#she drives me crazy but i don’t play about bailey

[ladybugsimblr]

Rebi does not play about her Squad™️ and family unit. It looks like she heard the rumors too and blames her twin. B is just happy Daddy is getting some of the heat today. But also she’s thinking…

[elisysd]

31. I know heaven’s a thing, I go there when you touch me

Masterlist - Previously - Next

Warning: +18 smut ahead. MDNI (minors do not interact).

Chapter soundtrack: False God - Taylor Swift

The kiss scared her to death as much as it thrilled her so when he finally released her to fill his duties after the podium, she left the track. She needed to be away from it all, that’s what she had told her dad when he had asked if she wanted to go out with the team and Ethan to celebrate. If she was honest, she would rather celebrate Romy’s win rather than Martin’s first podium. But when Kyle had told her that he was going to kidnap her best friend for the night she had given up on the idea. So, alone in her hotel room she was replaying the event. How his lips molded perfectly into hers. His peppermint taste mixed with the sweat of the race that filled her nostrils. How his hands grabbed her and left her wanting for more. She felt overwhelmed by everything and the only thing she had wanted was to get back to her hotel room.

So when Ethan showed up at her door, she didn’t know what to expect. So she started to freak out. Because what if it had just been pretending? What if he was just coming to tell her to not get her hopes up? What if, what if, what if.

But now lips were on hers and her back was pressed against the door, a position that seemed to have become, somehow, their favorite as it seemed. His kisses were feverish, knocking the air out of her lungs. She felt his hands on her waist, his nose bumping against hers, his leg parting hers to have some space so he could fit in between them and press his hips against hers earning a moan from her.

Finally, after weeks of pining and anticipation she knew what his lips felt like and God she never wanted to forget their taste. She let her hands wander his body. His chest first before one settled on his cheek as the other one went up to his shoulder before sneaking behind his neck and grabbing strands of his hair making him groan. She took the opportunity to break the kiss to leave open and wet kisses along his cheekbone and jaw before moving to his neck as her hands started to sneak under his shirt to quickly remove it and throw it away.

“Not fair, Joolsie…really not fair.” he teased her, removing a strand of hair that was falling on her eyes.

“I think it’s really fair, if you are asking me.”

“How come you are seeing me half-naked and yet you are fully dressed up. Way too dressed up. Way too many clothes.”

“If it bothers you so much then, why don’t you remove them.”

The desire in his eyes gave place to a glimpse of challenge but before he had the occasion to act she shushed him out with a kiss, slightly biting his bottom lip to tease him. Her hands find their way to his jeans as she fumbled with his buckle, making Ethan laugh.

“So eager…”

She looked at him, arching an eyebrow and as she was about to go back to her task he stopped her grabbing both her hands to pin them both sides of her hips to the wall.

“Let’s not rush it. I promised you once I would take my sweet time with you and I intend to do it. Slowly. I’m going to drive you crazy the same way you did to me.”

“I swear if you decide to leave me hanging I’ll cut both of your balls and feed your dick to Bailey.” she whispered as he was breathing heavily against her neck before starting to leave wet kisses along her shoulder blade, moving up next to her ear that he slightly bit as she made sweet whimpers that had quite the effect on a lower part of him.

“I won’t.I promise. I’m going to finish what I started.”

She sighed as she felt his hands slipped beneath her jumper and tracing soft lines along her hips then moving to her back to play with the clasp of her bra. She felt dizzy. His lips on her trying to memorize every inch of bare skin they could find, his skilled and calloused hands on her busy driving her crazy, the bulge she could feel if she dared to graze him coupled with the soft grunts she could hear, all of it was making her head spin in the most amazing way. When she finally managed to get rid of his buckle, it didn’t take long for Ethan to remove his pants and let it lay around. His forehead touching hers, his lips parted in the search of a little bit of air, he paused.

“Tell me you want it as much as I do, Julia.”

“You know I do.” she breathed back.

“Words, schatje. I need to be one hundred percent sure.”

“I want it as much as you do. I really, really want it.”

It was all he needed to hear. His hands traced down her body until they reached the underside of her thigh and with one swift motion he lifted her as her legs found their place around his waist. His mouth didn’t waste time to lock it to hers, his tongue darting and tantalizing hers. They finally made it to the bed where Ethan softly laid her body, making sure she had a pillow to rest her head and to get comfortable.

His eyes dove into hers before moving alongside her body. She still had her clothes on but feeling his burning gaze on her made her feel like she was already naked and she couldn’t help but turn her head away from him, closing her eyes.

“Joolsie, look at me.” he told her in a soft voice and she did. “We can stop whenever you want, no pressure.”

“I don’t want to stop. I want that. It’s just… you’ve been with other girls. Prettier and sexier and… I’m me.” she confessed, almost ashamed.

“I didn’t care about the other girls. I care about you. That’s the only thing you need to focus on. Okay?”

She nodded as he left small butterfly kisses on her face before removing her jumper, leaving her in a simple black bra. His lips moved from her eyelids, to the corner of her mouth to her jaw, her left ear to end up nibbling that pulsing point right below her jaw that made a beautiful cry escape her mouth. He felt her hand tugging at his hair as he started his journey discovering new areas of her body his mouth had still left untouched.

He wanted to take his time with her, something he had never done. He wanted to learn by heart what she loved and what she didn’t. He wanted to memorize every sinful but oh so beautiful sounds she would make. He wanted to drive her crazy. As he was leaving open mouth kisses along the valley of her breasts, he slipped one hand behind her back making it arched as he skillfully removed the piece of clothing that separated his lips from a new sensitive area to chart. As soon as it was out of the way, his lips captured an already hard nipple while one of his hands was playing with the other. The whimpers and moans intensified as she tugged at his hair harder while wriggling beneath him forcing him to hold her hips in place with his other hand to keep her steady.

“So damn beautiful, so perfect.” he whispered against her skin.

“Ethan, please…”

“Please what?”

“I don’t know. Just do something, anything.” she whined, moving one of her legs to circle his waist and pressing him against her.

He could feel how hot she was and his boner, painfully stirring against the barrier of his brief made him want to lose all his restraints to take her, right here right there. He swallowed, abandoning her breasts to explore the lower part of her. As he was about to remove her sweatpants, he looked one last time at her, searching for her approval and when he saw her bite her lips, eyes feverishly locked on his, he knew he could do whatever he wanted with her, she would let him.

In one swift motion he removed both her pants and her panties, leaving her completely bare in front of him. His fingertips wandered along her calves, moving up around her knees, brushing the side of her thighs until he ended up where she wanted him the most. She closed her eyes, gasping and whimpering as she felt his fingers tease her entrance, toying with her in the most wonderful way making her hips buckling up as if they had a mind of their own. He kep his sweet torture going for a while before he finally decided that she suffered enough and let his fingers ease into her, taking his time to analyse the patterns that made her moan the loudest. And when he felt her clench around his fingers, he stopped eliciting an angry whine from her.

“Fuck Ethan… I was close.”

He gave her a devilish look before carrying his hand to his lips to suck the remaining of her making her whine louder at the sight. She was flushed and he loved to know that it was because of him. He came back to her quickly to give her a kiss before bending down to face the place his fingers had discovered a few minutes ago. He gripped her thighs,  putting them on his shoulder and gave her one last look before finally tasting her. She was intoxicating. All of her. Her sounds, her taste, her scent, the way she clenched around his head, trapping him and most of all, the way she repeated his name again and again. If he could stay right there forever, he would. He felt her hand in his hair and when he looked up to her he almost moaned at the sigh. She was toying with herself, eyes closed, lips parted, her body totally flushed and surrendered to him. She was beautiful and just for him.

“Ethan, don’t stop… I want to… I… please…”

“What do you want?”

“To come.”

“You want to? Or you need to?”

“Both. I need both.” she was almost begging him.

And he did exactly what she wanted. Like a starving man that had not eaten in days, he dove into her and didn’t hold back until her cries filled the whole room.

“Let go, Joolsie. I got you.”

As he was helping her ride her orgasm he got rid of his boxer with an expert hand, finally freeing him from his constraints. He was so hard that it started to be painful. And the sigh before him was definitely not helping his case. He needed her, fully. And, at the same time, he didn’t want to rush it. He wanted to keep the discovery going. It had been so long since he had so much fun when it came to sex. It had always been something quick, easy, forgettable to him. But with her he wanted to remember everything, every detail.

His mouth still busy with making her see stars, he let his hand stroke his length, trying to relieve the tension, in vain. It seemed to only make it worse. He needed more, much more than whatever his hand could give him. So when Julia finally came down from her high, he got up to her to let her taste herself on his lips before rubbing himself against her so she could feel the effect she had on him. He heard her whisper his name as her hands wandered his back, his chest, his arms to finally settle around his neck while one leg snaked around his waist. It took one move from her to have him pinned against the mattress as she towered him.

He could see the moonlight reflecting on her skin making her look like she was from another planet. Her lips were red and swollen from the rough kisses but it only made them more kissable, more tempting.

“You really didn’t think I would let you be in charge the whole night, right?” she teased him as he let his hands brush her hard nipples and made her shiver from the featherlight touch.

“I know better than to expect anything when it comes to you. You always find new ways to surprise me. This is just a new one.”

She gave him a half smile as she let her hands explore his body, her mouth following quickly. He let her bite and suck and lick and touch him the way she wanted to. He was her puppet, she could do whatever the hell she wanted to him. And when she finally got a hold of his dick, he couldn’t resist breathing her name. But when she started long and painfully slow strokes, he almost felt like he would explode here and there, like a stupid virgin boy touched for the very first time. He could feel everything, from the warmth of hands to the nails grazing him and driving him crazy as she wrapped a condom on him before he felt her straddling him, a hand on his chest to stabilize herself as she was aligning herself with him. He lifted his hands, trying to help her when she groaned and gave him an authoritative look.

“Don’t. When I say, I’m in charge, I mean it.”

He slowly put down his hands, listening to her before she finally sank on him. It took her a little while to adjust to him but when she moved it was everything he hoped for and more. The view he had was quickly becoming his favorite one. The way her back was arching, her head falling backward exposing her neck covered by lovebites, her hair fallin down over her shoulders, the way her breasts bounced when she started to move, her hands on his abdomen, slightly scratching it, the whimpers that left her lips, how she was giving herself to him without holding back… He wanted to have the burning image in his mind, forever. He could see the sweat gleaming on her skin making him want to lick every drop of it. He didn’t care about her wanting to keep control anymore, his hand ran along her hips, guiding her, helping her reach a new pace and when finally he couldn’t restrain himself he swapped places with her, her back now firmly pressed against the softness of the mattress.

She felt him twitch inside of her as soon as he took back control, his face buried in the crook of her neck as he sped up turning her into a moaning mess. He was everywhere, in her, on her, his scent filling her nostrils, his grunts in her ears becoming her new favorite song, his hands pulling up towards him as he tried to bury himself deeper inside her as if he wanted to make one with her. She was close, so close and she knew he was too. The way his body reacted every time she was clenching around him was telling her everything she needed to know. And when finally she came undone, digging her nails into his back, he joined her in erratic moves, trying to make their orgasm last before collapsing on her as she was still shaking.

He was breathing hard against her as she was still trying to process what had just happened. When he finally moved after a few minutes and rolled over, she felt a wave of cold leaving her shivering. She was about to reach him when she saw him getting up, putting his boxer back on and going to the bathroom before coming back with a wet bath cloth.

“I won’t let you sleep without you being all cleaned up.”

She didn’t dare to tell him she could do it on her own and let him take care of her. She was still sensitive from his ministrations but was surprised by how gentle he was with her. When he came back next to her, he didn’t say anything, just admired the way her body was still recovering from it all. With a shaky hand she traced the outline of his jaw as he captured it and pressed a kiss on her fingers and then her palm before intertwining his fingers with hers.

“If I had known it would be like that, I wouldn’t have waited that long to make a move.” he joked, his voice hoarse.

“I don’t want to break the magic of the moment but, I really need to pee.” she whispered, almost ashamed, biting her lower lips.

He let her go out of his embrace with reluctance, watching her throw her jumpers and her panties back on, to come back a few seconds later. As she was about to take her pjs, Ethan stopped her.

“My shirt. Wear it.”

It was not a suggestion nor was it a question. It was an order. She looked at him, raising an eyebrow, defying him.

“Not even a please? Or a can you?  Who do you think you are to boss me around like that?”

He raised himself on his elbows, smirking.

“I can boss you around and believe me you will enjoy it. Wanna try out?”

“In other circumstances I would have said yes, but right now, I’m really tired. It has been an eventful day.” She smiled, ending up borrowing his shirt and wearing it, not breaking eye contact as she slowly removed her jumper as Ethan gulped and shook his head.

“Little minx… I didn’t know you liked to tease that much.”

“You don’t know me very well, then.” she replied, approaching him as he quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him, making her fall on top of him.

“My new favorite position.” he smiled suggestively.

She laughed as she bent down to capture his lips while his hands traveled down her back to sneak under her newly put on shirt. She ended up breaking the kiss to roll next to him, her head finding naturally her place back on his chest, listening to his heart beating.

“What does it make us now?” she broke the heavy silence in a whisper as if it had been a forbidden question to ask.

Ethan took his time to answer, not sure about what he was supposed to say or what exactly it meant for them.

“I don’t know. I… I feel good when I’m with you. But��� I’m bad at this, Julia.”

“Bad at what?”

“Relationships. I’ve never really been in one.”

“Neither did I. But… maybe we can learn? Together? If you want.”

“I think I’d like to try.” he said, nuzzling his nose in her hair.

It didn’t take long for Julia, exhausted about her day and helped by the circular motions Ethan was drawing on her hip, to fall asleep.

She woke up alone the next day and was scared for a minute that last night was a dream. There was no trace of Ethan and if she was not wearing his shirt and felt her muscles sore, she would truly believe she was starting to become crazy. She stretched out before leaving the bed to hop in a hot shower and when she came back, she found him sitting on the armrest of a chair. She stopped in the middle of the room, not knowing exactly how to act. She felt awkward and stupid. Was she supposed to kiss him? Did he expect her to make a move? Was he going to make one? Or would they act like complete strangers and forget this night ever happened despite saying the opposite?

“I can see the wheels turning in your head.” he said, finally looking at her.

“Why aren’t you awkward? I feel weird.”

He sighed, getting up and walking to her, taking her face between his hands to force her to look at him.

“It’s a weird situation. We are a weird pairing, for sure. And an unexpected one. But I thought about it and maybe we should just go with the flow. I like being with you, you like being with me, we have fun and we’ll see where it leads us. And it will be easier in front of the cameras. No more need to pretend.”

She nodded as he let go of her to focus on his phone.

“Look, there are pictures of us everywhere.” he laughed, shoving the camera to her face. “We look nice, they definitely caught my best profile. That definitely looks like a real kiss. Ashley will be happy. Oh, and by the way, we are meeting the guys to celebrate Romy’s win before heading to London.”

He wasn’t giving her the choice. And even if she was happy to see her friends and it didn’t bother her, what did was how he had planned it without asking her. She bit her lips but didn’t say anything. She was probably overthinking it and reading too much between the lines. So, she smiled and said that it made her happy.

She didn’t complain either when he rummaged through her suitcase to pick an outfit so they could look stylish if cameras were around. It was cute, she thought and she knew he didn’t mean badly. Nor did she say a thing when he grabbed her hand in a strong grip, pulling her firmly next to him as they walked down the streets, even if it was hurting her a little. So she kept it all to herself and put a smile on her face. It was fine, they had to find their pace. It wouldn't be easy.

They finally made it to the restaurant where Ludwig, Chloe, Romy and Kyle were waiting for them and when they saw them arriving hand in hand, Romy gave her a half-smile as Ludwig chuckled, earning a little slap in the back of his head from Kyle. Julia was about to go sit next to her best friend, thinking Ethan would be facing her, but when she made a move, she felt his grip tightened on her hand preventing her from embracing her friend and when Ethan pulled the chair for her to sit, she didn’t refuse it.

Romy gave her a surprised look to which Julia mouthed that it was fine and that she would explain later. The lunch was nice, Ethan had an arm draped around her shoulders, laughing and going into details with Romy over the race. The German girl had stars in her eyes when talking about her overtakes and her feelings and emotions in her voice. When lunch was finally over, Julia excused herself to go to the restroom, followed by Romy who said she needed to as well. When they finally were alone, Romy jumped on her friend.

“I need to know everything! In detail! Don’t spare me!”

“Well, we kissed. And we might have gone further than just kissing.” Julia admitted, blushing.

“I knew it! Finally! It was about damn time! So, does it mean that I can start to organize couple dates? You, me, Kyle and Ethan?”

“I guess? I don’t know… We are taking it very slowly. I don’t really know where we stand exactly. It’s new and weird.”

“You are infuriating. Both of you. Sometimes I hate you because you make it harder than it needs to be. You love him! Tell him!”

“It’s not that simple!”

“Yes it is. You are just not ready to dive right in. Both of you. I just hope you won’t self-sabotage what is going on between you because you will regret it.”

“We won’t. It will be fine, you’ll see.”

And Julia didn’t know if she was trying to convince Romy or herself.

Author's note: Is it hot or is it just me? I'm soooo curious to know what you all think about it. What do you think will happen next? Let me know your theories, I love to read them.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment or an ask, as well as reblogging and leaving a like. Besides the fact that I absolutely love to read you, it helps a lot for the story to find its audience. I also have a taglist for this story, so if you want to be added so you never miss a chapter, let me know.

Taglist:

@herondalism @aundercover @musingsbyshreya @karmabyfernando @reengard @mycenterfold @smoooothoperator

[daphnebowen]

season four episode three!

TIMOTHEE HAL CHALAMET BAHAHA M

richard Bowen in a hat is actually the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

RINA CUEEEE

what is ricky wearing on his feet his shoes are… yikes 😬

Awwww!!! Emmy brought muffins for everyone! That’s so sweet!

AWWW GINA LOOKS SO CUTE

“the tension is fierce but also appropriate for all audiences” LMAO WHAT

THEIR CHEMISTRY IS OFF THE CHARTS HOLY CRAP

ricky looks so amazed and tbh so am i

they sound so goooooodddddddd together how can anyone ever compete like tbh I almost like their version better than the og Troy and Gabriella’s

the whole cast is so involved in their song and I am absolutely here for it

“No notes” PREACH CARLOS PREACH

”my boyfriend 😃🥰”

maddox’s smile is so pretty!

STOP IM CRYING IMAGINING GINA AND RICKY SAYING GOODBYE I REALLY CANT DOES SHE KNOW WHAT SHE JUST DID

Ashlyn’s laugh is so awkward omg

me only just now realizing that Jet saying he was in love with the girl playing Elsa (aka Kourtney) could be because of the RCOSL episode where Carlos tells her to pretend to be in love with her for the drama 💀 BUT OMG ITS ALSO TRUE HEHEHEHE

Seb and Carlos fighting is physically hurting me

did Carlos even pay for that coffee or did he just walk away?

”richard, sit. Faster.”

