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hiddenwritingsintheworld · 4 years ago

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Lifestyle Changes Part 1 (Jared x Reader)

(New Jared x Reader series!! Only if people are interested! If not I wont continue it!)

Donations (broke & jobless so this is my new job)

Let me know if you loved it!

At 26 you thought you had a pretty good life, you lived in a two-bedroom loft with no roommates because you hated most people. You worked for a high profiled magazine-Enter- ‘TAIN’ ME Weekly. You were a lifestyle journalist. You took no shit from anyone and if they wanted to mess with you, you fucked them up severally.

You partied all weekends and Monday mornings were hard, but you always worked for Fridays. You were perfectly content in life. You were successful at work, you had friends with benefits. What more could you ever want in life?

You walked into work on Monday morning to find out that life wouldn’t be the same. You put your headphones in, grabbed a couple snack bags of chips, a diet soda from the fridge, and once seated at your desk, you slid your shoes off, turned on your laptop and began your morning breakfast. You looked over at Jeni, another “Article Author” as your dumbass boss/ editor, Rachel, called all of you.

“So, have you heard yet?” she grinned at you. You pulled out your left headphone and shook your head as you took a drink. “Whats going on? Don’t tell me, Matt Damon got ANOTHER outer space movie???” you asked in the fake excited yet also extremely sarcastic voice you do. Jeni laughed shaking her head some. “No, apparently two new guys are starting here as interns, and they’re being put here on the 12th floor with us!” she grinned clapping her hands. You groaned, you hated interns. Partly because of how stupid they could be, the other half was because you were an intern once and it was when life was so much easier.

“Grooosssss keep them away from me. I’m busy,” you said pulling up your article and continuing to work on it. “Oh My God.” She said in a softer tone with a dead ass seriousness to it. You looked at her before seeing her staring off toward the glass doors. Following her line of vision, you looked over and rolled your eyes. You knew exactly who these two guys were.

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.

What the fuck were they doing here?

“Jesus, please I’ll go to church every fucking weekend, I’ll do ANYTHING, please Jesus.” Jeni pleaded softly. You scrunched your face looking up at her. “Gross. I have to get back to work. Leave me alone now,” you said putting your headphones back in.

Unknown to you though, partly thanks to the headphones, Rachel had walked in with the guys and was talking about exactly why they were here. You were the only one not paying attention to her little speech and she noticed almost instantly. “Jay,” she smiled at Jensen, “I’m gonna place you with our top sports girl,” she said walking around the room as everyone got back to work. “Jeni Woods, this is Jensen Ackles, I thought he’d be a good intern for you.” Rachel smiled as Jeni stood calmly from her chair and shook his hand, though inside she was screaming her lungs out, she got Jensen set up at her desk and they began talking about what exactly she does.

Rachel saw you still typing away eating your chips and listening to music and began to head towards you. “Now Jared I’m placing you with our lifestyle girl. She’s a bit…. well you just gotta get to know her. But I promise, this is more of a punishment for her than it is for you. See Y/N doesn’t like listening to me, she believes that it’s her piece of the magazine and no one should have a say in what she writes.” Rachel fake laughed “She’s a trooper!” she continued to laugh some “But she hates interns, I mean cannot stand them. So…you’re gonna be her intern and hopefully some of your dashing personality rubs off on her.” She grinned and stopped by your chair; you knew she was there you could sense it. But you weren’t about to give her the time of day. Suddenly, your left headphone was yanked out. You instantly stopped typing and stared at your screen for a minute before turning your chair and facing her. “Yes Rachel, whatever can I do for you this morning?” you grinned brightly at her.

Rachel gave you a forced smile, “Good morning Y/N, great news!! I’ve seen all the hard work you’ve done so as a reward I’m giving you your very own intern!!” she clapped, everyone else around the office looked with wide eyes and concerned features. “Nah, I’m good, I’m not some lazy top-notch bitch who needs an errand boy to fetch my shit for me. Thanks though.” You put your headphone back in and went back to work. Rachel, again pulled the headphone out, “Nonsense. You’ve got an intern, so teach him what it’s like to be a journalist. Or your fired.” She grinned mumbling the last part for just you and her to hear.

Huffing you stood and faced her, she wore a skin tight cream colored dress with thigh high black velvet boots. You smiled and nodded turning her around so you could whisper some. “You know you’re right Rachel, I’ve busted my ass for years, it’s time I got rewarded.” You put your hand on her back rubbing it some and smiled. “Thank you, you’ve just made my day.” You patted her back and turned back to the tall man as Rachel smirked and walked away. The cheese smears from your Doritos stained the back of her dress. Everyone saw as she walked back toward her office, laughing hysterically.

“Your ass is fired.” Jason, a tall, surfer type man laughed as he leaned back in his chair. “Please, she wishes she could fire me. She doesn’t have the power.” You said sitting back in your chair and beginning to eat on your chips again. “um, is…is that your breakfast?” your new intern asked as he pulled up a chair and sat beside you. You looked at him, “Look…………what’s your name again?” you asked him. He smiled extending his hand. “I’m Jared Pada-,”

“That was rhetorical, I don’t give a shit what your name is Jared Padalecki. I write lifestyle articles for a two-brain celled bitch named Rachel, I know who you are. I know you’re here because Rachel begged her daddy, Robert Singer, to have you and him intern here in exchange for two sperate cover stories on the both of you and also you both get $25k a piece.”

Jared stared in shock at you, they’d been told no one would ever know. You smirked turning back to your laptop. “Yes, this is my breakfast. You’re more than welcome to some in the breakroom.” You said after a minute. “That’s not very healthy.” He said quietly as you chuckled, “Wait until we go out on assignment together.” You smirked to yourself typing again. This might not be such a bad thing, having an intern and all.

@adriellej @teamfreewill-imagine @ellen-reincarnated1967 @babypink224221 @hobby27 @sgarrett49 @smoothdogsgirl @mrssamfuckingwinchester @traceyaudette @mogaruke @thewalkingdistancefrom @booger206 @heimganger @moonlitskinwalker @stoneygirl @monkeymcpoopoo @sandlee44 @asgardianvamp21 @frozenhuntress67 @just-another-busy-fangirl @flamencodiva @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @auriel187 @animenerdz1819 @jessica-marsh09 @woodworthti666

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storiesforallfandoms · 5 years ago

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busy ~ jeff wittek

word count:

request?: no

description: when life makes it impossible to go on a first date, jeff decides to plan one that he will not let fall through

pairing: jeff wittek x female!reader

warnings: none

masterlist

Online dating was always hit or miss. Either you meet someone who was super crazy, or someone who was really nice but it never worked out. Tinder was that, but, whether they were crazy or nice, the only thing anyone wanted to do was hook up.

You were ready to completely give up on Tinder when you were matched with Jeff Wittek, a YouTube barber who was well known for being friends with David Dobrik.

You clicked right away. Within a matter od days, you were planning your first date. The only trouble was neither of you had the time for the date. You were an intern at the Los Angeles hospital, so you basically worked six days a week, and Jeff was always travelling with David. It got to a point where you both stopped trying to plan the date and just hoped it would happen naturally.

You got into your car after a particularly long day and put your head against the steering wheel. You felt exhausted and you couldn’t wait to sleep for like 12 hours.

You checked our phone to see you had a text from Jeff. It read: “Hey! Hope you’re having a good day at work. Call me when you’re off?” It was accompanied by a smiley and a blushing smiley emoji. You couldn’t help but smile, happy to hear from him after such a long day.

The phone rang maybe two times before Jeff picked up. “Hey!”

“Hi,” you responded with a smile, happy to hear his voice.

“How was your day at work?” Jeff chuckled when he heard your long sigh. “That bad?”

“Not bad, just tiring,” you responded.

“Tomorrow is your day off, right?” You hummed in response, looking forward to the time off. “Do you have plans tonight?”

“Sleep.”

“Do you mind putting sleep on hold? I have our first date ready here at my place if you're up for it.”

Any exhaustion you were feeling suddenly melted away. You were now feeling energized and excited.

“I’ll text you my address, get ready and come over, dress comfy.”

“O - Okay,” you stutter out. “See you then.”

You drove home and got ready as quickly as possible. You took a quick shower, partly drying your hair and putting it up in a bun. Jeff told you to dress comfy, but you decided to wear a pair of leggings that were comfy but also made your butt look good, and an oversized hoodie.

When you were sure you were ready, you drove to his apartment. You were so nervous you could barley sit still. The drive was just barley ten minutes but it felt like an hour long. The elevator ride up to his apartment felt even longer. By the time you finally reached his apartment, you were so nervous you felt like you were going to be sick. You took a deep breath to calm your nerves and knocked at the door.

The first good sign you had was the sound of a dog barking. When Jeff opened the door, a little French bulldog raced out and started sniffing you and jumping up on your legs. You were more than happy to greet him with some ear scratches.

“Damn, Nerf, I just met the girl face to face and you’re already stealing her from me?” Jeff questioned, taking hold of the dog and pulling him away from you.

You looked up at Jeff, almost feeling intimidated by his height. He stood an easy foot over you, and even through the t-shirt he was wearing you could see his muscles. While you definitely weren’t someone who judged people for their looks, you definitely weren’t upset over what you were seeing from Jeff.

“It’s nice to finally see you face to face,” he said, a wide smile on his face. You couldn’t help but smile back.

“It’s nice to finally see you, too,” you told him.

You weren’t sure if you should hug him, maybe just shake his hand, or just walk into the apartment and see what Jeff had planned for your first date. Luckily, he took initiative and pulled you into a warm hug. You melted in his arms almost immediately. It felt right being there, the next good sign.

He led you into his apartment. The lights were off, excited for some dim lighting coming from the living room. When you walked in you saw that he had a blanket fort set up with fairy lights strung across the top of it. Inside the fort, Jeff had a laptop set up and blankets and pillows set up over the floor.

“I figured, you’d be tired after a long day,” Jeff explained. “I thought a more relaxing first date would be a blanket fort and a movie. You’re welcome to stay over if you want, too. That’s totally up to you. If you fall asleep, I won’t wake you up.”

“This is so cute,” you told him. “I love it. What movie are we watching, though?”

“I don’t know. I thought I’d let you decide. Most of what I watch is super action-y or trashy comedy and I wasn’t sure if you liked either of those genres so you can pick.”

“I love trashy comedy,” you said. “Anything Adam Sandler I’m a sucker for.”

“Oh that’s fantastic. If you didn’t like trashy Adam Sandler I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to continue this relationship.”

You felt yourself blushing when he said “relationship”. You weren’t really sure what to consider the two of you. Whenever people asked, you told them you were “talking to someone”, but since you hadn’t gone on your first date you weren’t sure if this was considered a relationship or not. If Jeff was considering it one, that must mean it was then, right?

You crawled into the tent and Jeff followed. He picked a movie, you both decided on the first Grown Ups movie. As he settled back against the pillows, Jeff pulled you to him, letting you cuddle into him.

Everything felt so natural, like this wasn’t your first time meeting in person. Laying there next to him, cuddling into his side, watched the movie together while your eyelids started to grow heavy. It all felt so familiar instead of being something new. You figured the months of talking definitely helped to ease the nervousness and the tension that a first date usually brought, which you were definitely grateful for.

You felt yourself starting to nod off and jolted awake when you felt your head suddenly lull forward. Jeff’s chest vibrated under your ear as he chuckled.

“You want to go to bed?” he asked.

“No,” you lied, but you knew he didn’t believe you. “I can’t stay over, I would feel too bad.”

“Well I’m not letting you drive home when you’re mere seconds away from falling asleep,” he told you. “My couch is a pullout bed, you can sleep on that if you don’t feel comfortable in the blanket fort.”

“Oh no, I’m definitely sleeping in the fort. I haven’t slept in one in years,” you said.

He chuckled. “Yeah, me neither. I started thinking they were lame when I became a teenager, but honestly nothing is more cool than a blanket fort.”

“Blanket fort with homemade cookies,” you correct him. “That’s way cooler.”

“Ah man, I should’ve gotten cookies. That definitely would’ve sealed the deal, wouldn’t it?”

You nodded, looking at him very seriously. “Oh yeah. This whole date is a bust because no cookies.”

“Fuck,” he silently swore. “I really thought things were going well.”

You both laughed as you pushed yourself to sit up, facing Jeff. “But seriously, this whole night is amazing. This - ” you gesture to the fort. “ - this is amazing. This is honestly the sweetest thing a guy has ever done for me.”

Jeff propped himself up on his elbow. “It’s just a blanket fort. It’s pretty simplistic for a first date.”

“The fact that you went out of your way to work around our schedules for the date in general means a lot to me,” you admit. “I’ve talked to guys who find out I work nearly 12 hours six days a week and they almost immediately give up on me. My last serious relationship we broke up because he didn’t like that I took the intern job without telling him first.”

“That’s awful,” Jeff said. “Those guys obviously don’t deserve you, then. Which is fine, cause their loss is my gain.”

You felt yourself blushing again. You pulled your hoodie up around your face so he wouldn’t see. Jeff laughed and sat up. He took your hoodie down from your face and cupped your cheeks. Before you knew what was happened, Jeff pulled you forward and kissed you.

You were frozen at first, not sure what to do, but slowly you melted into the kiss. Even the first kiss, which usually was somewhat awkward, felt so right. When Jeff pulled away, you felt tingly and fuzzy on the inside.

“So, how many months do I have to wait for the second date?” Jeff asked.

You made a face like you were thinking before responding, “How about tomorrow morning? I’ll make breakfast.”

Jeff smiled. “That sounds perfect to me.”

#jeff wittek #jeff wittek imagine #jeff wittek x reader #the vlog squad #vlog #vlog squad #vlog squad imagine #imagine #one shot

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pengychan · 4 years ago

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[Good Omens] Winging It - Jeremiah 17:9

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: No vintage pornography was mistreated in the making of this chapter.

(A scene was partly based on and amazing comic by @hyunlou, because I loved it so much I could no longer picture the scene going any other way,and also @lunaescribe on my birthday with art - check the fic tag to see both!)

***

“... Is that what they asked you? If you had carnal desires? Were those their exact words?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said, and shifted a little when Łukasz let out a groan, rubbing his temples.

“Why do they speak like they came out of some shitty BBC period drama?” Fabrizio asked, only for Łukasz to entirely ignore him and look back at Gabriel.

“And you said no.”

“I said I don’t think I do-- I am not sure-- and then they left before I could suggest we go out for the evening, and I have no idea why. But they did take the mugs, so--”

“Jesus Christ, mate, they were making a pass at you!”

Gabriel blinked. “... They were making a what?”

Fabrizio cleared his throat before speaking in the fakest, poshest British accent imaginable. “I think what my esteemed colleague is trying to say is that this… what’s their name again?”

“Beel-- Bill.”

“Right. This Bill was trying to politely gauge whether or not you may, perchance, be entertaining the thought of shagging.”

“Shagging?” Gabriel repeated. He was familiar with the term, of course - working in warehouse near the docks had taught him a vast array of terms all generally referring to the same things - but he had no idea why Beelzebub would be asking if he entertained the thought of--

“Shagging them, specifically.”

Gabriel stared. He opened his mouth, gaped a little more, then blinked. “They-- were?” he asked, sounding every inch as bewildered as he felt. The notion was so alien to him, it was hard to wrap his mind around it… and yet, now that it had been clearly spelled out for him, Gabriel felt a sudden desire to reach back into the space-time continuum and smack himself in the back of the head. Unable to do that due to his current limitations as a mortal, he just blinked again. “But... why?”

Forehead firmly pressed on the table, Łukasz snickered. “That’s an excellent question,” he said. “I’m starting to suspect your friend is a rabid moronsexual.”

“A what?”

That caused Fabrizio to burst laughing so suddenly and violently that Gabriel was left with little doubt that he was supposed to feel insulted by the remark. However, he was too baffled to.

“That was never-- it never came up,” he protested.

“Hah! Well, it did now. They brought it up. So, are you?”

Gabriel opened his mouth.

“... Before you go ‘am I what’, allow me to make myself clear. Are you interested in the offer?”

Ah. “I’m… not certain it was an offer, I ought not assume--”

“Let’s say it was. Are you?”

Gabriel hesitated, and this time they didn’t press him for an answer. Which was good, because he honestly did not have one yet; there had been something when he’d held the Prince of Hell in his arms, something that had made him wish he didn’t have to put them down… but the notion of carnal desires was so foreign to him, he had no idea what that would even feel like.

In the end, he sighed. “... I’ll need to do research,” he finally said.

If Łukasz and Fabrizio found it an odd response, which they probably did, they said nothing of it.

“All right. But, my friend, let me tell you something. Whether you want to shag them or not, you’re so smitten it’s not even funny,” Fabrizio said. Gabriel didn’t even try to argue he was not.

Lying is, after all, a sin.

***

Indulging in carnal pleasures was, quite obviously, not the immediate ticket to the lowest circles of Hell that many mortals seemed to believe it was.

It was in some cases, of course, whenever someone forced their own lust on somebody who was anything but a willing participant; those souls had a circle of their own, which was rather cramped as well as boasting a frankly astounding amount of Catholic priests.

A good number of them may have been tempted by demons, though Beelzebub suspected it was a minority, but even in those cases all the forces of Hell had really done was put some rather non-specific lust in their heart; how they let it grow and then acted upon it was entirely their choice.

It was not a circle of Hell Beelzebub had ever had much to do with, as lust did not precisely fall under their expertise, and therefore they did not know the minute details of what was the exact line between simple carnal pleasure and sinful lust. However, they felt reasonably certain in the assumption that carnal relations with a Prince of Hell would, at the very least, be a prominent enough sin to tilt the balance of the scale towards Hell.

And I may be more successful in doing that than I was trying to convince him to push an old lady under the bus.

Just maybe. There were demons who made seduction their weapon of choice when it came to gaining influence over mortals, but Beelzebub was not among them. Plus, when asked if he did have carnal desires, Gabriel had said he didn’t think he did.

But he hadn’t said no, either, which had been his immediate reply whenever they had tried to talk him into any kind of serious sin, and therefore Beelzebub concluded it would be foolish not to make at least an attempt. So they would - but first, they needed to do some research over what carnal relations precisely entailed other than just choosing one out of two models of genitalia and make them fit with the other’s.

They would come across as rather stupid, after all, if Gabriel accepted and they had to reveal they didn’t know the first thing about what they’d just proposed.

***

The dancers should stand facing each other, keep their feet loose and relaxed, standing so that they are facing each other with about an arm's length of space in between them...

By the time he got to the second paragraph, Gabriel had begun to suspect that guide - Learn How To Shag In One Minute - was not precisely what he was looking for. With a frown, he went back to the search results and looked around a bit further.

Ah, so apparently shag dancing was a thing. It looked rather awkward and had no relevance to his research, doubly so as angels did not dance and he certainly had not picked up the habit since becoming mortal, so in the end Gabriel sighed and just put his phone down.

All right, it seemed that the Internet was not a reliable source, regardless of the large amounts of porn that, he had been informed, could be found in it. He had absolutely no intention to come across as a fool if - when? - Beelzebub brought up the matter again, and therefore he needed better sources than dubious websites with excessive amounts of Xs in their name.

A book. Books are more reliable.

Of course Gabriel was not so gullible to think all books could be trusted - he had seen too many outlandish editions of the Bible not to know better - so he would need to be certain the book he got his hands on would be a reputable one.

And he just so happened to know an expert in the field.

***

“Lord Beelzeb--”

“Nothing!”

Dagon blinked, taken aback, when Lord Beelzebub let out a noise that was only slightly more dignified than a shriek and slammed their laptop shut. They had been sitting on their throne, staring at the screen with such keen interest they hadn’t heard her coming in - and now, for some reason, they were sitting on the laptop.

… All right. Dagon would assume that whatever they were looking at was a private matter and not ask, then. She cleared her throat and somehow managed to keep a straight face despite the utter surprise; she had never seen the Lord of the Flies caught so off-guard.

“What do you want!” Beelzebub barked, looking one step away from trying to turn her to ashes. Not that Hellfire could destroy a demon, of course, but it would hurt quite badly and Dagon liked it better when she was not hurt quite badly.

“I, uh, am here concerning the meeting to review the performance of our demons this month,” she said. “If it suits you, we can move the time--”

“You can chair that stupid meeting,” the Prince of Hell snapped. “Now leave. I’m busy.”

“Oh. Is it anything I can help wi--”

“You can help by chairing the meeting in my stead.”

“Ah. Does that mean I am authorized to choose who to punish and what bonuses to award--”

“You’re authorized to do whatever the Heaven you want, as long as you leave me now!”

The flies around Lord Beelzebub’s head buzzed furiously as though to underline the unspoken threat, and Dagon was clever enough not to argue further: a quick bow, and she was out of the throne room as fast as her legs could carry her while still maintaining some composure.

Once alone, Beelzebub let out a groan and rubbed their eyes. They stood, picked up the laptop from their throne, and opened it again. The screen was cracked, but then again the entire thing was so busted it was plainly not supposed to work in any capacity, and Beelzebub had yet to meet a piece of technology that would defy their order to work when they were supposed to.

It sure worked now, as Beelzebub turned it back on and to look at their most recent searches.

how to do courtship how to court human how to court idiot how to kiss human genitalia how penis work how vagina work how to have sex tutorial

The last one led to a rather educational video depicting a man and a woman on a large, round bed. If they squinted, the man even looked a little like Gabriel.

Beelzebub supposed it would do for now, in case they decided to acquire female genitalia for the occasion, but they were still on the fence about that and would probably need to seek more varied videos. Just to make sure they had grasped the main idea, of course.

“Unnecessarily complicated, is what all this is,” Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, declared loudly. Then they leaned back on their throne, reached for one of the mugs Gabriel had bought them, and hit play again.

For research.

***

“Gabriel! It’s good to see you.”

“He doesn’t mean that,” Crowley muttered.

“Come, sit. I’ll make some tea.”

“Feel free to decline, we won’t mind.”

“Tea would be much appreciated, thank you,” Gabriel said, to Crowley’s annoyance, and sat, to his further annoyance, while entirely ignoring his remarks, to his utter annoyance. He looked around the cottage, and if he dared say anything about the decor Crowley would chew his head off, especially after seeing what kind of minimalistic nightmare Heaven was.

“This is… cozy,” Gabriel finally said after a slight hesitation, leaving Crowley just a little miffed that he didn’t, after all, get a good excuse to chew off his head. Yet.

“Oh, we’re still in the process of moving everything,” Aziraphale was saying, picking up the teapot he’d put on the stove only minutes before Gabriel had showed up at the bookstore. With the portal-door between the store and the cottage wide open, the sound of him knocking had carried over and Aziraphale had let him in before Crowley could stop it.

“We will keep the door open between here and my bookstore, it is such a convenient place to store all my books and I am not ready to give it up just yet. Crowley still needs to move some paintings out of his flat, that garish throne and the decoration he stole from a church--”

“I didn’t steal it, the church was bombed.”

“I remember. It was an eventful evening,” Aziraphale said lightly, putting the teapot on the table. “I almost got discorporated, but Crowley came to help me out. He saved us all upstairs so much paperwork.”

“Ah,” Gabriel said, clearly not sure what to say to that. “I mean-- thank you.”

