn?” she asks, standing. Aaliyah sits her back down.

“Shawn, you can’t be here!” Karen exclaims, but he jimmies his way in, walking toward her. Nadine stands up, still in her robe, and Shawn hasn’t even seen her yet. “Shawn! It’s bad luck!”

“Don’t think luck works with us, anymore, Mum.” He positions himself between the three of them and Nadine, and he sighs. “Can you guys leave, please?” he asks, and all three women frown. “Please? It’ll be five minutes, okay?” He pushes them toward the door, and Nadine sniffs, wiping at her nose delicately with a tissue. She feels very ladylike. Shawn turns around, finally facing her, and he gasps. “Oh, shit.”

“What?!” she exclaims, looking around, looking at herself in the mirror. “Fuck, did I fuck it up?” She fiddles with the knot on the robe.

“No, Jesus,” he says. He sounds choked up, and Nadine’s eyes widen. “You’re so beautiful, Nads, holy fuck.” His voice is thick with emotion, and he sniffles this time. Nadine shakes her head.

“Do not.” She walks toward him and he kisses her sweetly, chastely, just once. She pulls back, brushing imaginary dust off his sleep shirt. “I’m the one trying not to cry.”

“I can’t wait to see you in the dress,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat, kissing her nose. And then he pulls back a little, eyes widened, mouth twisted in a frown. “But yeah, wait. Why are you trying not to cry, again?”

Nadine shakes her head. She knows if she tries to say it she’ll start to sob, and while her mascara won't run and neither will her eyeliner, she doesn’t want to cry. It’s the principle of the thing. Her arms go around his waist, and she kind of wants to melt into Shawn and forget that she's supposed to be the woman of the hour. She wants to marry him without having to worry about who shows up or who doesn't show up and— and God, she's really going through it. But she can't, and so Nadine buries her head in his chest, and Shawn kisses the top of her head, careful not to mess up her hair. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

Nadine curls her fingers into the fabric of his tee, rubbing it between her fingers to ground herself. She does this for a minute or two, breath hitching quietly and Shawn shushes her, carefully running his hand up and down her back. He's saying and doing exactly what she imagined he would, but there's a difference between having him here and having him in her head. It feels more real, and Nadine needs that. When she pulls back, hazy-eyed and a little shaken, he leads them to the bed. She curls into him, and Shawn tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, stroking the settled curls with wary gentleness. (He didn't know her hair could do that — he's so used to seeing it all wild and everywhere that the fact that Nadine can look prettier than she does every single day kind of knocks the breath out of him.)

“Shawn?”

“Yeah, baby?”

Her lip quivers and she takes a shaky, shallow breath. Her voice is small when she asks, “You won’t ever leave me and our kids that we don’t have yet behind, right?” Her voice cracks a little, and Shawn pulls back, brows furrowed.

“Nadine Anaya, what the actual fuck?” He flicks her ear, and she whines. “Why would you ask me that? I wouldn’t. Nadine.” He sounds so hurt, and that makes Nadine a lot more sadder than she wants to be, so she lets out a sob. Something dawns on him, then, and he sighs, knowing what she’s asking. “Baby, no, no, listen. I would never in a million years leave you. Maybe that sounds like an empty promise, but sweetheart, you’re everything, right? You're it for me.” He toys with the ring on her left hand, presses a kiss to it. “That’s what this means. I love you and you’re stuck with me, right? We’re stuck together, you know that.”

“I know that, and I love you, but.. but he—” She shakes her head, and scolds herself for letting her emotions get the better of her. A tear falls, and Shawn thumbs it away. “I hate crying, what the fuck.” Shawn laughs, but it sounds choked, and he kisses her temple, her cheeks, her nose. “Shawn, I—”

“Sweetheart, he never deserved your love.” Nadine finally looks up, and his eyes hold love and compassion and concern and unshed tears and anger, and she doesn’t think...he’s ever expressed any sort of sentiment about her dad. Not even when he left, not when he stopped calling. “Any fucker who walks out of his child’s life like that is a coward. How could he leave you behind like that? You're probably the best fucking thing in his piece of shit life, and if he couldn't see that, fuck him.” Nadine shakes her head, and Shawn cups her face. Her heart might just burst. “He never deserved your mom, and he never deserved you. You’ve got your mom, you’ve got my family, you’ve got me. And I’m never fucking leaving. Never.”

“Never say never, I think Justin Bieber said that once.” Nadine starts to hum, and Shawn kisses her, hard and fast but so full of love she feels her chest start to expand. It shuts her up, though, and she lets him break the kiss. She clings to him, his thumbs gently brushing the shell of her ears, and she knows why she fell in love with him. He treats her like Nadine knows she deserves to be treated.

“Don’t bring him up on our wedding day, asshole.” Shawn sounds fond, though, so she’s not too worried. “Do you believe me? I’m never leaving. I mean it. Never in a million years. We’re. Stuck. Together. You can thank our moms for that, and I do every single day.”

Nadine laughs wetly. “God, you’re so fucking cheesy.” She hugs him one last time, squeezing so tightly that he actually lets out a tiny shriek. Nadine kisses his shoulder, and takes a deep breath. She loves him so much, and she’s marrying him. “Okay. Yeah. Fuck. I have to get dressed and so do you. Go dry your hair.” He shakes his head violently, droplets of water spraying onto her, and she pushes him away. He laughs. “Shawn! I just got my hair done!”

“And you look so beautiful,” he says, cupping her face. His eyes flicker across Nadine's face in apparent pride and bewilderment, and when he leans in to press a quick kiss against her lips, she kind of melts into a puddle. “Nads, I know we've been planning this wedding for ages now but I'm… I'm still in awe.” His voice is soft, like a child sharing a secret, and Nadine's grip around his shirt tightens.

“Of what, babe?”

“The fact that I get to marry you? I get to marry the person I've shared my entire life with. I feel so fucking lucky, Nads, you have no idea.”

Can't cry, can't cry, can't cry. Nadine pushes him away, turning her head to the side, and inhales deeply, “Save that cheese talk for the vows, bitch, or I'm kicking your ass.”

When Shawn gets up, he leans in front of her, grabbing her face between his hands and squishing it so she resembles a fish. He brushes their noses together, saying, “Yeah?” He's grinning against her lips, and she's a second away from pulling him in by his neck and just riding the smirk out of him then and there. “Too bad, Nads. Can't get rid of me anymore, because I'm fucking marrying you today.” He pinches her side, and she yelps as he chuckles. “I can’t fucking wait.” Shawn runs his thumb over her cheek, and she leans into his hand. “You gonna be okay for the next little bit?”

“I will.” With that, he exits the room, and the three women barrel in, eyes wide. She frowns at them. “What?” She knows she’s being difficult, knows her mom will be mad, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Why’d you let him in?” Anaya shrieks. Nadine pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing. “When there’s tradition?!”

“Maybe she just needed to see him.” Aaliyah grabs the garment bag from the closet, unzipping her dress. “Maybe tradition and luck don’t matter when you’re Shawn and Nadine.” She turns to Anaya and Karen, frowning at the pair of best friends. “Don’t make this harder on her than it needs to be.” Nadine takes her hand, squeezing it gratefully. The knock on the door signifies the photographer’s arrival, and the day officially begins.

Properly mollified, Anaya pours mimosas into plastic champagne flutes, handing them out to everyone in the room. Nadine turns on music, and the four sit around for a moment, just talking like it’s a regular brunch, and not like it’s probably the biggest day of Nadine’s life. They gossip and bitch and moan and laugh until there’s unshed tears in their eyes. Anaya stands abruptly, turning off the music, and Nadine checks the time. She blinks. The ceremony starts in forty minutes.

“Ready?” her mom asks, and she nods, thinking of the moment she sees Shawn, and how she just might have to cry. It’s okay if she cries during her vows, though. That’s allowed. She strips from the robe, and her mom and Karen help her into the dress. The fabric slips over her shoulders, and she zips up the side, taking a look at herself in the mirror. The gold and silver plated stars glisten under the bright light, and she blinks, mouth parted slightly at the woman in the mirror. The click of the camera brings her back to reality as Aaliyah hands her the little golden crown of leaves, and they all pin it to her head. Her curls are tamed, skin glowing, nails perfect.

Nadine indulges her inner seven year old and does a little twirl, giggling in the process. She feels like an absolute princess, and for a moment, she's kind of glad that she didn't get to plan most of the wedding. She'd probably be in her cow onesie, and while that sounds comfy, the dress makes her feel… royal. Like a bride’s supposed to feel. Her mother comes up behind her, looking like the beautiful goddess she is, and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Mum?” she asks, and her mom wipes a tear away. She didn't know her mumma was capable of crying, and the shock on Karen's proof is enough that no one else did, either. It makes Nadine’s chin tremble.

“You’re beautiful.” She sweeps Nadine’s hair behind her shoulders, standing next to her. She’s taller than her mom, standing at 5’8, and Nadine curls an arm around her mom’s shoulders. She turns to face Anaya, who takes a deep, shaky breath. “I’m so glad you found your person.”

“He’s a good one,” Nadine says, and Anaya nods.

“I couldn’t have thought of anyone more perfect for you.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and Nadine’s pretty set on the fact she's never seen her mom cry. Not when her dad left, not when she cried over Hot Football Guy, not even when her and Shawn got into their Big Fight. Nadine’s breath hitches, and she crushes her mom in a hug.

“Don’t cry, Mumma,” she whispers, and that only makes Anaya’s tears fall faster. “I’m okay.”

“I know you are.” She composes herself, stroking Nadine’s hair gently, pushing it out of her face. “I’m just happy.”

A choked sob comes from behind the pair, and they turn to look at Karen, whose face is buried into her daughter’s shoulder. Aaliyah smiles apologetically, her mother's shoulders rising and falling with steady cries, and Anaya glares at her best friend.

“Karen. This is my moment.”

“Oh, shut up, Ana!” Comes her muffled reply, delicate hand waving her off, and Nadine has to laugh. “My daughter is marrying my son!”

“You know that sounds wrong, right, mum?” Aaliyah frowns, and her mother swats her arm. She groans in protest, sending SOS eyes to Nadine, who stalks over to Karen. Grabs her by the shoulders, and gently wipes her tears away. Her own smile is trembling, though, and she didn't know it was possible for her to feel so much happiness in one go.

“I'm so glad I have you…” Nadine drops her voice at this, grinning gently, “..Mum.”

“Oh my god, Nadine,” Karen's cry then is louder than the rest, and she gently pushes Nadine away, “That just makes it worse. I want to hug you so bad but I'll ruin your dress, and oh my… Ana. Ana! Did you hear that? She called me mum.”

Anaya breathes heavily through her nose, hands on her hips, and pretends to be annoyed. She isn't, though. Her daughter is marrying her best friend's son, and Anaya thanks the heavens. She isn't religious, and she's rarely ever found reasons to be thankful for, but she thanks all the Gods she can for all the fucked up things that led to this very moment. To her daughter marrying someone who loves her more than anything in the world. She thanks the eternal sky for giving to Nadine what it couldn't give to her, and sniffs.

“Okay, Aaliyah, your turn to cry now.” Nadine teases, and the younger Mendes playfully rolls her eyes, but the pink in her cheeks gives her happiness away. Nadine holds her hands out, saying, “Bring it in, mami.” And then the two hug, and they shriek a little, and Aaliyah does almost cry. She hopes to find love like her brother someday, because she feels lonely as fuck. That makes her squeeze Nadine a little tighter, who playfully chokes. (And almost gives Karen and Anaya collective heart attacks.)

Just then, there’s a loud knock on the hotel door, and in comes Catie stumbling through the door, a dress bag slung over her shoulder and a universe’s worth of mischief promised behind her naughty smile.

