#put on this tail plug too it gives you 80% more IED

[eorzeashan]

maplestory is such a dumb (brilliant) game because the unironic furry classes are top bossing meta

[atlafan]

Office Neighbors - Part One

a/n: OKAY! this is my new love, professor!Harry x professor!Y/N. This is a slow burn, so buckle up because it’s going to be a longgggg ride. enjoy! (also reblogs/feedback is super helpful) not proofread

warnings:none yet...I suppose some fluff? slight angst?? 

words: 20K

masterpost

You were all cozied up in bed, in a cocoon of blankets. Even though it was August, your apartment had central air, and it was glorious. You loved nothing more than practically sleeping in a burrito of blankets year round. It was a new place to go along with your new job.

Y/F/N Y/L/N, Adjunct Professor, Communication Department: that was your new title. You had your master’s degree, and now you could finally move on to get your PhD. Your specialization was social media and the like, but you also had background in rhetoric and film. The few faculty that served on your search committee were quite impressed with the research you had already started conducting. Your main research was about the pros and cons of anonymity online. The school was a perfect fit. You would be teaching a couple of the intro courses for the major, and some special topics courses.

Today was faculty orientation. You would be given yet another tour of the university, go through some technology workshops, and be shown to your office. You were excited because you hadn’t been able to meet all of your faculty yet, and you’d be going to your first faculty meeting towards the end of the day.

You check your phone and see that it’s going to be in the mid 80’s today. You sigh and get up to start your morning routine. Once your face is washed and your teeth are brushed, you rummage through your closet to see what would be the most appropriate thing to wear. A flowy dress, in theory, would be a good idea, but the idea of sweating between your legs didn’t sound all that great. You settle on a pair of emerald green shorts that fall just above your knee, perfectly appropriate length for school. Plus, they were just a cute pair of shorts in general. You pair it with a white short-sleeve blouse, and tuck it into the shorts to show the shape of your body. Next, you needed to tackle your hair. You could leave it down, but sweat and humidity were not your friends. You had gotten into the habit of parting your hair down the middle more, you were twenty-six now it was okay to go with your natural part. You thought it made you look more adult, whatever that meant. So, you part it, and pull up each side to make pig tails, then you create a bun on each side. You looked professional, but fun. Just the vibe you were going for. You only apply a little makeup, in fear of it melting off of you. You slip on a pair of white tennis shoes for comfort, gather your laptop and other things, and head out.

Rolling through Dunkin Donuts, you treat yourself with a vanilla late instead of your usual, it was your first day after all. You’re not feeling too hungry yet, so you don’t get anything to eat. A college habit that just hasn’t died yet: barely eating anything until the late afternoon. You park at the building where your last meeting of the day will be, always thinking ahead. You sip on your coffee and enjoy your stroll across the beautiful campus to your first meeting of the day. There were a few people in the classroom, and you shyly smile and wave as you take a seat.

Policies and procedures are talked about after everyone in the cohort introduces themselves. You notice that you’re the only CM hire, there were three math hires, two for history, one for CS, two for art, and two for CJ. Some seemed to be around your age, and other seemed older. Everyone was friendly enough. You observed everyone’s posture and body language. You couldn’t help it, you were practically trained to read rooms and people.

The campus tour isn’t anything new. This was about the fifth time you had been walked around by some students to show you where things were, but it was nice to get outside for a good walk. You’re given a break for lunch, and you opt to eat outside at one of the open picnic benches. You notice that most people wanted to eat alone. It was a lot of social time, you yourself didn’t mind the break from talking and sharing.

After lunch are the technology workshops, making sure your account was set up and that you knew how to edit your courses in moodle. It wasn’t terribly difficult, but it was something everyone had to do. Luckily, as a first year professor, you wouldn’t be given any advisees. That you were thankful for. You had taught before, of course, and you loved helping students, but you wanted to make sure you had a good handle on the curriculum before telling students what they should be taking for courses.

Around 3PM a student comes to show you to your academic building, and escort you to your new office before your faculty meeting. There’s a bit of chit chat between the two of you before they open the door to the overly hot building. You cough when you first enter from the humidity.

“Don’t worry, it’s only like this for the first couple of weeks.” She says and you nod.

She guides you straight in where the communication lounge was. Wow, an entire lounge, you think to yourself. There were a few couches and three offices on the main level. A flat screen TV projecting student projects across from one of the couches. She takes you down a spiral staircase where there were four other offices, one vacant for you. There were two computer clusters, a projects and screen, and more couches. You already liked that it seemed to be an interactive space for students.

“Looks like you got the one with the window.” She smiles. “Have a nice day.”

“Thank you so much.” You beam at the student that you’ll probably never see again.

The door was open for you, and two sets of keys were sitting on your desk. The office was bare just waiting for your interior design ideas to be splashed all over it. Your desk was L-shaped with two monitors and a laptop plugged into a docking station. At least you didn’t have to wait to be given your school sanctioned computer. You smile when you see that you were given a Mac as requested. You look at your one window and take a picture so you could find curtains for it. You open and close all of drawers just to make sure there was nothing left behind inside the desk. There were two seats on the other side of the desk for what you would assume would be for student meetings. You could get better ones. You also definitely had room for a small couch, a love seat perhaps.

“Well, look at that, I finally got a new neighbor.”

You jump slightly and turn around. There were a couple of reasons that you were slightly started. Whoever it was that was speaking to you had a deep, gravel-like voice, and they had a British accent. Not totally uncommon at a university, but still something you weren’t expecting. You were also started because no one else was downstairs with you. As you turn around, your cheeks flush when you take in the man with the toothy smile before you.

He was wearing a loose pair of jeans with a couple of rips in them, beaten up white sneakers with different color laces, and a light blue t-shirt. You barely have time to take in his tattoos, or the thick rim of his glasses before he speaks again.

“I’m so sorry, did I startle you?”

“Only slightly.” You give him a half smile. “I’m Y/N.” She extends her hand out to him and he takes it, shaking it gently.

“I’m Harry.”

“Ah! Dr. Styles, yeah. You were away when all of my interviews were happening.”

“Yes, I was away at a conference, but I heard great things. And please, just call me Harry. We’re not a very formal group.” He smirks.

“So, your office is the one next to mine?”

“That’s right.” He nods towards it, and you step out to look at his door.

Dr. Harry Styles, PhD was on his door along with a paper with his office hours printed on it.

“You’re lucky you got one with a window right away, I’m surprised no one wanted to snatch it up. The two across from us don’t have windows, but maybe some people don’t really care about that. I happen to enjoy looking out the window to see what’s happening when my eyes need a rest from the screen.”

You nod your head and peep inside his office. He had put his desk in the back corner of the room. So if students were to come see him, his back would be to them and they could easily see whatever he was doing on the computer, but you notice he also has a corner set up with a few chairs and around coffee table. Perhaps he’s able to discuss things easier this way. Many ideas pop into your head about how you might like to set things up.

“There’s a really great consignment shop downtown with quality furniture for cheap. That’s where I got those that table and chairs.”

“Thanks.” You squint at the three diplomas framed one the wall, and a couple of certifications as well. He had a small shelf with a couple of awards too. “What’s your PhD in?”

“At the base level, Media Studies, but my master’s was in Literary Dynamics. I’m a bit of a book worm as you can see.” He points to the bookshelf full of worn books and you smile. “Got my doctorate here, same as you’re doing, and they offered me a tenure position. Been here about six years total now, I love it.”

You think for a moment to try to put together how old he might be. There was a boyishness to his features, but he also had crinkles around his eyes and a few specs of grey in his hair. Then again, so did you. You greyed early, not that anyone would know since you get highlights in your hair.

“I turn thirty-two in February, if that’s what you were wondering.”

“Oh…I wasn’t, um, I-“

“It’s okay.” He chuckles. “Shall we head up to the faculty meeting? They sent me down here to get you.”

“Yeah, let’s get to it.” You quickly grab your laptop and follow him up the spiral staircase, trying not to look at his butt too much.

He leads you down a hall to a room used for meetings. A large table with people sitting around it casually, a few you recognize from your search committee.

“Y/N!” Lisa, the department chair, exclaims. “Glad Harry found you, come in.” Everyone turns their attention towards you and you smile. You sit down, and Harry goes to sit at the other end of the table. “Right, so let’s go round the table to introduce ourselves to Y/N. Let’s tell her what courses we all teach as well. I’m Lisa, obviously, I teach Game Design and Senior Seminar. I used to teach more, but so it goes when you’re the department chair.”

“Hi, Y/N, I’m Andre, I teach Communication Theory, Digital Media in the New Age, and Journalism.”

“I’m Mateo, good to see you again.” He smiles and you nod. “I teach Tech Comm, Intercultural Communication, and Strategic Communication.”

“I’m Sandra, I teach Global Perspectives in the Media, Film and Video Production Techniques, and basically any other film production courses.” She laughs.

“I’m Harry.” He gives you that same toothy smile. “I teach Communication, Media, and Wellness, Media Effects, Analyzing Screen Media, Literature into Film, and The Craft of Screenwriting.”

“I’m Janette, I teach Philosophy of Communication, Advanced Composition, and Interactive Web Communication.”

“Wonderful, thank you everyone. Don’t worry, Y/N, our admin Lucas will email you all of this info if he hasn’t already.”

“That’s alright, thank you.” She smiles.

“Why don’t you tell everyone what courses you’ll be teaching this fall and spring?”

“Well, this fall I’ll be teaching Communication and Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, and Social Media: Technology and Culture. Then in the spring I’ll teach the two intro courses, along with Professional Social Media, and Rhetoric and Semiotics.”

“We’re so happy to have you aboard.” Lisa smiles.

Lisa goes on to explain any policy or curriculum changes. Y/N notices how casual the group is, and also how diverse the group is. It was nice to see.

“Now, I know it’s your first day, and you just moved to the area…feel free to say no, but we’re all headed downtown to the pub for dinner if you’d like to join us.” Lisa says at the end of the meeting.

“That would be great! I haven’t gotten the chance to eat downtown much.”

“Oh, you’ll love the pub.” Sandra says. “Best nachos I’ve ever had.”

You smile and stand with everyone. You notice that everyone just simply walks downtown. You run to your car quickly to drop her bag off, and continues the walk. You all go in and grab a table for seven. You slide into the booth and Harry slides in next to you, followed by Janette and Sandra. Lisa, Mateo, and Andre all sit in the chairs across from you. You weren’t sure if you felt comfortable drinking in front of your colleagues just yet, but you order a vodka-tonic anyways just to be social.

“Sandra’s right, they do have the best nachos here.” Lisa says. “Should we just get a couple of orders of that? We could do one with chicken and one without.”

“I can just pick it off, don’t be silly.” Harry says.

“I, uh , don’t eat meat either, and I can also just pick it off.” You speak up.

“Oh, please.” Lisa scoffs. “We can get one with and one without, no problem.”

“You don’t eat meat?” Harry turns to you slightly.

“Um, no.” He was very close to you, and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. You just met him. You take a sip of your drink so your mouth doesn’t feel so dry. “My doctor told me to cut out red meat, and then I got sick of chicken and stuff, so I just cut it all out.” You shrug.

“Things were sort of the same with me, I just didn’t like how it made me feel after eating it. There’s other ways to get protein. I eat a lot of beans and nuts.”

“Right.” You were curious as to why he was being so open with you.

“Course, I feel like I’m starved half the time, don’t know if that happens to you, but I always keep granola bars in my office if you ever need one.”

“Oh! Um, thank you. Are we allowed to bring mini fridges? I’m really into overnight oats right now, so if I could just leave that stuff in there…”

“We are! It can’t be one of those huge ones though, it’s gotta be one of those ones that looks like a cube.” Harry makes a fake outlines of a box with his fingers. The waitress comes over and takes the orders for the nachos. “Excuse me, love, could I also get a separate order of chicken fingers and fries to go?”

The waitress nods and Harry smiles at her. You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Got someone at home who requested it.” He says before turning his attention to the other conversations at the table.

You wondered whom might me home waiting for him. A wife, a girlfriend…boyfriend? Harry wore a lot of rings, and his nails were painted, but a lot of men were doing that these days so you didn’t want to make any assumptions.

“So, Y/N, where’s home for you?” Andre asks.

“Oh, I’m from Boston originally.”

“Wow! And you moved up here to the mountains. Do you miss the hustle and bustle yet?”

“Not yet, I sort of don’t mind the quiet, although, when I first moved I had trouble falling asleep at night. It was almost too quiet.” You laugh. “But I’ve gotten more used to it. I’m in a great little apartment building, nice neighborhood. I think there are some grad students that I’m neighbors with.”

“Do you going hiking at all?” Mateo asks. “There are some great trails around here.”

“I haven’t gone yet, but I’d certainly be willing to give it a go.”

“We usually all go together before the semester starts.” Lisa says. It surprised you at how close everyone seemed. All different people of different ages. “There’s this really easy mountain about twenty minutes from campus with a beautiful view of the lakes region.”

“Well, I’ll certainly give it a go. Just let me know when.” You smile.

Sandra was absolutely right, the nachos were incredible. Lots of layers of chips and cheese, fresh veggies and guacamole, not to mention the sour cream and salsa. Everyone squares up their checks and heads out. Harry grabs his to go order from the bar. The sun was just barely setting, god, you loved August.

“I parked in the same lot as you, mind if I walk back up with you?” Harry asks after you all say goodnight.

“Not at all.” You smile.

“So, how was the first day? Is your brain ready to explode?”

“Only a little. I think if I take in anymore new information today I’ll pop.” Harry chuckles at that.

“I remember my faculty orientation.” He smirks and shakes his head. “I think I wore a suit, if you can believe it.”

“I’m sure you clean up really well.” You say playfully and he rolls his eyes.

“Well, you’re right about that, but it was super embarrassing at the time. No one told me how casual it was.”

“A little initiation ritual perhaps.”

“Maybe.” He looks at her. “I like your little, um, what do you call those.”

“Oh! My buns?”

“Yeah! Didn’t know if you’d still call them that, or poofs, or something.”

“Poof works.” You chuckle. “I wasn’t sure how humid it was going to be so I just did it up like that. They’re nice for keeping pens or pencils in.”

“Brilliant.” He smiles and reaches his car. “Well, I hope you enjoyed your first day. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. I know being new the area and campus can be overwhelming.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” You nod and get into your own car. You take a deep breath as you drive away. “I can do this.” You tell yourself. You enjoyed how friendly everyone was, you could definitely see yourself fitting in with everyone.

//

Harry gets home soon after he leaves campus, only living about fifteen minutes away. He owned a quaint ranch-style home.

“Andy, I’m home, bud!” He yells out. “Got your dinner.” He walks into the living room and sees his son playing video games. “Please don’t tell me you played all day…”

“Hey, dad.” He pauses the game and takes the to go box from Harry. “No, I didn’t play all day.” He rolls his eyes. “I went to the skate park at with Brandon, and then we swam in his pool, remember?”

“Right, I’ll have to say thanks to his parents.” Harry sits down on the couch and sighs.

“Tired?” Andy asks with his mouth full.

“Yeah, it was just a day full of meetings, then we all had dinner. Being social is draining.” He laughs. “How’s the chicken, good?”

“Mhm.”

“Let me get you some napkins…water?”

“Yes, please.”

Harry nods to his son. Harry usually got to be with his son all summer, but this year Andy asked to stay for the school year. It was a rather large discussion that Harry had to have with him and Andy’s mother, who Harry wasn’t on bad terms with, but he certainly didn’t live the one on one chat.

“I just feel like he didn’t get this idea on his own.” She whispered to him in the kitchen.

“I swear I didn’t put the idea in his head. He just asked me out of the blue if he could be enrolled at the middle school. He’s going into fifth grade, maybe he wants a fresh start. He has good friends here, Paige.”

“He has good friends at home too…” She sighs. “I just…so what, now I only get to see him on weekends? I’m his mother, Harry.”

��And I’m his father.”

“You get him for the entire summer.”

“You know it’s not enough time with him. I miss him a lot during the school year.” He drums his fingers on the kitchen counter. “Do you think…I mean…your boyfriend moved in with you, right? Do you think he feels uncomfortable with the change?”

“I don’t know, when Noah and I spoke with him about it he said he was fine with it. He was used to him sleeping over anyways. He’s knowing him for two years now, it’s not that weird.”

“I didn’t say it was weird, I’m talking about comfort. Maybe he just doesn’t want to share his space. It’s not just Noah that moved in, he has a daughter too…”

“Andy and Rachel get along really well. She’s only a year younger than he is.” She sighs again. “I don’t want him thinking he’s being replaced, Harry. What if he doesn’t want to come back into my life once he’s with you all the time?”

“I don’t think that could happen, I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

“And you’d be able to handle him all year long?”

“Sure, I’d have to change when I’m offering my classes so I’m home at a reasonable time, but I can make it work.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I could always send him home to you if I can’t be around anyways, like how you do with me.”

“Right.” She looks into the living room where Andy had his headphones in, and then back to Harry. “That’s my little baby in there. How can I let him go?”

“You’re not letting him go, you’re letting him grow up a bit. Why don’t we tell him we’ll see how this year goes, and then we can talk more seriously about custody and all that?”

“Alright, yeah, that seems fair.”

“You only live thirty minutes away, I could always drop him off for dinner sometimes, or-“

“Yeah.” She nods. “Well, um, let’s go talk with him then.”

That conversation happened after the July 4th holiday. Andy went home every other weekend to his mother’s, and Harry always talked with him about how his time with her was. Andy would always say that had a great time. He really did just like his friends better where Harry lived, and he was getting older. Maybe he just wanted to live with his dad.

“Alright.” Harry hands him the napkins and water. “Shall we watch a movie and then get you ready for bed?”

“I’m not a baby.” He scoffs.

“You are though, you’ll always be my baby.”

“Dad.” Andy groans. “Don’t be gross.”

“Can’t help it, you’re too stinkin’ cute.”

“Please stop before I barf up my chicken.”

Harry laughs and switches the TV to Netflix. Andy looked a lot like Harry in that he had curly hair and green eyes. He had his mother’s button nose and freckles. Andy liked dressing in basketball shorts and t-shirts, but he also like using a scrunchie or bandana to keep his hair off his face the way Harry did. It was cute.

“Am I going to mum’s this weekend?”

“You are, my darling.” Harry sips on a beer while lounging on the couch during the movie. “That alright?”

“Course.” He shrugs. “I actually have a new skate trick to show Rachel.”

“Do you to go boarding together?”

“Sometimes. She’s better on her skates, though.” He munches on some popcorn. “I kinda like going there on Friday nights because her and Noah go to temple on Saturday mornings, so mum and I get up late and make breakfast together.”

“Good, I’m glad you get that quality time together. I hope you’re paying attention to the culture that Rachel and Noah are bringing into your life, though. She’ll probably have a Bat Mitzvah someday and you’ll have this big party to go to.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever…I mean…it’s sort of weird that you like Noah…”

“Is it?” Harry sits up. “I’ve got no problem with him. He’s a nice guy, takes care of your mum.”

“That’s just it, I have friends with divorced parents and they-“

“Well, mum and I aren’t divorced, Andy, you know that. We never got married.”

“Even still…”

“We wanted to do right by you can be good co-parents. I’d be a real brat if I was rude to him.”

“How come you and mum never got married?”

Harry nearly chokes on his drink. He clears his throat and pauses the movie. Andy never really asked questions like this. He never even saw Harry and Paige as a couple, he never knew them together.

“Um…well…we were really young when you were born. I was twenty when we found out about you, and I was twenty-one when you born, I was just barely finishing school when you came along. Your mum was a year ahead of me, so luckily she got her degree before you were born.”

“Were you together then?”

“Yeah.” Harry nods. “Mum and I dated for about two years in undergrad, and then…well…we found out about you, and we were nervous, but excited.”

“But you didn’t want to get married?”

“I asked her, but she said no.”

“Why?”

“She thought I only wanted to marry her because she was pregnant.” He sighs. “Things like that sort of get complicated when you’re older. I also had a lot going on for school, and she didn’t want me to put my career on hold, she already had a full time job and all that. We tried to make things work, but we both realized a relationship shouldn’t be made to work because of…a baby. We both love you very much, Andy, make no mistake about that, but mum and I make better friends than a couple, I can assure you.”

“Oh.”

“Do you wish we were together sometimes?”

“Sometimes.” He nods. “But only because I hate going back and forth.”

“I’m sorry.” He sighs. “We live as close to each other as we can.”

“I know.” He furrows his brows. “I just don’t like when Noah acts like he’s my dad because he’s not, you are.”

“True, but you should still be respectful. Rachel lives there full time too, so-“

“I can’t stand that either, honestly.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know…ugh, she was on the phone with one of her friends and she referred to me as her brother. Not even step-brother, brother! I’m not her brother.” He huffs.

“Andy…come here.” His son gets up and sits next to him. Harry puts an arm around him and holds him close. “You’re going through a lot of change right now, huh?”

“I guess.” He looks up at Harry. “I think Noah’s gonna ask mum to marry her…which I guess is nice for her, but I’d rather just be with you.”

“You are with me.”

“Permanently, though. I’ve felt better just going over on the weekends, it’s plenty.”

“Mum and I said we’d see how this year at school goes, and then we could decide. I want you here, but I have to respect what she wants too.” He smiles down at him. “Poor you, having two parents who just love you so much.” He kisses his forehead.

“Blegh!” He wipes the spit from his forehead away. “What is wrong with you?” He gets up and goes back to his own seat.

“What? A father can’t love on his son anymore just because he’s in the double digits?”

“Exactly, press play.”

Harry laughs and shakes his head as he starts the movie back up.

//

Your semester was off to a great start. You got your office decorated nicely, and you were able to make it a cozy and homey space, which was good because you spent a lot of late nights there. Balancing teaching multiple sections of three different classes while also making time for research was proving to be a little difficult. Sometimes students were hanging out in the lounge while you were working, so you didn’t feel truly alone.

You were on an incredible team. You met bi-weekly with Lisa just for wellness check ins. She knew how overwhelming the first year could be, and she recommended chatting with Harry. He was the last one to go through all of it, so he would have the best tips. Harry was often out of the building by 3PM most days. He held virtual office hours from his home office. You weren’t entirely sure why he always needed to get home so early. Well, you weren’t sure until the answer slapped you in the face.

“And this is my new neighbor, Y/N.” You hear him say as he knocks on your door. “Got a second?”

“Um…sure.” You stand up and see a young boy with Harry.

“Y/N, this is my son, Andy. He had a half day from school today, so he’s hanging out until it’s time to go home.”

“Oh! Hi, Andy. It’s nice to meet you.” You had foolishly assumed the picture of Harry holding a baby on his desk was a nephew or something since he himself looked so young in the photo.

“Nice to meet you too.” He mumbles.

“What grade are you in?”

“Fifth.”

“Oh, so you just started middle school? How’s that going?”

“Okay, I guess.” He shrugs. “Dad, can I go get a snack at the grille?”

“Sure.” Harry fishes for his wallet and hands Andy a ten dollar bill. “Don’t pig out though, I want you to be hungry for dinner.”

“Okay.” He walks away from them and Harry shakes his head with a smile.

“He’s a human disposal right now.”

“I…didn’t know you had a son.” You say awkwardly.

“Yeah! Yikes, have I not mentioned him before now?” You shake your head no. “Guess that means we haven’t spent enough time together then.” You blush slightly and Harry clears his throat, then pushes his glasses up his nose. “He, um, just turned ten in May…sort of had him young.”

“I see.”

“This is his first time being with me during the school year. He wanted to give this school system a try, couldn’t say no to that.”

“Oh…um…so his mom…?” You didn’t want to pry too much. Harry wore a lot of rings so you weren’t sure if he was married or not.

“She lives about thirty minutes away, closer to the lakes. She’s a para at a law office, does well for herself. We were college sweethearts, but it didn’t work out.” He shrugs and you nod. “She’s got a serious boyfriend and he has a daughter a year younger than Andy. I think he felt like his personal space was closing in on him, so he asked to live with me. I usually just get him for the summer when I’m not teaching, it’s been great having him around more.”

“He has your eyes.” You wanted smack your forehead for making such a weird comment.

“He does! One of the first things I noticed about him when they stopped being that weird, dark color babies have when they’re first born.” You simply nod your head. “Well, I’ve taken up a lot of your time…um…let’s plan a lunch or something sometime soon. I’d love to know how your classes are going. I know it can’t be easy teaching the intro courses.”

“I’m doing well with it, actually. I taught a lot of the first-year courses at my previous institution. I’ve just been more bogged down with my research than anything else.”

“I’d like to hear more about that too, if that’s alright. Didn’t get to hear about like everyone else since I was gone during your interviews.”

“Sure, we could do lunch sometime then.” Harry smiles at that.

“Great. You know, we get together to do a monthly game night with the faculty from the English department. It’s in a couple of weeks, I hope you’ll come. A lot of their classes double count within our major, so it would be good for you to meet them.”

“Yeah, just let me know when it is. I enjoyed the hike a couple weeks ago.”

“I was pissed I missed that.” Harry groans. “I had to take Andy-“

“Dad.” Andy comes back, handing Harry his change. He was biting into a BLT.

“Thank you, let’s go into my office, yeah? You’ve got some homework that needs to get done.”

“Fine.” He goes into Harry’s office with a huff.

“Anyways, I’ll let you know when the game night is.”

“Okay, thanks.” You smile at each other and go back to sit down in your office.

He had a kid, a ten-year-old…holy shit. You couldn’t imagine going through your master’s and doctoral program while also raising a child. Good for him, you think.  Andy was a pretty cute kid, a mop of curls, just like his dad.

//

You gave yourself Saturdays off. Saturdays were for sleeping in, doing a quick pilates workout, grocery shopping, laundry and whatever other chores you may have. Saturdays were for curling up on the sofa with a cup of tea and good movie. Saturday nights were for you and Janette, who you have become pretty close with, to go have drinks.

“You need to find someone to bring home with you tonight.” Janette says, as you both begin your second drinks of the evening.

“Oh stop.” You laugh. “I don’t think I have the energy to pretend to be into someone enough to fuck them.” She rolls her eyes at you. “So…what’s this I hear about a game night with the English department?”

“Oh! It’s so much fun. Once a month someone different hosts it. Sometimes we play board games, sometimes it’s card games, one time we even played Heads Up, that was a hoot.” She giggles. “You should definitely come, Lisa’s hosting the next one. Her house is huge and has a beautiful view of the lakes and mountains.”

“I think I might, yeah.”

“Who told you about it? I think Lucas was planning to add you to the email about it.”

“Oh, Harry mentioned it the other day. He said it would be good for me to get to know the other faculty.”

“He’s certainly right about that.”

“I met his son…”

“Andy was in the office! Damn, I try to keep candy in my office for him. He’s so sweet. He was just a little guy when Harry started, can’t believe he’s in middle school.”

“Yeah, he was really polite. Sort of closed off at the same time.”

“Harry seems to think he’s become more self-aware. It’s a big deal for him to want to live with Harry year round.” She sips her drink. “Shouldn’t gossip too much about it though.”

“Right.” You sip your own drink.

“The students seem to like you so far, we’ve all heard good things from our advisees.”

“Really?! That means a lot.”

“Your teaching must speak for itself.”

“Students are always in the downstairs lounge, it’s nice to chat with them sometimes. They always seem to be visiting Harry. Andre and Sandra are down with us too, and they don’t have as many frequent flyers.”

“I know you’re new and all, but I didn’t think you were naïve.” She chuckles.

“What do you mean?”

“Harry perfectly fits the hot teacher trope, Y/N. He’s slightly mysterious with his tattoos and his nail polish, but still totally approachable. He’s dorky, but funny. He’s got a little muscle on him, but he’s not terribly intimidating, plus he’s fucking brilliant. You should sit in on his Literature and Film class.”

“One might think you have a crush on him from the way you speak about him.” You tease her.

“One would have to be straight, my dear.” She winks at you, and you laugh a little too loud. “However, I know an attractive man when I see one. Girls swoon over him all the time. It was really bad when he first started because he was a little closer in age with students, things have calmed down considerably though.”

“He dresses nicely too, I like his style.”

“It’s a little out there, but it works for him.”

“Sometimes I can smell the nail polish remover from my office.” You giggle. “He really hates when they’re chipped, huh?”

“God, you have no idea. Sometimes in the faculty meetings I’ll catch him chipping away at, next time I see him they’re freshly painted again.”

You take an uber home after having four drinks with your friend. You gossiped about some other people, Harry didn’t remain the topic of conversation for long. You get home and strip yourself of your clothes, and wash up before getting into your blanket burrito.

//

Sundays were for getting a head start on the week. Sometimes you worked from your office at home, but today you forgot something at your office at work, so you decide to just grab all your things and work from your office for the day. You were making some progress on your research and you wanted to keep riding the wave you were on.