MACK IS NOT TALKING SMACK TO ALYSON FREAKING REED OHHH ITS ABOUTTA GO DOWN

”totally forgettable in every way” not with Kourtney wearing a whole candy shop or something. Seriously why does everyone look semi normal but Kourtney??? Is the the candy land Sharpay or something??

AWWW MADDOX IS SO CUTEEEE

”disasters might be” looks right at Ricky

ricky: repeats Gina’s famous lines. Also Ricky: it’s me *pulls down glasses*

okay but in all honesty why is everyone freaking out about ms darbus leaving especially if Bailey (the character that Gina is playing) is a senior like how does that make sense??? Yes it is sad but I feel like you would get over it…?? I mean obviously it parallels with Ricky and Gina but still

“making sure you don’t fall in love with your costar” “barebones production of Romeo and Juliet” OMG DARBUS REALLY DOES KNOW EVERYTHING

rickys infamous words ! “Wow.”

kourtney: Ricky!!!! Ricky: looks behind him in confusion

“keyboard smash”

”too much sunshine. I found it depressing.” “That tracks for you, actually”

Awh I think Mazzy is a little bit jealous of Mike and Jenns relationship

“like a dog?” He’s so naive what the heck

maddox and Ashlyn flirting while kourt is just standing there awkwardly is absolutely cringe worthy

“security be d*mned!”

jets been there for less than a day, didn’t even see the “can i have this dance” duet, and still somehow knows that Ricky and Gina are “not dating.” Man this boy is the biggest supporter of rina that there ever was

the way mr mazarra just reads silently except for “hmm. Hmm. Hmmm…”

she used two thesaurus’s???

I want one of those Ricky and Gina hugs like COME ON MAN WHY AM I SO SINGLEEEE

omg when Gina said she never gets things right the first time she told him that AFTER him and nini had kissed AND HE STILL REMEMBERS AKDNFJEJHAIWIXNEJSJS I CANT THE PINING IS CRAZY

”secret make out times” YESSS RICKYYYYYY

he has absolute faith in her and her in him and i freaking LOVE IT!

omg miss jennnnnn stoppppppp interferingggg it’s driving me nuts

the tension between Jenn and Benny boo is crazy

AWW KOKO IS SUCH A CUTE NICKNAME!!

yesss Kourtney go get your therapy I’m proud of youuu 😻😻

most of the parents in this show absolutely suck but kourtneys mom is lowkey the best (ninis moms are also pretty cool but Gina’s mom, Ricky’s parents, Todd, and ejs dad all suck)

dani is FLIRTING WITH RICKY BACK AWAY GIRLIE

The look of disappointment on Gina’s face when it was Mack showing up at her trailer instead of it being Ricky :((((

NONONONONO THE WRITING THE NUMBER ON THE HAND IS SO TERRIBLE but also really cute if I actually shipped them

ginas face- girl is absolutely SHOOK

[cyarsk52-20]

Candiace Dillard Bassett Slams Tom Sandoval’s ‘Bombastic Audacity’ After Vanderpump Rules Finale

Twitter must be lit with #pumprules right now. Whew, chile (in the voice of Cynthia Bailey), the tweets from EVERYONE are scorching. I mean, torching Tom Sandoval after last night’s Vanderpump Rules finale. One notable voice in the crowd is Real Housewives of Potomac star, and word-a-day calendar, Candiace Dillard Bassett.

What’s she bringing? She live-tweeted the event, and she brought a lot. How about “This whole scene is a lesson in bombastic audacity.” Mic drop. One fan’s response was, “… I’m stealing that. Gonna use it during S8 #RHOP. Often, probably.”

What else did Candi say?

She applauded, “Ariana [Madix] is better than all of us. I would have burned everything down.” Truth! Candi burns it down every time she hears something she doesn’t like. And I couldn’t imagine her letting Chris Bassett (I’m sorry, but Chris loves her – he’s not straying) get away with anything.

She continued, “If it was a facade, then, why didn’t you hang it up?!? Why did you play in her face and all of our faces, and have an affair under our noses for seven months Of Sundays?!?” Yessss! But wait, do you mean you waited till Sunday to watch the show? You’ve been grinding too hard then (between your single x Drew, your showS, your MBA, and your podcast) because VPR airs on Wednesday, my dear.

‘All of it’ she says

All of it. Lolllll https://t.co/uB0rTlSrfF— CANDIACE (@TherealCANDIACE) May 18, 2023

Are there any other gems? Why, yes. I’m voting @TherealCANDIACE as a post-reunion guest on WWHL. Girl says, “Y’all. Please tell me that my eyes and ears are deceiving me. This man just called his side-chick his main-chick’s name, and she is smiling like he just told her that he’s about to make her an omelet. In what world do we live? Where are we???? #PumpRules.” That’s where we are. Candiace is getting the tone of the Vanderpump reality. It’s very much a ‘go with whatever vibe you’re feeling’ flow. Let’s do a comparison of realities:

Tom’s interpretation of a relationship breakdown: Somewhat normal after 9 years

Tom’s definition of fireworks: Getting some strange

Tom’s definition of growing apart: Not spending time together because you don’t like what she likes

Tom’s work in therapy: Lying in therapy

Tom thinking Ariana doesn’t want to know: Tom’s guilt

Tom thinks Ariana should have followed him: Crazy

Candiace says, “Humans are imperfect beings. Lol. This is the lesson tonight. #PumpRules.” Cue Tom saying in the finale, “It’s not about somebody stroking my ego,” yet “we were giving each other confidence.” Confidence comes from within, Tom; not via Raquel Leviss. He continued, “As time went on, we became this support system for each other.” Yes, while she was simultaneously “supporting” Ariana.

As Candiace said, “My sternum is heavy!! #Pumprules.” Nuh, uh, uh. Drive Back, my friend. Drive back to sanity. She sends us off with, “Well. My God, today. That was a lot. Thank you for coming. #Pumprules.” And goodnight.

Watch Candiace this Sunday as she cameos on RHOA. Watch Vanderpump Rules 3-part reunion starting May 24 on Bravo.

TELL US – DO YOU FOLLOW CANDIACE ON TWITTER? DID YOU FOLLOW #PUMPRULES ONLINE? WHAT ARE WE IN FOR WITH THE REUNION?

Sent from my iPhone

[elidokie]

i’m so scared that i’m faking being happy but at the same time i know i’m not because happiness is a choice (and also not a destination) and i choose it every day.

even though right now i have to urge to go, i know it’s all temporary. i keep imagining myself. when i die, all my stuff will go to Mar. even my 3DS, and even my copy of soul silver.

yikes. i hate feeling like this. i feel so icky and gross whenever i do. cmon eli! this isn’t you! you’re supposed to be happy and full of joy on the time! think of all the tender mercies! you fucked up bad yesterday, and God still let you get another chance! mom made breakfast! dad went out to buy us a drink at the new gas station they built down the road! and Mar is in the living room waiting for us to go outside and tell her about the new book we are reading!

cmon! think of how much you love being alive! because you do.

i have a hard time accepting the bad feelings as feelings of my own. my brain is so frustrating sometimes. it feels like it’s not mine.

i miss being little. i miss being 14. my parents were mean, and i didn’t have any friends, and i had the ugliest hair cut in the world — but i was 14 and i played my favorite video game for the first time, and all Mar n I had to worry about was our stupid Government class that we were taking for college credit.

Mom was really happy when we told her that we got accepted into the dual enrollment program, even though she didn’t understand that dual enrollment was for the students that were smart enough to be looked at as a waste. It’s a school in south Texas, with only 15% of the students actually going on to get a degree after graduation. Even if it was only for the numbers, it really did help out.

I didn’t think I was going to go to college. I get frustrated when people say that a Bachelors is the same as a HS Diploma. I didn’t decide I was going to college until my junior year. At most, I thought I was going to just finish off whatever I had left of classes at the community college I was already attending during high school. But then during the state exams, Mr Austin looked at Mr Sowell and went, “You are looking at the two brightest minds of the 21st century.” (referring to me and Mar), and even though it’s not true, because I’m just a 19 year old girl, it still gave me a sense of hope.

Mom never went to middle school (secondary school I guess) and has a 5th grade education. I do everything for her. We told her about World War 2. It’s crazy that she doesn’t know anything about it. Then we tried telling her about outer space, she doesn’t know much, but she knows about planets! we told her that there is a myriad of planets, and we told her what galaxies are, and how galaxies can collide, and how stars can die beneath their own weight.

i feel like that sometimes.

she says it’s too late for her, but i don’t think so. i’ve been trying to teach her english, but she doesn’t care to learn. she can order at the drive thru by herself and she can have a conversation with Bailey’s parents. that’s enough.

dad first told me he loved me during graduation. he hugged me too. i miss the feeling of dad being proud of me like that. i know moms always proud of me, but it’s in a different way.

i like seeing dads face light up. i hate the stigma that i have to take care of my parents once they get older, or that children of immigrants live for their parents, but it’s so true. dad always looked so happy after i performed.

when i passed my drivers test (after going to the DMV like 4 times) he hugged me and was like “i’m so proud of you!” and i think about that a lot. i told him how i was planning on going to UT (my literal dream school and i’m so glad to God that i even got accepted) for aerospace engineering. and he was so happy. then i ended up “following my dream” and going to liberal liberal arts school in Texas for fucking ENGLISH. and he still was so happy. i cried when they dropped me off at my dorm, and i still cry thinking about it.

andrew was so right when he said that moving away from your parents for college is some white people shit. i’m still grateful to the universe for the experience though.

when i came back home during the winter break, i think he could tell that my depression was coming back. maybe that’s why he was so supportive about me dropping out. i had 4 days left until i had to move back to Denton when i had decided to withdraw. fuck, i was so scared. i remember asking him over and over what he thought i should do, and he just went “whatever you want mija, it’s your life not mine” until i ended up actually withdrawing. i know that he knew i was scared.

the next day he took me to dallas to pick up my stuff. a 6 hour drive, 2 hours to pack, 6 hours back — and he didn’t complain. i was so miserable the whole spring, which sucks because it’s my favorite season.

we would take Mar to class 2x a week (Mar can’t drive, she’s too scared to, so dad would take her and i would tag along) and then sit in the Circle K parking lot for two hours until her Latin class was over (the drive to her uni was 45 minutes, so it made more sense to just wait there). He’d buy me an horchata and a hot dog, he was always like “these are good today!” and i would agree, i never told him that i don’t like hot dogs, but it’s okay because i think he was always trying to convince himself / trying to make me feel better about not being in school.

sometimes we would go to Taco Bell, or to Costco. it was always the same thing. me being miserable about having to be at a uni i don’t attend, and him trying to make me feel better without knowing how. i’m grateful though.

i told them i was going back to school in fall. they never asked me about it. that’s the only thing i’m jealous of white people for, that their parents know how to do all the college stuff. they wouldn’t check up on if i was caught up in the paperwork, or if i had talked to the school, or if i did my financial aid — they just assumed that i would do it on my own. and i did do it on my own, because i knew that they wouldn’t know how to help me.

i pushed myself.

after finally doing all the stuff for the school here, and finally setting up my classes and everything (thank god), i told dad how i was thinking of switching my major. i told him i was gonna switch to architecture. his only response was “that sounds like a reliable degree!”

i always switched up what i wanted because i want multiple things. but the one thing that i know for a fact i want, is to write. so he was still as happy when i told him that i was going to keep doing english, but i’m dropping the education courses. im switching to creative writing.

then we talked about grad school for a bit and i told him that i was planning on going to Utah or Minnesota near Juni. i think he’s more supportive of Utah, just because it’s closer to Cali. Mar is going to Cali for law, she takes all her law exam shits later this school year, and then is probably going to talk to grandma about moving in to the little studio in the back. grandma is obviously going to say yes.

dad also didn’t care that i stopped working. i mean, i know a part of did, but he never said anything. i like to think that i did a good job hiding how i was doing mentally, but every week dad would ask if i wanted to get a slushee from Sonic, which i know is his way of trying to make me feel better.

i stopped with the TEFL program i was doing. i know i’ll pick it up sometime later. right now i have to worry about getting an internship, grad school, applying for the study abroad program, and this upcoming semester. the fact that i’m graduating next winter feels like a sin. i just started college. maybe i should be more appreciative of the fact that i’m finishing early early.

also getting a job. but i have confidence that God has something better for me planned. i have enough money to pay for my car bill next month, and just barely enough for the one after that (i might have to ask dad to help a bit). the only reason i feel bad leaving the school in dallas, is because i was on a full scholarship. i think my parents paid like $1000 the whole semester and that was for the room i was staying in.

i don’t expect mom and dad to pay for this semester, especially since it was my choice to move back home. so i know i have to pay for it on my own. i’m okay with working 24/7 if it means they don’t have to worry about it. but, i know how dad is. he’d go into debt if it means i get to go to college.

Mar and i are on our own for grad school though, they made that VERY clear LMAO. i might check out that women’s only university that Ms. Burger told me about. she got her M.F.A there and said she loved it. she was a crazy woman, talking about how she lived in London, how she’s okay with being 57 and single because she has her dog, how she wrote her thesis on Little Women.

anyways, i feel like i’ve written enough. even though nobody reads this. it’s like i’m bothering my future self for whenever i do reread this. i talk a lot. i only really took notice of it because of how often i keep YAPPING to 26y/o. he said he doesn’t mind, but i’m scared that he does. because why would he want to hear some stupid 19 year old vent about stupid shit. either way i’m appreciative of it.

yesterday we played fortnite. he’s really good lmao. we won most of our games! it was really funny. the dynamic of our relationship is really funny. there’s like a 7 year (about to be 6!!) age gap between us which for the most part doesn’t really matter. but he’s experienced so many more things than me, and it’s very obvious at times. like when i talk about uni and my future, and then i realize that this mf already has his shit figured out. like, he’s GROWN. it’s really funny though. i made this grown man play fortnite with me. and it was fun!

ugh, i said i was gonna stop this text post but i always have to much to say. i miss juni. so so so very much. he’s literally my soul partner. i dream that im at his house sometimes. in the living room, i’m laying sideways on the couch and he’s laying on the recliner. his parents in the kitchen making dinner. his younger sister in her room playing roblox. i always feel at home when i’m there, as strange as it sounds. i’m eternally grateful that his family accepted me so easily. and that his mom loves me. it’s july there too.

i miss mn. i’m not going to be going there anytime soon, because juni is coming here in september. so i probably wont be there until december. which sucks because it means that i’m going to have to get a new job. since i’m taking 2 weeks to go to mexico, 1 for mn, and then 1 to go to georgia to visit Cav. so that’s like, the whole month! i’ll stress about it later.

none of these things are permanent so why stress? im just 19 (ugh i’m gonna keep saying this even after im 20.).

20 is so close and its scary. i feel like a baby. my dad still has to drive me around the city, and mom still eats dinner with me.

i think mom knows that my eating is getting worse again. she’s not very (i forgot the word but it has the same meaning as “slick with it”), as she’s always calls me during her lunch break to go “oh what did you eat for breakfast?”

that’s the only reason i have lunch with her sometimes. to ease her worries i guess. juni is more normal about it, he ask “did you eat?” like once every few days. i’m glad he’s like that but it also upsets me. i don’t think he understands my mental health issues, or my issues in general. he told me he didn’t care to learn about it because i’m a human and not an animal. which i understand. but also like, this is a part of me that isn’t going away.

i feel like we are at two different places sometimes. which is crazy because of how close we are, literal soul ties. i’ve known him all my life.

anyways. i think i’ll end this here. i’m sorry if there are any typos or inconsistencies in my writing here. i use this as a diary, i guess. i graduated with a 4.3 and got so many scholarships to write (because woo! there’s a lack of representation when it comes to latin authors getting published in the US! especially women!) so how jarring would it be for me to say that i never paid attention during english class. i don’t know what a preposition is, i don’t know how to properly structure sentences sometimes, but that’s okay!

i lied again. i did pay attention to english class. i just forgot almost everything i learned.

i’m getting hungry. i think i’m gonna get boba later. anyways. goodbye, i love you.

[poguesrforlife]

Young and Beautiful | Rudy Pankow - Part 3

Okay first of all I’m sorry it took me so long but here is part three finally. Honestly I don’t know how to feel about this because at first I wanted it to be a filler chapter and then I thought I couldn't let you hang like this so I just poured it all out. I still have some more ideas about where this might go but you guys tell me if this feels already finished to you. AND AS ALWAYS THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! for all the love and support you give, I see you all and couldn't be more thankful xxx

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Trigger warning: alcohol, swearing, nothing too smutty, a little angst and a lot of jealousy

Word count: 3,741 word (god this is so long I’m sorry)

Y/N just got the role of her lifetime, starring beside the cast of Outer Banks in the second season as JJ’s love interest. It’s a dream come true and gets even dreamier when she meets Rudy Pankow her alleged love interest. Lines start to blur between reality and film and Y/N is left wondering if taking a leap of faith is worth risking her career.

[GIF not mine credits to owner]

Days passed and filming never stopped, neither did the thought of Rudy in your mind. It was constant, the sun rose and so did your thoughts of him, the night came and so did he in your dreams. By now you were convinced that this feeling would not go away anytime soon.

Maybe some distraction would do you good. 

“How about we go out tonight?” You proposed to the girls as you were lounging in your living room, painting toe-nails, scrolling through instagram and what-not. 

“Like out out?” Madelyne’s face lit up as she looked up from her bright yellow nail polish and passed the same expression to Madison. You nodded with a smile.

“I’d be down,” Madison agreed and sprang up from the couch in a matter of seconds.

“Oh, this is exciting! Let me call the boys,” Madelyne exclaimed and got up, waddling weirdly with her still wet toe nails to her phone on the kitchen bar.

Your face fell for a second. That was not exactly what you had in mind. You wanted a distraction from Rudy and him dancing in a sweaty club with beautiful women wouldn’t really help your current state of emotions. But you couldn’t let the girls know that. After shooting the other day they wouldn’t shut up about how one could feel the sexual tension between the two of you and you were just happy they hadn’t seen the sex scene.

“You good?” Bailey inquired as she noticed your sour face. You were quick to plaster a fake smile on your lips.

“Yeah, I’m just tired of sitting around all the time. This will do us some good!” You headed towards the bathroom to get a shower before going out and also to have a moment to yourself to prepare for tonight.

“The boys are down as well!” You heard Maddie scream from the kitchen and then she passed by you as fast as she could to look through her wardrobe. 

“Somebody is excited,” Bailey muttered beside you but joined her friend with a grin and helped her pick out something to wear. 

A couple hours later you were dressed to kill and ready to go. Even though you loved the Outer Banks clothing style, it reminded you of your hometown, it was nice to doll-up every now and then. Madison was taking pictures of you three in the big mirror besides the entry when you heard a knock on the door.

Madelyn was quick to open it and you were met with five handsome men staring back at you.

Chase escaped a whistle when he took all three of you in but you noticed how his eyes stayed on Madelyn just a bit too long. You made sure to remember asking him about it later. 

“Well, hot damn,” Rudy exclaimed as he entered the apartment and his eyes landed on the short dresses you were wearing.