“Did I miss something?” Is the first thing she asks (several times, because nobody actually answers her). Her eyes flicker from Anaya, to Karen, to Aaliyah, and then finally to Nadine, and she gasps. Her hands fly to her mouth, eyes widening to the point where there's just white circles in her mouth, and she drops her bag to the floor to run into her friend's open arms.

(Karen winces. She can't believe she didn't hug her future daughter to be and this heathen gets to mess up her dress like that.)

“Bitch!” She shrieks when she pulls away, and then she hugs Nadine again, and then she pulls away. “Oh my fucking God, Nad, who knew? Who knew you could actually look like a…?”

“A bride?”

“No!” Catie giggles. When she shakes her head, a perfectly straightened strand of blond hits Nadine in the face. “Like a human.”

“Hey!” Nadine swats her friend, and then hugs her, and then thanks her. Over and over and over again. If not for Catie — or as Shawn would say, Catie with a C — and her game, there were very few chances for the two to actually realise their feelings as early as they did. (Early according to Shawn, of course. He suffered for a day and pretended like he shook hands with death. Nadine has to scoff at that. Men.)

“I'm kidding, Nad.” She asks her to do a twirl, motioning a spin with her index finger, and Nadine does. She's giddy and her head’s spinning a little but she feels so beautiful and loved that the little blemish of worry from the morning is nothing but a stain now, and she twirls the hell out of it. When she stops, she stumbles, giggling, and has to grab her mother's arm for support. Anaya squeezes her elbow, letting her go back to Catie.

Catie wipes a fake tear. “I can't believe Shawn's white ass gets to tap that.”

Nadine pulls Catie in by her elbow, lowering her head to whisper in her ear, “He gets to do a lot more than just tap it, honestly.” And then the two giggle like they used to in middle school, and it all falls into place. All of it makes sense, and there's not even a speck of doubt in Nadine's head.

Yes, Shawn and her were stuck together. But they’re more than that; everyone’s words and smiles give away. They were meant to be.

Karen, Aaliyah, and Catie eventually walk outside, leaving Nadine and Anaya alone in the room. Anaya smooths Nadine’s hair back, and Nadine lets her eyes flutter shut. She feels like she did when she was seven at her grandfather’s second wedding; out of her depth in a dress, hair flying wildly everywhere, very much like a little kid. She leans her head on her mom’s shoulder, and Anaya squeezes her tightly.

“Mumma?” Nadine lifts her head to meet her mother’s steady gaze, and holds her mother's hand, squeezing lightly. “I want you to walk me down the aisle.”

Nadine contemplated over whether she should ask her mother or tell her: Can you walk me down the aisle? or I want you to walk me down the aisle. She realised she wanted it as much as she wanted a remote control car when she was eleven, and you never ask for things like those. You demand them. If you don't get them, it's okay, but at least there's never the regret of how you willingly left scope and room for an answer that you didn't want. Nadine's learned to be straightforward with life and people alike now, because she deserves that.

“I thought Shawn was…”

“I was young, mumma,” She sniffs a little, and Anaya’s lips turn down into a frown. Nadine shakes her head, smiling, and continues, “I was young when dad left. I was stupid, and I spent way too much thinking about it, and Shawn was always there for me, yeah? When he promised to be my father and do all the things that fathers do.” She cups Anaya’s face. “I was too stupid to realise that I already had someone that did all that fathers do. You took me to museums, you danced with me in father daughter dances, you hoisted my fatass up on your shoulders. He wasn't there, mumma, but you were.”

Anaya isn't going to cry. She isn't, and her daughter can get fucked for trying. “Shawn did all he could, and that seemed to be enough, but only now do I realise how much you did. How lucky I am to have one parent who's done more than two parents can do in a lifetime. So what if one random fucker doesn't show up to my wedding?” Anaya grins approvingly, and Nadine shakes her head in feigned annoyance. “Shawn's going to be my husband now, mum. I don't want to walk down to an empty altar. I want you to give me away, because God fucking knows you've earned that right.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too, Mumma. So fucking much. I wish you knew how much I loved you.”

“More than Shawn?”

Nadine shuts up, and then opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She pouts. “You know that's different!”

Anaya grins, playfully pinching her daughter’s side, and Nadine lets out an annoyed whine. “I know it is, baby. Just pulling your leg.”

“You're the worst.”

Anaya holds a hand out, smiling the widest she's smiled in ages, she thinks. “Let's go walk you down the aisle, Deen. Let's give that boy something to cry about.”

It’s like it happens in slow motion, Nadine thinks. Her mom leads her out of the room, and the girls turn to look at her. She spots Brian from the front of the altar when he waves at her, and she watches him lean forward to say something to Shawn. Karen kisses her forehead, sweeping down the aisle toward her spot at the front, and Aaliyah does a salute before turning back around to wait for her cue when the music begins. Her legs begin to shake, and Catie’s turning around, smiling at her mom, giving her a hug.

Nadine feels like it’s all a blur, Shawn’s little cousins walking down the aisle throwing flowers, carrying the rings. Is she dreaming? And then, before she knows it, Anaya’s leading her to the door, and Shawn turns around and Nadine feels it all stop, the music’s big, swelling crescendo finally softening to a pianissimo as Shawn’s glassy eyes meet hers, and she hears her cousin’s son ask if that’s a princess, and her cousin says, no, bud, that’s Nadine, and she watches Shawn surreptitiously wipe a tear from his eye as her feet land right in front of him. Her heart is going to burst, her tears threatening to pour. She blinks them away, but one falls, and Shawn thumbs it away. Her mom kisses her cheek, and then kisses Shawn’s. Nadine barely notices. Shawn’s smile is the softest she’s ever seen it.

“Hi,” he mouths at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks up at him, smiling, and then they turn, the officiant beginning the ceremony, but she’s only half listening as Nana Mendes speaks. She’s staring at the side of Shawn’s face, and maybe she didn’t get the point of a big wedding before, but right now, she can’t even see the other people. It’s just her and Shawn, Shawn and Nadine, Shawnadine. He turns to look at her as his nan continues on. It’s like they’re the only two people in the room, and she giggles a bit. He just tilts his head at her and grips her hand tightly, pulling her to the side to sit as Nana Mendes talks about their very own love story.

“For the sake of this holy matrimony,” Nana starts, clasping her hands in the front of her bunched up dress, “I will try not to curse today. If I do, me perdoe. Forgive me, please. Ah, my bebês, my loves. Where do I even begin with Shawn and Nadine? God give me the strength, por favor, and someone stop me if I speak too long.”

“I have loved four times in my life. Each one more passionate and fogosa; fiery, than the other. I have known love, I have dealt with it, and I have learned to take it as it comes. But I have never known love like Shawn and Nadine’s. Shawn was three, four, when I first knew he loved Nadine. There is this saying in Portuguese.. Amor, fogo, e tosse, A seu dono descobre. Love, smoke, and cough are hard to hide. I know, since poor Manny is always walking in on me inhaling and coughing up a storm..” The people laugh, and Nana smiles. Her face, usually cold and apprehensive, feels like a warm embrace, “But no, a sério, Shawn would always say, I hate her, mum, I don't want to play with her. I want to drive cars, like the big boys, but his eyes would give him away. Always looking for her, always glancing at her when he made a joke, always lighting up when she laughed. Ah, it could not be hidden.”

Nadine looks at Shawn, and he dips his head. There's a pink, fierce blush staining his cheeks, and she’s cheesing at the fact that he’s ashamed of how much he loves her.

“I knew Nadine loved Shawn the very first time I met her. She was six, I think. These two were running around the entire house, crianças safadas, naughty little kids. I remember Nadine asked if I wanted her to light my pipe for me.” Nana laughs, shaking her head. “Little six year old, asking me if I needed my pipe lit. But even as she talked to me, as she bounced in my lap, all she could think about was Shawn. She kept asking these questions — do you like Shawn? Does Shawn like you? Are you Shawn’s best friend? Did you get a toy for him? She even went as far as tugging at my blouse, and she narrowed her little eyes, and she said ‘I’m Shawn’s best friend. I am.’ I’ve been in a gang, once, but never have I felt more threatened.” The congregation laughs, and Nadine grins, because it’s true. She’s his best friend.

“Standing here today makes me unbelievably happy. I’m sure my face gives it away.” Her face is plain, lips in a thin line, and she looks as bored as can be. Nadine has to giggle. “Please join in me the holy matrimony of my favourite children, my bebês.”

Nadine pulls Shawn to his feet, and they stand in front of their friends and family as his cousin’s daughter brings the rings to them. Nadine crouches, taking one, and Shawn follows suit, taking the other ring and kissing his cousin’s forehead. She scurries off, and they both stand up straight, turning to face each other. Nadine can’t tame her giant smile, and Shawn gives her knuckles a kiss. Her heart flutters.

“Shawn, your vows.”

Shawn looks to his grandma, and she nods. When he glances out at the people, he spots his mom, his dad, his sister, and he smiles. He spots Anaya, and that gives him some calm, and he finally turns his attention back to Nadine. She’s giving him the softest smile in the world, and he’s never loved her more. “Oh, Nadine, can I tell you a story?” he starts, and she shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “When you were just a baby in your mom’s stomach—” Nadine groans loudly, and the congregation laughs, prompting Shawn to laugh, too. He shakes his head at her. “When you were just a baby in your mom’s stomach, my mom would point and say, ‘Look, Shawn, that’s your best friend in there.’ I didn’t know what a best friend was. I was like, barely one year old.” Nadine rubs her thumb on his wrist gently, laughing softly, and he smiles, takes a deep breath. “And then you were one, and I was two, and my mom would say ‘Shawn, your best friend is coming over,” but you were a baby and I was a big two year old and I didn’t wanna hang out with someone who could barely say my name let alone be best friends with them.”

“But our moms made us stick together, and I could never be more grateful to them for that, because I got something even better than a best friend.” Nadine sniffs delicately, and Shawn’s grin widens. “I got someone who I couldn't possibly be more in love with. I remember the first time you liked a girl..” He shakes his head, and there's a little smirk on his face, “Nadine, you asked me if I'd ever loved someone like that. Like my heart stopped when they came around, and my day instantly bettered when I heard their laugh. I said no then, baby, but I was an idiot. Because I had loved someone like that. You, Nadine, I—” Shawn breaks off, and when he hears a sniff to the side, his head turns. Nana immediately drops her head, hugging her leather jacket closer to herself, and Shawn’s lips part. He continues, though, still surprised, “I've loved you like that for as long as I can possibly remember. It didn't matter if… if I lost a stupid job, or if I couldn't get a lyric right, or if I got laughed at because there was toilet paper trailing behind me… I'd meet you and I'd be crying and you'd probably be laughing at me but you made it okay, Nads. You've made life pretty okay, and I couldn't, in any sense of the word, be more grateful.”

“You make me feel the way music makes me feel. Maybe I’m frustrated sometimes, or maybe I’m too in love. But you’re like the most beautiful song in the world, and I’m lucky to listen to it every single day.” Nadine squeezes his wrist, but he carries on. “And I’ll promise to listen to you every single day of forever, my love. I’ll listen and love you and hold you when that flicker of sadness starts to take over in your heart. But you’ll always be the most beautiful song to me.” Nadine’s breath hitches, and she’s not going to cry, she won’t. But he slips the ring over her finger, and she gasps, and he grins, watching her face go through a series of emotions before landing on elated, and he’s never loved her more.

“Nadine, your vows.”