You had a tie-dye t-shirt on under your coat that had a picture of Goofy on it, and a pair of jeans on. You didn’t need to be super dressed up for some weekend work. No one was usually in the building anyways. You get some up and put some music on while you do some reading and highlighting.

“Hey! Look who it is.”

“Jesus!” You flinch and look up. “Scared the shit out of me, Harry.”

“Sorry about that.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You’re a tad jumpy.”

“Hard not to be when you’re always coming out of nowhere.” You turn your music down and stand up to walk over to him, crossing your arms over your stupid shirt. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, Andy’s with his mum this weekend, and I needed a change of scenery from the home office, so I thought I’d come here.”

“Oh.”

He looks you up and down and smiles.

“Is Goofy your favorite?”

“Huh?”

“Your shirt.” He points to it. “Personally, I’m partial to Mickey Mouse, but Goofy’s fun.”

“This is a really old shirt, I did laundry yesterday so this is what I was left with.”

“Ah…and I suppose you weren’t expecting to bump into your colleague.”

“Correct.”

“Well, I think it’s proper cute, so no worries, I won’t make fun.” He winks and goes into his own office.

You feel your cheek and it’s considerably warmer than it was from before he got there. You shake your head and return to your seat, opting to put your headphones in to not disturb him. Just as you’re getting going in the zone again, he comes into your office and plops down on one of the reupholstered chairs you had on the other side of your desk.

“Yes?” You ask, taking your headphones out.

“I want you to come observe my wellness class this week.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you could use some time to distress. You don’t teach any 8AM’s, right?”

“No…um…what makes you think I need to distress?”

“You just look like you’re carrying a lot of tension. It’s a great class. We chat, we meditate. Sometimes students fall asleep, but I’ve told them it’s okay. If their bodies are telling them they need sleep, then they should sleep. We do a bit of yoga as well. Plus, I just think it would be good for you to observe me.”

“I was told your literature class would be fun to observe, couldn’t I do that instead?”

“And let you get out of a bit of meditation?” He scoffs. “I don’t think so, sister.” You laugh at that.

“Alright, which day should I come?”

“It’s my Tuesday/Thursday course. You can pick which morning you’d prefer.”

“Anything else?”

“Tell me about your research.”

“Are you just using me to procrastinate?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Hey, what happens between me and the stack of papers I need to grade is none of your business.” You laugh at him again. Harry was funny, no doubt about that. “Come on, just a few minutes, tell me what you’re working on.”

“I am researching anonymity online, the pros and cons, how social media is mixed into it, stuff like that. People carry themselves different on the various social media platforms, trying to show specific versions of themselves, but when you’re able to remain anonymous, you somehow are truly able to be yourself without fear of judgement.”

“So, what are the cons then?”

“Oh, there are tons. There’s the fear of someone finding this anonymous version of yourself and being exposed. Then there are the people that forget there’s someone else behind the screen and send nasty messages to other anonymously.”

“That’s my biggest fear with Andy. He’s been begging me for a smart phone, but I just don’t feel comfortable with that yet.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I told him when he was thirteen we could talk about it.”

“It’s funny, I didn’t get my first phone until I was fifteen, and it was one of those ones that slid open and had a keyboard. Literally had to use the family desktop if I wanted to go on Facebook.”

“Do people even use Facebook anymore? Feel like it’s just forty-year-old wine moms and Home Depot dads.” Harry snorts.

“No one uses it anymore because it’s not fun. It may as well be LinkedIn.” You scoff.

“Well, I’ll certainly be looking forward to reading what you whip up when the time comes.” He smiles.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you get back to it…um, feel like grabbing a bite later?”

“If you don’t disturb me for the next two hours I’ll consider getting lunch with you.”

“Oh, I love a challenge.” He grins and stands up, leaving your office.

You smile and shake your head. Perhaps your neighbor was becoming a pretty good friend.

//

“You’re coming to Lisa’s tonight, right?” Harry asks you as he slings his bag over his shoulder on Friday afternoon.

“I believe so, six, right?”

“Yup! Do you need directions?”

“I have this thing called a smart phone, and get this…it has an app where if I put in an address, it shows me the route!”

“I really hate it when you’re sarcastic with me.” He rolls his eyes. “Get it enough from my son, you know?”

“Will he be joining the fun as well?”

“Nope, he’s with his mum this weekend. I gotta go get him from school and get him all packed up for her.”

“Does she always pick him up?”

“She picks him up on Fridays, and I pick him up on Sundays.” He shrugs. “It just works for us.”

“Makes sense.”

“Right, well, I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.” You smile and wave him off.

After knuckling at your eyes, you head home around 4PM. You wanted to shower and freshen up before heading to Lisa’s. It was a beautiful, chilly Fall evening, so you opt for a light sweater and black jeans, and a pair of boots. You run your fingers through your hair, reapply some makeup, and grab the bottle of white you had chilling in your fridge. You plug the address into your phone, and get going.

It was about a twenty-five minute drive. Lisa lived in a neighborhood with a lot of beautiful homes. Her driveway was long and winding, and on top of a hill.

“This must be a bitch in the winter.” You say to yourself. Maybe that was why she was hosting the September game night. There were a couple of other cars there, so you didn’t feel totally awkward. You walk up to the door and ring the bell.

“Y/N!” Lisa exclaims and hugs you. “Come on in, so glad you could make it.”

“Thank you for having me. I brought some wine.” You hand the bottle to her as you step inside.

“Oh, thank you, dear.”

“Shoes on or off?”

“On is perfectly fine, it’s all hardwood.” Lisa leads you inside. “I’ll get this open.”

You wait for her to pour you a glass, and then she leads you into the living room. Sandra and Mateo were already there. You wave hello and grab a seat.

“Y/N, this is Dan, the English department chair, Alice, Joe, and Fred.”

“Hi, it’s nice to formally meet you all.” You stand up and shake a few hands.

Everyone mingles and eats the snacks Lisa puts out. Her husband was quite the co-host. Janette shows up next, and you end up sitting with her. Harry’s the last to arrive. Lisa gets him a glass of red right away. He looked handsome. A tan cardigan over a white t-shirt and a pair of light wash jeans.

“Sorry I’m late everyone, Paige was over an hour late picking Andy up. There was an accident on the highway and she got stuck behind it, it was a whole thing.”

Paige, it was the first time Y/N heard Harry actually say the name of Andy’s mother.

“No worries, H.” Andre says. “Relax, we haven’t even decided on the game yet.”

“Thank god.” Harry plops down next to you on the couch. “Janette, did Y/N tell you she observed my wellness class yesterday?”

“She did, she told me she fell asleep the second you turned the lights off.” She snickers.

“Please, keep talking about me like I’m not even here.” You roll your eyes. Harry and Janette both lean over you so they can pretend to speak closer. “Okay, okay.” You push them both away. “That’s enough, thank you.”

“Alright, everyone, I was thinking we could play charades, yeah?” Lisa announces. “It’ll keep us limber.”

“English vs. CM?” Dan asks.

“You know it.” Lisa grins.

You were pretty good at charades so you weren’t worried. The couple of glasses of wine certainly helped boost your confidence. It was fun to let a little loose with your colleagues. It was some much needed bonding. Harry was quite competitive, which surprised you because he was usually so chill about everything. It was down to the final points, Harry needed to guess the name of your film correctly.

You put up two fingers.

“Second word.” You nod and he licks his lips in concentration You pretend to open a book and write it in it. “Uhhh, book…” He furrows his brows. You look up like as if you’re reading something, and then you pretend to write the book some more. “Notes…notebook, oh! The Notebook!” You tap your finger on your nose and your team cheers. “Ha!” Harry stands up and hugs you. He lets you go and looks back at everyone. “That was exhilarating. Better luck next time.” He says to the English team.

“Wasn’t exactly a difficult film to guess.” Alice says playfully.

“I had zero control over the slip of paper I chose out of that hat.” You grin.

You all help clean up before heading out. You slip your coat on and head outside after saying your goodbyes.

“Y/N?” You hear Harry from behind you. “You’re good to drive, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Wouldn’t get behind the wheel if I wasn’t.”

“Alright.” He smiles. “Just wanted to be sure.” He walks with you outside.

“It would be pretty bad if I got so fucked up I couldn’t drive home from our department chair’s house.”

“Lisa would actually get a pretty good kick out of it.” He smirks. You get to your car and press the button to unlock it. “Well…I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

“Same to you, any big plans while Andy’s gone?”

“Not really, I try to save the fun stuff for while he’s with me.”

“Aw, no hot dates.” You wink at him. Okay, maybe some of the wine was still in your system. He blinks at you for a moment and then he bursts out laughing.

“Right, the ladies are really fighting to knock my door down.” He wipes a tear from under his eye. “Can’t remember the last time I went on a proper date to be honest with you. Not exactly a turn on when you bring someone home and they see kid’s toys hanging around.”

“Oh come on, you’ve totally got the hot single dad thing working for you.” You nudge his shoulder. “Janette I usually go out on Saturday nights for drinks, you should come out tomorrow.”

“Um…which, uh, which bar do you go to?”

“Firefly, little more adult. We don’t really see the college kids there.”

“Sure, yeah, I know that place well. Um, what time?”

“Nine?”

“I’ll be there.” He smiles.

“Great! Goodnight, Harry.”

“Night, Y/N.”

He watches as you get into your car and drive away. It wasn’t until you woke up the next morning that you realize that you essentially asked him out, and that you sort of flirted with him. You text Janette immediately and let her know he may show up.

Jan: Yay! Harry’s so much fun to go drinking with, this’ll be great!

Will it? You think to yourself. It was one thing to have a couple of glasses of wine with colleagues, but you usually got pretty drunk with Janette, always taking an uber to and from the bar. You were a nervous wreck all day, and you weren’t sure why. You were hoping all of your Saturday chores would distract you, but they weren’t.

As you get ready, you decide on a blue dress that showed a tasteful amount of cleavage, pairing it with patterned nylons, and boots. Your hair is down and wavy, and your makeup looks cute, for now. You put on your leather jacket and head out. Well, not before doing a quick shot at home. Your leg bounces the entire time in the uber. Janette is already there at your usual table. She waves you over and you sit down.

“I texted Harry earlier.” She says to you. “Just so he really knew he was invited.”

“I don’t have his number, otherwise I would have. Sorry, I feel like I should have asked first. This is sort of like our girl’s night.”

“Are you kidding?! Like I said earlier, Harry is super fun to drink with.”

After you both guzzle down your first drink, Harry arrives. He’s got a black button up on with the first few buttons undone, exposing the birds on his collar bones. He smiles when he sees the both of you.

“H!” Janette says, getting up to hug him and give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, love.” He gives her a squeeze and a returned kiss. He looks at you and you give him a shy smile before giving him a side hug. “Thanks again for the invite, haven’t been to this place in a while.” He slides into the stool.

“Oh, of course!” Janette says. “I was excited when Y/N said you were coming.”

“Apparently I need to do more fun things when Andy’s with his mum.” He nudges you.

“What do you usually do when he’s gone?” You ask him.

“I usually clean up the house, stalk up on food, wash his sheets…dad stuff.” He shrugs with a laugh. The waitress comes over and smiles.

“Can I get you started with anything?”

“Rum and coke would be great, and I’ll start a tab.” He hands her his credit card and she nods.

“Nother round for you two?”

“Please!” Janette says.

“Yes.” You say with a smile.

The waitress nods and smiles. She walks away and looks back at Harry, blushing.

“Oh boy.” Janette grins. “I think you may get lucky tonight, H.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Our waitress did a double take.”

“She’s probably, like, ten years younger than I am or something. Not my style.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugs.

“What about you? Any ladies you’re trying to take home?”

“Well, if I weren’t in a long distance relationship, sure.”

“You and Sadie are still together?” He asks almost in shock.

“Of course we are! You would have known if we broke up.”

“Doesn’t it get difficult?” He frowns.

“I really don’t mind. When we’re able to be together it’s nice, but I like having my own space.” Janette turns to you. “Sadie is a photographer, traveling for National Geographic.”

“That’s incredible!”

The waitress brings all of the dinks over and you clink your glasses.

“Alright, what’s the gossip, ladies? Who are we shitting on?”

“Hmm.” Jaette taps her chin. “Perhaps Dan? He’s obviously still in love with Lisa.”

“Still?” Your jaw drops.

“Back in the day,” Harry starts, “he and Lisa were quite the item. She met Arnold at a conference. He’s a chef.”

“Ah, that’s why the food is so good.”

“Mhm, he’s retired now, but at the time she had to make this big choice between the two of them, and she chose Arnold. Built an entire life with him. Dogs, kids, big house, you name it.” Harry explains.

“And Dan’s been married and divorced twice. Lisa’s the one that got away.” Janette sighs. “Course, Lisa’s incredibly oblivious, or she pretends to be. You’d think they were simply best friends.”

“I wonder what made her choose Arnold over Dan.” You say.

“Good dick.” Janette says. “Simple as that.”

“Oh, come on.” You roll your eyes.

“You come on! Are you going to tell me you’d give up good dick?”

“So you’re telling me she was seeing both of them at the same time, and she chose Arnold because he hit it better?”

“That’s what I’m inferring, yes.” She sips her drink. “Getting to come every time you fuck is worth it, don’t you think?”

Harry nearly chokes on his drink from laughing.

“I forgot how nasty you can be, I love it.” He says and looks at you. “So, Y/N, what’s your answer? Is an orgasm reason enough to choose one guy over another?”

“Well, considering that I dated some real fuck when I was in college just so I could get some good dick, I’d have to say yes.” You say, enjoying the look on both of their faces. “I mean, it’s hard to remember how much you can’t stand someone when they’re railing you to completion.”

“Very true.” Janette agrees. “Also, Arnold is a really sweet man, sort of the whole package for her. I don’t think Lisa liked be challenged, and Dan, I heard, would challenge her on everything.”

“I’m usually up for a debate, but I get that. I don’t need to be in control of everything, but agreeable people are better.” You say.

“I wouldn’t say it’s because he’s agreeable.” Harry says, finishing his drink, and gesturing towards the waitress for another. “Arnold is smitten, not just in love, big difference.”

“How so?” You ask.

“When you’re…oh, thank you.” He smiles at the waitress brings him a new drink. “When you’re smitten, you walk around with rose colored glasses, to some that can be a bad thing, but I think when you’re that in love, you should really adore the person you’re with too. Arnold adores Lisa, Dan doesn’t. You can tell by the way they both look at her.”

It was nice discussing things like this with people who also observed people the way you did. It makes you wonder, though, what they may have picked up on about you.

After a few more drinks, you knew you needed to stop when your vision began to get hazy. Harry only had his two drinks since he drove himself. He drank some water as the night went on.

“H, Y/N lives not too far from you, help her save a couple bucks and drive her home, would you?”

“Jan…” You scold her.

“She’s right, I could give you a lift, if you want?”

“Um…well…sure.”

You both say goodnight to Janette, and Harry helps you into his car. He keeps the music low as he pulls out of the bar.

“So, where am I taking you?”

“To The Ledges, do you know where that is?”

“Sure do.” He chuckles. “Lived there myself when I first moved to the area.”

“Really?! It’s a great size place. I love it.”

“Got any pets or anything?”

“Nope, just me, myself, and I.” You grin.

“And you prefer it that way?”

“Well, after living at home my whole life, and then having various roommates over the years, I’d say that I’m quite enjoying living alone.”

“Good for you. I’m glad you’re liking it here so much. The person you replaced was such a twat.” You burst into laughter. “I’m serious! He never came to any of the outings. It was like he didn’t even care that we were trying to get him to engage. The second he got his PhD he left. Good riddance.” Harry scoffs.

“I really like it. It’s a lot different than being at a college in the city. I wasn’t sure how I’d do working in a college town, but I’m really enjoying it. I feel safe, you know? I didn’t always feel safe in the city.”

“I’m sorry, that had to have been difficult.”

“On the late nights it was. I usually had UPD walk me to my car. I don’t really have to do that here. I feel like I gained a lot of independence back.”

Harry pulls up to the apartment building, and parks. He turns the ignition off and you raise your eyebrows at him.

“What are you doing?”

“I was going to walk you to the door…”

“Oh…you don’t have to.”

“I insist.”

“Really, it’s okay. Um, thank you for the ride, it was really nice of you.”

“Thanks for the invite, I had fun.” He smiles.

“Me too.” You smile back and get out of the car.

You hear the car turn back on, and you know he waits to drive off until you’re inside.

//

“Paige, I get him for Christmas, why are you trying to change things?”

“You usually get him for Christmas because you don’t usually get him for the school year.” She crosses her arms as she stands outside in the frigid early December air.

“But you just got him for Thanksgiving.”

“You don’t celebrate Thanksgiving!”

“I observe!” He takes a deep breath. “His plane ticket is already paid for, he’s coming with me to London like always, and he will be back to you for New Year’s, like always.” He steps closer to her. “He looks forward to seeing my mum and Gem every winter, please don’t take that away from him.”

“It’s just…we’re hosting a Hanukkah party, and Noah really wanted him to be a part of it…”

“Shit.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “There’s Jewish holidays all the time, couldn’t Andy be a part of the next celebration?”

“Dad! Come on, the Pats game is starting!”

“One second, just saying bye to mum!” He yells to Andy, and looks back at Paige, eyes pleading.

“Alright…he can still go with you.”

“Thank you.” Harry breathes. “His cousins would miss him terribly.”

“I know, I’d feel terrible doing that to him. I’m just trying to balance all of this. I wanna be a good partner to Noah, and somewhat of a mother figure to Rachel, but I don’t want Andy to feel like I’m favoring them over him. He comes first, he always will.”

“I’m sure he knows that.” He puts his hand on her shoulder. “Have a latke for me, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and gives his hand a squeeze before getting back into her car.

Harry heads inside and sits on the couch while Andy sits in his usual spot on the love seat, entranced by the football game.

“What was that all about? I heard shouting.”

“Could barely hear each other over the wind outside. Nothing to worry about. We were just confirming plans for your holiday break.”

“I’m still going to London, right?”

“Of course! No question about it.”

Andy smiles at Harry before returning his attention to the TV. Harry was usually very honest with Andy, but he didn’t need to worry him with any of the drama.

//

“You survived your first semester, congrats!” Janette says, popping a bottle of champagne as she walks into your office.

“Not over yet, I have finals to grade.”

“Whatever, the kids are gone, that’s something to celebrate.” She nods towards the plastic cups you keep in your office, and you grab two. “Any plans for the holidays? Going home at all?”

“Oh sure. Doing the Hanukkah thing with my folks, and then doing New Year’s in Boston with some friends.”

“Fun!”

“Wait.” Harry says, overhearing, grabbing the bottle for a swig. “You’re Jewish?”

“Yes?” You raise an eyebrow at him and take a sip from your cup.

“Brilliant. Paige’s boyfriend is Jewish, and I think it’s confusing for Andy. He doesn’t much like asking th guy questions, maybe he could talk to you sometime.”

“Sure.” You shrug. “Any plans for the holidays?”

“Yeah, Andy comes home to London for Christmas, and then I send him back for New Year’s with his mum.”

“You send him on the plane alone?”

“I haven’t always, but they let me walk him right to the gate, and he flies first class, so it’s very safe. They let his mum wait at the other gate too. I like to stay home for a few weeks if I can. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a mama’s boy.” He takes another swig of the bottle. “I am not looking forward to grading these papers. I really should just have each class do a presentation, can grade those right on the spot.”

“Tell me about it.” Janette groans. “My Advanced Comp class is going to be the death of me.”

“Well, clearly this champagne is going to keep us all awake enough to get through it.”

The three of you stand there laughing. You were looking forward to the long winter break. It would give you plenty of time to work on your research, and you wouldn’t be disturbed by any students popping in and out of your office, as much as you enjoyed the chats.

//

It was the beginning of January, there you were, working away in your office. You had a long flowy dress on, for some reason, and your door bursts open.

“Y/N! I’ve traveled across the pond for you!”

“Harry! You’re back.”

“That’s right, darling, I’m back.” He pushes everything off your desk, walks around to your and pulls you close to him. He crashes his mouth to yours.

“Oh, Harry.” You moan.

“Oh, Y/N.” He moans back before laying you on your desk. “I’m going to make you feel so good.” He rips your dress of and kneels in front of you, diving his head between your legs.

You wake up in a cold sweat, panting. Your eyes snap open and you grimace. Your legs feel sweaty, so you kick your blankets off.

“What the fuck?” You say to yourself as you sit up. Harry was attractive, but you never once fantasized about him. You reach between your legs and gasp. “Did I just fucking have a wet dream?!” You lick at your sticky fingers and shake your head in disbelief. “Shower, go shower Y/N.” You were talking to yourself, yes, but it was needed to help you calm down.

You were incredibly embarrassed. Harry was your friend, not someone you wanted to fuck, and certainly not on your desk in your office at work. Most people would be turned off, but doing it in a professional place was a big turn off for you. The idea of getting caught was also not a turn on for you. If you were ever caught you could be fired, and it just wasn’t worth it. Neither was dating a colleague. It wasn’t against the rules or anything, nor was it frowned upon, but dating in the workplace could lead to a lot of problems. You had a PhD on the line. Maybe it was time to just suck it up and go for a one night stand.

//

You had forgotten all about your dream by the time the January faculty meeting hit. That is, until Harry was the last to walk in. Your face flushes immediately. His hair was a little longer, and he had a bit of scruff that he normally wouldn’t have. He smiles and says hello to a couple of people, and then sits down right next to you.

“Hi.” He whispers with a smile.

“Hello.” You swallow and don’t look at him.

“How was your-“

“Can we get started?” Lisa addresses the group. “Much to go over, we need to start talking about the fall schedule.”

You were grateful for the distraction of the discussion, but you felt Harry’s eyes burn into you every few moments. He had to have known you were acting weird, you wouldn’t fucking look at him. Even if you thought to try, you just couldn’t. Two hours later, and the meeting finally ends. You gather your things quickly and head out, and down to your office. Just as you’re able to take a deep breath, you look up and see Harry standing in your doorway, hands in his pockets, squinting at you.

“Are we good?” He asks.

“Um.” You focus on the space behind him. “Yes, why wouldn’t we be?”

“Because you refuse to look at me. Even now, you’re not really looking at me.” He shifts his weight so he’s stand up normally. “Are you mad because I didn’t reach out over break?”

“What? No! I could care less about that, it wasn’t like I reached out to you.”

“So…what is it then? You make eye contact all the time, it’s not like you to not.”

“I…” You suck both of your lips into your mouth. “It’s nothing, it’s stupid, I’m being stupid.”

“If it’s stupid then just tell me.” He comes in and sits down on your loveseat.

“Harry, please.” You shake your head and sit down in your desk chair.

“Come on, Y/N. Clearly something’s bothering you.”

“Ugh.” You groan and get up to close your door. You sit on the edge of your desk. “I…had a rather odd dream a week or so ago…”

“Okay?”

“And you were in it.” You whisper.

“What was I doing in your dream?” He whispers back.

“That’s just it, I don’t know.” You rest your chin in your palm as you cross your arms over your chest.

“Well I must have done something to make you not even look at me. Did I hurt you, do something scary?”

“No…I suppose I wouldn’t call it scary, but I was certainly disturbed when I woke up.”

“What then?” A smirk grows on his face. “Don’t tell me you had a sex dream or something.” When your face stays the way it is his smile fades. “You had a sex dream about me?” You nod yes. “Where were we?”

“Here.”

“In your office?!”

“Shh!” You swat your hands in his direction. “Do you want the building to hear?”

“You had a dream that we fucked in your office?”

“Well, it wasn’t fucking per say…you sort of…I don’t know…it doesn’t matter.”

“No tell me, let’s talk this through.”

“You wiped everything off my desk, ripped my clothes off, sat me on top, and then…” You wince slightly. “You sort of…got your head between my legs, and then I woke up.” You say the rest of it quickly. “And I was utterly concerned when I woke up because I swear I don’t see you that way, Harry. You’re my friend, just my friend. I forgot all about it, and then I saw you and got all embarrassed again.”

He stands up from his seat and gives you a shy smile.

“It was just a dream, you don’t need to be embarrassed. We’re adults, yeah? Let’s act like it.”

“I just don’t want you thinking I’m some…sex maniac or something.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay…I’m sorry if I worried you during the meeting. It really is good to see you, I’m glad you’re back. We could have lunch soon, I’d love to hear about London.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He smiles, but you can tell it’s fake.

He heads out and goes into his own office, closing the door behind him. For whatever reason, your words hurt him. Just my friend rang through his mind. It wasn’t as though it were a lie, you were just friends, but you made it clear you didn’t want him to be the one between your legs in a dream. At first he was flattered, but now…well, now he just felt sad. Was he not good enough to be the one to get you off? Even if in a dream? He hears a knock on the door.

“Yes?”

You open it slowly.

“I hurt your feelings…”

“A little.” He admits. “Not sure why, though.”

“I just didn’t want you to think I was objectifying you.”

“It was a dream, Y/N, you have zero control over it.”

“But I must have been thinking of you subconsciously, right? Isn’t that how that works?”

“Okay, so maybe you were thinking of me and maybe that got mixed in with…whatever else.”

“I just don’t want you thinking I want to fuck you, that’s all.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He mumbles.

“You want me to want to fuck you?!”

“Now who’d being loud?!”

“Sorry…”

“It’s just, well, how would you feel if I told you I didn’t want to fuck you, you probably wouldn’t feel too great about yourself.”

“It’s not that you’re not attractive, Harry-“

“This is making it worse.” He runs his hands over his face and looks at you. “It was just a dream, nothing to worry about, okay?”

“Things won’t be weird between us?”

“No.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did in that meeting, then we wouldn’t have needed to talk about it.”

“Did you tell Janette?”

“I resent that, just because I’m close with her doesn’t mean she knows every bit of my business.”

“I just didn’t know if I should be expecting some teasing from her.”

“No, none, and you better not tease me either.”

“I won’t.” He smiles. “London was good by the way…”

“Good, I’m glad.” You smile at him. “Talk later?”

“Yeah.”

//

“Not that I’m not happy to be out with the two of you, but why are the three of us out to dinner?” Andy asks.

“Mum and I thought it would be nice to see what you wanted to do for your February vacation. Usually you come see me and we go skiing, but mum knows how to ski too-“

“You’re canceling our trip?!”

“No! We were just thinking mum could take you this year.”

“But it’s your cabin.”

“And I don’t mind sharing.”

“Andy…I thought it would be nice for the four of us to go together. Noah knows how to snowboard, and Rachel wants to take a skiing lesson.”

“Great, so now this going to be a huge family trip? I don’t wanna do that, Mum.” Andy groans.

“Andy.” Harry sighs. “I think Mum and I have been very accommodating to you this year. Could you please just try to help us out a little? Do you know how many kids would kill to have their parents take them on a ski trip for their breaks?”

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful, I’m sorry.” He looks down at his plate and then back up to Harry. “Can’t you still come? The house is big enough.”

“It’s not a bad idea, Har.” Paige says to him and his eyes widen.

“Would Noah and Rachel feel comfortable with that? I wouldn’t want to overstep…”

“I’ll talk to them, I can’t see either of them feeling weird about it. She refers to you as Uncle Harry as it is, and it’s your cabin, I don’t think Noah would care.”

“Would you be alright with it?”

“Sure.” She shrugs. “There’s that spare room on the other end of the house, so you could have your own space and the kids could stay in the bunk room.”

“Wait, so this is happening?” Andy perks up. “You’d really come, Dad?”

“Yeah, if it’s not weird for anyone, I’m in.”

Andy gets up from the table and moves to hug both Harry and Paige, both of them looking at each other surprised. They give each other mental high fives for being able to figure things out.

“I’m really excited now.” Andy says as he sits back down.

“Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way…” Paige grins and looks back at one of the waitresses, giving her a nod. Happy birthday starts being sung throughout the restaurant.

“Oh my god.” Harry closes his eyes and groans. “This dinner wasn’t about me…”

“Nonsense.” She chuckles. “How often do we all get to celebrate together?”

A small cake with candles is brought over in front of Harry. The singing continues and he feels thoroughly embarrassed.

“Wanna help me blow ‘em out?” He asks Andy.

“Yeah!” He leans over and blows out the candles and the restaurant claps.

Harry looks at Paige and shakes his head. She laughs and thanks the waitresses.

“Andy, go get in Dad’s lap, I’ll take your picture together. I’ve got your gift for him in the car too, I’ll go get it.” Andy crawls into Harry’s lap, and Paige uses Harry’s phone to snap the photo. She beams when she looks at it. “You should get this one printed, it’s adorable.” She gets up and leaves to go get the gifts.

“Did you know about all this?” He says to Andy giving him a squeeze before letting him go.

“She just told me we were meeting you for dinner instead of going straight to your place.” He shrugs.

Paige returns shortly with a few cards and bags.

“Alright, this is from Rachel and Noah.”