Crowley gave him a long, unimpressed look, and he cleared his throat. “Anyway… where’s here, exactly?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know,” Crowley said, crossing his arms. They both had agreed that neither Heaven nor Hell would ever know where their cottage was, and while Gabriel was technically part of neither, he still counted as a stuck-up archangel as far as Crowley was concerned. Now that he knew about the cottage, something would have to be done about the door connecting it to the bookstore. Maybe a seal, the kind that would keep out anyone who was not the two of them…

“It’s good to know you’re doing well,” Aziraphale was saying, clearly speaking for himself only, and poured tea in all three cups on the table despite the fact Crowley had elected not to sit yet, instead glaring at Gabriel in hopes he would feel uncomfortable enough to leave. “Now, what was that you mentioned about needing research books?” he asked, and brought the cup to his mouth.

“I need pornography books,” Gabriel declared, and the excellent tea Aziraphale had just sipped was sprayed right back out on the table in a fine mist. From his corner, Crowley raised both eyebrows up to almost his hairline.

Well. That was not what he’d expected to hear.

Aziraphale looked down at the mess on the table and on his own clothes before he gave Gabriel a very, very weary look. “You know, don’t you, that there really is no need for codes now?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No, no, it’s not a code. I do need some pornography books.”

Aziraphale stared.

“... For research. As I sa-- Aziraphale?”

No answer: Aziraphale stood, without a further word, and was out of the room within moments, hands up in the air. Whether to find someplace to scream in peace, stare at the wall for a few minutes while scrubbing the mental image out of his brain, or try to clean the tea off his clothes, Crowley was not sure.

He would check on him in a minute. First, he had questions.

“Research, huh?” he said, leaning on the table across a rather bewildered Gabriel, who had somehow expected a different reaction to him asking to borrow pornography books. He grinned, wide enough to almost make his cheeks hurt. There was some amazing mocking material there, he could feel it. “And who is this about? A new friend? A coworker?”

Still stunned by Aziraphale’s reaction, Gabriel answered without pausing a moment to ponder whether he should answer that question. “Beelzebub,” he said, like he was answering a question on what kind of tea he preferred.

Ah.

For a few moments Crowley could only stare, the grin frozen on his lips. He was startled out of it by a sound like breaking glass that, he realized rather belatedly, came from inside his own brain.

No. No no no no. Nope. Nope. Abort, abort.

“Angel!” he called out, his voice a little strangled, and went to search for Aziraphale to make him share with him whatever bleach he was now using on his brain. Behind him, Gabriel spoke up.

“Uh, so can I borrow a book--” he tried to ask, but a slamming door was the only reply he got for a good while.

***

“Oh, this is never going to come out…”

Aziraphale sighed, looking down at his waistcoat, whose front was currently drenched with tea. Of course he could miracle it away, with Gabriel no longer in the position of writing him strongly worded letters about frivolous miracles... but he could feel a headache build up just thinking about Gabriel and looking around for a clean napkin was a rather welcomed distraction.

Until Crowley stepped in, eyes wide.

“Beelzebub,” he blurted out, causing Aziraphale to nearly jump out of his skin and frantically look around. God knew, the last thing he needed to deal with was the Lord of the Flies in his bookstore.

“What-- where??”

“No, I mean--” Crowley let out a pained noise, rubbing his eyes like he hoped to get an awful image off his retinas. “It’s about Beelzebub. Gabriel’s research. On pornography.”

Ah.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. He needed a few moments for what he’d just heard to entirely sink into his brain. When it did, he barely repressed a shudder. “That is… not… what I was expecting.”

“The Archangel Fucking Gabriel and Beelzebub. It’s in my brain now. Can you miracle it away?”

“I’m afraid that goes beyond my abilities,” Aziraphale said, reaching up to put a hand on his own head to calm the building headache. “If your head also hurts something awful, though, I can help with that. If you can get the tea out of my waistco-- oh. Thank you.” He smiled as Crowley took care of that with a snap of his fingers, the other hand still firmly on his eyes.

“You’re welcome. Now, can we throw him whatever book he wants and then throw him out?”

Aziraphale was very much opposed to throwing books, of course, but shoving a pornography book in Gabriel’s hands and firmly showing him the door seemed the best course of action.

***

“... I can explain.”

“No offence, but we’d really rather you do not.”

Gabriel shifted a little, a heavy leather-bound book in his arms. “Right. Well, er… thank you for the book. I’ll return it once I’ve--”

“Feel free to return it whenever. You’re very much welcome,” Aziraphale spoke quickly, and while he didn’t physically shove Gabriel through the door, he very much did get the message that he really wanted him to leave sooner rather than later. “Best of, er, luck. With your research,” he added quickly, and closed the door behind him.

Gabriel stood on the spot a few moments, blinking in slight confusion, but in the end he shrugged it off - maybe he had caught him in a busy moment - and opened the book to have a quick look.

… Huh. Could a mortal’s spine actually do that?

There was laughter, a couple of children running past him, and Gabriel immediately closed the book. Right, right - looking at pornography in public was frowned upon, so he ought to wait until he was back home. On the way back, he’d purchase a pen and notebook.

In case he needed to write something down.

***

Once their research was completed, Beelzebub was still not certain what it was about the act that so many humans found irresistible - but, they had to admit, their curiosity was piqued. Perhaps a carnal act with Gabriel would pave the way for his descent into Hell, perhaps it would not, but either way they would get to know what it precisely was about, so they would be getting something out of it.

The only thing for them to find out was whether Gabriel would be a willing participant, which was a rather important point because they may be the Prince of Hell but they also had standards. And, all things considered, they got the answer to that rather quickly: they couldn’t be many other reasons for Gabriel to be sitting at his desk with an open book full of pornographic images and a notebook half-filled with notes.

At least, they hoped they were not. Beelzebub found that the idea Gabriel might harbor carnal desire for someone else left them distinctly annoyed.

“I can explain,” Gabriel blurted out as soon as he recovered from the mini heart attack Beelzebub’s sudden appearance in flames and smoke had given in. Quick recovery, they had to give him that. “This is, uh-- this is-- research, for--”

“You’ve given my question some thought, I see.”

“Well--” he finally regained composure, and cleared his throat. “I have.”

“And…?”

“I’m not certain I do have those, uh, inclinations, but I’d be open to give it a try. If you’re so inclined,” he added quickly.

“I see,” Beelzebub said, their voice perfectly collected. Inwardly, however, they felt very much like a Jehovah's Witness who’d just been invited inside to talk after knocking: hadn’t really thought they would get that far and had already forgotten just about everything they had planned to do in the event. So they said nothing else, and stared.

Gabriel said nothing else. And stared.

Needless to say, that was not a promising start.

“... Which one?” Beelzebub finally asked.

“Huh?”

“Which set of genitalia.”

“Oh. I have--”

“I know what you have, I have seen you showering. I’m asking which one I should get now.”

“Ah.” Gabriel glanced at the book as though hoping to find an answer there. “Er… either? We can throw a coin,” he muttered, and dug a coin out of his pocket and handed it to them. “Head for penis and--”

Beelzebub threw the coin, caught it, and looked down at it. “Tails.”

“Right. Well--”

“Do not presume for even a moment I will allow you to be above me.”

“I’m not presuming, I just-- what are those?”

“Notes,” Beelzebub muttered, more than slightly irritated at having forgotten their own script. They shuffled through the clue cards they had pulled out of their back pockets, rather wishing their handwriting did not look like a dying fly had dragged itself across the paper after being dunked in ink.

“... Right. So we have come to the agreement we both consent. At this point, we’re supposed to--” they began, and trailed off when Gabriel did the unthinkable.

He laughed.

“What are you-- hey! Stop laughing!” Beelzebub buzzed furiously, their face suddenly really, really hot. They crumpled notes in their fist and glaring up at Gabriel. “Cease this instant!” they ordered, and were a moment away from kicking him in the shin - how dare he laugh at the Lord of the Flies? - when Gabriel spoke, his laugh dying down to a snicker.

“I-- heh. My apologies. I just--” he gestured to the papers crumpled in Beelzebub’s fist, and then at his own notebook on the desk. “One way or another, we end up with paperwork. I suspect humans are more spontaneous about it.”

Beelzebub huffed. “Well, I am not human,” they muttered, but the anger died down, and they crossed their arms. “If you don’t plan by the book, how do you know if you’re getting things right?”

“Well-- sometimes you don’t know. Humans take chances all the time.”

A scoff. “What a disgustingly human thing to say. Is that how your mind operates now?”

“... I do still find it somewhat frightening,” Gabriel said, quietly, and whatever mockery Beelzebub was about to utter next died in their throat. The look he was giving them was surprisingly open, and he looked painfully vulnerable.

In the end, when they spoke, their voice was just as quiet.

“You have no reason to be frightened,” they said, and burned the note in their fist, letting the ashes fall on the floor. “I usually do punish failure, but I’m willing to make you an exception, I suppose.”

A chuckle, and Gabriel lifted a hand, holding it up almost close enough to Beelzebub’s face to touch the skin. “May I?”

“... You may,” they replied. The touch was warm, foreign and familiar at the same time - did he touch their face like that a long time ago, when they were still Ba’al? - and leaning into it, finding out where it all led, was so very tempting. Ironic, considering that they were supposed to be the one doing the tempting and… and…

No.

“Wait.” Beelzebub reached up to brace a hand against Gabriel’s chest, keeping him at a distance. He immediately stopped, and looked down at them in confusion, their faces only inches apart. “There is a chance this may count as a serious sin.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Shouldn’t have told him. He’ll call it off.

Gabriel blinked, and the confused expression turned into a smile. “I figured,” he said, and tilted up their chin. “I think I’ll take the chance.”

… Well, they had given him a fair warning, so their conscience was clear. Would have been clear, if they had one. “You’re a fool,” the Prince of Hell informed him.

“I figured that too,” the fool replied.

What followed was a bit messier and significantly more complicated than expected, but given enough time and attempts, they did figure that out as well.

***

A good while after they had both caught their breath and Gabriel’s heart no longer felt like it was trying to burst out of his chest, Beelzebub had yet to say a word.

But they were still there, even if silent, accepting Gabriel’s arms around them and his quiet breathing against the nape of their neck, and he supposed that was a sure sign they had no complaints. In the end, he dared break the peaceful silence.

“Can you stay for the night?” he asked, his voice low.

“I am Prince of Hell. I can do as I wish.”

“... Do you wish to stay for the night?”

“I can’t see why not,” they conceded, causing Gabriel’s lips to curl into a smile. He said nothing, kissing the back of Beelzebub’s shoulder instead. Of course, they could tell he was smiling right away. “What are you smirking about?”

“Well, it was-- pleasant, was it not?”

Gabriel felt their light snort more than he heard it. “Bragging already, are you?” they muttered, and turned in his arms to face him. Their skin was pleasantly warm. “Do I have to remind you who was leading?”

Of course, there was no need. It wasn’t often that Gabriel found himself in the position of having to look up at the Lord of the Flies, and he hadn’t minded the change. He hadn’t minded at all.

“Oh, I never tried to take credit.” Gabriel dropped a kiss on the bridge of Beelzebub’s nose, gaining himself a frown and a buzzing noise - but no attempt at all to shove him off them. He was dimly aware of the fact that there was a folder in Hell bearing his name which perhaps had just gained a sin in red ink, but he found he couldn’t even begin to feel concern.

“Next time,” Beelzebub was saying, “I’ll try the other set of genitalia.”

“Heh. So there will be a next time?”

The Lord of the Flies did shove him at that, flat onto his back, before they rolled on top of him. They propped themselves up on their elbows, which rested on his chest. It wasn’t the most comfortable predicament, but Gabriel’s muscles still felt like cooked asparagus and he wouldn’t have bothered to protest for anything short of being raked over hot coals.

“We both have researched a great deal more than what we have put in practice, and I don’t see why the time spent on it should go to waste,” they said, tilting their head. “Don’t you agree?”

A smile, and Gabriel dared tilt up his head to try and catch their lips again. He missed, and his mouth rested briefly on their throat instead before he pulled them down against his chest.

“I do,” he murmured. “Wholeheartedly.”

***

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” --Jeremiah 17:9

***

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#good omens #ineffable bureaucracy #ineffable husbands #archangel gabriel #beelzebub #crowley #aziraphale #winging it

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stereostevie · 4 years ago

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A brutal childhood, a traumatic marriage, decades of racism: the singer has overcome it all on her way to the top. She lets rip about the people who have wronged her and the self-belief that sustains her.

It is a rainy Thursday afternoon and Mariah Carey is talking to me from her home in Los Angeles, her voice coming through my laptop. Is this the real life or is this just fantasy? (Sweet, sweet fantasy …) “Hello, good morning, good afternoon, this is a little unusual,” says a gravelly voiced Carey. You’re telling me, Mariah.

We are talking by video chat, but – as specified by Carey – without the video turned on, so it is pure chat. Despite her ability to hit the high notes, Carey has always described herself as an alto. Yet even taking that into account, her voice today sounds pretty husky. Is she feeling OK?

“It’s 6am here, and I’m awake in the bright light and it’s fabulous and I love it,” she says and makes an exaggerated groan.

I’m sorry you had to get up so early for this interview, I say.

“Well, darling, then let’s not book interviews at 6am if you’re worried! But please, it’s not you,” she says, and indeed it isn’t. The time and date of our interview have moved around so many times to accommodate Carey’s ever-shifting schedule that, for a while, it looked as if it wouldn’t happen at all. But at the last minute, it was decided we would talk at 6am her time, which I was promised would be fine because Carey is a self-described “nocturnal person”, so that would be 6pm for her. Alas, for reasons too complicated to get into, for one night only, Carey was a non-nocturnal person, so now 6am is just 6am.

“Typically I would have been working [all night] until now, but we had a situation and I couldn’t. Then I tried to get some sleep, but actually I watched the interview I did with Oprah. But it’s OK, it was just one night [of no sleep] and here I am,” she says. You don’t become one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time – she has sold more than 200m records, and only the Beatles have had more US No 1 songs – without being a trouper.

Carey, 50, has spent lockdown with her nine-year-old twins, Monroe, named for Carey’s hero, Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan, named partly for one of her favourite rooms in one of her houses, the Moroccan room, “where so many creative and magical moments have happened, including Nick presenting me with my candy bling”. Nick is Nick Cannon, the twins’ father, and “candy bling” is Carey’s term for her engagement ring, which Cannon hid inside a sweet before proposing. Carey liked Cannon’s proposal so much that she even wrote a song about it, called Candy Bling. The marriage proved less enduring and the couple divorced in 2016.

“Honestly, I don’t miss anyone outside, so I don’t care about lockdown,” she says with a throaty laugh. “But it’s difficult for the kids, because they’re used to three-times-a-year Disney World moments and stuff like that, and that’s just not the current state of affairs.” It is not. So Carey is conducting the promotional tour for her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, from her kitchen table, and if she has her way – and who would dare to argue? – this will be the last round of interviews she ever does.

“No offence to doing interviews, but what would be the point? I can’t articulate it better than I already have [in the book]. From now on, I’m like, ‘Please refer to page 29,’ you know what I mean?” she says. Carey’s deliciously shady put-downs are legend: her “I don’t know her”, when asked almost two decades ago about Jennifer Lopez is still the internet’s most beloved diss. Speaking of Lopez, her name is notably not in Carey’s memoir. Instead, when recalling the hoo-hah that led to their fallout, when a sample Carey had planned to use on her single, Loverboy, appeared on Lopez’s I’m Real, Carey refers to her as a “female entertainer (whom I don’t know).” So is her official position still that she has never heard of Lopez?

There is a pause, then stifled laughter. “Oh my gosh, can you hear that music in the background? It’s Sam Cooke! It’s fantastic!” she giggles.

Not only has Carey not heard of Lopez, she cannot even hear questions about her, it seems.

Carey’s memoir is about a lot more than score-settling (although she makes time for that, too.) “I don’t think anyone could have known where I was coming from, because I was always very, I don’t know if it was protective, but I was cryptic about the past, let’s say,” she says. No more. The youngest child of an African American father and a white mother, Carey was three when her parents split up. Her childhood was threaded through with neglect and violence, not least from her older siblings. When she was six, she says, her older brother knocked her mother unconscious; when she was 12, her older sister allegedly drugged her and left her with creepy men.

“I think my staying up all night started from having such a dysfunctional family. Oftentimes, whoever was in the house was doing whatever it was that they were doing, and that felt kinda unsafe to me, so I started staying up,” she says. Another legacy of this time is Carey’s obsessive adoration of Christmas, because her childhood Christmases were so miserable. When she wrote the monster hit All I Want for Christmas Is You, she wanted, she says in her book, “to write a song that would make me feel like a carefree young girl at Christmas”.

As a child, her biracial identity made her feel she did not belong anywhere: she was so self-conscious about not being black enough that she wouldn’t even dance, as she associated that with black culture; meanwhile, white girls at school taunted her with the N-word. In one of Carey’s – and my – favourite chapters, she describes how her mother did not know how to look after her young daughter’s textured hair, so it was often matted. Carey would look enviously at the white women in shampoo adverts on TV with their flowing hair. “I am still obsessed with blowing hair, as evidenced by the wind machines employed in every photoshoot of me ever,” she writes.

One of the most painful moments in the book comes in 2001 when Carey is having what the press described as an emotional breakdown. (Carey writes that she did not have a breakdown, but “was broken down by the very people who were supposed to keep me whole.”) During this episode, she rages at her mother, who calls the police. The police take her mother’s side: “Even Mariah Carey couldn’t compete with a nameless white woman in distress,” Carey writes. Is that how she experienced it at the time, or is that how she feels generally, that not even she is safe if a white woman complains?

There is the briefest of pauses. “Those are my words, so please refer to page 29,” Carey says.

Race is very much the running theme in Carey’s memoir. This might come as some surprise to those who know her solely from the mega pop hits such as Hero and We Belong Together, as opposed to the more revealing songs, such as 1997’s Outside, which addressed her feelings of racial ambiguity (sample lyric: “Neither here nor there / Always somewhat out of place everywhere”). “I can’t help that I’m ambiguous-looking,” she says, “and most people would assume that it’s been to my benefit, and maybe it has in some ways. But it’s also been a lifelong quest to feel like I belong to any specific group. It shouldn’t have to be such a freaking thing – and please edit out the fact that I said ‘freaking’. I’m not very eloquent right now.” I ask if she was at all influenced during the writing of her book by the rise of Black Lives Matter. She dismisses the question: “Interestingly, this book predates everything that’s happening now, and the book just happened to be very timely.” In other words, Carey hasn’t caught up to the times, the times have caught up to Carey.

Despite her omnipresence over the past three decades, it is possible that you have not thought about her ethnicity. This, Carey says, has been part of the problem: from the start, she was marketed by “the powerful corporate entities” in a way that played down her racial identity. What made this even more complicated for her was that the most powerful corporate entity in charge of her career at the beginning was her first husband, Tommy Mottola, then the CEO of Sony Music.

Carey’s discovery by Mottola is the stuff of music industry legend. The then unknown aspiring singer gave him a tape of her music at a party in 1988. Mottola tracked her down, signed her and, a few years later, married her. She was 23 and he was 44. Within just a few pages in her memoir, she goes from wearing her mother’s busted shoes to work to living in a $30m mansion with Mottola, which she decorated with enthusiasm: “Though by no stretch do I like a rustic look, I do have a preference for tumbled marble on my kitchen floors,” she writes. Adjusting to the high life was not difficult.

The hits – I’ll Be There, Emotions, One Sweet Day – were unstoppable. The Mottola-Carey marriage did not fare as well, imploding in 1997. Carey expands at some length on her previous allusions to Mottola’s controlling tendencies, claiming he would spy on her and that she was effectively a prisoner in the house. In his 2013 memoir, Mottola admits his relationship with Carey was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate” and adds: “If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologise. Was I obsessive? Yes, but that was also a part of the reason for her success.” Carey points out that she went on to have nine hit albums without Mottola’s controlling obsession. She writes that Mottola tried to “wash the urban” off her, recoiling at Carey’s increasing leaning towards hip-hop and collaborations with African American artists such as ODB. “I believe I said ‘urban, translation black,’ just in case anyone thinks I don’t know,” Carey corrects me. Does she think that was just for commercial purposes, or was something else going on with Mottola? “In my opinion there was a lot of other stuff going on there,” she says.

It must have been pretty upsetting to revisit that period during the writing, I say.

“Yes it was traumatic, but was it harder than some of the other things I’ve gone through? Maybe yeah, actually,” she says with a rueful laugh. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover from the damage of that emotional abuse. But in my school of thought, you have to be a forgiving person.”

Carey is extraordinarily honest in her memoir, but the book is almost as striking for what she does not include as what she does. A lot of attention has focused on her confirmation that she did, as long rumoured, have a fling with the former baseball star Derek Jeter (“I’m not being shady, but he had on pointy shoes,” she recalls a little shadily of their first meeting.) But there is no mention of other boyfriends, such as her former fiancé, the Australian billionaire James Packer.

“If it was a relationship that mattered, it’s in the book. If not, it didn’t occur,” she says.

But you were engaged to Packer, I say.

“We didn’t have a physical relationship, to be honest with you,” she says.

And that is that.

Carey’s singing voice made her famous, but her penchant for being thrillingly, hilariously high-maintenance played its own part in shaping her legend. On an episode of MTV Cribs, she explained that she had a chaise longue in her kitchen because “I have a rule against sitting up straight”, and she has talked about bathing only in milk. Does she think she is high-maintenance – and, if so, does she think it is because she came from nothing?

“You know what? I don’t give a shit. I fucking am high-maintenance because I deserve to be at this point. That may sound arrogant, but I hope you frame it within the context of coming from nothing. If I can’t be high-maintenance after working my ass off my entire life, oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t realise we all had to be low-maintenance. Hell, no! I was always high-maintenance, it’s just I didn’t have anyone to do the maintenance when I was growing up!” she says and cackles with delight.

By now it is almost 7am for her and she is wide awake. I tell her I enjoyed all the references in her book to her enjoying “a splash of wine”.

“Oh, do you? Do you love a splash for yourself?” she asks, pleased.

I do, but I was intrigued by her description of a night out with her friends, including Cam’Ron and Juelz Santana, when they were all “high” on “purple treats”. What were these “purple treats”?

“A legal substance in California known as mari-ju-ana. It’s called purple because that’s the particular weed they liked,” she says.

And did she like it?

“Are you enquiring for yourself or are you asking if I enjoyed it?” she says, mock coy.

I am asking if you enjoyed it, Mariah.

“No, I hated it,” she deadpans, then laughs. “I’m sorry, but it’s obvious!”

I have been interviewing famous people for a long time, but talking with Carey is the closest I have come to how I imagine it would have been to spend time with Bette Davis or Aretha Franklin. There are lots of ridiculous modern celebrities, but Carey is not like that. With her mix of slightly self-parodic ridiculousness undercut with no-messin’, true-to-herself honesty, she is a proper grande dame of the old school. A diva, in other words. It is a term she has laboured under throughout her career, and it is unlikely she will escape it, even if people now finally know where she is coming from. Does she mind the D-word?

“No! Who the fuck cares?” she laughs. “Honestly! ‘Oh my God, they’re calling me a diva – I think I’m going to cry!’ You think in the grand scheme of things in my life that really matters to me, being called a diva? I am, bitches, that’s right!”