“Shawn,” Nadine's hands shake as they reach forward for his, and he squeezes tightly, a reassuring smile on his face. “I hate you because my vows are nowhere as poetic as yours, you stupid songwriter.” The crowd laughs, and Nadine stalls a bit to let their laughter die down, and then continues, “I've liked you for as long as the world can remember. As long as we've lived, baby. And you once told me this story..” Nadine laughs, shaking her head, and she can't believe that their vows overlap too, “That when I was a fetus in my mom’s stomach, you used to kiss her belly because your best friend was in there. And that's… that's a cute story, to some. But it's my favourite story that you've ever told me, counting the one about the chocolate world where houses are peanut butter cups.” Shawn chuckles, and Nadine’s chin trembles a bit. She won't cry. “Because it's crazy, you know? It's beautifully crazy that some people spend their entire lives looking for the one, but I found my person before I even found the world.”

Shawn's smile is warm, gentle, and eyes brimming with tears. Nadine reaches over, cupping his face, and she wants nothing more than to kiss him. She mouths I love you before continuing, and he grins in return. “We've spent a good part of our lives telling each stories and pretending like we hadn't already heard them. Our story is one that I want to keep listening to over and over again. Shawn, my heart, you make it very difficult not to fall more in love with you every single day. You're like sunshine on a pleasant day, when you're happy because the world around is just right, but then the sun shines down on your face and everything… everything is just more. To quote some songwriter guy that I know, You're my summer in a winter day, love. You make my life better just by being you, Shawn, and I can't believe our mothers get to see their youngest matchmaking clients get married today.”

Anaya rolls her eyes, and Karen sniffs into her napkin. Shawn's grip around her hand tightens. “I wish it were easy to put into words how much you mean to me, but it's the most difficult thing I've ever had to do. And I've seen you at that phase where you used to sign bras and wear snapbacks, so.” Shawn shakes his head, and Nadine chuckles. Sobers down, then, because she knows she's getting to the heavy parts. “People have rooted for us since times immemorial, I guess. We, however, like the couple of dumbasses that we are—” She tilts her head to the side, and Shawn sniffs, “We took too long to see it. Better late than never, though, right? Shawn, I told you that you'd end up with someone as gorgeous and lovely as you. Someone so beautiful and funny that you'd say that you didn't deserve her. So for the last time, and in English now so everyone understands, I told you so.”

Shawn’s laugh is wet, choked, and a little close to crying than it is to laughing, but it warms Nadine's heart nonetheless. “Shawn Peter Raul Mendes, I promise to love you and treat you like you deserve to be loved and treated. I promise to stand by you in the worst of our days, because there's really no else I'd rather turn to. I promise to let you braid my hair if you let me braid yours. I’m really talking too much. God,” She laughs, shaking her head, “Our children are going to have really curly hair. And they're going to have the best father, because you've been nothing but the best. My best friend, my best love, I can't wait for you to be the best husband.”

Shawn’s grinning through his tears, and when Nana Mendes asks Nadine if she’ll have Shawn as her husband and live with him through yada yada yada, Nadine says I do through the biggest possible grin, and Shawn’s barely even listening when he all but shouts I do and he’s smirking and she’s giggling and it’s the sweetest thing the congregation has probably ever witnessed. Shawn’s cousin is still confused as to how Nadine’s not a princess and Catie is popping her non existent collar in pride and the waves are crashing in the background, and fuck, they’re married now, and Nadine can’t believe that this is her reality.

“I pronounce you husband and wife. So go, kiss each other! Go!”

When the two shuffle closer and Shawn’s hand presses into the small of her back and he tips her back like the cheesy fucker he is, Nadine laughs. And when their lips meet, Nadine genuinely thinks yeah, he’s it for me. And she knew that before, but now it’s real. They’re walking down the aisle and people are throwing rice, a tradition Nadine has never understood, and then they’re in the limo, shocked into silence for a moment, and then Nadine giggles and giggles harder than she ever has, and Shawn laughs with her. They’ve technically been legally married since yesterday, but this makes it so much more real. Shawn hands her a glass of champagne, and they toast themselves, laughing about it. She relaxes into his side, curling her fingers in his suit jacket. He kisses the top of her head.

“Hey, hey, Nads,” he murmurs, and she hums. “We’re married, baby. Like, for real married. You’re my wife now.”

She giggles again, feeling drunk already, though she’s only had a sip of this champagne. She thinks she might just be really happy. That feels good. “You’re my husband.” The word rolls off her tongue more easily than she expected. “This is fucking amazing.”

“What if we cancelled the reception?”

“We can’t do that, and you know it. All your famous friends are coming.” She tugs him in for a kiss, letting it linger. “Soon, though.”

They get to the reception—halfway through dinner, John Mayer gives a speech. Nadine was unprepared, but when he calls Shawn his son, she laughs, hard. Maybe she’s already drunk. The first dance happens and she’s not as nervous as she thought, though that’s definitely the alcohol, and also she can see Taylor Mason sitting at one of the tables, looking like the goddess she is, smirking into a wine glass. Nadine leans into Shawn, whispering. “I know we’re married, but Taylor Mason is here and ohmygodshesstillsohot so I think our relationship is over.” Shawn looks over, subtly, and bites his lip, nodding. “Oh she does look good. It’s done, Nads, it’s been a good ride.” They giggle to themselves, and he kisses her forehead. They’re kidding. Maybe. The night is a blur of alcohol and food and dancing and smashing cake in each other’s faces, and by the time they get to their hotel room, Nadine is exhausted. She’s standing in front of her mirror and she’s staring at herself, decidedly happy that she didn’t ditch her wedding dress for a cocktail dress and that Shawn’s still in his dress shirt and slacks when he comes up behind her, snaking his arms around her waist and dropping his head on her shoulder because they look married.

“You look so fucking beautiful, Nads. I don’t think I got to tell you that. So fuckin’ pretty.” He kisses her neck, pulling back and resting his chin on her shoulder.

He’s staring at her through the mirror, and Nadine’s smiling back with the softest of smiles. That’s her husband standing behind her. She really married her best friend, and she really gets to see him smiling at her with her wedding band on his finger.

“I love you, Shawn.”

Shawn lets out an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head. His grin is cheesy when he says, “Oh, thank God. This whole thing would’ve been very awkward if you didn’t.”

“Oh, shut up, bitch.”

“That sure is a romantic way to begin a new, married life,” Shawn presses a kiss to her cheek, his grip around her waist only tightening. She melts into his hold. “You hear that, Nads? We’re married.”

“I can’t believe I said I do to your dumbass.”

“Hmm?” Shawn smirks against her cheek, and his fingers start dancing around her sides. Nadine squeaks, squirming under his grip. “So you don’t want to have amazing, post-wedding, pre-honeymoon sex with your husband?”

Nadine presses her lips in a firm line, trying to keep her giggles in. (Hint: She can’t). She toys with the ring on his finger, turning her head to kiss him square on the mouth, and mutters against his lips, “I do.”

“Not a dumbass anymore, am I?”

“No, you still are one,” She shakes her head, feeling his fingers fumble along her side for her zipper, “But I’m so in love with you that I’m one too, now.”

“Look at us. Two dumbasses in love.”

“Two dumbasses in love and about to fuck reallll good.”

“Oh,” Shawn bends, arms hooking under her thighs. When he all but throws her on the bed, Nadine shrieks, but it’s the giddiest kind and she’s the happiest she’s ever been, “Oh, I think I can take care of that.”

“S’why I married you, babe.”

“Nuh-uh,” Shawn leans over her, knee pressed into the mattress, and a curl breaks loose from his well-done hair, trailing loosely over her forehead. She twirls her finger around it, tugging at it so his head lowers, “I think you married me because we’re stuck together.”

“We are. Stuck together for life, baby.” She smirks, biting her lip. “Now, where were we, husband?”

She likes the sound of that.

permanent taglist: @yellowitsmendes @fuckneymar @heavenly---holland @sinceweremutual @bluerroses @rishlo @shawnjpeg @demolitionloversss @yourwonderbelle @shawnxmendesxo @rechema @curlyfan @yslsaint @posterioriii @maddie-silver @qxeen-of-hearts @xmadwonderland @thtsmileholycow @shawny-blogs @standingandstaring @shawniesbrownies @luvluvxx @chrizzy95 @bcihadyou @sleepybesson @shawnsmoose @grittyisathot @heyits-claire @oahbooks @sinplisticshawn @prttybitchin @royalexperiment256 @shaw-nm-deactivated20191104 @curlyshawny @poppyshawn @cheerfulmendes @mendesficsxbombay @softboycal @pxrrishly @justanotherfangurl272 @tequillasunrisee @shawnssongs @shawnwyr @rockstarshawnmendes @bodaciousbonzi1996 @shawnieeboyy @i-play-video-games @myyohmyuohmyy @shawnsblue @mendols @knee-deep-in-feels @parkeraul @imaginashawnns

stuck together taglist: @martinimendes @shawnm521 @muffins-cookiesm @petit-funsize @standingunderthisrain @mendesftoakley @ourlittleshawnie @ur-prfctlywrng @siennarossi @oyesmendes @ilovereadingstuff @shawnsmoose @unapologetic-always @manar-sabahi @justanotherfangurl272 @searchingunderthestars @mutuallynotmutual @accioalena @oyesmendes @etherealchar @stuckonspidey @shawnitsmutual @lostinroses (just asked to be removed or added!)

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes x oc #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes smut #stuck together #shawn peter raul mendes imagine #shawn mendes one shot #best friend shawn #best friends to lovers #AU #shawn mendes AU

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cdelphiki · 5 years ago

Note

So how does Scrivener work cdelphiki? Any specifics? I think you talked about it a fair bit before, early in November, but I can't quite remember.

Scrivener is awesome!! Basically, it’s a word processor on steroids specifically for writers (and not student/business purposes, like Microsoft Word/Google Docs) Although you can use it for student or business purposes, if you wanted.

Basically, you use it by first creating your project. It has a lot of templates to choose from, and once you pick what you want to do, it has instructions of how to structure your project in your newly created file. There are a ton of template options, but I’m here for the novel format:

But you can write pretty much anything you can imagine in scrivener.

Pick what you want and click “choose” then save it somewhere. I have the app for ipads/iphones, so I save all my projects on dropbox so I can access them from my phone or computer. (This is how scrivener is set up for synced across platforms: over dropbox, not icloud for mac users. It took me a hot minute to figure out.) It has you name and save it up front so it can start backing up your work!!

Once it’s got the project created, it will give you the informational page for the template you selected. Read through it for a lot of good information on how to use all the organizational tools for your specific project.

Now you basically just start working. There is no real wrong way to go about putting together your story. I use scrivener for both one shots and multi-chaptered fics. I actually keep most my one shots in one project, titled “Tumblr Prompts,” just to make it easier than having a zillion project files for single stories.

If you want a pretty detailed walkthrough of how I use scrivener, I put it all below the cut. :D

Here’s one of my my well-used project files:

There’s a lot going on here. The left column is your navigation bar. This is basically your entire book. As you can see I have folders within folders. The main one, called “Manuscript” by default, is basically the book in its entirety. I then use more folders for each chapter. Right now, since I’m still drafting, I actually just have it broken into ‘events,’ rather than chapters. This is just a me thing and is what I figured out to help me keep better track of everything.

So I have the Prologue, and then event 1.1 (act 1, event 1), 1.2, 1.3, etc. In 1.3, as you can see, I have both chapter 3 and 4 as scene cards. 1.4 has five scene cards that will likely turn into 7 chapters, once I do a revision!

All the various colors of text are revisions. By default, the first draft is written in black.

When you’re ready to do a revision, you can turn on revision mode and select which version you’re on. I’m on my third revision. I really like this function because it lets me see my progress.

Now, inside all these folders you can see a couple different symbols there. You can actually change the symbols of these things yourself by right clicking on the object in the navigation pane and selecting “change icon.” I put the pencil on all my notes, so it’s very easy for me to know what to get rid of when I’m cleaning up and about to call something “done.” On Precedent, for example, whenever I publish a chapter, I go ahead and name the chapter folder in Scrivener and get rid of all the note cards so all that is left is what I actually published.