“They didn’t have to get me anything…”

“They insisted!”

Harry takes the card out and smiles. Rachel had clearly drawn him a picture, it was cute. His smile grows wider when he takes a nail kit out of the small bag.

“I was due for one of these, I’ll have to text Noah a thank you.” Harry opens the next bag and sees a card from Andy that he also drew. In the bag was a new set of pocket squares for his suits, that he desperately needed, some bandanas, scrunchies, and a gift card to his favorite clothing store. “Went all out son, thank you.”

“Thought your…what was the word you used, Mum?”

“Wardrobe.” She chuckles.

“Yeah! Thought your wardrobe could use an update.”

“Should I be offended?” He says, raising an eyebrow.

“I think you should be happy your son has your keen eye for fashion.” She slides another card over. “That one’s from me.”

“You’ve done enough.” He says before leaning over to kiss the top of Andy’s head.

“Just open it.”

Harry rolls his eyes and opens the card. He starts laughing. There was some joke about being close co-parents, and a gift card to one of his favorite restaurants.

“Thank you.”

“More than welcome.”

Andy hugs Paige goodbye in the parking lot before hopping in the backseat of Harry’s car.

“Were you surprised, Dad?”

“Very! Thank you again for the gifts, it was very thoughtful of you.”

“I’m more excited about going skiing now.”

“Sorry if we scared you. I just wanna make sure Mum gets to see you.”

“I know.” He sighs. “Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“How come Mum has Noah, but you don’t have anyone?”

“I have you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I just…I don’t know, I don’t have much time for dating.”

“What do you do on the weekends when I’m not with you?”

“Sometimes I see friends, or I catch up on some grading, I clean up too. You’re gonna start doing more chores, that would be the ultimate birthday gift.”

“It’s okay if you wanna date, you know…”

“I don’t exactly need your permission.” He chuckles.

“I know…but I want you to know I’m okay with it.”

“Well, I appreciate that, thanks.”

//

When Harry walks into his office Monday morning he’s surprised to see a vase full of flowers. There’s a small card with it:

Happy Birthday, H!

-        Y/N

Harry smiles to himself and smells the flowers, he couldn’t believe you remembered. He only mentioned it once when his birthday was. Thirty-two was off to a great start. He hangs his jacket up and gets his computer set up. His first class wasn’t until 9AM, so he had some time to prep and wake up a bit more before heading to the lecture hall. He sees you walk by on your way to your office.

“Oh! You’re here!” You had two coffees in your hands. “My gift wasn’t complete yet.” You walk in and hand him his coffee. “Black coffee.” You smile.

“Thank you, the flowers are lovely.”

“Not that I thought you needed more plants in here.” You joke. Harry had a fuck ton of plants in his office windowsill.

“Well excuse me for enjoying nature.” He scoffs, and takes a sip of his coffee. You sit down on the couch in his office.

“Did you have a good weekend?”

“I did, Paige and I took Andy out to dinner to talk about his February break, and it turned into a little surprise birthday thing, it was nice. Can’t remember the last time we did something like that as a family. I mean, we have shared birthday parties for him and stuff, but I think he enjoys when it’s just the three of us.”

“If you don’t mind me asking…did he ever know the two of you as a couple?”

“No.” Harry sighs. “I think he was almost two when she and I called it quits. Now look at us, we’re all going on a ski trip together, including her boyfriend and his daughter.”

“That won’t be weird?”

“Not really, I’ve known Noah a while.”

“How long have they been together?”

“Well, they’ve been a couple for almost three years, but they were friends beforehand. He’s one of the lawyers at the office she works at. He came on, like, a year after she and I split, they were friends for a while, and I think once he knew she and I weren’t getting back together he made his move.” Harry shrugs. “No skin off my nose, I just wanted her to be happy. His daughter Rachel is as cute as a button too.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “Poor thing, her mum died in a car accident when she was really little. Paige is a great mum, so it was a good fit for everyone I think. The only thing I don’t love is that Noah is, like, almost forty.”

“How old is Paige?”

“Almost thirty-four, so it’s not super weird, but…I think that’s another reason why he waited to ask her out, you know?”

“I’m surprised he doesn’t have his own cabin to take her too.”

“Nope, just a massive house on the lake.” Harry chuckles and looks at his flowers again. “Thank you again for these, it was a nice surprise.”

“Oh, don’t mention it.” She sips her own coffee and gets up to go to her own office.

“How’d you know I’d like these?”

“Everyone likes getting flowers, Harry.” She smiles and leaves.

//

Harry had cancelled his classes during the week of Andy’s February break like he always did. He had forum posts for them to work in in his absence. Going to the cabin wasn’t ask awkward as he thought, and it was good bonding for Rachel and Andy. Harry, Noah, and Paige could hear the two of them giggling as they watched movies at night, it was sweet. Harry mostly stuck with skiing with Andy during the day, and he and Paige took him for a run or two as well. As Andy got older co-parenting got easier, for whatever reason. Any lingering feelings between Harry and Paige had simply fizzled into a normal friendship. There was no malice between them which was good for Andy to see.

“Uncle Harry?” Rachel asks one night at dinner.

“Yes, love?”

“How come you have an accent, but Andy doesn’t?”

“Because Andy wasn’t born and raised in a country where people sound like me. Although sometimes you sound like me when you’ve been around me a lot.” Harry looks at Andy.

“My friends tease me for how I say pasta sometimes.” He chuckles. “I say that like you.”

“It’s true! You say taco like Dad too. It’s pretty funny.”

“Well, those are my two favorite foods so it makes sense.”

“How come you have so many tattoos?” Rachel asks.

“Honey, tattoos can be really personal.” Noah explains.

“It’s alright, I got a lot of them when I was younger. Think my last one was when Andy was born, got his initials my forearm.” He extends his arm out.

“Harry.” Paige clears her throat, nodding towards his mermaid tattoo and shakes her head no.

“Oop! Sorry.” He blushes. “Sometimes I forget she’s there.” He chuckles.

“Can we paint nails after dinner, Uncle Harry?” Rachel pleads.

“Sure! Brought that nail kit you and Dad so nicely got for me.”

“Yay! It’s okay, right, Daddy?”

“Of course, princess.” Noah says lovingly towards his daughter.

After dinner, Harry sits with Rachel at the kitchen table, to not make a mess, while Paige, Noah, and Andy sit in the living room watching TV. On the outside looking in the scene may be odd, but this was working well for all of them. Andy was having a good time and that was all Harry cared about.

//

It was a Thursday night, you both swiped right, and you met him at a bar. After a few drinks you climbed into the backseat of his car and before you knew it you were bouncing up and down on his dick while he pressed hot kisses to your neck. His name was Gabriel, and he was just what you needed right now. Or he would have been if he had been able to last a moment longer. You were so close, and he came into the condom before you had a chance to have your own release. He didn’t even ask if you got yours, he just kissed your cheek and lifted you off him.

“Care to take this back to my place?” He says.

“Think I’ve had enough for one night, thanks.” You say as you button your pants back up.

“Let me at least drive you home.”

“No, that’s okay, I can take an uber.” You get out of his car and slam the door shut. He gets out and looks at you, you turn around and look at him.

“Another time?”

“No, I don’t think so.” You say bluntly and his face falls.

“Thought we just had a nice time.”

“You had a nice time because you got to finish.” You huff as you fix your jacket. You take your phone out and order your ride.

“Thought you did, my bad.”

“Right.” The car pulls up, and you get in.

This is why you hated doing things like this. Men on these dating apps just wanted to get theirs. They just wanted a place to stick it and they didn’t care if you were left satisfied or not. You take a nice, long shower when you get back, scrubbing the smell of Gabriel away from you. You grimace when you see the kiss mark he left on your collar bone. Luckily a shirt and scarf would cover it, and it didn’t look like it would last longer than a couple of days anyways.

//

“Well, were you being vocal about what you needed?” Janette asks you as she sits on the edge of your desk Monday morning.

“I said things like right there or like that…he didn’t even warn me that he was coming, he just did. Then he wanted me to come back to his place with him…”

“Maybe he would have put on a better show for you.”

“The previews certainly didn’t leave me wanting to see more.”

“Preview for what.” Harry says, peeping his head in. He had a slight tan from skiing, and it was sort of cute.

“Y/N saw a really bad preview for this movie about this loser, that’s all.” Janette says. “How was your week away?”

“Actually, not too bad. I think it was good for us to all do something together. Andy had a great time, that’s all I cared about. He even agreed to be with his mum for the entire April vacation.”

“Oh? What’s she going to take him to do?” You ask.

“They’re gonna go to New York to see some shows, I thought it was a great idea. It’ll be good for him to get some real culture.”

“And that’s not a trip you wanted to join in on?” Janette smirks.

“Hmm, large cabin where I have my own space or cramped hotel room?” He weighs his option. “I’ll take the bitter cold and the cabin, thanks.”

“What do you think you’ll do while he’s away?” You ask.

“No idea, I’ve got time to figure it out. Honestly, it’s perfect timing because that’s right during advising weeks so I’ll actually be able to help my students without him sitting in the corner complaining that he’s bored.” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t what’s gonna turn my hair grey first, him or the college students.”

“Oh please.” Janette groans. “Men look so much better with a little grey, makes you look distinguished, it’s us who look like old crones when we let our greys out. I don’t wanna hear it.” She shakes her head and looks at her watch. “Gotta get ready for my next class, so you later.”

“Is it true?”

“What?”

“Do men look better with a little grey.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Depends on the guy, I think. I mean, I’m twenty-six so a little grey wouldn’t scare me away, but I’m not exactly looking for a silver fox.” You laugh and so does he.

“I missed your sense of humor last week. As good of a time it was, I felt like I had to be very careful about the jokes I cracked.”

“Well, no need for a filter here.”

Harry nods and goes into his own office. He thinks for a moment and then peeps his head back into yours.

“So, what movie preview did you see that you didn’t like?”

“What?”

“When I first came in, you and Jan were talking about-“

“Oh! Um, it was so bad I don’t even remember the name.” You tug slightly at your scarf out of nerves.

“Too bad, I could’ve searched it and had a good laugh.” He shrugs and leaves again.

Sometimes you wondered what Harry’s dating life was like, not that it was any of your business. He had mentioned a couple of times he didn’t make a lot of time for it, but what about one night stands? Did he make sure women got theirs when he was with them?

//

“I’m going to look like a fucking idiot compared to all of you.” You pout as you get your robe and hood on.

“You will not. Sort of miss the master’s robe, honestly, they’ve basically got pockets. You’ll have your doctoral one soon enough.” Harry says, putting on his own robes.

“I can never get this thing right, could you help me?”

“Of course.” He steps behind you and adjusts the blue hood for you.

“Do I need the cap? It’s just an honor’s ceremony.”

“You certainly do, and get used to it. This is one of three times a year you’ll need to put this on.”

“Three?”

“Grad commencement and undergrad commencement are separate ceremonies.”

“And we have to go to both?”

“We do.” He sighs. “You’re also not the only professor on this campus that isn’t a PhD yet, so don’t get down on yourself, yeah? You’re working towards it.” You turn towards him and his hands place gently on your shoulders.

“Thanks, Har.”

He smiles at the nickname and lets go of you. You and the other CM professors head over to the CM Honors Inductee Ceremony. It was a nice event for the honors students within the major. As soon as it ends you rip your cap off. You didn’t enjoy wearing it at all. You mingle with a few parents and take pictures with some of the students that wanted you in their photos.

“Y/N?” One of your students, Kayla, says.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering…for our final assignment, instead of writing you a paper about signs, could I make you a video instead?” She was in your Rhetoric and Semiotics class.

“Hmm, I think that could be really interesting. What would a video entail?”

“Well, I thought I could go to the grocery store and show unwritten rules, like how someone will put a divider down on the belt without having to be asked, or how when you go up to the deli you just grab a ticket, how branding works, stuff like that.”

“As long as you still send me a references page I think that could be fine. Of course, I’d have to show it to the rest of the class.”

“Deal.” She smiles. “Thanks.” You nod and then she walks away.

You head back to your office to hang your robe and hood up in your closet. You grab your back and smack right into your Harry.

“Jesus.” You say and back away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you.”

“No, that was me, I was walking too fast.” He unzips his robe and hangs it up same as you in his own closet.

“Why were you in such a hurry?”

“Single mum at the ceremony got a little too liberal with the hugging, had to get out of there.” He chuckles. “You hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Wanna go down to the pub? I don’t have Andy’s still in New York…”

“Sure! That sounds great, actually. Let me just drop all this off in my car.” He nods and you both walk down to the parking lot before walking the rest of the way to the pub.

You both sit down at the bar and order drinks. You both end up getting Mediterranean wraps, not feeling quite hungry enough for nachos this time around.

“Any summer plans yet? I know it’s early, but-“

“Paige and I need to sit down with Andy to figure all that out. He got to stay with me all year, so it would be make sense for him to be with her for the summer, but I have a feeling he won’t like that. School gets out in June for him so I’ve got some time…but I have a feeling it’s not going to be easy.”

“Why do you think he wants to be with you so much more?”

“I just think he’s at an age where maybe he feels more comfortable being with me. He’ll be eleven soon, changes are starting to happen.” He chuckles. “Maybe Paige and I could split up the summer or something.”

“How have his grades been? Wasn’t that part of the deal?”

“His marks have been great, he’s doing well. He has some great friends and he loves his teachers. He really enjoyed playing basketball this winter in the town league too.”

“Not that I’m an expert on custody agreements, but couldn’t you do what you’re doing now? Wednesdays and every other weekend with Paige, and the rest of the time with you?”

“He hates the back and forth in the summer, that’s why we agreed on summers with me. I mean, she still sees him in the summer, obviously, but he usually doesn’t have to go every other weekend. We’ll see.” He sighs. “We try to give him what he wants to not make waves, but at the end of the day we’re the parents and he’s the child and what we say goes.” He finishes off his drink and asks for another. “Need a refill?”

“Sure, I could probably handle two.” You shrug.

Two turned into three, then, four, and finally five. The sun had gone down and it was dark outside. You two had split a chocolate lava cake. The bar was starting to fill with college students.

“Holy shit, it’s almost ten!” You say. “Should probably go before some of these kids try to buy me a drink for a passing grade.” Harry laughs at that and agrees. You split the bill, and nearly lose your balance as you hop off the bar stool, clutching as his bicep.

“Wanna split an uber? I can’t drive, and I don’t think you can either.” He chuckles.

“Yeah, good idea. I’ll order it.”

“No, I’ve got it.” He takes his phone out as you both head outside. The car pulls up after a couple of minutes and you both get in. “We’ll drop you off first.”

“Alright.” You smile. “This was fun tonight. I like when we get to hang out.”

“Me too.” He smiles at you. “Can’t believe your first year is almost done.”

“I know, it’s really flown by.” You crane your neck from side to side and sigh. “Maybe now that I know the area better I’ll feel more comfortable trying to really meet someone.”

“Meet someone for what?” You look up at him, making a face as if the answer is obvious. “Oh! That’s cute you think you have time for a relationship.” He laughs.

“Excuse me?”

“Y/N, you spend all your free time on your research.”

“I just spent some free time with you, didn’t I? Janette and I go out, and-“

“Janette travels with Sadie in the summers.”

“Guess that leaves me stuck with you then.” You nudge him. “Actually, I’m hoping to go to Boston for a bit, visit friends and family. I’m hoping to get to the beach too. I love summer.”

“You should come hiking with me. Despite the black flies, May is great because it’s not humid yet.”

“Might have to take you up on that, I really enjoyed it this fall.” The car pulls up in front of your house. “Have a good night, Harry.”

“You too.” You both reach over and hug each other. “See you Monday.”

“See you Monday.” You smile and get out.

//

Once the school year was over, you sat with Lisa and went over your course evaluations. Overall you did really well, and she reaffirmed how happy she was that she hired you. She wishes you a happy summer, and that’s about it. You ask if you’re allowed to use your office in the summer, and she says yes but it gets really hot so it’s not as great as you may think.

Saturday night as you’re having your last girl’s night with Janette you get a text.

Harry: Hey! Know it’s last minute, but I’m taking Andy up Rattlesnake tomorrow morning, care to join?

Y/N: sure! As long as he doesn’t mind…

Harry: got his permission already, we’re all set ;)

You bite your bottom lip and smile, and Janette peaks over your shoulder to see what you could be smiling at.

“God, what a gift it would be if I come back in the fall and you two are dating.”

“Oh, stop.” You nudge her. “We’re friends.”  

“Would it be bad to be more?”

“I don’t really think it’s a good idea to go out with someone you work with…”

“Good luck finding anyone else who’s decent around here then.”

“I could meet someone in Boston, do the long distance thing.”

“That gets old.”

“You’re doing it!”

“Yeah, but I’m more of a free spirit. Sadie and I don’t care about marriage or kids or a house in the hills. You, my sweet friend, would like all of those things.”

“True…” You finish your drink. “Well, if I don’t want to puke on this hike tomorrow I should probably get going.” You both stand and hug and kiss and wish each other fantastic summers.

You get a restful night’s sleep, and get yourself ready in the morning. You had invested in a pair of hiking boots in the fall, so you were feeling prepared. You put on a pair of spandex shorts, and put on some mesh shorts over those. You opt for a sweat resistant short sleeve shirt, and pull your ponytail through a baseball cap. You get everything in your small pack that you’ll need: sunglasses, sunscreen, water bottle, granola bar, rag, and bug spray. You drive out to the trail and park, lathering your arms and legs with sunscreen. You see Harry’s car pull up, and Andy hops out, bandana and clip keeping his hair back, just like Harry’s. Harry had a sleeveless shirt on and you could really see the definition in his shoulder muscles. You put your sunglasses on and head over to them.

“Morning, boys.” You smile.

“Morning.” Harry smiles back.

“Hi, Y/N.” Andy mumbles shyly.

“Hi, Andy. Dad told me you’re doing well in school. Bet you’re about ready to be done, huh?”

“Yeah, only a few more weeks.”

“Can’t believe he’s going into sixth grade. Makin’ me feel old.”

“You are old.” Andy giggles.

“Mhm, thanks.” Harry rolls his eyes. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

Andy walks a few paces ahead of you and Harry.

“His birthday is soon, yeah?”

“Yeah, next weekend, actually…um…Paige is hosting his party this year.” Andy looks back at Harry making a face, and Harry makes a face back at him.

“That’ll be fun.” You say, not noticing the exchange as you look at the various trees surrounding you.

“Yeah…it will be. Um…it’s Saturday afternoon…”

“Weather looking good?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s great. Probably still cold to swim at the lake, though, right?”

“Yeah, but the kids will still have a water balloon fight.”

“Dad, just ask her!” Andy groans as he turns around again.

“Ask me what?”

“He wants you to go with him to the party.”

“Andy!” Harry snaps at him. “Keep walking.”

Andy rolls his eyes and continues to walk ahead of you.

“Is that true, you want me to come?”

“Is that weird?”

“Not really.” You shrug. “Although, I’d only know you and Andy.” You chuckle.

“See…it’s just…Paige’s parents will be there, and that’s fine, but Noah’s parents are coming too, and it would be nice to have a buffer other than my son. He’ll be off playing games and eating junk good, I don’t want him to think he needs to babysit me…”

“I totally get it. I don’t think I have plans, I could go for a little while.”

“Really? I’m not asking too much?”

“Not at all, what are friends for?” You smile and he smiles back.

You walk a few paces ahead of Harry, but still behind Andy, giving Harry the perfect view of your bum in your shorts. He wasn’t staring, but he certainly wasn’t not looking. When you get up to the top your jaw drops. The view of the mountains and the lakes were even better in the late spring. You snap a few photos, taking one of Harry and Andy, Harry taking one of you looking out, and then you all sit down for some water and snacks.

“Andy, do you enjoy hiking with your Dad?”

“Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. We go a lot over the summer.”

“Andy’s hiked two of the 4,000 footers, hoping to get a couple more done this summer.”

“Wow! That’s incredible.”

“You should come with us, Y/N. We’re going to camp overnight at one of them.”

“Oh, you don’t wanna go camping with me, I’m a real snob. I need running water and indoor plumbing.”

“It has that.” Harry says, taking a sip of his water. “There’s bathroom, no shower or anything, but working toilets. You bring all your own camping gear. It’s pretty cool.”

“I’ll consider it. Think I should probably go on hikes that are longer than a mile up.” You laugh.

“You guys can do during the week now that school’s over, right?” Andy says.

“I wouldn’t want to exclude you, Andy.” You smile.

“Don’t worry about me.” He crunches down on his granola bar. He shares another look with Harry, but again it goes unnoticed by you, too busy looking out at the beauty of the mountains and lakes.

You all hike down the mountain in not time and say your goodbyes. Harry tells you he’ll text you with more details about the party later in the week.

“I told you she’d say yes.” Andy says from the backseat of the car.

“I wish you had let me work up to it a little more.”

“You were taking too long. Sometimes you just need to pull the trigger, Dad.”

“Is that so?” Harry laughs. “Things are a little more complicated at my age. Sort of awkward asking a colleague out on a date.”

“If you two are friends does that make it a date?”

“Well, she’ll be attending with me, so that makes her my date.”

“Does that mean you’ll kiss her goodnight?”

“Andy!” Harry looks back for a moment and then gets his eyes back on the road. “No, I’m not going to kiss her. You heard her, what are friends for, that’s all she sees me as.” He sighs to himself.

“That’s why you need to step up your game.”

“Son, do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Just, shut up for the rest of the drive home.”

Andy bursts out laughing, but does as Harry asks, knowing he’s being a bit annoying.

//

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, but you were worried about being cold out by the water, so you opt for a pair of high-waist jean capris that flare a bit at the bottom. You find a sleeveless white blouse and pair it with a blue cardigan. You put your hair up in your two buns, and throw on a pair of wedges.

Harry: I’m outside

“Shit.” You say, just finishing your makeup. You run around, grabbing your purse, and the box you had wrapped for Andy’s gift, and head out.

You open the passenger seat and get settled, smiling at Harry.

“You didn’t have to get him anything.”

“I know, it’s just a new basketball. I saw it at WalMart when I was picking up a card. I hate showing up to these things empty handed. What did you get him?”

“A new bike.” He grins. “It’s in his mum’s garage already.”

“Oh! He’ll be so excited. He skateboard too right?”

“Yeah, I really don’t know where he gets his coordination from. Other than skiing I’m pretty clumsy.”

“Don’t you go to a boxing gym?”

“Yeah, and I look like a proper oaf.” He laughs and looks at you. “You look nice by the way. Your outfits are always so put together.”

“Oh, um, thanks.” You blush slightly. You wanted to tell him that you did your hair the way you did because you know he sort of likes it, but you thought that might be a weird thing to say. “Does, um, Paige know you’re bringing me?”

“She does.” Harry nods. “You’re not, like, nervous to meet her are you?”

“No.” You scoff. “Why would I be?”

“I don’t know.” You shrug. “What did you say to her about me?”

“Well, before I got a chance to say anything last night when she picked Andy up, he spilled the beans.” He rolls his eyes. “So I told her you’re a friend from work…is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s what I am so it makes sense.” You drum your fingers on top of the box to the beat of the music. “None of your family will be there?”

“They’re going to FaceTime in for it. They came for his tenth birthday since it’s a bit more sentimental.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Oh sure, but I love here too much to go back permanently. I like going during winter break, that’s enough.”

“You don’t go during the summer?”

“Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes they come to visit here during the summer too. My sister has two kids of her own so it’s not always easy to travel.” You nod your head. “You know, I’ve known you almost a year and I don’t know a thing about your family.”

“What’s there to know? My parents are still together, somehow, I’ve got an older brother who’s a sous chef at a restaurant in Boston. He’s not married, but he has a partner and he’s just lovely. I usually stay with them if I go home for a visit.”

“That’s great! How much older is he?”

“He’s around your age, actually, so not a huge age difference.”

“And when’s your birthday?”

“Beginning of August.” You grin.

“Wow, so you had just turned twenty-six when you came to us.”

“Pretty much, got hired at twenty-five, not too shabby.”

“Not at all.”

The conversation went on for the entire drive. That’s how it always was with you two, always a lot to talk about. When you get out of the car you’re able to get a good look at Harry’s outfit. His outfits were usually well crafted, you’d call his style dad-chic. He was in a pair of tan slacks that he had cuffed at the bottom, a pair of white loafers to go with them, a white tank top tucked in with a floral open short-sleeve button up. Very handsome. You smile at each other and then he leads you around back to where the party was. You weren’t the first people there, but you weren’t the last either.

“Dad!” Andy exclaims and runs over to you both. Harry picks him up and swings him around before setting him down.

“Happy birthday, kiddo.”

“Thanks! Look, all my friends from school came.” He points over to them. Harry recognizes Brandon and his father out of the bunch.

“That’s great, bud, let us come in and say hi to everyone, can you say hi to Y/N?”

“Hi, thanks for coming.” He gives you a surprising hug.

“Oh! You’re welcome, Andy. Happy birthday.”

He runs back over to his friends and you walk further into the backyard. It was stunning. Grass that led to sand that led to the lake water. A boat parked further down by the docks, and just gorgeous views for miles. The house itself was huge, you couldn’t believe it.

“Harry!” A woman, who you would assume is Paige, comes waking over. She was beautiful. Shoulder length blonde hair, sort of thin, but not quite a stick. She was wearing a yellow sundress. Her and Harry share a slight hug. “He’s eleven.” She pouts.

“He’s eleven.” Harry agrees with a sigh. “Oh, this is Y/N. Y/N this is Paige, Andy’s mum.”

“It’s so nice to meet you.” She says to you. “Let me take that for you, thank you for bringing him something. I’ll put this with the others.” She takes the box from you. “There’s wine and beer for the adults if you like, but we also have soda and water if you’re not up for drinking. I certainly had a glass after my folks showed up.”

“Did your mother put her white glove on and see if there was any dust?” Harry teases her.

“She may as well have.” Paige rolls her eyes.

Harry puts his hand on the small of your back and leads you closer into the party.

“This is a lovely home.”

“Oh, thank you. I sort of inherited it. It’s was my grandparents’.” She sets your gift on the table with the others. “There’s snacks inside and outside. Feel free to hangout wherever.”

“Where exactly are your parents?” Harry asks.

“Up on the deck.” Paige points up towards it. “Feel free to avoid them as long as you like. They’re speaking with Noah’s parents at the moment. My sister should be here soon.” She looks at her watch. “I’m gonna go check on some things.”

“Alright, love, thanks.” They smile at each other. You get a bad taste in your mouth hearing him call her love, for whatever reason. “Wanna meet some of the parents. I know that guy, Ed, the best. He’s Brandon’s dad, Andy’s best friend.”

“Sure.” You nod and Harry leads you over. “I never quite understood why some parents stay at kids parties.”

“Well…look around you, wouldn’t you wanna hang for a bit?”

“Got me there.”

“Harry, hi.” Ed shakes Harry’s hand.

“Good to see you, this is my friend Y/N, we work together at the university.”

“Hi.” You shake his hand.

“Great to meet you. Brandon was so excited when he got the invite. He and Andy get along so well.” The three of you watch them and the other kids playing tag.

“Born to be friends I’d say.” Harry says.

“Uncle Harry!” A young girl comes running over to Harry and he picks her up, kissing her check, and then setting her down.

“Hi, Rachel, can you say hello to my friend Y/N?”

“Hello.” She beams up at you, a couple of teeth missing. “My grammy and grampy are here.”

“Are they?” Harry says.

“Mhm, I love them a lot.”

“I’m sure they love you too, sweetheart. Are you having a good time for Andy’s birthday?”

“Yeah! We’re going to have a water balloon toss soon.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!”

“Daddy said he’d be on my team for it.”

“Well, that’s good.”

She smiles again and then runs off.

“Your ex’s boyfriend’s daughter calls you Uncle Harry?” You ask.

“Yeah…she sort of started doing that on her own. She knows I’m Andy’s dad, but I don’t think it quite registers with her yet how we’re all mixed together.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“A glass of white would be great, thank you.” Harry nods and leaves you standing with Ed.

“So, how long have you and H known each other?”

“Well, I started working at the university last August, so less than a year. We’re office neighbors.”

“Ah, how nice. He’s a really great guy, isn’t he? I coach the boys’ basketball team and he was the first to sign up for snack duty.”

“He’s definitely always thinking of others.”

“How long have you been seeing each other?”

“Oh, um, we’re not.” You shake your head. “He just asked me to come with him, ex in laws, you know?”

“Shit, I’m sorry for just assuming.”

“It’s alright.” You assure him. Harry comes over with a glass of wine for you and a bottle of beer for him.

“Sorry that took a moment, I ran into Noah inside and had to do the hellos. Still managed to not bump into Paige’s parents though, so that’s good.” He chuckles, taking a sip from his drink.

“Bad blood?” You ask.

