#starting my summer job at a place I thought I'd never come back to

[cryptidheights]

Hello spooky office my old friend, I've come to haunt your creepy halls again

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Neil talking about the responses to Good Omens Season 2 - from the Neil Gaiman interview with Brian Levine for The Gould Standard (x,x)

BL: The audience that you have built is a very passionately engaged audience. They, frankly, they love you. And one of the reasons they love you is that you fit into what I think of as one of two great divisions in art. There's, or in writing, um, there is: I'm entertained, I'm amused. I may be even enchanted; and then there's this hits me at a visceral level. You understand me as no one else does. You have touched something very central to my experience. And it seems to me that Much of your writing, maybe all of your writing, actually reaches your audience at that latter level. You know. I would say in the former category, sort of my quintessential and beloved example would be P. G. Woodhouse. He amuses me, but I don't feel like he's revealed my inner self at a very deep level. Um, were you aware that you were going to be able to achieve that? Um, that this is something... was it a startling thing when people began coming up to you, who'd read your work and said, this means so much to me?

Neil: Yeah. It was huge. And it wasn't expected. I... if I had a mountaintop I was heading towards, it was gonna be P. G. Woodhouse. Um, I wanted to be a proficient entertainer with a clear prose style who could tell stories. Um, it probably wasn't until Sandman that I found... I started to realize that in order for a story to work, I had to show too much. In order for a story to resonate, in order for a story to matter, I had to let it matter too much. And, and I remember the first people who would start coming up to me and saying, um, you, you know, your, your Sandman comics got me through the death of a loved one. Your death character got me through my child's death, through my parent's death, through my partner's death, through my friend's death. Um, and that left me kind of amazed. I'm like, well, I didn't write it to do that. I wrote it to feed my children. I wrote it to satisfy myself. I wrote it because nobody else had ever written it. And if I didn't write it, it wouldn't be written, but I don't think I wrote it to give you what you've taken from it. And I spent really about 20, 25 years feeling awkward about that. And then my father died, in March 2009, and never got to cry about it. Never... I, you know, I've, I've got on a plane and I went to the UK and dealt with the funeral stuff and organized all of that stuff and came back and go toff the plane and went and did Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report and wearing the funeral suit because and that was all I had with me and carried on. And then, somewhere in the middle of summer, I was reading a friend's script. They'd sent me a script and said, can you look this over? And I'm reading it, and on page 20, the lead character meets somebody, and on page 26 maybe, she's dead, and I burst into tears. And I'm bawling. I am sobbing. It is coming out of me in giant racking waves. And I realized that it's everything that I'd been, hadn't let myself feel, or hadn't been able, hadn't stopped enough to let myself feel, was suddenly being given permission to feel by the death of a fictional person who I'd met six pages earlier, ia script. And I thought that... and it was huge for me, and I thought, okay, that's that thing that people are talking about sometimes, when they come tome and they say, you, you did this. So right now, I'm in this weird, wonderful place where I think a lot of people in Good Omens Season 2 thought they were signing up for the P.G. Woodhouse, and didn't know that, no, no, no, you've, you've signed up for the whole thing. You've signed up for the feelings. You've signed up for the emotions. I... it is my job to make you care and to make you feel and to feel things you haven't felt before. And which meant that the first week or so after Good Omens came out, I was getting angry, furious, deeply upset messages on every possible social medium telling me that I had betrayed people, and it was awful, and they couldn't stop crying, and why would I do that to them, and did I hate them? And they hated me. And then a weird sort of phenomenon happened as people would watch the show again. And again. And now they started to know, okay, this is where it's gonna go, this is what's gonna happen, this is how it works. And they started realizing that they were actually feeling things, and that was good. And that they were caring about two people who don't exist. You know, I made them up, and then and Terry Pratchett made them up, and then, um, David Tennant and Michael Sheen gave them life, and then they get to walk around on a screen and you know they don't exist, but you can cry for them, you can love them, they can make you laugh, they can make you exult, and most important of all, they can make you care. And the number of people who are now writing to me, saying, 'This was so important to me. This has changed my life. This makes me feel like I belong. This makes me feel like I can cope. And it's let me sort of find myself. P. S. I hope you get to do Season Three.' is, is huge.

[fortheloveofwonderland]

Me & You & Everyone We Know | Chapter 20 FINAL | S.R

Previous Chapter

Chapter Summary - It’s eight months later and Spencer’s life has changed dramatically. Did he ever get his happy ending?

A/N - Final chapter folks! 'Bout time, right?

Pairing - Single Dad! Spencer Reid / Fem! Reader

Category - hurt/comfort, angst with happy ending, smut minors DNI.

Warnings - some light angst but overall long overdue fluff. WC - 5.3k

Chapter 20 - First Day of My Life

And I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been,

But I know where I want to go.

And so I thought I'd let you know,

Yeah, these things take forever, I especially am slow,

But I realised that I need you,

And I wondered if I could come home.

“How did you find me?” 

“I know a guy.”