Probably one of the best things about Scrivener, is when you want to get rid of something, you don’t have to erase it entirely. On this project here, you can see I have a file a couple under the file selected for viewing called “trash pile.” Whenever I remove large chunks of text, I actually just copy it over to a blank scene card so it’s not ‘lost.’ I then “move to trash,” so it’s not in the way, but it’s always available to me. Scrivener does not delete anything you ‘move to trash’ unless you specifically move to that trash bin and make it delete it. This is great because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ‘thrown something away’ just to realize, sometimes months later, that that exact scene would work perfectly now! And good thing I saved the draft, so I had something to start with!

Now, back to these ‘scene’ cards. Scene cards are just the files you actually write on. I don’t know if Scrivener calls them that or not, but they’re set up like notecards. I don’t know if you ever did the notecard method in school, where you wrote major points on note cards and then arranged them into a logical order on the table? That’s basically what this is.

To get to this screen, I selected the folder for section 1.4. You can pick any folder you want, even the over all manuscript to get here. Then you pick the view option, where the top arrow is pointing. The first view option shows it as a document, as my other pictures have already demonstrated.

What the notecards are going to show you is your synopsis, if you have one written. Each and every file, even the folder itself, has a spot for ‘synopsis’ and ‘notes,’ which do not count into your overall word count. It’s really nice for keeping stuff out of the way. I’ve found I prefer having my notes as actual scene cards, but the notes section is handy for throwing important things. I also save the link to where I’ve posted stuff on tumblr for easy saving or research so I don’t lose anything.

If you do not have anything written in the synopsis section, the card will just show as much as the text as it can in a dark grey, rather than the black ink of the synopsis. I rarely use the synopsis section, so you can see all my documents just have the first bits of text.

On this screen you can start dragging around cards and move them however you think things need to line up. This works remarkably well if you write in a lot of small scenes, and need to reorganize because you realized that Tim needs to have a panic attack before he faces Ra’s. Or whatever. You can also reorganize at any point in the navigation pane itself. I drag stuff between folders all the time. That’s another reason I love having my notes on actual scene cards, because a lot of times I end up punting scenes off into the future, and it makes it way easier to drag and drop it into the next chapter folder to deal with later.

Another feature I really like is ‘targets.’

To get here, I selected the overall manuscript, and then switched to the third view option, up there next to the note cards option. It shows me my whole book this way, as well as the status of each folder or document (which I have to set myself.) It also shows me if I had a target word count, and how close I am to reaching it. I like my chapters to be about 3k words, so I make that my target. (set your target by clicking on the target icon on the bottom right corner of a document while in document view.) The purple goes from a dark purple to a lighter one the closer you get. (This is because I am using the ‘theme’ “Purple Haze.” The color is based on your theme. I forget what the default is.)

You can also set daily word goals, and up at the top, below the project’s name, it’ll show you progress toward that goal. I’ve written two words today.... so I don’t have a progress bar yet. The bar above the project’s name is for the overall word goal set. I have this project set to 100k.

I think that’s pretty much it. The only other feature I use regularly I haven’t mentioned is the split screen.

Basically, click where the arrows are pointing. When you’re in just regular view, it’ll look like a split screen, rather than a single document view button. When you hit it, it opens your currently selected document twice, on both sides of the screen. Click on the bar for the document you want to change and then select whatever you want from your navigation pane. I use this mostly for putting my notes on one side and my actual working document on the other. Yesterday I was using while revising, throwing anything I didn’t want anymore into my ‘trash pile’ by just dragging it across.

Once you’re done with something, you can run spelling and grammar check (because it does not check as you go, unless you go into settings and make it do that. It’s turned off by default. I find the squiggly lines distracting, so I love this feature) and use the various text tidying tools, such as the one that turns all multiple spaces into single spaces!

So yeah! That’s Scrivener. I love it so much. It has made writing so much easier. I wrote most of Life Happens in a single Microsoft Word document, and that was a huge mess and horrible and really difficult. I’ve written two long fics in their entirety now on Scrivener and I won’t ever go back.

Oh, and if anyone was curious, this is how I use Scrivener for my one shots: I just label the folders with the main relationship or the collection they’re from, rather than treated the folders like chapters. I then name the scene cards either with their actual titles or a brief description (if I didn’t give them titles) to let me know what’s been published and what isn’t done.

#Scrivener #writing advice #unqualified writing advice #:)#how i write #cait rambles

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punkscowardschampions · 4 years ago

Text

Amelia & Jac

Amelia: My mum heard wrong and you're actually okay, right? Jac: I am now Amelia: but it was you Jac: me and half of Dublin Amelia: I could care less about about 3/4 of this town Jac: generous, a whole 1/4 Amelia: you know what I mean Jac: yeah Jac: your maths isn't that shocking Amelia: what happened? Jac: what do you mean Jac: I didn't accidentally swallow my mouthwash or something Jac: you know how it goes Amelia: alright, why did it happen? Jac: It was new years Jac: simple as Amelia: you don't give a shit about New Year's Amelia: or anything else right now Jac: I was feeling festive Amelia: because? Jac: because it's the reason for the season? idk Amelia: you're really going to make me figure it out? okay Jac: there's fuck all to figure out Jac: you've got drunk, you know why Amelia: What did she do? Jac: which nurse was it that told your mum Jac: or was it a receptionist, they're the fucking worst Amelia: answer my question so I don't have to go on her profile Jac: go ahead and look Jac: you won't be surprised, no one else is Amelia: [does so a pause] Amelia: I'm sorry Jac: I knew anyway Jac: well, was 99% sure Jac: but then that 1% went so Amelia: You could've called me Amelia: nobody on the gossip grapevine even knows the lad who brought you in Jac: I very much couldn't Jac: I was passed out Jac: so me either, the thank you note will sit here unsent, like Amelia: before, I mean Amelia: she didn't post that last night Jac: it was Christmas Amelia: so? Jac: a time for family Amelia: you used to be Amelia: basically Jac: well that's just weird Amelia: again, you know what I mean Jac: not acceptable to float your incest fantasies just 'cos you've got no siblings to go there with Amelia: ugh, shut up Jac: works for me Amelia: no, it doesn't Jac: ask anyone Jac: I've had a very relaxing break Amelia: none of this is working for you, that's why you ended up in hospital Amelia: for fuck's sake Jac: that was the tequila Amelia: none of this is funny Jac: what do want me to say? Amelia: quite literally anything that isn't a pisstake Amelia: that's how low my bar is now Jac: I got drunk, it isn't the drama your mum and whoever the fuck is making it out to be Amelia: it isn't a drama that you got so drunk you had to be medically emptied out after being brought in by a stranger, no of course not Amelia: anything could have happened to you but why the fuck would that matter Jac: clearly I was surrounded by nice people Jac: I wasn't in a crack den Amelia: you wouldn't tell me if you were Amelia: unless you had a joke you could make out of it Jac: I appreciate that you find me so amusing Jac: I'm not making jokes, there is just nothing to actually be said about any of it Amelia: Fine, we'll go back to not talking Jac: don't let me ruin your good time Amelia: it's a bit late for that advice, thanks anyway Jac: amazing Jac: way to make my hospital stay about you Amelia: how could I? It's all about Savannah fucking Moore, as always Jac: so you wanted to be the one I drank myself into a coma for Jac: I'm so sorry Jac: I'll try again next time and leave a note shouting you out Amelia: no you won't, because that would involve telling people about me Amelia: I might as well not exist Jac: 'cos I'm going around telling EVERYONE that this is about her Amelia: it's never been any secret how I feel about you or that I need you even though you don't need me Amelia: and you could've fucking died or something Jac: seriously Amelia: yeah Jac: it's bullshit if you actually believe that Jac: and you're not just saying it Amelia: all of this is bullshit Jac: I'm a fucking mess Jac: I hit you up all the time Jac: why do you need me to spell it out to you Jac: hire a fucking skywriter Amelia: none of it matters because when things actually matter, like this, you don't Jac: because I'm not fucking okay Jac: that doesn't mean that I don't those other times Amelia: I know that Jac: you clearly don't Jac: it means nothing Jac: then fuck it Amelia: it doesn't mean nothing Jac: it's so fucking Jac: infuriating Jac: I haven't talked to anyone else in person for so long Jac: and I barely do it in writing now either Jac: don't pretend you don't know that means something just to fit your narrative Amelia: what to do want me to say? or do? Amelia: I've spent ages worried about you even before this and there's nobody I can talk about it with because you won't Amelia: I don't get to be upset because it's Christmas and we're not friends and I'm over it, that's the narrative for everybody else Amelia: then I hear this and it's no big deal to you, apparently Jac: just not be so fucking dense Jac: at least when you're talking to me, you don't need to pretend that now Jac: what would you like me to say? how fucking vile it was having to bring up my entire stomach contents, what it smelt like? how terrifying it was to be there on my own? Jac: or what can I do for you now? start sobbing about how out of control my life is, repent, promise to change and be different? Amelia: I've already lost you once because of her, I can't do it again Amelia: especially not like that Jac: I can't stop loving her Jac: I can't stop it hurting Jac: all of us Amelia: I can't stop loving you Amelia: and she isn't going to force me to when she isn't even fucking here Jac: There's no point blaming her Jac: if she didn't know, before I showed her how I felt Jac: she didn't know about you and me Amelia: and you think I'm dense Jac: I don't think she's perfect Jac: not completely Amelia: it's progress Jac: shut up Jac: I'm sorry, alright, I wouldn't have told you, you wouldn't have needed to be worried Amelia: I'm worried by all the things you don't tell me Amelia: where you go and what you do when you're not 'hitting me up' Jac: it's not as if you'd wanna hear it though Jac: you want me to stop, like everyone does Jac: but I just Jac: I can't Amelia: I don't want to hear it because I know it's not what you really want Jac: I can't have what I want Amelia: you can't have her, it doesn't mean you have to have that Jac: None of it was real Jac: but it doesn't erase all that time, what was said and done and felt Jac: not for me Amelia: of course it doesn't Jac: it's like I'm trapped Jac: I can't go back but I'm just left here, she's left me here and all of the things we were going to do and be together aren't going to happen Jac: I'm not going to be that person but I'm not the same as before Amelia: it's like she killed you, you have to grieve Jac: I don't like who I am now Jac: without her Amelia: you said it, you're a mess Amelia: not much about that for a virgo to like Jac: this is just another day in the life for you is it Jac: 🦂 Amelia: it's not about me Amelia: how you feel about you Jac: it's no secret I CLEARLY hate myself Amelia: it'd be the worst kept secret ever if it was Jac: so yeah, it's nice to flip the script, have people think maybe I hate them instead Jac: I ruined Christmas because I hate you all, like, yeah, fine Amelia: maybe Cammie's brothers are little enough to fall for it Jac: it's surprising how effective playing at being a coma patient is for the cause Amelia: everyone knows you're hurting instead of hating Jac: alright Jac: sounding like a cringe 90s rnb love song is not cute Amelia: I'm not cute today Jac: have you got your serious face on to match your tone Amelia: my parents have and if you can't beat them, join them Jac: did your nan say something homophobic and they forgot to call her out on your behalf? Amelia: I'm grounded because of what you did, that's what passes for logic in this 🏠 Amelia: they haven't stopped talking about it or trying to overhaul my life Jac: oh great Jac: I'll not be able to see you too now Amelia: they've told me to stay in, they can't make me Amelia: you can see me whenever you want to Jac: your parents are actually sensible, if leaning towards over-protective Jac: they'll get a restraining order Jac: or me sectioned, if they can really sell it Amelia: they don't know about us Amelia: you're fine Jac: they know they don't want you being my friend Amelia: they don't want me getting hospitalised, that's all Amelia: they know if we were still friends I'd look after you and vice versa Jac: it isn't catching, it's alcohol poisoning Jac: can we go to the beach Jac: we've obviously missed the official swim but I want to Amelia: they did run out of Christmas drinks because I never got around to replacing what we stole and I did have to take sole blame, so that's where they think I'm heading Amelia: but yeah, we can go to the beach Jac: their friends always could put it away Amelia: and I wasn't even drunk last night Amelia: because I'd already had a lecture Jac: how drunk did you get on Christmas day then Amelia: it's not my fault they all stop at a couple of glasses Amelia: or want to my life a competition vs the child or children of every single person my parents know Amelia: 🥱🙄 Jac: you didn't know miracle was a lifetime obligation as well as a fancy title? Jac: gutted Amelia: did I hit you up, no, therefore I CLEARLY wasn't drunk enough Jac: Charming Amelia: 😏 Jac: you know, when I get drunk, I make really bad choices/nearly die Amelia: not always Amelia: and I might've given my cousin my phone so I didn't send you anything, okay? I'm that 😳🤓 Jac: She blatantly wanted to nose at all your private texts anyway Jac: I wouldn't trust any of mine as far as I can throw them Amelia: she'd have to steal my fingerprint, I definitely wasn't that drunk Jac: don't you delete them after? Jac: amateur Amelia: what would I do when you aren't talking to me if I did, read a book? Jac: you're quick with the recommendations for me, so yeah Amelia: I get enough migraines without encouraging them Jac: 😏 Jac: we definitely shouldn't be friends then Amelia: that's not even in the top 10 of reasons why we shouldn't Jac: again, so polite Amelia: come on, you know I'll break any amount of rules Jac: it's not supposed to be adding to the fun of it, like Amelia: fuck supposed to as well Jac: alright Jac: but I ain't going out and getting drunk tonight Jac: I feel inside out still Amelia: what do you want to do then? Jac: I don't know Jac: let's just start with the beach and I'll see Amelia: okay Jac: what do you wanna do Amelia: I only give a shit about seeing you Jac: It might take me a while to get out Jac: goes without saying I'm more than grounded Jac: one pair of 👀 on me at all times Amelia: that kind of wait won't kill me Jac: alright Jac: I'll think of something Amelia: remember a coat this time, yeah? Amelia: I can't lend you any more without literally taking the one off my own back Jac: oh no Amelia: you didn't nearly die in my coat, did you? Jac: I was wearing it Jac: but I don't have it now Amelia: oh Jac: I do remember where I was, I wasn't that gone when I arrived Jac: but I don't wanna go back, I can give you the address? Amelia: do I want to go there or should I just hit the sales? Jac: yeah Jac: consider it a late christmas present? Amelia: wait, my late Christmas present isn't that you didn't die? Jac: you're glad, aren't you, that's a gift Jac: but I also meant money for a coat, that's only fair, if anything Amelia: I can afford my own replacement coat Jac: alright Jac: but I did lose it Amelia: I lent it to you, if it was that precious to me, I wouldn't have Amelia: and my mum will be thrilled I'm asking to go shopping Jac: yeah, true enough Jac: what did you get her for christmas? Amelia: [something her basic mum would actually love because she only had to buy for her parents so might as well go in] Jac: wow, daughter of the year much Amelia: I'm their only daughter, there's no contest Jac: all I got mine was a nervous breakdown so you know Amelia: I did that last year, you know, before it was cool Jac: 🤓 Amelia: I'm sorry that you didn't invent pining Jac: I'm not pining though, you can have that Amelia: I don't want it Jac: I'm sorry you invented pining Amelia: I didn't, I just happen to be amazing at it Jac: or bad at it, depending on your outlook Amelia: well yeah Jac: I look awful Amelia: how do you feel? Jac: awful Jac: at least there's no disparity there Amelia: you've nailed it, along with the majority Jac: start as the year will go on, no matter my intentions or otherwise Jac: fucking hell Amelia: I look great, you've been warned Jac: 😂 Amelia: 👧🏻 Jac: at least it isn't bowl-esque now Jac: like your xmas throwback Amelia: I knew you'd like that Jac: that santa is creepy looking though Jac: your face says it all Amelia: 😂 Jac: how likely do you think any of my siblings are to cover for me right now Amelia: 🤔 very unlikely Jac: distract and run it is Amelia: can you even 🏃 the state you're in? Jac: They gave me IV, I'm technically in my prime, thank you Amelia: carry on Jac: you don't have to come Amelia: I want to though Jac: alright Amelia: okay Jac: [I think she should ask Jesse to cover but whatever the outcome of that convo let us say you do get out somehow and you can go to the beach] Amelia: [yeah even if he won't, find a way gal] Jac: [have your nice moment] Amelia: [it's deserved, well not really because you ruined christmas and new year's but Savannah ruined everything first so it kind of is lol] Jac: [it's what being a teen is all about henny] Amelia: [not this teen, I was a goody two shoes] Jac: [my boo is too good she would never lmao, I did so] Jac: [I think they should have a nice time but then someone/someone's parents is at the beach so she's like well bye] Amelia: [that's very valid because you lowkey wouldn't be able to go anywhere without seeing someone either they know from school or Amelia's parents know the parents of] Jac: [exactly, it's an easy way to end things before anything really has to be said or done so tah everyone] Amelia: [I hope you're both going home, we don't need any more drama immediately] Jac: [my boo says get your ass back home] Amelia: [mhmm] Jac: [she has nowhere to be so I'm sure she's going back to bed lol] Amelia: [get your arse back home too Amelia even though I'm sure that girl has text you at Christmas and New Year's] Jac: [at least you weren't at the beach gal] Amelia: [I 100% vote you do see her when school starts though even though she in the year above and would have to seek you out lol] Jac: [my boo says let her have it] Amelia: [we do love the jealousy always] Jac: [mhmm] Amelia: [not letting you date her though because she actually seems to like you so that'd be rude] Jac: [only jac and savannah can do that lol] Amelia: [Savannah do like this boy cos he reminds her of Jac remember LOL] Jac: [lmao]