“Even though things between Paige and I are perfectly fine, in their eyes, I’m always going to be the guy that got her pregnant and didn’t make an honest woman out of her.”

“That’s annoying.”

“Very.”

An hour or so passes and then Paige announces that the balloon toss will be beginning soon.

“Dad, be my partner?”

“You got it, buddy. Mind holding my drink?” He says to you.

“Not at all, have fun.” You smile.

More people had come down off the deck so they could watch. Some parents partnered with their kids, and other kids just partnered with kids. Everyone starts about a foot apart. This should be fun, you think, knowing Harry’s competitive nature.

“Would you look at Harry, he looks like an old man from Florida.” You hear a woman scoff.

“Notice how he’s been avoiding us, always a child.” You hear a man say, and this makes you turn towards them. They must be Paige’s parents.

Everyone playing was further apart now, some balloons had popped, but Harry and Andy were still in the game. The balloon pops at Rachel’s feet and she giggles loudly. There were only a few people now. You watch as Harry lobs the balloon perfectly to Andy, and Andy catches it with ease. It was Brandon and his dad vs. Harry and Andy now. Brandon overthrows it, causing the balloon to pop on the sand.

“We won!” Andy shouts running towards Harry.

“Great job.” Harry jostle’s Andy’s hair. Everyone cheers for them.

“What do you say, honey, cake and gifts now?” Paige asks Andy.

“Yeah.” He smiles.

All of the kids sit around a large glass table while Paige goes inside to get the cake. Harry walks back towards you and you hand him his beer.

“What were you saying about you have no coordination?”

“I had to win, it’s his birthday.” He laughs and then stops when he sees Paige’s parents. “Lydia, Nathan, how are you?”

“Oh, are you speaking with us now?” Lydia says playfully, giving him a hug. Harry shakes Nathan’s hand.

“You know how it is when you first get to a party, lots of excitement. I’d find you eventually.” He clears his throat. “This is Y/N, we work together at the university.”

“Hello.” You smile and they both look you up and down.

“How nice for you to bring a friend.” Nathan says, his tone laced with sarcasm.

“I’m gonna go see if she needs help with the cake.” Harry says to all of you, and you also decide to move away from the rude people you were standing with.

Paige and Harry stand on either side of Andy’s chair as everyone sings happy birthday. After cake the gifts come out. Noah takes Harry into the garage to grab the bike.

“Alright…this one is from…Y/N!” Paige says brightly as she hands the gift to Andy. He tears the wrapping paper off and gasps.

“Alright! A new basketball, thank you!” Andy says looking in your direction and you nod with a smile.

“Okay, Andy, Dad and I got you something really special.” Paige says pointing over to Harry who was wheeling the bike over. Andy’s jaw drops.

“Are you serious?!” He stand up and walks over to the bike.

“Know you’ve been wanting it for a while, and your grades have just been so good this year, we just had to do it. Mum’s got a new helmet, elbow and knee pads for you in the house.”

“Thank you so much!” He hugs Harry and then he hugs Paige.

“You’re more than welcome, baby doll.” Paige says to him and then he squirms away from her.

“Mum.” He huffs.

“Right, sorry, not in front of your friends.”

Paige’s sister helps her clean up the remains of the cake while the kids continue to play yard games. You find yourself sitting in a lawn chair when a man you have yet to meet takes the chair next to you, but you recognize him as Rachel’s father.

“We haven’t gotten to meet yet, I’m Noah.” He shakes your hand.

“I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” He smiles. “I was happy to hear Harry was bringing someone with him. Takes a bit of the pressure off.”

“Exactly.” You nod.

“How’d you meet?”

“We’re office neighbors, I started working at the university less than a year ago.”

“Oh! Right, you went hiking with them last weekend.” He says in understanding. “Andy told us. He’s quite the gossip.”

You observe Noah as he speaks. His hair has turned to salt and pepper, definitely had crow’s feet, also wore glasses, but he had a warm and inviting smile, similar to his daughter’s.

“He certainly speaks his mind.” You chuckle. “He’s very sweet though, I have to say.”

“Very sweet. He’s a good kid. It’s nice for Rach to have someone to grow up with a little She adores him, definitely sees him as a big brother.”

“That’s good. I’ve always found blended families to be interesting. You all are doing it well.”

“Took us a while to get to this point, but it’s all been worth it.”

“Y/N?” You both turn to look at Harry. “Party’s starting to dissipate a bit, are you about ready to head out?”

“Sure!” You stand up. “It was nice talking to you.”

“Same here.” Noah stands up and gives Harry a thumbs up without you seeing.

You both say your goodbyes, Andy gives you another hug and says thank you again for the gift. Harry tells him he’ll see him Sunday night, and then you head to his car.

“Hope you didn’t mind when I had to leave to chat a couple of times.”

“Oh, it was fine. I enjoyed just hanging out. It was a beautiful day.” The sun was just starting to set.

“Yeah, I’m glad the weather was nice. I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.” He looks at you and then gets his attention back on the road. “You really did look nice today.”

“Thank you, Harry.” You smile and give his shoulder a squeeze.

“Am I…taking you straight home?”

You blink a couple of times before looking at him.

“Where else would we go?”

“Well, I’ve got a back deck of my own. We could sit out, enjoy the sunset…if you want.”

“That sounds nice, actually. Yeah, let’s do that.” You smile.

“Great.”

You notice his jaw and shoulders relax. Were you making him tense? You both listen to the music on the radio as he drives you to his home. You smile as he pulls up. It was a decent size ranch. Cream color paneling and red shutters, very cute.

“Here were are.” He says awkwardly as you both get out.

“Do I get a tour?”

“Of course!”

He unlocks the front door and leads you inside. There was an open concept kitchen and living area. The house smelled like fresh coffee. He noticed you taking a whiff.

“I have an automatic air freshener.” He says and you nod.

“I like it, should get one for my place.”

“There’s a full bath down the hall, Andy uses that, and then I have my own bathroom. Three bedrooms totally, and then you can see I technically have two levels, that’s what I use for my office.”

“It’s a huge loft.”

“Yeah, it’s partially why I bought the place. I didn’t feel cramped. Basement’s partially finished which will be great for Andy when he’s over if he wants to have parties or whatever. Uh, and then the deck is this way. Can I get you anything…I only have red wine, I know you like white…”

“Red’s fine, maybe just put an ice cube in it for me?”

“Can do, make yourself comfortable outside.” He smiles.

You slide the glass door open and smile. It was a decent sized deck. There was a small glass round table with chairs, a grill, and some Adirondack chairs as well. You sit in one of those after taking a glance at the flowers and plants he had in pots. You also notice the various flower beds he had in the yard.

“Here you go.” He says, sitting down next to you, handing you the glass of wine.

“Thank you.” You smile and take a sip. You cross your cardigan over yourself.

“Are you cold? I can get a blanket.”

“Oh, no I’m fine, thanks. It’s beautiful out here.”

“Thanks, took me a while to get it landscaped the way I like.” He lights the citronella candle on the small table between you to help keep any bugs away. “I’ve been thinking of getting an above ground pool for Andy, he loves to swim, but it’s a lot maintenance, and his mum as the lake right there.”

“That house is incredible.”

“Noah’s helped her revamp it quite a bit, and the boat’s his.” He takes a sip of his drink and looks at you. “Thanks again for coming today.”

“Of course, I had a really good time.” You smile.

“You’re not just saying that?”

“Not at all. It was nice to finally meet the people you’ve told me so much about.”

“Are you hungry or anything? I could bring some-“

“Harry.” You put your hand over his that was resting on the arm of the chair. “Relax, yeah? I’m all set, thank you.”

“Alright.” He blushes and looks straight ahead. You notice him check an app on his phone. “Are you free Tuesday morning?”

“I think so, why?”

“Weather’s looking good, how about we go on one of those longer hikes?”

“I’d like that.” You smile. “Anything special I’d need to back.”

“Just a lunch, maybe some T.P.”

“You’re funny if think I’m going to take a piss in the woods.”

“Everyone does it.” He shrugs. “Don’t worry, I’d keep lookout for you.”

“You men have it so easy, you can just whip your things out, go quick, and you’re all set. Me, I’d have to roll my pants down, squat, hope none of it got on my shoes, wipe, and then get dressed again.”

“I’ve had to do that before, sometimes you just need to take a shit in the woods.” You burst out laughing at that. “Course that only happened because I went out drinking the night before.”

“Good to know.” You wipe a tear from your eye. “But seriously, I’d love to go hiking with you Tuesday.”

“I know it was more so Andy that invited you on our little camping trip, but you’re welcome to join in on that if you feel comfortable.”

“I would just feel like I’m intruding on your quality time.”

“You wouldn’t be, he likes you…um…I like you.” Your head snaps in his direction and your eyebrows shoot up. “I mean, like, I like hanging out with you, is all.” He was internally cringing at himself.

“I like hanging out with you too.” You swallow. “I’m glad we’ve gotten to know each other so well. You’ve been a great help with my classes. You’re so progressive, not always using the same syllabus and being willing to make things work for the students. It’s refreshing.”

“Please, go on, the narcissist within me is loving it.” He smirks and you roll your eyes. “Don’t sell yourself short, you’re doing really well. I enjoyed observing your rhetoric class. It was a nice refresher. I hope you won’t work yourself to much this summer. I know it’s more time for research and writing, but it’s also time for you to clear your head.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to keep that in mind.” You finish off your wine just as the sun it setting, the light from the candle being the only thing to keep things bright enough to see.

“I can, uh, bring you home now if you want.”

“I could just get an uber so you don’t have to go out again.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s no trouble.”

Harry drives you home, and you find yourself lingering in the car.

“So…Tuesday?”

“Tuesday.” He smiles. “Bright and early.”

“How early?” You raise an eyebrow.”

“How’s six sound? I’ll come pick you up, we’ll get to the trailhead by 6:30. It’s always better to summit earlier in the day.”

“You’re the expert.” You shrug. “Works for me.”

You both lean across the console to give each other a hug a goodbye, like you normally would, only this time…you press your lips to his cheek before getting out of the car. His gaze stays fixed on you, and it’s not until you’re inside your building where he lightly presses his fingers to his cheek to feel where you kissed him.

[quatschmachen]

Icicles

.A small fic set in the 80′s; probably like 1984 ish.

Edward visits Étienne.

PG

Étienne was wearing too many layers.

Sure it was winter and probably cold but no one should be wearing a fully zipped up jacket, toque and scarf ensemble inside the airport, Edward thought.

“Why are you dressed for an arctic expedition?” Edward asked his friend.

Étienne’s voice was muffled by the scarf, “Because I have a slight cold.”

“This is overkill.” Edward teased, “Do you need my jacket as well?”

“Non.” Étienne sneezed then added, “not yet.”

They were heading away from the airport in a taxi, Étienne apparently not patient enough to wait for a bus.

Edward had packed light, he had managed to establish a Drawer for his Montreal clothes at Étienne’s, an accomplishment he tried not to think about too hard (but which, if he could admit to himself, he was delighted over). He had noticed in the brief interim that they had been outside that it was not that cold, and he figured it was probably just an Étienne thing that the man was dressed in so many layers.

It was only when Edward won the fight of paying the entire cab fare that he felt something was off with the other man.

This was confirmed as they entered Étienne’s place, and the man was refusing to de-layer his clothes.

“Étienne, it’s hot as Hades here, and you’re trying to put on another sweater – alright what’s going on – did you get a shitty tattoo? Do you have scarlet fever?” Edward huffed feeling very annoyed at his friend, his hands reaching out to bat the sweater away.

It was like unwrapping a wriggling child, dodging, and weaving away from him, as Edward firmly grabbed one end of the scarf and unwound it from his friend’s face.

Étienne’s eyes were red, his nose was red and dripping, his cheeks flushed, and he looked as if he had just crawled out of the frosty pits of Niflheim.

“Jesus Christ you look like shit.”

“Thank you Eddy I appreciate the commentary.”  Edward realized Étienne sounded weird because his nose was plugged. Étienne grabbed the scarf and rewrapped it around his face. He did however concede in removing his jacket.

“So uh can I assume we’re not going to the club tonight?”

“Excuse me? Obviously we still are, you flew out to have a good time and I’m-” Étienne had to pause to hack a lung out, “am going to show you a good time!” he did a dramatic arm flourish, over tilted, banged into the wall, cried out in pain, and then nobly righted himself, attempting a more subdued ‘we are totally going out and getting dick’ pose.

“No we’re not.” Edward said firmly as he finished taking off his boots, “We are going to stay in.”

“Eddy!! Even if I don’t go out you should go out, you didn’t come all this way to just sit on my couch and watch TV.” Étienne protested as the other man gently guided him to the couch.

Giving his friend a Look, Edward said darkly, “Do you think I fly my ass all the way out to your beautiful city to see some guy’s cock?”

“Well, you always complain that you can’t really do the same stuff in Edmonton so, yeah. I guess. You come here to get tail and I don’t blame you. Nor do I want to hold you back. And I don’t want you to get sick!”

Edward was busy firmly tucking a blanket around Étienne, ensuring that max cozy was achieved.

Étienne was still fussing, and unthinkingly, Edward leant forward and gave the other man a small kiss on the forehead to calm him down. It immediately worked.

“I’m not worried about that. Anyways. Just so you know. I happen to haul myself these many miles to see you. Since you are, you know… my friend. Now I am going to make you a hot drink, and then get take-out, ok? Wong’s is still open, yeah?”

Étienne nodded.

“And if you move from the couch for any reason other than going to bed or peeing, I will look not happily upon that.”

“Ok maudit mardeux.”

XXX

When Edward returned with take-out (he had gotten a lot, with the plan that the leftovers would tide them over for a couple days), he was happy to see that Étienne was still on the couch, the mug of hot tea in his hands, still slowly sipping.

“Eddy,” Étienne turned a plaintive look to the man, looking at the giant bags of take-out, “I’m suffering… can you get me some tissues?”

“Sure, sorry for not getting you them before I left.” Setting the take-out on the coffee table, Edward went in search of the tissues. He also figured the other man would want a personal garbage, and while he was at it, he also grabbed two bowls and cutlery.

Returning, Edward immediately worried as the other man was crying.

Étienne had moved out of his blanket fortress, one of the take-out bags were open, and before him was a round Styrofoam container, lid off, gently steaming.

“How did you know?”  he asked quietly. Soft teary eyes looked at Edward; a look that could almost be classified as tender.

Edward looked at Étienne in confusion. “Know what?”

“That I love hot and spicy soup when sick.”

“Because you once wrote me five pages of a letter dedicated to Wong’s hot and spicy soup and how it cured you of the bubonic plague, Étienne.”

“I… I don’t remember that.”

“Judging from your spelling I think you were still high off soup or something,” Edward paused as he watched his friend happily slurp the soup, “However I greatly enjoyed reading it… even if it didn’t quite make sense, especially that weird part where you tried to rhyme in iambic pentameter.”

“I have no fucking memory of this. You’re bullshitting me right? Iambic pentameter? You’re gonna have to show me this letter.”

“Only if you promise not to destroy it,” Edward teased. “Plus, hold on let me see if I can remember.” Edward sat down beside the other man, setting down the items, and then moving to help himself to the food. “Shall I travel the world for a potion? Nay, for the cure exists in Montreal. Dew of the gods in comparison pales. For yea the cure is at Wong’s; Hot and Spicy.”

“Oh my god that’s not even good,” Étienne choked slightly, and then coughed, “That last part isn’t even proper iambic pentameter.”

Edward shrugged, “Hey, you at least tried. I nearly hurt myself laughing, and I mmmmmmaaaaybe hung that up on my fridge to look at for a solid week.”

Étienne narrowed his eyes, “You better watch out Murphy, I’m sure we both have an arsenal of blackmail material in our decades of letters.”

“When did one’s life and feelings become blackmail material, Maisonneuve?” Edward quietly teased, his gaze focused to the news report on the television. The low murmur of the day’s events filling up the strange gap between them.

Étienne blew on the soup and then took a slurp. Slyly he asked, “So that letter where you drew images of your favourite buffalo can be shown to anyone?”

Edward quickly looked at Étienne, “That image was only for you ok – not for the world!”

“But it’s so cute, if I had had a refrigerator at the time it would have gone on that. Though I guess I have one now I can put it up.” Étienne paused, frowned, “Actually, Eddy, you haven’t really drawn anything for me in a while. Why did you stop?”

“Because…” Edward was surprised to find he did not have a ready answer. Life got busy? He got more self conscious? It was something that had simply fallen to the wayside without him noticing? He had grown up and decided drawing was a childish thing? “Huh. I guess I just stopped.”

His friend was wiggling, that wiggle he did when he had one of his brilliant ideas.

“’Tienne, what is it?”

“Since I am so sick, and dying, you should entertain me by drawing me a story!”

“A story?”

“Yeah! One about… buffalo.”

“Draw on what?”

“Oh uhm, let me get you-“

“Just tell me. You stay put… but can we eat first?”

“…Fine… but you are going to draw me a story.  Even if it’s in crayon, ok?”

“Yes sir,” Edward laughed, “So do I get any hot and spicy soup?”

XXXXX

“Once upon a time there was beautiful prairie, where the sound of the drums was the heartbeat of the land. Upon the prairie roamed the buffalo, strong majestic animals in whose footsteps sprung new life.”

As he drew the story, Edward narrated. The art items he found were pencil crayons and a pad of paper. The buffalo on the green grass was probably akin to a five year old’s drawing, but as he glanced over to his friend, who looked absolutely thrilled and despite suffering from a sort of plague, who was sparkling in happiness that this was even taking place, it was worth it.

“There was a very tiny calf, whose legs still wobbled.” Edward added little shaky lines to his badly drawn tiny calf, “who got separated from the herd.”

“Edward if this is going to be a sad story I want you to stop now.” Étienne interrupted.

“Shhh.” Edward settled in more, as he paused in his story telling to draw the next page. “This calf, whose name was Stardreamer, had gotten separated from the herd when following a butterfly to a small river. When Stardreamer realized he was no longer with his mother, he called and called, but got no reply.”

“Eddy…”

“Instead a wily old Magpie appeared, letting out  a cheeky laugh. Stardreamer attempted to hide, and stayed very still as the Magpie flew down and sat upon him.

<Fear not little one,> the Magpie said, as it began to pick ticks off the calf, <I am a friend.>”

As the story progressed, Edward found himself adding more twists and turns, and what was originally supposed to be only ten pages it became thirty. Étienne’s full rapt attention was addictive, and the man’s slightly wet eyes when Stardreamer reunited with the herd he found endearing.

The story of Stardreamer continued throughout the week as the two of them, instead of simply vegging out and watching movies, found themselves cooped up as the snow piled up outside. The only times Edward left was to get more food and to shovel the sidewalk (which apparently dumbfounded Étienne, who informed Edward that clearing the sidewalk was the city’s job, to which Edward rolled his eyes and asked if the people of Montreal were suddenly missing arms and shovels, which then lead to a heated debate of the role of the city when it came to snow, a debate which kept popping up).

As the week progressed, Étienne got better, his nose less plugged, his body less feverish.

As the week progressed however, Edward began to display the same symptoms of illness that Étienne had had. Something he attempted to hide from the other man… rather unsuccessfully.

He had taken himself to the washroom to blow his nose, only to bang his elbow on the wall when Étienne’s voice spoke up from the other side of the door separating them.

<Eddy, I’m so sorry, I never meant to invite you over and then give you the plague.>

Cursing and rubbing his elbow, Edward was silent a moment, then said, <I do not have the plague, it’s allergies.> This lie was quickly laid to rest as he started having a severe coughing attack. One severe enough that Étienne forced open the bathroom door to stride in and sit Edward down on the edge of the bath, gently rubbing the other man’s back as the coughing fit eventually passed.

As Edward struggled to breath, his nose and throat plugged up, his eyes red rimmed, Étienne shook his head. <Looks like it’s my turn to take care of you.>

Blowing his nose, Edward sniffled. Rubbing his forehead he managed to croak out, <I’m supposed to fly out.>

<Hmmmm, are you well enough to travel? Are you able to rebook?>

Edward was too busy coughing to respond.

<Will they even let you onto the airplane, Édouard?>

Edward shrugged, “I dunno.”

“If you insist on returning…” Étienne paused <I will simply have to travel with you. Make sure you don’t faint on the way.>

Looking over to his friend, his expression a mixture of surprised misery, Edward croaked, “You’d really do that?”

Raising one eyebrow, Étienne quietly responded <You are sick and my responsibility. I would be unable to rest at the thought of you travelling alone in such a condition.>

It was unclear whether it was the fever or something else that caused Edward’s cheeks to flush, as he looked away, his slumped shoulders relaxing, as he leant into the other man.

The only sound was his struggle to breathe, until finally he murmured, “I’ll rebook.”

[lolabean1998]

Sweet pea fanfic. (Bambi part 1)

First ever attempt so don't kill me if its shit.

Warning- swearing and underage drinking but that's it I think?

Please let me know what you think- all feed back is welcome - hoping to add more to this so please tell me if its really awful!

First days at school were always pretty tough but when its your first day at Southside high, its terrifying! Em knew this and was determined to help her little sister survive the transition. Em was 2 years older than her and knew her way around the school and the gangs that run it. She had some how managed to slip under the radar and survived Southside High without being recruited or becoming a part of the small group of social pariahs that had grouped together instead of joining a gang. Em was too busy for friends, she had school work and jobs to keep her busy. Lily had chosen to follow in her big sisters footsteps and keep her head down, filling her life with the paper round she shared with Em and any other odd jobs they could pick up. They had just finished fixing up an old motorbike they had found at the junk yard and Lily’s exceptional artistic skills had given it a whole new life. Their mom worked the night shifts at the local veterinary clinic so the girls were usually left to their own devises.

The metal detectors screeched as Lily passed through, her hands trembling and her face went a deadly shade of white. Em sighed and looked at the guard who had began patting her sister down.  “Belt buckle Steve. She forgot about her belt.” The security guard chuckled and patted Lily’s shoulder nodding.

“ Its Ok kid you’e not in trouble your sister does it all the time. Off you go.” He waved Em through the scanners, giving her a fist bump as she passed, dropping a large pair of knuckle dusters and a blue switch blade in her bag. 

“Thank you Steve! You’re the best!” She called as she linked arms with her sister and wandered off. Lily looked at her sister, her face a mixture of shock and confusion. 

“Em what did he put in your bag?” She already knew the answer but she needed her suspicions confirmed. Em chuckled at her little sisters bewilderment. 

“Protection for you,” she said calmly, slyly handing her the knuckle dusters. “Welcome to hell Lily-pad, rules are simple,” she turned the corner and found her sisters locker, coincidentally next to her own (She had blackmailed the principle into putting them side by side) “Don't say yes to anything or anyone. The Ghoulies are to be avoided at all costs, if one starts to approach you,”  she looked at her little sister dead in the eyes, “you put those knuckle dusters on faster then you can blink and get ready to hit and run. I'm not joking Lily they are dangerous and reckless and have no respect for anyone especially girls.”

Lily nodded and turned to her locker, tugging at the lock when it refused to open. “So what about the Serpents?” she asked turning to her sister when she had given up trying to open her locker. Em smiled and punched Lily’s locker sending it flying open. 

“They don't care about you unless you’re blood or give them direct eye contact. You don't have to worry about them to much.” The girls shoved their books in their lockers and headed to Lily’s first class, English. 

“So is there any one I can talk to or am I doomed to become a lone wolf like you?” Lily asked, hoping that she could at least have one other friend. Em smiled and waved at a small group of people huddled by the door to Lily’s English class.

 “Lily meet the social pariahs in a school run by gangsters. I gave you permission to befriend them. These are the guys even the gangs don't want.” Em laughed shoving one of the guys playfully. The bell rang and Lily gave her sister a good bye fist bump before watching her walk to her class. “If anything happens to my little sister on your head be it!” Em shouted before heading into the girls changing room. 

She glared round at the JJ junkies in the corner and the 2 groups of gangster girls who had already begun changing. She laughed at the disgusted looks that had filled their faces the second she had entered the room.

“Jeez Em, what happened this time?” Toni exclaimed as she saw the deep purple bruises that ran down Ems side and right leg. Em looked up as she pulled her polo shirt over her head  and smirked. 

“Bike fell on me as I was completing the finishing touches. Only hurts if I touch it, move or breath. Otherwise I barely notice it.” An amused smile spread across her face as the look of disbelief flicked over Toni’s face.

“So does this mean we finally have a chance of beating you on the track?” Toni smiled as they made their way outside. 

Em laughed loudly before grasping her side and hissing slightly at the pain. “Not a chance Topaz, Your butts getting smoked as always. cant fall from tradition.” 

There was a loud scoff from behind them and a large mean looking girl waltzed over to them. “Not this time bitch, its turf races today. winner gets first pick of the fresh meat. Since your the only pariah... you race the guys and the girls.” she sneered as she headed over the to group of ghoulies that were sat at the edge of the fence line. Em growled as she waved good bye to Toni who had gone to join the Serpents leaning against the fence by the starting line. ~ Great so much for a nice easy start to the new year~ Em thought as she plugged her headphones in and began to flick through her songs until she found the perfect tunes for her races. She settled for some upbeat club music and began stretching until the coach wandered over signalling the start of the girls race and Ems face lit up with a wicked smile judging by the looks on the other girls they already knew they were doomed to fail. Em was famous for her speed and agility, it was how she had managed to survive her paper rounds on both Serpent and Ghoulie territory. 

They lined up and Em gave one last glance around her, spotting a particularly tall dark haired Serpent eyeing up her bruises and saying something to the boy stood next to him. She had a feeling her next race was going to be a lot more brutal than the first. 

The whistle blew and Em bolted for a few strides before settling into a nice steady pace several strides ahead of the other girls. She saw no reason in wasting unnecessary energy. 3 laps round the needle covered track and she had won with time to spare, her rib cage and legs burning at the sudden surge of energy  but other wise she was fine, barely breaking a sweat.

She had a 30 second breather before lining up for the last race. her stomach turning slightly at the thought of the pain she was about to endure. She was a tough cookie, stubborn and hard headed, so no amount of pain was going to stop her from achieving her goal once she had her target set. This was going to be no different. The tall, dark haired Serpent lined up next to her and gave her ribs a sharp jab causing her to huff sharply at the pain, her face twitched momentarily at the pain but quickly set back to the stone cold glare she had held before hand. 

“Tough one this... aren't you Princess. What’s the matter? That hurt?” The Serpent snarled at Em, she rolled her eyes and tried not to let him get to her, besides its hard to take threats seriously when they’re coming from some one called Sweet Pea.She smirked and looked up at the giant.

 “Whats the matter Flower, afraid your ass is gonna get beaten by a girl? Is your ego that fragile?” She mocked sending his friends into a fit of raging laughter. “Don't worry I'm sure your friends will forgive you for having to stoop to playing dirty just to beat me in a race. Short little 5 foot 3 me against what I can only assume is the cousin to the giant from David and Goliath.” That last comment was going to cost her dearly but it escaped her lips before she had a chance to stop herself.

The whistle blew before the boy had a chance to comment and Em bolted like a bullet from a gun. Her legs moving like their life depended on it, because it probably did. Her heart was pounding in her chest and if she didn't know better she’d have thought it was going to explode. The tall serpent was closing in on her side and she could see a cruel smirk flick through his eyes. 

“Whats the matter flower, know you’re going to lose if you don't cheat?” Em shouted over her shoulder as she passed the first mark post, 2 laps left and the Ghoulie was already down. ~One down, one to go. Don't do drugs kids~ Em giggled to herself. The Serpent boy on the other hand was keeping up, sitting uncomfortably on her tail. She had to step it up and soon but her legs were blazing and her side felt as though she had swallowed a nuclear reactor. The burning in her ribs was beginning to blur her vision. 

One lap left it was now or never, she reached deep to muster as much strength, power and determination as she could, kicking off into her last gear and thankfully leaving a good couple of paces between her and the Serpent. She glanced behind her for a split second and was relieved to see the Serpent struggling to catch up. She passed the finish line just as the boy had started to close in. She’d won. Her legs collapsed in a heap beneath her, tears threatened to appear in her eyes but that would mean showing a sign of weakness and that was not happening! She blinked them back and cautiously got to her feet pulling her headphones out and grabbing a bottle of water before heading to the changing room to tend to her sore limbs.

“Yes Em, you’ve just made me 80 bucks in that race.” Toni hollered to Em before leaping to her side and handing her a twenty. “Here you’ve earn’t it. There's no way I'm letting Sweet Pea forget this any time in the next century! Beaten by a girl is one thing, but a wounded girl...” Toni scoffed and grinned smugly, “Well that's just priceless!”

Em laughed accepting the twenty and nudging her friend, they didn't hang out much (there was the occasional girls night when she needed a break from the Serpents) and weren't super close or anything but Toni was definitely one of Ems closest if not only friend. 