“Eyes up here,” Madison warned him with a smile and pointed to her own brown ones.

“Not fair,” Austin gasped, clearly thinking you were playing with their feelings. Maybe you were. When Bailey had proposed to impress some folks tonight you at least had a special someone in mind. Who was to say the others didn’t have too?

Your eyes wandered over the boys outfits, all dressed up and looking incredibly handsome. Rudy sported a cream sweater and a cute little beige hat. You didn’t know why he would wear a hat to go clubbing but you knew he loved them. 

“Are you ready to head out then?” Drew smiled at you in his bright yellow shirt and motioned towards the door.

You piled out the door and headed downstairs to get an uber to your favourite club.

“I’m not sure if I like you in heels, Y/N. You’re almost as tall as me,” Chase pointed out as he walked behind you and took in your much taller figure.

“You’ll just have to deal with it, I guess,” You laughed and did an immaculate pirouette on your heels, something you had practiced a thousand times in your room back home.

“Would you look at her,” Madison squealed with joy as she watched your boost of confidence and joined you by linking your hands together and strutting down the sidewalk like it was a runway. 

It felt good to really feel yourself again after your uncertain emotions. Even though you noticed how a certain male’s eyes kept looking at your and your friend’s long legs, you didn’t care at the moment. You were having fun and you deserved it. 

All of you split up into several cars and then you were on your way to La Push, a vibrating ambient establishment the cast had dug out last year while filming in Charleston. The girls swore that you would have the best night out ever at that particular club.

You were not disappointed as you took in the colourful lights shining on the rustic open brick walls and the retro bar in the corner. The ages of the people were mixed all through but you could clearly see that everybody was enjoying themselves.

“Drinks?” Deion asked and nodded towards an empty table next to the bar and you all headed in the direction through the crowded area of dancing bodies.

“Milady.” Rudy offered you his hand with a posh English accent as you were about to try mastering a step in your heels. 

“Thank you, kind sir,” You smiled at him and put your hand in his and let him help you down. You couldn’t keep yourself from curtsying as he laughed at you playing along. His hand held yours tight in his as he led you to some barstools. 

“Gin Tonic with a lemon slice for the lady?” He ordered with a questioning look in your direction once the bartender got your attention. You couldn’t believe he memorised your go-to drink, as you nodded thankfully. “And a Corona for me please,” He finished and watched the bartender tend to your order.

After he payed for both of your drinks you thanked him, almost having to scream as the music was too loud, and he grabbed your hand back in his to help you down from the stool.

“Sure thing, sugar.” He gave you that unmistakable Rudy smile and once again the butterflies in your stomach began soaring. 

You had to pull yourself together. You were here to distract yourself from him not fall deeper for his charm. Although you had to admit he was not making it easy for you. 

Your other friends had ordered at the table and were ready to clink glasses once you joined them. 

“To a great night,” JD proposed and raised his glass.

“And to great friends,” You joined in and held up your own Gin Tonic.

“Hear, hear,” Austin agreed and the whole group cheered in joyous laughter as you brought your drinks to the middle. You greeted the familiar taste of the alcohol with open arms and enjoyed the light burning you were quite used to by now. 

Once you set your glass back on the table, Bailey raised a brow at your already half empty glass and you simply shrugged your shoulders. You needed to let loose tonight. 

“Dance with me,” You screamed over the music and grabbed her hand and your drink and made your way towards the dance floor.

Madison was the best dancer you knew and she proved it to you once again after some R&B music started playing. Your hips were shaking, your arms wildly flailing around and your feet shuffling over the floor as you downed your glass quickly. You already felt slightly buzzed, maybe you should have eaten more before going out. 

Jonathan joined the two of you quickly, just as good a dancer as your dear curly friend, and together they stole the show. You watched in awe as they moved to the music so carelessly and were a bit jealous at their easy-going nature. 

“C’mon Y/N, show me what you got!” Drew encouraged you suddenly from beside you with an outstretched hand. You slipped closer to him and swayed your hips as he twirled you around in his arms and laughed as he dipped you back. Maybe the distraction would work after all. You didn’t know for how long the both of you danced but you felt absolutely weightless. 

“I’m impressed Starkey,” You admitted as he flew with you over the dance floor, not once missing the beat. 

“Could say the same about you Y/L/N but I had a feeling you would be a good dancer,” He smirked and turned you around so your back was pressed against his chest and let his hands wander to your hips. 

At this point you were on your third drink, a bit too intoxicated, and not quite sure if this scenario would play out well. Drew was the perfect gentleman and absolutely sweet and handsome. You liked him a lot but… But he wasn’t Rudy. His hands on your body didn’t feel like a wildfire and his scent didn’t drive you crazy and his smile did not make your head spin. You cursed yourself for these thoughts. 

You looked up, your eyes roaming the club for a certain blond head of hair. You noticed Chase and Maddy dancing intimately with each other in one corner but chose to ignore it, you had a different mission. 

“I’ll be right back,” You told Drew with an apologetic smile as you turned to look at him and he looked confused for a second. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

“Be careful in here, it’s better if you don’t go by yourself,” He reminded you, always the protective type, and looked out over the club probably searching for Bailey.

“I’ll be fine,” You reassured him with a pad on the chest and slipped out of his embrace towards the restrooms.

On your way there you finally found your man of the hour. To your amusement Rudy was dancing with an elderly woman to some pop song and looked like he was having the time of his life. You felt the corners of your mouth lifting as you took in the scene. 

You slipped into the restroom to freshen up as your eyes met the mirror. The carefully applied makeup from Madison was smeared under your eyes, your lipstick long gone and your hair was basically a mess. But despite all you looked happy, you looked alive. You quickly touched up your appearance and rejoined the others. 

As soon as you stepped out however you were met with quite the unpleasant sight. There was a beautiful woman next to Rudy, one arm on his biceps as she leaned forwards to say something to him. It shouldn’t bother you, you knew that he was an attractive man with many qualities. But as his hand rested on her waist your throat tightened and you felt embarrassment deep in your bones. Of course he didn’t want you the same way you did. It was just acting and you were friends, it didn’t mean anything. But it had meant something, to you anyways. And that’s what you got for giving into your feelings. You watched them laughing together, inching closer to each other each second and your heart burned in pain. 

You turned around stumbling to your table as you tried to suppress the tears welling in your eyes. How could you have been so stupid? It was a stupid crush nothing more. 

Drew’s eyes lit up as you made your way towards his sitting figure at the table next to some of your friends. You had two choices here: Going home now and giving in to your stupid irrational feelings and ruining your night. Or doing what you were here for and distract yourself with a fucking good time. The answer came to you immediately.

“I don’t know about you guys but I was thinking about some tequila!” You proposed with a big fake smile as you looked at your friends and the others cheered in chorus.

“A round of tequila shots for the table please,” Chase told the waiter and soon enough salt, limes and shot glasses filled to the brim with the transparent liquid were brought to you.

“Cheers bitches!” You clinked glasses, licked up the salt on your hand, downed the shot of the devil’s brew and bit in the sour lime and laughed at the faces the others made after finishing their own shots.

You were having a good time tonight, even if it took killing your mind to do so. Which seemed to be the only option after another round of shots and some more Gin Tonics and you still felt like shit every time your eyes met Rudy’s figure. The girl from before was long gone but you couldn’t help but feel betrayed. How did he not see that you were obviously hooked on him? 

He came back to your table were everybody was laughing and having a good time, everyone except you it seemed.

“Are you alright?” He asked and plopped down beside you, throwing his arm over the couch behind you.

“Just peachy,” You heard the slurring in your voice yourself not as clear as you wanted it to be and cringed a bit. But just because you were drunk that didn’t mean you had a problem. You were fine.

“How much did you have to drink?” He inquired concerned and you saw his forehead wrinkle. Your hand automatically reached out to brush his worry away.

“What’s it to you, sugar?” You deliberately used the nickname he had given you before and you actually saw a smirk on his face as you drew your hand away from his forehead, the sour expression gone.

“I think it’s better if I take you home,” He laughed when you fell back against the couch trying to look mad at him.

“I can take myself home, thank you very much,” You argued, your words still a bit slurred. He could take the fucking girl from before home for all you cared. He hadn’t spoken to you all night and suddenly he wanted to take care of you. That’s not how that shit worked.

“Besides,” You interrupted him as he was about to say something else, “You didn’t dance with me all night. I really wanted to dance with you,” You pouted and cursed yourself a second after you registered what slipped out your mouth. Your eyes widened and you sat back up. Maybe you had an alcohol problem after all.

“Then dance with me, sugar.” Your head whipped around as soon as you heard him. He leaned back against the couch, an easy smirk playing on his lips as he eyed your figure. He never looked sexier to you.

“Let’s go then!” You jumped from the table, a bit too fast and swaying a bit, but you had to prove something to yourself. You could easily be friends with Rudy without any sexual tension. You just had to separate him from your roles in your head.

His arm sneaked around your waist seconds after and he pulled you down towards the dance floor, making sure you didn’t miss any steps like before. The feeling of his hand around you drove you insane so you grabbed it and shove it away with a grin. You were perfectly capable of walking by yourself. He just laughed and shook his head at your swaying figure. You were not sure what exactly was so funny to him in this moment. 

His hands however found yours again quickly as he held them and twirled you around carefully, pushing and pulling you every which way. You absolutely adored him but you needed distance. God, why had you willingly agreed to dance with him? Well, it had been your idea but anyways. 

You were glad when a faster song by Lizzo started and you entangled yourself from him to sway your hips on your own. Not many knew it but you danced a lot better when you were drunk for some reason. You were a lot less uptight and celebrated every body part of yours with free flowing moves. Rudy obviously enjoyed your newfound confidence as he mirrored your carelessness to the beat and cheered for you. The both of you were singing along to the music, jumping up and down and shimmying back and forth, having the time of your life. At one point you stole his head and put it on yourself, convinced that you looked irresistible with it but Rudy just laughed and got it back before throwing to your table where Austin caught it with a grin.

“Have I told you how good you look tonight?” He screamed over the music as he pushed himself closer to your body. His scent invaded your space and you immediately forgot why you had wanted distance from him in the first place.

“Tell me again,” You giggled and got closer to him as well. The songs changed again, something more sultry and slower, maybe the Weeknd or Miguel you weren’t sure as your attention was directed at yet another man.

“You look absolutely radiant,” He breathed and his alcoholic breath mingled with yours that’s how close you were.

Rudy’s hands found your waist again and this time you didn’t push him away. The opposite, you rested your hands on his broad chest, feeling his fast beating heart under your right hand. He pulled you closer as you were obviously giving in to him and swayed his hips against yours, the movement making your head spin.

“Are you drunk?” You asked him. You needed him to be sober so at least one of you would remember this moment tomorrow after everything else faded away. You needed him to remember how your bodies felt pressed together in this moment. How your hearts were beating in synch to the bass rocking through you. 

“Absolutely intoxicated,” He answered with a straight, sexy voice. He didn’t sound drunk to you but his words proved you different. 

“Maybe we should-“ You stopped mid sentence as you pulled back and saw his hungry eyes directed at your lips. Whatever you wanted to say left your senses in that very second.

“…stop?” Rudy finished your sentence questioning but not making any moves to stop any of this, whatever this was. “I don’t ever want to stop. I just wanna spend forever getting high off what it feels like to be around you.”

Your breath caught at his words and your eyes slipped from his lips to his blue eyes, illuminated by the club lights occasionally. You saw the hunger in them, the unmistakable lust that was a hundred percent mirrored in your own y/e/c eyes.

He described perfectly what if felt like to be around him, like you were high, intoxicated by him. And that feeling, you never wanted it to end. 

“I’m drunk…” You told him but let out the ‘on you’ part that definitely was a part of this sentence.

“I know, me too. And I know we shouldn’t do anything that we might regret tomorrow,” He took a deep breath and one of his hands cupped your face. “But I can’t stay away from you any longer.”

“I feel the same,” You admitted and bit your lip to keep a smile from showing on your face. But it didn’t matter as Rudy’s lips moved into a grin.

“If two people can’t stay away from each other, maybe they aren’t supposed to.” You nearly groaned at his annoying habit of always being able to say the perfect thing at the right time. 

You moved closer to him, your arms slung around his neck and your hips still slowly moving to the music. Your eyelids dropped as your mouth longed for his, feeling his breath on your lips.

Unexpectedly soft his mouth landed on yours, so different from the kisses you shared on set. His lips slowly moved with yours, taking his time to get used to the feeling. And even though the heat from the other times lacked it was no less passionate. You poured every fibre of your being into kissing him and really feeling him. He tasted like tequila and forbidden dreams and if you weren’t drunk before, you definitely were now.

Rudy became more needy as the kiss went on, his lips moving faster and his hands pulling you closer against him. When his teeth caught your lower lip you were done for. Without any regard for reason you gave into him. His tongue slipped into your mouth battling with yours for dominance. Your mouths bumped clumsily against each other as you were smiling into the kiss, teeth biting here and there occasionally but you couldn’t care less. You had waited for this for too long to show any signs of hesitation. After what felt like an eternity you pulled apart, breathing heavily. Your eyes locked and it felt like ecstasy was coursing through your veins.

“There you are! We’ve been looking for you for at least an hour.” You were thrown into ice-cold water as JD’s voice pulled you back into reality. You looked at him, the rest of your friends heading towards the door. Rudy and you shuffled apart awkwardly and fixed yourself a little. Your short dress had ridden up and his hair was all over the place.

“C’mon guys, we’re leaving!” Chase shouted from afar.

Your eyes wandered to Rudy, a content smile lying on his swollen lips as he stared at the floor. His hand slipped around yours and he pulled you after him, walking backwards so he could look at you.

“Our little secret,” He said with a wink and cupped your cheek in his other hand, before pecking your lips once again secretly and then following the others outside and to the Ubers taking you back to your flats.

You were still not fully understanding what had just happened, if it was all a feverish dream caused by the alcohol. But every time you thought that this could only be in your imagination Rudy’s hand on your thigh or around your waist pulled you back into reality. This was no longer part of a role, this was real life. And you would enjoy every second of it.

Tags: @lovelymaybankk @sspidermanss @1d5sosddl @arthiriticcricket @teamnick @lieswithoutfairytales @styles-xoxo @normatural @k-k0129 @mileven-reddie @perfektionsmakel @1-800-imagines @http-cherries @golden-eroda @outofstyles13 @jj-maybank-stan @fandom-phaser @hopelesswritingxd @teenwaywardasgardian @poguecollins @jjswhore @xpastel-kawaiix @styles-edward-harry @rollinsstuff @obx-baby @masintahin @floretsoleil @ivebeenthinkingboutu @fandomxreaders @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch @pookie-cleary @kiarascarreras @runway-to-my-aid @saturnspack @sunshinemadds @hucklebaefinn @baileythepenguin @spider6oy @whoreforouterbanks​ @diego-klaus-hargreeves​

(I hope I didn’t miss anyone! If you’re not on here but would like to be send me a quick message xx)

[pagingevilspawn]

Hey my request is about Alex who returns to Seatle and finds out about Jo and Jackson's relationship

i had all and then most of you (some and now none of you)

wc: 1.4k

pairing: Jo Wilson/Alex Karev (past), Meredith Grey & Alex Karev (gen), and mentions of Jo Wilson/Jackson Avery.

summary: during a late night phone call, alex learns that jo is well and truly no longer his.

rating: general audiences.

category: angst.

warnings: angst, no happy ending.

AN: again, this is pretty short, but i wrote it in two hours, so.... it's not quite what you asked for anon, but i tried to keep it relatively canon compliant, since here (as you can tell) Meredith didn't get covid.

_____

The silence in the house seemed alarming to him, not used to the lack of commotion that usually echoed throughout the halls. Izzie was finishing up on a shift and wouldn’t be home for a while, and the twins were tucked into bed, leaving the only sound in the home to be the low, steady humming of a sitcom rerun on the TV.

The appeal drained after a while, and he eventually grew tired of laughter from the audience after nearly every line spoken. Mindless chatter was all it was and all it seemed to be.

Alex sighed, leaning into the couch’s cushions and pulling out his phone, dialing Meredith’s number once he saw that he had missed her call only minutes before. He waits a few seconds, the droning of the beeps making him anxious for a reason he couldn’t place. Eventually, Meredith picks up, her voice slightly out of breath, which he only assumes could come from finishing a long day of work.

“Alex! How are you?”

He gets up from his place on the couch, taking his conversation onto the front porch, settling onto the swing that hung in the corner. “I’m good Mer, I’m good,” he says, directing his gaze to the end of the road, where a car went by, headlights being one of the only forms of light besides the dim street lamps.

“How are the kids?” he asks, feeling a sense of nostalgia at the fact that he hadn’t seen his niece or nephews in months. He missed them, more than he would admit. He had been there for everything, everything graduation, every dance, every school play, he had been there.

But he had his own kids to tend to now, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything.

(not trade, but make some changes. he lost that opportunity a long time ago though)

“They’re good. Zola is driving Bailey crazy with how much she’s correcting his homework, when all he wants to do is go play on his XBox. Ellis is hating distance learning, complaining that all she wants to do is see her friends, but what else is new. Zola loves it, not surprisingly. She thinks school is even easier than it was before, the only part she misses is talking to her friends, but she calls them and everything, so she doesn't see too much harm. She’s started staying after class to help other kids with her teachers. Amelia and I have been teasing her non-stop about being a kiss-up, but she loves it. If she decides to switch careers I wouldn't doubt that she would be a teacher,” she says, and he can hear the car door slam shut and the rumble of the car's engine coming to life.

He laughs softly, “We both know that that’s not gonna happen. Zo would rather get into a bear fight before giving up on being a surgeon.”

Meredith hums, “That’s true. The thought of being anything else almost is offensive to her,” she laughs. “The other day I made an offhand comment about a lawyer being a fun career for her because of how much she loves to argue, and she went into a five minute lecture on why she was going to be a neurosurgeon.”

Alex smiles, practically able to see the image of Zola telling her mom off for suggesting she be anything other than a surgeon. “That sounds about right. I learned that lesson a long time ago.”

There are a couple of beats of silence, the only thing he can hear is the crickets chirping in the distance and the faint sounds of cars racing around in the background.

“They miss you, you know,” Meredith finally speaks, her tone dropping slightly to let him know how sincere her words were.

He lets out a heavy breath, “I miss them too Mer,” the crickets continue their noise, and images of what his life used to be seem to filter through his mind. An endless loop, dancing in his head of a life he once used to live, but could no longer say he knew.

“Well,” she breaks him away from his thoughts, “When all this is over, you’re due for a visit, okay?”

He nods, even though she can’t see him. “Long overdue,” he agrees. “So, what’s been going on over at Seattle Grace Mercy Death?”

She fills him in on the latest events of the hospital, how everyone was adjusting to their new realities, the newest batch of interns, and patients that had stuck out more than others.

It was a funny thing that he didn’t realize until a while ago, somehow patients at Grey-Sloan had stuck with him more than the ones where he currently was.

“And Jo—” she starts, but cuts herself off, piquing his interest. Jo hadn’t come up in any other of their conversations, for reasons that didn’t really need to be said aloud.