The Meaning of Mariah Carey (Macmillan, £20) and The Rarities (Sony Music) are out now.

• This article was amended on 5 October 2020 to clarify that it is in the United States where Mariah Carey is second only to the Beatles in terms of having the most No 1 singles.

#mariah carey #music #culture #pop and rock #soul

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dust2dust34 · 5 years ago

Text

(i will be the fire) that keeps you warm (1/5, Olicity, AU)

Summary: Felicity and her puppy Artemis are the newest tenants at Queen Manor. It’s going well, save for the fact that her landlord is a stand-offish brute who doesn’t know how to talk outside of a growl. It probably doesn’t help that Artie really likes him, or that she insists on showing that love by sneaking into his room every night. Written for #OlicitySummerSizzle

(read on AO3)

Bang, bang, bang!

“Wha…?”

Felicity Smoak popped up in bed. She struggled to open her eyes, but her lids were glued together. She managed to pry them open enough to see only the barest hint of sunlight filling the room. Too early. Way too early. What is happening?

Banging, that’s what was happening.

She leveled a hard glare at the door marking the entrance to her suite-slash-apartment-slash-room of rooms where it rattled on its hinges. Someone was knocking. Or trying to bust a hole through the heavy wood. Or trying to die because it was too early-

Bang, bang, bang!

“Felicity!”

The familiar voice sliced through her sleep fog.

Felicity threw back her comforter with a harried, “Oh frak, frak, frak,” and scrambled off the bed. Her foot got caught in the sheet and she nearly fell over, barely catching herself with a couple hops. Glasses, she needed glasses, she couldn’t see-

Bang, bang, bang!

“I’m coming!” she shouted in reply, finding her glasses on her laptop. She shoved them on and launched herself out of the bedroom and to the main door, realizing with a soft curse that there wasn’t a furry body winding through her feet, or the pitter-patter of paws on the hardwood floor.

Dread filled her chest.

Please don’t be what I think it is, please…

Felicity opened her door.

A very angry wall greeted her. Well, if a wall could be angry. Her landlord’s face was blank, his eyes empty pools of blue staring right through her. When she met his gaze, his eyebrow ticked up. That was it. The only indication anything else was going on was the wall’s arms currently held a soft blue-grey bundle of pit bull puppy.

Her pit bull puppy.

Felicity grimaced.

Oliver Queen didn’t so much as blink as he handed the dog over with one hand.

She absolutely did not notice the way his bicep bulged against his white - very tight - t-shirt. She also did not notice that his hand was big enough to hold her pupper’s little wiggling butt without dropping her, or that his shoulders somehow got wider every time she saw him, or that his sweatpants fell really low on his hips. She didn’t notice any of that. Nope. What she did notice was the familiar tic of his other hand, his index finger and thumb rubbing together. It was the only sign anything was happening in that concrete head of his.

Well, unless someone knew what to look for, which she did.

Call it self-preservation, or an innate curiosity, or maybe even her own version of PTSD. Whatever it was, it had her spending a little bit of time - ha, “a little bit” - studying him, all to avoid any pitfalls in his presence.

She usually failed. Like right now. Still, she could tell he was aiming for a vast array of nothingness, but tension lined his face. He looked like he was one wrong move from shattering into a thousand pieces.

Dealing with an overeager pit bull puppy probably wasn’t helping.

“I’m so sorry, Oliver,” she said, taking the puppy.

“Keep her out of my room,” Oliver said. No, he growled. There wasn’t a snarl on his lips, but the words ripped out of him like his throat was a garbage disposal full of rocks. It had taken Felicity a couple of days - alright, weeks - to get used to it. At least she didn’t flinch anymore.

“I honestly have no idea how she’s getting over there,” Felicity said with an apologetic smile. “She’s been really good with her training - especially her potty training, which is a really good thing, and should absolutely be noted here. And she usually stays with me. Except when it comes to you. I guess she just really likes you.”

His face soured. “Well, I don’t like her.”

Felicity frowned. Hearing a dog liked you was a compliment, right? He obviously didn’t dislike dogs, or he wouldn’t have let her bring Artie into his home when she moved in a few weeks ago. And he obviously was comfortable with the puppy, enough to hold her with ease and toss her around with his huge hands. And that Artie let him do that in the first place, trusting him to keep her safe? Most people took that as a compliment.

So clearly it wasn’t dogs Oliver didn’t like.

Felicity nearly bit through her tongue.

At least now she knew what it felt like to have her heart sucked through a straw.

“Right,” Felicity said. She tried another smile, but it made her face crinkle like plastic. “Sorry. I’ll keep a better eye on her.”

Oliver’s jaw tightened and then his eyes narrowed. God, what now? As if he heard her unspoken question, a muscle in his cheek jumped as he stared her down. It took everything in Felicity to keep still. This always happened. It was like he finally opened his eyes and was seeing her for the first time, and he didn’t like what he saw. At all. He probably regretted letting her into his home. A bitter pill to swallow, since the security of this place was unlike anywhere else - partly thanks to her - but also because he let her keep her pit bull. Liking her was too much, which, okay, that was fine. She should be okay with that. And she was. Okay, she tried to be. His gaze lingered long enough that Felicity almost blurted, “Just tell me you don’t like me and put us both out of our misery,” but then he seemed to catch himself.

Nostrils flaring on an agitated sigh, he turned without another word and stalked away.

Felicity leaned out to watch him eat up the distance between her door and the end of the hallway with long, hurred strides.

One thing she had quickly learned when she first moved into the Queen Manor was that the place was obnoxiously huge. The outside did not do the inside justice. It had wings, and suites - a bunch of rooms Oliver called apartments even though they weren’t really apartments - and multiple kitchens and who really needed a separate ballroom these days? Nobody, that’s who. Which was probably why that room had been converted to a gym. Still, the house - sorry, the manor - was something you usually only read about in eighteenth century novels.

Or Billionaires Weekly where one learned that the long-lost Queen heir had converted his family home into a glorified apartment complex with top-of-the-line security that Felicity herself could not hack.

Probably because she’d designed it, but semantics. And probably the only reason he hadn’t tossed her to the curb yet.

When he disappeared around a corner, she let out a heavy, “Okay then,” and closed her door.

A wagging dog tail whacked Felicity’s ribs.

“Artemis, what am I going to do with you?” The tail simply went faster. Biting back a smile, Felicity cocked a hip and gave the puppy her best stern look. “You’re going to get me kicked out of here, you do realize that, don’t you?”

A chipper little bark was her reply and it did exactly what she knew it would do: melted Felicity.

“You’re lucky you’re so darn cute,” Felicity told her, tapping her little nose a few times. Artie simply grinned up at her before lurching up to lick at Felicity’s lips. She scrunched up her nose on a chuckle and then another sigh. “How he can resist you is beyond me. But he does. Which means you need to behave, young lady. Or at least tell me how the hell you’re managing to get to his room in the first place. You gonna fess up? Hit me with those puppy trade secrets?”

Artie just blinked up at her with a cocked head.

“Fine,” Felicity relented. She kissed her soft little head, giggling when Artemis nuzzled her back. “How about you remember that I like you and I do want you around, so maybe actually stay here where you have a perfectly good little bed right there. Sound good?”

Artie barked in agreement.

It seemed to work.

For a couple weeks, at least.

During that time, Felicity finally got around to unpacking the rest of her boxes. It unfortunately required a rearranging of epic proportions as she had started to use said boxes as actual furniture. So she had to break it all down and start over. But she did it and that was the important part. And Artemis stayed the hell out of Oliver’s room. Really, stayed out of his way in general. Felicity got ridiculously good at avoiding him. She only surfaced when she knew he was down in the gym - same time, every single day, for a minimum of three hours - or in his room.

So he didn’t like her. So what? Big deal. That didn’t hurt, not at all. They just didn’t click and sometimes people don’t click. There were plenty of other people to click with in the world. She just happened to be renting space from an unclickable one.

At least his other tenants were nice. Iris and Barry were actual walking gems, and Curtis and his husband had an entire wing to themselves that Felicity had started to frequent more often than not. There was a new guy moving in at the end of the week - John Diggle - who had been around earlier to check out the house and they already had a good rapport.

See? Clickable people all around.

“So what if we don��t click? We don’t have to click,” Felicity mumbled to her laundry basket.

She entered her apartment and kicked the door shut behind her. The familiar jangle of tags told her Artie was right on her heels and Felicity forced herself to turn her attention to happier topics.

“We’re doing good, aren’t we?” Felicity asked the dog. “Got all the boxes out of here, like the strong, independent women we are. Yes, that’s what we are. Most independent women do laundry at this hour, right? Not because it drowns out the sound of the stupid storm, but because it’s a thing people do. Yes, let’s go with that. Oh, but hey, we can finally enter the closet again! Which means I can put my laundry away. No more clothes everywhere. We are responsible adults. We are clean people who adult in the clean ways that adults are supposed to. Which reminds me…” She dropped the basket on the floor and entered the closet to grab some hangers. “You are not allowed to go into adulthood, baby girl. Oh my god, I sound like my mother. Whatever, the point is that you are growing like a weed, and do you have any idea how much food that takes?”

Felicity came back out, fully expecting to see an eager little puppy face.

Except she wasn’t there.

“Artie?” Felicity called.

She waited to hear the slap of her giant paws on the floor and her tags as she ran back.

Nothing.

“Uh oh,” she whispered, apprehension slithering down her spine. She dropped the hangers in her laundry basket and went searching for her. “Artemis?”

Nada.

On a whim, Felicity yanked her suite door open and peered down the hallway.

“There’s no way you could have opened this door since you don’t have opposable thumbs,” Felicity whisper-shouted. “But you also can’t just disappear. Artie!”

Despite her best efforts, her voice echoed down the empty stretch. She winced, but nobody responded. Thankfully. It was almost two in the morning and while she didn’t have normal hours, most of her roommates absolutely did.

She turned back to her room. “Where’d you go?” A faint jangle sounded. “Oh thank god.”

Felicity followed the sound. To her bedroom. To her closet.

To a hole in the frakking wall.

Felicity stumbled to a stop, her jaw dropping. It wasn’t a hole so much as what looked like a small, old entrance that had been boarded over with paneling a long time ago. But whoever had done it clearly hadn’t planned for a tenacious little puppy who had a tendency to disappear and reappear in…

It clicked.

“Oh my god! Artemis!” Felicity hissed, falling to her knees and pulling the paneling back. There was another wall there - no, more of a door, she realized, because it had hinges, very old, dilapidated hinges that had rusted through so the door fell open. The jangle of tags told her that this was exactly where Artemis had gone. “Get your little butt back here!”

Her tags grew fainter.

“You little…”

Felicity pushed the door open, finding a space just big enough for her to squeeze through and squeeze she did. She managed a few feet before the back pocket of her pajama bottoms caught on an old nail. When she tugged, cursing her love of mint chip ice cream, the material tore. Felicity gasped, reaching back to try and free it, but the space was too tight. She had to move forward or backward. Either way her pants wouldn’t survive.

“You owe me a new pair of pants, young lady!” she whispered as loud as she dared.

She had no idea where this went, or how Artie had even found this hidden place. Her stomach dipped thinking about where it could lead.

Please don’t be where I think it goes, please, please, please. I’ll be good, no more hacking and I’ll actually learn how to cook for all the people who leave all that delicious food in the kitchen. I’ll be good. I’ll be better. I will.

So this was why Artie had been so good the last few weeks, wasn’t it? Because Felicity had had this “door” blocked by boxes.

“Little bugger,” Felicity grumbled, forging forward. “Artie, get back here.”

A jangle, and then a rusty squeak, like another door opening.

“Oh frak.”

Felicity moved faster, hoping she was quick enough to catch her jerk puppy, and praying that this dusty little corridor didn’t take them where she feared it did. At least it wasn’t very long, the light from her closet illuminating the long space enough for her to see. That was good, because she really didn’t need her mind pulling up every single horror movie she’d ever watched.

She caught a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

By the time she reached it, though, she was too late.

Felicity shoved the door open as quickly and quietly as she could, just in time to see a little grey butt wiggle around the corner of a large bed.

Please don’t be who I think it is. Please.

A distorted moan answered her.

Ice showered her veins as her ribs contracted violently, suddenly becoming way too small for her body.

She knew enough cadences of that voice to recognize it.

Oliver’s room.

“No, no, no,” Felicity breathed, shoving the rest of the way through and landing in a heap on the floor of Oliver’s closet. She didn’t take time to appreciate just how absolutely insane all of this was before she was scrambling to her feet and tip-toeing to the bed. She was going to grab Artie, quick as she could, and then she was going to run. Because if Oliver woke up and found her there with her dog? She wouldn’t just get kicked out, she’d be arrested. For trespassing or assault with cute puppy or stalking, probably, because this was insane.

A ragged gasp sounded and she made a face, doing her best to be quiet as she darted forward.

Her eyes darted to the bed, to make sure he was asleep - not to check that he was alone, because that was so not her place - but the bed was empty. Not just empty, but it was perfectly made. Showroom-ready.

Felicity frowned and then another sound came, a little cry, followed by a broken, “No.”

Her frown deepening, she moved to the other side of the bed where Artie had disappeared.

A thin tangle of blankets barely covered a thrashing Oliver Queen.

Felicity froze and a thousand thoughts bombarded her. Was he having a nightmare? Was it from his time on the island, the time nobody knew the specifics about except for him? Did this happen every night? Was he okay? Did he always sleep like this, no pillow, the hard floor digging into him, offering no softness to his limbs where he threw them in violent fits? She jumped at a particularly hard one, wincing. He was a big man, but right now he looked smaller than her. She didn’t like it. Her heart cracked down the center, and the instinct to go to him was almost too strong to deny. But she knew enough about PTSD to know that was a very bad idea. Especially considering he didn’t even know she was in here.

Artemis!

On cue, the puppy appeared on the other side of Oliver’s head.

“Artie,” Felicity breathed, but the dog only had eyes for Oliver.

Oh god, she’s going to get hurt.

The thought of hearing her yelp tore through Felicity, and that had nothing on what would happen if Oliver woke up. There wasn’t a clear path to get to the dog, though. She had lodged herself between Oliver and the bed. Heart in her throat, Felicity watched her, whispering her name, urging her to come back to her as Oliver’s nightmare kept its hold on him. His shoulder jerked, knocking Artemis onto her back. Felicity flinched, almost launching herself over him to grab her, but Artie was already back up and scuttling over his shoulder and landing in front of him. He whimpered, his body jerking on a painful spasm, his face twisting.

Helplessness flooded Felicity. She didn’t know what to do.

But Artemis did.

The puppy shoved herself into Oliver’s neck, burrowing into the small space between his head and the floor. A shuddery breath left him and Felicity went very still, waiting for something horrible to happen, but all Artie did was shift again. She nuzzled her way up his stubbled jaw and then draped herself across his neck, pillowing her head on his cheek.

And then the most amazing thing happened.

Oliver calmed.

It happened in slow, jerky increments, but the tension slowly slid out of him, his breathing evening out, his brow smoothing.

He finally fell still and when he did, Artie let out a little sigh herself and closed her eyes.

All Felicity could do was stand there, watching Oliver and Artemis fall asleep together, until a voice in the back of her head told her it was creepy to stare. But she didn’t leave right away. Her chest ached at the sight they made together.

There was no way in hell she was going to get the dog away from him, was there?

And she didn’t want to, Felicity realized. Oliver looked peaceful, for the first time in… In weeks. The last several days, he looked like he’d been run into the ground. But before that, when Artemis kept disappearing, he might have still looked like he had a stick up his ass, but at least it was a rested ass. Now he was… soft. At ease. He was a gorgeous man to begin with, but right now, with all lines of his face relaxed, his mouth parted on deep, even breaths, he looked so young. And unbelievably handsome. A yearning for him to look like that when his eyes were open filled her, but she squashed it a second later. Just because her dog was able to calm his nightmares didn’t mean Oliver would ever look at Felicity with that softness.

Still, the yearning didn’t go away. He might not like her, but Felicity still wanted him to be happy. Or at the very least settled.

Like he was now.

Felicity slowly backed out. She went through the same little corridor, making sure to shut his side as securely as she could, knowing Oliver would just bring Artemis to her in the morning when he woke up.

Thoughts of Oliver plagued her through the night and she barely got any sleep when a hard knocking attacked her door.

But she was ready for it this time. If he noticed anything was off, he didn’t comment, just throwing Artemis at Felicity on a growl and stalking away.

As she watched him walk away, a plan formed in her mind. She had gotten Artie for peace of mind after what had happened last fall, but the security at Queen Manor had put her more at ease than anything else could. She didn’t need Artemis to sleep, unlike some gruff, very unaware people. And who was she to stop Artie from giving that security away so graciously? It was stupid, and she knew it, but she couldn’t escape the peaceful look she’d seen on Oliver’s face the night before..

And so, when night fell and before she had a chance to chicken out, Felicity picked Artemis up and went straight to his room.

It was a great plan, she told herself.

Up until she knocked on his door and then her nerves nearly undid her right then and there.

When the door swung open, Felicity blurted, “I keep my closet open.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

“I…” A nervous laugh. “I found out how Artie’s been getting to your room. There’s a secret door in our closets. Did you know that? You probably did, since this is your house, and you should know that. If you didn’t, it’s good that you do know. It’s also interesting that it’s not freaking me out, because it should, since someone tried to… You know what, that’s not important. What is important is that I think you should take Artemis tonight.”

“What?”

“Yes,” Felicity confirmed, handing the excited puppy over. Oliver didn’t take her and Felicity wiggled Artemis, much to the pit bull’s delight. “Here. She likes you. A lot. And she’s already gone potty and she’s all ready for bed, and I think you should sleep with her, because she… I think she helps you.”

Confusion wrinkled his brow before understanding dawned.

There was a split second where she thought she saw a flash of vulnerability that cut so deep she could almost see the blood, but then it was gone as his face shut her out as hard as a door slamming in her nose.

She didn’t let it sway her.

“Just try it? Please?” Felicity pressed. “One night. And if you really-”

“No,” he interrupted in a hard voice.

“Don’t like it, then I’ll find a way to barricade my closet so she can’t ever come over again.”

“Felicity-”

He bit out her name through a mouthful of bitterness. Hurt cut her to the quick and she bit her tongue before putting on her serious face. Her stern voice came out next. “Oliver. You need to sleep. You don’t sleep. Anyone with eyes can see that. Artemis helps you. Try it for one night and if you really hate her as much as you seem to hate me in the morning, then I’ll make sure you never have to see us ever again, living in the same house or not. Okay?”

Oliver worked his jaw, his nostrils flaring with that telltale agitation as he glared at her.

But he didn’t say no.

It was really a testament to him as a human being that this gruff asshole facade of his wasn’t sending her running in the opposite direction. She shouldn’t be pushing her dog on someone like him, someone who was so closed off he reminded her of a wall. A very angry brick wall. And yet here she was, talking to him. Pushing him. Challenging him.

She didn’t know what it was about him, but she trusted him. With her safety, in his house, with her dog, and with herself, she realized, as she practically threw herself out on a limb.

The seconds ticked by, turning into a minute, and then another, neither of them moving.

Artemis wiggled to get to him, but Felicity didn’t let her go, her gaze never wavering.

“Fine,” Oliver finally gritted out.

A delighted smile tugged at Felicity’s face and his eye twitched at the sight.

Well, too bad, buddy, you need this and I’m going to give you peace of mind whether you like or not.

Trepidation followed that thought, along with a wash of anxious tingles that set her heart off, but she didn’t let it bring her down. It had been a while since she felt the urge to reach out to someone like this, and it was good that she was. It had to be. It was better than hiding.

“Good,” Felicity said before turning her dog. “Be good for Mr. Queen, young lady.” She kissed Artemis on the nose before handing her over. Oliver took her. Reluctantly, but he still took her. Felicity definitely didn’t notice his bulging bicep again - that damn t-shirt was so tight again, and those sweatpants of his went low, low, low - or the way he held Artemis so naturally. A strange tug pulled in her stomach. She ignored it. “Okay then. Well. Goodnight.”

She turned.

“Felicity-”

His voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. She found herself wanting to hear more of it, but not if he was going to return Artemis.

“One night,” she interrupted, looking back at him. “Trust me.”

He wasn’t expecting that, and he looked taken aback.

Felicity offered him another smile before nodding and then she walked back to her room. When she gave into the urge to glance back, it was to find Oliver and Artemis watching her walk away - Artie with a grin, and Oliver with a peculiar look that had a horde of butterflies swamping Felicity’s stomach.

What in the world am I doing?

The night passed like molasses, and it wasn’t until around three in the morning that Felicity finally fell asleep.

Knock, knock, knock.

The soft rap woke her more readily than the banging ever did.

Bleary-eyed and stumbling - mornings are so evil, so painfully evil - she found her glasses and opened the door to a sheepish Oliver Queen and a happy pit bull puppy.

“Hi,” he greeted softly.

Why did that simple word send a shiver down her spine?

“Hi,” Felicity replied, sweeping a hand through her bedridden hair. She couldn’t hide her grin as she looked at Artie before her eyes found him again. “So how’d it go?”

“Fine,” Oliver said, handing Artie over.

Felicity took her with flourish as she asked, “Did it go fine, baby girl?”

Oliver stepped back to turn away, but then he stopped. Felicity cradled Artemis in her arms and looked up at him.

“It did help,” he admitted.

“Yeah?”

One corner of his mouth ticked up in a sad smile as he nodded at her. “Thank you.”

Felicity blinked in astonishment, her jaw threatening to fall, but she stopped it, giving him a smile in return. “Of course. I’m glad. She’s got a presence about her, doesn’t she?”

Oliver’s eyes never left Felicity as he whispered, “Yeah. She does.”

A flutter attacked her heart and it made her next breath difficult to take in.

“Well,” Felicity managed. “We’re always here. You can use us whenever you need to. I mean, her. Not us. Not me, I’m not… That sounded like a proposition and it wasn’t, I swear. I mean, you can come over here and take her whenever you want. We’re equal opportunity over here. She is. Artemis, that is.”

He didn’t respond right away, but when he did, it was with a smile that left her mouth dry.

God, he was beautiful when he smiled.

“I might do that,” he told her.

“Okay. Good. Great.”

“Have a good day, Felicity.”

“You too.”

Oliver shocked her even more when he reached out and scratched the puppy’s head. “Bye, Artie.”

He didn’t give Felicity the chance to comprehend the complete one-eighty he had done before he disappeared down the hall.

“I have a new nickname for you,” Felicity told the dog. “Oliver Queen Kryptonite.”

With a grin, she shut her door, continuing her conversation with her puppy, wondering if - when - he’d be back.

Thank you for reading! The second part will be posted tomorrow!

Reviews literally feed the soul and muse. (Ko-fi is awesome too!)

#olicity #olicity fic #olicity fanfiction #olicitysquee #olicity summer sizzle #oliver queen #felicity smoak #olicity au #arrow #fanfiction #my fics #my fics: au #dust2dust34 #fic: puppy au

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greatspacedustbin · 5 years ago

Note

I’ve got quarantine questions! 3, 8, 23, 38, 50

Woohoo!