“Well well well, rumour has it you kicked ass in track this morning!” Lily smiled to her older sister as she was escorted to the cafeteria by a very sore looking Em. 

“Not hard to beat JJ junkies and Goliath’s slow cousin.” Em laughed guiding her sister around an angry looking group of ghoulies and towards the queue for slightly edible food. Lily smiled and nodded towards one particularly sour looking boy who had been staring Em down since she had stepped into the cafeteria. 

“Reckon he’s got his knickers in a twist.” Lily smirked.

“I would too if I was a great big mobster that had just got my ass whipped by some scrawny black and blue girl with a limp.” Em smirked. Lily rolled her eyes in amusement at Ems comment,

 “You only got the limp after the race but I see your point. That scary Serpent lad over there hasn't stopped death staring you though” Lily nodded cautiously towards Sweet Pea who was glaring over his shoulder at Em whilst his friends reviewed the events of the morning. 

“Who Flower? He's just sassed ‘cos of what I said earlier.” Em shrugged grabbing the tray off her sister as she buckled over in a fit of giggles, tears of joy streaming down her face as she shuffled over to her chair.

 “Flower?! That's his name?” Lily wailed grabbing her stomach and gasping for breath. Em waited for her sister to calm down a bit before speaking in her usual cool collected tone again. 

“Don't be ridiculous Lily-pad. His actual name is Sweet pea.” That was the final straw, Lily was now hunched over the table laughing so hard she looked and sounded like a sea lion having a fit. But all this laughter hadn't gone unnoticed and they had now attracted the attention of all the Serpents who didn't look to pleased. But it was Sweet Pea who looked to be the most annoyed. His usual scowl had deepened into a terrifying look of pure anger. He stood up and headed straight for them sending anyone in his way flying. The crowds parted like the red sea and Em took an uneasy gulp. 

“Ah shit, we pissed off the been pole.” She breathed irritably, jabbing Lily in the ribs and leaning back calmly in her chair. “The key in this kind of confrontation is not to look intimidated.” Lily glanced anxiously at her sister, whimpering at the sight of the terrifying Serpent that was now looming over the table staring straight at her sister. 

“Something funny is it?” He growled. Lily looked at her sister worriedly, she knew this was only going to end one way if Em opened her mouth. The girl had no filter and very little sense of self preservation. But her reaction was too late, Ems face had cracked into the overly sweet and innocent smile Lily knew all too well. ~Well its been a good life and I've given it my all. Don't cry at my funeral folks~ Lily thought as she watched the sickening events unfold. 

“Settle petal, its nothing you need concern yourself with.” Em smiled before standing up and leaning on the table to meet Sweet Peas glare, “Even if I told you.., it’d take you long to catch up” She mocked smoothly.

Lily’s face fell as she dropped it into her hands. This was it, this was the moment she died a horrific death because of her sisters lack of self control. The table of Serpents erupted into a roar of laughter, soon joined by the rest of the cafeteria. Even Lily couldn't help but crack a smile at her inevitable demise. But Ems face was completely relaxed as she stared straight into the serpents eyes. 

“Cute, this isn't over princess!” He said coolly before leaving the crowd to their howling laughter. Lily breathed a huge sigh of relief before punching her sister as hard as she could in the arm. 

“Are you Mad?! You nearly got us killed.” She growled trying to hide the smug look of triumph growing in her eyes. Em looked at her sister and smiled her wicked victory smile. 

“Sit down and eat your salad, if he was going to kill us he’d have done it when you hit his bike.” Em said leaning back in her chair and taking a swig of water. Lily looked at her sister confused. “When did I hit his bike?” 

“When you were learning to drive and backed into it last year.” Em said trying not to choke on her water thinking back to that day. 

“Em that was our neighbours bike.” Lily corrected, looking at her sister, the look of confusion growing on her face.

Em smiled raising a knowing eyebrow. “Wait for it.”

Lily's face turned white and her stomach flipped. “OH Shit!” her face was practically see through by now.

“There it is!” Em cheered. “Took you long enough, how long have you been delivering papers to the Serpent side now? 3 maybe 4 years and you’ve lived next door to him for what... your whole life?” Em mocked. “Dude you need to open your eyes.” Em laughed clearing her tray. 

“I'm going for a smoke, I’ll see you after school, you’re good from here right?” She asked picking up her bag and pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Lily nodded clearing away her tray.

“I’ll walk with you I've got art next and I want to get there in plenty of time.” Em smiled as they made their way down the corridor to Lily’s art class.

 “Make sure you stay away from the junkies, they get kind of stabby this time of day and I'm not giving you my switch blade. I'm gonna need it for algebra.” Em joked before heading outside, leaving Lily to the comforts of her new friends.

Em jumped onto the bench and lit her cigarette, her music playing in her ears and the sun on her legs. She hadn't noticed the dark figure leaning against the wall next to her until they kicked her leg, rudely awakening her from her daydream. She pulled her head phones out to growl at the figure.

 “Well, well, who’d of thought it, Southside High’s very own Bambi smokes!” Sweet Pea appeared from the shadow’s taking a drag of his own cigarette. Em sighed and slumped back to her previous position.

 “What’s up flower? Some one forget to water you? Or are you still pissed that I smoked your ass on track today.” Em teased coolly ~That's it poke the bear why don't you. Fucking idiot, This Is How You Die!~ Em thought but as always her mouth worked faster than her brain, leaving her self preservation floating helplessly on the side lines. Her face crumpled slightly as she realised what she had just said. Sweet Pea must’ve seen the look flash over her face, as he chuckled and turned to face her more directly. 

“Not one for knowing when to quit are you?” He smiled at the look of defeat on her face.

“Shut up. Flowers aren’t supposed to talk.” Em grumbled through her cigarette.

“Oh? What are they supposed to do then princess?” Sweet Pea asked raising an amused eyebrow. Ems face lit with the wicked grin that always appeared when she knew she had her opponent by the balls. She turned to look at him in the eyes raising a smug eyebrow. 

“They’re supposed to stand there in silence and look pretty, so since you are doomed to fail the second half you can at least try to do the first half successfully.” She grinned flicking her cigarette before waltzing smugly back inside, leaving Sweet pea standing speechless and annoyed.

“EM YOU SUPER STAR OPEN UP!” Toni hollered hammering at the door to Ems trailer. Lily swung the door open and leapt out the way before Toni ran her over.

 “Why hello Topaz nice to see you too!” She laughed closing the door. Em was in the kitchen dancing to the music blasting from the speakers in the living room. 

“What’s up Topaz?” She called handing her sister a 2 large jugs of Mojitos. 

“You’ve really done it now Em. He’s been yelling to Fogarty and Hog eye for the last hour about your music and blatant lack of respect.” Toni laughed taking a large swig of Mojito before handing Em a large bottle of whiskey. “Pizzas also on the way before you ask.” She said before opening up the doors to the balcony and admiring the large plant that was climbing up the side of Sweet Peas trailer.

“Oh great the big bad Serpent starts calling for our heads and you two decide to sit and smell the flowers?!” Lily yelled throwing her arms up in the air. “Has it not occurred to you that we could actually be in serious trouble this time Em? Sure Topaz is fine she’s one of them but we aren't. We’re defenceless and what do you do, POKE THE FUCKING BEAR!” Lily’s voice was shaking with a strong mix of rage and disbelief as she paced the trailer. Em smiled as she joined Toni outside lighting a cigarette as she sat down.

“How long until she calms down this time? Ten bucks says she chills the second pizza turns up.” Toni chuckled to Em. 

“Nah, she’s really pissed this time, reckon it’ll take her until her second slice and then another 2 slices to chill after she sees that we’ve been gambling on her again.” Em said thoughtfully, turning to watch her sister rant away to herself for a moment before turning back to look at the side of her neighbours trailer again. “Has he noticed it yet?”

“Noticed what?” Toni glanced at Em. “The fact that you’re growing Sweet Peas against Sweet Peas trailer or that you’re both secretly in love with each other which is why you insist on getting on each other nerves?” Toni teased pulling on the sleeve of her friends loose chequered shirt.

Em scoffed and shoved her friend playfully. “Topaz I love you but you’re off your rocker if you think that's what it is.”

“Oh really, I'm not the one tormenting the gang member next door.“ Toni pointed out just as Lily came strolling out carrying the pizza, still scowling at the lack of reaction in Em and Toni. She placed the pizza between them as she lent against the fence and took a large bite out of her second slice relaxing almost immediately. Em laughed at the irritated expression on Toni’s face as she handed Em her winnings. 

“Told you she was pissed.” Em said smugly through a mouthful of food. 

“Are your fucking kidding me? You placed bets on me ... AGAIN!” Lily shouted through a large bite of pepperoni pizza. Toni rolled her eyes as Em burst into giggles again. 

“I hope you choke on that you smug git.” Toni smirked.

They had just finished clearing away the last of the Pizza and were beginning to hit the drinking games with a few of the girls Lily had invited over when Ems phone started buzzing.

“Em your phones going crazier than a bees butt!” Lily slurred handing the phone to her sister, who had just finished mixing drinks in the kitchen. 

“Hello, you’ve reached the angel hotline how can I help you.” Em smirked innocently down the phone, causing a couple of girls to give her a concerned frown.

“If this is the angel hotline, you must be Lucifer!” The voice on the other end of the phone said gruffly. 

“That hurts FP.” Em mocked, clutching her chest acting offended.

“What’s this I hear about you growing plants on Sweet Peas trailer and generally being a pain in the ass. You’ve managed to piss off every one of the serpents at school.” FP sounded tired, It wasn't the first time Em had caused problems but he let her get away with it because he knew how hard she worked to keep her family a float. Picking up odd jobs when she could and not asking questions, she’d done work for pretty much everyone on Southside, even picking up work from the Ghoulies when times got really tough. That was when FP took her family under his wing, making Em his go to when he needed a set of eyes that wouldn’t look suspicious behind enemy lines.

“That not true, Topaz still loves me don’t you petal?” Em smiled handing Toni the phone.

“Hey FP, Em didn't mean to piss everyone off, its not her fault she beat Sweet Pea in the turf race on Monday.” Toni slurred through bursts of drunken giggles.

“She did what? Oh this is priceless,” Fp laughed down the phone. “Wait didn't she get crushed by that bike she was fixing up? Toni put Em on the phone now.”

Toni handed Em the phone giving her worried smirk, “Girl he sounds Piiiissssed.”

Em rolled her eyes and put the phone to her ears. “Before you say anything it’s only minor bruising to the ribs, nothing to worry about.”

“Fangs tells me your leg was practically black and he could see the bruising through your shirt. That doesn't sound like nothing to me kid.” FP was trying really hard not to shout. “You need to take more care of yourself kiddo.”

“Wow no you’re right that does sound bad, all those injuries and I still beat your fastest member. Standards are lacking there FP, sounds like you needed this recruitment.” Em teased.

“Em this isn't funny, you need to stop winding them up. There’s only so much I can protect you from before I start going against the code.” FP warned. “As for the flowers on Peas trailer... I'm impressed not a lot of people would’ve gone the extra mile but you just had to push your luck didn't you. Ah shit, i gotta go. Take care of yourself kid and keep your nose clean.” FP groaned before hanging up. Em laughed as she set her phone down inside before heading out to join the rest of the group in dancing and drinking their Friday night away.

Em woke up early the next morning, checking the time on her phone before turning off her alarm before it woke everyone up. 5am she had managed to get a whole 2 hours sleep after their drunken girls night, not bad for her. She threw on her usual black skinny jeans and blue combat boots before searching her room for a bra and clean shirt. Throwing on her favourite green bra, black vest and red flannel shirt after a few seconds of manic searching. She crept into the kitchen and took out the bottles of hang over smoothies from the fridge, leaving them for the girls ready for when they woke up. Lily and Toni had passed out on the sofa after playing a dangerous game of roulette with Em. She quickly whipped up some pancake mix leaving the bowl covered up  by the stove ready for her mum when she woke up and had just enough time to grab her cigarettes and phone before her phone went off showing her delivery route for the morning.

“You ever heard of sleep? Looks like you could use some princess.” Em had just managed to creep out of the house and down the steps when a low growl made her jump causing her to drop her lighter through the gap in the bottom step.

“You fucking idiot. You scared the hell outta.” Em hissed sharply “And made my drop my lighter!” Sweet Pea smirked handing her his lighter. 

“Here you go Bambi. what are you doing up this early any way?” He asked softly. This put Em on edge even more, why was he being nice? She accepted the lighter any way and began making her way to her pick up point. “Work, what about you? And why were you standing outside my door?” Em replied blankly.

“I was admiring my new plant.” Sweet pea replied lighting his own cigarette.

“At 5 in the morning, nice try. What’s the real reason?” Em questioned as she flicked her cigarette and lit another. 

“Always poking your nose in where it doesn't belong aren't you Bambi.” He scoffed.

“Fine be weird,” Em shrugged plugging her headphones in. “Oh and if I’m Bambi and you’re Flower, you realise that makes you the skunk right?” She mocked before leaping into a sprint and darting round the corner and out of sight. 

“Smug little shit” Sweet pea mumbled to himself as he head back to the door to his trailer.

“Cuss her all you want, doesn't change the fact that you waited to see if she was Ok after last night and got to work on time.” Toni called from Ems balcony, a smug, mildly hung over grin sprawled across her face. 

“Fuck off Topaz, you don't know what you’re talking about.” Sweet Pea growled before slamming the door behind him as he entered his trailer.

“Some ones touchy this morning aren't they?” Lily mumbled to Toni as she curled back up on the sofa.

“He’s just pissed ‘cos he knows I'm right.” Toni yawned before drifting back to sleep. 

Masterlist

[cutegirlmayra]

I came up with a random and slightly terrible idea for a prompt. Amy starts dating Shadow to make sonic jealous, and at first Shadow goes along with the idea out of pure spite, but something triggers a "Maria Moment" and he ends up becoming overly protective/attached of her. What do you think? Terrible right? XD

(x) Please don’t judge, I made this one >x

Oh, so terrible~ just enough so… that it might actually work! :D (that’s a compliment, lol)

Prompt:

With Amy watching Comedy Chimp interview Sonic for a ‘Comedy Ship’ special, Sonic is asked if Amy’s ever dated anyone, “After all, she’s a good looking girl, am I right? Charity-worker, perfect house-keeper, even got a top 80 for ‘can you wield a hammer and still look cute and totally not intimidating?’! What are your comments, Sonic?”

“Well, Chimp. Honestly? There’s not a lot of guys out there looking for someone like Amy. But hey! I guess it’s a little intimidating… that’s why she didn’t make the tippy-top of that chart, you know what I’m saying?” Sonic winks and relaxes with his hands behind his head, making the crowd laugh.

Amy squirms in her seat with anger, “I lost to an Otter and an Koala bear! That’s tough competition!” she threw the remote and started smashing around her house.

When she wore off, she saw something pass her window and quickly looked out it, getting an idea when she saw Shadow talking about something on his communicator.

“Remember, all you have to do is plant one last bomb in any location Sonic may pass through!” Eggman hollered, as Shadow seemed pretty serious about that command.

“Like I said, Doctor. I work on my own terms. Don’t worry about where I place it, only that you have it go off when the time comes.” he turned off the communicator and kept walking when Amy jumped up and in front of his way, smiling from cheek to cheek.

She giggled oddly, as if being shy, and having her hands behind her back, nervously hunched down a bit.

“…Out of my way,… strange… pink.. woman.” he gestured his arm out, trying to get her to move but looking confused on how to address her.

“Amy. And I was just wondering if you’re alone right now..?” She peeked over his shoulders and then chuckled nervously again as she pushed her fingers in on each other. “haha..ha..”

He rose an eyebrow, ‘Did she discover my true plans with Eggman? Is my cover blown?” he held a hand over his communicator and stepped back, “I don’t have times to deal with Sonic’s pathetic friends…” he was about to race off when he felt something grab at his arm and pull him back.

“W-what?” he looked back and saw her clinging to him. “One walk around the town, then you can do whatever you want!”

“One walk?” He was confused, but the directness and weird surprise of it left him unable to fight back as she pulled him into town.

“Promise it won’t be long! It never is to start up rumors…” she grinned mischievously, before giggling randomly as people walked by, and placing her head on Shadow’s shoulder.

He would flinch away before Eggman called again…

“Uhh… hmph.” he pushed Amy away, secretly taking the call on his wrist communicator.

“Shadow! Why are you-? … are you seriously on a date with Amy?” Eggman looked annoyed.

“What? I’m trying to escape her-emm!!” he was cut off by Amy grabbing his face, turning him to her and pointing to her friends.

“They’re here! Okay, act natural!” She put her arm around his waist and his arm over her shoulder, and giggled once again in her silly, nervous way. “This’ll teach him to tell me I’m not wanted!”

“What?! Unhand me! Let me go, you crazy-!”

“Woah, is that..? Shadow?!” Sonic stepped back.

“He’s captured Amy!” Tails cries out, pointing.

“Against her will!” Sticks got on all fours, growling and biting at the air.

“With no understanding of how to properly pull off that move!” Knuckles punched the air, and then posed with the rest of them, ready to fight.

Amy pretended to laugh at something Shadow said, snorting slightly and confusing him more, before walking on her merry way with him being dragged along as he stumbled in his steps.

“Uhhh…” the gang watched in the same amount of confusion as Shadow had portrayed.

“…Was she… happy?”

“Laughing means happiness.” Sticks replied to Tails’s question, getting up and stroking her chin. “Hmm.. Looks kinda like she’s moved on.”

“Aww.. does this mean we can’t trash Amy’s place anymore?” Knuckles leaned down, arms draping over and dangling in front of him, looking like a sad puppy.

“M-moved on!?” Sonic was startled, to say the least, and shook his head and hands, “No, no, no- NO. She’s clearly been… been… brain-washed! Yeah, that’s it!”

He watched as she sat down at Meh Burger with Shadow, trying to feed him as he struggled to get away from her.

“…She… she’s just messing around is all.” Sonic folded his arms, looking away, almost offended.

The gang looked at each other before he threw his arms up, “Stop looking! It’s weird! She’s clearly only going out with my mortal enemy to make me jealous!”

He pouted and peeked out to the two again, as Tails sighed.

“Well, maybe she’ll convert him to our side?”

“WHAT?!”

“Love is a powerful thing. Who knows? They may make some lovely hedgehog babies together.” Sticks shrugged, walking off with Tails.

“You guys! We can’t just let this happen!” Sonic frantically turned to them, gesturing to the two, “She’s clearly being used! He’s using her! Going to break her heart to try and get to me- I-I-I mean us! The team! He’ll be our Yoko!” he gripped his head, clearly desperate for them to help stop this mess.

Knuckles yawned, “But that would mean ruining their date, right? That’s a low thing to do, Sonic. Amy’s our friends. If she wants to go off and hang with other dudes at Meh Burger than we have to respect her decision.” He then twitched and held his chest. “Ouch! Was that what I think it was? Ah! Tails! I need ducktape! Fast!” He then booked it to Tails, who also looked down a moment, turning around.

“Hey, that’s right. If Amy goes off with Shadow.. doesn’t that mean we won’t see her anymore?”

As the gang got wild up, Shadow planted the bomb in Meh Burger, under the table as he noticed them coming to approach the two.

“Mind telling me why you insist on making a fool of yourself?”

She giggled nervously again before sobbing and slamming her head to the table. The impact made him worry about the bomb as he sneakily glanced down to check on it.

It wasn’t activated… he let a quiet sound of relief calmly pass his lips.

He then glared back at Amy. “You’re wasting my patience. What’s going on-!”

She plugged his mouth, leaning back up.

He swiped it off, “And stop doing that!”

“I need you to act like you like me!”

“What?!”

They were holding hands now, not on purpose, as Sonic and the gang flinched from a distance.

“They’re already holding hands!” Sticks blurted out.

“They’re moving too fast! This is getting serious!” Tails gripped his head, panic now setting in as they had recently decided to confront Amy about this. “Even me and Zooey haven’t reached that stage! I-I’d be too embarrassed!”

“He must be stopped!” Sonic hollered out, and the team moved faster. “Wait!” Sonic stopped them, “Stealth… be cool guys… be cool…” They straightened up, being casual and speed walking over to them now.

“You’re insufferable! Why would I fancy you?” “You could if you tried! Honest! I’d be a cute girlfriend!” Shadow was pushing her away from him, but Amy was moving more towards him.

The team sped up again, their heads lowering down and Tails spinning his tails as it looked a little… different from their point of view…

More couply.

“Why are you so insistent!? Tell me the truth!” He threw her hands down and she sighed in annoyance, giving up.

“Fine! I wanted to make Sonic jealous!”

“What?” Shadow looked at Sonic’s face, coming quickly over to them, dodging people and stopping for the old monkey man to pass, growing impatience and growling at having to wait.

“Heh. If that’s your goal..” He pulled her closer and leaned his head back to whisper in her ear. “Quick, giggle. Like before.” He needed to get her to lure the team over there way anyway…

She did so since his breath tickled her ear anyway. She covered her face though, hiding the blush as she realized she actually liked that feeling. ‘That's not supposed to happen.’ she thought to herself.

Sonic moved faster, helping the old monkey across the street before continuing to ‘play it cool’ towards the two, but growing more and more aggressive in his steps and his expression.

Shadow smiled, “Closer…” He moved his finger to the communicator for Eggman to receive his signal, waiting for the perfect moment…

“You know, Shadow… I really am grateful you’re playing along with this.” Amy looked away, her hands on her lap. “I mean… It just means…”

She smiled up at him, and his eyes suddenly widened, distracted.

“That you do have a heart, after all!” she tilted her head and his memory of Maria triggered, his eyes shook while her image was replaced over and over with Amy’s.

He flipped the tap, standing up and shaking his head in his cry, “MARRRRIIIAAA!!!” he then kicked the table away and grabbed Amy, jumping away as the table exploded near Sonic and the gang, who guarded and looked up to where Shadow had jumped to a nearby building and then continued on with trees.

“He really is using her!” Tails looked at the bomb, “He was going to explode us all to pieces!”

“Amy!” In worry, Sonic gritted his teeth and ran after her.

Shadow grew protective of Amy, only because his mind was associating her with Maria, having his PTSD kick in, Amy became Maria in his mind. He would shake his head and declare to Sonic, “I’ll never let anyone take her away from me! Not again!”

“Again?” Amy was confused, but after a little chase, she figured out Shadow was having an episode, and helped comfort and calm him through it.

“T..Thank you… but why are you helping me?” He had snapped out of his mental breakdown, clutching his head.

“Hehe, cause you- for a moment anyway before being a bad guy again- totally helped me out with getting Sonic to notice me. But I would have done it regardless, shadow. You really should talk about this more… It may help with your emotions… talking about your feelings..” she put a hand delicately to his back, as he twitched under her kindness.

“Hmph!” he paused a moment, before swiping her hand away from him. “I don’t need your sympathy.” he spat out and took off before Sonic had a chance to catch him.

“Wait!”

“Sonic!” Amy stopped him and swung his arm she caught back to her.

“B-but he’s getting away!”

“And?”

“H-he took you!”

“And?”

“And!? Well, and now you're here and not… in… his clutches… oh.” Sonic calmed down, looking back and forth to where Shadow went and where she was now.

“What’s the deal, Ames? You know he’s a bad dude! What… are you … y-you into that sort of t-t-thing?” He folded his arms, getting nervous and looking away, shy again.

She giggling into her hand, making him upset cause he’s heard that giggle too much already today.

She then put her face close up to his cheek, “I was just making you sure you realize how it feels to lose me.” She teased and walked to the gang coming up behind them.

“Amy!” they shouted for joy, thinking Sonic had caught up first and saved her.

“I think I’m done with the dating scene for one day.” she grinned, embracing them as they welcomed her back.

Sonic couldn’t help it, he studied the ground before glaring to Shadow’s direction, and then his eyes softened, and he rubbed the back of his head.

“I guess…” he muttered to himself, before losing the tension in his body and looking tenderly towards Amy, “I never knew how that would feel…” he admitted, but only to himself.

With a smile.

Shadow stopped a moment from walking, taking off the communicator that Eggman was shouting out from- wondering what had happened, and accusing Amy of having changed his heart on him.

Shadow looked over his shoulder, seeing Amy so happy with her friends.

He clutched his chest. “…Maria… Forgive me. I seem to still…”

He watched her closer…

“Have weakness…”

He honed in on Amy’s cheery smile… reminding him so much of Maria’s…

(Augh, I kinda want to make Shadow crush on her but that would mean certain doom for keeping this canon lol. -though I think it’s possible for his character… *cough cough*-)

[quarantineculture]

quarantine day 1

Honestly, it’s not even that bad. (I say now. It’s only day 1. Who knows if it’ll get worse.) I went to bed at like 3am last night because I spent hours reading articles about coronavirus (all of which furthered my conviction that I need to be quarantined to avoid potentially infecting people) so I ended up not fully waking up till nearly noon. Mom made nice ramen and left a bowl for me at the top of the stairs. I feel like a dog. I wait for the humans in whose home I must live (but am confined to a certain area) to give me the food they pick for me, in the container they pick for me, which they leave for me on the floor. I’m not complaining though. The ramen was REALLY good. I just think it’s hilarious that I have to wait for them to leave the food on the ground for me and then they all eat together and I bring my food down to my basement.  They usually FaceTime me when we all eat together anyway so it’s not a big deal.

Having so much free time and not being allowed to really go out or socialize means I spend a lot of time cleaning. Maybe not even that much time. More like, the fact that I’m the only one who lives down here and now I have all the time in the world to spend here means I clean more than I usually do (compared to at school, when I’m only really in my room to sleep so I kinda leave things wherever because I’d rather spend my time outside my room with my friends.) But I want to have a clean living space and it’s only myself I’m cleaning up after, so it’s fine. I like keeping things neat.

One of the articles I read yesterday talked about how to keep up with your mental health while you’re practicing social distancing/in quarantine. They said you should make a schedule, so today I made a schedule for myself. It’s been less than a day and I haven’t really stuck to it much, but I like the idea of it, and the flexibility I have while still setting certain goals and allocating time for different activities. For example, even though I don’t do everything exactly at the time I set (especially meals – that tends to depend on when my family eats), just having an order to my day helps me. I like setting a goal of getting at least some school work done in the morning and afternoon, and having lunch and a walk outside to take breaks. Walking was nice – I went to the park and took a TON of pictures of ducks and turtles and frogs – but I found that when I got back I was too hungry to go back to doing work, so I ended up spending a lot of time eating and prepping food, and then went back to finishing a lecture after dinner and video games. So it’s flexible. But I really like the feeling of having accomplished some work so I can relax in the evenings without guilt.

Speaking of productivity, my friend uses this app/site called Toggl. I signed up for it for free. It basically tracks the amount of time you spend actually working on a project. You can start and stop a timer when you’re being actively productive on something and see how it adds up. Today, I spent 1 hour and 26 minutes total actively studying endocrinology. I got through around 21 slides. Some of them were pretty long. I’m pretty proud of myself even though I wanted to do another 42 slides because those slides were a lot and at least I finished one lecture.

My parents said I can go outside and get fresh air as long as I stay 6 feet away from everyone, so I went for a walk after I did a bunch of my slides. There’s a big park a couple blocks away and I spent an hour or so walking around, looking at ducks and turtles and squirrels, taking pictures of everything. So many people wear masks, especially on the streets – probably like 80% of the pedestrians I passed had them. I do live in a densely populated area. In the parks less so because there’s so much space, but as I passed one middle-aged/older man on the street he put on a mask. I also passed by a discarded mask on the street.

I wonder if people can tell that I’m supposed to be in quarantine when they look at me walking around by myself, crossing to the other side when I see someone ahead, avoiding other humans in general. I’m really glad this park is still open. Even when it seems like everything’s shutting down, it’s a relief to have at least some spaces that still bear some semblance of normalcy, where people can do yoga and play tennis and ride bikes and watch animals. The squirrels here are FEARLESS. I love them. I’m kind of obsessed with squirrels. I always have been. I’m not sure why, but I just love how cute they are! So fluffy! So quick! Their little bushy furry tails! How they hold the nut, and dig for the nuts, and chase each other around – it’s adorable! Some of them even pose for the camera and let you come really close.

Look at this good boy!

Anyways. I also made dumplings today. My sisters dropped off the dumpling wraps and the meat/scallion filling (in a metal bowl… very good for my “I Feel Like A Dog” sentiments…) at the top of the stairs and watched me looking up at them from the bottom of the staircase. I tried to use the pressure cooker. Did you know that when you’re using a pressure cooker, you’re supposed to keep the lid off when using the sauté function? Also, the pressure cooker does not have an on button. You just plug it in and push a button for the setting you want in order to activate it. It’s kinda scary. It started screaming and letting the steam out but the manual said it was supposed to be very quiet so that’s when I freaked out. You know you done goofed when the machine is literally advertised as Lets Out Steam Very Quietly and you hear WEEEeEeEeEeEEeeEEEshHhhshhhhHhshhHHHh!!!!! – less than five minutes after you turn it on. For a minute I thought it was going to explode and I would have to clean up sad deconstructed dumplings all over my makeshift kitchen area.