He bites the inside of his cheek, releasing and giving himself the courage to finally ask about her. She never left his mind, so he couldn’t see the harm in asking about her —an opportunity to clear the part of his brain that was on a constant track of her if he was able to know how she was.

“It’s fine Mer, you can talk about her,” he says, running a hand through his hair.

He can hear her sigh, and can practically imagine the head shake she is giving him right then “Not about this, Alex.”

He perks up immediately, “Is she okay? I need you to tell me if she’s not okay Mer,” he demanded, his voice firm, only a trace of worry present if anyone were to listen closely.

(he felt like Elsa, conceal don’t feel)

“What? No,” she scoffs. “Jo’s fine, though I don’t really think you have the right to care about how she is anymore Alex, considering you’re the one that left her,” she scolds him, and he can hear the disappointment in her voice, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

He lets out a heavy breath, trying to fight back the urge to explain himself to her, which would end up in a loud argument of why he shouldn’t have done what he had. He’d had it before, and each time it sent him to bed with all the what if’s playing out in the forefront of his mind.

Except he didn’t live a life of what if’s, he was living a life of right now.

“I know Mer,” he can hear the heaviness in his words, and she must too, since she relents her lecture on him, and he knows that it’ll just come up at another time.

“She’s sleeping with Jackson,” she says it so casually that he almost thinks that she’s joking, but realizes that she’s not when she stays silent.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

He can feel the tenseness of the air, even though they are thousands of miles apart. He clears his throat after a few minutes have passed. “Are they together, or…?” he trails off, unsure of how he’s supposed to feel.

He left her. He left her. He left her. He wants to say that he’s upset that she’s already moved on, but there he was, sleeping in the same bed as his ex-wife and raising their children together, all while they were still married. He couldn’t really have an opinion, because he was the one who ended their relationship in the most cowardly way possible, through a letter sent in the mail, not even giving her the courtesy to tell her the truth to her face.

“No, they’re doing a friends with benefits sort of thing.”

He nods, trying to think of something to say. “Is she happy?” he settles on.

“Not like she once was, but I think she’s getting back there.”

The ache in his heart grows a bit more, because some selfish part of him wants her to only be able to be happy with him, as unfair and cruel as it is. But he smiles bitterly, and the larger part of him is happy for her, happy that she is finally able to have someone make her laugh and smile again.

The sight of headlights coming up the driveway breaks him away from his own mind, and he knows this conversation will have to be finished at another time.

“You did this to yourself Alex,” she says, as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“I know.”

They both hang up, and he greets Izzie with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, wishing that the woman he was curled up on the couch with was someone else.

But it wasn’t, because he made his choice, and now he had to face the reality of a life he chose to live.

[tcm]

My Time with Doris Day: An Interview with Mary Anne Barothy By Constance Cherise

In 2012, Robert Osborne interviewed a spry 90-year-old, Doris Day. He, of course, asked all the correct questions a true Day fan would be curious about: when she realized she could sing, how her career in film began and did she consider her serendipitous life to be destiny. A vibrant and gracious Day revealed that she wasn’t nervous when it came to performing, and if you have seen her first film ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (‘48), her organic ease fits like the exact correct puzzle piece. 

Although she passed almost two years ago, fans the world over still celebrate her iconic status. One of those fans is a public speaker on all things Doris, author of Day at a Time: An Indiana Girl's Sentimental Journey to Doris Day's Hollywood and Beyond, Mary Anne Barothy. Her fortune ironically played out like a classic Hollywood script, much like the beginnings of Day’s career. A devotee of Day since childhood, threads of fate connected and Barothy would find herself rubbing shoulders with Hollywood's elite, astonishingly becoming Day’s live-in secretary, maintaining an active friendship from 1967-1974. 

What was a typical day with Doris like?

Mary Anne Barothy: I lived with Doris in her Beverly Hills home after her TV show [The Doris Day Show] filming ended - December 1972 and ran through June of 1973 on CBS. Her bedroom was just opposite mine in the back. Mine was the front bedroom. She slept with seven of her dogs, and I slept with the other four – Bobo, Charlie, Rudy and Schatzie. She would get up and come into the kitchen where I often fixed her breakfast. Doris loved her dogs and spent time playing with them both indoors and out. Many days she would get ready and bike down to Nate 'N Al's Deli for a late breakfast and many times would meet someone, or we would go together for breakfast. Doris loved her fans, and she was very good about answering her fan mail. 

As you know, her passion was animal welfare and she kept up with Actors & Others for Animals and frequently attended board meetings. I went with her and was also a proud member of Actors & Others for Animals. In the summer she would swim in her pool on occasion. She would call friends and once in a while meet someone for lunch or dinner. After dinner, sometimes we would sit in one section of her living room and watch the news. Doris was very down to earth; as I said, she was like a big sister to me. To me, this was an incredible dream come true! It is still hard to believe that I had this awesome opportunity to spend precious time with my idol, Doris Day!

The designer Irene dressed her in high fashion. Did she have a favorite costume/gown?

MB: She never spoke about that, but she looked good in a bathrobe. She just had a way of radiating, looking beautiful no matter what she had on. She always said CALAMITY JANE [‘53] was her favorite movie because she was kind of a tomboy. She never came across that way except for in movies, but she liked to be comfortable. She would ride her bike with shorts on and look very casual and comfortable. I always told her she could put on a paper bag and look good! 

Now that she's passed, what would she want the world to know about her if anything?

MB: She was a down to earth person and I think some people think celebrity is high and mighty because they are in the movies, and I'd say a religious person without talking about church all the time. She had a passion for animal welfare and that was very important to her and she'd been that way apparently since she was a young person. She just enjoyed life and her friends. She wasn't one for “I've got to be seen here and I've got to do this.” Her work was her work, she'd go to the studio to do what she had to do and that was it. 

Your book recounts so many extraordinary memories including that of a conversation with Elvis. If you had to choose one pinch-me moment, what would it be?

MB: When Doris called me and asked me to come work with her. The Christmas she invited me to stay. The fact that she trusted me was so special.

What was it like waking up in your idol’s home walking outside of your room and thinking I live here now?

MB: It was surreal because I wasn't just staying a night or two, I’m staying here to the fact that I changed my address over. It was all like a movie. Here I am, actually living with her! It was meant to be. She was like a big sister. She made me feel welcome.

Do you have any memorabilia? 

MB: I have some clothes she gave me. My favorite one is the hat she wore when she met me. She gave it to me and then another hat from a movie, a skirt, and top from THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT [1966]. She gave me a ring and an autographed Christian Science book, and that is special. I’ve got many letters and cards she gave me over the years. (Barothy reads a card) “Thanks for doing your own Christmas shopping. I love you Mairzy Doats, you’re the best there is! Always, your friend Clara.” And on the other side, it says, “Merry Christmas from the kids too!” – the dogs. “Mairzy Doats,” she’d sing that once in a while. I’ve saved a lot of these things. Of course, when I do my talks, I use copies. 

What was Beverly Hills like then? 

MB: To me, Beverly Hills, when I lived with Doris Day in her home, was a much more  relaxed city, almost small townish. Doris could ride her bike from her home four blocks down to either Bailey's Bakery or the classic Beverly Hills deli, Nate N 'Al's on Beverly Drive. No paparazzi – that would never happen today. I would see Barbara Stanwyck and Fred Astaire at the Beverly Hills Post Office, saw Rosalind Russell at Ralph's grocery, and would see Loretta Young at Good Shepherd Catholic Church. People appeared to live pretty normal lives. Beverly Hills was a welcoming community and a fun place to be, especially since I was living with Doris in her home.

What would Doris think of the world today?

MB: I think Doris would be concerned about the direction we seem to be going in. Doris was a very religious person without going to church. I learned a lot from her. With people being out of work these days, I think Doris would be very concerned about the welfare of dogs and cats and all animals. As you know, she was a strong animal advocate and was one of the founders of Actors & Others for Animals. When she moved to Carmel, California, she started her own foundation, The Doris Day Animal Foundation, and animal welfare was her number one priority.

Looking back, does it seem like this all really happened to you?

MB: Yeah, it kinda seems surreal, and friends that are big Doris fans, just say, how did that happen? I just followed my dream and that is why when I give talks, I tell people to follow your dream, don't say oh I could have or I should have; if you really believe in something go for it. All I can say it was meant to be. I drove my parents crazy and drove my teachers crazy, but I got what I wanted. I never would have dreamed that all of this would happen. I mean talk about a dream come true...unreal! “It really happened, I'm not making it up, I’ve got pictures to prove it!”

What are your plans for the future?

MB: I look forward to getting back on the road again to share my “Dream Story With Doris Day” presentations. Due to the pandemic last year, I was not able to do them as people were in lock down. Now, things are opening up and I am doing Zoom but really prefer the in-person talks where I share many photos I've taken of Doris over the years, as well as scripts and other Doris Day memorabilia. It's a fun “sentimental journey.” People can contact me through my website. 

[artyandink]

euphoria | charles xavier

5

A/N - Ash Cyrus faceclaim: Jessy Hartel

Ash Cyrus theme: Titanium by Madilyn Bailey

Charles Xavier theme: Centuries by Fall Out Boy

Chyrus / Xyrus theme: I Like Me Better by Anthony De La Torre and Lana Condor

“Ash? Can we talk?” The receiver looked up from her book, seeing Raven at the door in her natural form, upset. Ash gestured to the foot of the bed, sitting back as Raven sank down onto it, crossing her legs. “What’s wrong?” Ash asked, concerned, closing the book, inserting a bookmark in. “Do you think we’ll ever be accepted?” Her yellow eyes pleaded for an answer, one that she could accept. “I know that if I say ‘yes’, I’d be lying to you.” She said gravely, remembering what happened to her when she was younger, “People who can’t hide their abilities, however beautiful they are, like yours, will always be shunned in one way or the other.” “Did that happen to you? I’m sorry, you don’t have to confide in me.” “Oh no, it’s quite alright. When my sister Jean and I were little, my powers started showing. My parents, they were terrified, and didn’t know what I was. So in an attempt to ‘knock the weirdness out’, they beat me. And I couldn’t tell Jean what was going on, because it would break her. But she’d notice the bruises a little, no matter how much I covered it up, saying that I had been in a fight or I tripped; she knew me too well. And when Jean found out what was happening, they got rid of me. Cast me out onto the streets because they were afraid. I fended for myself, for a few years at most. After that, I met Jean again. She kept on coming back to find me, and I tried everything in my power to make her feel like she wasn’t lost. But when the police found out about me, I had to run, and left her wondering whether I’d come back. And with that, I changed my name and pursued a life where I knew no one would find me. Until Charles came along.” She confessed, tears stinging her eyes. Raven listened, wide eyed, completely shocked. She thought that Ash would have been treated differently. Whenever they all were hanging together, she was always cracking jokes and sharing books that she’d written or read, much to the others’ interest. But alone… she had no idea what she was like. But she did now. “Why does Charles always regard you as extraordinary? Every one of us are as special as the other and he sees you as the best. I‘m sorry if I sound jealous.” She questioned, seething at the thought. “I think that he’s never met anyone who can block him out first try. I can tell that he‘s never had to think about whether people think that your eyes or skin are abnormal because his mutation is inside his head. And he’s seen my memories, experienced what it was like, I think he thinks of me as fragile, so he essentially handles me with care.” Ash explained, her voice wobbling and breaking. She hurt inside. More than anyone knew. Losing her parents after she gained her powers, then she lost Jean. Her powers were a curse, no matter how many times Charles praised them. “And, if you don’t mind me asking, what was your name before you changed it?” “Ashlynn Harriet Cyrus Grey.” “I’m sorry if I was asking too much about your life. I can tell it hurts.” She got up to leave, Ash following. “No, it’s fine. You can always talk to me, my door’s always open, metaphorically.” Softly shutting the door, Ash sank down on the bed, loosening her hair and feeling the emotions flood back in. The familiar hot tears trickled down her face like a waterfall, the cool blackness of her closed eyelids doing justice to the stinging pain in her eyes. “You’re so extraordinary, Ash.” Charles’s hand stroked her cheek, a goofy, lovesick grin on his face as he stared directly into Ash’s eyes, inching closer by the second. “I’m not as brilliant as you say, Charles.” Ash whispered in return, in a trance, her fingers absent-mindedly playing with his hair. “I beg to differ. You’re smart, strong, beautiful, and your eyes drive me crazy.” He leaned forward, joining their lips together like two pieces in a puzzle, threading his fingers with the strands of her long hair.

“Miss Cyrus.” “Miss Cyrus!” Ash awoke with a jerk, coming into close proximity with Charles Xavier himself, already being in his suit. “Come on, we have to suit up.” He held out his hand, the smaller one grasping it, pulling her up. “I’ll be there.” She replied, picking up her comb and running it swiftly through her hair. “Raven left you a little something so you won’t get cold, it’s in your closet.” When he left, Ash opened the closet to find a note. I can’t wait to see the look on Charles’ face when he realises this is his jacket. He never used it and it’ll look better on you. Raven. Ash took out a red leather jacket that matched her suit colour, trying to imagine Charles wearing it. Suiting up, she shrugged on the jacket and left, meeting the others in the dock, earning wolf whistles from Alex. “Quiet, Alex.” Charles snapped, walking closer and bending by her ear, “Is that my jacket?” “Raven said you never wore it.” “It looks better on you, if I’m being honest.” Hank arrived, but he was blue, furry and had fangs. “Hank!” “It didn’t attack the cells. It enhanced them.” He confessed, ashamed, until Ash’s voice pierced the air. “Hank, don’t you see? It did normalise your cells.” “This is who you’re meant to be. No more hiding.” Raven continued in awe. “Never looked better, man.” Erik praised before being lifted into the air, Hank’s hand around his throat. “Don’t mock me.” He growled, tightening his claws. “Hank!” Raven cried, forcing him to drop Erik. “It actually looks pretty badass. I’ve got a new name for you. Beast.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They were all sitting in the plane, having just swerved out of the way of the missile. “Alright. The plan is: Banshee, you’re going to locate Shaw. Then Erik, you’ll pull him to the surface. Force him to show himself.” Ash explained, pointing outside. “And if it comes to the worst, Miss Cyrus, Havok, you go out there and blow the missiles to hell. Or another option, mass hypnosis.” “I can’t do mass hypnosis. I’ve never done it before.” She replied wide-eyed. “Yes, you can. Your hypnosis has no limits. You can do it. Hank, level the bloody plane!” He prepared Banshee, talking to him. “Miss Cyrus, I want you to be ready. Remember, you’re stronger than you could ever imagine.” When the plane collapsed, Havok, Beast and Banshee set off to warn the ships, Erik went for Shaw while Mystique guarded the door. Ash stayed behind, unable to help. “Ash, we need you out there. We can’t do this without you.” Moira bent in front of her, pleading as Charles screamed loudly in pain, his mind still connected to Shaw. “I can’t. I’ll hurt you all.” Ash refused, curling up into a ball. “Miss Cyrus, I’ve lost my hold on Shaw. Erik murdered him, and now he’ll be going for the military. He has Shaw’s helmet that prevents me from talking to him, and the others have metal on them. If you take off the necklace, knife and gun then he has no hold over you. Miss Cyrus, we need you. We need Firestar.” Those words triggered something inside Ash. She dropped her jacket, pulling out the gun, knife and took off her necklace, giving it to Charles as she stepped outside, the fire circling round her fists as her eyes glowed red, scarlet, fiery streaks dominating the front strands of her hair, a whip made of flame forming in her hand. “Fascinating. She’s reaching a whole new stage of her powers. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.” Magneto flew out of the ship, dropping a dead Shaw at their feet. He trained his eye on Ash, observing how she looked ready to fight, knowing that she would be the hardest to move out of the way. “Today, our fighting stops! Take off your blinders, brothers and sisters. The real enemy is out there. I feel their guns moving in the water, their metal targeting us. Americans, Soviets, humans. United in their fear of the unknown. The Neanderthal is running scared, my fellow mutants! Go ahead, Charles. Tell me I'm wrong.” “I will.” Ash stepped forward, the mutants converging behind her, “There are people worth saving on those ships! They are not our enemy. Those people on those

ships are facing the unknown and they are scared, and they have a right to be! We were scared when we gained our mutations! We didn’t know how to control them and neither do they. But as long as you present a threat, Erik, they aren’t the villain.” She looked back at Moira, who was attempting to radio the ships, “You are.” The missiles launched towards them, Erik putting his hand out and freezing them midair, turning them around. “Erik, you said yourself, we're the better men. This is the time to prove it.” No response. “There are thousands of men on those ships. Good, honest, innocent men!” Still none. “They're just following orders.” Erik turned, eyes flashing. “I’ve been at the mercy of men just following orders. Not anymore.” Charles tackled him to the floor as the missiles hurtled towards USA and the Soviets, letting them drop. “Miss Cyrus! Do it!” Fireballs were launched at the missiles, melting the bullets completely as Erik lifted his hand again, deflecting what he could reach. However, it headed straight for Charles. Noticing it, Ash ran forward, throwing herself in front of Charles, the sharp pain of the bullet piercing her abdomen. Charles saw Ash there, falling to the ground and clutching her stomach, blood visible when she pulled her hand away. “Miss Cyrus…” Charles wept, falling to his knees beside her, gently cradling her in his arms. Erik couldn’t bear to see either Ash nor Charles in pain like this. So he turned to Moira, her necklace closing in around her neck, choking her. “This is your fault. You did this.” He snarled, closing his fist tighter to restrict her airways. “No.” He let Moira go, turning to Ash, who had her hand outstretched. “She didn’t do this.” She coughed, almost tasting blood, “You did.” “They want us all to turn on each other. That’s why I need you two on my side. Join me, Charles, Ash.” Defiance and pain riddled Charles’s gaze, looking between Ash and Erik. “No. I’m not leaving her.” He decided, threading his fingers through Ash’s hands. “This society won't accept us. We form our own. The humans have played their hand. Now we get ready to play ours. Who's with me? No more hiding.” Azazel, Angel and Riptide joined him. Raven looked in question at Charles, wondering if she should join Erik. “You should go with him. It's what you want.” Charles decided, smiling reassuringly. “You promised you’d never read my mind.” “I promised you a great deal of things, I’m afraid.” Raven bent down next to Ash, placing a kiss on her temple. “Take care of her.” When they disappeared, they all ran for Ash, dropping down beside her. “I’m sorry, Miss Cyrus. This is my fault.” Charles cried, tears falling from his face down onto Ash’s cheeks. “I’m going to live. No need to get all sentimental.” They started laughing, drying the tears from their eyes. “I love you.” He confessed, laying his forehead on hers, staring into her eyes. “I love you too. Now can I get to a doctor?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How are you holding up, Miss Cyrus?” Charles was walking with Ash towards Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Moira in tow. “I’m doing fine, Charles, and I think we’re beyond you calling me Miss Cyrus. It’s Ash.” Ash replied, grinning, relishing Charles’s touch, his arm tenderly round her waist. “Or should I say Ashlynn Harriet Cyrus Grey?” He cheekily revealed, looking down at her. “You read my mind?” “Even better. Raven told me.” “Well, at least as soon as Charles gives the heads up you can start your interview. I’m sure the CIA will love you.” Moira smiled, clutching some papers in her hand. “CIA?” Charles questioned, worried. “The CIA are opening up a spot for a MSO, Mutant Special Operative. I thought that Ash would be a perfect fit, so I recommended her. The CIA want her right away.” “Is that right?” Charles put his fingers to his temple, letting Moira drop. “You erased her memory, didn’t you?” He nodded, nodding to Hank, who took her away. “I’m afraid I have to. CIA will be very thorough in questioning. Don’t worry, I shan’t erase yours. And, in fact, there was something I wanted to tell you.” They stopped walking, turning to each other. “What?” “Raven once asked me what it was I saw in you, what was it that made you so special in my eyes. I’ve been waiting for a chance to answer that question, and I think that I have an answer.” “What is it?” “You’re not afraid to sacrifice yourself for others. You’re extraordinary in every way, how you think, feel, you‘re different. You’ve suffered beyond people’s knowledge, understand people in a way that no one else can and you’re beautiful for it. I didn’t want to say that you’re kind, compassionate, smart, anything that could sound horribly cliché because not even those words that fit you so well could describe how truly, undefinably marvellous you truly are. You’re an enigma, Ash Cyrus, and I love you for that. It’s you, it’ll always be you.” He cupped her face, joining their lips like two pieces in a puzzle, the ferocity and passion exactly like Ash’s dream as she grasped at the nape of his neck, his right hand gently grasping her waist as if she were the most precious treasure and would break at the slightest amount of pressure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Moira! Guess who became the first MSO of the CIA?” Ash walked in, wearing a red leather jacket, her necklace twinkling in the rays from the window. “Oh my gosh! That’s amazing news, I knew they would accept you!” Moira cried, hugging her. “That’s not all. The CIA is opening a new division, the Mutant Specialisation Unit. And they want us both to lead it. So they gave us this.” She held out two badges, both of them embossed with Co-Director of the MSU. Pouring two drinks, they clinked them together before sipping. “To the new leaders of the MSU.” “Ash, that’s such a beautiful necklace, and a stylish jacket. Where’d you get it from? I’m envious.” Moira gasped, putting her hand to her neck. Ash held the pendant in her fingers, turning it over. “I don’t know. The necklace... I was always wearing it. I found the jacket in my closet, but I don’t know who gave it to me. But it feels… important to me. As if it’s meant to remind me of someone, but I don’t know who.” Charles strode through the garden of his school, fiddling with the ring on his finger. He knew that what he did was wrong. But somehow, he knew that Ash was happy, and that was all that mattered.