3. What are you doing with your time now that you’re home?

Finding out that I’m really bad at time management re: work from home

Listening to the radio all day long (nothing new there)

Hanging on the couch, watching TV/browsing on my laptop (nothing new there either)

Eat out of boredom

Cook

8. What’s a goal you hope to achieve while being quarantined?

I actually dusted off my keyboard again (the musical instrument, not the computer one - although that also needs dusting.. :P), and occasionally I’m trying to play, so maybe I am not as rusty as I used to be whenever we’re allowed to leave the house in like 5 years, lol

23. What’s your favorite tv show?

Also answered here, but I’m currently rewatching the earlier seasons of Flikken Maastricht (an actually decent Dutch TV show :P ), and have to say, it still is a pretty solid show. (partly because of the male lead, but that aside :P)

38. What was the last meal you cooked and how did it taste?

Not much cooking involved, but I made a Vietnamese rice noodle bowl with some fried tofu that was leftover from Pad Thai. Still getting used to how to properly cook tofu, because it was a bit funky (but at least properly seasoned this time ;) ), but I got my daily veggies again :P

50. Tell me an interesting fact.

In 2016 there was a drugs bust in Amsterdam, involving 500k worth of crystal meth, cocaine and other drugs, and 200k cash, all guarded by three crocodiles. The twist being that amidst all the illegal business, the owner did have the papers in order for owning said crocodiles XD. It sounds like it’s straight from the plot of Miami Vice, but here we are.. :P

#girlagainsthumanity #thank you for the asks :D #quarantine asks #ask meme

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honeypiehotchner · 6 years ago

Text

Trust -- part twenty

Hello and welcome back! The hiatus is over now that finals week has passed and I am excited to get back to this story. Here’s a lovely part where shit hits the fan. You’re welcome xx.

It’s a strange thing how the most abnormal things can happen after something so normal.

Whenever a tragedy occurs, as someone is recounting the day, they never say they knew something was wrong. They never say they felt the universe was off that morning when they woke up. That’s not something they say, because no one ever knows. The day always starts off as completely normal.

Mary Josephine, she said it was a normal morning. She was having her morning tea and reading her morning scripture when Gidon broke into her home. She was probably having a normal day when he broke in and kidnapped her. She probably had a relatively normal life before he began to target her – the reason behind that being still unknown.

Things are normal. And then the rug is ripped out from underneath their feet. Without preparation or anticipation. In a flash, the tragedy happens.

While the rug wasn’t necessarily ripped out from beneath your feet, you still got the same feeling.

The day started normal. You woke up a little after nine because you and Sherlock hadn’t stayed up that late. After he had gotten over John’s interruption two days prior, he was pleasant. He played games with you and occasionally played the violin while you slept by the fire. Things had gone back to normal.

You came up to the boy’s flat where Sherlock had made breakfast – yes, Sherlock made breakfast for once – and the two of you ate in relative silence. Sherlock solved a few cases and texted Lestrade the information, none of them being worthy of his presence outside the flat. He played the violin while you read, and he noticed that your feet began twitching at certain points, like they were itching to dance around the floor. But you never stood up to dance. You didn’t appear to even notice your feet were moving on their own accord. You were too lost in the book you were reading to see Sherlock’s eyes studying you while he played. But Sherlock wanted you to dance. He just wasn’t sure if he should ask.

Like every other normal day, you retire to your flat to finish reading and let Sherlock experiment. You also needed to dance alone, but you wanted to finish the book first.

You were in the middle of reading the last chapter on your bed that night, trying to fall asleep because you weren’t planning on going out. It had been two days since you last went – yes, because you went out after Sherlock was sulking. You can feel your body itching for something, but you’ve been trying to distract yourself, hearing John’s words in your head.

“So, if we’re gonna kill him, it’d be better if you didn’t kill yourself in the process.”

A single buzz on the hardwood floor next to your mattress. The phone rattles. Only once.

There. Tonight. –GD

The blood drains from your face – and torso, all the way down to your toes – when you read the message, and you’re thankful John is staying at Mary’s tonight. Because you have no idea what could happen or what might happen. You just hope he never finds out, unless he has to.

In a way, this is good. You’re getting what you wanted. You went into this with the idea of finding Gidon and beating him at his game. You went into this thinking you were one step ahead. And if he’ll be there tonight, then that’s good. Mission accomplished, partly.

You know it’s a bad idea. But you also know he has Mary. And if there is a single chance that you can get to her and save her before he does…whatever it is he does, you need to take that chance. Not to mention if there’s a chance to get Gidon, then you need to take it.

You leave the book you were reading on your bed, slipping into your trainers. You remember your gun, placing it comfortably at your hip – or as comfortable as it can be; you still hate carrying the damn thing – before you head for your window. And then, for some strange reason, you turn around.

You turn around and exit your flat, going up the stairs to find Sherlock Holmes. This doesn’t feel normal at all, but the only thing you can think to do is to let him know. Even though you know he’s likely to follow you, or tell someone else (John, maybe), you still want to let him know.

A final goodbye. Though you hope it isn’t one.

You step into the living room, seeing him sitting in his chair, his eyes closed, his hands steepled at his chin. You sigh. He’s thinking. And there’s no way for you to break him out of that, so you don’t bother trying. Even though he’s thinking, you know he’ll hear you. And it’ll register soon enough.

“I’m going out,” you say, essentially to an empty room. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I just wanted to let you know. Goodnight.”

You turn and skip down the stairs, exiting through the main door and out onto the streets of London.

~~~

By the time your words register in Sherlock’s mind, you are too far gone. Hours have passed, and the fire in his fireplace has long burned out, leaving the room dark.

He practically flies to his laptop, logging on. You let him know you were going out. You never do. Well, you go out, but you never let him know first.

Something is different. Not different. Wrong. He can feel it. That stupid tugging in his chest.

When the location device on your phone shows that it is still here in Baker Street, Sherlock nearly screams in frustration. Of course, you’d leave your phone here. That’s exactly the type of behavior you’d exhibit. He was stupid to even try to check, but he was hoping this time would’ve been different. He grabs his phone, immediately dialing his older brother.

He doesn’t give Mycroft a chance to think before he begins speaking. “Where is she?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Y/N, where is she? I know you know where she is.” Sherlock isn’t an idiot and Mycroft isn’t either. Sherlock knows his brother knows exactly where you are because it’s unlike Mycroft to continue paying someone the way he has with you when they decide not to give him any information. You had to be doing something, but still something for his guilt to get the better of him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Where is she?”

“What is wrong, Sherlock?”

“She’s in danger.”

Mycroft rattles off the address and tells Sherlock he’ll phone Lestrade before he hangs up the call, but Mycroft has already phoned Lestrade. Fifteen minutes ago.

~~~

Lestrade and his team storm the building on one of the biggest drugs busts they’ve had in…years. All thanks to a tip from an anonymous phone call.

There hasn’t been anything nearly this exciting in a while, and Lestrade would be lying if he said he wasn’t planning to celebrate afterwards.

But that was before he stumbled upon you leaned against the wall next to a smashed window. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like you were used to smash the window, which was his first worry, but you still don’t look good.

He presses a button on his radio. “Send medics up to the second floor. Now.”

Lestrade kneels in front of you, shaking your shoulder. “Y/N,” he tries, hoping this isn’t as bad as last time. Last time was much worse. Last time you were almost gone. “Y/N,” he says again, glancing down at your arms. He sighs heavily at the sight.

The medics come up the stairs, but not without Sherlock Holmes running behind them, almost pushing them there.

Lestrade stands quickly, holding up his hands to block a very concerned Sherlock from getting to you. “You need to let the medics look at her, Sherlock.”

“I can’t look at her, too?” Sherlock nearly growls, moving Lestrade out of the way – which Lestrade expected to happen.

You hardly remember any of this, but the medics are checking you over, making sure you haven’t overdosed, and bringing you back to consciousness. You’re disoriented, but fine nonetheless.

Sherlock glances out the broken window with narrowed eyes, looking for any signs of where Gidon could’ve escaped. He easily could’ve jumped down onto the crates and ran off down the road. He’s probably long gone by now, so there’s no use in trying to run after him, especially not with the state you’re in.

“Can you tell us your name?”

“Y/N L/N,” you mumble out.

“What about the date?”

“Who the fuck knows.”

“That’s good enough,” Lestrade nods, knowing you never know what day it is anyway. He’s fishing in his jacket pocket for his phone, gaining the attention of Sherlock Holmes.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling her brother,” Lestrade replies like it’s obvious. “I’m putting the two of you in my car and we’re going to my office.”

~~~

John is sleeping – snoring, more like it, is what Mary thinks – soundly next to his fiancé when his phone vibrates rather loudly and insistently on the nightstand.

He blindly throws his hand over to the phone, answering the call without looking. “Hello?”

Mary wakes then, hearing John’s voice. She blinks her eyes open to see John on the phone, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Lestrade? What’s wrong?” His eyes widen. “You what?”

Startled, Mary places a hand on his arm, letting him know she’s there.

“Okay. For God’s sake, okay, I’ll be there.” He hangs up the phone, throwing the covers off of his body. Mary looks at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. As John is throwing on clothes, he says, “Lestrade has Y/N. He found her in a bloody drug den.”

“He what?”

“Yeah,” John tries to hide his anger, but he’s frustrated. He’s angry. Why the hell would you do this? After he talked to you? He knew something was up. He suspected this. He should’ve stayed with you.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, no you have to work. I need to talk to her about this alone.” He pauses, leaning over the bed to give her a kiss. “But thank you.”

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Mary reminds him softly.

He just gives her a look as he leaves, unsure of how he’ll be able to stay true to that.

~~~

In Lestrade’s office, Sherlock is pacing while Lestrade handles a few things on his computer – but he’s mostly trying to get Sherlock to stop pacing.

You’re laying on the floor, Sherlock’s coat folded under your head as a pillow. You’re glad Lestrade can’t get Sherlock to stop pacing because – oddly enough – the sound of his constant footsteps is soothing to your mind as you try to remember the details of the night.

You get nowhere, only remembering what happened before you left the flat. That’s bad…you don’t remembering getting to the drug den. You smirk, your eyes still closed. Drug den. Why do people call it that? It’s a funny name.

“Where is she?”

Is that John?

“Lestrade, where is she?”

That’s Johnny.

Wait.

Oh no.

Lestrade gestures to the floor where you’re lying, your head gently resting on…Sherlock’s coat. John would recognize the coat anywhere because Sherlock never wears anything different – and he’s not wearing it right now. But when John sees you lying there, your eyes closed, ankles crossed over one another, hands clasped over your stomach, his anger melts away. At least for the moment.

John ignores Lestrade when he says the medics have already looked you over and cleared you, moving to kneel next to you on the floor.

“Hey,” he nudges your shoulder, glad to see your eyes open almost immediately. “Can you sit up for me?”

You obey, looking him in the eyes. “Johnny?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he looks back and forth between your eyes, checking your pulse as well.

“I’m fine, Johnny, you didn’t need to…stop your date with Mary.”

He hums, placing a hand in between your shoulder blades. “We’re going to talk about this.”

“I’m tired. Can we talk later?”

He gives you a look and doesn’t have a chance to react before you’ve laid back down, curling into a ball, both hands cradling Sherlock’s coat. Sherlock’s coat. Sherlock was at the flat with you. Sherlock was there.

A newfound anger is bubbling in John’s chest as he stands, facing Sherlock who has now stopped pacing. Lestrade sees the scene that’s about to unfold, and would rather it didn’t in his office, so he rounds his desk and begins speaking.

“There’s no charges to worry about. Mycroft gave her a pardon,” Lestrade speaks slowly, turning to John. “Wait until you get back to Baker Street before you start yelling, please? I’ve got too much paperwork to do already.”