This post is already too long so here’s my ending summary:

THINGS I AM GRATEFUL FOR:

Sleeping in till noon. Having ramen delivered to me. The internet. Legend of Zelda. My family. SQUIRRELS! That the park is still open. That life goes on even in times of crisis. The crazy old men who were playing shuffleboard (I think that’s the name of it?) at the park today – fearless! My friends. Ducks and turtles too. The care package full of crochet materials that I have not yet been able to make anything resembling anything out of. Youtube for trying to teach me how to make a magic circle in crochet for maybe the fifth time. Free patterns on the Internet. She-Ra season 5 has a release date! The sleep function on iPhones.

QUARANTINE BY THE NUMBERS:

Time spent outside basement: approximately 1 hour

Screen time on phone: 4 hours 45 minutes

Toggl-logged time spent studying: 1 hour 26 minutes

Breath of the Wild: approx.. 2 hours

Explosions: ZERO!

Working on blog stuff: approx. 1.5 hours

Failing miserably at amigurumi: approx. 1 hour

Times I felt like a dog: Probably at least 3

[estherroberts]

and nothing ever does begin like nothing ever ends

chapter seven: anchor

fandom: ars paradoxica, his dark materials

words: 1871

rating: T

characters: nikil sharma/mateo morales, petra & carmen, lou gaines & david marian, bridget chambers & ted chambers

read on ao3

series masterpost

June 23, 20[][]

“close your eyes!” mateo plugs his phone into his speaker and tosses his capuchin daemon toward nikil. “i’m gonna sic her on your tree frog, dude.”

“my eyes are closed!” nikil sits on the bed, holding jyotsana in his lap delicately. he can’t see her, but he knows edelmira is staring directly at them. “both of you, please relax.”

“you have to appreciate the full effect of the bell solo.”

“the bell solo?”

“hush!” he puts on the song and jumps up next to his boyfriend. “listen.”

the song, in nikil’s opinion, is average at best, but it does have a good rhythm. there’s some line about the length of a guy’s beard, something about women, and losing the ones you love. it’s all highly metaphorical and probably bullshit. “you really need to get into more 80s synth pop.”

“i hate you.”

“got any more shitty indie music to torture our ears with?” jyotsana asks, mustering as much of a smile as she’s capable of.

“as a matter of fact…” mateo flies off the bed again and bounces on his toes as he scrolls through his phone. edelmira climbs up to his shoulder and tugs his ear when she sees what they’re looking for. “we’re making you a playlist!”

“why on earth would you do that?” nikil is giggling, but he has to admit he’s a little flattered.

“it’s because your music taste is shit.” mateo answers, at the same time as his daemon says, “it’s because he’s super gay.”

now nikil is really laughing. “i’m certainly grateful for that. come here.”

mateo rolls his eyes as nikil pulls him closer for a kiss.

“thank you for improving my music taste. and for, well, being gay for me.”

“don’t get sappy on me, sharma.”

“i’m not capable of it, morales.”

July 24, 19[][]

carmen and petra stand at the entrance to an office that they’d thought was abandoned. however, esther roberts, a figure of great power and mystery, is sitting on the desk, feet tucked underneath her. she’s deep in thought, her gaze lost out the window.

it’s silent but for the two girls’ cold-induced whistle-breaths, and they exchange a horrified glance. neither esther, nor ritsa, her milk snake daemon, have noticed them yet, but they always could and there’s no telling what kind of trouble the girls would be in.

petra and ambrosio risk looking into the office one more time, and they glimpse a profound sadness on esther’s face.

carmen tugs on petra’s sleeve, and they slink back to their room together. “holy shit,” she whispers once she’s in the safety of her bed. “that was close.”

“oh, c’mon!” petra can feel the falsity in her voice, but she can’t make it anymore authentic. “would i let that happen?”

“no.” carmen pulls obsesso into her lap and he shifts into a skunk. “we haven’t gotten caught in years.”

“did you see her face?” petra asks, sitting at her desk chair and letting ambrosio lose to fly around the room. they’re still getting used to his new settled form as a harris hawk, but she has so admit she enjoys it.

“she looked… like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. never seen her that sad.”

“never seen anyone that sad.” petra changes her mind about the desk chair and hops into the bed next to carmen. “promise me we won’t end up like that?”

“i promise.” carmen sighs and kicks her feet into petra’s lap. “gosh.”

“hmm?”

“i’m so tired.”

“take a nap?” petra isn’t anywhere near sleep herself, but she doesn’t mind letting carmen use her as a pillow.

“yeah.”

for a moment, petra think carmen’ll ask her to sing, like she did when they were little. but she doesn’t and instead rests her head back and closes her eyes.

petra holds out her hand and ambrosio lands on it.

he nuzzles into her neck and pecks her softly on the cheek. “you okay, petra?”

“i guess.”

August 14, 1943

lou grabs david’s hand and lifts him up from the ground. “ready to march again?”

david laughs, dusts himself off, and picks up his pack. “yes, sir.”

it’s silent for a while as they walk with the rest of their unit, emmeline flying in circles overhead, and torial matching them stride for stride. david speaks first, reaching down to scratch his cheetah daemon under the chin as he does so. “scale of one to ten, how much do you believe in this war? uh, sir?”

lou casts a circular glance around to make sure no one is listening, and david can see exactly why emmeline settled as an owl. “i’d give it about a 4.”

“really?”

“listen. the magisterium… they’ve always been like this. they’ve always been this controlling, this demeaning, this cruel even, and most of us just turned a blind eye to it cuz we believe in the same god.” he shrugs, and continues, “but i do love my country. even if it’s full of hypocrites.”

“that’s fair.”

“and we gotta help those who need us.” he nods, a bit like he’s giving himself his own stamp of approval and turns to david. “what about you, son? you here because you believe?”

it takes him a minute to think it over. he’d asked lou to get him talking, loving the way his captain spun the threads of his mind in the air. “in all honesty, sir, i believe in this war. i believe in new denmark’s place in this war. the—“ he hesitates. “the ads all want us to focus on the fighting, and i do believe we’re fighting the good fight. but this is as much about helping the hebrew people as it is helping our allies.”

“marian, do you get a lot of shit for your daemon?”

david exchanges a look with torial, and nods. “yes, sir. because he’s male.”

“and i know you get just as much crap as me for not being a white boy.”

david chuckles, and agrees to that too.

“this is the kind of thing that’ll teach you to look out for other people. maintain balance and all that. or it’ll turn you into a sloppy asshole who pisses all over himself cuz he got his ass handed to him too many times.” emmeline lands on his shoulders and pecks him gently. “but you’re a good man. and you got the right ideals about this battle.”

“thank you. sir.”

November 25, 1946

“oh, yeah, he was a hot slice.”

“stop that!” bridget hits ted with her couch pillow. “please, dear god, stop saying ‘hot slice.’ it’s abhorrent.”

“have you found any sugars lately?” he asks, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows as he dodges her second attack.

“no! no one who’s interested in more than ‘one unforgettable night,’ or whatever the hell it is they’re calling fuck and runs these days.”

ted sputters at her for a moment. “so i’m not allowed to say ‘hot slice’ but you’re allowed to say ‘fuck and run?’”

“yes.”

his yorkie daemon runs around in circles yapping and bridget can’t help but giggle.

“hell,” he finally says, “seriously, woman, when are you gonna marry me?”

“tomorrow? at the courthouse? are you free?”

“wait, forreal? or are you messin’?”

she exchanges a glance with galené. they’d talked about this already, and they’re pretty set on it. “we joke about it all the time, but really, it would be beneficial to both of us. and i wouldn’t want to marry anyone but you.”

“iazza,” ted calls, and she hops up onto the sofa. “tell bridget how crazy she is.”

“bridget,” his daemon chides, “we can’t just get married at the courthouse. it has to be an event.”

lené snorts. “what, like a real white gown affair?”

“hell yeah.” the tiny dog wags her tail.

“sure,” bridget shrugs. “i never thought i’d get that kind of wedding.”

“you’ll get that all that and more,” ted promises, “and you won’t even have to have sex with a man on your honeymoon.”

“sounds incredible.”

[insert-witty-comment]

...and I feel like I just gazed into the maw of madness itself.Okay, a bit of explanation first.I grew up on Long Island in the late 90’s/early 2000's. Me and my friends were pretty interested in the supernatural and we all knew about the Montauk Project; the story about how some kidnapped psychic kids were used for mind control and spy purposes, and somehow let loose a monster from another dimension in the 80's. We used to theorize about it and even made a pilgrimage out to Camp Hero itself.A decade later, Stranger Things was made based on the alleged events at Montauk and Brookhaven (the latter of which was our hometown, so thank you Duffer Brothers for making a kick-ass show partly based on where I grew up).So whilst browsing the threads on this subreddit speculating about Season 2, I suddenly realized that I never actually read the books that the whole conspiracy came from. Perhaps they may contain a clue on what Season 2 may entail and clarify some elements, I thought.I was... partly right.The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time was written in 1992 by Peter Moon based on the testimony of a man named Preston B. Nichols. It's an interesting book, to say the least. Interesting in the same way as the journal of an inmate in an insane asylum is interesting. If you’re curious as to its contents, then I’ll be happy to share this lunacy with you.To give a brief overview, the book starts with a "Guide to the Reader" containing the following excerpt;"Some of the data you will read in this book can be considered as 'soft facts'. Soft facts are not untrue, they are just not backed up by irrefutable documentation.... This book is being presented as non-fiction as it contains no falsehoods to the best knowledge of the authors. However, it can also be read as pure science fiction if that is more suitable to the reader."So essentially, the author is telling us right off the bat that he can't actually prove anything, and in fact, we should feel free to see it as fiction. That's not very reassuring for a book that's supposed to "broaden your horizons".There's nineteen chapters in this book. The first is just a summary of the infamous Philadelphia Experiment, in which a US Navy destroyer called the USS Eldridge somehow teleported to Virginia and back again after being surrounded by an "electromagnetic bottle" that somehow diverted radio waves and this somehow caused it to teleport. When it came back, the crew was either driven insane or fused to the bulkheads. Somehow.Anyway, chapter 2 starts off with Nichols stating that he was employed with Telephonics, (though he refers to them as 'BJM", because I guess they threatened to sue if this lunatic claimed that they employed him) in 1971. He says that he received a grant to study mental telepathy and ended up "proving" its existence. Where he got this grant is never explained, but I would love to hear other opinions on what university would give something like that out.Anyway, he says that telepathic communications behave like radio waves but "[they] aren't exactly like radio waves." He does not elaborate on what he means by this or how he arrived at this conclusion (you better get used to this now, folks). Though I guess this information could explain why radios and intercoms pick up all of Eleven's (and Will's, I suppose) telepathy sessions in the show.So at the same hour every day, Nichols discovered that the psychics he was testing with had their minds "jammed" by a 410-420 MHz radio transmission coming from Camp Hero, an abandoned Air Force radar station in Montauk.Chapter 3 deals with his exploration of the station (apparently the gate was just conveniently left open) with a psychic named Brian. They come across a homeless guy living in one of the decrepit buildings who said that he was a technician on the base, explained some of the technology, mentioned a "big beast", and claimed that Nichols was his boss. Being a moron, Nichols does not press this further. Meanwhile, Brian does a reading and starts ranting about monsters and mind control. Lovely. After that, our intrepid heroes proceeded to loot the place (apparently a whole bunch of confidential tech was just left lying around) and high-tailed it out of there.Another guy shows up Nichols's house and claims that the narrator was his boss, giving more details to the nature of the Project. Intrigued, Nichols then makes it his priority to investigate the Project.Operating on RPG game logic, he wanders around town pestering random people with questions and hangs around bars trawling for rumors (because as we all know, plastered people are the best source of information) and brings more psychics to the base. Eventually he talks to the Chief of Police, who reveals the following information;"...Crimes would be committed in a two hour period. Then, all of a sudden, nothing... Teens were also reported to suddenly group en masse for two hours, then mysteriously separate and go their own ways... His statements lined up perfectly with what the psychics had indicated about mind control experiments."So to recap;Teenagers hanging out with their friends = indisputable proof of government mind control.I'm getting the feeling that this guy had a very lonely childhood.Chapter 4 opens in 1984 when a guy named Duncan Cameron shows up Nichols's lab, to apply for a job as an assistant. It turns out that Cameron is a psychic too, (what a shock) and when Nichols takes him to Camp Hero (the gate is still wide open, for some reason), he gets a flashback and blurts out that he was "programmed" to befriend Nichols, kill him and then blow up his lab.Why the CIA or whatever couldn't just pump carbon monoxide into the lab while Nichols was in it, I don't know.So Cameron promises not to kill Nichols, and Nichols trusts him immediately (again, he is a moron). Oh, and also Cameron was part of the Philadelphia Experiment, but this isn't elaborated on in any way. At this point in the book, Peter Moon literally put an advertisement for his friend's book right at the end of the chapter. It’s nice to see that conspiracy theorists are willing to shill for each other.Chapter 5 begins with Nichols telling the whole story to the "United States Psychotronics Association". By doing this, he believes that he is safe from assassination attempts as he is now "too big to sweep under the rug".You know, you can still get "accidentally" run over by a bus, moron.This somehow manages to inspire an unnamed Senator to get out to Camp Hero himself to investigate, because as we all know, when a Senator sets out to investigate suspicious activity in a remote area by himself, nothing can ever go wrong.Meanwhile, Nichols is trying to regain his lost memory. He does this by wandering into restricted areas of Telephonics BJM. Band-Aids keep mysteriously appearing on his hands, more strangers recognized him, he got mail meant for "the vice president of the company", and he was frequently called into meetings with a "certain executive" who was always "very agitated whenever we spoke."Of course, Nichols doesn't elaborate on any of this, so I am forced to assume that the conversation was about his heavy LSD use.So apparently Nichols wandered into a high-security area and found an office with his name on it labeled "Assistant Project Director". He searched the office for a couple of hours but was kicked out by security. When he tried to return, the office was stripped bare.In 1990, while setting up a "Delta-T Antenna" on the roof of his lab, all of Nichols's memories were suddenly restored. How, you may ask?Because the Antenna was storing up "time flux waves" and was thus bending time so that "I was subconsciously in two time lines."…..Okay.Chapter 7 starts off with a 1940's weather control project codenamed "Phoenix", led by an Austrian scientist named Dr. Wilhelm Reich (seriously?) who discovered something known as “orgone energy”. What is orgone energy? Hell if I know, because it’s never explained, as usual. According to Wikipedia, it’s essentially energy associated with “life force” that pervades everything, can “create organization” and can be manipulated with “wavicles” (might want to jot that down for your next Scrabble match). Here’s a scientist explaining it in more detail.So, essentially the government used this awesome power to make “radiosondes” (another good Scrabble word) in order to control the weather. The rest is just technical jargon explaining how these things worked, so I won’t bore you with that (though it should be noted that in keeping with the US federal government’s policy on efficiency, these incredibly expensive tubes crapped out after only on deployment).The plug was eventually pulled on the project because“Changing the weather, if it were proven in court, could lead to many lawsuits.”So far, I think this is the most realistic thing in the book. Oh, and the FDA tossed all of Reich’s work into a massive bonfire. So there’s that.Chapter 8 finally gets to the actual Montauk portion of the project. The Philadelphia Experiment team merged with the weather-Jedi to form the Phoenix Project. Led by Dr. John von Neumann, it was based at the Department of Energy-run Brookhaven National Laboratory (which was only a short drive away from my house, so that’s neat I guess). To spare you a long lecture about electromagnetic energy and metaphysics, they basically discovered that the Eldridge had teleported out of the time stream into an alternate reality.In essence, the Eldridge’s crew had become fleas.So, the team managed to find a way to “synchronize” the minds of humans with the alternate time reality, thus ensuring that they would remain sane. By doing this, the team had also discovered a way to control how people think. They submitted a report to Congress to request additional funding, but were denied for the following reason;“[Congress] was concerned that if the wrong people got a hold of this technology that they themselves could lose their minds and be controlled.”The “wrong people” already have this technology, Congress. They’re called lobbyists.So in Chapter 9, the Brookhaven group went to the military instead and asked them for support, which enthusiastically aids them, tempted by the ability to make Soviets blow their own heads off. This is followed by the following footnote;“*I have included in Appendix C some evidence that suggests mind control devices were used against the Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War.”……Note how this is casually just slipped in as a footnote, almost as if it was an afterthought. I think this is rather telling in how the authors think. Though I must say, if this was true and we were controlling the minds of Iraqi citizens, it would explain a lot.While the Air Force was able to turn over control of the Sage Radar system at Camp Hero to the project, the teleportation-weather-Jedi still needed funding. Nichols has an idea as to where the money came from;“I do not have documented evidence myself of the financing, but have been told by my Montauk acquaintances that the original money came courtesy of the Nazis.”Because God knows you can’t have a conspiracy theory without working the Nazis in SOMEHOW!So yes, apparently the infamous Montauk Project was funded by 10 billion dollars in Nazi gold seized from a train in France. The more you know.Oh, and it was being funded by the ITT Corporation, which was founded by Germans who later became Nazis.This book…..Anyway, Nichols was hired in 1973 while the scientists were experimenting with mind control. They did this by having Duncan Cameron and other psychics sit in a chair and be bombarded by microwave energy at different pulse and amplitude rates until something happened. Such is the way of science.Eventually, they discovered that the human brain can be controlled by 420-450 MHz of radio frequency power. So there you go, feel free to test it out on your friends. Or not, because it turns out bombarding the bodies of people with microwave radiation tends to leave them brain-dead. Who would have guessed?Apparently Cameron was technically brain-dead, yet remained functioning because “the psychic part of his mind takes over the physical part of his mind and runs the body.”If you’re still reading this, I congratulate you.Anyway, the teleportation-weather-Jedi-Nazis tested their mental manipulation on random citizens in places as far away as upstate New York with their transmitter, discovered “frequency hopping” and figured out a way to remotely shut cars off. The chapter ends with a couple of pictures of equipment that look like Forbidden Planet props but Nichols claims that they’re Montauk equipment, he swears.Chapter 10 basically explains how the chair and transmitters were supposed to work in detail, I guess so you can make your own DIY version at home. Or maybe not, because;“It has been suggested that the research was aided by the Sirians, an alien race who from the star system known as Sirius. This theory has the aliens providing the basic design and humans working it out from that.”Oh boy.I don’t know what’s more disturbing; that many people actually, fervently believe this as hard fact, or that spellcheck recognizes “Sirians” as a legitimate word.The rest of the chapter is, like I said, just a long, detailed description of how the equipment worked, complete with diagrams (apparently Tesla was involved, because of course he was). To spare you the technical details, it basically explains that the Montauk group managed to rig a piece-of-crap IBM 360 computer up to people’s brainwaves in order to control them. Boy, we better not let these guys near an IPhone!Chapter 11 focuses on (appropriately enough,) Duncan Cameron, the psychic that Eleven was based off of (I wonder if her name was an intentional reference?). Now, I know that quite a few people on this subreddit are curious about any new powers Eleven may have in Season 2. This book may contain some clues. In addition to the identical, destructive telekinetic ability and telepathy, Cameron was also attributed the following abilities;“Whatever Duncan could think up would appear. Many times, it would be only visible and not solid to the touch, like a ghost. Sometimes it was a real solid object that was stable and would stay… For example he could think of an entire building and that building would appear on the base.”Kind of weird that the residents of Montauk town never noticed new buildings appearing out of thin air, but whatever.“With a lock of person’s hair or other appropriate object in his hand, Duncan would concentrate on the person and be able to see as if he was seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears, and feeling through their body. He could actually see through other people, anywhere on the plant.”Interesting…“Being able to push his mind so far into the mind of another being, Duncan could control another person and make them do anything he wanted.”I don’t know if Eleven will be doing any of this in the show, but I can certainly see it happening. In addition, Cameron also acted as a sort of conduit for the science team to issue commands to mind-controlled subjects. In order to do this, they had bring out his malleable and controllable “primitive mind”. They accomplished this by having “…his conscious mind diverted through sexual bliss.”………….Well, I’m glad the Duffers cut that part out.So apparently the mind control techniques were perfected and recorded in 1978, and the tapes were distributed to various government agencies “so they could be developed into something practical.” I’m sure the Department of Education watches those tapes every night, trying to find an answer.Chapter 12 deals with time-travel. The teleportation-telepathic-weather-alien-Nazi-Jedi team discovered that Cameron could bend time as well, and he was amplified by an “Orion Delta T antenna”. Why Orion?“It is referred to as ‘Orion’ because there was a persistent rumor that the design was given to the project by aliens from the Orion constellation (this is a different group of aliens from the Sirians, whose knowledge was allegedly used for the Montauk chair.”Oh, so these guys were scamming TWO alien races out of their tech? Why stop there? Did the Biaviians not return your calls?“According to the rumor, the Orions knew we were close to achieving our task and had their own agenda for helping us.”Oh, okay, so no, they didn’t scam “the Orions”, they accepted the tech from them? You know, my mom always taught me to never take things from strangers when I was a kid, I’d think that a bunch of scientists with PhDs would know better than to accept strange technology from a bunch of sniggering aliens without asking any questions!This book….The rest of the chapter is just more explanation as to how time-travel works using metaphysics in a way that probably makes actual metaphysicists break down in tears at seeing their passion abused in such a way. The point is, they wanted to travel back in time to the Philadelphia Experiment in 1943.We’re almost done folks, just stay with me for a bit longer.Chapter 13 describes how the scientists managed to create stable “time tunnels” through “hyperspace”. They were constantly losing people who went into those things, so;“It was routine to create a tunnel, grab somebody off the street and send them down. Most of the time, these people were winos or derelicts whose absence wouldn’t create a furor. If they returned they would make a full report on what they had encountered.”Because no one is better qualified to travel through time than drunk hobos you found sleeping on a park bench.There was also a whole bunch of kids aged 9-16 that were brought in by other kids who “were specifically trained to go out and bring in other kids.” So I guess it’s like Oliver Twist if Fagin was a Neo-Nazi and Bill Sikes was an alien. Speaking of which, apparently most of the kids were “blond, blue eyed, tall and light skinned”, fitting the Aryan image. Also, for whatever reason, they were all boys. The reason for this is because “A later investigation showed that Montauk had a NeoNazi [sic] connection and the Nazis were still on the Aryan kick”.SighAlmost done, folks.So these kids were all sent to 6037 A.D., to a city in ruins, in the center of which was a gold horse on a pedestal. Well, nice to see that pretentious artwork will still survive to the sixty-first century. The kids had to read the inscription on the pedestal, interpret it annnnnnd………no explanation is given. Of course.I have the feeling that while writing this, Nichols and Moon thought that Neo-Nazis sending abducted Aryan kids to a destroyed to future would be a great, intriguing idea, but they had no idea what kind of reason they could pull out of their asses to explain it, and they couldn’t rewrite it because they already paid for the cover illustration. So this thread just… stops midstride.Oh, and apparently the drunk hobos were sent to loiter around World War I and II. Well, I guess now we know the reason as to why no time-traveler ever assassinated Hitler.So, right off the bat, Chapter 14 claims that the drunk hobos were also teleported to the surface of Mars, or more specifically to Martian pyramids. Yeah, why not.The book then talks about a documentary called Alternative 3 which proclaims that the Americans and Soviets worked together to land on Mars in 1962. The authors omit the fact that Alternative 3 was actually a satirical mockumentary.Regardless, while exploring Mars, Cameron shut off a piece of technology called “The Solar System Defense” in 1943. This apparently triggered the arrival of UFOs to Earth.To close out the chapter, Nichols leaves us with this;“There’s not much more I can say about Mars at this point except that the movie ‘Total Recall’ is fancifully based upon some of the events that occurred with the Montauk Project. The way they used the chair in that movie is strikingly similar”.Did… did we see the same movie? Because I don’t remember of this nonsense in Total Recall). If I’m wrong, then someone please correct me. I wasn’t high when I saw it, so that may explain the discrepancy.…………Okay, I have to give the authors some credit, they did make me inadvertently think of a version of Stranger Things in which Eleven is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That did get a laugh.Or maybe it’s just a sign of my sanity cracking. Anyway…Chapter 15 is where the plot of Stranger Things starts. So the teleportation-telepathic-mind-controlling--weather-alien-pedophile-Martian-Nazi-Jedi team decide to go back in time to the USS Eldridge on August 12th 1983. “Natural laws were being violated”, and many people on the team were beginning to get nervous because “We had talked about the pitfalls of dealing with time and how this might affect the karma of the planet.” I have no idea what he means by that, so I am forced to assume that a bunch of intergalactic Talon Company Mercs would show up to kick Earth’s ass if the project continued. So they had Cameron summon a monster from another world. What horrible creature was dredged up from another dimension?“…. a hairy monster. It was big, hairy, hungry and nasty.”It’s Bigfoot.Okay, I admit my expectations were a bit high, but come on authors, you really couldn’t come up with anything better than that? Did you run out of acid?Anyway, Demofoot rampages around the facility, breaking everything and murdering everyone (way to go, Nichols). Interestingly, it is described as shifting from 9 feet high to 30 feet high. Maybe this is where the giant thing In the Super Bowl teaser came from. So Nichols ends up destroying the amplifying transmitter, which closes the portal and causes Demofoot to disappear. After that, the base’s personnel were brainwashed and the base was shut down. In the author’s own words;“The reader should now have some idea of the general theories and applications that were used at Montauk”.And I hoped I did a good job abridging it for you.There’s four more chapters, but they’re all short. 16 talks about “The Nature of Time” which contains more theories about time-travel and asks the question about who really was running this whole mess.“Religionists can bring in God and the Devil. UFO aficionados can offer a grand scheme of aliens vying for our solar system. Left wingers will offer explanations concerning the CIA and secret government.”I love how he just casually tosses in “Left wingers”, placing them on par with “UFO aficionados”.Chapter 17 is only two pages long, and just mentions how Special Forces units removed all the equipment from the base (which is funny, because at the beginning of the book Nichols was showing off the equipment he looted from the abandoned base. I guess he just stopped giving a crap about continuity), and how the underground was sealed with cement.Chapter 18 talks about Camp Hero today, and for once he finally starts talking about actual facts; Camp Hero is indeed a state park, the underground is still owned by the government and there are park rangers who patrol the area (I never saw any that were armed, though). Also, the apparently some sections of the underground are being reopened.Finally, the book closes out with a chapter that essentially boils down to Nichols haggling with a brainwashed von Neumann (the head of the project) over some receivers like it’s an episode of American Pickers. Nichols makes one last claim that the receivers came from yet another alien race, I roll my eyes one last time and the book finally ends.There’s a couple more appendixes elaborating on some details, but that’s about it. Oh, except for Peter Moon’s self-congratulatory session in which he takes sole credit for the interest in government cover-ups in the 90’s, and most offensively, the X-Files. I don’t think that Chris Carter is going to be cutting you a check anytime soon, Moon. He then proceeds to use a whopping 28% of the entire ebook for advertising his Sixteen other novels and newsletter. Someone’s desperate. These books include Montauk Revisited: Adventures in Synchronicity, Pyramids of Montauk: Explorations in Consciousness, The Black Sun: Montauk’s Nazi-Tibetan Connection (seriously) and of course, Montauk: The Alien Connection.Well, looking back on this, I didn’t expect that my brief overview of this bizarre book would go on for so long. I suppose I just wanted to share my experience with someone. This book does provide a fascinating insight into where exactly Stranger Things originated from (and maybe a peek at where its going), and perhaps more importantly for me personally, provided a bit of closure on some of my childhood adventures.Thanks for reading. via /r/StrangerThings

[iannoyinglysweetstudent-blog]

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

"Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

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Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

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I am a 29 year old substitute teacher and part time student. I am looking for some type of affordable health isurance and prescription plan. I am in need of some help...I have no idea where to look. Can anyone please point me in the right direction? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!

Can I drive my car with full insurance on a provisional licence?

I have bought full uk licence insurance on my car. I pay fully comp price's (500 a month), But, Im still on provisional licence.. Can I keep my full insurance and drive with my L plates on with a driver with a full UK licence who's held it over 3 years in with me still? They are also named drivers. Thanks!""

Car Stolen with Keys - Insurance Claim Issue?

Hey guys need some help My partners car was stolen last night and we have just noticed this morning The keys to said car was in another car (within a handbag) parked beside the stolen car what has happened is the car with handbag in it was broken in to, handbags were raided, found keys to the car beside and it was then driven off with What way will insurance see this? I know if the keys for car are left within that car and its stole most insurers dont pay out but what way might this situation pan out??? any advise greatly appreciated""

""I am considering buying home and car insurance with Allstate but , should I?""