A/N

And that is Euphoria! I’m definitely continuing this, and I’m sorry if you guys are a fan of the original Professor X, but I like to differentiate between canon so I will be making some changes! Sorry! Check out the next book, Philia, which will continue in X-Men: Apocalypse!

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X10

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I loved this episode! It was so so good! I loved seeing Mark and Lexie on the beach encouraging Meredith to return. I knew Lexie was going to be back based on last week’s promo, but I literally screamed out loud twice when Mark appeared on screen! I was shocked! I like what Mark and Lexie said to Meredith about the sand not being real and that the beach was in Meredith’s head and was her happy place and that it wasn’t real. She was in control even if she didn’t feel like it. Seeing her lost loved ones comforts her in her time of need. When living people she loves come to talk to her she sees them because it’s comforting.

I have a theory about who we see and why. Since this episode establishes that the beach is in Meredith’s head and she can go back if she wants to I think DeLuca appearing on the beach and them getting closer and her watching him reunite with his mother was her brain’s interpretation of people coming into her room and telling her that DeLuca had been injured and needed surgery and that he was stable and then telling her that he wasn't and had died from his injuries.

She needed closure on a tumultuous relationship so her COVID wrecked brain gave it to her in the form of a peaceful COVID fever dream during a difficult team. She sees and hears Hayes because she’s falling for him the same way that he’s falling for her and because he’s talking about her kids who she loves. She wants to go back but she’s doesn’t know how. She sees Richard and Bailey and hears their concerns and how worried they are about her because Richard is like a father to her and Bailey is a maternal figure in her life.

She wants to go back and as George says to her if she doesn’t it will break Richard. She sees Derek because he’s the love of her life and he represents death and passing over which is a real possibility and option. His presence comforts her in a way that no one else’s can. She sees George because what he did and how he died changed her life and they never got to have that closure in life. She never got to tell him that, but in her fever dream she does. She gets that closure and gets to re-examine why she did what she did. Why she goes all out for everyone like he did.

Seeing Mark and Lexie gives her closure too. Lexie provides that joy and that sunny optimism Meredith used to hate but eventually grew to love and missed so much when she died. Mark provides laughter and gives her the matter of fact tough love that she needs to hear in her time of need. Everyone plays a part and brings us joy and closure in the process. I loved Mark’s lines about how sometimes he yells in everyone’s ears to try and get them to listen and see reason. How sometimes people listen to him and think it’s their own idea and sometimes they don’t. How Callie and Arizona’s divorce made him shout.

It made me think of all the times when Lexie and Mark and other characters probably shouted at the living characters for their stupidity. Meredith deciding to waste her time dating DeLuca? Lexie and Derek definitely yelled in her ears for that. Every stupid fight, divorce, break up, date, and bad decision the characters have made since Derek, Mark, Lexie, and George died? They’ve definitely screamed their ears off at them. We now know that George tries to shake the grief out of his mother and Mark and Lexie make a habit of yelling in the ears of their loved ones making horrible decisions. I love it!

There’s something so hilarious and reassuring about the dead who have left us yelling and shaking us from beyond the grave and us taking that as a sign or our own idea and moving forward and making better decisions. I loved seeing Meredith talk about Bailey’s birthday party with Lexie and how what he really wanted for his birthday was for all of them to laugh. That establishes that Bailey’s birthday is in March or April. Which again makes that gelato DeLuca comment from Episode 8 literally impossible because he couldn’t have brought Bailey gelato for his actual or half birthday when he and Meredith only dated for a few months and he only met her kids officially a few weeks before they broke up.

Hayes’ storyline with his sister-in-law Irene was everything! We learned more about her, got to see what her relationship with Hayes is like, and learned more about how his boys are handling everything. He got his own storyline and development. I love it! His tour of the hospital on the way to the OR was hilarious! “And that is a supply closet!” LOL! I loved how supportive Irene was of him moving on. She really wanted to meet Meredith this great General Surgeon he keeps talking about all the time to his boys to the point that she knows all about her and knows that Hayes is definitely smitten. I loved her line when Hayes told her she couldn’t meet Meredith because she was on a ventilator and she looked at him and said, “Again?”

The fact that she knows he likes her because of the way he smiles every time he talks about her to the point that the boys have picked up on it and told her? My heart! Irene really came through for us in this episode! Bless her! Hayes was so distraught this episode. I like that they really showed his process and how upset he was that Meredith was still on a vent and that Irene was sick. His pain when he talked to Jo about how he couldn’t bear to tell his boys that they had lost another person that they love whose been taking care of them was heart wrenching.

Irene is a total badass. The information we’ve gotten about her shows what a fiercely loyal and supportive person she is. Cormac and Abigail meet at the Surgical Innovation Conference in LA when Abigail is a starving artist and Cormac is early on in his medical career. His conversations with Meredith show that he’s unfamiliar with American medical terms and colloquialisms and he talks about growing up in Ireland and how every day is Pro Bono Surgery Day there. We know that after his wife died he took his boys and moved to Zurich, Switzerland where he worked for two years before moving to the U.S.A. to take the job in Seattle.

We also know that Irene was Abigail’s POA when she was sick and that prior to the pandemic she was back living in LA. All of which implies that sometime after Abigail and Cormac met she decided to move to Ireland to be with him and they got married and she gave birth to Liam and Austin while Hayes was a practising surgeon in Ireland. But that when Abigail got sick Irene gave up her life in LA to move to Ireland for several years to be her sister’s POA and support her nephews and brother-in-law.

Abigail ultimately died and following that Cormac took Liam and Austin and moved to Zurich at which point Irene moved back to LA where she was living during Season 16 when they went to visit her during the Conference Episode. When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the U.S. Irene then insisted on moving to Seattle to care for Liam and Austin while Cormac worked at Grey Sloan. Cormac and Irene drive each other crazy and agree on nothing and her own sister called her crazy before she died and yet she picked up and moved her whole life across the Atlantic and then to a different state for them. That’s love. That’s badass. You keep doing you Irene!

The scenes with Jo and Catherine in the OR cracked me up! "Child, who throws away a kidney? Lord." Haha! I loved Jo’s reaction when Catherine brought up switching careers. At first, I was confused as to why Jo lied, but then my friend Amy who I watch with pointed out that maybe Jo doesn’t want her boss to know she’s considering switching specialties just yet. I’d honestly like to see Jo switch from General to Urology. As Catherine says there are few women in the field and there are a lot of general surgeons on this show.

Jo switching from one surgical specialty to another to find joy and challenge herself makes sense to me. Her switching from general surgery to OBGYN does not. I thought she was going to adopt that baby Luna but then she told Jackson and Link that she doesn’t want to have children now or maybe ever and their scene this episode was pretty short. I thought when she was considering switching to OBGYN that either Carina or Hayes would train her.

But they’ve moved Carina over to Station 19 so completely that her brother died on Grey’s Anatomy and we only saw her briefly at the end of Episode 8 when she attended her brother’s memorial. Prior to this episode I would have described Jo and Hayes as friends, but they were pretty adversarial this episode and at this point they seem to be two people that like each other well enough and who respect each other’s surgical skills and that’s it. So, based on this week’s episode Hayes definitely isn’t going to step up and train Jo in his specialty. They’re not close enough and he’s got enough on the go.

I loved the scene where Jo and Jackson were in bed together and Jo started talking about how scary his Mom was and he was like why are you talking about my Mom when we’re naked together? It reminded me of how April thought his Mom was the coolest and walked on water and would talk about it when they were together. Made me laugh! I love seeing Maggie innovate and find a way to help those poor patients and double the hospital’s ventilator capacity!

Seeing Richard dance it out at the news and then again when him and Owen successfully took Meredith off the vent and she began breathing on her own was glorious! Such joy! Winston’s proposal and Maggie’s acceptance of it surprised me! I like them together and want them to get their happy ending, but this feels a bit sudden likely brought on by all the stress they are experiencing.

I mean Amelia and Link have a child together and are also co-parenting Leo and Allison with Teddy and Owen and are raising a boatload of children during the pandemic and they’re not married or engaged.  It was nice that Teddy and Owen finally stopped fighting after half a season of nonsense! That was nice. I loved how Amelia stepped up and supported Teddy and told her what she needed to hear. Yeah therapy sucks sometimes. It can be uncomfortable. So are mammograms.

We still get them! You have to put in the work to get better otherwise it doesn’t happen. I like that they are showing us the process of Teddy getting better while making sure that the kids are looked after. Teddy is doing a bit better, but she’s still not well enough to be looking after Leo and Allison by herself without supervision and since Amelia is at home anyways she might as well help.

Plus, it’s probably good for Leo and Allison to play with Zola, Bailey, and Ellis. They’ve only seen Owen and his Mom for two months. I liked the moment where Teddy said that Ellis looked like Amelia and that they really are sisters. She’s Meredith’s daughter, but she’s clearly picked up some of Amelia’s mannerisms because Amelia’s helping to raise her. Which does happen. Also, she’s Derek’s daughter too and since Amelia and Derek are siblings and share a resemblance it makes sense that she might also share traits with Ellis. I like that we are learning more about Bailey and Ellis this season.

Seeing the joy on everyone’s faces, including Zola’s, when Owen came in and told everyone that they took Meredith off the vent and that she was breathing on her was palpable. Such a great moment! I loved the moment where Tom was holding a rosary praying for Meredith and Owen finally stopped being a jerk for five seconds to comfort him and tell him about his own experience with survivor’s guilt after coming back from Iraq after his entire platoon was killed.

I’d like to see them explore Tom’s relationship with faith more. Something else I loved? The texts from Cristina! Loved it! Owen was like I can read her charts myself and Cristina was like I don’t care take a picture! I love that we’ve seen Cristina through text messages the last two seasons. I really miss her. Also is anyone updating Alex? I feel like they are, but I would love to see them mention or show it on screen. Same with Callie and Arizona. I felt like Hayes was the obvious choice for keeping Cristina up to date but seeing as he has a lot going on this episode my guess is that she texted him and he didn’t respond because he was too busy worrying about Irene so she texted Owen and asked for an update.

Did anyone else feel like it was hypocritical for Owen to be so mad at Teddy for still being in love with Allison and not telling him about their relationship when he’s apparently been texting Cristina about Meredith’s condition and talking to Amelia regularly this whole time? He clearly still has feelings for both of them and they are still very much alive and in communication with him and he’s mad that Teddy didn’t tell him about a dead lover? Jerk.

I loved seeing Levi step up and step into his own as a doctor. He’s no longer the bumbling fool of seasons past. He’s got his crap together and he’s going to do what needs to be done to keep his patient alive and healthy. His song about hump day cracked me up! Link was so happy to be operating this episode LOL! His comment about the poop diaper explosion was something else. Seeing Richard’s anger and frustration and seeing him explain how he was feeling to Link felt raw and really expressed how we’re all feeling like now. The fact that being low on ventilators is a real problem that hospitals have been facing ever since the pandemic started is enraging! I hate that this is real.

I hate that real hospitals with real patients have to make these kinds of calls. Health care providers are real superheroes. I could never make a decision like that. How do you decide who lives and who dies? How do you decide who needs a ventilator most and live with the consequences for you and the patient? I couldn’t do it. I love that Meredith appears to be waking up in next week’s promo. My bet is that she’s going to reunite with Derek one last time and then wake up. I’m interested to see Richard fill her in on what’s being going on and to see Amelia and Link talk about the possibility of getting married at some point. Also, can we take a moment to appreciate shirtless Link? Hot!

Until next time!

[nothisis-ridiculous]

Take Me Home Now: Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen: What's In Your Head

Set after the events of ME3.

A rewrite.

FemShepxKaidan

"So, I'm in the presence of the Commander Shepard?"

She snorted, politely forcing her eyes away from the beer he set on the side table. Focusing her sights out the large picture window, it was a nice day, so she had the glass door open onto the balcony. Roy already headed in that direction, leaning over the balcony.

"Nice view for a brig!"

"I'm not-," she huffed, of course, he was teasing, "it feels almost like the brig."

"But it's Captain Shepard now," her eyes rolled, "I suppose I should reintroduce myself. My name is Mary."

The name still felt thick in her mouth, she struggled to allow it to belong to her.

"Jane wasn't much better," Roy grumbled, looking over his shoulder and at the table, "you're still Recruit to me. Grab us a beer, and get out here."

"Aye, Aye Sir."

Mary slid beside him, taking in the view of the city under them. Her gaze found what she thought would be the direction of the Alenko residence. They drank quietly for several minutes, enjoying the silence.

"Am I getting that lecture now?"

The man snorted, "no, because I am one of those assholes that hoped you would come out of this alive. As Jane, as Mary."

It was Mary's turn to snort, "I was such an ass."

"A little," he let time drag out between his words, finishing half his beer in that time, "how did you manage to return to the Alliance after going MIA and walk out with two promotions?"

She grinned, elbowing the man, "you fucking- apparently commendable duty during a time of distress. I don't completely understand how they- I suppose." Her tone flipped, her head falling.

"Kid," it was like being called by her middle name, his shoulders drew, "you had problems, but everyone did. Everyone lost someone. The difference was when it mattered; you were there—doing what had to be done. Hell, I don't know why anyone looked up to me like I knew anything. Sure, some old Alliance training kicked in- but I was way in above my head. Setting up patrols, security, duty rosters- that wasn't me, that was you."

"I remember things differently."

Roy sighed before a half-laugh tumbled from his lips, "it all came that easy to you? I may have been the friendly face, but they knew you were the one running the show. Remember when that damn krogan attacked? Korvac didn't even bother with me, Wrex either. I was a useless old man," he flicked away her attempt to soothe him, "that's why everyone vouched for you."

Mary blushed, chugging down the rest of her beer, "I knew you had something to do with it."

"I really liked that Bailey guy," his amber eyes pointed at her until she met his gaze, "I would have liked to hear firsthand how you singlehandedly brought down the Illusive Man and restored the Citadel."

"That, that- that had hardly anything to do with me. I didn't know who he was, and he just attacked me. I just happened to throw him over a ledge and incapacitated him," Mary broke eye contact, staring at the empty bottle she rolled around in her hands, "the Keeper did most of the work. If you've heard anything honest about me- you'd know I'm shit with the technical side of things. I simply placed the spike."

"After jumping through the beam blind."

She shrugged, letting him grab the next round.

"Saving the Galaxy might have been a small part of it too."

Roy toasted to that.

"I owe you an apology for not coming clean. I should have, I just- I wasn't," Mary faltered again, her voice wavering, "it was wrong. Everything I was going through-"

He placed a hand on her shoulder, "I don't need an explanation. Or to hear why you acted the way you did. It's okay; you did what you could at the moment."

"What I could wasn't enough."

"How so?" he grasped that this wasn't about her time on Earth, not entirely.

She gestured out to the scarred city below them, luckily liquid did not spill from the bottle, "I should have made them listen better."

"You alone could force an entire Galaxy to listen to one person?"

Mary grunted, "but I could have saved more people. I'm sure you heard about the Alpha Relay mess. 304,942 Batarians. Thing is, I-"

"You what?"

"Part of me doesn't feel that sorry, watching those bastards kill my parents. My friends, everyone I knew- I," she shuddered, attempting to pull away from him, but he brought her in tighter, "did I not try hard enough because of my history?"

"That would be difficult for anyone," Roy kept his tone even, "but did you originally course the asteroid for the Relay? If you had not been there, would the same thing have happened? Worse, the Reapers would have gotten here earlier."

Mary was seeking condemnation. Hearing everything spat back at her with utter acceptance and truth was frustrating, almost patronizing at this point, "So I'm just freed from consequence? Because of some moral loophole? Letting morals get in the way of alliances and troops was worth it? Of allowing my love for the Krogan to be a wedge between the Salarians joining the war effort? It was all at the price of a simple lie. My distaste for Cereberus could have waited- I could have swallowed my pain, and maybe he wouldn't have gone looking for Reapers to give him answers.

It's all fucked, and I thought I was doing the right thing. But is sometimes doing the right thing, wrong? Like a friend said, 'Stand in the ashes of a trillion souls, and ask them if honor matters. The silence is your answer.' I could have saved more people. I should have swallowed my pride and done the smart thing!"

"You ever think the galaxy put too much of a burden on one person? You put too much of the burden on one person," Roy held her out at arm's length, trying to catch her eyes even if she would avoid it, "you learned an important lesson in all of this. Even the right actions have consequences. It won't make you feel better, but it's something to remember."