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abovethesmokestacks · 5 years ago

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Home for Christmas

Stucky advent drabble calendar

14 December

All the seats are nearly taken when they get there, but Steve manages to spot two empty seats for them at the edge of a row towards the middle, and if they end up “accidentally” bumping someone, that can’t be their fault now, can it?

It had taken some time for Bucky to find the sheet music after he got home from Becca’s last night, and then some sly work on his part to copy it so no one would notice. The last thing he needs in his life is Sam or, god forbid, Stark to get on his ass about why he needs sheetmusic to Händel’s Messiah. There had also been a whole discussion about who would take the original sheet music and who would take the copy that only got solved when Bucky shoved the original at Steve’s chest and gave him a glare that sent Steve into fits of badly disguised giggles.

Steve is… surprisingly good. It had taken Bucky two sing-ins to realize he was singing the wrong voice and he still fudges a fair few sections, but Steve. Bucky is caught completely off guard and gapes through a good five measures and has to frantically try to figure out which Hallelujah they're on while Steve smirks at him.

"You could have told me you were good!" Bucky tells him under his breath as they walk out during the intermission.

Steve, because he is a humble bastard just shrugs his shoulders and it is so hard for Bucky not to crumple under the shy smile and the little tinge of pink on his cheeks. Handsome, talented bastard. Why is he even trying to deny it anymore? He is utterly and completely whipped for Steve and he doesn't care if he will end up crying into a box of fudge by New Years because of it.

"That was fun."

They're almost at Bucky's place, both smiling wide and Bucky is still quietly belting out Hallelujah. Going with Nat, Clint and Scott was always fun, but this… This had been something else. He's texting Nat, Clint and Scott to let them know how it was and that he's almost home.

"Yeah… Thanks for coming with me." Bucky pauses, bumps his shoulder into Steve's. "And for completely showing me up back there. What the hell! If you climb the stage and join the Nutcracker ensemble next week I’m rioting!"

"C'mon, you were good too!"

That makes his cheeks heat. Up until five years ago when Nat had first dragged the four of them to the first Messiah sing-in, Bucky had mostly sung in the shower. It hadn't sounded bad, but once he realized he could actually sing pretty okay (and in the right vocal section), he'd at least tried to rehearse and improve.

"Don't tell me you don't agree!" Steve continues, swinging around to walk backwards so he can look at Bucky. "I can see you still singing on the inside."

"I'm okay, I guess. It's fun."

"What's your favourite Christmas song?"

Bucky furrows his brow, "What?"

"Humour me."

He has a sinking feeling about where this is heading. "Um… I… I dunno, I'll Be Home For Christmas?"

Steve smiles, snatching the phone from Bucky's hands. Bucky barely has time to get out a yelp before Steve has the phone turned sideways and oh, hell.

"Sing it." Then, when Bucky glares at him. "Please?"

He really is too weak for Steve for his own good. Bucky avoids looking directly into the camera, pulling his shoulders up as he sings the first few lines. That is, until the very last line.

"I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…"

He meets Steve's eyes for that one. His stomach does a somersault, and god, why must Steve be so beautiful? Bucky makes a face, asks if Steve’s happy and the man himself nods, not exactly smug, but definitely content, handing the phone back to him.

"Don't delete it."

Now he definitely won't do that.

There's an awkward moment on the curb outside Bucky's apartment building, neither of them really knowing how to say goodbye. They end up in a strange kind of hug, and though Bucky doesn't mind it, it's just… awkward. But still so good. Steve smells of cedarwood, warm and earthy, a scent Bucky that could drown in and that he misses when Steve starts walking down the street. He turns around one final time, pointing at him.

"Remember, don't delete it!"

#Home for Christmas #Steve Rogers #Bucky Barnes #Stucky #Steve x Bucky #advent drabble calendar

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jessahmewren · 5 years ago

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“Birthday Boy Seeking Party Guests” / Queen / Bohemian Rhapsody Fan Fiction

Summary: Tired of spending birthday’s alone, John posts an ad on Craigslist hoping to spice things up. Set in the 2000′s.

Rating E for Everyone be aware here be smut.

Pairing: Poly

Word count: 7,556

Also on Ao3

-0-0-0-

John erased what he’d written for what seemed like the tenth time, squinting at the screen on his laptop. He cracked his knuckles, taking another sip of wine. The bottle was more than half gone, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. It was the weekend, and he was spending it, like every other weekend, alone in his flat browsing the internet.

The wine settled in his bones, making him feel warm and heavy and a bit giddy. He opened up the Word document where the Craigslist Personal’s ad he’d been fumbling over for the past half hour sat half written.

“I am a single male seeking three men for a one night stand at my flat. I have no other preferences other than that you be reasonably good looking and clean. I will send a headshot and directions when you send one.”

Wait. The fuck? That sounded really off and vain. No way should he be writing this while drunk. Or, he thought miserably, writing this period. But anyway.

“I am a single male seeking three men for a one night stand at my flat. I am fit and disease free; please be the same. Details to be follow.”

Was that better, he wondered? Worse?

“I’ve never done this before; I’m not weird or even kinky…just a normal guy wanting to have a good time for once on his birthday.”

There, he thought. That sounded nice and normal, not scary like some of the other ads (seriously, the one asking for the fart buddy was a little out there…). He copied the ad and, before he could chicken out, pasted it into the text box.

He titled the ad “Birthday Boy Seeking Party Guests” and hit submit before he could talk himself out of it.

John checked his Myspace briefly before closing the laptop. His cat, Gwyneth, coiled around his legs. He reached down to stroke her ginger fur. “Again, lovely? You’ve already had your dinner,” he cooed fondly. He reached for a bit of chicken from the fridge, leftovers from his own meal. “Just a snack, now.” The cat was an absolute unit, and he couldn’t afford her getting any fatter.