John clenches his jaw, but honors Lestrade’s request.

~~~

John barely waits until the door to 221B has closed behind the three of you before he begins raging.

“Why didn’t you follow her?” He nearly shoves Sherlock in the chest. “You follow everyone every-bloody-where, why didn’t you follow her?”

“He was thinking,” you offer, not really meaning to throw Sherlock under the bus even more, but you are. You lie down on the couch, wrapping Sherlock’s coat tighter around your shoulders.

“You bloody machine, you—You were thinking, so you didn’t know she left?”

“I knew she left, but it was too late. John, I—”

“You knew, you—” John takes a deep breath. “This is your fault.”

That gets your attention, causing you to sit up off the couch rather abruptly. “Wait, no it’s not.”

John turns to you with wide eyes. “I don’t wanna hear a word from you right now.”

“Oh, calm down,” you stand up with a roll of your eyes, tugging on the corners of Sherlock’s coat. “It’s not his fault.”

“And how is this not his fault?”

“Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m an adult.”

“You’re right, I haven’t noticed because you’ve been acting like a child.”

“Rude,” you furrow your eyebrows. “But I have two legs and a brain. I walked myself there on my own decision. Sherlock had nothing to do with that.”

“He was here with you.”

“In spirit, yes, but he wasn’t really here.”

“And that’s the problem—!”

“That’s not the problem,” you cut him off. “The problem is—I don’t know what the problem is. What’s the problem?”

John levels his expression, his glare turning deadly. “Lay down.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Go to sleep. You’re sleeping up here. And we’ll discuss this when you’re not high.”

“Fine,” you grumble, lying back down on the couch. “But you’ll have to stop yelling. I can’t sleep when you do.”

John gives you another look, but you don’t see because you’ve already closed your eyes. Sherlock smirks, but quickly wipes it away when John turns to look at him. With a heavy, annoyed sigh, John settles into his chair.

Sherlock, with almost no hesitation, picks up his violin and begins playing the piece he’s been composing with you in mind.

#Trust #sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes #sherlock x reader #sherlock holmes x reader #john watson #greg lestrade #mycroft holmes #shit hit the fan #and i'm so sorry #angst #drama #you know i had to add some angst in here #it was inevitable

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taehyungiestummy · 5 years ago

Text

Return to Paradise -- Chapter Fourteen

Masterlist Previous Next

Warnings: None

Word Count: 3001

I wake up with my back flush against Taehyung’s chest. His arms wrapped around my stomach, and a leg is draped over my own. Something hard is pushed up against my butt.

“Taehyung, let go of me,” I wiggle around in his grasp.

“Ah,” Taehyung moans out.

“Whoa,” I stop my movement, my face heating up. It is too early for this. Too damn early.

“Jagi,” Taehyung’s morning voice wakes me up fully.

“Tae, we have a problem. Well, you have a problem.”

“What? Nothing is wrong,” he kisses my jaw.

“Yes, there is,” I wiggle around to prove my point.

“Oh,” Taehyung tires to hold back a moan and fails.

“I’m dying of embarrassment, but I can’t help but like those sounds. Gah, why did I say that?”

“Shut up,” he grumbles. “This happens sometimes. I just need to pee.”

“Oh, so your, thing is what is hard,” I choke out, wanting to disappear.

“Yes, my dick is hard. Partly because of you being all up on me.”

“Then let me scoot away.”

“No,” he whines.

“Yes, Taehyung, go pee and then come back.”

“Fine,” he groans, releasing me and jumping out of bed. “Don’t look, I’ll be right back.”

I accidently catch a glance as Taehyung rushes out of his room, causing my cheeks to heat up even more.

I take a few deep breaths and then chuckle, sitting up in his bed and looking around the room.

Clothes are scattered across the floor; a desk is cluttered with papers, books, and a laptop. Some stuffed animals are over in a corner. The sun is trying its hardest to shine through the closed curtains. I can’t believe that last night a terrible storm was blowing through, and now it is a peaceful morning.

“Problem solved,” Taehyung walks back into his room, clothes in his arms. “These are yours, by the way.” He places the clothes on the end of his bed. “It’s actually late morning, so you should probably get ready.”

“Man, no more cuddles,” I pout.

“We will cuddle a lot during July,” he walks over to me, kissing just my bottom lip. “Come on, I’ll show you to the bathroom.”

“So demanding,” I giggle, sliding out of his bed.

“I am the man,” he teasingly smirks.

I reach up and ruffle his already mess hair, “Such a cute man. You can’t always tell me what to do, though.”

“I protected you last night,” he lifts me up and throws me over his shoulder. “Did you forget that?”

“Taehyung,” I gasp. “Put me down. How can you carry me?”

“You are light, and I am strong, that’s how. Also, I’m taking you to the bathroom.” His hand gently connects with my butt. “My clothes look amazing on you, if I might add.”

“I can’t believe you right now,” I groan, covering my face with my hands.

“Don’t you want me to be like this sometimes? Or am I mistaken?”

“I mean, yes, but it is so sudden. Just take me to the bathroom.”

Taehyung walks out of his room and heads down the hall.

“Good morning, Yoongi-hyung,” Taehyung happily says.

I pull my hands away from my face. “Yoongi, help me,” I giggle.

“You seem to be in no trouble,” Yoongi walks around to be face-to-face with me. “Little one, did Taehyung protect you?”

“He did. He’s a man, you know?”

Yoongi chuckles, “Sure he is.”

“We have places to be, hyung,” Taehyung says.

“Fine, I’ll let you two go,” Yoongi cups my face with one hand. “You need to get your crazy hair under control.”

“I’ll do my best,” I smile. Yoongi leans in and kisses my cheek, “Have I told how cute you are?”

“Have I told you that you are getting soft around me?”

“Just for you. I can’t help it,” he pulls his hand away from my face. “See you two later,” he nods and walks away.

Taehyung continues to the bathroom, setting me down on the toilet. “I will be back,” he places my clothes on the counter. “Just use my shower things. Middle shelf it mine.”

I nod, “Thank you, Tae.”

“No problem, princess.” He smiles before turning and walking out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Minutes later I am undressed and in the shower. It feels weird knowing the other boys have probably used this shower. It’s weird to be showering at the dorms at all.

I get over being uncomfortable in a few minutes, singing as if I’m back at Nari’s. I am so into my thoughts I barely register the door opening.

“Lovely singing, jagi,” Taehyung’s voice shocks me and I almost slip.

“Taehyung, what are you doing?” I make sure the shower curtain is closed and the boy on the other side can’t see me.

“Brushing my teeth,” he laughs. “This is my bathroom.”

“I’m naked,” I take a few deep breaths.

“I would hope so, since you are in the shower. Also, I can’t see you. Hey, how about we sing together?”

“No Tae, not like this,” I sigh. “Can you just hurry up so I can get out?”

“Yeah, I will. I just want to spend as much time as possible with you since you won’t be spending the day with us.”

I laugh, “You are so dorky, but that is kind of cute.”

“I try,” he laughs with me.

“Hurry up though, I am turning into a prune in here.”

“Okay, okay, I’m hurrying. I wish I was turning into a prune too.”

“Such a pervert,” I roll my eyes. “Go back to being cute.”

********

“It’ll be like Thanksgiving tomorrow,” I smile as I set up the card table.

“That’s a good way to put it,” Nari smiles as she mixes the brownie batter.

“It’s a going away party, though,” Emily says. “We will miss you Nari.”

“I’ll miss you girls,” Nari glances back at us. “Even if we already talked about it, and I gave you the rules, it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“At least it is just a month,” I push the card table up next to the small dinning room table. Not nine months.”

“Well, you will only be back here a few days after traveling. Then nine months again. I get to comfortable with you here, and I know that I shouldn’t because you leave before I realize it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Emily begins pushing chairs up to our makeshift long table. “I don’t want to leave. The second time, that is.”

“Just one more nine months,” I sigh. “Then we never have to leave here again.”

“Still haven’t told your parents that plan, have you?” Nari asks.

“No,” I answer. “I’m saving that for next year. I’ve only told Yoongi that we are moving over here, actually.”

“That boy is good at keeping secrets.”

“He made Taehyung a jealous boy,” Emily chuckles.

“How?” Nari pours the brownie batter into a pan.

“Tae asked a stupid question, like, if Yoongi kissed me,” I take a seat in one of the chairs Emily has set up around the table. “So, he did, kind of. He kissed the corner of my mouth. Barely on my lips.”

“Ah, in a sibling way,” Nari nods, putting the brownies in the oven. “And Taehyung must have hated that.”

“Yoongi was just teasing him, so I calmed him down,” I sigh. “There was no reason for him to jealous, and he knows it.”

“With kisses, I’m guessing.”

“Yes, a lot,” I giggle.

“How was your sleepover?”

“A lot of fun, actually,” Emily takes a seat in a chair next to me. “I feel ready for the month we get to spend with them.”

“I agree,” I nod. “I feel much more ready for how they are going to be. It was like a trial run to see if the real thing would be good.”

“I know we already went over rules, but please, if possible, call me every night before bed.” Nari walks over and pulls a chair out to sit on.

“Of course,” Emily and I smile.

“This is why you two are the best, and why I trust you to go on this adventure.”

“I can’t wait to go swimming,” I clap a few times. “It will be so fun.”

“Bikini’s all the time,” Emily pats my shoulder.

“Eh, no,” I shake my head. “I also want to spend a lot of time with the maknae line. Park Jimin is such a kind soul.”

“He is,” Nari softly smiles.

“He is very nice to you,” Emily says. “I mean, they all are, but Jimin is different.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I nod. “He’s so cute and loving to the other members. Slowly the same is happening to us.”

“How has Jin been?” Nari asks. “When we get together he focuses on me, but I want to know how he is with you two.”

“He’s good,” I answer. “Seems very happy. In love, you may say.”

“Oh, no,” Nari’s cheeks redden as she looks away. “Love, that’s such a feeling that is so strong and rare.”

“I can see it in his eyes,” I say.

“Yes, that man loves you,” Emily adds.

“Do you love him?”

“I mean, he’s the first person I have been in a serious relationship for a couple years now,” Nari runs a hand through her hair. “I don’t know this feeling. It probably is love, but I don’t know. It is hard to tell.”

“Tell him, he no doubt feels the same,” I smile. “He’s such a sweetheart.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Ah, it will be so cute,” Emily and I giggle.

�� “Goodness, you two must be able to read minds,” Nari chuckles.

“It does seem like that at times,” Emily says. “We can’t, though.”

“But how cool would that be?” I grin.

“Very cool, Amber,” Emily pats my head.

“I just remembered something about last year.”

“What would that be?” Nari chuckles.

“Where is our dog?”

Nari busts into laughs. “Ah, yes, I remember that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Emily giggles. “That was something Amber asked for last year, but I thought it turned into Tae and her getting a dog.”

“I just like dogs,” I pout. “And so does Tae.”

“You two should totally get a dog together then,” Nari nods.

“He already has a dog, that I want to meet. She, I think, lives with his parents. Soonsim is her name, and I don’t know the breed.”

“If she lives with his parents, then you two will need a dog of your own,” Emily says. “Rescue one or two.”

“You have a point.”

“You can ask him if he wants a dog with you tomorrow,” Nari says.

“So what does Emily have to ask or tell Namjoon?”

“I’ll tell him not to touch anything and I’ll handle all his breakable items,” Emily answers.

“He is very clumsy and breaks things often,” Nari says.

“I am okay with that being what you tell him,” I chuckle. “Also, on an unrelated note, I think the brownies are done.”

********

“This all looks so yummy,” Jungkook smiles as the boys walking into the kitchen-dining room.

“It smells amazing,” Seokjin smiles, giving Nari a kiss.

“Please, everyone grab some food and take a seat,” I smile.

Everyone walks around getting their food and drinks, and then we have to find seats. That takes a little bit more time than any of us would have like, but we figure it out. To my left at the head of the table, is Hoseok, and to my right at the head of the table is Jimin. Seokjin and Nari are across from me, and to their left is Namjoon and Emily. Taehyung is to my right, with Yoongi and Jungkook to my left.

“Thank you girls for making this for us,” Namjoon says.

“It is a nice way to spend a night together,” Yoongi says.

“Food brings people together,” I shove rice and meat into my mouth with chopsticks.

“I agree,” Taehyung follows my lead and shoves food into his mouth.

“We haven’t done something like this since Amber’s birthday last year,” Nari says.

“Oh yeah,” Jungkook says. “We can one up that party this year.”

“I hope so,” I smile.

“I can guarantee it,” Jimin says.

“Anything you guys wan tot ask us?” Emily redirects the conversation.

“Tell us about your families,” Hoseok speaks up.

“That’s actually a good topic,” Nari smiles. “Who shall go first?”

“I can,” Emily says. “Um, I am the oldest of my siblings. I have a younger brother, and two younger sisters. My parents had me out of wedlock, and I am the reason they got married. We have a few cats, and some fish. That’s really it,” she chuckles.

“Oldest, hm?” Namjoon questions. “That’s why you kind of take care of Amber.”

“I take care of myself, thank you,” I sass.

“No, I take care of you,” Taehyung pushes some food into my mouth.

“We all do, in some way,” Jimin says.

“Amber is my best friend, so I do have to take care of her in a way,” Emily smiles. “But she takes care of me too.”

“That’s sweet,” Seokjin says. “Amber, what is your family like?”

“Oh, well, I am the middle child,” I take a sip of my water. “Of five kids. Older brother and sister, and then younger sister and brother, in that order, if that makes sense. Kind of crazy how it all happened. My parents are a bit crazy in that regard. We also have a dog. We have always had a dog, and my younger brother has some lizards. I grew up in such a loving household, and I am thankful that they let me come over here to experience that same kind of love in a different way.”

“That’s good, I’m glad that is has been that way,” Taehyung kisses my cheek.

“We always want to see you two smile,” Jungkook grins.

“And you too, Nari,” Seokjin pops in.

“This is why I am so glad we all met,” I smile, leaning into Taehyung.

“Your turn, Nari,” Hoseok smiles.

“Oh, yes,” Nari giggles. “Well, my parents are happily married, and proud of me and my little sister, Yuna. We have an old family dog and cat that are the best of friends. My dad is a doctor, so I grew up and got most of what I wanted.”

“What does your sister do?” Yoongi asks.

“Oh, Yuna,” Nari smiles, nodding a few times. “She’s a figure skater. She’s won a few times, so I guess she’s pretty good.”

“Wait, are you talking about Yuna Moon?” I ask for clarification.

“The one and only,” she chuckles. “I like to tease her all the time about how she still needs to get better.”

“She is amazing!” I don’t mean to shout, but the excitement is hard to contain.

“Oh, I know her,” Emily joins in. “Amber and I watched the 2014 Winter Olympics and saw her.”

“Wait, that’s your sister?” Jimin is shocked.

“Yes, the Olympic medalist is my sister,” Nari chuckles again. “Gold medal, and I never had a doubt.”

“Her and Yuzuru Hanyu are the cutest,” I smile, sitting up.

“As cute as us?” Taehyung pouts.

“Well, they are really cute,” I poke his cheek.

“I say tie, but you two might edge out because we know you,” Emily chuckles.

“So, Yuna is pretty good at figure skating if she got gold,” Jungkook says.

“South Korea’s best for the modern era, Kookie,” Namjoon answers. “She’s broken many records and won even more competitions.”

“Plus, she’s dating a super cute and talented Japanese boy,” I add. “Which people were never surprised about, but now the media really plays it up. People want them to do couple skates, but they haven’t trained all their lives for that. Reminds me of me, since I am dating a super cute and talented boy.”

“Yeah, I am super cute,” Taehyung grins.

“Where is Yuna now?” Seokjin asks.

“Probably training in Canada or Japan,” Nari shrugs. “Always with Yuzuru, no doubt. Goodness, we don’t talk as much as we used to. Both of us are so busy. I can’t remember the last time I saw her outside of a competition.”

“July task, contact her,” I firmly nod, pointing at my cousin for a few seconds.

“Okay, okay,” Nari chuckles. “I will do that. I promise.”

“It is dessert time now?” Yoongi speaks up.

I giggle, “I think so.”

“Wait,” Emily holds up her hand for a moment. “You two have things to tell your boyfriends,” she points at Nari and then me. “I told Joonie not to hold anything he could break, so spill.”

“Clumsy Namjoon,” Hoseok smirks.

“Shut up,” Namjoon sighs.

“I’ll go first,” I look up at Taehyung. “I want to raise a dog with you.”

“Cute,” Jimin giggles.

Taehyung looks down at me, a loving smile on his face. “I would love to raise a dog with you, jagi. Just more here,” he kisses my nose.

“Yet another reason to move here,” Jungkook says in a sing-song way.

I giggle, turning my gaze to Nari, “Now it is your turn.”

Nari takes a deep breath, looking at Seokjin. “Jinnie, I’ve been thinking a lot about us, and I’ve realized something.”

“What is it?” Seokjin looks at her, sounding a little scared.

“Nothing bad, just how I feel about you. The girls made me realized it. Um, ah, I love you.”

Seokjin smiles so big. “I love you too, Nari. For a while now. I’m so glad they set us up.”

“Cute,” Hoseok giggles.

“I agree,” Emily and I smile.

“Now kiss,” Jimin laughs.

Seokjin gives Nari a quick peck on the lips. “You are so sweet.”

Nari smiles, a pink to her cheeks. “I try.”

“That was nice and all,” Yoongi says. “But can we have dessert now?” I laugh, leaning over into Yoongi. “Yes, we can have dessert. We made brownies, and you can pick your toppings. Hope you are all ready.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The fun starts next chapter as the traveling beginnings. Hope you enjoyed reading! :D

#BTS #BTS x OC #BTS imagine #BTS fanfiction #Jungkook x OC #Jungkook imagine #Taehyung x OC #Taehyung imagine #Jimin x OC #Jimin imagine #Namjoon x OC #Namjoon imagine #Hoseok x OC #Hoseok imagine #Yoongi x OC #Yoongi imagine #Seokjin x OC #Seokjin imagine #My OCs

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scaryscarecrows · 6 years ago

Text

Roots and Leaves

Eh, I liked this arc. Or. The pain this arc inflicted on people. :) ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN TO TRAGEDY TOWN, SUCKERS!

There’s rain above him, turning the dirt to slick mud that just keeps slipping through his fingers.

God no please not like this not like this-

He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe and he knows that not a foot away is air-salvation-life, but he can’t breathe now and-and-

Please not like this-

And his fingers finally breach the topsoil, scrambling in the mud, blood drying in the wind.

* * *

A week earlier…

Jason suspects this wasn’t his brightest idea. Though, really, when your criteria for ‘should I?’ is ‘is it as bad as chasing after the Joker by myself?’…well…you get a lotta leeway, okay? Not many things are that bad.

Besides, it wasn’t for himself.

Okay, so it was a little bit, but not a lot, and…yeah, it was seventy-five percent case and twenty-five percent ‘has Bruce revoked my access yet?’

Answers: he found his perp in Bruce’s database, and he still has access to the Batcomputer’s (why is everything you own Bat-something, B, huh? How old are you, four?) files. Huh, look at that, B’s a sentimental bastard after all. Or he just spaced. That’s more likely. New Robin to train and all that.

Whatever.

He got a bit distracted, testing how far his access went, and ended up in his own files, because he’s a little morbidly curious as to what it says about…about. Y’know.

It was all so clinical, to the surprise of none. Bruce had apparently gone over that tape with a fine-toothed comb like the obsessive bastard he’s always been, and the only things missing were internal injuries and a few of the more subtle-yet-permanent damages like his shoulders. Things that aren’t obvious when you’re sitting quietly in a chair.

Fucker. Jason’s still wondering if Bruce spent more time cataloging the damn tape than he spent looking for him.

He’d been about to click out (he doesn’t want to drive all the way to Wayne Manor to punch Bruce in the face, he doesn’t, he swears on his own unused grave) when he’d spotted the ‘leads’ tab.

Eh. He probably put it there in case Alfred was looking over his shoulder or somethin’. Like bringing up a Wikipedia article when you were about to get busted playing Solitaire instead of working on your essay.

But Jason’d clicked on it, and, well…

Well.

It’s more extensive than he’d thought. He’s not sure how to feel about that. Bruce had been close, a couple’a times-questioned the right guards, even, if he’d just questioned ‘em again a month or two later, after the Joker bought ‘em off…

He hopes that fact keeps him up at night.

He continues to scroll. Lotta dead ends, lotta close calls, lotta where the hell did you get THAT idea? And he’s just about to sign out when his eyes flash across, of all places, the school Bruce’d left him at for all of three days after he caught him with that tire iron in hand.

Wasn’t that place closed?

Apparently not. Wow. Only in Gotham, man, only in Gotham-what’s that?

It’s a link to the ‘genetics’ page Bruce made him fill out at the very beginning. He’s still torn between finding a little creepy and admitting that it’s kinda practical. What’s interesting about it now, though, is that there’s been some editing done.

What the hell? Did some long-lost relative crop up? An amnesiac or something?

Sheila Haywood, the name reads. And next to it, relation-mother.

What? He feels his lips hitch up in that stupid rabbit-expression (he can’t help it, SHUT UP) he gets when he’s really confused. Mom (?) used to laugh and call him Bugs.

This makes no sense at all. Bruce must’a had a period of insanity or somethin’. He has exactly two parents (well, three and a half-Alfred counts as something and Bruce…once upon a time, maybe…), and this Sheila Haywood is not one of them. He even looks a bit like Catherine-same hair, same eyes.

But.

But Willis had those features too, didn’t he.

Jason shoves the laptop away from him and takes a few deep breaths. This is ridiculous. Bruce makes mistakes. Obviously-look at him, huh? This is one he hasn’t caught, that’s all. Hasn’t looked further because there’s no reason to look further. Sheila probably just…maybe she came forward looking for money or something, that’s a thing. Happens all the time.

He pulls the laptop back, after a few minutes, and opens the file. It’s not a big one-name, birthday, picture (he doesn’t look like her, she’s blonde and bright-eyed and pretty) and…associates.

Joker. Ah. That relationship is over, according to Bruce-there had been blackmail involved. Well, there’s that lead explained. Dead end, too. She’d been free of the clown for over a year, before Jason ever…

Bruce is mistaken. That’s all. Willis knew a lotta people, for fuck’s sake, he’d never been…Mom had always been upset. Y’know.

His hands are shaking and he doesn’t know why. This isn’t anything. This is a mistake, Bruce makes them all the time. Look at him. God, look at…look at Babs, if Bruce hadn’t made the mistake of givin’ Joker a thousand and one chances, she wouldn’t be…

Sheila Haywood smiles awkwardly at him from her driver’s license picture. The last time Bruce updated this file was…maybe six months after he disappeared. At the time, she’d been living in a middle-income apartment close to Gotham General-her place of work, apparently.

What does it matter anyway, huh? Catherine was his mom, even at the end when she barely recognized him anymore. And she hadn’t done somethin’ stupid enough to get Joker-blackmail, either. So there.

He mashes the little red ‘X’ in the corner and flings himself backwards to reach his bottle of Fanta (Fanta, don’t ya want-a?). Fucking Bruce. Why does he have to leave that kinda stuff lyin’ around, huh? It’s over. It’s done. Archive it or whatever and find somethin’ new to brood over. Like Dick’s poor fashion choices. (His hair’s growing dangerously near mullet territory again…if he steps one spandex-clad toe into Crime Alley, Jason’s tackling him and taking an electric razor to that before it can evolve into its final form. Never again. Gotham doesn’t deserve that.) Priorities, old man. Priorities.

His Fanta’s half-flat and he scowls, blames Bruce for distracting him and making him forget to drink it while it was still bubbly, and takes a sad swig anyway.

As it turns out, the Fanta isn’t all that flat and with his head hanging partly off the couch, it, uh, gets near his nose. The fizzy feeling makes him gag and jam his tongue against the roof of his mouth to try and stop it.

He should’ve just had tea. Soda’s too much risk.

He sets the bottle aside, glares at it so it knows its blame, and stretches. There’s a neat pop-pop-pop along his spine, followed by a nasty knock in his right hip that forces a startled gasp out of him, and then blessed silence.

Well. For Gotham. Somebody’s screaming at somebody in traffic below.

Never change…

Mom used to shut the window, even if that made it stifling inside. Said she didn’t want Jason picking up any of those words. Joke was on her, a little bit-the ancient Russian lady that used to watch him now and then taught him everything he ever needed to know. Bruce…had not been enthused when Jason’s ‘I know Russian!’ turned out to mean ‘I know how to tell you, your dog, and your mother-in-law to fuck a rotten egg in Russian!’

What? He hadn’t specified.

His computer glows at him, the background of Jane Austen’s signature looking starker than ever, and he lets his head fall completely off the couch, feels the blood start rushing to it.

Sheila Haywood is, uh, Joker-free now, right? Not working with Harley Quinn or whatever? Harley can be scary as fuck when she wants to be.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it is completely irrelevant to him. Bruce made a mistake. It happens. Or the Replacement had that idea. Or Dick. Yes. That’s all.

But he’s still going to check, because he always checks on past Joker associates, in case they’re sleepers or anything. Look at that one infected guy…Henry or whatever.

S’a matter of public safety. That’s all.

#Jason Todd #Sheila Haywood #Jason's curiosity is going to get him into trouble one of these days #Arkhamverse #sort of #you know me I mash canons together into a canon meatloaf #Roots and Leaves

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because-its-important · 7 years ago

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transitions & transformations

i. the rest of my batch at RC

I spent the first six weeks of my batch at Recurse Center in an out-and-out sprint. I learned Python, built and released projects, and wrote blog posts every week. I wasn’t sure where my limits were, but I was determined to find out - preferably by overshooting them, then adjusting after the fact.

A curious thing happened. I kept finding that I was more than capable of starting and finishing projects, especially when I had a firm mental image of the end goal. There were at least as many unexpected good-turns as there were setbacks, and I certainly didn’t come up against any inscrutable barriers. Mostly the challenge was in overcoming the distance between a thing that doesn’t exist and a thing that does, which I was able to sort out pretty handily through a consistent application of effort across time.

Who’d have thought?

A selfie taken on my birthday, which also happened in the last few months and was really great!

The second half of my batch was not so visibly productive - with the exception of The Question Game. The Question Game is a simple game designed to help groups of people get to know each other better IRL. I designed it with my friend Brittany a few years ago as an icebreaker when we found ourselves in a group of folks who knew us but didn’t really know each other. The game only really needs a method of generating random numbers for a small but arbitrary group size, but building it out as a toy webapp was a good excuse to get practice working with a JS-only stack. I learned React, got a lil more familiar with node, and even went as far as to attach an otherwise completely unnecessary PG database and Sequelize ORM. You can see the code for it here. Outside of this project, however, I didn’t publish any code. I didn’t publish any writing, either.

So I’d like to take a moment and shine a bit of light on the work that I did during the rest of my batch.

🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕 🌖 🌗 🌘

First, I made the decision to leave community.lawyer, the social impact startup I co-founded in 2016 following the Blue Ridge Labs Fellowship.

I’m happy to report that I left on the come up, which seems a rare and privileged thing for a founder to be able to say. Gaining traction in a hyper-specialized industry like legal tech takes a gargantuan amount of sustained forward momentum, and I departed just as we began to reap the fruits of our labor. In the last few months community.lawyer has reached final approval on partnerships a year in the making, won federal grants we’d submitted to in 2016, and every day our software is being used to help connect people who have legal needs with credible lawyers. Our first two partners were exactly the types of legal organizations at the heart of our mission: the Justice Entrepreneurs Project and the DC Reduced Fee Lawyer & Mediator Referral Service.1 Based in Chicago and Washington DC respectively, these orgs are specifically chartered to deliver quality services at rates that more Americans can afford. I am so proud. ⚖️

Second, I started my first ever job hunt as a software engineer. Wowee, this was scary! I knew that I had to prepare for interviewing, which meant a) getting my career change narrative straight, b) studying Data Structures & Algorithms 101, and c) learning how to perform my handle on both of these in a live, semi-adversarial environment.

At one point during my batch my laptop broke. I read through this wonderful illustrated book during the two days it was being fixed.

In order to direct my search I also had to craft a set of selection criteria of my own. Foremost: “What good will my work do for the world?”2 Additionally, “What degree of access will I have to supportive mentors?”