Mary sighed, deflating, "you're annoying."

She needed time to digest that, time to talk it out further.

"Right back at you, Recruit. You know how many of your friends I have been fighting off?"

"Can't be worse than the press, I'm glad they have me on lockdown." Her smile returned. Her messages must be going crazy, but she had to take reentry slowly. The constant evals and talking to counselors was enough to drive anyone mad. It was helpful but maddening. Mary couldn't deny she needed it to work out the guilt, disassociation, and convergence of indoctrination playing on her grasp of reality and the past.

It was more than she could handle when she was forced to take visits from councilors, delegates, and top military brass. Hackett could only stop so much. He wore out most of his favors during the war.

Her first interview, done after immense political and public pressure, had left her reeling for days.

"Tell them," her crew, her family, "I'm sorry. I just- I need more time."

With all her heart, Mary wanted nothing more but a happy reunion. To hug, dance, and cry with every single one of them. But seeing them all at once would be far too much to handle, and she didn't have the space to let herself ruminate (with guilt) over who she would allow back in first. With the flurry of her emotions so unpredictable, she had to wait. It tugged at her but it was for the best. Mary had to be selfish.

"I can pass that along," Roy smiled softly, finishing his second beer, "thanks for letting me visit. At least, I'm waiting patiently for the day you can be back with us. Evelyn, not so much."

"And Kaidan?"

"He's a little hurt. But hopeful."

Mary flinched, pulling her eyes closed tight, "if anything deserves you getting mad at me..."

"It's a cliche line, but loves makes us crazy."

"Tell him- I'm sorry too. That I'm working on it," she drew in her bottom lip, "feels stupid to say if this doesn't work out."

"He knows."

[georgiaswarr]

georgia warr

never been in love - gatlin

a song about wanting to be in love but not being able to be in love, which is very fitting for georgia’s initial situation. i’ve put this at the beginning of this playlist because - spoiler alert - the last song on here is also called never been in love and i think these two songs symbolise georgia’s journey in a very mint way. also, the first line of this song is “that boy from georgia was so sweet” which i think is pretty funny

somebody to love - queen

the title says it all. georgia wants to find somebody to love. i mean, she’s already found them, but we’ll get to that later.

paradise - coldplay

georgia is a big dreamer and yearner and i think this song really encapsulates that on so many levels. i mean “when she was just a girl / she expected the world / but it flew away from her reach / so she ran away in her sleep” that’s georgia !

tous les garçons et les filles - françoise hardy

french song because i’m ~quirky~ but this song is basically about seeing everyone else be in relationships and feeling lonely/wanting one for yourself

waiting for love - avicii

georgia is a hopeless romantic, but she’s still waiting for her own grand romance (she still hasn’t realised that the “love” she’s “waiting for” has already “come around”)

dear no one - tori kelly

georgia “i want someone to be in love with but there is no one” warr, at least at the beginning of the book

chaos - miki fiki

this song can be interpreted with various themes of the book in mind such as yearning for something you don’t have, feeling lonely, emotional turmoil, etc, it’s a banger

i walk a little faster - fiona apple

highjacked from @kindaorangey’s loveless playlist (they’ve done a great rundown here). this song has similar themes to dear no one, anticipating that romance will come to you, but it hasn’t, despite how hard you chase it, how fast you walk

when - dodie

shoutout to @drarrystar for recommending this song to me because so many of the lines reflect georgia to the core. just look up the lyrics and you’ll agree

deeper - ella eyre

“cause i’m scared, i can’t lie / i don’t feel the same inside / i can’t decide if i have the heart to confess” georgia thinks she can learn to love jason romantically if she just digs a little deeper

loneliness for love - lovelytheband

“anything at all not to feel alone / anything at all just to feel whole / ‘cause i keep mistaking loneliness for love”

a little more - alessia cara

“there you are with your college friends / you played in a marching band / i can't help but wish i knew you then / but i guess i know you now // it looks as if i've stumbled right into the palm of your hand // hey, you / hey, mr. knock on my door / i'm sorry that I've been emotions galore / am i crazy for wanting a little bit more? / a little more of you” georgia about sunil. she needs their guidance and wishes he’d been there for her earlier.

stuck in california - rightfield

a song about feeling alone and alienated by everyone and everything around you, and waiting for your “stars to align”, which fits georgia if you ask me

seven - taylor swift

georgiapip song !!!!!! it’s also about how alienating it can be to grow up and lose your childhood innocence, and i have a lot of thoughts about a very specific brand of growing pains that come with being aspec, but that’s a topic for another day

te amo - rihanna

this is a song about having someone be romantically in love with you and the heartbreak that comes from not being able to reciprocate those feelings --> georgia about jason

love love love - of monsters and men

same as te amo. it hits especially hard when you do love the other person so fucking much

ceiling won’t break - finish ticket

this song gives me georgia’s emotional turmoil vibes, also the line “i see no lights ‘cause the lights weren’t aimed at me” can be interpreted in a “cupid’s arrows didn’t hit georgia” way if you get what i mean

lack of emotion - skott

once again we are dealing with themes of not being able to feel the emotions that you “““““should”““““ feel for someone

let me go - hailee steinfeld

another song about georgia and jason’s (romantic) relationship and how it was doomed to fail from the beginning so she hopes he can let her go

i’m so tired - lauv, troye sivan

i’m just thinking about that line in loveless where georgia resentfully realises how many songs are about romantic love. she’s just so tired

crush culture - conan gray

and another song about being resentful of our romance-obsessed society, which georgia certainly is plenty of times throughout the book

home - ella eyre

christmas break time babey !!!! georgia has reached her low point and she’s going home

i love my car - belle & sebastain

“I pressed a cold hand against my car, which was as far up the drive of our house as it could get. I’d missed my car.” - loveless by alice oseman, celebrating all kinds of love since 2020

i’ve never written a song about a boy - eva westphal

this was actually recommended to me by @michaelholdenn for this playlist ! a song about the liberation that comes with not having to force attraction anymore

this is home - cavetown

i think months ago some ask told alice that this is a loveless song and i agree

why can’t we be friends - jordy searcy

this is about georgia’s strained relationship with pip and jason after the bailey ball and how she wishes they could just be friends again, the way they were all throughout their childhood

chiquitita - abba

okay fuckers THIS is literally the LOVELIEST song about friendship and wanting to be there for your loved ones and i’m sure georgia relates

open up - matt simons

“you’re hard to talk to with that wall around you” vs. “rooney had a solid brick wall round some part of her that nobody was allowed to know.” basically, georgia wants rooney to open up to her

just fucking let me love you - lowen

okay, yes, this song is very gay, but i think it can be applied to georgiarooney too ! the frustration this song expresses of wanting to shake someone and scream at them to just fucking let you love them is definitely shown in loveless when it comes to those two

less than i do - the band camino

georgia about pip. she hopes that pip will forgive her eventually. i mean look at the line “i still have your denim jacket” in the song - georgia still has pip’s jacket too, it’s perfect !!!

friends will be friends - queen

if loveless taught us anything it’s that friends sure fuckin will be friends

stick with me - olly murs

“we all get lonely / trying to find a place where we should be / trying to find someone to set us free / there are times a friend is all you need” you know when alice said that every character in the book feels “loveless” in some way at one point or another, but they all learn the value and importance of platonic love? yeah.

your song - moulin rouge

“and then, with three accompanists, i stood on a boat on the river wear and sang ‘your song’ - the version specifically from moulin rouge - to pip quintana, who didn’t yet know me as well as i wished she did, but despite that, was one of my favourite people i had ever met.”

wherever i live - alessia cara

you know the scene after georgia leaves pip and rooney to their first kiss? yeah, this song really reflects that mindset of half loneliness, half acceptance to me. listen to it.

take time - honest men

accepting your identity takes time ! even by the end of loveless there’s still days when georgia wishes she wasn’t aroace and the book presents this in an amazing and properly nuanced way !

die alone - finneas

"you asked me, ‘do you wanna die alone / or watch it all burn down together?’ / i said i’d rather try to hold on to you forever” this song is very much georgiarooney - finding each other in their darkest of days and watching everything they thought they knew (amatonormativity) burn down. together.

no lover - jetty bones

the next few songs are basically just one aro anthem after the next. this is another recommendation from @michaelholdenn - “maybe i don’t need a lover, i just need the friend”

solo - carly rae jepsen

highjacked from @kindaorangey’s loveless playlist. amazing anthem about how it’s okay to be single and how romantic love isn’t as fulfilling as society makes it out to be anyway

trust my lonely - alessia cara

i think in georgia’s case this song can be interpreted as her learning to finally let go of her pre-conceived notions of what love is and what she should want, her learning to “trust her lonely”, though lonely here just means romance-less

love is a town - josh gilligan

“if [romantic] love is a town then i’m passing through" yeah, romance is not for georgia and she’s starting to accept that.

new romantics - taylor swift

the loveless gang is the new romantics !!! they’re redefining love and romance !!!

team - lorde

“and everyone's competing for a love they won't receive / 'cause what this palace wants is release” anyway, let’s go found family song

wild things - alessia cara

now, i don’t know if alessia cara is queer but I DARE YOU to look at the lyrics of wild things and not tell me that this is the ULTIMATE queer anthem about found family and saying fuck you to respectability politics. i DARE you. anyway, loveless is also about found family and saying fuck you to respectability politics so it’s very fitting

never been in love - will jay

full circle babey !!!!! this is THE aro anthem so obviously i had to add it and comparing the “never been in love / and it’s all good” to the “never been in love / and i fucking hate that i couldn’t make it past a crush” message from the first song we can really reflect georgia’s journey of self-acceptance in loveless which i love a lot

[cyarsk52-20]

Candiace Dillard Bassett Slams Tom Sandoval’s ‘Bombastic Audacity’ After Vanderpump Rules Finale

Thu May 18 09:21:07 GMT 2023

Twitter must be lit with #pumprules right now. Whew, chile (in the voice of Cynthia Bailey), the tweets from EVERYONE are scorching. I mean, torching Tom Sandoval after last night’s Vanderpump Rulesfinale. One notable voice in the crowd is Real Housewives of Potomac star, and word-a-day calendar, Candiace Dillard Bassett.

What’s she bringing? She live-tweeted the event, and she brought a lot. How about “This whole scene is a lesson in bombastic audacity.” Mic drop. One fan’s response was, “… I’m stealing that. Gonna use it during S8 #RHOP. Often, probably.”

What else did Candi say?

She applauded, “Ariana [Madix] is better than all of us. I would have burned everything down.” Truth! Candi burns it down every time she hears something she doesn’t like. And I couldn’t imagine her letting Chris Bassett (I’m sorry, but Chris loves her – he’s not straying) get away with anything.

She continued, “If it was a facade, then, why didn’t you hang it up?!? Why did you play in her face and all of our faces, and have an affair under our noses for seven months Of Sundays?!?” Yessss! But wait, do you mean you waited till Sunday to watch the show? You’ve been grinding too hard then (between your single x Drew, your showS, your MBA, and your podcast) because VPR airs on Wednesday, my dear.

‘All of it’ she says

Are there any other gems? Why, yes. I’m voting @TherealCANDIACE as a post-reunion guest on WWHL. Girl says, “Y’all. Please tell me that my eyes and ears are deceiving me. This man just called his side-chick his main-chick’s name, and she is smiling like he just told her that he’s about to make her an omelet. In what world do we live? Where are we???? #PumpRules.” That’s where we are. Candiace is getting the tone of the Vanderpump reality. It’s very much a ‘go with whatever vibe you’re feeling’ flow. Let’s do a comparison of realities:

Tom’s interpretation of a relationship breakdown: Somewhat normal after 9 years 

Tom’s definition of fireworks: Getting some strange 

Tom’s definition of growing apart: Not spending time together because you don’t like what she likes 

Tom’s work in therapy: Lying in therapy 

Tom thinking Ariana doesn’t want to know: Tom’s guilt 

Tom thinks Ariana should have followed him: Crazy 

Candiace says, “Humans are imperfect beings. Lol. This is the lesson tonight. #PumpRules.” Cue Tom saying in the finale, “It’s not about somebody stroking my ego,” yet “we were giving each other confidence.” Confidence comes from within, Tom; not via Raquel Leviss. He continued, “As time went on, we became this support system for each other.” Yes, while she was simultaneously “supporting” Ariana.

As Candiace said, “My sternum is heavy!! #Pumprules.” Nuh, uh, uh. Drive Back, my friend. Drive back to sanity. She sends us off with, “Well. My God, today. That was a lot. Thank you for coming. #Pumprules.” And goodnight.

Watch Candiace this Sunday as she cameos on RHOA. Watch Vanderpump Rules 3-part reunion starting May 24 on Bravo.

TELL US – DO YOU FOLLOW CANDIACE ON TWITTER? DID YOU FOLLOW #PUMPRULES ONLINE? WHAT ARE WE IN FOR WITH THE REUNION?

The post Candiace Dillard Bassett Slams Tom Sandoval’s ‘Bombastic Audacity’ After Vanderpump Rules Finale appeared first on Reality Tea.Candiace Dillard Bassett Slams Tom Sandoval’s ‘Bombastic Audacity’ After Vanderpump Rules Finale Twitter must be lit with #pumprules right now. Whew, chile (in the voice of Cynthia Bailey), the tweets from EVERYONE are scorching. I mean, torching Tom Sandoval after last night’s Vanderpump Rules finale. One notable voice in the crowd is Real Housewives of Potomac star, and word-a-day calendar, Candiace Dillard Bassett.

Read in Reality Tea: https://apple.news/AVsVux6uwN06rbfgVOa-lag

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[iamtrebleclefstories]

I Believe in Second Chances - Part 5

Things are a little different this time around

Or the story where Alex dies while on his way to stop Jo from reading the letter he sent. Somehow, he gets a second chance

Hi! I am so sorry this took so long to update, but I have started planning the following chapters which will hopefully make it easier to update more frequently.

(i definitely wrote this instead of studying for finals whoops)

If you haven’t read part 4 yet, you can find it here

—Part 5—

The next few weeks played out very differently than they had in his previous life. Since waking up in this timeline, the Alex everyone knew went from a manwhore who couldn’t go more than two days without sleeping around to a caring, attentive guy that had everyone scratching their heads in confusion. There had been multiple moments where Meredith, Jackson, Callie, Cristina and even Bailey had given him strange looks due to changes in behavior. They were especially freaked out when they noticed his newfound friendship with a certain intern. 

“So… are you guys a thing now or what?” Callie asked as they walked into the attendings lounge, mugs of coffee in each of their hands. “I’m just trying to figure it out because I’m not really sure what to say to people when they ask.”

“If people ask, just tell them to stay the hell out of my business,” Alex took another sip of his coffee. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh come,” Callie gave him an unimpressed look. “I know you like her. Why don’t you just make a move already? It’s been a month since you met.”

“Because I want to do this right,” Alex sighed and thought back to the way things unfolded the first time. “There are some things I’m trying to avoid, so I need to show her who I am first. She needs to trust me and like me before I do anything about it.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually trying to impress this girl,” Callie took a long swig of her coffee. “Sure, she’s hot and funny, but what’s so special about her? Because you look at her like she hung the moon and stars.”

“She’s just…” Alex shook his head and vaguely remembered the words he’d said to Cristina over seven years ago. “There have been a lot of girls since Izzie. A lot of nobodies. But this girl isn’t a nobody.”

“Who are you and what have you done to Evil Spawn?” Cristina’s voice startled Callie and Alex as she walked into the attendings lounge. “Are you in love? Is Alex in love?”

“Alex is in love?” Meredith raised her eyebrows as she followed Cristina into the lounge. “Is it that intern he’s been hanging out with? Jo Wilson? If so, Avery owes me twenty bucks.” 

“Why does Avery owe you twenty bucks?” Bailey asked as she joined the rest of them. 

“Alex is in love with his intern,” Callie supplied, ducking as Alex threw a paper ball in her direction. “Hey! What, it’s true. You can’t even deny it.”

“No offense Karev, but don’t you think she might be a little out of your league?” Bailey wondered out loud, an amused expression on her face. 

“She’s definitely out of my league,” Alex replied. Realizing that he wasn’t going to get rid of their prying questions any time soon, Alex decided to give them a straight answer. “Look, she’s different okay? We have a lot of stuff in common and she gets me more than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t think I’ve ever opened up to someone as much as I have with her. She’s also a bit squirrelly—not that it’s her fault—and she’ll run if I get too serious too fast, so I’m being patient and taking it slow so I don’t freak her out.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Meredith blurted out. “Because I swear you do not sound like Alex Karev right now.” 

“You guys suck,” Alex stuck his tongue out at the women and moved to get up. “I’m going to get ready for rounds.”

He left the lounge and started to make his way down to the intern locker room. As he neared the door, Alex heard some comotion inside.

“Oh my God, you like him!”

“You are so into him. Don’t even try to deny it.”

“Look! She’s blushing!”

“Guys, stop it!” Jo’s hushed the three women who had been interrogating her. “Okay, yes fine. I like him, but I’m not going to go around acting like some crazy, desperate girl like Leah—no offense.”

“None taken,” Leah shook her head. “Seriously though, you like Karev? I mean, I get the attraction. Both Heather and I slept with him and it was fantastic, but you actually like him? As a person?”

“I know you guys probably think I’m crazy, but yeah I do. I know everyone sees him as this jerk who only cares about getting into someone else’s pants, but he’s different from what everyone thinks. When we hang out and drink beer at Joe’s or at his house, he’s different. He’s funny and kind and charming. You know he bought a couch so that I could crash if I’ve had too much to drink and can’t drive home? Douches don’t do that,” Jo released a breath and shrugged. “Also, you should see him with his patients. Kids can see right through people and they love him.”

“Jo Wilson, you are smitten,” Stephanie teased as a wide grin appeared on her face. 

“Why don’t you ask him out?” Heather suggested. “You’re both comfortable being alone together. But instead of it just being two friends hanging out, make it a date.”

“I don’t know,” Jo answered hesitantly. “I’m not even sure if he feels the same way. Besides, he’s my boss.”

“Oh screw it,” Leah rolled her eyes. “He’s so into you.”

“He’s definitely into you. Trust me, I know,” Shane looked over to the girls, shutting his locker and leaning against it.

“How do you know?” Jo raised an eyebrow. 

“I just do,” Shane crossed his arms. “I was sworn to secrecy, but all I’m going to say is that the attendings talk during surgery.”

“He talks about you!” Heather gasped. “As if the way he looks at you isn’t enough proof.”

“Oh yeah, any time you walk into a room his eyes follow you around with this awestruck glint in them,” Stephanie giggled. “Go for it, Jo.”

“I want to, but… I didn’t come here to get into a relationship or be tied down to someone. I have baggage that no one deserves to be burdened with, much less him,” Jo looked down sadly. “I’ve been burned in the past. I don’t want to open that possibility up again.”

Shane rolled his eyes, “That’s not an excuse to keep yourself from being happy.”

Sensing they were done talking—and feeling a hell of a lot of pride hearing that Jo was already interested in him so soon—Alex waited a couple seconds before popping his head into the locker room and scanning it for Jo, “Wilson! We’ve got surgery in 20. Let’s go!”