He put the wine glass in the sink, nodding off slightly as the water ran. Gwyneth waddled off to her cat bed, sniffing it delicately before she sank into the pillowy softness. John smiled at her as he switched off the light and shuffled off to his bedroom.

As he lay down beneath the covers, he thought of his little Craigslist ad, and smiled.

Freddie woke up early for once, silencing his alarm on his phone and stumbling to the teapot. He put the kettle on and grabbed a lemon strudel before settling on the couch and opening his laptop.

Craigslist was still open from the night before where he had entertained himself with reading the personal ads. It was one of his favorite past times late at night…sitting with a bag of crisps with his legs crossed reading some of those wacky adds. As his kettle hummed, he decided to scroll further down the page.

He landed on John’s ad, and something made him smile. “I’m not weird or even kinky…” Freddie laughed at that. Why yes you are darling, you’re asking for a foursome for your birthday! Still, his smile never faltered. He clicked on the user name and opened up his email program.

“Hi John, I’m Freddie. I AM weird and VERY kinky, and would love to come to your birthday party ;). I have attached a headshot. Cheers.”

He hit send and closed the laptop. His kettle was boiling by now and he poured himself a cuppa. He thought about the email he’d just sent and sighed. It wasn’t likely he was going to get a reply, and if he did, he was up for it. He hooked up regularly with no problems. This time was likely to be any different.

Brian cursed to himself. He was late and the computer labs at the university were always nearly full around lunch. He had a paper due in two hours. Maybe he could swing it.

He found one open kiosk in the corner and settled in front of it, plugging in his flashdrive. After an hour of typing, Brian closed the document and submitted it to his professor. One more paper, one more assignment closer to his PhD. He took a moment to relax and opened up his Hotmail.

After a few moments of aimless clicking and deleting, he opened one of his Craigslist notifications. Unfortunately, the amp he had wanted for his guitar was already sold. He clicked the link anyway, the website opening in a new window. He browsed the website a bit, eventually landing on the Personals section.

He entertained himself for a while, admittedly enjoying the sexier ads. And then he read John’s.

Something about it struck him as honest, and Brian could respect that. Brian considered the prospect of fucking three other guys, a little thrill running through him. What would that even be like?

He decided, like a good doctoral researcher, that he needed more information. He emailed John.

Roger was drunk (and maybe something else). His limbs were loose, and he couldn’t feel his lips. An easy euphoria fell over him, throbbing in his skull in time with the pulsing music and the girl riding his lap. The friends he’d come over with were somewhere else, but there were others here. So many people just walking around him as this girl fucked him right here on the sofa.

“Lay back baby,” She said as she rode him, steadily lifting herself off of him, the wet squelch of her tight heat lost to the music and the chaos of the open room. She was pretty in an odd way, Roger thought. His body felt like it was on fire, and he felt the involuntary response of his orgasm winding its way to completion.

He gasped, coming inside the condom as she giggled and contracted around him. He was panting hard, his heart racing. Whatever he had taken was too much, he thought, too much this time. He felt sick. He pawed at the girl as she chased her own climax, pushing her off just as she came, nibbling at his sweat-slick skin.

“Thanks for the fuck,” she said as she slid off him. She pulled up her panties under her skirt and wobbled away.

He sagged back against the couch where no one seemed to pay attention to him, feeling used. Tears stung his eyes, and then someone called his name.

“Hey Roger, you done fucking around? Come play this game with us.”

He raised his head, the whole room swimming. Gingerly, he made his way over to the small gathering. There were shots set up in front of a laptop. Greg, the leader of the group, pushed Roger down in a chair.

“It’s youngest against oldest, and Rog, you’re the youngest. Whoever does the least amount of shots has to answer one of these Craigslist Personals ads. I’ve put them all in a random name generator so it’s totally fair.”

Roger felt sick. He knew he’d had too much to drink already, and there was no way he would win. He stared the other man down anyway.

Greg counted them out. “On your mark, get set, go!”

Roger started downing shots until he declared he’d had enough. He was nearly blackout drunk when they pulled the virtual lever on the random name generator. The ad title that came up was “Birthday Boy Seeking Party Guests.”

Roger was passed out on the couch when Greg sent the email to John along with a fetching photo of Roger smiling with friends while wearing his favorite sunglasses. Greg was sure to add, “you can’t tell, but my eyes are blue ;).”

John forgot about his little ad until the following evening, when he was coming home from the repair shop and remembered that he should probably check his email. He picked up dinner, fed Gwyneth and did just that, deleting the spam and adverts and noticing, to his surprise, several emails from Craigslist users.

He omitted some right away…not on a superficial bases, but just based on how they sounded. Bossy, arrogant, or their emails gave out a creepy vibe. The next one he clicked on was a bloke named Freddie.

“I AM weird AND kinky…” John laughed at that. That was mild compared to some of the other things he’d been told. It was rather endearing, actually. As the pic took forever to load, he thought Freddie might be interesting to get to know.

Then the pic finally opened and John’s mouth flew open.

Black, lustrous, shoulder-length hair framing the most stunning face…tan skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and jawline and those piercing brown kohl-lined eyes. He was easily the most exotic person John had ever laid eyes on. He was immediately attracted to him.

John hit reply and began typing. “I love your headshot. This may be a little forward, but would you like to come celebrate my birthday with me? You would be my first guest :).”

He gave him the time and place, included a headshot, and hit send, hoping for the best.

The next email was a bit longer and more thoughtful but just as intriguing.

“Hi there. My name is Brian. I am a college student getting my PhD. I saw your ad on Craigslist and I must say I am intrigued. I have never done anything like this, either. I would be interested in helping you celebrate your birthday if you provide a safe, clean environment in which to do so. Please provide photos of your flat.” Thanks –Bri”

John smiled. How considerate to think of a safe environment. Bri was definitely getting an email. He replied to Brian and included photos of his living room, kitchen, and bedroom (he left the bathroom out for reasons). Thankfully he had just tidied up. He also included a headshot.

The next email that caught his eye was from Roger. When the pic loaded, he was stunned to find a beautiful blond man with a winning smile standing in a group of friends.

“Hi! My name is Roger. I saw your ad on Craigslist. You can count me in! Just send me the time and place. Also, you can’t tell, but my eyes are blue ;).”

John smiled at his enthusiasm. He attached a headshot, gave him the details and hoped he would hear a little more from him.

John switched over to his Myspace and made a post for the first time in a long time. “Happy for new adventures,” it said with a sticker. And for the first time in a long time, he was.

Freddie was late, and he had just enough time for tea and maybe to check his email before he was needed at Splash, the high-end fashion boutique where he worked. He scrolled through his messages on his phone, reading a few replies, when one from Craigslist user John caught his eye.

“I love your headshot. This may be a little forward…”

Freddie smiled at that.

The pic finally loaded, and Freddie’s mouth watered at the sweet sight. A young man, early twenties, long brown hair, lovely green eyes, and the sweetest smile stared back at him. There were secrets in that smile, he thought, and Freddie wanted to find them out.

So Freddie had a date with not one but three other gents. He better get to work so he could find himself something new to wear.

“I want a double mocha latte, no whip, no drizzle, but soy sub on the milk,” the customer spouted off dryly, and Brian just nodded. He’d been working as a barista at Starbucks to help pay his way through college, and while things could get a little crazy, he mostly liked it. “No problem,” he said as he tried to smile. “Name please?”

The teenage girl grinned. “Princess of the Universe.” Brian’s face fell. “Alright miss I’ll try to fit that on the cup,” he muttered as he turned to make her coffee.

At his next break, he sat in the back and played Angry Birds on his phone until his email notifications pinged. John from Craigslist had written him back.

“Hi Bri! This is John. I really enjoyed your email and appreciate you thinking to ask about a safe environment. That is really important and is honestly something I would do. I have included the requested pictures of my flat. Thankfully I had just tidied up (haha).

The flat was neat and clean. Very homey. There was a fat orange cat nestled on the couch in one of the pics, and it made Brian smile. The headshot John had sent was of John in profile, looking out a window. His green eyes were luminous in the sunlight, and his long brown hair was pulled back over his shoulder. There was a slight smile on his face.

Brian hummed as he looked at it, eyes going over the smooth skin of the young man’s neck and where that skin stretched over the juncture of his jaw and cheek. He was lovely.

“Brian! You’ve got customers!”

Brian muttered a curse to himself.

“I’d very much like to attend,” Brian found himself typing. “Send me the details.”

His head was pounding, and the afternoon light of his bedroom hurt his eyes. Those were Roger’s first cognizant thoughts as he gradually returned to wakefulness after coming home last night and passing out on top of his sheets.

He doesn’t remember coming home, really, or how he got home. But he assumed Greg and his friends dumped him off here after he woke up on their couch.

It didn’t matter, not really. He stumbled home like this a few times a week and he invariably always recovered.

Roger peeled himself off the mattress, dragging himself into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. He endured the light so he wouldn’t miss the toilet, and when he passed the mirror, he paused.

There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. His face was puffy, his hair in disarray. He looked older somehow, and he swore under his breath. Shit had to get better than this.

He peeled off last night’s clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot spray wash off the filth and sketchy memories. Stepping out of the shower, he toweled off and put on a pair of sweats. He had a few hours before he had to be at his bartending job at a local nightclub, so he decided to forego the tea and head straight for the coffee.

He settled into the couch, letting the weariness leech from his boned into the cushions. Sipping his coffee, he checked his email, frowning when he got a notification from Craigslist.

“What the hell,” he muttered to himself, opening the email to find the top half of a picture loading.

It was a young man with soft green eyes crinkled at the edges, a wide smile and long brown hair. Something caught in his chest, something warm and fluttery, as he looked at it.

The email was underneath.

“Hello Roger! I’m John. I’m excited that you want to attend my birthday party. You’re my third guest, so that makes four of us, lol ;). I’m sending you the date and time below along with directions to my flat. I can’t wait to meet you in person. :).”

What the actual FUCK.

And suddenly it all came flooding back. The shot game, the lost bet. Roger’s heart sped up. Was he going to a foursome? Were they all dudes? His mouth went dry. While Roger had always been attracted to men, he had never actually slept with one. He swallowed. Could he actually do this?

FUCK.

There was no Emily Post etiquette guide for hosting a foursome, so John decided to wing it.

As he stared down into the homemade pasta sauce, he reasoned that food was a good move. Food brought people together, and togetherness brought sex. John smiled, satisfied with his ingenious if rather simplistic reasoning. He stirred the sauce, pausing before adding the browned ground beef. What were the odds that one of them was a vegetarian? He shrugged and dumped it in. Not too high.

The doorbell rang and John nearly jumped out of his skin. It was 6:05, and his guests weren’t due until 6:30. He frowned, turning the burner on low and moving to the peephole.

There, on the other side, was the same face he’d viewed in the email, only in living color. The sharp cheek bones, the elegant nose, the kohl lined eyes. John couldn’t get the door open fast enough.

“Freddie,” he almost breathed. His heart was beating fast and he self-consciously smoothed the hair around his face.

Freddie’s eyes flicked down to his chest, then back up to his face before he smiled, stepped into his space and smoothly kissed him, steadying his chin with the tips of his fingers.

John returned the kiss before breaking away, sputtering a little before getting his bearings. “Do you…do you always greet strangers like that?”

Freddie laughed smoothly. “No, silly.” He looked down, then back up at him, one neatly trimmed eyebrow cocked slightly. “But I’m excellent at following instructions.”

John flushed, remembering his ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron, and ushered him inside. “Um, can I get you something to drink?”