I have been told that it is not a wise idea to keep my home and car insurance together, even if I get a discount. Can anyone tell me why, please?! Thank you!!""

What should my health insurance premium be?

If I am a single, healthy 36 year old non smoker in Florida with a low deductible and good coverage....can you give me some idea of what my premium should be? Because I am worried I may be getting ripped off and my premium is set to go even higher next month. I will soon be paying almost $250 a month... does that sound normal?? Can anyone give me some estimates or ideas? Thanks.""

3rd party comprehensive car insurance in bangalore?

I've a 1997 model maruti 800, just purchased from a seller, i got only the RC book, no insurance paid soo far, where do i make the insurance for this model car ? and what type of insurance is beneficial? am willing to sell the car after 10 months..? I called ICICILombard.. they refused as it is an old car. ???? Is there any logical reason behind an old car being refused for insurance??? what documents do i need to take care while insuring.. ???""

Does anyone know of good Health Insurance?

I have Blue Cross HMO, and it really hasnt worked for me. I need surgery on my knee and i've been waiting for 2 months to get it done, thanks to the fact that my insurance requires me to see a general doctor first (who makes u wait for like a month for an appt for a simple referral) then get another appointment for a specialist (wait another month) then wait 3 weeks again for an MRI, and now i have to wait another week and a half for surgery. Please, help me find a good insurance. I'm tired of this! I live in southern california if that helps. Thanks""

""What is the best, cheapest car insurance I can have for a 28 year old female?""

What is the best, cheapest car insurance I can have for a 28 year old female?""

Do I have to insure my son when he turns 16?

My auto insurance company called me yesterday asking for the names and birthdays of my children. I refused to tell them anything. My oldest son will turn 16 in November, and I was not planning on adding him as a driver, because we have full coverage insurance and I thought that would cover anyone.""

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

""It would seem,by the comments I've gathered, it really isn't about affordable health insurance ...?""

it is about lifestyle. If that is the case then isn't this debate about Health Care simply over CONTROL? Should YOUR insurance rates go up if you have many health problems? I think so if you health problems stem from overeating and smoking and things like that you can help. People who engage in unhealthy habits like the 1st answer said should be charged very high rates that way when they do have problems, their rates won't go up. That depends on whether it's real insurance, where the costs are spread across a pool, or funny health insurance like we have now, which isn't really insurance at all, more like a form of extortion. The overwhelming majority of illnesses are not the fault of the sick person, and those who have the greatest costs are often so sick they are unable to work. ` Absolutely. If the insurance company faces higher outlays on your behalf, why wouldn't they charge you more in order to offset the difference? I would say that your insurance rates should be based more on your lifestyle habits than anything else. I have no problem with making people who smoke, are overweight or have other unhealthy habits pay more for thier health insurance. (It works this way with life insurance.)""

When will health insurance become affordable?

If the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals won't reign in costs, then we need to go to socialized medicine. It is ludicrous that insurance costs so much for individuals.""

Medical insurance question?

Okay do you need to be a legal guardian to put a kid in your medical insurance plan? Please don't ask why(: oh and a kid that is not on a plan already.

Auto Insurance in Alabama?

Can someone tell me what the minimum liability limits for car insurance in Alabama would be?

Can you sue an Insurance company...?

If the policy holder's maximum coverage, has been reached..... For example, if someone died as a result of an accident. The other driver was at fault but has not assets, can the family of the victim sue the Insurance Company of the other driver, for more than their max coverage. Like a wrongful death lawsuit for 1million dollars, is the insurance company still liable?""

Auto insurance price? 16 year old.?

I am 16 in June. I own a mustang lx but it is the 2.3l model that my company geico doesn't classify dangerous or a sports car. My dad has wonderful credit. The car and insurance is in his name. So is my car ad tittle and tag. Basically to keep costs down everything is tech his. I will be listed as driving 10-15% of the time As a secondary driver. His driving record is clear and great credit. He has a jeep patriot 2013 and my 1989 lx mustang will be the 2nd car. They got a brand new car and his credit when checked was about the best possible. Forget the numbers but literally the best possible by a few. Never missed payments etc. so about how much a year or every 6 months would my 89 4 banger mustang cost to insure?

How much does it cost to add a teenagers name in car insurance??

I live in Canada-Alberta-Edmonton!!!I own a 2008 acura mdx...it's worth about 50 grand right now. Posted from my iPhone device powered by Rogers 3G network.

How can i get cheap car insurance in the UK?

hey people, i have tried getting cheap car insurance for a while n i have had no joy. the cheapest i have got it is about 2,897 that is ridiculas for a 18 year old male at college who hasn't got a penny spear! i got a car givin to me a 1998 ford fiesta 1.25 zetec and i need help pritty bad. please help me!!!!!!!!!!""

Health Insurance?

What is the best affordable health insurance for a low income middle age woman in Southern CA?

Help with Insurance questions?

Hi, I am 22 and just got the red P in July in NSW. I want to buy a car driving to uni. I dont have much money, I just want to buy a car below AUD$5K, is it possible to ...show more""

How much will my insurance raise after DUI and totaled vehicle?

I totaled my 2005 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Friday night and got a DUI. I have been with Nationwide for a number of years, and had a pretty exemplerary driving record. I was paying about 100 dollars a month full coverage as a 26 year old male on my Jeep. Does anyone have an educated guess at what my insurance rates will do now? I'm trying to decide, when I get my license back and buy a new car, if I should be looking at a sports car with full coverage, or if insurance prices alone are going to make me want to get something cheap with liability coverage. By the way, I live in West Virginia.""

How much do you think my Motorcycle insurance would be? for a 250CC bike?

I signed up for a motorcycle MSF class to get my license and to get experience riding a bike. I plan on getting a 250cc bike because I think it's what suits my needs and desires of what I want out of a motorcycle. Also, I don't need anything bigger/faster because I'm quite a daredevil and broke my back 3 years ago. Anyways, I'm 25 now and have matured enough to know my limits and to take it easy. Well, one of my main concerns is the cost of insurance. As of now I pay $330 a month for my car insurance. I have somewhat of a bad driving record, and that's why my auto insurance is pretty high. But i haven't done anything too crazy, like no DUI's or license suspensions. Only 1 speeding ticket too out of all these years. Anyways, i've been looking primarily at the Honda CBR250r. What would you guesstimate i will be paying for insurance? A quote for the average coverage and for leisure purposes only too. Thanks.""

How often do u have to pay for car insurance?

Acura TSX 2011

Hit car and insurance?

i want mall today so when i try to park car reverse, i hit other car, but not that crush att all, guy on other car act like i crush car and he ask me for my insurance and i give, also i took his too, do u think he can do anything even thought no crush at all , i have photo too, what going happened, he can get money for that""

""Conservatives, you're always claiming that Obama-care is the reason that insurance costs are increasing, so?""

regarding the 80% increase in insurance premiums, and the 11% increase in the number of Americans who did not have health insurance coverage during the Bush presidency, was that because a magical elf traveled back in time to the year 2000 to tell insurance company executives that Obamacare was coming? Or could it be that insurance premiums have been increasing at an average rate of 8 to 11% per year for about the last 15 years and the increases we've seen in the last few years aren't indicative of costs associated with Obama-care (Which hasn't even been fully implemented yet) and Conservatives are just trying to make political hay out of cost increases that are consistent with established trends?""

Best Car/SUV/Pick Up-Trucks for Insurance(Young Driver)?

Im turning 20 in a months time, and i will be purchasing a used Car, i will have about $10,000CDN to spend. I found cars/SUV that im interested in, and I've got Quotes off of web sites on how much insurance would be, and so far there all pretty expensive. What Model would be a good choice?""

Where can I find cheap car insurance? ?

I live in Cleveland, OH... im 18""

""Car insurance for young male drivers, its cheaper to drive without it and pay the fines!?""

I really dont get it, car insurance on a 2000 plate 1litre yaris is over 10,000 - YES 10K! I do live in manchester, which is the most costly post code to get insured in but 10k is just a joke for a 18year old. Ive done it all correct too putting 1000 annual milage e.t.c So ive read online about how much people are fined when they are found driving without insurance and its about 200 on average. I know it can go upto 5000 but thats still cheaper than shelling out for insurance and your chances of getting caught arnt really high the way i would do it. Get a car, insure my dad on the car so it doesnt flag up on the police cameras when you drive past, drive to and from work only, and say the car is parked at work (nice postcode to get insurance cheaper) over night. which i can say it is my brother takes it on his night shift there. And if i do get caught i will say i took it without owners concent. TWOC the police call it. I just cant get it into my head at why the government dont do anything about insurance it kind of pushes people into breaking the law. And i would use public transport IF it didnt take me 4hours to get to and from work a day! ""

Do landlords usually have homeowner insurance?

Do landlord usually have homeowner insurance? Also is it true that most homeowner insurance have liability coverage? And if they took out a mortgage does the mortgage company require them to have some kind of homeowner insurance?

Motorcycle insurance? how much?

can someone guess how much will a motorcycle insurance be for an 18 year old male in CA with no road driving experience at all?, and the bike he will get is a 2008 Ninja 250r or 2006 Katana 600?.....also note he will take the MSF course and this will be his first road vehicle...thanks!!""

""My car was a total loss, my insurance wants to go for a settlement? ?""

My car was a total loss, my insurance wants to go for a settlement? how do i know that they are giving me a fair settlement? do i check the blue book value for my car when it was brand new, or as a used car(coz i bought my car as a used car with 23,000 mileage), or would they pay it as used plus the current mileage when my car was declared a total loss (it has 30,000 mileage). I bought my car, a 2005 honda accord coupe with 23,000 mileage <--- how much do they normally settle with this car?""

How much would insurance be for a 2003 Acura RSX?

I am a male, 22 years old, clean record, live in Whitby Ontario. I also went took driving lessons (people say that will help lower insurance) and i am a class G driver (full license) I know coupes are usually more expensive for insurance. Can anyone give me an estimate of how much insurance would cost per month or for the year? I know i can call and get a quote but I want to see what the average is. Thanks!""

What is the best way to compare auto insurance quotes?

I am needing to find new car insurance, and I of course would like to shop around for the best deal. Can anyone recommend a good site that will compile your information and give you multiple accurate quotes from different companies? I am leery to enter my information into a third party database, so confidentiality, professionalism and no spam is a must. Thank you!""

Is car insurance cheaper for a 2008 Honda Accord then a 2005 Honda Pilot?

I'm considering trading my 2005 Honda pilot for a 2008 Honda Accord do you think my insurance would go up or down?

Classic car insurance in ireland?

iv a sports car that will be 20yrs old next yr,its not my main car so mileage kept low,insurance and tax is high , so i was looking into classic insurance,part of qualifying for classic insurance is i have to be registered with a classic car club,does any1 know of one that would suit that's not limited to a particular make of car or air-cooled in ireland thanks""

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

How do I get health insurance?

I am a heart transplant patient without health insurance and am on disability for 8 months. I am not able to recieve coverage from anyone and have large medical and prescription costs.

What style of vehicles is cheaper to insure and which is body type more expensive?

Also, which insurance company is generally cheaper with SUVs such as a ford explorer?""

What kind of insurance as i have medicare?

i was wonderin what kind of insurance as i have medicare

How much would an abortion cost without insurance in colorado?

my freind is 14 and prego. she needs an abortion and if she doesnt it might hurt her bad. plz no no abortion stuff. i really need your help!

Cheapest 600cc sportbike to maintain?

Which of these bikes of the 600cc class is the cheapest to maintain in terms of insurance, gas, maintenance, etc...(so which is the cheapest combining all of these aspect) the bikes = kawasaki zx6r, honda cbr600rr, yamaha r6, suzuki gsxr 600""

Car insurance legal team?

Do you have to use the legal team that comes with your car insurance or can you choose an independent one? Had an accident and am not happy with the insurance company's attitude - we had a rear end collision.

Car insurance after drink driving ban.?

hi, i was banned for 18month for drink driving when i was 16 ( i know very stupid) i am now 25 years old soon to pass my test how high will my car insurance be what would be the best, cheapest car for insurance, please constructive answers I know drink driving is VERY BAD i was 16 and very stupid, thanks for any answers.""

Wats a great car to buy for a new driver?

sporty fast car low on insurance small engine affordable

Two cars? Insurance?

>In high school >Both parents getting new cars soon >old cars: 1 is decent, 1 is cheap >I get old car >I want to convince parents to let me keep cheap one as well, so I can modify it and stuff BUT, I just realized I'll have to pay extra insurance just to drive it around every now and then. What to do? How much does average insurance usually cost? (Not minimum PIP)""

A break in car insurance between my old and new car?

Hi, Tomorrow my current car insurance with my S reg corsa is due to expire at 12:00pm (Noon) now I have decided not to bother renewing this as tomorrow night I am going to buy a new car for which I have already put down a deposit. Now I have been told I cannot insure this new car now as I don't own it yet, but im worried that if my car insurance has a break in it then it will affect me - I currently have 2 years no claims and don't want to loose this - does anyone have any knowledge of what happens in the situation? Also with me not being able to insure the car until i own it, how do i go about getting the car back home from the showroom? Please helpppp""

So whats the best car insurance company for a teenager?

Im a 17 year old boy and I just got my driver's license in maryland yay!!! only problem is that I'm the very first licensed driver out of everyone in my family. That means NOBODY in my family drives, not even my parents; I'm the very first licensed driver. So how would I get car insurance? how do I start an account or something? I drive a bright red 1999 for taurus. what would be the cheapest insurance company for me and how much should I expect to pay? thanx""

Trying to find good dental insurance?

I've been looking and the best one I can find is a broker. They offer a bunch of plans and the cost is really affordable. Any suggestions? ...show more

How much would insurance cost for me if I have a Classic Camaro and I am a 16 year old male with State Farm?

I am thinking about getting a classic car. Probably a Camaro (year 1990 and lower). I have State Farm, and I am a 16 year old male. Anyone have a clue about how much insurance would cost? Thank you.""

UK: how does the ncb function for car insurance?

The insurer of my new(ish) car wants a proof of no claim. I already have a insurance on a first car with ncb of 9 years, protected. How come I can't use this ncb for the second car? the cost of insuracne is outrageously expansive if I start again from zero year ncb for the second car... how does this work? why can't I carry on having the ncb for the second car too?""

""Someone backed into me in a parking lot, is this insurance company lying?""

Foreigners backed into my car in the parking lot, they had insurance, I called the insurance company and they asked for an estimate on how much it would cost to fix it, I did, and they said okay and that they would mail it on Friday morning. It's now Monday and I haven't gotten it. They are in a state not far from us. Is this insurance company full of crap or do I just need to wait longer? Thanks :)""

""How much would it be if got allstate insurance for a new 2009 nissan altima. im 20yrs old, live with my parets?

my parents have allstate. this is my first car under my name.

How Much Do You Pay For Car Insurance?

And Whats On Your Driving Record?

How much is a teen's car insurance per month?

I am planning to get a 2004 Lexus is300. I know because it is a luxury car, the insurance will be a little higher, but the car is 10 years old...I am recently licensed, a female, and I have a 4.0 gpa so I know I will have some discounts. I will be turning 18 in 6 months but will only be having my license for less than a year. So if any other teen, parent, or car insurance agent knows how much a teen's car insurance would be for a 10 year old luxury car (specifially Lexus), please help me out by letting me know!""

Only have Learners - Car and insurance?

I need to drive asap. I have my learners currently but cant sit my test until Sept. Would love some help with the process of where to start, can I buy a car and/or insurance before I get sit my test? If so how does the registration work? Maybe worth noting that I need to drive asap for work, I am 23 and going on parents etc is not an option? also im in canada Thanks!""

Insurance costs on 350z & g35?

Prices just on average? In Texas. 16 year old girl. How much does color matter? What are the different prices for blue, black, silver, & white? How much does the z and Infiniti coupe differ? Please don't tell me to choose different cars..I'm asking for insurance price, not your opinion""

How much is car insurance for a 17 year old female?

im 17 and would love to buy myself a car but i worry about the insurance. i am thinking of buying a used 1998 jeep grand cherokee, its a really good price but i dont want to go and buy the car if insurance is way to expensive. any ideas on how much insurance would cost. if it counts i do get good grades in school.""

How will adding 40 million more people to the Health Insurance rolls improve Health Care?

But don't be misled. We know the status quo is unsustainable. If we do nothing, millions more Americans will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or see their coverage suddenly dropped if they become seriously ill. Out-of-pocket expenses will continue to soar, and more and more families and businesses will be forced to deal with health insurance costs they cant afford. David Axelrod Senior Advisor to the President Why suddenly focus on the insurance industry? If, as Axelrod says, the status quo is unsustainable .. How will adding 40 million more to the insurance rolls suddenly make it sustainable ? . How will adding to the costs of Insurance Companies decrease their costs? . How will doing nothing , and thereby sustaining the huge profits of the drug industry and the medical industry, reduce medical care costs to the average American?""

How much would it be to insure a 17 year old on a Nissan Navara Pick Up Truck?

'JUST OUT OF INTEREST' I have always wanted a Nissan Navara Pick up truck and i turn 17 in october, its unlikely i will be driving till next year! i was just wondering an insurance estimate on, say, an 08 plate? Im not fussed weather it is 'expensive' i know it wont be cheap and the companies are unlikely to insure me on them but i was just wondering about a price. Its hard for me to go on insurance websites as i do not have a license and know any information. I have herd they are in Group 11 insurance.. Also are they classed as a Van/Car/ Etc? Would just like an average quote please! don't want answers with 'depends on this, this or this'.. Thanks very much!""

No Insurance!?

No Insurance!? How much do you think a tooth will cost to be pulled?

How much does boat insurance cost on average for a 28ft boat?

How much does boat insurance cost on average for a 28ft boat?

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

Rushville Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 46173

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-homeowners-insurance-cover-broken-windows-james-meadows/"

[samanthasroberts]

5 Things You Grew Up With (Your Kids Will Think Are Insane)

At this very moment you are living in the future that your ten-year-old self was pretty sure was going to be up to its nuts in robot butlers and cyber ham. Unless you’re ten right now in which case what the fuck? Your parents let you read this? I could literally start talking about dildos at any moment. I hope you go to them with any confusing questions you may have so they can assure you I’m not real and there’s no reason to take anything I say seriously. That aside, you’re also living in a time when today’s ten-year-old will have no idea what you went through to get to this point. Just look at all this non-dildo stuff that has been lost to history.

5

Phones Used To Buzz Into Your Earhole When Nobody Was On The Line

You have a phone, right? There’s a good chance you’re reading this on your phone. There’s a better chance you use your phone as a phone far less than you use it as a device to type and read making it kind of bizarre they bother to call it a phone when that’s probably third down the list of things it does. No one calls a cat a “sand shitter,” even though that happens more than you use your phone as a phone. But pooping in sandboxes aside, remember dial tones?

You probably haven’t considered this in a while, and if you still have a landline phone, maybe you still have a dial tone? I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a landline phone. But I know I don’t have a dial tone and legit haven’t heard one in years. Now imagine the kid born after 2010 who while vaguely aware of the concept of phones that have squiggly, pig-tail wires attached to them would have no idea why the damn thing drills a ceaseless robo-fart into your ear every time you pick it up. If a kid picks up a phone today and hears a dial tone, they’re going to assume it’s busted. Like bad busted, too, because it’s never made that sound before.

In days of yore when everything had to be plugged into something, the dial tone was a friendly reminder that your phone worked, because there was literally no other way to know your phone was working. It didn’t do anything. There wasn’t anything to look at or charges to adjust or battery life to keep an eye on. It was an ugly-ass lunch box with a plastic half brick you pressed to your flesh. The dial tone was the phone saying “Hey friend, why don’t you give grandma a call? Also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

Those days are gone now and they never need to come back. The next generation is not just going to be unaware of a dial tone, they’re going to have to Google the term because it means nothing.

4

Credits Meant The Movie Was Over

When I was a kid, nothing sucked more than watching a movie on TV and waiting for the next show to start as the damn credits rolled. Nothing. Not war or famine or Full House. You watched the credits only because you wanted to see what was on that channel next and were too lazy to leave the room or, you know, live a life. If you’d rented a video, you pressed stop as soon as that first name started to scroll up because credits were how you knew the movie was over. Did all those people work hard to make this film? Sure, but I don’t know them or anything, they don’t need me to read their names. Your parents didn’t stick around to watch the school play after your part was over, they threw their beer cans on the floor, yelled at you to get off stage, and went the hell home.

Nowadays, thanks mostly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if you see a film in the theater you’ll notice that just about half the room stays as still as statues when the movie ends. For any comic-book or action-type film, and even some comedies, you want to stay put because surely there’s a post-credit bit of awesome, or some sweet bloopers running through the credits. The movie isn’t over when it’s over, it’s just dribbling away like those last vexing droplets of whiz after a night enjoying gimlets at the bar.

The future is going to be rife with movies that make you five minutes later for everything you do thanks to this phenomenon. Kids are going to be expecting it all the time and they will wait, reading the names of each and every gaffer, best boy, and second-unit caterer from Quebec where they filmed all those Bigfoot-takes-a-forest-bride sequences. I showed my niece The Goonies and she asked me to turn it back on after I stopped the Blu-ray so she could see the final scene. It’s in their heads and there’s no getting it out. But also, don’t you wish there was a post-credit scene in The Goonies and it was just Corey Feldman singing “Ascension Millennium” with Chunk and Sloth? Because I wish that.

3

Phone Anxiety

There are two kinds of teenagers in the world. There’s the kind who are self-assured, know everything, and are featured in PSAs on how to be awesome — drag-racing and smoking that reefer. And then there’s the kind I was. I can’t speak to that other kid in his varsity jacket and five-o’clock shadow, which, in retrospect, might be just the memory of a few high-school sex comedies I saw in the 80s and not a real thing, but never mind that. I can speak to the gut-butt-fucking fear I felt as a 14-year-old calling the girl I liked from French class and having her mom answer the phone.

I can’t even think of the last time I called any individual and got anyone else answering the phone. If you called someone now and someone else answered, your first instinct is either their phone was stolen or they’re dead. The days of having a house phone are drawing to a close and even if you have a landline, you probably have a cell phone anyway and that’s how people call you. No high-school kid is calling their friend’s house and getting stuck chatting to Mrs. Friend’s Mom.

In a reasonable world it wouldn’t matter if you had to talk on the phone to a person’s mom for 30 seconds, but that’s not the world a teenager lives in. Getting mom or dad on the phone is psychologically on par with being caught masturbating. It’s harrowing and earth shattering in ways that are hard to account for and the children of tomorrow have no idea how lucky they are that human interaction is so limited now. You don’t have to talk to the pizza place if you don’t want to, you don’t have to go to the bank to pay your bills, and you never have to talk to that hot girl’s mom knowing full well that she knows you’ve been staring at her daughter’s exposed bra strap in the back of second period every goddamn day.

The kids of tomorrow are losing a healthy sense of fear and self-loathing that previous generations were saddled with. That illogical and fear-born sense of inadequacy that plagued you at every turn because you were sure someone was judging you, even if you didn’t know why. Now everyone’s that varsity jock just high on their own sense of unfettered phone confidence, calling people left and right and only talking to them like some kind of majestic phone barons of a future telecoms utopia.

2

Late Fees

In the realm of gaming, look at what the Go-Gurt gobblers of tomorrow are missing out on. When I was a kid, I had to go to Blockbuster to rent a new Playstation game and so help me God if I was late bringing that thing back, lest the dreaded late fee be put on my bill. Try to explain that to a kid in ten years, that there was once a time when you not only needed to go to a business to rent a piece of physical media which is probably going to not exist in a decade’s time thanks to streaming and online gaming, but my playing the game meant someone else couldn’t play it. Some poor schlub had to wait for me to bring it back and if I was late, Blockbuster charged me again because Jimmy Guntstubb was desperate to play Battletoads and I fucked up.

Basically, gaming in any practical form, for any kid whose parents weren’t rich enough to buy every new game on a whim, was a community endeavor. Everyone had a tacit agreement to work together for the joy of the game, or the whole system was fucked harder than a Fleshlight thrown into a prison yard.

There was literally no way to see gameplay outside of a commercial unless you caught an episode of Video Power with Johnny Arcade, so renting was the best way to test the waters and see if you were up to the challenge of Contra. You and every other kid had to be orderly and patient. You rented that game, you put in your time, and you took it back. Every late asshole threw the whole system into chaos.

The very idea that you couldn’t play a game or watch a movie today because the kid down the street’s parents refused to vaccinate him and now he has polio is damn near absurd. Why should someone else’s shitty punctuality affect your gaming? It shouldn’t. But dammit, it did. The struggle was real and the only defense that existed against it was Blockbsuter’s unshakable adherence to the rule of late fees, the most strict punishment and deterrent they could muster.

1

If A Game Failed, It Was Likely Your Fault For Being A Filthy Slob

Obviously technology today is a hell of a lot different than tech from the 80s, or 90s, or from about 5.27 seconds ago. Rest assured technology in 2027 is going to be full of brain-wave-activated toasters that can give you a hummer while making Pop-Tarts for you, the way Edison intended. But that doesn’t mean toasters won’t exist in the future. There is, however, a good deal of stuff kids are never going to get to see or experience. It’s not evolving or getting updated, it’s simply been rendered obsolete.

The big issue with physical media is the general maintenance and upkeep. If you had a VCR you probably remember the thrill of adjusting the tracking when your video inexplicably just started oozing down the screen and tweaking like it hadn’t had a drink since this morning. Or how about that VHS copy of Splash you watched too many times that eventually became so worn out and static-riddled it was like watching garbled porn on a cable station you didn’t get (which is another thing your kids will never know about).

Gamers went through this, too. When I bought vanilla World Of Warcraft back in the day, I think it came on five or six CDs because the idea of actually downloading the game was as silly as the idea of eating a ham sandwich with no bacon on it. If even one of those fuckers got scratched, you were screwed. Or let’s say you installed it just fine, but in the middle of a big boss fight, your mouse suddenly spazzed out, and the cursor shot up to the corner of the screen. That old style mouse had a ball and rollers in it. A little, grey ball that sucked up desk-based schmutz like a magnet. You’d have to pop the bottom of your mouse, pull the ball out, swab off the layer of dog hair, dust, and dried tears on it, then do the same for the tiny little wheels inside. That’s a lost art now, like polishing your monocle (the real way, not the euphemism for sticking Pop Rocks in your pee hole).

The point is that the game failed because you failed. You took such poor care of the components, it crapped out. Already today that can be circumvented thanks to a having a hard drive to store games, and in the near future, companies like Sony and Microsoft will just drop the idea of physical media altogether so you have one less thing to get sticky with your Mountain Dew. Because, as we all know, true gamers Do the Dew. Everything will exist in the cloud, and if a game failed, it’s not on you — it’s all them.

No more discs means no kid in the future is ever going to have that moment when they take a scratched copy of Earthworm Jim and try to rub peanut butter across the bottom of it because someone somewhere once said that will repair surface scratches … even though I’ve never actually met anyone who got that to work and it mostly left my Final Fantasy VIII smelling like a middle-schooler’s sandwich from back when middle-schoolers were allowed to have Final Fantasy VIII sandwiches.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-things-you-grew-up-with-your-kids-will-think-are-insane/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/5-things-you-grew-up-with-your-kids-will-think-are-insane/

[adambstingus]

5 Things You Grew Up With (Your Kids Will Think Are Insane)

At this very moment you are living in the future that your ten-year-old self was pretty sure was going to be up to its nuts in robot butlers and cyber ham. Unless you’re ten right now in which case what the fuck? Your parents let you read this? I could literally start talking about dildos at any moment. I hope you go to them with any confusing questions you may have so they can assure you I’m not real and there’s no reason to take anything I say seriously. That aside, you’re also living in a time when today’s ten-year-old will have no idea what you went through to get to this point. Just look at all this non-dildo stuff that has been lost to history.

5

Phones Used To Buzz Into Your Earhole When Nobody Was On The Line

You have a phone, right? There’s a good chance you’re reading this on your phone. There’s a better chance you use your phone as a phone far less than you use it as a device to type and read making it kind of bizarre they bother to call it a phone when that’s probably third down the list of things it does. No one calls a cat a “sand shitter,” even though that happens more than you use your phone as a phone. But pooping in sandboxes aside, remember dial tones?

You probably haven’t considered this in a while, and if you still have a landline phone, maybe you still have a dial tone? I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a landline phone. But I know I don’t have a dial tone and legit haven’t heard one in years. Now imagine the kid born after 2010 who while vaguely aware of the concept of phones that have squiggly, pig-tail wires attached to them would have no idea why the damn thing drills a ceaseless robo-fart into your ear every time you pick it up. If a kid picks up a phone today and hears a dial tone, they’re going to assume it’s busted. Like bad busted, too, because it’s never made that sound before.