Jo’s eyes widened as she scrambled to grab her things. She did her best to ignore the stares and winks her friends were giving her as she followed Alex out the door. 

“Hey, how was your day off yesterday?” Alex asked as they stepped into the elevator. 

“It was nice. A little boring, but I slept past ten in the morning,” Jo grinned.

“Ah, you always did love to sleep in,” Alex muttered to himself.

“Huh?” 

“Nothing, just—I figured you’re one of those people who would rather sleep in,” Alex tried to save his little slip up. “I am, too.”

“You see that’s why we get along so well. I’d never be able to work with a morning person before nine in the morning because I think I’d punch them in the face,” Jo tilted her head in thought.

“You and me both,” Alex chuckled. “Pretty sure I yelled at Kepner one too many times during residency.”

“But she’s so nice,” Jo wrinkled her face in confusion.

“Exactly.”

Jo laughed in response, making Alex’s heart pick up a bit. He loved hearing her laugh. It was probably one of his favorite things about her. He remembered their wedding day and the way she laughed so brightly and contagiously when they realized that they had had sex in a shed with a corpse lying there. If there was one thing that Alex was determined to do this time around, was to replace all the times he’d made her cry to laughter. 

“So, what’s the surgery today?” Jo asked, breaking him out of his thoughts. 

“Oh, um we’re performing a splenectomy on eight year old, Jalen Brown. He’s got hemolytic anemia and needs his spleen removed,” Alex informed as they walked into the scrub room. “I’m gonna go talk to him before we start.” 

Alex walked into the OR and up to the operating table, smiling as he looked down at the kid laying on it, “Hey buddy. We’re going to do the surgery now. This doctor over here is going to give you some medicine that is going to help you sleep so that you won’t feel a thing. When you wake up, you’re gonna be a little sore, but that’s normal. You’ve got this, okay?”

“Okay, Dr. Alex,” Jalen nodded timidly. “Can you hold my hand while I go to sleep?”

“Sure, thing kiddo,” Alex grabbed one of Jalen’s hands and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Now, count backwards from ten for me.”

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”

Nodding at the anesthesiologist, Alex walked back towards the scrub room where Jo was staring at him curiously. Alex raised an eyebrow, “What?”

“Nothing,” Jo shook her head. “It’s just… you’re really great with kids.”

“Well, I’d hope so. My job kind of depends on it,” Alex flashed her a crooked grin. 

“Obviously,” Jo rolled her eyes and began to scrub. “What I mean is that you make them feel comfortable around you. That’s something I’ve noticed since we became friends. You make people feel safe.” 

Alex stared at Jo for a moment, pausing in his scrubbing. He was grateful that he’d already pulled his mask over his face so that she couldn’t see the look he was giving her. Because, that just might’ve been the highest compliment he could’ve received from Jo. He knew how significant it was that Jo already felt safe around him. There were very few people in this world that made her feel safe and secure, and at this point in her life, he was pretty sure that he was the only one on that list. The people on that list wouldn’t expand for a few more years. 

Alex’s face softened and all he could do was smile underneath his mask at the woman standing beside him, “Thanks.” 

They’d been in surgery for a little while already when one of the nurses answered a page, “Dr. Karev, you’re being paged to L&D for a pediatric patient who’s having a high risk baby. It’s urgent.”

“Crap,” Alex mumbled to himself. Today was the day that he and Jo would meet the girl who abandoned her baby in the hospital. Sighing, Alex looked over at Jo. “Can you check that out for me? I’ll be in there as soon as I can.”

“Yes. Of course,” Jo nodded and promptly stepped out away from the operating table and proceeded to scrub out. 

By the time Alex finished up with his surgery, Jo had paged him multiple times to hurry. He met Jo in the hallway as she ran with an incubator towards the NICU, “Newborn with a CDH. I intubated him but the SATs are still low.”

“It could be pulmonary hypertension,” Alex looked up at Jo as they continued to rush towards the NICU. “Have you ever hooked a baby up to ECMO before?”

“I never intubated a baby before five minutes ago,” Jo replied, eyes wide.

“Okay, we hook up catheters into his neck, pump his blood into the ECMO machine, which puts in oxygen and takes out carbon dioxide. Then it cycles it all back in,” Alex explained as they finally entered a procedure room. 

They set up everything quickly and Alex coached Jo through how to hook up with catheters and get the machine going, “You’re doing great. You isolated that jugular and carotid, avoided the vagus nerve, and now you need to put in a venous drainage cannula.”

Suddenly the machines started beeping. Jo looked up at them before frantically turning back to Alex, “I didn’t even—“

“Switch with me,” Alex traded places with Jo swiftly. “He’s coding. You need to do CPR while I hook him up to ECMO.”

“At the same time? How will that work?”

“You need to start compressions now,” Alex instructed and proceeded to hook the baby up to the machines. “Stop… Go… Stop… Go… Stop… Keep going…”

Some time passed when Jo finally spoke again, “How long have we been going?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Seconds later, Arizona walked into the procedure room, “Hey. I heard you had a crash ECMO. You need my help? You want me to take over?”

Alex smiled to himself slightly. He kept forgetting that he was only supposed to be a fellow that was still learning certain surgical procedures, “No. I’m just connecting the circuit… okay. Initiate bypass.” Alex held his breath for a moment and then released it. “We did it. Son of a bitch.”

“It seems like only yesterday I was showing you how to do your first pulmonary hypoplasia,” Arizona smiled. “I hope you’re taking notes, Wilson. He’s one of the good ones.” 

Jo looked back and forth between Arizona and Alex before letting out a breath, “So, what’s next?”

“Well, now that he’s hooked up to ECMO, the baby has to be monitored 24/7. We have a long day and a long night,” Alex looked up from what he was doing to make eye contact with Jo. “You might want to go grab a power nap, princess.” 

“Ugh, really Alex? Again with the whole princess thing?” Jo rolled her eyes. “I thought we agreed to forget about that.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who said it. It was little Briana Ewell who said you looked exactly like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I just so happened to agree,” Alex shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re so hung up on it. Most people would take that as a compliment.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Jo explained with wide eyes. “I don’t need people thinking I got to where I am today because I’m pretty and it was handed to me or that I slept my way to the top. I worked hard to get here.” 

“No one ever said you didn’t,” Alex paused. “But for the record, if anyone ever does, tell them to come find me and I’ll set the record straight.” 

“Oh, no way,” Jo laughed. “We do not need you doing something stupid like going and ‘protecting my honor’ or whatever.” 

“Just go take a nap.” 

***

“You sure you’re not asleep with your eyes open? You’ve been staring at that kid for an hour.” 

“She didn’t even want to see him. She cared more about her best friend’s stupid pizza party than seeing her child,” Jo’s face wrinkled in disbelief. In the before, Alex had made some insensitive comments about how she couldn’t possibly relate to the young girl’s story. This time instead of interrupting, he allowed her to continue. “I just… I don’t understand how you could care about a party more than the baby you’ve grown to know and love for the past nine months. How could you not want to see that baby and hold it and love it? A baby who has no fault in the decisions you made that led you here. Why bring that baby into the world in the first place if you don’t even care enough to sit by it’s bedside when it needs you the most.” 

Alex stood there in silence, unknowing what to say. This definitely had not happened last time. In the before, Jo hardly ever expressed her feelings about being abandoned by her mother until after she’d met her. These feelings though, made it clear to him that Jo had been contemplating whether she was worthy of existing long before finding out about how she was conceived. 

Sensing Alex’s surprise at her small outburst, Jo reached a hand out to touch the baby’s hand, “I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine what could be more important than your kid. If my baby were in the NICU, I would never leave it’s side. Not for a single moment.” 

“It sounds like there’s a story there,” Alex raised his eyebrows slightly. “If you ever feel like sharing it, you can trust me.” 

Jo took a deep breath, “I had a crappy childhood.”

“Me too,” Alex confided. He didn’t want to push her, but he knew that she might feel more compelled to open up if he shared first. “My dad was an abusive junkie and my mom was schizophrenic. So, when I was a kid, I became the parent to my younger siblings. I got them ready for school and made them food and helped with homework. I ran interference for my parents, I kept everyone safe, I took the beatings my mom and siblings were supposed to get. I even stole cars and food to make sure my siblings were taken care of. Someone must’ve reported it, because one day these people showed up and took us away for a few years. We got separated and I ended up with a whole bunch of foster parents who didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. Then at some point, I ended up in juvie. It’s a miracle I am the man I am today. Sure, I’ve got my flaws, but I never would’ve thought I’d become this.” 

“My mother left me at a fire station when I was two weeks old,” Jo started quietly and watched as the small child wrapped his tiny hand around her finger. “I got bumped around foster homes until I was sixteen when I took matters into my own hands and started living out of a car. I parked it behind the gym of my high school so I could sneak in and use the showers before class. My home ec teacher--Ms. Schmidt--she’d let me do my laundry there for free.” Jo laughed slightly. “Everyone asks me how I got into Princeton and Harvard while living in a car. They’d say mean things and start rumors that I’d slept with the admissions staff to gain entrance into their programs. But I got into good schools because I worked my ass off. And when I walked across that stage at graduation, I didn’t have a cheering section filled with family. I had one person, Ms. Schmidt.” 

Jo felt a tear run down her cheek and swiped at it quickly, “This little guy here just came into the world a few hours ago and he’s sick. All he needs is his mother. But she’s too busy talking to her best friend about pizza and cupcakes to even hold his hand. He didn’t do anything to deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to feel alone.”

“He isn’t alone,” Alex shook his head and reached over to squeeze Jo’s free hand. “He has you and me and the nurses. Who knows? Maybe he’ll be okay. But for now, we just got to make sure he’s strong and well-taken care of, okay?”

“Okay.”

***

It was alright for the most part. The little guy pulled through the night and was doing okay. Not that Alex doubted he would pull through. After all, the kid lived in his past life, so he figured that he’d make it this time around too. What wasn’t alright was that today was the day that this girl would abandon her baby with the help of her mother.

It was happening right now actually. As Alex was walking down the corridor, he could hear Jo’s voice rise in volume, “Woah, woah, hey! Hang on. You can’t just leave. You have a baby. She has a baby upstairs. He’s one day old.”

“Yeah,” the girl replied. “And he’s all messed up.”

“So you’re just gonna... You can’t--you can’t abandon him! No! You can’t! No!” Jo placed herself in between the elevator doors, blocking their exit. “No!”

“Let me on,” the girl’s mother frowned. 

“No!”

“You don’t wanna mess with me,” the woman growled.

“You don’t wanna mess with me,” Jo countered. The woman grabbed Jo by her scrubs, causing Jo to react and push her against the elevator. “No, stop. You can’t abandon that baby! You can’t do that!”

“Get off me!”

“No!” Jo shouted. 

“Let her go,” the teen girl trying to get in between Jo and her mother. 

“No!”

“Hey! Let ‘em go,” Alex came and pulled Jo off of the woman. “Let them go.”

Jo turned and glared at Alex angrily as the elevator doors closed, allowing the two women to escape. Seething with anger, Jo yanked herself out of Alex’s grasp and ran down the hall. 

Knowing that she would need a few minutes to calm down, Alex waited before going to look for her where he knew she’d be. He found her lying on a gurney in the tunnels he’d introduced her to a few weeks ago. It became their spot where they’d go to meet up and talk, hang out, or have lunch together.” 

“Look, I know this hit home for you and it sucks, but you can’t go around assaulting patients.”

Jo let out a sharp breath, “She was abandoning her baby.”

“I know,” Alex jumped up onto the gurney and motioned for her to scoot over so he could lie down next to her. He laid on his back and grabbed one of her hands, making comfortable circles on the back of her hand. 

“I’m just… I’m so angry,” Jo sobbed, the tears finally winning. “How can she not love him? I loved my baby so much even though I only knew about him for a couple weeks.” 

“Wait what?” Alex was confused. In all the time he’d been with Jo (both past and current timeline Jo), he’d never heard anything about a baby. “You had a baby?”

“No, well yes, but no,” Jo shook her head, tears still running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m not making any sense, right?” Jo paused, unsure if she should share this part of her story. She was nervous. What she was about to tell Alex, she’d never mentioned to a single soul before. “Years ago, I was pregnant. But the father wasn’t a good guy. I wanted to keep the baby, but it became more and more clear that if I did, it would never be safe. My life was too complicated and dangerous to raise a child. So, I went to a clinic all by myself and had an abortion. And I cried the whole time, because I had started picturing all of these wonderful things about what my baby would look like and be like. I fell in love with my baby. I wanted my baby. I loved my baby. But my greatest act of love was ensuring that it would never have to go through what I went through. I was a mom to that baby for less than five weeks and I loved it more than this girl ever loved her baby... I’ve never told anyone that before.”

Alex laid there in silence for a moment. He was surprised that Jo mentioned this experience she had, especially when she still hadn't brought up Paul yet and it was so early on in their friendship. The Jo from the before had always been very reserved when it came to sharing about her experiences with Paul. She continually attempted to pretend like it never happened rather than face it fully. She’d been through hell and it was understandable. So, hearing that Jo had had to have an abortion back while in her abusive marriage made Alex want to cry. 

He reached to wrap his arm around Jo’s shoulder and pulled her close, placing a light kiss on her forehead, “Jo. You have one of the biggest hearts I have ever seen. Despite everything you went through, you became kind and strong and loving. I know this hurts and I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that. But I promise, this baby will not be like you. We will get him into the database and we’ll get a social worker down here and we will make sure this kid gets a good home.” 

“You promise?”

“Yeah I promise.”

***

“Hey Alex!” Jo called out as she made her way to the parking lot. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Alex asked. 

“Nothing’s up… I just, I wanted to say thank you earlier today. That case was extremely difficult for me, but you helped me be okay. So, thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Alex cracked a small smile. “I told you it would work out. Those parents fell in love with him. He’s going to be okay and live a very happy, full life.”

“Yeah,” Jo sighed slightly. “I guess you were right. I’m glad that he’s got people.”

“So do you,” Alex took one of Jo’s hands in his own. “You’ve got to stop acting like you don’t have people. You’ve got people. You’ve got me. Don’t forget that.”

And although she’d been told those words in the past, for the first time in her life, she believed them.

[thejolexgroupchat]

((Prompt: “Here.” “What’s this?” “It’s a pregnancy test. Take it.”)) ... I would love to see a fic of this prompt because I can just picture it! but not even with just Alex... I feel like this scene would work with even Meredith or Link with Jo! She would definitely be the one to live in denial until someone made her take the test

So we took this prompt and kind of went crazy with it lol. This fic was written by @doc-pickles (Nina) and @iamtrebleclefstories (Leya)

We decided to merge this with another prompt that we received about Jo being pregnant post 12x24 / during s13. It’s a little angsty, but it was so much fun to write. Hope you love it!

the one where Jo’s in denial

She had to be in denial. There was no way that she could not see what was going on. She was a doctor for crying out loud. A good doctor. Who knew the signs and symptoms, and had just spent the past fourteen hours beside a young girl giving birth to her premature baby in prison. It was like the universe had erected a large billboard that said, “You’re Pregnant” in order to capture her attention.

It wasn’t just today either. No, if they’re being honest, Bailey and Arizona had noticed some things that others may have overlooked or attributed to stress. Arizona was a fetal surgeon, she was surrounded by pregnant women all day, she could identify them with ease. And Bailey was just Bailey. As Chief of Surgery, she knew everything that was going on in her hospital. Her observant eyes had noticed the small changes such as fatigue, rounder face, nausea, back pain, headaches, and just today, the tiniest bump on the young resident’s figure. The only one who seemed to not notice was the woman herself. Jo Wilson was pregnant. There was no doubt in Bailey or Arizona’s minds. The problem now, was getting her to admit it. 

The hardest part about this whole thing was the circumstances that Wilson found herself under. Bailey knew she had to tell Jo about what Alex was going to do. Jo deserved to know. She had the right to know. After all, everything Alex had done had been with Jo in mind. It amazed Bailey to think about just how far Alex was willing to go for the woman he loved. As if beating the man he thought was taking advantage of his girlfriend wasn’t enough, now he was willing to go to prison for Jo to protect her. 

Mind made up, Bailey turned from her seat, settling a hand on Jo’s thigh as she began to speak, “You were right… stuff does happen to people.”

“No, no I don’t wanna be right.”

“Karev came to me last night, he told me that-,” Jo’s desperate voice cut Bailey off, the sound of it breaking her heart as she watched tears spring to the young woman’s eyes. 

“I don’t wanna be right! For God's sake, I don’t wanna be right,” Jo pushed Bailey’s hand off of her leg and then wiped at her wet cheeks, eyes moving to look out the window. “I want there to be something good. I want the world to be good. For once, I want to see sun and… and happy. For once, I want to be wrong. So just stop talking.”

A brief silence fell over the three women, only lifting when Arizona gently encouraged Bailey to keep talking. With a shaky breath, she finished her statement, “Alex went to the D.A. and took a plea bargain. He's going to prison.”

Arizona asked Bailey questions, which she could vaguely hear herself answer, but her eyes were on the rear view mirror and her perfect view of Jo. Jo, whose eyes are blown wide with fear, who’s hand was pressed to her mouth in shock, who even in the dim car lighting looked a few shades paler than a moment ago.

“Stop the car,” Jo heaved a deep breath. Her eyes began to water, she needed to get out of the car. “Stop the car. I’m gonna be sick.”

As soon as the car came to a stop, Jo jumped up from her seat and rushed out behind the car. Instantly, she felt all the contents of her stomach come up violently. Arizona and Bailey shared a look of sympathy, wishing that things hadn’t played out the way they did. Jo didn’t deserve this, neither did Alex. 

Jo took a second to collect herself before entering the car, “Let’s go.” 

“You okay?,” Arizona asked as she eyed Jo. 

“Drive the car,” tears were still streaming down Jo’s cheeks as she settled back into her seat, a hand pressed firmly to her chest as if it could stop the erratic rhythm of her heart. “Drive the damn car!”

The tension in the car was thick, Arizona keeping her eyes on the road as she tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Quiet sobs were sounding from Jo in the backseat as she tried unsuccessfully to muffle the sound. Bailey knew that her job was only half done though, prompting her to ask Arizona to pull into the next gas station they saw. 

“You know he loves you,” Arizona mused as she watched Bailey walk into the convenience store. “I’m sure he had a perfectly good reason for doing what he did.”

“Please, Arizona, I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Jo frowned as she looked out the window. “This is all my fault and I just… I can’t do this right now.”

Arizona nodded and let go of the conversation. It hurt to see Jo this sad. Normally, she was vibrant, sarcastic, and witty. When she’d been living with Alex and Jo, Arizona could always expect to hear Jo’s distinct peels of laughter echoing off the walls. It was easy to see why Alex fell for her. It was easy to see why he loved her. Arizona knew that Jo had had a hard life, but it never stole her joy. Right now though, it was as if that brightness had been stolen. Finding out about Alex’s fate had crushed the little bit of light she had left in her. 