“I dunno, can you?” Freddie said smoothly as he walked through the living room of John’s flat, taking in every detail. He was impeccably dressed, John thought as he tracked him through the space. He stirred the sauce, leaving it to simmer and reached for a bottle of red wine, pouring Freddie a glass.

He handed it to the man who took it gratefully. “Something smells yummy. You didn’t have to cook, darling.”

John smiled, flushing at the epithet. “It’s just pasta. It’s nothing.”

Freddie settled on the couch, balancing the wine glass on his knee. “I hope you don’t mind that I arrived a little early. I always arrive early to these sorts of things. It keeps me safe.”

John nodded. “That’s smart actually. I don’t mind at all. I’m just glad you came.”

Freddie waggled his eyebrows over his wine glass. “I always come.”

John’s blush deepened, and Freddie laughed.

“I can’t help myself, darling, you’re just so damn cute when you do that.”

John lowered his glass. “Do what?”

“Blush like that. It’s precious.”

The two of them sat there for a few moments when Gwyneth took that opportunity to rub against Freddie’s leg.

“What a baby!”

John laughed as Gwyneth stretched and meowed, looking up at Freddie with affection. “I think she likes you.”

Freddie cooed and scratched her head. “I think I’m in love.”

When Brian arrived, John was busy straining the pasta, so Freddie got the door.

“Hello, darling,” he said brightly.

Brian looked at Freddie blankly. “You’re not John.”

“Come on in!” John called from the kitchen, and Brian side-stepped the man at the door a little nervously to meet the man in the kitchen.

“Um, sorry darling, but as I was about to say, “I’m Freddie.”

Brian looked down at the enigmatic man who had a delicate hand stuck out for him to shake. He took it.

Brian pressed his lips together. “Sorry about that earlier. I uh…I was just expecting John.”

Freddie patted his arm. “It’s alright love. We’re all a little jumpy. Just meeting and all that. But John is lovely. He even cooked.”

John appeared behind Brian, a dish towel over his shoulder. “Hello,” he said. “I’m John.”

Brian shook his hand, noticing the calloused fingers. The young man was trim in figure-hugging jeans and a crisp blue shirt that brought out the green in his eyes. Brian swallowed hard.

“Brian,” he said a little thinly.

John smiled, and it went straight to his gut. “I hope you like pasta Brian.” He walked to the counter and poured him a glass of wine.

Brian took it from him. “I do actually. Just no meat sauce. I’m a vegetarian.”

John looked horrified. “Fuckity fuck,” John he said allowed. “How about a salad?”

Freddie howled with laughter, the outburst so loud it scared Gwyneth under the couch. Brian just smiled softly, laying a hand on John’s shoulder. “That actually sounds lovely John.”

Brian made his way to the couch, followed closely by Freddie. The other man was observing him very keenly, taking in the softly curling hair and the sharp nose framing the delicate face. Brian was dressed very casually compared to Freddie, but he was no slouch. His neat jeans and tan blazer suited his slim physique very well.

John stared at the clock. It was crowding seven now, and Roger was nowhere to be found. A little pang of worry stabbed at his heart. It was possible that he might not show, and that was fine, but he was certainly looking forward to meeting him. He thought of the blue eyes the photo had hidden that he would never get to see.

Instead of worrying, he busied himself with plating the pasta and salads. Brian met him in the kitchen, setting his wine glass down. “Let me give you a hand, John.” His smile was genuine and warm, and John found that he liked it very much.

With two working it took half the time, and everyone had their food. Freddie looked around at the empty place setting and frowned. “Where’s number four?”

John worried his lip. “I don’t really know,” he said honestly. “I’m sure he’ll make it.”

Freddie smiled sympathetically. “Sometimes they don’t love. Nerves and all.”

Almost on cue, there came a tentative knock at the door. John stood a little too fast before settling himself down enough to answer it. He knew before looking through the peephole who it was.

Roger was dressed in a fashionable leather jacket and matching pants that hugged his figure. His trademark sunglasses were in the collar of his frayed t-shirt, no doubt purchased that way. His hair was messy-chic. John couldn’t stop staring at him until those blue eyes popped up to meet his. “You’re John?”

“Y-yeah,” he stammered out. “Nice to meet you Roger.” Roger shook it rather limply as he breezed into the living room, not giving John more than a glance. He stiffened when he heard voices from the kitchen.

“There you are!” Freddie called out to him. “Thought this was going to be a threesome. And while that’s still lovely, I do hate it when plans change,” he pouted.

Roger turned rather haltingly to face the other two men who had been eating and chatting, getting to know one another. Brian pointed to the open seat at the table, and Roger took it.

“Mind if I smoke John?”

John liked his voice…soft but still masculine. It made his stomach flutter. And while he smoked, he usually didn’t smoke inside because of Gwyneth. But he supposed—

“That’s fine,” John finally said. He watched as the fire from the lighter illuminated his fine features; he was certainly very beautiful, this Roger.

“I made dinner,” John offered, hoping to start a conversation with the man who had said very little since he arrived.

“Not hungry mate. Thanks though.”

John frowned a little, and Freddie cleared his throat.

“Well I’m Freddie, and this is Brian,” the ever talkative Freddie began with the introductions.

“Roger,” the newcomer mumbled around his cigarette.

They resumed eating and things grew quiet and bit awkward as Roger sat there smoking while everyone ate. He was very closed off, like he didn’t want to be there. John would need to get to the bottom of it if things progressed.

“Now that we’re all here, I’m a true bottom,” Freddie said matter-of-factly, “so I hope there are some tops among us.”

John nearly choked on his penne, and Brian had to pat him on the back, a fond smile on his face. “It doesn’t matter to me either way,” Brian said, his face growing hot.

“Me neither,” John said quietly.

Roger took a bored drag on his cigarette. “Top,” he muttered.

Freddie’s eyes grew wide. “Really…”

Roger snapped his gaze Freddie’s way. “Yeah, that’s right. Is that so hard to believe, you wanker?”

Freddie put his hands up in defense. “No reason to be nasty, love. Just took me by surprise is all. You just give off…bottomy vibes.”

Roger stubbed out his cigarette in his empty plate. “What the FUCK is that supposed to mean?”

Freddie rolled his eyes. “Nothing darling. Forget it.”

Roger had stood, fists balled at his hips, and he was gyrating with anger. John and Brian were looking on, wide-eyed, wondering where all of this would go.

Until Freddie stood and hugged the man.

Roger relaxed into his grip, his head dropping to his shoulder. He sighed, arms relaxing at his sides.

“Darling, it’s alright,” Freddie soothed against him. “It’s all alright now.”

And when Freddie pulled away, he kissed him softly on the lips.

Roger hummed in surprise before relenting into the kiss, letting his mouth go pliant against the other man’s and enjoying the faint hint of tomato sauce and chapstick on his tongue. When Freddie released him, he sighed.

“Why—why did you do that?”

Freddie reached up to thumb at his chin. “Darling, you looked like you needed it. When’s the last time someone hugged you?”

Roger’s eyes stung with oncoming tears, but he willed them back down. His lack of an answer was enough for Freddie.

“Let us take care of you tonight,” he said sweetly. “Show you true affection. Make you feel good.”

“Yeah,” Roger found himself saying. It sounded so nice, after all, to be truly wanted and cared for, if only for the night.

Brian and John were beside them now, and John leaned in and lay a hand on Roger’s arm. “Are we ok?”

Roger nodded, feeling much more at ease. “Yeah, everything is fine.”

John smiled. “Let’s clean up, yeah? Then maybe we can move this into the bedroom.”

“You uh…You mind if I just watch for a while?”

Roger had gotten his shirt off, and then nerves had taken over. Freddie was on all fours, moaning into John’s talented fingers as he opened him up, his heavy cock straining with need.

John shot him a smile. “Sure love. Do what you’re comfortable with,” he said as he punched another moan out of Freddie, twisting those fingers inside of his tight walls.

Roger eased off the bed before a hand grabbed him. “Hey,” Brian said, hazel eyes soft with lust.

Roger swallowed, the tall man’s kind smile making him feel instantly at ease.

He smiled, his heartrate going down a bit.

“Where are you off to?” Brian answered innocently. He was crowding his space, the bare skin of his chest now flush with his as he bent his head to nose at his hair.

“That chair in the corner,” Roger said softly. “I was gonna watch.”

Brian placed a little kiss to his hair. “Not gonna play?”

Roger’s throat was dry, and he was straining in his trousers. “Not right now,” he trailed off.

Brian kissed further down the side of his face. “Pity,” he said as his hands traveled over Rogers bum.

“You ever had a really good blowjob, Roger? One that makes you feel like you’re exploding into a billion stars?” Brian finally reached his mouth and locked lips with him, his tongue curling around his, kissing him so deeply it stole Roger’s breath.

Roger moaned in spite of himself, leaning into Brian’s touch. Brian released him, never breaking eye-contact. “Well, have you?”

He answered him truthfully. “I guess not,” he said a little breathlessly.

Brian smiled. “That’s what I was hoping you would say.”

“Can you take a fourth finger baby?” Freddie just moaned, gripping the sheets as he tossed his head back. John slid it in, delighting in the way Freddie just fluttered around him, drawing him in like he was born to take it. He worked his fingers in and out of him, hitting his prostate to make him moan. The sound of Brian going down on Roger was in his ears and it home to John that this foursome dream of his was really happening, this little birthday fantasy of his was real.

John pressed kisses into Freddie’s neck, making sure his fingers kept up a steady pressure. Freddie just moaned—he was so vocal—and thrust his hips up to meet his fingers.

“Need your cock,” he finally breathed. “Give it to me John.”

Roger shivered as Brian circled the head of his cock with his tongue, licking the slit before descending on him again. Brian took him all the way to the base, his nose buried in the dark blond hair there, Roger’s hot length stretching his throat with every bob of his head.

Above him, Roger was coming undone. He was making little keening sounds as Brian played with his balls while sucking him off, moaning and sputtering that he wouldn’t last long. It didn’t matter to Brian. He loved this.

The man grabbed a handful of his hair just before coming hot and full down his throat, his back arching prettily. Brian swallowed him down, finally pulling off him when he was sure he was finished.

Brian dabbed at his mouth as Roger looked at him with a little bit of awe.

“You good?” he asked Roger as he sat back on his knees, smiling up at him.

“Incredible,” Roger sighed. “That was better than X.”

Brian frowned. “X?”

“Ecstasy? The party drug?” Roger looked perplexed that the man had never heard of it.

He dug in his pocket and produced a little baggie and handed it to Brian, who pushed it away.

“Sorry mate, but I’m not down for that. Brian looked nervously over his shoulder. John doesn’t look the type either, so I’d put that away if I were you.”

Roger stuffed the baggie of pills back into his pocket. “Do I look like the type?” he said as he zipped up his fly.

Brian just sat there, thinking.

Freddie had one hand on his leaking cock, stroking it in rhythm to John’s thrusts. His head was pressed into the mattress, and he was having the time of his life.

“Harder John. Fuck me harder babe. Like you mean it!”

John loved how vocal Freddie had been to begin with, but now he was being outright bratty. John hitched Freddie’s hips higher, angling them so he could aim directly at his prostate. Freddie’s body was slicked with sweat as was his own, so maneuvering them was no easy feat. He pulled out of Freddie and then slammed back down again.

“God yes that’s it lover,” Freddie mumbled into the sheets as he set up a blistering pace, wet flesh slapping against each other as he John chased his release. Freddie was furiously stroking himself, so it wouldn’t be long for him. Through Freddie’s plaintive, sharp moans, he could feel the crest of his orgasm stop right at the edge. He tightened his grip on Freddie, emptying into the condom as wave after wave of pleasure gripped him. Somewhere through the fog he heard Freddie come right after.