In days of yore when everything had to be plugged into something, the dial tone was a friendly reminder that your phone worked, because there was literally no other way to know your phone was working. It didn’t do anything. There wasn’t anything to look at or charges to adjust or battery life to keep an eye on. It was an ugly-ass lunch box with a plastic half brick you pressed to your flesh. The dial tone was the phone saying “Hey friend, why don’t you give grandma a call? Also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

Those days are gone now and they never need to come back. The next generation is not just going to be unaware of a dial tone, they’re going to have to Google the term because it means nothing.

4

Credits Meant The Movie Was Over

When I was a kid, nothing sucked more than watching a movie on TV and waiting for the next show to start as the damn credits rolled. Nothing. Not war or famine or Full House. You watched the credits only because you wanted to see what was on that channel next and were too lazy to leave the room or, you know, live a life. If you’d rented a video, you pressed stop as soon as that first name started to scroll up because credits were how you knew the movie was over. Did all those people work hard to make this film? Sure, but I don’t know them or anything, they don’t need me to read their names. Your parents didn’t stick around to watch the school play after your part was over, they threw their beer cans on the floor, yelled at you to get off stage, and went the hell home.

Nowadays, thanks mostly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if you see a film in the theater you’ll notice that just about half the room stays as still as statues when the movie ends. For any comic-book or action-type film, and even some comedies, you want to stay put because surely there’s a post-credit bit of awesome, or some sweet bloopers running through the credits. The movie isn’t over when it’s over, it’s just dribbling away like those last vexing droplets of whiz after a night enjoying gimlets at the bar.

The future is going to be rife with movies that make you five minutes later for everything you do thanks to this phenomenon. Kids are going to be expecting it all the time and they will wait, reading the names of each and every gaffer, best boy, and second-unit caterer from Quebec where they filmed all those Bigfoot-takes-a-forest-bride sequences. I showed my niece The Goonies and she asked me to turn it back on after I stopped the Blu-ray so she could see the final scene. It’s in their heads and there’s no getting it out. But also, don’t you wish there was a post-credit scene in The Goonies and it was just Corey Feldman singing “Ascension Millennium” with Chunk and Sloth? Because I wish that.

3

Phone Anxiety

There are two kinds of teenagers in the world. There’s the kind who are self-assured, know everything, and are featured in PSAs on how to be awesome — drag-racing and smoking that reefer. And then there’s the kind I was. I can’t speak to that other kid in his varsity jacket and five-o’clock shadow, which, in retrospect, might be just the memory of a few high-school sex comedies I saw in the 80s and not a real thing, but never mind that. I can speak to the gut-butt-fucking fear I felt as a 14-year-old calling the girl I liked from French class and having her mom answer the phone.

I can’t even think of the last time I called any individual and got anyone else answering the phone. If you called someone now and someone else answered, your first instinct is either their phone was stolen or they’re dead. The days of having a house phone are drawing to a close and even if you have a landline, you probably have a cell phone anyway and that’s how people call you. No high-school kid is calling their friend’s house and getting stuck chatting to Mrs. Friend’s Mom.

In a reasonable world it wouldn’t matter if you had to talk on the phone to a person’s mom for 30 seconds, but that’s not the world a teenager lives in. Getting mom or dad on the phone is psychologically on par with being caught masturbating. It’s harrowing and earth shattering in ways that are hard to account for and the children of tomorrow have no idea how lucky they are that human interaction is so limited now. You don’t have to talk to the pizza place if you don’t want to, you don’t have to go to the bank to pay your bills, and you never have to talk to that hot girl’s mom knowing full well that she knows you’ve been staring at her daughter’s exposed bra strap in the back of second period every goddamn day.

The kids of tomorrow are losing a healthy sense of fear and self-loathing that previous generations were saddled with. That illogical and fear-born sense of inadequacy that plagued you at every turn because you were sure someone was judging you, even if you didn’t know why. Now everyone’s that varsity jock just high on their own sense of unfettered phone confidence, calling people left and right and only talking to them like some kind of majestic phone barons of a future telecoms utopia.

2

Late Fees

In the realm of gaming, look at what the Go-Gurt gobblers of tomorrow are missing out on. When I was a kid, I had to go to Blockbuster to rent a new Playstation game and so help me God if I was late bringing that thing back, lest the dreaded late fee be put on my bill. Try to explain that to a kid in ten years, that there was once a time when you not only needed to go to a business to rent a piece of physical media which is probably going to not exist in a decade’s time thanks to streaming and online gaming, but my playing the game meant someone else couldn’t play it. Some poor schlub had to wait for me to bring it back and if I was late, Blockbuster charged me again because Jimmy Guntstubb was desperate to play Battletoads and I fucked up.

Basically, gaming in any practical form, for any kid whose parents weren’t rich enough to buy every new game on a whim, was a community endeavor. Everyone had a tacit agreement to work together for the joy of the game, or the whole system was fucked harder than a Fleshlight thrown into a prison yard.

There was literally no way to see gameplay outside of a commercial unless you caught an episode of Video Power with Johnny Arcade, so renting was the best way to test the waters and see if you were up to the challenge of Contra. You and every other kid had to be orderly and patient. You rented that game, you put in your time, and you took it back. Every late asshole threw the whole system into chaos.

The very idea that you couldn’t play a game or watch a movie today because the kid down the street’s parents refused to vaccinate him and now he has polio is damn near absurd. Why should someone else’s shitty punctuality affect your gaming? It shouldn’t. But dammit, it did. The struggle was real and the only defense that existed against it was Blockbsuter’s unshakable adherence to the rule of late fees, the most strict punishment and deterrent they could muster.

1

If A Game Failed, It Was Likely Your Fault For Being A Filthy Slob

Obviously technology today is a hell of a lot different than tech from the 80s, or 90s, or from about 5.27 seconds ago. Rest assured technology in 2027 is going to be full of brain-wave-activated toasters that can give you a hummer while making Pop-Tarts for you, the way Edison intended. But that doesn’t mean toasters won’t exist in the future. There is, however, a good deal of stuff kids are never going to get to see or experience. It’s not evolving or getting updated, it’s simply been rendered obsolete.

The big issue with physical media is the general maintenance and upkeep. If you had a VCR you probably remember the thrill of adjusting the tracking when your video inexplicably just started oozing down the screen and tweaking like it hadn’t had a drink since this morning. Or how about that VHS copy of Splash you watched too many times that eventually became so worn out and static-riddled it was like watching garbled porn on a cable station you didn’t get (which is another thing your kids will never know about).

Gamers went through this, too. When I bought vanilla World Of Warcraft back in the day, I think it came on five or six CDs because the idea of actually downloading the game was as silly as the idea of eating a ham sandwich with no bacon on it. If even one of those fuckers got scratched, you were screwed. Or let’s say you installed it just fine, but in the middle of a big boss fight, your mouse suddenly spazzed out, and the cursor shot up to the corner of the screen. That old style mouse had a ball and rollers in it. A little, grey ball that sucked up desk-based schmutz like a magnet. You’d have to pop the bottom of your mouse, pull the ball out, swab off the layer of dog hair, dust, and dried tears on it, then do the same for the tiny little wheels inside. That’s a lost art now, like polishing your monocle (the real way, not the euphemism for sticking Pop Rocks in your pee hole).

The point is that the game failed because you failed. You took such poor care of the components, it crapped out. Already today that can be circumvented thanks to a having a hard drive to store games, and in the near future, companies like Sony and Microsoft will just drop the idea of physical media altogether so you have one less thing to get sticky with your Mountain Dew. Because, as we all know, true gamers Do the Dew. Everything will exist in the cloud, and if a game failed, it’s not on you — it’s all them.

No more discs means no kid in the future is ever going to have that moment when they take a scratched copy of Earthworm Jim and try to rub peanut butter across the bottom of it because someone somewhere once said that will repair surface scratches … even though I’ve never actually met anyone who got that to work and it mostly left my Final Fantasy VIII smelling like a middle-schooler’s sandwich from back when middle-schoolers were allowed to have Final Fantasy VIII sandwiches.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-things-you-grew-up-with-your-kids-will-think-are-insane/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/173719664232

[allofbeercom]

5 Things You Grew Up With (Your Kids Will Think Are Insane)

At this very moment you are living in the future that your ten-year-old self was pretty sure was going to be up to its nuts in robot butlers and cyber ham. Unless you’re ten right now in which case what the fuck? Your parents let you read this? I could literally start talking about dildos at any moment. I hope you go to them with any confusing questions you may have so they can assure you I’m not real and there’s no reason to take anything I say seriously. That aside, you’re also living in a time when today’s ten-year-old will have no idea what you went through to get to this point. Just look at all this non-dildo stuff that has been lost to history.

5

Phones Used To Buzz Into Your Earhole When Nobody Was On The Line

You have a phone, right? There’s a good chance you’re reading this on your phone. There’s a better chance you use your phone as a phone far less than you use it as a device to type and read making it kind of bizarre they bother to call it a phone when that’s probably third down the list of things it does. No one calls a cat a “sand shitter,” even though that happens more than you use your phone as a phone. But pooping in sandboxes aside, remember dial tones?

You probably haven’t considered this in a while, and if you still have a landline phone, maybe you still have a dial tone? I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a landline phone. But I know I don’t have a dial tone and legit haven’t heard one in years. Now imagine the kid born after 2010 who while vaguely aware of the concept of phones that have squiggly, pig-tail wires attached to them would have no idea why the damn thing drills a ceaseless robo-fart into your ear every time you pick it up. If a kid picks up a phone today and hears a dial tone, they’re going to assume it’s busted. Like bad busted, too, because it’s never made that sound before.

In days of yore when everything had to be plugged into something, the dial tone was a friendly reminder that your phone worked, because there was literally no other way to know your phone was working. It didn’t do anything. There wasn’t anything to look at or charges to adjust or battery life to keep an eye on. It was an ugly-ass lunch box with a plastic half brick you pressed to your flesh. The dial tone was the phone saying “Hey friend, why don’t you give grandma a call? Also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

Those days are gone now and they never need to come back. The next generation is not just going to be unaware of a dial tone, they’re going to have to Google the term because it means nothing.

4

Credits Meant The Movie Was Over

When I was a kid, nothing sucked more than watching a movie on TV and waiting for the next show to start as the damn credits rolled. Nothing. Not war or famine or Full House. You watched the credits only because you wanted to see what was on that channel next and were too lazy to leave the room or, you know, live a life. If you’d rented a video, you pressed stop as soon as that first name started to scroll up because credits were how you knew the movie was over. Did all those people work hard to make this film? Sure, but I don’t know them or anything, they don’t need me to read their names. Your parents didn’t stick around to watch the school play after your part was over, they threw their beer cans on the floor, yelled at you to get off stage, and went the hell home.

Nowadays, thanks mostly to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if you see a film in the theater you’ll notice that just about half the room stays as still as statues when the movie ends. For any comic-book or action-type film, and even some comedies, you want to stay put because surely there’s a post-credit bit of awesome, or some sweet bloopers running through the credits. The movie isn’t over when it’s over, it’s just dribbling away like those last vexing droplets of whiz after a night enjoying gimlets at the bar.

The future is going to be rife with movies that make you five minutes later for everything you do thanks to this phenomenon. Kids are going to be expecting it all the time and they will wait, reading the names of each and every gaffer, best boy, and second-unit caterer from Quebec where they filmed all those Bigfoot-takes-a-forest-bride sequences. I showed my niece The Goonies and she asked me to turn it back on after I stopped the Blu-ray so she could see the final scene. It’s in their heads and there’s no getting it out. But also, don’t you wish there was a post-credit scene in The Goonies and it was just Corey Feldman singing “Ascension Millennium” with Chunk and Sloth? Because I wish that.

3

Phone Anxiety

There are two kinds of teenagers in the world. There’s the kind who are self-assured, know everything, and are featured in PSAs on how to be awesome — drag-racing and smoking that reefer. And then there’s the kind I was. I can’t speak to that other kid in his varsity jacket and five-o’clock shadow, which, in retrospect, might be just the memory of a few high-school sex comedies I saw in the 80s and not a real thing, but never mind that. I can speak to the gut-butt-fucking fear I felt as a 14-year-old calling the girl I liked from French class and having her mom answer the phone.

I can’t even think of the last time I called any individual and got anyone else answering the phone. If you called someone now and someone else answered, your first instinct is either their phone was stolen or they’re dead. The days of having a house phone are drawing to a close and even if you have a landline, you probably have a cell phone anyway and that’s how people call you. No high-school kid is calling their friend’s house and getting stuck chatting to Mrs. Friend’s Mom.

In a reasonable world it wouldn’t matter if you had to talk on the phone to a person’s mom for 30 seconds, but that’s not the world a teenager lives in. Getting mom or dad on the phone is psychologically on par with being caught masturbating. It’s harrowing and earth shattering in ways that are hard to account for and the children of tomorrow have no idea how lucky they are that human interaction is so limited now. You don’t have to talk to the pizza place if you don’t want to, you don’t have to go to the bank to pay your bills, and you never have to talk to that hot girl’s mom knowing full well that she knows you’ve been staring at her daughter’s exposed bra strap in the back of second period every goddamn day.

The kids of tomorrow are losing a healthy sense of fear and self-loathing that previous generations were saddled with. That illogical and fear-born sense of inadequacy that plagued you at every turn because you were sure someone was judging you, even if you didn’t know why. Now everyone’s that varsity jock just high on their own sense of unfettered phone confidence, calling people left and right and only talking to them like some kind of majestic phone barons of a future telecoms utopia.

2

Late Fees

In the realm of gaming, look at what the Go-Gurt gobblers of tomorrow are missing out on. When I was a kid, I had to go to Blockbuster to rent a new Playstation game and so help me God if I was late bringing that thing back, lest the dreaded late fee be put on my bill. Try to explain that to a kid in ten years, that there was once a time when you not only needed to go to a business to rent a piece of physical media which is probably going to not exist in a decade’s time thanks to streaming and online gaming, but my playing the game meant someone else couldn’t play it. Some poor schlub had to wait for me to bring it back and if I was late, Blockbuster charged me again because Jimmy Guntstubb was desperate to play Battletoads and I fucked up.

Basically, gaming in any practical form, for any kid whose parents weren’t rich enough to buy every new game on a whim, was a community endeavor. Everyone had a tacit agreement to work together for the joy of the game, or the whole system was fucked harder than a Fleshlight thrown into a prison yard.

There was literally no way to see gameplay outside of a commercial unless you caught an episode of Video Power with Johnny Arcade, so renting was the best way to test the waters and see if you were up to the challenge of Contra. You and every other kid had to be orderly and patient. You rented that game, you put in your time, and you took it back. Every late asshole threw the whole system into chaos.

The very idea that you couldn’t play a game or watch a movie today because the kid down the street’s parents refused to vaccinate him and now he has polio is damn near absurd. Why should someone else’s shitty punctuality affect your gaming? It shouldn’t. But dammit, it did. The struggle was real and the only defense that existed against it was Blockbsuter’s unshakable adherence to the rule of late fees, the most strict punishment and deterrent they could muster.

1

If A Game Failed, It Was Likely Your Fault For Being A Filthy Slob

Obviously technology today is a hell of a lot different than tech from the 80s, or 90s, or from about 5.27 seconds ago. Rest assured technology in 2027 is going to be full of brain-wave-activated toasters that can give you a hummer while making Pop-Tarts for you, the way Edison intended. But that doesn’t mean toasters won’t exist in the future. There is, however, a good deal of stuff kids are never going to get to see or experience. It’s not evolving or getting updated, it’s simply been rendered obsolete.

The big issue with physical media is the general maintenance and upkeep. If you had a VCR you probably remember the thrill of adjusting the tracking when your video inexplicably just started oozing down the screen and tweaking like it hadn’t had a drink since this morning. Or how about that VHS copy of Splash you watched too many times that eventually became so worn out and static-riddled it was like watching garbled porn on a cable station you didn’t get (which is another thing your kids will never know about).

Gamers went through this, too. When I bought vanilla World Of Warcraft back in the day, I think it came on five or six CDs because the idea of actually downloading the game was as silly as the idea of eating a ham sandwich with no bacon on it. If even one of those fuckers got scratched, you were screwed. Or let’s say you installed it just fine, but in the middle of a big boss fight, your mouse suddenly spazzed out, and the cursor shot up to the corner of the screen. That old style mouse had a ball and rollers in it. A little, grey ball that sucked up desk-based schmutz like a magnet. You’d have to pop the bottom of your mouse, pull the ball out, swab off the layer of dog hair, dust, and dried tears on it, then do the same for the tiny little wheels inside. That’s a lost art now, like polishing your monocle (the real way, not the euphemism for sticking Pop Rocks in your pee hole).

The point is that the game failed because you failed. You took such poor care of the components, it crapped out. Already today that can be circumvented thanks to a having a hard drive to store games, and in the near future, companies like Sony and Microsoft will just drop the idea of physical media altogether so you have one less thing to get sticky with your Mountain Dew. Because, as we all know, true gamers Do the Dew. Everything will exist in the cloud, and if a game failed, it’s not on you — it’s all them.

No more discs means no kid in the future is ever going to have that moment when they take a scratched copy of Earthworm Jim and try to rub peanut butter across the bottom of it because someone somewhere once said that will repair surface scratches … even though I’ve never actually met anyone who got that to work and it mostly left my Final Fantasy VIII smelling like a middle-schooler’s sandwich from back when middle-schoolers were allowed to have Final Fantasy VIII sandwiches.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-things-you-grew-up-with-your-kids-will-think-are-insane/

[thepeanutymermaid]

Margaritaville

Allison - “Do you know who Jimmy Buffett is?”

Me - “Yea, he sings that shaker of salt song.”

Allison - “So then you’re definitely not a Parrothead then huh?”

Me - “What’s a Parrothead?”

Allison - Face Plant.

That conversation happened more than 5 years ago on the night I met one of my best friends, Allison. We had a lot in common right off the bat, and became instant friends. We both loved The Rocky Horror Picture Show, celebrating Halloween, relaxing at the the beach, dancing to 80′s music, being fabulous fruit flies, and most importantly... Alcohol. In ALL forms.

When it came to anything outside the realm of 80′s music, we had varied tastes. When we were hanging out by the pool or at the beach, we would often fight over the radio. Whoever got to the radio first would listen to their music and torture the other. This is how I was truly introduced to Jimmy Buffett.

Allison is a Parrothead. She loves Jimmy Buffett more than a fat kid loves calories. She knows every word of every song, and the underlying stories behind the songs. During the summer of 2013, we listened to Jimmy Buffett over and over and over and over.... Some of his songs started to grow on me, and I found myself no longing feeling tortured when Jimmy came on. Allison told me that we needed to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert together so that I could truly understand what a Parrothead was. She convinced me that I would have a ton of fun, and that all his concerts were just huge tailgate parties. Who doesn’t love a tailgate party? So I promised Allison that we would go see Jimmy Buffett together as soon as he came again. My husband Sean was less than thrilled, but even he agreed to go.

January 2014 Jimmy announces an April tour date in Tampa, Florida. Allison and her fiance’ were only four months away from getting married. The date was set for April 26th and Jimmy Buffet was scheduled for April 19th. Only one week before their wedding day. Sean and I decided that the best wedding present for Allison and her fiance’ Steve would be concert tickets to Buffett; It would also be a little present for myself.

January 2014 - April 2014 Who knew there could be so much planning involved in attending a concert!? Allison and I bought straw hats, plastic signs, margarita shaped sunglasses, flowery leis, a palm tree shaped cooler, sunscreen, and giant margarita glasses to drink from. Allison created tacky hats made from straw and blow up tropical creatures. We bought several pounds of ice, 2 cases of beer, and a couple bottles of liquor. We packed hot dogs and hamburgers, a portable grill, a table and chairs, condiments, plates, utensils, and we even remembered to bring a trash bag. I felt like we were going on some tacky tourist camping excursion. Allison made a Jimmy Buffett playlist, and I made sure to pack along my mermaid tail. Fins was one of the only songs I really knew, and Allison said I would fit right in with my tail.

April 19th The Concert. We loaded up my husband’s F-150, and plugged in our Jimmy playlist. We arrived at the fairgrounds around 1:00pm. It was an extremely overcast day for April in Florida, but it shielded us from the heavy sun. Our only complaint for the weather was how terribly windy is was outside.

We set up shop about a mile from the amphitheater, but made sure to park close enough to the port-a-potty’s since beer makes me pee. We had a little trouble with our tailgate decorations because of the heavy wind, but overall, it was a perfect scene. After everything was all set up, Allison started making liquor drinks for us in our giant margarita glasses. Mine was super strong, but I figured we had arrived fairly late to the tailgating party, so I needed to make up for lost time. One of the event staff volunteers noticed our mega bottle of vodka, and asked us if we would sneak him some vodka in a water bottle so he could drink it with his soda. We were already off to a great start, and making friends!

We sat at our tailgate for about 2 hours carrying on and watching people in crazy outfits walk past us. I decided to put my mermaid tail on over my pants just for fun. The more I drank, the friendlier I got! I started waving my tail around and singing at the top of my lungs “Fins to the left, fins to the right”. People walking by were snapping pictures of me in my mermaid tail, and my crazy straw hat.

Allison made several drinks for us, and they were getting stronger and stronger. Eventually I had to slide out of my mermaid tail, and make a trip to the port-a-potty. The line was over 20 minutes long, and miserable. Everyone else  was still at the tailgate laughing and carrying on, and I was stuck in the potty line -- with no drink. Then a man with a rolling cooler came by. He was passing out jello shots! I took several and stuffed several more in my bra to bring back to the group. Everyone was thankful, and I think I even inspired Sean and Steve to “break the seal” and head to the pottys for more jello shots.

When we were all empty bladdered, Allison decided she wanted to take a walk around the fairgrounds, and scope out other people’s tailgates. We refilled our giant margarita glasses a fourth time, and asked some nice Parrothead’s nearby to watch our stuff.

Walking around the fairgrounds in the hours before a Jimmy Buffett concert is almost indescribable. It is an alcoholics dreamland. You really have to SEE it to really understand. Even though Allison had spent the past three months trying to prepare us what it was like, no amount of preparation would have been sufficient. Parrotheads are truly a different breed of human.

We saw... Trailer beds transformed into fully functional tiki bars, complete with bar stools, beer on tap, and shelves full of liquors. Kiddie pools filled with sand,  water and palm trees. Truck beds made into mini wading pools. Slip and slides made from tarps. Jimmy Buffett themed prize wheels with free shots as prizes. A totem pole covered in women’s bras. Grown men wearing shark costumes, grass skirts and coconut bras. A giant beer pong match made from trashcans that were painted like Solo cups. And of course... Boobs. Everywhere boobs.

Each time we stopped at a prize wheel, we won free shots. Each time we passed a new tailgate, we were handed a shot. Each time we made a new Parrothead friend, we were handed a shot. By the end of our walk, none of us could see straight. Well, none of us except Allison. She had already mentally prepared for the plethora of free shots and was trained to say no to most of them. She was in much better shape than the rest of us. Walking back to our tailgate was a bit of a blur.

Pictured: Shots.

We decided that the next best thing to do was eat something. We started setting up the grill to make our hot dogs and hamburgers, but in our drunken state, we could not focus on anything. We wanted to eat so badly, but we were too drunk to play with a gas grill. Allison was the most sober, but even she felt that she was not coherent enough to man the grill. We even contemplated eating the hot dogs raw, but after much deliberation, we decided against it. Sean took another potty break, and we kept on drinking.

Pictured: I fell down while trying to locate the cooking utensils

Pictured: Drunks in their natural habitat attempting to drink water

After what seemed like days... Sean returned! He had two men with him. Apparently Sean was being friendly in the potty line when he started talking to these guys. One of them was wearing  a Florida Gator shirt which is what sparked their conversation. Sean, realizing they were by themselves, decided to lure them back to our tailgate. Sean had promised them food. He failed to mention that we needed THEM to cook it! Guy 1 was Gator Joe.. Guy 2 was Gator Mike. Gator Joe and Gator Mike were both married to women who were not into the Parrothead scene. They told us that every year when Jimmy Buffett came to town, they left the wives and taxied their way to the fairgrounds together. They brought their own chairs with them and their own beers, but they didn't have a tailgating “set-up” like we did. After minimal convincing, Gator Joe and Gator Mike cooked our food for us!

Pictured: Gator Joe and Gator Mike... I have no idea which one is which...

After we finally got some food in our stomachs, we all sat around talking for a while (I think). It’s all a bit of a blur now. After my 6th or 7th trip to the 45 minute porta-potty line, I became fed up with the system and created my own! We opened the front and back door of my husbands truck, which was parked very close to another vehicle, and squatted in the grass. They say drinking alcohol removes all inhibitions... this is the perfect example of that.... Bare-assed, we peed, and we didn’t care who saw us. Gator Joe and Gator Mike were using truck potty too! That’s when things started to get weird....

One of the Gators, Mike or Joe, started asking my husband if he could sleep with me really quickly in the back of his truck! My darling husband in his drunken state didn’t want Gator Joe/Mike to be upset with him for saying no... So he told him “Well.. you’ll have to ask my wife”. He knew I would say no, so he was comfortable “pretending to give permission”. REALLY!? REALLY SEAN!? So Gator Whoever the Fuck he was, came up behind me whispering about how amazing it would be to jump in the backseat with him really quickly. “Don’t worry darlin’, your husband don’t mind!” That’s when we immediately started to pack up the tailgate and headed for the amphitheater. We left Gator Joe and Gator Mike in the dust...

The second half of the story takes place inside the amphitheater....

Allison was a professional Jimmy Buffett concert strategist. She had a plan of action that we were all to follow. No one was to stray from this plan! The men, Sean and Steve, were to go directly to the lawn to find us decent seats for when the show started. Allison and I were to go directly to the merchandise stand, buy our souvenirs, grab beers, and meet up with the boys 30-45 minutes before Jimmy would even take the stage. Well, as the saying goes... “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Sean unknowingly gave me the rest of his cash for me to buy myself a (singular) t-shirt. Allison knows that losing cash is a bit of a specialty of mine. I am GREAT at losing money! Luckily, she took it from me until we got to the souvenirs. Sean and Steve proceeded to the lawn to get us the best lawn seats we could.

At the merch table, with my one drunk eye open, I thought it would be a wonderful idea to buy Sean a Jimmy Buffett shirt as well as myself! Allison allowed this because no one had told us we were not supposed to SPEND the cash! I just wasn’t supposed to LOSE it! Seventy dollars later, we ended up at the beer booth; spent an almost equal amount there. Then went for a pre-show potty break. Meanwhile... Sean and Steve are laying in the grass patiently waiting for us to arrive. Sean was so relaxed that he passed out. Steve must have gotten bored because he wandered off.

We couldn’t get hold of Sean and Steve had become lost in a drunken stupor. Allison and I decided to break up to search for them. I found Sean fairly quickly, and Steve reappeared shortly after that. We were all in the grass patiently waiting for Allison when we heard the crowd screaming for Jimmy Buffett! The concert had started and we were all in our places except for Allison. The only person in the group who actually wore the Parrothead title was still out searching for Steve. We had strayed from the plan. We were all too drunk to function....

When the Coral Reefer band started playing, there was no way to hear Allison when she called. Text messaged were delayed due to the 20,000 other people there who were using their cell phones. When the texts DID go through... we realized that Allison was one very angry Parrothead. She was searching for us for at least the first 3 songs Jimmy played. When she finally discovered our spots.. She was FUMING! All 3 of us had received a text from her stating, “I’ve been to 8 Jimmy Buffett Concerts, and this is the WORST ONE EVER! Thanks guys!”...

I don’t remember much of the concert. I had forgotten my glasses in the truck so I couldn’t SEE much of the concert either. I remember Jimmy was wearing a yellow shirt, because there was a jumbo-tron with a giant yellow blob on it. I assume that was Jimmy. I think I remember singing along and hand motioning to the Fins song. I KNOW someone was flying a drone over our heads because I was absolutely preoccupied watching it spin above our heads--Much like a cat watches a fly buzz around it’s head. Some ladies stole our awesome straw/tropical creature hats, and I think I spilled at least $30 worth of beer while swaying to the music. Allison eventually stopped being mad at us and I sang along to every song I knew.

That night I became a Parrothead.

I get it now. Being a Parrothead is not just a title. It’s a state of mind. It is a culture all on it’s own. It’s an identity. When you are walking through the fairgrounds at a Jimmy Buffett concert, everyone there is your family. Everyone is as drunk as you or worse. There are no fights, no brawls, just happy drunk people. Imagine Bob Ross creating a painting.. “Happy Little Trees in their Happy Little World”. That is what a Jimmy Buffett concert is like. Happy Little Drunks on their Happy Little “Island”.

Whether you like his music or not...