Turning around from her spot in the driver's seat, Arizona looked at Jo who was still staring aimlessly out the window. She placed her hand on Jo’s knee and gave it a light squeeze. She then took one of Jo’s hands in her own and repeated that same action. That’s all she needed to do before Jo finally released the sobs that had been bubbling under the surface. 

“He’s going to prison, he’s risking everything he’s worked so hard for and and,” Jo sucked a deep breath in before meeting Arizona’s gaze. “It’s my fault! He’s doing this because of me, because I was too scared to testify. He’s ruining his life because I couldn’t-”

Jo began to gasp for air, her chest heaving as she tried to get air into her lungs. She began hyperventilating, so Arizona put both hands on Jo’s shoulders, “Jo. Look at me. Hey, I need you to breath. Take some deep breaths for me, okay?”

“It’s all my fault. I love him and I messed it up. I always mess it up,” Jo inhaled deeply. “I miss him, so much. I don’t want to do this without him. I don’t want to work at the hospital without him. I don’t want to live in the loft without him. I want to do everything with him. But I threw it down the drain. I ruined it, I ruined him.”

“I know it seems like everything is falling apart right now, but I need you to breathe for me,” Arizona squeezed Jo’s hand and rubbed circles on it. 

“I can’t… I can’t breathe,” Jo cried. “I can’t breathe without him.”

“Yes you can,” Arizona nodded at Jo. She took both of Jo’s hands in her own and looked her right in the eyes. “You are a strong, tough, independent, loving young woman. You can do this. You can breathe, and you will breathe. I know it hurts like hell trying to breathe without him, trust me, I get it. But, you can do it. Breathe. In and out.”

By the time Jo finally caught her breath, Bailey had returned to the car. Jo was grateful that Bailey wasn’t present for the meltdown she just experienced. It was bad enough crying in front of Arizona. She didn’t need to ball her eyes out and look anymore foolish in front of the chief of surgery.

Bailey sat back down in the passenger seat and began handing out the snacks that she’d purchased for everyone. After giving her a water bottle, Bailey handed Jo a plastic bag with something rectangular inside.

“What’s this?” Jo looked up at her superior. 

Bailey shared a glance with Arizona before looking back at the resident, “It’s a pregnancy test. Take it.”

Jo’s eyes widened, “Excuse me?”

“Wilson, don’t act like you don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if you’re in denial or if you really just haven’t noticed, but you’re showing all the symptoms. We’ve been observing you for the past couple of weeks and this has got to stop. So you’re going to go inside the convenience store, ask for a bathroom and take the test,” Bailey stared Jo down, daring her to protest.

Jo opened the bag and sure enough, there was a box that had two pregnancy tests inside. She took a sharp breath in, a fresh round of tears welling in her eyes, “I… We talked about this—about having babies. He wanted to make a baby, I said to wait a little while longer, but honestly I would’ve been fine with it either way. I never thought about kids before. It always seemed so far away. But it was always different with Alex. I wanted it. I want it. Just… not like this.”

Before she could begin to well and truly cry again, Jo excused herself and jogged into the convenience store. Both Bailey and Arizona let out loud sighs and they leaned back in their seats. 

“Well… we’ve still got 30 minutes until we hit Seattle,” Arizona checked the clock on the radio, turning to face Bailey. “This should be an interesting ride back home.”

A few minutes later, Jo opened the car door and sat down. Bailey and Arizona looked at her expectantly. Jo sighed, “I took the test, but I didn’t look at it… I don’t want to look at it alone.”

Bailey looked at her sympathetically and stretched out her hand, "You are not alone. Arizona and I are both here with you. So no matter what happens, no matter what you decide, we're here for you."

Nodding quietly, Jo reached back into the bag for the tests. She picked them up and sucked in a large breath as she turned them over. Jo felt her eyes water at the results. She let out a small whimper and turned the test around to show the other women in the car. She watched their eyes take in the results and heard Arizona's slight gasp. 

It was true. All of the things she tried so hard to ignore, all of the signs she'd tried to write off as products of stress, could no longer be ignored. As much as she tried to will it not to be true, there was no escaping this. She was pregnant.

*****

Hearing that Alex was safe may have been the best news Jo had ever received in her life. She had spent the last couple days trying to come to term with the fact that Alex had gone to prison for her and that she was going to be a single mother. She looked up all of the prison facilities in the area and began scouring their databases and making calls to try to locate him. Jo figured that she could at least tell Alex that he was going to be a father. She wanted to tell him that they would visit. 

So when she found out that he was okay, she cried. She cried for about an hour before driving to Meredith's house. It had been 20 minutes since Jo had pulled up outside of Meredith’s house. She had been sitting in the front seat frozen in an odd combination of relief and fear. She wanted nothing more than to run inside and hold Alex in her arms for hours on end. But the knot in her stomach and the rising nausea made her pause.

They’d only talked about this once, briefly at that. And it was before everything they’d built had blown to shit. What if Alex was upset? What if he didn’t even want to be with her after all the shit she’d caused? What if he didn't want this baby? Jo shook her head, vanishing the thoughts from her mind. Alex wasn’t like that, he never was and never would be. And if there was one thing that was obvious, it was that he loved her. He’d risked a prison sentence to protect her secrets for god’s sake. 

Finally fed up with herself, Jo exited the car and walked up the front steps to knock on the door before she could talk herself out of it. Her eyes wandered from her feet to the porch lamp to her hands, anywhere but at the door that she was praying would open. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door opened.

Their eyes meet, for almost too long she thinks, as they take each other fully in for the first time in much too long. 

He looked worn down, his beard more scruffy than the last time she’d seen him. Jo could tell just by looking at Alex that he hadn’t slept well in a long while. Jo hoped he didn’t notice how tired she herself was, how pale her skin had become because she couldn’t keep anything besides water down. Of course he did, she knew he did because he knew her better than anyone else. Alex was staring at her with a look that screamed concern, obviously catching on to the fact that something was off about her. 

Ignoring his worry, Jo stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Alex’s shoulders. Her eyes shut, holding back tears as she held him tight against her. She could feel him breathe out a sigh of relief, one hand coming up to hold her just as tightly as she was clinging onto him. 

“Alex,” her voice came out impossibly quiet, she’s not even sure if she was speaking out loud or to herself. She knows if she speaks again, her voice will crack and she’ll begin to cry, so she does the only thing she can think to do. She grabs Alex’s hand in her own and places it on the swell of her stomach that she’d tried so desperately to ignore the past week and a half by covering it up and telling herself that it was just water retention.

Alex let out a sharp breath, fingers curling against her rounded stomach as he held her in his arms. Relief flooded her body, Jo finally letting her tears flow as she held Alex close to her. She couldn't tell if she was happy or sad or just emotional about finally telling him, but he was here. He was safe and not going anywhere. 

After a long minute, Alex pulled back and looked into Jo’s eyes, his hands coming up to cradle her face. She knew tears were still falling from her eyes, but he looked so relieved that she couldn’t find it in herself to care too much. He placed his forehead against hers and gently wiped away the tears on her cheeks. He pressed light kisses on her forehead, nose, and cheeks, leaving Jo a crying mess. 

She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve this. Alex deserved so much better than her. He'd had enough crazy and complicated to last a lifetime. He deserved someone normal and nice. She wasn’t worth all this trouble.

“Hey, stop that. Don’t ever say that again. You are worth everything and more,” Alex looked deeply into her eyes.

Jo’s eyes widened, “I said that out loud?”

“Yeah,” Alex’s face twitched slightly. He took a deep breath and frowned. “I meant what I said, Jo. You are not trash. You don’t deserve to be tossed away. You don’t deserve to be forgotten, or mistreated, or abused. You don’t deserve any of that. I love you, I always will, and the least I can do is prove that by showing you just how special you are.” 

“I love you so much it hurts,” Jo cried, shocked by the emotion in her voice. She’d chalked the near constant tears in her eyes lately up to another unavoidable pregnancy symptom. “I was so scared, I was scared that you had ruined your life for me.” 

“I’d do it all over again, if it meant that you’d be safe,” Alex admitted, his fingers brushing away her tears again. “I’d do anything for you, Jo.”

“I know,” Jo swallowed her tears, finally looking up at Alex with the smallest of grins on her face. “We made a baby.” 

“Yeah,” Alex’s eyes watered and he let out a soft laugh. “We did.”

One of Alex’s hands floated down from her cheek to her stomach again, fingers splaying over the swollen skin as a grin grew on his own face. The excited look made Jo wonder why she’d ever doubted his reaction to their unexpected news. Pressing another kiss to her forehead, Alex spoke again, “How long have you known? Must be a while, right? I mean, you’re already showing.”

“Just a few days actually,” Jo blushed and ducked her head down as Alex chuckled at her answer. “I was in denial! I thought I was stressed and everytime I even began to think I might be, I pushed it off. Even when the bump came in I told myself I was just gaining weight from the stress eating. Bailey and Arizona were so fed up with my ignorance that they made me take a test, finally.”

“Have you made an appointment yet?” Alex asked.

“No. I haven’t really had time. I was thinking of just asking Arizona to do it just so that I could keep it under wraps as long as possible,” Jo replied, pressing her face into Alex’s chest. “Things are… complicated and I just don’t feel like being the center of even more gossip.”

Alex looked down sadly, “I know I messed a lot of things up and I hurt a lot of people, especially you. You saw me at my worst, something I never wanted you to see. You saw me blow up and get angry and hurt someone. I can’t imagine what seeing that must have felt like for you, but Jo you have to know that I would never hurt you or our baby. I don’t know if you want to be with me or if you just want to raise the baby together, but I swear to God I will do everything in my power to win back your trust.”

“I know,” Jo closed her eyes and nodded slightly. “I’m not ready to be with you just yet, but I love you and I know that you won’t hurt us. I need to process some things before we get back to where we were.”

“I understand,” Alex sighed and tried his best to keep the tears down. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jo pulled Alex in for another long hug. They stood there in each other’s embrace for a little while before Jo finally let go. She gave him one last longing stare before walking away. Alex had entered the house and was about to close the door when Jo spoke up again. “You know, I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m scared to be alone. I could really use my best friend right now.”

Smiling in understanding, Alex opened the door, “Do you want to stay here tonight? We can sleep on the couch. It’ll be just like old times—minus the beers of course.”

Jo laughed, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

[oboevallis]

Hey! Wondering if u could write something related to this season with Amelink, the baby, Maggie, the kids, idk or maybe link goes to work and all the kids give Amelia hell and drive her crazy and the baby cries a lot

week 1

thank you so much for the prompt! im considering maybe doing a mini series on this, because im really living for domestic amelin, and i also didn’t do everything in the prompt also part 2 to baby blues will be out soon

"Auntie Amelia when is mommy going to be home?" Bailey asked as his aunt tucked him in.

"We talked about this the other day remember? Your mom has to help people at the hospital, but she can't come home because she may get us sick. So she's going to stay at a hotel. I promise first thing tomorrow you can FaceTime her."

"Okay, but why can't she come home to see us. I won't get sick."

"There's something called a pandemic going on right now, and basically that's a sickness that spreads really really quickly. And since your moms at the hospital all the time working with people who have the sickness it isn't safe for her to see us." Amelia wanted to cry when she saw the tears welling up in her nephews eyes.

"You don't do anything right though. You don't tuck me in right, and you don't make sandwiches right, and you don't play cars right either. Actually you don't play with me at all like you used to." Bailey ranted before he took his covers and pulled them over his head. Amelia tried to reach out to him only for him to turn away from her. She wasn't sure how she was going to handle this, it had barely been a week since lockdown begun.

"Good night Bailey, I love you." Amelia reassured as she closed the door behind her. She walked down the attic stairs to find Link putting the covers over Ellis while she laid on Merediths bed, for the past couple of nights she's refused to sleep unless it was in her mothers bed. She was pulled out of her moment of serenity from her baby's cries, she sighed and made her way to Maggie's room. They put his crib in there for the time being as it was the closest to their room.

"What's the matter my sweet boy?" Amelia picked up the crying baby from his crib. She sat down on Maggie's bed and cradled her son, resulting in her sons cries to subside. "Someone just wanted their mommy huh?"

"Auntie Amelia?" Zola's voice startled her aunt causing her to gasp. "Sorry I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay ZoZo, everything okay?" The girl just nodded and crawled into the bed next to her aunt.

"Is Scout okay?"

"Yeah, he's just fine. I think he just wanted some attention."

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" The question took Amelia aback, she expected it from her younger niece and nephew but not from Zola. She sometimes forgot she was still a kid and not a teenager. She'd always acted mature for her age.

"Sure ZoZo. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just miss my mom. When I'm scared I always sleep with her."

"Why are you scared ZoZo?" Amelia knew it was a dumb question, she was scared herself. But it broke her heart her niece was as well.

"This sickness must be really bad if we can't go to school, or see friends, or see auntie Maggie and mommy."

"We're taking precautions, we wear out masks if we were to go out, we're quarantining. At the hospital your mom and aunt Maggie wear something called PPE, and they social distance and they constantly are washing their hands."

"So they won't get it?" Zola worriedly asked. Amelia didn't want to lie but she also didn't want her niece to be constantly worried.

"They're taking precautions ZoZo."

"Will you and Link be going to the hospital?"

"Well, not right now we're on something called maternity leave. That's when you have time off of work after you have a baby. So we'll be home for awhile and then we'll see what we should do. Don't be worried about this though, ZoZo. How about you go change into your pjs and brush your teeth, then you can go into my room and get to sleep that sound good?"

"That sounds good." Zola softly smiled as she jumped off the bed. Amelia sighed once her niece left the room, and turned her attrition to her baby.

"You are very adorable, but you need to sleep. You don't seem to like sleep very much though." She whispered as she placed the drowsy baby into his crib.

______________________________________

"Auntie Amelia your phones ringing." Zola yelled from the living room the next morning.

"Who is it?" Amelia asked, she was in the side room trying to help Bailey log onto a zoom meeting.

"Someone named Addison."

"Can you try to help Bailey log on? And bring my phone in here please." Zola skipped into the room and handed her aunt her phone, and took her seat at the computer. Amelia ran up the stairs and shut the bathroom door behind her, before Ellis realized she was up here. She sat in the bathtub and swiped the call on.

"Oh wow you look terrible." Addison commented, as her screen popped up with the face of her exhausted friend.

"Why thank you."

"Sorry, how are you holding up?"

"I'm alright, how are you doing?"

"I'm okay, I just have never lost this many patients before."

"I can't even imagine, I hear it's really bad."

"Yeah it really is. So have you decided if your going back to work after your maternity leave?"

"I have no idea, I mean they desperately need doctors. But what happens to Scout and the kids. We can't leave them with a babysitter, because of quarantine. I don't know, I'm just kind of taking it a day at a time."

"That's okay, that's all we can really do. Take it a day at a time. How's the baby doing?"

"Oh he's really good." Amelia lit up at the mention of her baby. "I'm basically with him all the time, so Link is stuck with the other kids so I can't really complain."

"Link must be having the time of his life." Addison sarcastically laughed.

"Yea, he's never really dealt with kids before. At least not to this extent, the most he'd interact with a child before is if he had to do surgery on one." Knocking on the bathroom door took her out of her moment of serenity talk to her friend.

"Auntie Amelia, we still can't get Bailey into his zoom." Zola's voice came from the outside of the door.

"Crap, I've got to go Addie. Stay safe."

"You too." Amelia set her phone down on the edge of the tub, and hoisted herself up.

"You still can't get in?" Amelia asked once she opened the door.

"Nope, I tried everything."

"Alright I'll try and take a look at it." Amelia sighed, and went down the stairs to the room they've now dedicated to school. "Still can't get it?"

"No, so does that mean I don't have to do it?" Bailey hopefully asked.

"No your still going to have to do it. You know what I'll email your teacher, and tell her what's going on."

"Alright, I'm gonna go play." Bailey said quickly while running my out of the room.

"No, Bailey get back here." She called after her nephew, only for him to ignore her. She sighed and held her head in her hands. "Okay, ZoZo did you finish your school work yet?"

"Yep!"

"Okay, go play with Bailey then." She opened up Meredith's email, so she could contact Baileys teacher about the issue with the video call. Once she composed the email and sent it, she scrolled through the other emails. She noticed one from Zola's teacher and opened.  Zola had 8 missing assignments, Amelia felt like crying and screaming. She already knew they were going to be up all night trying to catch her up, she wanted to be mad but she couldn't. This was nothing like her niece, she was obviously struggling with the quarantine.

"Hey the kids are done with school already?" Link asked as he came into the room.

"No, Bailey can't log on. And Zola's been lying to my face about completing her homework. I also have no idea what Ellis is supposed to be doing." Amelia choked out before she started crying.

"Oh, don't cry." Link walked further into the room and spun Amelia around in the spiny chair before wrapping his arms around her. “It's going to be okay. We'll figure it out. How about we sit everyone down, and come up with a game plan. We haven't sat down and organized how this is going to be."

"Okay." Amelia smiled slightly wiping away her tears. She spun around in the chair to face back towards the computer. She was going to write down all the children's assignments and figure the times that the teachers held their video calls.

______________________________________

"Okay do your Aunt Amelia and I wanted to talk to you guys." Link said as he placed down the kids plates in front of them.

"About what?" Zola asked curiously.

"Well we know that right now, everything's all messed up and kind of scary. But we still have to have a routine and make sure our school works getting done." Amelia said as she adjusted her shirt so her son could eat.

"So what does that mean." Zola asked before she messily slurped up her spaghetti.

"Well for starters we're gonna go to bed on time, and we'll wake up around 7 so we can get ready for the day before we start school." Link stated once he sat down at the kitchen table with everyone.

"So Bailey and Ellis you have two zoom calls everyday. At 8 and at 10, so Bailey you'll be in the side room and Ellis we'll set you up in the living room. Zola you have four calls so you'll be in the kitchen-"Zola interrupted before Amelia could finish her statement.

"Wait why do I have more calls then them, thats not really fair."

"Since your older you have more classes than they do. Back to what I was saying, we'll all have lunch together and then we can play for a little bit but then back to school. After everyone's done you can play or watch a movie then we'll have dinner and go to sleep. How does that sound?" Amelia asked, the couple realistically knew that this plan would probably never happen but they wanted to try to let the kids have a predictable routine everyday.

"Sounds fair." Bailey said and the two girls nodded in agreement. "Soooooo, can we watch a movie tonight?"

"Not tonight bud." Link said, causing sighs from all three children. After everyone was done with dinner Zola helped Link clear the table while Amelia put the baby to bed. "So you've got some missing assignments."

"Oh." Zola felt embarrassed. "I didn't know you knew about that."

"I do. Tonight me and your Aunt Amelia are going to help you with it, so you don't get further behind. Is that alright?"

"I guess so." Zola sighed. "It's just confusing, I like it better when it's on paper not the computer."

"Okay, so we'll sit down and figure it out. It's going to be okay."

"Thanks Link." Zola smiled kindly. "Sorry I lied, to Auntie Amelia about completing my work."

"Just don't do it again, next time just ask for help. Nothing gets better if you don't ask fo help." Link smiled.