Brian followed Roger into living room, where he was trying to collect his things. “You’re leaving?”

Roger turned on Brian, his hands on his hips. “I don’t have much choice, now do I?”

Brian shrugged. “You always have a choice.”

“I don’t belong here,” Roger said, shaking his head. “I’m not even gay.”

Brian’s eyes widened. “Are you sure about that?”

Roger shook his head, withdrawing the little baggie of pills. “Ah fuck it,” he said as he poured a few in his hand.

Brian approached him slowly. “I can’t let you do that, Roger. Take those pills. Not on my watch.”

Roger clutched the pills in his hand tightly to his chest. “What the fuck do you care, Brian? You’re just some guy who blew me off. You don’t know me?” He was vibrating with rage, his eyes wide. “You don’t own me!”

Brian shook his head. “Listen to yourself. You sound like a child. We’re talking about drugs, here, Roger. You could seriously hurt yourself.”

“Yeah well, I hope I do,” He spat.

Brian had no choice. “John! Freddie! I need you in here!”

The two of them came rushing in, John in a robe and Freddie struggling into pants. “Brian, what’s wrong?”

“Roger has drugs,” Brian got out quickly. “Ecstasy. He’s about to take some.”

Freddie stepped forward between them. “Oh darling that shit is hell on you. You don’t want to do that. Tell me what’s up.”

Roger relaxed a little. “Nothing,” he whispered. The pills were sweating and melting in his hand. “I just needed to get out of my head for a little while.”

John was watching the proceedings, trying not to panic. No way did he want drugs in his house, but he also didn’t want to see Roger hurt.

Freddie nodded. “I so understand that love. That’s why I hook up a lot. Sex helps me forget some nasty things in my past and some things that are going on in my daily you know? It’s a nice escape. Plus it’s legal and it doesn’t hurt me as long as I’m safe.”

Roger’s hand relaxed a little on the pills. “Yeah that makes sense,” he conceded. “I’m glad you have that.”

Freddie nodded again, getting close enough to Roger to smooth some of the hair that hung around his face behind his ear. Roger seemed to lean into his touch. “Did you enjoy your time with Brian, him? Freddie couldn’t keep the wicked smile from his face. “Sure sounded liked you did.”

Roger smiled then. “Yeah it was really nice.”

“I bet. Might have to see how nice it is, huh Brian?” Freddie said as he threw a wink over his shoulder at Brian who just laughed at him, shaking his head.

Freddie grabbed Roger’s hand. “Give me these darling…they’re all melted now, anyway. Come have some fun with us instead.”

Roger’s lips were dry as Freddie pried the pills from his grip. “I’ve never…I’ve never been with a man,” he admitted.

“A virgin?!” Freddie gasped, “Oh our boy’s a virgin…we’ll have to take extra special care of him won’t we boys?”

Freddie discreetly handed off the baggie of pills and the few tablets to John who promptly went into the bathroom to flush them.

“Yes,” he said as he stroked his face. “We’ll take extra good care of you love. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

Brian stroked the young man’s face as John worked on the fly of his dark jeans, easing them down his hips. His cock sprung free…no pants underneath, and John smiled, stroking him lightly. Freddie hummed, squeezing Brian’s buttocks as he wrapped an arm around his waist.

“You sure you’re ok with this Roger?” John’s voice was husky with want, his eyes flicking up briefly from the young man’s cock to his blue eyes where they looked down at him expectantly.

“Yes,” Roger said, leaning into Brian’s hand on his face, his eyes fluttering closed. “I want this.”

Freddie smiled, tightening his arms around Brian. They walked Roger back until his legs touched the bed. He sat down, easing onto the soft comforter while they helped him scoot back. Brian was between his legs in an instant, easing between his thighs to skate his hands along his chest and arms while Freddie cradled his head in his lap. Roger’s eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted in a pretty bow, and John bent to kiss them, unable to help himself.

Roger sighed, giving himself over to the kiss, letting his tongue dart out to meet John’s as his arms strained against Freddie hands. At some point, the dark-haired man had pressed his arms down into the mattress.

Roger panicked for a split second, then the thrill of the restraint sank into his bones, and he truly felt free.

“That’s it baby,” Freddie soothed, “Just let go and let us take over.” Roger stared up into the man’s soft brown eyes, feeling a strange sense of peace.

Brian was making slow circles on his hip, thumbing the sensitive skin there. “Roger,” he said softly. “Do you want to top?” His hazel eyes bore into his. “It’s your first time. It’s easier that way.”

Roger worried his lip. “No,” he said firmly. “I want to do it like Freddie did.”

Freddie smirked a little, still stroking his hair. “I knew it. He’s a natural bottom.”

John giggled a little, tossing Brian the lube. “Open him up nice and slow Brian. Your fingers are slender.”

John crawled over to Freddie, pulling his head up and kissing him firmly. Freddie groaned into John’s mouth, letting his hand slide up his chest. “Up for round two love?”

John just hummed. “Maybe. Maybe not. On your knees, True Bottom.” John pushed Freddie down on his knees, smacking his bum on the way down. Freddie fell forward, grunting as he hit the mattress, landing on all fours.

He shivered as John climbed up behind him. He could feel his warm breath on the back of his thigh, whispering over his bum as John’s hands settled there. He parted his cheeks, and Freddie hardly had time to catch his breath before John had licked a hot strip up the cleft of his buttocks.

“Fuck!” Freddie cried out, his whole body jerking under John’s mouth. John smiled against him, and Freddie felt the wry grin against his skin.

Brian eased a pillow beneath Roger’s hips, watching Roger for any sign of discomfort. He betrayed none; he seemed as relaxed as he did when Freddie was cradling his head. Indeed, Freddie had now clasped the blond’s hand while being eaten out, a look of sheet bliss on his face, and Roger gripped it tightly.

“We’re going to do this very slowly, Roger. It will feel different at first, but then it will feel good, ok?”

Roger nodded his head, taking in a breath.

Brian tutted. “Don’t hold your breath love. Blow it out for me. Just try to relax, ok? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Brian smiled at him, and Roger returned it. Brian had the sweetest, most genuine smile, and while he didn’t really know the man, he knew instinctively that he could trust him.

He warmed the lube in is fingers before circling Roger’s entrance with smooth, calculated movements, relaxing the tight muscle. He pushed one in, and Roger jumped a little.

“How does that feel Roger? Talk to me.”

“Different,” he breathed. “Not bad.”

Brian smiled. He began working the finger in and out of Roger rhythmically until he felt Roger relax around him, then he added a second.

Roger jerked, a little half-moan escaping his lips. Brian cocked an eyebrow. “Is that better?”

“Y-yeah,” Roger stammered. “It’s ok.”

Brian aimed for his prostate, finding the little bundle of nerves in moments, and Roger nearly folded in half. “Just ok?”

Roger was panting, a fine sweat on his brow, and he unconsciously thrust onto Brian’s fingers. “So good,” he said, his grip on Freddie’s hand tightening.

Freddie preened. “Look at you baby boy—ahh—taking those fingers so well. I knew you could do it.”

Freddie looked ruined, very near coming, and the sounds coming from John were bordering on obscene. Roger couldn’t see him, but whatever he was doing to Freddie it sounded like he was enjoying it.

Brian twisted the fingers against him, making him writhe and squirm, until he added a third.

Roger winced at the sting, the stretch of a third finger, but Brian was gentle in coaxing him open. He was leaned over him, planting little kisses on his collarbone, his throat, and finally smothering his moans with his own mouth. It all felt so intimate, not at all like his drug-fueled shags. Tears began to spring in his eyes.

Brian noticed immediately. “Roger, am I hurting you? He lost the fingers immediately. “Talk to me, Roger.”

“No,” Roger choked out. “Give me more please.”

John laughed as he was helping Freddie clean up. “You’ve got him begging Brian. So beautiful for us.”

The fingers returned, a little rougher this time, a little more insistent. Roger’s legs were open wide and he was almost swallowing Brian’s hand.

“You’re ready, gorgeous. I think my work here is done.” Brian withdrew his hand, wiping it on his thigh, and met John in the middle of the bed. He kissed him deeply. “You have him nice and open for me?” Brian murmured softly.

John nodded. “He’s all yours. I bet you can get him to come again.”

Brian squeezed John’s arm, locking eyes with him. “Be gentle with Roger.”

John blinked up at him. “Of course Bri,” he said, using his sign off from his email. “I wouldn’t dream of hurting him.”

Brian smiled. “I know.”

John crawled over to Roger, who was still red-faced, his chest heaving. He leaned over him, giving him a tender kiss. “Hello love. Don’t you look ravishing like this?”

John cradled his face in his hand, then trailed it down his chest to tease at a nipple. “I’m going to take good care of you, yeah?”

Roger only nodded, his eyes half-lidded, lips kiss-swollen and irresistible.

John slid on a condom, coating it with lube. He pressed against Roger’s open entrance, letting his cockhead push at the rim. He looked up at Roger. “We don’t have to do this. It’s up to you.”

Roger shook his head. “I want it,” he said throwing his back into the pillow. “Give it to me.”

John pushed gently inside, watching Roger’s intake of breath, is fluttering eyelids at the sudden onslaught of being filled. He gave him a moment to adjust, the vice-like grip of him around him, hot and incredibly tight driving him mad with the need to move.

“I’m ok,” Roger said finally. “Go ahead.”

He had one arm over his face and his lip between his teeth, but for his first time he was taking cock so well. John basically made love to him…slow, measured strokes, his face buried in his shoulder and his hips undulating over his. He had one hand on Roger’s cock, slowly stroking it in time with his thrusts.

Then Roger started kissing him…hungry, desperate kisses that made the fire rise in his blood. That, coupled with the feeling of how bloody close they were, their bodies nearly fused together, made John want to give it to him just a little harder.

“Hitch your legs around me baby. Come on, that’s it.” John increased his pace, and little whines started coming from the back of Roger’s throat.

“You doing ok?”

Roger nodded furiously. “Gonna come,” he managed.

Freddie and Brian rolled over close to the couple, Freddie taking over for John by working Roger’s cock, and Brian sweeping the hair back from John’s neck and placing an encouraging kiss there.

John could feel his own orgasm building, a tightly packed explosion of euphoria ready to burst at any moment. It was finally punched out of him when Roger looked up at him with those blue eyes and said “Just let go…” He had been the one who had been so careful with him, but it finally took permission from Roger for him to get release.

With Freddie’s help, Roger came right after.

The four of them lay beautifully spent, bodies sweating and coming down from their highs. Roger lit a cigarette and shared it with Freddie.

“We never cut the birthday cake,” John mused.

Brian laughed. “What time is it?”

Someone looked at their phone. “10:20.”

Roger smiled. “Well, it’s still your birthday.”

John laughed. “Indeed it is. Who’s up for some post-coital cake?”

Freddie grimaced. “That does not sound right.”

They all tumbled out of bed toward the kitchen where John dished up the plates and began serving cake.

John flushed. “Um, before you go, you’re free to use the shower. Freshen up a bit if you like. Or, you could stay over…”

Something flashed in their eyes, and they all shared a look.

“I’m actually off tomorrow,” Freddie said.

“I don’t work until nighttime,” Roger added.

“My shift at the coffee shop doesn’t start until ten,” Brian replied.

John brightened. “Well, that’s great! I mean, I wouldn’t want you traveling so late and all. Let’s take our cake back to bed, shall we?”

John gathered up the plates and began to traipse back to the bedroom, but as soon as he got out of sight, Freddie grabbed a piece of paper and put his phone number on it, then gave it to Brian and then Roger and let them do the same. At the bottom, he wrote “Happy Birthday” with a heart and stuck it on the fridge for John to find later. Then, all three of them followed John back into the bedroom to finish their cake.

-0-0-0-

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