“What do you want?” 

“It’s time we had a long overdue talk.”

“What could we possibly have to talk about?” 

“Spencer. We need to talk about Spencer.” 

***

Eight Months Later

Spencer Reid had a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he slotted the last handful of books into their new home on the bookshelf in his new office. 

He ran his fingers over the spines and the smile started to take route, blossoming and growing until it reached all the way to his eyes. 

He surveyed the room, tucked away at the back of the second storey of his new home. His old trusty desk sat beneath the old bay windows with the most gorgeous lighting drifting in through the open curtains from the surprisingly glorious winter day outside. 

He slid into his leather chair and brushed his fingertips over the dark wood desk. 

He’d officially moved into the old gothic style house back in the fall and the rest of the home had come together nicely. But his office had been a slow process, a tiring process. 

This room more than any others in the new house had to be perfect. He would be spending a lot of time in this room and it had to be just right. And after weeks of shuffling furniture around, it finally fit his criteria. 

Eight months ago Spencer had made a decision about his future. He’d quit teaching, never returning to Georgetown after the summer break. Instead he struck a deal with BAU Unit Chief Emily Prentiss. 

On the weeks Maeve had the girls he would work from Quantico or go away with the team on cases. When he had the girls he would work from his home office as a consultant. 

His FBI badge sat next to his computer along with his new credentials and every time he looked at them he couldn’t help but smile. 

The BAU was his home. In all the years since he’d left he’d felt like something was missing from his life. But now he had found his way back to his rightful place in the world. 

It allowed him to feel fulfilled in both his home and work life. He didn’t have to give up any of his precious time spent with his daughters and he was able to work a job he loved with every fibre of his being. 

Since the incident the night of the art show, Spencer had not had a single sip of alcohol. He was closing in on nine months sober and honestly he’d never felt better. 

He still took his antidepressants, but a much lower dose now and he’d quit seeing Doctor Sanchez months ago. 

His relationship was Maeve had slowly repaired itself over time to the point he would now call her one of his closest friends. 

Eight months ago he would never have believed he could be this happy again. But it just went to show what a little hard work and determination could do. 

He ran his fingers over the desk again as he got to his feet. He walked past the desk and across the room. 

In the doorway he turned back for one last glance around the room.

Yes, everything was falling into place. 

***

You fought with the zipper on the back of your dress, huffing and puffing through excretion. When you finally got the thing all the way up your arms fell back to your sides and you let out a large breath. 

You gave yourself a once over in the mirror, turning this way and that and scrutinising your appearance. You’d looked better, that was for sure. But given the circumstances you didn’t look half bad. 

The pile of papers on the dresser caught your gaze through the mirror and you rolled your eyes as they seemingly taunted you. 

Tomorrow was paperwork day. Today there were more pressing things at hand. 

You’d received your doctorate in August and since Doctor Spencer Reid’s sudden resignation from the university you had taken over teaching his classes. 

It wasn’t your end goal, but for now you couldn’t deny you loved teaching. Maybe one day you’d look elsewhere but as of right now you quite liked your place in the world. 

The past eight months had been a whirlwind to say the least, and where you’d found yourself was not at all where you imagined ending up. But you couldn’t pretend you weren’t happy where you were. 

You moved over to the bed, your stomach coiling a little as you sat down on the edge of it. You slipped your feet into your shoes as your mind wandered back some eight months. 

“How did you find me?” You scrutinised the woman on your doorstep, recognising her from one fleeting sighting of her some time ago. 

“I know a guy.” She shrugged simply. 

“What do you want?” You folded your arms across your chest. 

She was the last person you expected to see here and the last person you wanted to be face to face with. 

“It’s time we had a long overdue talk.” She mirrored your action and crossed her own arms. 

“What could we possibly have to talk about?” You scoffed. 

“Spencer.” She rolled her eyes. “We need to talk about Spencer.” 

Having the former Mrs Reid show up at your apartment had thrown you through a loop. You’d been so shell shocked you’d actually invited her inside. 

Maeve proceeded to tell you all the reasons you needed to give Spencer a second chance. She explained to you why he’d lied to you about not being in love with you, how he was simply trying to protect himself from getting hurt again. 

She went into great detail about how she knew you and Spencer belonged together and that you were the loves of each other's lives. 

You hadn’t spoken much, simply listened. And when she left she tried to put the whole thing behind you so you could move on. You still had no idea to this day how she knew where you lived and could only assume someone at the BAU had given her the intel. 

Two months later you’d gone back to work to find Spencer had quit the university. And for some reason the thought of never seeing him again undid all the hard work you’d put in over the summer to get over him. 

“Y/N?” He blinked at you as though he wasn’t sure he trusted his own eyes. “Uh, what are you doing here?” 

“Can I come in?” You hugged your arms around yourself. 

“Yeah, sure. The place is still a mess, I literally only moved in a few days ago.” He held open the door to his new home and let you inside. 

Boxes were piled up all over the place. A couch and a coffee table were the only visible furniture. 