Getting started with interview prep was a challenge, at least partly because I had so many options for where to start. But I did get started! I read Cracking the Coding Interview, I did the free trial and weekly free problems on Interview Cake. I attended a few group mock interviews at Recurse Center and signed up for a 1-1 mock interview with an RC alum. Her name is Leah, and she’s amazing - the superbly friendly and encouraging Comp Sci TA I wish I’d had years ago. 💚Brittany also set up mock technical screens for me with her pals, Leaf and Ian. They were the vanguard against my outsized anxiety about programming for an audience and they each took the time to give me solid feedback.

Third, I extended my batch at Recurse Center by another 6 weeks. I had decided early on I wouldn’t extend (for no real reason) and stuck with this decision up until two days before my batch ending. A small group of folks - Lily, Connor, Alicja and I - went to NYX in Union Square to try out lipsticks. We played with different colors and finishes (satin! matte! shimmer!) for half an hour or so. There came a point when I looked up, glanced across the narrow makeup store at my beautiful friends’ beautiful faces and thought, “You know, you don’t have to leave yet, right? What’s the rush?” I’d already accomplished my primary goal, to forcibly rework my identity as an engineer, but it sure seemed that I could stand to reach for a second one. That night I decided to extend my batch, with the intention of sampling a more open method of self-directed learning, i.e. with a little more chill and a lot less panic. Specifically, I wanted to practice connecting meaningfully with my limited supply of social energy.

In my bonus six weeks, I: gave three talks (2 planned, 1 impromptu) under encouragement from Ayla and Lily, learned to juggle thanks to instruction from a fellow RCer, Edward, who also loaned me a book about learning, made it into weekly Feelings Check-in (read as: opt-in support group) fairly regularly, picked my first ever lock, saw a live-coding show and then later attended two live-coding workshops (one on TidalCycles, another on Super Collider), sat in a dark room and played howling wolf clips while Microsoft Sam read grimoires aloud, got my hair braided for the first time in a decade, made dumplings and DJ’d for a dinner party, connected with folks about queer-poly relationships, gave fiery advice, and received compliments so earnest and rational and persistent that it was difficult to refute them.

Zine fair plus Lightning Bolt concert inside a movie theater in Times Square??

I also put my interview prep to use and interviewed with a handful of Recurse Center partner companies. Job searching meant squaring off against impostor syndrome and a ton of related anxieties in rapid succession. I successfully choked most of that down when it mattered, though, and it was only a couple short weeks before I received my first offer.

To that end, I’m super happy to say that I’ll be joining Blink Health as a Fullstack Product Engineer! Blink Health is a healthcare startup in SoHo. They make it easier for people to afford prescription drugs, especially for those with limited insurance plans or none at all. These savings aren’t trivial either: an extra $50 can spare someone from choosing between groceries or medicine that week, and for some folks Blink saves many times that. I’ll be starting at the end of this month. ✌️🤓

The last two years have been a wild ride: participating in a social impact fellowship and accelerator, busting my product chops and learning web dev to get a public benefit company off the ground, then diving into four months of self-directed learning at Recurse Center. I’m really looking forward to having some externally imposed structure again. Real health insurance, too.

ii. some hard truths

I made a few radical life changes in 2016, like getting involved in activist spaces, dating more, biking everywhere, building strong friendships, going capital-B Boogying, programming full-time. As I carried those changes forward through 2017, I began to notice a lot of mental and emotional reconfiguration happening to me.

Did you know that along its way to becoming a butterfly, a caterpillar nearly completely liquifies inside its cocoon?

Psychological growth is confusing, full of false starts, and generally painful. You’ve got the static pain of stretching beyond your limits, the pleasure-pain of feeling an old knot finally release, the frustrating pain of stubbing your toe because some helpful asshole has been rearranging your psychic furniture when you weren’t looking. There’s the more dramatic knife-in-the-gut pain of realizing that just because you’re growing doesn’t mean the people closest to you are, and that now in certain cases what you previoulsy regarded as friendship actually looks a whole lot like run-of-the-mill exploitation or even emotional abuse, if you're being honest, and it's a realization that only hurts more because it’s so irredeemably cliche and boring. And despite all that pain you gotta go ahead and grow anyway, claw your way out of the relative comfort of ignorance. Transcendence may not be the only show in town but afaik it’s the one most worth watching.

Prior to attending Recurse Center I’d spent lots of time exploring my surroundings and cataloguing people and places worth coming back to. My view of myself did change (and positively!) as a consequence. But sooner or later, ya get tired of the taste of low-hanging fruit.

So, armed with the bookshelf of a philosophy grad and a burgeoning psychoanalytic vocabulary begging to be let off leash, I decided to use my time at RC to try confronting a few of my Hard To See truths in addition to becoming a better programmer.

Here’s what I’ve found so far.

Truth #1: People like me a lot. This causes me problems.

I’ve been metabolizing this one for some time. I remember having a conversation with Brittany in January of 2016. I don’t remember what social anxiety I’d been vocalizing, but I must have been worrying that someone “hated me.” Brittany cut me off, exasperated in the way that only a friend can be in the face of utter delusion: “No one hates you Nicole! You’re always worried that people don’t like you and it’s never true!”

I carried that admonishment with me through two years of voracious friendship-building. On the whole, seeing that people do in fact enjoy and seek out my company has curbed the most egregious overreaches of my social anxiety. But reckoning with my anxiety honestly has also meant acknowledging that my compulsive instinct to withdraw from social situations is also a protective (if suboptimal) response to a few very real dangers.

Most acutely: being friendly, generous, and intensely empathetic makes me a ready target for users. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt for as long as I can, which makes me proportionally susceptible to being taken advantage of and then gaslighted about it. A lifetime of socialization as a petite woman don’t help, neither. This leads to a pattern where, semi-regularly, I look up and take stock of how someone has been treating me and realize that the answer is Very Badly, For Quite A While. This in turn leads to rough periods of cutting ties and moving on. Ideally I’d like to be be able to filter bad actors out sooner, but I also want to stay open, giving, and hopeful beyond reason. Those desires are fundamentally at odds with each other - raising vs. lowering one’s defenses - but it’s clear that I need to come up with a strategy that balances both.

More broadly, though, I operate under an ever-present dread of inevitably disappointing everyone who knows me. Whether people project onto me because they already like me or like me more because they project positively onto me, I am extremely sensitive to the fact that when people meet me the conception they form has waaay more to do with what they want to find than what’s actually there. My body is a surface readily projected upon: young, female-shaped, ethnically ambiguous, small, smiling. These well-intended projections cause me the most trouble when people see me interacting socially; they’ll witness fifteen minutes of seemingly effortless extroversion on my part and extrapolate out massively. As far as they’re concerned I’ve got plenty of social energy to spare, and if I don’t spend it hanging out with them, it must be because either my friendliness is fake or I don’t like them.

Pretty much none of this is conducted consciously, of course, but it still creates a lot of unnecessary pressure that I can’t pretend not to feel and resent. I know there are people who dream about attaining this kind of “popularity” - to be assumed Cooler than one truly is - but getting buffeted around by folks’ totally unexamined, unarticulated psychological desires mostly sucks.

Truth #2: I’m non-binary.

I’ve also spent a very long time resisting this one. Two decades on the rack, easy. As such, the story of getting here is long. Perhaps one day I’ll tell it. 😛

The short of it, though, is this: I’m probably at least as much of a boy3 as I am a girl. Outside of where my life has been mutated by the chronic background radiation of sexism, “benevolent” and otherwise, I don’t strongly identify as a woman. Furthermore, I find the two-gender system to be infinitely more alienating than comforting. Gender is a social construction designed to impose order on the natural messiness of sexual experience, and as far as I’m cool with that, I am decidedly Not Cool with the “normal” state of affairs, i.e. aggressively shoving whole human beings into an absurdly reductive false dichotomy.

Between its either-or-ism and its forced assignment, the traditional approach to gender reveals itself to be obviously bullshit to anyone who spends more than a few minutes thinking about it. Its boundaries are arbitrary, inconsistent, and generally ill-fitting at the level of individual experience, which why they require such an outrageous amount of coercion and bodily violence to enforce. As much as other folks want to participate in a system of ritualized violence I guess they are free to? Personally, I’d prefer to see it actively dismantled.

If gender is to be saved it’ll be by subverting it, taking it apart, remaking it into something life-affirming. Not the dehumanizing garbage we’ve got now.

As of yet I don’t have any plans to change my presentation because I don’t fuckin’ gotta!

I do have a preference towards They / Them pronouns, but She / Her is still fine. For most of my friends this isn’t going to be at all surprising nor will it in any way negatively impact our relationship. Anyone who needs me to just-be-a-girl, however, can expect turbulence.

Truth #3: My righteous anger is justified and I am good at using it to help others.

I have felt conflicted about my anger for a long time. Since a very vocal childhood I have been regularly frustrated by prejudices and injustices, and I was frequently the first voice of dissent against them, whether that meant challenging adults or my peers. Unsurprisingly, I became well acquainted with the standard strokes of the backlash.

When you are confronting bigotry in a mixed environment, the voice of the status quo will generally manifest in one of two ways:

Gaslighting, e.g. “you are wrong to have said this at all, obviously I am a Good Person, you are just imagining that what I said sounded like XYZ, honestly how could you even think this, as a matter of fact it is I who is offended!”

Tone policing, e.g. “you’re too upset about this! after all, I, the person who did Fucked Up Thing, am perfectly calm about Fucked Up Thing, so any amount of anger makes you irrational by contrast, and I get a raincheck on whatever this is about!”

I know these responses are repulsive. I know they are merely the signs of a weak and imperiled ego acting out of fear. And yet I still spend an inordinate amount of time second-guessing my own anger. Gaslighting and tone policing are a favored weapon of the status quo because they work, and they work in direct proportion to how agreeable their target wants to be.

content warning: the following segment talks about sexual harassment and assault

About couple weeks ago I had the misfortune of being sexually harassed at a club in Bushwick. After numerous rejections and explicitly telling a creep bothering me, my friends, and other women in the club to get lost, I finally went to get a bouncer to eject him. The bouncer got the creep to leave. When I went to thank him, the bouncer told me a whole story about how the creep was “a harmless guy.” Then he reached down and grabbed my ass. Presumably he felt entitled to do this after helping me get rid of a person I asked him to remove... for unwanted touching.

It Really Sucked.

At every turn during the whole ordeal (and its aftermath) I had to hold onto my anger, convince myself that I wasn’t overreacting, remind myself that anyone who thought this was acceptable to do to me is almost certainly doing worse to more vulnerable people. I kept picturing myself the way this guy, this man in a position of power, must have seen me in order to feel okay doing what he did. That I was young, small, female, too friendly to say No, already indebted anyway; that he was one of the Good Guys, that his behavior was also “harmless” because he had decided it was. I conjured up as much anger as I could, pushed down the nausea of envisioning my own degradation from an attacker’s POV, and got to work. I reached out to the club and was quickly put in contact with the owner. The venue now has a publicly posted zero tolerance sexual harassment policy. The entire staff is going through training with a local org dedicated to creating safer nightlife spaces. And that motherfucker has been fired.

I demonstrably made the world better. I wasn’t alone, but all that happened because of my actions. Me and my anger, we did that.

I wish more people were this fucking angry. 💢

~ end of content warning ~

iii. an opinion

My Saturn return is upon me, y’all. As Frank Ocean serenades, we’ll never be those kids again. I have lived a few of these here nine lives and it seems only prudent to be moving forward with some sort of opinion on the matter.

My opinion is this: us folks with financial and physical security should be spending more time fixing shit around here. Figuring out what needs fixing and how you might help are the first steps.

If you’re operating on a similar scale of privilege as I am, maybe that means changing jobs to do more mission-oriented work. If you can’t swing a change of that magnitude, maybe it means showing up to community events and engaging with, caring for, supporting people you otherwise wouldn’t talk to. Churches, libraries, volunteering, supporting local artists, participating in local politics - this all counts. If you’re already doing this sorta thing, that is awesome! Maybe you also have a friend worth inviting who you sense is just itching for a chance to exercise compassion?

I’m using “fixing” pretty loosely here, too. Fixing, to my mind, means making the world brighter, safer, and sweeter for your fellows, human and otherwise. We’ve all got different ideas about what that looks like, and there are definitely folks - myopic or malevolent or both - who will swear up and down that their fear- and hate-driven behaviors will bring about better world. Ultimately, though, I believe that many hands reaching towards their personal vision of Better will in fact make things Better, especially when that vision is informed by meaningful interaction with the real world and its real sorrows and its real triumphs.

But ya gotta reach. Ya gotta try.

I am so tired of hearing my well-fed, well-homed friends piss and moan about late capitalism4 without lifting a damn finger in service of the communities bearing the brunt of material hardship. Unfettered capitalism sure does have a marked tendency to wreak havoc on organic life! But capitalism is not a monolith, and lamenting the abuses perpetuated by its principle benefactors as unchanging or inevitable only normalizes them. Any investigation into the history of capitalism (or the broader phenomena of how a Few come to subjugate the Many) will very quickly disabuse you of the notion that this shit is going to stop without a great deal of active resistance.5

So unless you are personally doing work to put our current strand of democracy-withering corporatism six-feet-under, seriously, just STFU instead. Your nihilism is boring! You don’t sound woke! Save it for your local DSA working group!

Which isn’t to say that I’m not convinced of the wickedness6 of the problems we’re facing: skyrocketing wealth disparity with no relief in sight; the destruction of most of Earth’s biodiversity via mass extinction; a pernicious climate of racism and xenophobia that scapegoats black and brown folks and then visits misery upon them; the weight of an aging population bearing down on the shittiest healthcare system of any nation in its class; a widely disenfranchised electorate further fragmented and fatigued by hyper-polarization; the gendered terrorism that is inflicted daily on women, trans and non-binary folks, and queer people at large; a rising wave of depressive anxiety as people become more aware of these problems and how thoroughly they’ve been disempowered from changing things for the better.

So yeah, I get it. These are hard problems. I just don’t see any better option than trying anyway. I want to spend my time fixing things around here and encouraging others to try their hand too. You already know the bad news: real change is hard and it can take a very long time. You might work your whole life sowing seeds whose fruit you never get to taste.

The good news, however, is that you can get started whenever and wherever you are. The good news is that a sense of purpose is its own reward.

iv. how to get started

When you’ve got hard work ahead of you, your best bet is to use your beautiful human brain and create some leverage. Ask Archimedes about it.7

Lever systems got two parts:

The lever, which is the tool you use to amplify your effort. The longer your lever is, the easier your job will be.

The fulcrum, which is the wedge the lever rests on. The nearer your fulcrum is to the thing you want to move, the easier your job will be.

If you’re starting from zero - “I want to do more for the world but I don’t know how!” - my advice is to forget about the lever arm for now. A lever ain’t shit without a fulcrum, anyway. Your time is better spent exploring the world, keeping an eye out for problems you’d like to solve, and identifying nearby points of leverage. If you want to get into activism, a fulcrum might be volunteering to fold pamphlets for an organization with a mission you believe in. If want to see more self-expression in the world, it might be might be inviting your friends to a zine-making class or hosting your own arts and craft night.

The best fulcrum is one that makes you Feel Good when you apply any amount of effort against it. Too many people get caught up in a self-defeating belief that if they can’t give 110% of their creative energy to something they might as well not try. I can confidently say that trying is itself a virtue. Every time you try even a little bit you make it easier for yourself to try again later, and more importantly, you make trying easier for others. A bunch of people altering their behavior a smidge in the same direction doesn’t add up to nothing; on the contrary, it’s a sea change.

If you’ve got a decent idea of the types of problems you want to solve, though, and you’ve tested your fulcrums, and you are thinking, “Okay, but is this all I’m capable of giving?” then it’s probably time to work on your lever. Given your own interests and inclinations, what skills can you develop that will increase the good you’re doing 10x, 100x over? This is the long game, but it scales a whole lot better than “keep doing what I’m already doing, but more.”

For me right now this means deepening my technical knowledge, building a resilient support network, and sharing what I’m learning. Helping others has been a powerful motivator for self-improvement, not the least of which because it’s a convenient shortcut through the snarl of self-confidence issues.

I am so grateful that Recurse Center was a stop on lengthening my lever! What a concentrated cluster of helpful, considerate beings.

I’ve spent the last two years wandering around New York City in wide-eyed wonder, asking myself the most ambitious question I could think of: how do you save the world?

Getting older comes with a lot of downsides, but asking yourself big questions and living your life as the answer is the primary pleasure of adulthood. It took a ton of courage to get started and I am still frequently awed to find myself moving in the right direction. I’m humbled by the grace and fortitude of the folks who’ve been at this for way longer.

I’m also a hell of a lot happier. This summer’s gonna be rad. ☀️

There are lots of extraordinarily sexy company names like this in the legal world. ↩︎

Having the choice to direct my energies in this way is a privilege. Working in tech gives me this freedom of motion and I have been drawn to software engineering in part because it is the freest of the free (if you still gotta labor for your living). ↩︎

😱😫😖😬😬😬... 😏 ↩︎

Substitute with whatever modifier is en vogue. As a point of fact, “late capitalism” is a term that’s been floating around for literally over a hundred years. ↩︎

Thankfully, history also clearly demonstrates that the tide can be turned. ↩︎

“The use of the term ‘wicked’ here has come to denote resistance to resolution.” Wikipedia page. ↩︎

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” etc etc. ↩︎

#recurse center

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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1091

survey by ohsh1t2wksl8

Lasts!

Who

Who was the last person you got into an argument with? What was it about? My mom. We rarely get into arguments anymore so I was surprised when she made a comment the other day that was snippy enough to provoke me. She has a unique ability to make me feel insecure over just about everything, and last Saturday it was about my spelling abilities in the 7th grade.

Who was the last person you spoke on the phone with? What was the call regarding? My last call was with a client who has a tendency to micromanage :/ He called to ask me to accomplish a task, which was a little bothersome because all interactions with our clients ideally should be seen by everyone in my team, i.e. my manager and my director for visibility. Anyway, in the end I just let my bosses know that he called to ask me to do something for him.

Who was the last person that slept in your bed? Are they a lover or a friend? Gabie is the only other person who has slept in my bed, I think. She is neither.

I still get stunned whenever I type something like that up...thinking about how I practically grew up doing surveys, and how she was in nearly every survey I’ve taken since day one, and now she doesn’t play a single role in my life, it’s just super surreal to take in and I don’t think that feeling will ever go away.

Who was the last person to give you a hug or a kiss? Did you return the sentiment? My dad gave me a casual hug when it was time for him to go upstairs for bed. He just put his arm around my back while I was sitting on the couch, so I wasn’t in the proper position to return it.

Who was the last person to give you a gift? What was the gift? What holiday was it for, or was it “just because”? Erm, idk if it counts as a gift but Andi lent me their vape pen for the foreseeable future, haha. They know how much I like vaping and how it relaxes me; and since they don’t do it as much as I do (unless they lied for my sake), they lent theirs to me. It was a “just because” gift, which I appreciated.

Who is the person that you last went to for advice? Angelaaaa, earlier today. I’ve been in contact with a potential supplier for work purposes, and I had to do some negotiating in my last email. I have zero knowledge and experience in negotiations, so I didn’t know if I worded my email right, or if I insulted the supplier, etc lol so I immediately went to Anj after to check my email and to let me know if it sounded okay.

Who was the last person to say “I love you” to you? What significance does this person have in your life? My mom. I’m not super close with her and I haven’t replied to her with “I love you too,” since I was like maybe 14 or 15 due to the incredibly strained relationship we’ve had for the majority of my life; but she is my mom so she still holds a level of significance. I’m just not sure how much I’m willing to do or sacrifice for her.

Who was the last person that you spoke with, in person? Also my mom. She was asking where a certain local mountain was located because a friend of hers had recently climbed said mountain.

Who was the last person to request you on a social media network - and did you accept? It’s this middle-aged guy who I share a good number of mutual friends with. I figured he’s probably a professor or someone in media since all our mutual friends are either students and professors in my college, buuut I’ve personally never heard of him before so I ignored the request.

Who was the last person you texted or messaged, and what was it in regards to? Justine, my former co-intern. My company stopped taking in interns at the start of the year, but for some reason there’s this one girl intern that they’ve kept having around so we’re all trying to figure out why they kicked out Justine and the other co-interns but retained this one girl who still logs in her attendance every day, lol.

Who was the last person’s vehicle that you rode in? My dad’s, but I haven’t been on it since Christmas. I’ve been in a car more recently than that but it’s always my car.

Who was the last person to make you laugh or smile, and why? I’ll be breaking the rules quite a bit for this question, because it was Cooper. Earlier he kept barking at some dog he saw outside but whenever Nina asked him to “Shake,” he paused his barking to reach out his paw, without fail, and then proceeded to bark until he was asked to “Shake” again, hahaha.

Who was the last person that you took a photo with? Not sure, I think it was Andi.

Who is the last person that you flirted with? Were you successful? I don’t flirt.

Who was the last person to pay you a compliment, and what did they say? I honestly don’t remember. I’m sure I receive them more often than I think I do; I just do a horrible job keeping track of them. The last one I remember getting was my director saying I did a great job with a press release I had to work on in a rush last Friday, since the client had only placed super minor revisions on the material.

Who’s the last person that you visited in the hospital? I’ve never had to visit anyone in the hospital.

Who is the last person that you lent money to? Not a person but I will sometimes pay for things on my company’s behalf at first - since PR entails a lot of buying a lot of crap - and then ask to have the amount reimbursed right after.

What

What was the last food that you ate? My dad made some kind of Chinese-style, stir-fry thing with loads of chicken and vegetables for dinner earlier. Idk, he likes to combine things in the fridge. As usual, it ended up tasting delightful.

What was the last beverage that you drank? Coffee. As much as possible I hate drinking coffee in the evening since I don’t like being unable to fall asleep; but I had been craving a cup all day. I made one at around 7 PM but made sure I had the whole cup down by 8:30ish, so that the caffeine can subside sooner.

What did the last pair of footwear that you wore look like? They were just boring, blue flip-flops I wore out earlier when I walked Cooper.

What was the last color of pen that you used? I think it was blue.

What was your last thought before falling sleep last night? Nothing, man. I zonked out last night. I closed my eyes at 9 PM in the living room while my family was still around and the next thing I knew it was 12 AM with the whole first floor empty.

What was the last television show you watched? Friends. Been watching a lot of it recently, because I’ve been stressed a lot recently.

What was the last board or card game that you played? Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary; I can’t remember.

What was the last kind of bread that you ate? It was just regular toast. My mom made pasta last Sunday so she toasted up some bread to accompany the dish.

What color is the last shirt you wore? The one I wore before my current top? It was yellow with silver wording.

What was the last electronic that you plugged in to charge? My laptop. Though I really have to plug in my phone since it’s been on 3% for a good while now.

What’s is the last thing that you Googled? Mt. Pulag, since that’s the aforementioned mountain my mom was asking about earlier. I know of the mountain but wasn’t sure where exactly it is, so I had to Google it for her.

What’s the last concert you attended? Paramore.

What’s the last sporting event that you attended/watched? A volleyball game between the UP and Ateneo women’s teams.

What was the last app that you downloaded to your phone? A logo quiz game loooooool, what a throwback. I was looking for phone apps to download last Friday; and apparently logo quizzes still rank pretty high under the Trivia category, so I downloaded one to revisit the fun.

What was the last video game that you played? Mario Kart 8.

What’s the last computer game that you played? Some suuuper fucking old computer game I played as a kid called Magic Ball. During the first few months of the pandemic my memory started to torture me about a ball game I used to play on my dad’s old laptop but whose title I couldn’t remember, so on one day I spent a few hours trying to track it down. When I finally saw the right game, I downloaded a free trial (because you still had to buy the game 15 years later lol) and savored the 30 minutes re-experiencing my childhood.

What’s the last injury you had? The usual scratch from Cooper.

What’s the last holiday or event (baby shower, graduation, etc) that just passed? Christmas. But the next one would be my dad’s 50th birthday which we’ll be celebrating this weekend.

When

When was the last time that you took a painkiller, and what did you take it for? Around a month ago for a headache (which is my only reason for taking painkillers, anyway). I’d keep taking more but we’ve run out and my parents haven’t restocked it yet, partly because I know they know how reliant I get on them to get rid of my headaches.

When was the last time you went to the bathroom? Earlier this evening. My dad tripped while carrying Cooper’s food bowl filled with his dinner meal, so a lot of the rice spilled onto the floor. I helped him out and since the food was a bit sticky and wet, I had to go wash my hands in the bathroom afterwards.

When was the last time that you listened to music? Do you remember what the most recent song was? Also earlier this evening, just before dinner. I was working out on the rooftop and needed music to keep me company; anyway, the last song that played was Beyoncé’s Countdown.

When was your last work shift? Today. I work every weekday from 9 AM to 6 PM.

When is the last time that you had trouble falling asleep? Last Thursday, I think.

When is the last time you saw your parents? 15 minutes ago.

When was the last time you saw a significant other? When they were still my significant other? September. As an ex? Late November.

When was your last year of schooling/education? 2020 so yeah, didn’t get a graduation after four years of busting my ass in college.

When was the last time you took a shower? This morning. I want to take one again tonight, but I’m a little lazyyy.

When was the last time you did anything sexual that went beyond kissing? September.

When was the last time that you did your laundry? I don’t do my own.

When was the last time you had to use public transportation, and what form was it? LOL, like 2017 maybe? Or 2018. Idk, I never use the public transportation in this stinkhole of a country. I used a train to go to Manila, but that was during a dead hour so the train wasn’t crowded and hot like it normally would be.

When’s the last time that you were sick? What was wrong? May. I had a UTI and it disguised itself as a nasty fever that lasted about a week. Didn’t even run into any issues with my urinary tract or anything in that region at all.

When was the last time that you hung out with friends/acquaintances? Virtually, two Saturdays ago. In person, two Fridays ago though that was only with one person.

When was the last funeral you attended? Who passed away? I’ve never attended a funeral, but the last wake I went to was Nacho’s, in September 2019.

When was the last wedding that you attended? Who got married? LMAOOOOOOO. 2007. My mom’s youngest brother and my now-aunt. I’m just waiting for one of my friends to get married now.

When’s the last time that you took a risk? What was the risk? Is stepping away from my ex a risk? I did it over the Christmas season...idk, my mind just had a very sudden shift overnight and I immediately went from seeking to keep in contact with her everyday to not giving even a quarter of a shit and starting to want to live life on my own terms. I certainly think it was pretty bold of me and I’ll always be proud of myself for making such a big step.

When’s the last time you mailed something handwritten? I’ve never mailed anything, period.

When’s the last time you got a haircut? I can’t remember if it was late Feb or early March of last year.

When’s the last time that you went swimming? August 2019.

Where

Where was the last place you drove to, and what did you do there? I went to the new-ish Starbucks at Katip Extension just because I needed new scenery but still be in my comfort zone, which to me will always be Starbucks. I went there supposedly to chill and take a few surveys, but my Viber suddenly got bombarded with work-related messages and for the rest of my time there I was feeling a little stressed and I wasn’t able to finish a single survey.

Where was the last place that you went on vacation to? Tagaytay and Cavite. We’ll be going back to Tagaytay again this weekend, so yay.

Where was the last restaurant you ordered food from? If coffee shops count, Starbucks. If they don’t, I had food from this local Japanese place called Omakase delivered to our house last Saturday.

Where was the last place that you went on a date? Lmfao it was Yabu from like March last year. I won’t be having dates any time soon either, but I’m no longer salty about it.

Where was the last place that you went shopping at? H&M.

Where was the last place you got lost? Somewhere in QC near Tomas Morato, because I had been trying to look for the office of this company who arranged a job interview with me. This isn’t to sound salty because I’m definitely not, but I’m glad I didn’t get a follow-up anything from that company because their office is actually a house (a very nice house, but still a house) and when I was there I failed to get any I’m-finally-a-working-girl-in-a-big-city vibes from it - which to me is important especially at this stage in my life since I’m now finally a full-fledged adult who just gained a deeper level of independence. I aimed to work somewhere that really feels like a legit office/workspace, which my current employer would be able to provide me under normal circumstances.

Where’s the last place that you walked to? My room. I came from the living room a half hour ago.

Where did you last have sex? My bed.

Where was the last place you left your keys? Dining table, as always.

Where’s the last place you got drunk? My room.

Where’s the last place you embarrassed yourself in public? How did you do this? At the parking lot of the aforementioned Starbucks. I was handing my parking ticket to the guard keeping watch of the cars going in and out, and he told me to take care driving, to which I replied, “You too.”

Why

Why did you last cry? I hadn’t cried in a good while and needed a release. Also, because I was in Katip. It was a place I shared with Gab for many years and a place where a lot of fond memories - that I am now forced to shelve to the very back of my head - were made. It was surreal to hang out there and drive in the very same roads I used to take with her, now alone, and everything got overwhelming fairly quickly so I allowed myself to pull over at an isolated spot in our village to let myself cry everything out for a few minutes.

Why did your last relationship fail? She feared commitment and the relationship was becoming too much of a burden for her. Also tbh, all the red flags she had been exhibiting finally came to a head and finally reached a point where they were impossible to resolve. For six years I couldn’t directly talk about marriage, kids, and even my own coming out to my family with her and it was like...what are we even doing anymore? Anyway the tl;dr version of it was that I was apparently becoming a lot of weight to her so she bounced.

Why did you leave your last job? I’ve never left a job.

How

How long has it been since you last visited a doctor? How about a dentist? A doctor, 8 months. A dentist, a year and a month.

How long does gum usually last when you chew it? 10 seconds.

How long can you last in bed? Longer than I’d want to. Being ace, for the most part I run into trouble trying to last, so I’ve always felt bad for my partner about it.

How long did your food last get microwaved for? A minute is my default setting.

How many pages was the last book that you read? Around 225 pages.

How big was the last fish you caught? I’ve never gone fishing.

How long was the last movie you watched? I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered to look up that movie at the moment because it continues to make me sad today.

How long was your last relationship? 4 years. Technically 6 since we had that on-off thing in 2015/2016.

How much did your last grocery bill come to? I don’t do the groceries.

How difficult was your last exam? I remember thinking it was fairly easy but that I definitely would not be getting a 1.00 haha. There was an essay question that I completely failed to review for so I had to bullshit that part. Anyway, the lockdown started like a week later so my final grade never ended up mattering anymore.

Randoms

Did you always get picked last in gym class? We never did picks in PE.

Do you believe that nice guys finish last? Idk.

Can true love really last forever? Sure, but it’s not for everyone.

Give me the first initial of your last name? C.

Something you wait until the last minute to do? Work. I have this certain kind of email that I receive everyday that I immediately have to work on once it’s in my inbox, and I get it at 7:55 AM. I will only get out of bed by 7:54.59.

Have you made your last will and testament? I have one tucked away somewhere in this laptop but I remember making a very conscious effort to hide it in some obscure, hidden folder so that I don’t come back to it often. It seems to have worked because I don’t even remember where it is or what I named it as.

Something in your home that’s on it’s last leg(s)? The electric fan we have in our dining room.

Give us some famous last words! "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!" has always been fascinating to me. Sad, but fascinating.

[ohsh1t2wksl8]

#survey #surveys

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newtothewaywardparty · 7 years ago

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The Ghost of an Idea 1

Stave One: Bobby’s Ghost

Okay, first of all, Bobby was dead. There’s no doubt about it. He had taken a bullet in the fight against the Leviathans, haunted Sam and Dean through his old flask, and finally hitched a ride out of hell through Purgatory before settling in Heaven. Then he busted out of Heaven for the chance to help the boys on one last mission. Bobby was as dead as a doornail. Dean knew it better than most. After all, Dean killed ghosts by trade, and had served his own stints in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.

The fact that Bobby was dead must be firmly established to understand what happened to Dean that Christmas Eve when everything changed for the worse.

And then, for the better.

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

PART 1:

Sam burst in the door of the bunker, stomping snow from his boots. Dean looked up from his laptop, startled, as Sam pulled the tip of a comically huge spruce tree through the metal door. A struggle between Sam, the tree, and an unseen force almost pitched Sam down the steep flight of stairs into the bunker. It was resolved successfully when Jack popped through the door like a cork holding the spruce’s trunk, wide grin plastered on his boyish face.

Dean gaped as his brother and the nephilim maneuvered the tree down the stairs. Sam hoisted the tip up as Jack dropped the trunk to the ground. The spruce was dark green, and even taller than Sam. Jack was practically bursting, hands on hips of his plaid flannel thermal jacket, cheeks pink from exertion and cold. “We got a tree!” he announced happily with obvious pride.

Dean felt his chest constrict with a familiar yet unwanted feeling he got whenever Jack was guileless and earnest. It reminded Dean a bit too much of his favorite angel, Cas. That wasn’t a reminder he wanted or needed right now. Instead of following his impulse to slap the kid on the back in congratulations, Dean shoved out his chair and grabbed his empty beer bottle.

“No shit” Dean barked, ignoring Sam’s reproving glare. What did Jack want, a fucking medal? It was a goddamned tree, not the cure for cancer. Who cared if Jack had helped to defeat Michael and Lucifer and had restored order to the dimensions? Nobody got merit badges in this line of work. At least, no one ever gave him one, thought Dean nastily.

“I see you’ve still got your panties in a twist,” Sam said, throwing off his coat. Jack was busy setting up the tree stand. His grin had frozen a little at Dean’s dismissal, but his Christmas spirit seemed undeterred. He almost vibrated with good cheer as he hummed what Dean would never admit to recognizing as a Mariah Carey Christmas pop tune while he worked. Sam angled his body towards Dean, pitching his voice conspiratorially. “Is this still about that hunt last month?”

Dean’s face closed so fast against Sam’s understanding, sympathetic manner it practically clanged shut. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sammy” Dean replied. He turned on his heel and made a beeline for the kitchen. Between near-constant alcohol consumption and sleep deprivation brought on by relentless travel and hunting, Dean had been almost completely successful at blocking out what had happened on that hunt. Almost.

Dean ditched his empty beer bottle and rummaged in the bunker’s kitchen cabinets. His intake had been particularly heavy lately. Christmas Eve was a terrible time to run out of Hunter’s Helper. He should have asked Sam to pick some up when they were off singing carols and ice skating or whatever other Peanuts Christmas nonsense he had been up to with Jack in town. Fuck it, there had to be some ancient shit buried back in one of these cabinets, he thought desperately.

“Dean” Sam’s voice came from the doorway, where he leaned, arms crossed. Relentless bastard. “You’ve always loved Christmas. You’re usually the one wheedling me about it. I figured you’d be in here cooking gingerbread and cueing up Die Hard for Jack, making ‘ho ho ho now I’ve got a machine gun’ jokes. What crawled up your ass and died?” Sam’s face was a mixture of kicked puppy and nagging parent.

Dean whirled on him, jaw clenched. “Things change. People change.” Dean shrugged, trying to think of an excuse. Anything but the real reason. “We’re not exactly religious, and that normal apple-pie stuff just isn’t for us. We’ve got work to do, remember?” He turned away to continue rummaging for any alcohol, anything hard at all, to obliterate his memories of Cas and the hunt gone sideways and now this goddamn argument with his brother who just wouldn’t leave well enough alone.

Sam shook his head. “That’s exactly why we need this, Dean. Now more than ever.” Now that Mom was gone again, went unspoken but sat in the air between them. “This is Jack’s first real Christmas,” Sam continued with the air of a man laying down an ace “and I wanted it to be special. Pull out all the stops.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Dean, partially in response to Sam, and partly in triumph at unearthing an ancient bottle of cooking sherry. He unscrewed it and took a whiff, recoiling in disgust. “What are you going to do, put him in footie pajamas and hang out his stocking for Santa?” Dean said in a mocking tone. He put his lips to the bottle and swigged, wincing at the burn.

“Why the fuck not?” challenged Sam, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Just because you and Cas had a fight doesn’t mean we shouldn’t show Jack the spirit of the holidays-”

Dean did an honest-to-Chuck spit-take, spraying gross cooking sherry all over the clean tabletop. “Cas and I did not have a fight, I told you.” Dean growled, low and dangerous. “He just flapped off to do some angel shit after the hunt. Like always. I’m not his keeper.”

Sam nodded. “Good to hear. I guess you won’t mind that I invited him, then.” Sam’s eyebrow quirked, questioning.

Dean minutely tightened his grip on the bottle’s neck. “What?” he gritted out through clenched teeth, even though he was sure he heard Sam just fine.

Sam threw his hands up again. “For Christ’s sake, Dean. It’s Christmas eve. We’re gonna decorate the tree, have a few brews, order Chinese take-out, watch a shitty movie, and exchange convenience-store-bought presents. You wanna boycott? Fine. But this is happening. With or without you.” Sam looked at him with something approaching pity. “Maybe you could get cleaned up. Join us?” Sam’s gaze narrowed to the bottle in Dean’s hands pointedly.

Dean scoffed and brushed past Sam. He retreated to his room to nurse the sherry while cranking up Metallica in his headphones. Dean closed his eyes, head leaned back against the headboard. The images memories rose, unbidden.

He and Cas, in sync as any dance partners, gracefully extinguishing a rugaru. The tang and buzz of sweat and adrenaline. Cas’ eyes sparkling in the dancing flames of the rugaru’s immolated corpse. Dean grinning, clapping Cas on the back, inviting him for a celebratory drink. Thighs bumping together below the bar as they downed shots. Eyes locking, lingering. Speech dwindling. Dean slapping money on the bar. Walking back to the motel room. Cas’ hand grazing Dean’s low back. Cas’ breath hot on the back of his neck. Dean fumbling, drunk, with the key, opening the door. Turning to push it shut, reaching past Cas’ shoulder. Cas standing there, in his space, (or was Dean in Cas’ space?) quiet and still, staring. Always staring.

Dean tilted the sherry bottle for a swig, but it was empty. Due to his recent semi-permanent bender, his tolerance was so high he wasn’t even buzzed yet. He dropped the bottle unceremoniously to the floor and grabbed his duffel.

Dean stopped short on his way to the Impala at the sight of three figures decorating the tree. Sam was on the floor untangling some old-school large-bulb multi-colored lights from a garage sale box. Jack was at the table, unpacking car air fresheners from their clear plastic bags to hang on the branches.

And next to him stood Cas. Rumpled trench, blue tie, messy hair, the whole nine. Standing there looking gorgeous and distant, as usual. He smelled like cold, fresh air. He had probably just arrived, Dean thought, blowing in on the December breeze. Cas raised his chin minutely. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean worked his tongue to gather enough saliva for speech. Cas’ gaze, intense as ever, raked Dean up and down. Dean flushed, realizing he hadn’t shaved in days, was wearing dirty sweats and smelled like a locker room after a kegger. His eyes scratched in a way indicating they were probably bloodshot, too. Shit. Just the way he wanted this to go. Impressive, Winchester.

“Hey,” Dean managed finally. If Jack and Sam thought the situation was awkward, at least they had the decency to stay quiet.

Cas’ eyes fell on Dean’s duffel and narrowed. “Are you going somewhere?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, looking almost...hurt?

Dean scrubbed his scruff with a hand. “Yeah, uh, hunt. Some of us actually care about saving people, hunting things, remember?” Good one, Dean, he thought. Passive aggression. Not just for 1950s housewives anymore.

Sam scoffed aloud. “C’mon, man, Cas just got here. You’ve been hunting nonstop for the past month. You just got back. Take one day off to be with the people you love.”

Cas looked surprised at the mention of Dean’s hunting schedule. Dean ignored that and zeroed in on Sam with cold eyes. “Love, huh? ‘Love will save the day. Love will find a way. Love heals all wounds.’ Yay, love!” snarked Dean, dripping sarcasm.

Sam’s face hardened into bitch mode, rock solid. Dean hoped, with venom, that it stuck that way. “Like our brotherly love?” Dean waved his index finger back and forth between his little brother and himself. “So codependent we have no other functional relationships? How we’ve screwed the world a hundred times over to save each other?” Sam sputtered like an engine with a dead battery, gearing up to respond, but Dean was too fast, whirling on Jack.

“Hey kid, remember your mom? No? Me neither, at least not really. Not Mary Version 1.0.” Dean knew he’d gone too far. Knows he was way out of line. Yet he didn’t seem to care enough to stop himself, even when he saw Cas tense out of the corner of his eye. “You know why? Oh, that’s right. They died and left us. Hell, mine died on me a few times over. They loved us, but it didn’t save ‘em. Didn’t leave us any less alone. And our fathers...well, even Cas is in the Deadbeat Daddy club.” Jack rocked back as though Dean had physically slapped him, but Dean wasn’t frozen mid-air in nephilim sound waves, and Jack’s eyes hadn’t glowed yellow, so Dean figured he was still golden. Ha.

“And you,” Dean said, turning to Cas but keeping his eyes shut so he didn’t have to look at him. “How haven’t we hurt each other yet?” Dean pointed his gaze at his shoes, unable to confront whatever expression Cas is wearing. “We’ve lied to protect each other, betrayed each other, gotten each other tortured and killed...shit, Cas, we even tried to kill each other a few times. But sure, yeah, let’s exchange presents by the fireplace, drink some nog, and have a Merry Fucking Christmas!”

Dean grabbed his coat from a chair at the table in the stunned silence. He started stomping up the metal stairs.

“Dean. You don’t want to be alone on Christmas. Don’t do this. Don’t push us away.” It was Sam, of course. He sounded so reasonable. Kind. Gentle. He deserved so much better than Dean. They all did.

Dean looked over the railing and saw them standing, frozen, in the positions they had been in when he had begun his tirade. Sam’s face was unspeakably sad. Cas’ gaze was down and away from Dean, like he was really fascinated with something in a corner of the library. Jack’s eyes were wide and wet.

Dean turned away and opened the door. He did not stomp, sigh, or yell. He did not slam the door as he closed it behind him. He did not say what was in his heart, the fundamental truth that ruled his life. A song stuck on repeat: Better to be alone than be left alone, better to be the one leaving than getting left, better to be the one pushing rather than getting pushed away.

Read Stave One: Bobby’s Ghost, Part 2:

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blackbrian6-blog · 5 years ago

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Super Soy Me - North Bay Bohemian

Like any typical chump, I planned to start an ambitious new diet on New Year's Day. Fine, the day after New Year's Day.

The diet was strict, but had just one simple rule: Eat food, mostly frozen, as much as I want, on a $100 per week budget. And here's the kicker: Eat only food that's made by Amy's Kitchen, the privately held natural foods manufacturer based in Petaluma. Yes, it was a bold plan.

Day 1: I load a frozen, gluten-free tofu scramble breakfast wrap in the microwave oven, starting the day's calorie count at 300. At lunch it's a chili mac bowl, 420 calories, and later a spinach pizza pocket sandwich, 280 calories. Dinner brings a longtime favorite to the table; veggie loaf with mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. But those 340 calories don't feel like enough, so I round out the evening with a spinach pizza snack, and 380 additional calories.

Day 2: I'm a little hungover. Ugh, what happened?

The Perils of a Cruelty-Free Diet

I'm on this diet partly to see if man can live on Amy's alone. While it's a controlled experiment, it's not an inhumane experiment, so I did not forswear the enjoyment of a few glasses of wine with dinner, before dinner, or after dinner. Besides, eliminating the beverage variable might have skewed the results, right? Instead, I opt for certified organic wine, in the spirit of Amy's Kitchen, whose listed ingredients are nearly all prefaced with "organic," save the sea salt and black pepper.

The problem: after unpacking five frozen meals from five cardboard cartons, I'd only packed in 1,720 calories on that first day. No doubt the wine hit a little harder because that's well below the 2,000 daily calories that nutrition labels are based on, or the recommended 2,400 calorie diet of a moderately active male of my age, and weight.

Ah, that weight. The other reason for the diet was to lose a little of it. I demur from saying what that weight is, lest some readers then wish to knock me around a bit, but suffice it to say that I feel like the image of some kind of corpulent, late career Orson Welles. (More like Audrey Hepburn, remarked a more portly friend a few years back. That smarts a bit, but then again—such style!) What's that about body image self-acceptance? Stuff self-acceptance in a cheeseburger. I demand to get back that flat belly that I haven't seen since age 29, and I'll try any diet in that service. The allure of Amy's is the quick and easy calorie counting, printed right on the box, and de facto portion control. The convenience of simply reheating frozen food, too, leaves more time for that moderate activity.

Lesson learned, on to Day 2: Country bake breakfast, 420 calories; veggie sausage, 55 calories; brown rice and vegetables bowl, 260 calories; meatless Italian sausage, mushroom and olive pizza, 930 calories. Yes, I know the pizza is supposed to be three separate servings, but the day's total is only 1,665 calories. Yet I feel stuffed. Might be because I'm not used to consuming so many carbohydrates (see the surprise tally at the end of the article), and that's a criticism I've heard of products like Amy's: organic or not, isn't it too high in sodium, too stuffed with carbohydrates, like other processed snack foods? When I announced my dietary goal to someone at the company (who shan't be named), in fact, the response was: "But what about vegetables?"

In an era when consumers are being advised to eat whole foods, and lower on the food chain, Amy's occupies an interesting space in between the good reputation of organic foods and the bad rap on processed foods. Frozen foods have taken some heat since the "TV dinner" days of my childhood, when, notwithstanding mom's cooking being the best, it was a special treat to have those tin foil tray dinners once a week. Meanwhile, Amy's Kitchen, launched by Rachel and Andy Berliner in 1987 (the original conceit was that they couldn't find any time-saving convenience foods that were of homemade quality, after the birth of their daughter, Amy, who is now a co-owner in the company), has puffed up from one pot pie sold in what used to be called "health food" stores in Northern California and Oregon, to 260 products sold in megastores the likes of Target, in 29 countries. Revenue in 2017 totaled $500 million.

Can they stay true to home-cooked ideals at such a scale? I've got to get behind the kale curtain, and see how the organic tofu sausage is made.

Amy's, Can You Hear Me?

Day 3: I've had no luck trying to contact the public relations desk at Amy's, so, fueled only by their breakfast scramble, 360 calories, and veggie sausage, 55 calories, I set out by bicycle for the company headquarters in Petaluma. Am I helping to offset the carbon footprint of these packaged meals, or is their economy of scale inherently more efficient than my home stovetop? Will there someday be fewer veal crates, like the ones that I'm passing by on Stony Point Road, because of vegetarian options like Amy's provides? These are things I think of on my ride. Besides that biking in heavy traffic sucks veggie meatballs.

It wasn't enough. On Lakeville Highway, a few blocks short, and fatigued, I have to turn back or else miss the last SMART train back to Santa Rosa until late afternoon.

Breakthrough at the Drive-Thru

I get a new idea on the train, remembering the Amy's Drive-Thru restaurant in Rohnert Park. It's a long shot, but at the very least, after ordering a single veggie cheeseburger and fries (alas, I am not asked to "super-size" my order to the signature double patty "Amy" burger), I can ask for any kind of help at the register. I'm in luck—Dave Wolfgram, president of Amy's Drive-Thru Restaurants, is working on his laptop a few tables over. He seems genuinely concerned and promises to hook me up with HQ.

Although this joint is as bustling as it was on my first visit over three years ago ("Understanding Amy's," Sept. 9, 2015), Amy's has rolled out their takeover of the fast food nation at, well, an organic pace. An outpost in SFO (Amy's "fly-thru"?) is scheduled for July, with a Corte Madera drive-thru opening in 2020.

How the Organic Tofu Sausage is Made

I'm in! I meet Paul Schiefer for a tour of Amy's flagship production facility, which has been located on Santa Rosa's Northpoint Parkway since the early days. Schiefer, who is a nephew to the Berliners, grew up with the business, and is now senior director of sustainability.

On the way to the dressing room where I'll don a smock, hairnet and beard net, I'm already distracted by a novel sight: two vending machines in the break room are stocked with Amy's entrées. They're sold to employees for just $1 to $1.50. But the Blue Sky organic cola in the adjacent vending machine, Schiefer admits, isn't as popular with employees as Pepsi. No strict diets here: there's a Frito-Lay option, too.

Workers are everywhere on the plant floor, monitoring computer screens, carting multi-level tray carts here and there. Look, there goes my old friend, the lentil loaf! Over there, veggie sausage, destined for a country bake. In one room, which is as big as most winery cellars I see, pinto beans cascade in an industrial waterfall, while a worker tends to a steaming kettle perched high in the middle distance.

A smaller room houses one of the largest tofu-making facilities on the West Coast, according to Schiefer. Here are whole soybeans, soaked and removed of fiber, which goes to a dairy. Then, hot soy milk pours forth, and further down the line, blocks of fresh tofu, some 9,400 pounds per day, are cut and sent on to their rendezvous with organic oats, organic bulgar wheat and organic onions and more to, yes, make the tofu sausage.

On the kettle deck, an enchilada sauce has just been made—we see it later on down the line, where freshly frozen entreés clank off the conveyor belt. Tomato sauces are made from fresh tomatoes. Vegetables such as broccoli may be fresh, or flash frozen, since there are only two harvests a year from their supplier. "We'd rather get it all fresh, in season, than go to the ends of the earth to bring it in," says Schiefer.

In the burrito room, bean and cheese filling plops onto tortillas, made fresh in the room next door, in a way that my minder from the marketing department doesn't wish me to photograph. But it's all hand work after that. One employee tells me, still folding while turning away from the assembly line to explain, that she's been honing her technique for 21 years, shaping the filling, and folding six or more ways in a flash of hand movements I can hardly follow.

One thinks of frozen foods as the ultimate deracinated, non-local product. But here, I have the dissonant revelation that, at least for the North Bay, this is truly local. All this time, my frozen bean burrito (and another 160,000 of them per day) has been hand-rolled just across town. (Soups are made in Idaho, however; pizza in Medford, Ore.)

The Results

At the end of a week, I had to stop the experiment. Not necessarily because I felt "over stuffed" on just 1,940 calories, as I noted on Day 6, or "strangely tired" on Day 7. My weight jumped up at first, but I ended up a few pounds lighter. Still, I would have been willing to carry out a more rigorous one-month experiment. But if I didn't bust my waistline, I busted my budget: $140 for seven days.

I should note that the company does not endorse an all-Amy's diet. Instead, they offer meal plans on their website incorporating fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and smoothies, most with just one Amy's product per day. That said, I felt that I might have had a real serving of veggies with their Asian-inspired entrées, like the dumplings in savory Hoisin sauce, and for a frozen food, they tasted fresh enough. And in the harvest casserole bowl, there's surely close to a half-cup of sweet potatoes, kale and Swiss chard—it'd be hard to excuse all that quinoa otherwise.

According to Schiefer, I'm correct in my assessment that while the frozen food business is stagnant in general, Amy's is bucking the trend, and has been growing faster than the category for years. Still, some of the traditional tray-style dinner styles have been pulled off the line: RIP, Southern meal, chili and corn bread, and good ol' veggie steak and gravy.

All told, I ate not more than 1,700 calories per day. The protein count averaged 67 grams daily — not bad — and carbohydrates actually averaged less than the Daily Value, at 200. But sodium indeed hit more than 3,200 milligrams per day, higher than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendation of less than 2,400, but a little under the average American's intake. Amy's does offer low sodium versions with less than half that of the typical entrée.

The next week I flipped a 180 and launched an ultra-low-carb diet of meat, cheese and vegetables for the next month. I felt pretty good on it. And I gained back five pounds.

Source: https://www.bohemian.com/northbay/super-soy-me/Content?oid=8755813

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wordydelights · 7 years ago

Text

first chapter of the first book i ever tried to write

When Galaxies Collide

11:39 AM, November 29th

As I tapped my no. 2 against the side of my desk, I could tell others around me were becoming annoyed. But, that didn't seem to bother me much. The ticking of each second passing by echoed throughout my eardrums. The day was going slower than normal.

It was torture.

I'd usually be scribbling something on the corner of my notebook by now, but the inspiration I needed wasn't present at the moment. I was just waiting for it to walk through the door.

11:43 AM

The classrooms' temperature caused my hands to numb and drift asleep.The dull environment, dry with boredom, painted the students' faces with clear disinterest. Blank sheets of paper sat on each desk, patiently awaiting to be written on, alas no one could find the strength to lift their fingers.

The teachers here refer to us as a lazy generation, concluding we only spend our time watching 'screens' all day and don't know how to socialize, on account of being caught up in our make-believe worlds. They also believe that the public school system is a well established institute for education...and our school's sports teams don't suck. So who's the real loser?

My yawning began to fog the glasses now resting on the tip of my nose. I gently removed the specs, carefully wiping them off with the knit sleeve of my sweater. I'd occasionally wear contacts but I was usually too lazy to deal with carefully shoving plastic underneath my eyelids.

I had sat in the back of the classroom, three rows to the left, giving me a perfect view of my fellow peers, the white board and the lovely scenery of the school's totally non-crappy parking lot, outside the window.

A faint sound began to tickle my ears. As it grew louder I was able to make out my name. Don't worry, I thought. Hearing your name being called is the sign of a healthy mind. Either that or I was becoming schizophrenic. But, unfortunately this wasn't a figment of my imagination, let alone a psychotic voice in my head.

"Jackson."

I snapped my head up towards the front of the classroom, like being resurrected with a sudden jolt. My eyes met the shiny forehead, wrinkled with distress of The Professor. He was a World History teacher at Oakwood High. No one seemed to refer to him by his real name, honestly, I think most of us had forgotten it.

The Professor had always made a huge deal about universities, how hard it is to get in and statistically most of us will end up at a dead-end community college with a degree in flipping burnt burgers. To make matters worse, he constantly bragged about his past employment at Harvard.

The big question he hadn't answered however was 'how he got from Harvard to a low budget public school in Forest Grove, Oregon.' Bigger question, 'how he was removed from Harvard's distinguished faculty?.'

Never once did he object to this sarcastic nickname which was used to describe his unhealthy obsession. As a matter-of-fact he took pride in it. Probably because it reminded him of the times he once had a bigger paycheck, respectful students and a school with an IQ average larger than 60. Or partly because he was an arrogant asshole, who enjoys dwelling on the past.

"Daydreaming again, I see," he said expressionless. His specialty.

"No s-s-ir," my voice cracked.

I heard snickers from multiple students around the room.

Damn you puberty.

"I was just looking for a bit of inspiration."

"Inspiration," he smirked. "How is that related to the lesson?"

My eyes darted across the whiteboard, searching for the title of today's topic, written in it's general bold letters.

The Age of Enlightenment.

"Well sir, during the Enlightenment period, inspiration was what all people were searching for."

"And have you found any inspiration?"

"Not yet, it hasn't seemed to arrive."

He squinted his eyes as if trying to read to me. Scanning my body language, then absorbing the information obtained. I knew I was about to be asked to explain to the class something complex, that I obviously don't know about the Enlightenment. It was his typical routine for making me look like an idiot, not like he had to try.

11:47 AM

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the words on the tip of his tongue, the door swung open. Inspiration had arrived.

"Hi sorry...you would not believe the hallway traffic."

She was on her usual time. Not too late to be counted absent, but late enough to piss of The Professor.

"Pass?" The tone in his voice was dripping with frustration.

She walked up with a certain confidence in her stride. Not the prideful, vain kind. The bold kind. Too bold. So bold it was a cover up for something dark lying within.

She pushed the hair out of her face, and flashed a smile, a fake, phony, I-hate-you smile, proceeding to hand over a crumpled up hall pass.

The Professor snatched the piece of paper out of her hand, quickly analyzed it and sighed,

"Just go sit down."

"Gladly," she'd snap back without missing a beat.

I watched as she made her way to her desk dropping the bag to the floor and whipping her classic black and white chucks up onto the empty seat in front of her, then continued to twist the stained silver ring on her finger.

Some days were better than others. She never truly disrupted class. She just threw on a show whenever she came in.

Never once did she acknowledge my presence this entire year. I doubt she even vaguely remembered me.

She had changed so much since the four-foot-three Serene Easton from elementary school.

No longer did she wear that burgundy ribbon in her hair, candy bracelets or fuzzy scrunchies on her wrists. She moved away one summer just as we were about to start the seventh grade. I don't know where or why, but I do know I bawled my eyes out for a month straight.

I just couldn't bare the thought of her not being there for me when I needed her most. I don't even really remember much of the time we spent together. It was mostly Halo dragging me along her wild goose chases, getting busted with Halo for tagging along those wild goose chases, and brief moments with Noel during those wild goose chases, probably only lasting half a second, that had been sown in my being.

I told her to write. She didn't. I told her to call. No calls received. I told her to send a damn email. No emails sent.

Her response to each of my requests was a half smile, followed by a nod and sincere look in her eyes. I was like a puppy being left at the local Humane Society, thinking, surely their owner will be back for them.

But, they never were.

Oddly enough, my parents thought it was good, healthy even, that the only friend I had was leaving. My mother was afraid I would become too dependent on Halo if our friendship sustained. And I'm fairly certain my father was becoming worried about my sexuality.

Being a young boy, who wasn't quite as athletically gifted as others and only able to maintain one friend who happened to be female, caused him to raise some suspicions. Also, my incriminating actions might have come into play. Such as, not being able to change in front of other boys or perhaps stumbling upon gay porn on their computer, but I swear, it was already there when I went to use the laptop.

Nevertheless, my family supported me through thick and thin, but at the same time, had awkward conversations about how they accept me for who I am and will always love me not matter what.

Despite my parents' 'words of wisdom,' I will never forget Halo's last words she said to me before she left.

"The story continues."

She said it cryptically, like it was my job to decode the message behind it. The mystery bouncing within the light of her eyes.

Halo had never found pleasure in saying goodbyes, as a result she would say things like 'see ya later' or 'until next time.' In her own words; goodbye is too permanent. But, this time, this saying was different. What did she mean by 'the story continues'? What was the story? Was it her life? Was I just a mere chapter or an adventure to move on from? Or was the story both of us? How we have future journeys lying ahead, just waiting to be ventured upon. Maybe her moving away was just an example of the plot thickening.

I might never realize what she truly meant, however, it gives me hope.

Lunch at Oakwood was pretty much what you would expect for your customary high school. Freshman sitting with freshman, sophomores with sophomores...yeah, you get the gist. Girls on one side, guys on the other, then a couple of mixed tables scattered across the sea of pubescent bodies.

It's a small school. Our last graduating class contained about 136 students. Out of a total population of 584.

Everyone had a place and if you didn't it's because you chose not to have one. That was just my theory at least. I'd always been that shy, quiet guy.

I had become a master of blending in, being overlooked by almost everyone was my speciality.

"Jackson, mah brotha from anotha motha!" Ravon announced as he approached the table. His feign, early 2000's, ghetto slang caused me to cringe. The buttons on the back pockets of his acid wash jeans scraped against the seat next to Aditi, as he began to sit down, creating a group of three. He advanced to unraveling his brown, paper, lunch bag, revealing his masterpiece of a PB&J.

"Hey," he pointed. "Check out that spicy chocolate mama."

Ravon drew Aditi and I's attention over towards Jasmine Baker, senior class president. We watched as she made her way over to her pretentious, intellectually gifted friends. Her hips swayed with each step followed by the sound of her high heeled boots clicking against the marble floor.

"Bow-chicka-wow-wow," Aditi exclaimed.

His thick Indian accent made it hard not to burst into laughter. I snorted.

Aditi was a foreign exchange student from India. He didn't know much English, so he would say words completely irrelevant to the topic, however, I was surprised to hear how much he had improved.

"M-m-mmm," Ravon drooled. "That's one stone cold fox."

I awkwardly shrugged, picking at the glutinous macaroni and cheese, now glued to the paper tray.

"Aw, hell nah."

Ravon stared at me with an almost how-dare-you expression slapped across his face.

"What?" I asked.

He moved closer to my face. So close, I could smell the potent peanut butter aroma permeating the air from his mouth."Did you just diss the chocolate mamas?"

"No, I just don't find Jasmine very appealing."

Which was true. I didn't find girls who covered up their insecurities with false confidence very attractive. Girls who lived for themselves instead were more my type.

I finally looked from my pathetic excuse for a meal and up at Ravon. His dark skin in piercing contrast with his coral polo shirt. He blinked twice. I couldn't tell if he was about explode into a full-fledged rant about how dissing the 'chocolate mamas' was like sucker punching his future love child Tyron. And nobody touches little Tyron. Or laugh it off, pat my back and put this insignificant feud behind us.

Ravon was an interesting character. For example, using words which were televised in the late 90's and dressing in similar fashion to a cast member from a Fresh Prince rerun.

The tension in the air was becoming too thick to breathe. Luckily Aditi broke the ice.

"Bay-gull," He exclaimed in his way of saying the word bagel. At least, so we think..

"Yes, Aditi," Ravon hesitated. "Bagel indeed."

There was something uneasy about the way he spoke, nonetheless, I disregarded it..

Out of the corner of my eye, I captured a glimpse of Halo eagerly walking towards the outdoor lunch patio. I guess I made it obvious as to what I was staring at, because I received unnecessary commentary to my vision.

"Hellooo," Ravon flirtatiously said, lifting both of his eyebrows. "Vanilla mama."

"You're obsession with comparing women to pieces of candy is becoming disturbing," I mumbled while burying my face into my palms. Through the cracks of my fingers, I spotted the back of Halo vanishing behind the corner of school, racing to the usual spot where her group of 'juvenile delinquents' sat. Gone, once again.

I spent the rest of the period listening to Ravon ramble about getting to second-base with a girl waiting in line at the mall. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I saw him there the other day groping a mannequin.

It was relatively easy pretending to pay attention to Ravon. All you had to do was nod and half smile occasionally. He was that type of person who lived in a false reality. Choosing not to believe the fact that the only people he had to speak to included someone who obviously couldn't care less and someone who didn't understand half of what he was saying.

The problem with me was that it became so hard to connect, to feel any emotion whatsoever. It's better when it's just me. My mind and I, we go well together. We agree about everything. It's really all I need. Friends come and go, leading to grief. Why waste all that energy on the expected? So yes, I'm not actually friends with Aditi or Ravon. They just happen to be people in this specific chapter of my life. By the time I'm thirty, I probably won't even remember them. Sad, but true.

I just prefer thinking realistically.

With a hop, skip and jump in my step, I was dumped on the side of the road, attempting to avoid slamming into the bright, red stop sign. I was possibly the only junior at Oakwood who still road the bus to school instead of driving their own 'set of wheels.' The stop was half a mile away from my house, which was far, but not too far to walk home. It happened to be very calm and reflective. I don't know why, but there is something about walking alone that just helps you forget all of the pesky problems in life. Cars passed by me leaving a gust of wind to be remembered by. Puddles were dispersed across the road, which wasn't quite unusual when living in Oregon. The trees were almost bare, only few Amber and ruby colored leaves attached to the claws of their branches. Every now and then I'd see someone I recognize from school, but I don't think I'd look as familiar to them as they do to me.

About a quarter of a mile away from my destination I'd pass a small white house. Its curtains closed, concealing secrets to the curious eye. It looked like your average suburban home. A welcome mat by the front door, wind chimes hanging from over its porch, and a lawn in slight need of a good mow. It definitely did not appear to be the type of home you'd expect Halo Easton to be living in.

I wasn't quite sure if she was home at the moment, there appeared to be no activity coming from within, except for the slight flickering of a light, most likely from a television screen, piercing through the closed blinds. Then again, Halo was the type of person that never seemed to be at home.

By the time I had arrived, my mother was in the front yard hauling what had the appearance of tacky couch from the 70's, from our family pickup truck. One end of the abomination was tilted against the driveway, the other leaning against the tailgate of the vehicle.

"Oh! Jackson, honey, could you come help me with this?"

Sweat poured from the top of her head, as she wiped her face with the white apron she normally used for cleaning.

I made my way over towards the hideous piece of furniture, it's yellowish piss coloring, velvet fabric, with brown and white stripes outlining it's unflattering frame.

"Mom, did you buy this?" I asked while trying to hide my horrified expression.

"No, sweetheart you know me better than that," She paused, catching her breath.

"I found it in of one of our neighbors front yards! Can you believe someone was just giving it away!?"

My mother was a hoarder. As hard as she wanted to admit it, she was. She liked collecting junk, adding to her insatiable collection of stuff she will most likely never use. I guess she thought she would sometime, in the near distant future, fix her junk up or put it to some sort of benefit, unfortunately she never did. So, now we had achieved a garage filled from bicycles missing wheels, to the largest world collection of disfigured beanie babies. Even though she was a bit crazy, I sort of admired her for it in a way. She was able to see a beauty, that no one else did, in the things she found. After all, I had to get my artistic side from somewhere.

"Ok, one, two, three, lift."

The nonexistent muscles I had in my arms, were straining. I was unprepared for the amount of weight I was now lifting. I felt my heart beating twice as fast, almost as if screaming, 'Shouldn't have skipped gym you weak bitch.'

Somehow we managed to tilt the 'couch from hell' rightside up. Mostly because I let it fall to the ground at the last second.

"Good, now help me move it into the garage."

I might've started screaming bloody murder, if my little sister Gracie hadn't opened the front door and shouted, "Daddy's home!"

Slowly, my father's blue minivan rolled up the driveway. Gracie, with a sheet of notebook paper covered with multicolored scribbles in her hands, ran towards the door of the car, excitedly tapping on its window.

My father calmly walked out, but I could tell by his constant glances over towards the new piece of furniture we now owned, which he now had to help move, was ready to burn mother's garage full of trinkets.

"Daddy look." Gracie held up her art, stained with a bit of 100% grape juicy juice.

"Aren't I just as good as Jackson? It's abstract. Just like the one drawing you guys really liked that he did, except mine has color!"

"It's beautiful," my father faintly smiled, but the reassurance in his voice wasn't very prominent.

I smirked at her jealousy of the talents I possessed. She always looked up to her big brother Landon, but he had been away at college for the past few months, so I guess I was her backup plan. However, she didn't hold the same sort of honor she had for me as she had for Landon. It was that 'middle child honor.' The type of honor that truly does look up to you, just doesn't like showing it. The type of honor that likes to bring up embarrassing moments that will haunt you for the rest of your life, steal your towel and clothes while taking a shower and eat the last bite of your favorite cereal.

Luckily, I had my revenge planned. When she really pisses me off I can finally tell her the truth about her unplanned conception.

"How was work dad?" I never usually acted this interested in my father's occupation, mostly because it involved unclogging the shit out of people's toilets, but I was trying to avoid carrying the monstrosity of a sofa to the garage.

"Eh," his common response. He wasn't the most emotional person, especially on days when he was in one of his 'moods.' This was one of those days.

He made his way towards mother, despite her stockpile-syndrome, you could tell he loved her more than life itself.

"Hey hon," he said, softly pecking her on the lips.

It was like her insanity was a part of him that he adored. The part that kept him young, helping him remember their early blossoming romance. They were complete opposites, yet each mirrored the other. Each bringing out the other's character.

As I see it, everything needs it's opposing pair. It wouldn't be whole without it.

What would the moon be without the sun, the light without darkness, bitter without sweet, grief without joy, love without hate? These forces balance each other out. My parents are like that.

My mother smiled, then began, "Hey! Oooo, do you think you could help me move thi-" mother began but was cut off.

"I'm already on it," my father laughed, lifting one side of the couch, clearly exhausted.

I started to walk into the house, the straps of my backpack now chaffing my shoulders. We had lived in this house for about 18 years. Apparently after mom found out she was pregnant once again, they figured it was best to start searching for a place other than the one bedroom condo they were already living in. They found our home thinking it would be a proper family home. Instead, it turned out to be infested with termites, gnawing away at the wooden beams supporting our ceilings. Of course, an exterminator was hired. After that slight bump in the road, a paint job and serious cleaning, it turned out to be the domicile we would spend the rest of our childhood in. All of our precious memories, which we held dear, lied within it's walls.

I raced up the stairway to my room. The house, unlike our garage, was rather neat. My Father and I had always shared a passion for order. I guess I wasn't quite as uptight as he was, although I did become slightly OCD about a backwards roll of toilet paper.

My bedroom was whitewashed with well. . .white. Colorless and bland.

It's not that I was a boring stick-in-the-mud, I just didn't want to ruin the elegance my room pertained. It was like an empty canvas, a blank sheet of paper. Having so much potential. Potential that could easily be destroyed.

My fear was screwing things up.

As an aspiring artist, you might find it odd how I'm exceptionally organized, rather dull and basic. Not all artists have to be these messy slobs, using vibrant colors, seeing things differently than others.

I saw things for the way they were.

I laid my backpack down by the side of my bed, it's zipper clanking against the metal frame. It was time for my daily procrastination. I rolled open the drawer to my drafting table. Its polished wooden frame, still held the freshly cut pine scent, regardless of how old it was. Delicately choosing a pencil from my collection. It needed to be ideal. It's lead not too stubby, so I didn't have to find the energy to choose a new tool, yet not too sharp so it wouldn't break during the process. I tried taking a few short breaths. Attempting to clear my mind.

I liked playing a game with myself. The first thought which popped into my head, I would draw. I counted to four. Not three. Not five. Four. It was the number in between, commonly overlooked as a number to count to.

Just like me.

One....Two....Three...Four.

The gears in my brain started turning, sorting through the files of my mind, seeking for the perfect thought. It scanned through the alphabet.

A...B...C...D....E...STOP!

Yes, E.

The word became clear, its letters floating about.

Emptiness.

Beginning is always the hardest part. It is the foundation for everything. All the work you do from that point on stands upon the structure you created.

The first thing that came to mind when picturing the word was someone hiding behind a mask. Disguising their pain.

I proceeded to sketch a young girl, probably around Gracie's age. Her hair, hiding half her face. Each strand, unkempt, and untamed. She was smiling, yet the crinkles near her eyes told another story. A vacant heart.

A label was printed across her forehead. Numbers, like an ID.

18, 5, 10, 5, 3, 20, 5, 4.

Each number representing a letter. Each letter forming a word. A word that was the root cause of all emptiness. Being rejected.

She could fool anyone who was gullible enough to believe her false sense of contentment. Only those who looked close enough were able to see the agony beneath her facade.

Later that evening, while shading the striking features of the girl's face, darkening her glassy, tear-filled eyes, I was called down for dinner. My creative flow now interrupted, I made my way downstairs. My family each in their traditional seats. We use to have a big fancy dinner table, for guests, but I guess after the first awkward dinner with the Peterson's, and the fact we rarely ever had guests over, we sold it and bought a table much more accustomed to the size of our family. We only had one extra seat, of course in the garage, which was for Landon when he returned from (insert school name here). I plopped into the last available chair, my nose meeting the delicious fragrance of chinese take-out.

Egg rolls, white rice with baby shrimp, teriyaki chicken and those oh-so-sweet stargoons. I guess mom was too lazy to cook tonight. Again.

But, I wasn't complaining.

It was at that moment when I realized just how starving I was. I had forgotten I didn't eat my lunch.

I commenced to quietly dip my egg roll into a small packet of 'duck sauce' or whatever the hell it was and continued to stuff my face with a bite far too large for my mouth.

"So, Jackson, Gracie, you're father and I have some news."

I raised my head, my cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk trying to store his precious supply of nuts. Haha, nuts.

Dad just sat idly by while my mother eagerly took his hand. He seemed clueless. As if he was a random passerby who had just won a lifetime supply of pastries for buying the millionth funnel cake.

"Landon's coming home for the weekend," she exclaimed.

Gracie enthusiastically shrieked like a mating dolphin from the top of her lungs.

"Not inside the house Grace," Dad grimaced.

"Jackson, honey, isn't that great?"

I guess the lack of emotion on my face and the fact I had said not a word might have given the impression I wasn't thrilled to be reuniting with my dear brother, who I had profoundly missed, or was taking his trip home for granted. No, it wasn't either of those things, I was only slightly busy attempting not to choke on the rather sizeable amount of egg roll I had just consumed. The lump in my throat felt as if it was the size of golf ball. The shells' sharp edges slowly slid down my throat.

Amazingly I was able to swallow the choking hazard.

"Yeah mom, that's awesome."

Lately my parents had been acting more attentive towards my needs, assuming I'm depressed or unhappy with my circumstances. I suppose they have noticed my increase in afternoon naps, deadpan smiles and most of my life being spent in my room.

Perhaps they thought bringing Landon back home for a little while, might help recover the 'old Jackson' whose absence had been accounted for.

Yes, I admit it. Landon leaving did make things difficult. But, it was my fault for getting so hung up on the situation. I knew he was leaving. I couldn't help but also feeling slight resentment towards Landon.

He left me. However, Landon wasn't to blame. This was a step he had to take in life. I never expected for him to stay home to tend to his emotional brothers' needs. It just gave me a taste of the truth. Even family will not always be there for you.

Although, I did begin acting unlike my common self around the time when Landon left, he wasn't the only factor that had come into play of my mysterious change in personality. I guess his disappearance was just the gateway to all of the crap I had been storing in my heart for years.

Think of it like Jenga, the more blocks you pile up, the more come tumbling down.

I was never the type of person to talk about their issues and receive perceptive insight, causing my life to magically become picture perfect, solving every single one of my problems, then rolling the credits with the Friends theme song.

Because life just wasn't that simple.

That night was probably like most. Laying in bed staring at my ceiling, weary yet unable to let loose and drift away. All that was left for me to do was think. Think about the inevitable fact that I would soon fall asleep, unfortunately I would have to spend the next few minutes, before that happens, and suffer. I guess this was mother nature's way of letting you reflect on your actions, those humiliating moments we regret, causing us the gut-wrenching feeling of condemnation.

But, there were no moments belonging to me I had to ponder. I could only ask myself, what the hell happened to her?

Halo was a mission impossible movie. There was always something exciting and adventurous just around the corner. Her motto once was there would be no rules without rebellion. She'd then emphasize the statement saying how technically she was enforcing the rules by breaking them. She was one of those people who would have an idea, not take a second longer to think about what had just entered her mind and do it. From what it seemed, her impulsiveness had not changed much or her thirst for an adrenaline rush. No, what had changed was the wholesome tone she use to have in her voice. Each word was now filled with no meaning and each action was driven from a burning desire to fill the void in her soul, only enlarging.

If only I could just find enough courage to talk to her.

But, what would I say?

"Hey, uh, remember me? Jackson Novak. We use to hang out when were like ten, and I've noticed you recently moved back into the neighborhood this past year. Sorry if you ever caught me stalkerishly staring at your house, I was just wondering if you were home and what you might've doing."

Oh yeah, she'd probably just fall right into my arms after that glorious soliloquy.

Actually she might just jackslap me in the face for even considering speaking to her. After all, she had made it very clear she either never wanted to talk to me again, or suffered a terrible case of amnesia, causing her to lose about four years worth of her memory.

In all fairness, we were young.

We have matured quite a bit since our last rendezvous. She definitely wasn't that flat chested little girl from the fifth grade anymore. So, maybe it's possible she didn't recognize me?

That's ridiculous, I hadn't changed that much. I was still rather freckled face, sustaining your basic non-aerobic physique, just a foot and a half taller and different pair of glasses. I couldn't have changed to a certain degree making me unrecognizable.

Yes, it had been about five years, I'll give her that, but wouldn't she find me the slightest bit familiar?

Maybe, her life just didn't have enough room for me at the moment. She was already busy with her other friends, she just hadn't found the words to say to me yet.

Or maybe, my special gift of blending into the crowd was becoming better than I intended.

"Yeah, that was it," I tried telling myself, sinking into denial. Even though I hadn't chosen a possible theory to which I agreed with.

It was sometimes easier to deceive yourself than accepting the facts.

But, what's the point? She's moved on.

I wanted to hate her. To hate her for planting seeds of hope. For making me wish she would look at me and smile, reminiscing on a moment we once shared. She left me in suspense, on the edge of my seat, eagerly waiting to see what her next move would be.

But, I didn't hate her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't.

#the title is when galaxies collide #writeblr #writelr #YA #young adult #teen fiction #awkward #lit #literature #aspiring author #writers of tumblr

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