“How did you know where I live?” He hovered between piles of boxes. 

“Maeve,” you croaked. “She came to me a few months ago and left me her number. I didn’t ever expect to use it but when I found out you’d quit I just…I wanted to know why. So I called her and she gave me your address, said she has the girls this week.” 

“Maeve came to you? Why?” He frowned, scratching at the back of his head. 

“She wanted to explain some things. About you. About why you lied to me.” 

“Right,” his frown deepened.

“So why did you quit?” 

“That’s why you came here? Really? You want to know why I quit Georgetown? I haven't seen or heard from you in months and that’s what you came here for?” He looked at you somewhat indignantly. 

“They offered me your job. I just want to know if you plan on coming back before I take it.” You shrugged. 

“You got your doctorate?” His lip quivered into something resembling a smile. 

“I did. So are you coming back or can I take your job?” 

“I rejoined the BAU.” He rolled his lip between his teeth. “Not a full caseload like I used to work, I can fit my hours around the girls now Maeve and I have joint custody. It’s where I belong.” 

“Fine.” You finally let your arms fall to your sides. “That’s all I came here for.” 

You turned away from him, back towards the old mahogany front door with the stained glass window in the centre but you didn’t get very far. 

“I shouldn’t have lied to you.” He spoke and when you turned back around he was a few steps closer to you. “I thought I was protecting us both but really I was only hurting us.”

“I didn’t come here for this.” You shook your head. 

“Well you certainly didn’t come all the way out here to ask if I was coming back to work.” He chuckled dryly. “I may always have complicated feelings towards my ex but my feelings for you are anything but. I love you Y/N. I love you more than words can describe and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Please don’t walk away. Please give me another chance.” 

Your eyes misted with tears but you were not going to let them fall. You bit the inside of your cheek in hopes of keeping them at bay. 

You straightened your back, clenched your jaw and spat a simple, “no.” 

You pushed yourself up, wobbling slightly as you did so. You pinched the bridge of your nose and closed your eyes to try to ease the dizziness. 

You gave yourself one last look in the mirror, smoothing down the front of your dress which was a little tighter than you would have liked it to be, before shaking your head and pushing out of the door. 

***

“You really don’t have to do this.” Maeve rolled her eyes at him through the mirror. 

“Oh please, I’m great with kids.” Spencer scoffed, nudging the rocker a little and smiling down at the little dark haired bundle of joy. 

“Well yes I know that,” she huffed, toying with the strap of her dress. “But it seems weird to have you look after my son.” 

Little Elijah, Daisy and Lily’s half brother, was twelve weeks old and Spencer had almost forgotten how tiny babies were. 

“It’s really no big deal. He’s my daughter’s half brother, he’s basically family.” He shrugged. 

“And what a weird family we are.” Maeve laughed as she turned back to face Spencer. “So, how do I look?” 

Spencer glanced up from baby Elijah and onto her and tears immediately filled his eyes. He stood up and crossed the room towards her, gaze flicking up and down her frame. 

“Good gosh Maeve,” he breathed. “You look incredible.” 

“Don’t cry.” She shook her head. “Because if you start I’ll start.” 

“Sorry, sorry.” He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with his palms to try and dismiss the tears. “But seriously, you look amazing.”

She smiled at him, glancing down at her white, satin dress. She felt like a princess, and judging by Spencer’s reaction she looked like one too.

“Thank you,” she took hold of his hands and squeezed them. “And you’re sure you don’t mind watching over Elijah for the day?” 

“For the one hundredth time I do not mind at all. For the record, I hate weddings anyway so this kinda works out great for me. If he cries I have an excuse to leave early.” He smirked at her and she removed her hands from his so she could slap his bicep. 

“You’re such a cynic.” She rolled her eyes. 

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “I heard eloping is all the rage.” 

She rolled her eyes yet again. 

“Can you believe we’re here? I never in a million years thought I’d ever get married again.” She sighed wistfully. 

“I always thought when I got married it would be forever.” He nodded. “And after all we’ve been through I never thought we’d end up here.” 

“Friends you mean?”’

“Is that what this is? Huh. Good to know.” He chuckled, yet again making Maeve roll her eyes. 

She turned her back on him again and toyed with her hair in the mirror. Spencer moved back over to where baby Elijah was dribbling down his chin, making little gurgling noises. 

He picked up the rocket and attached it to the frame of the stroller so he was ready to make a quick exit when needed. 

Just then the door to the bridal suite flew open and his two boisterous daughters barrelled in, wearing their matching purple bridesmaids dresses. 

“Mom!” Daisy gasped. “Oh my gosh you look amazing!” 

“Mom you’re so pretty!” Lily agreed excitedly. 

“Thank you sweethearts.” Maeve turned and held her arms open for the girls who quickly embraced their mother.

“I mean, I’m also here.” Spencer shrugged. “I thought I looked pretty good too.” 

“Shut up dad.” Daisy rolled her eyes at him. 

“Yeah dad, you’re not the one getting married.” Lily also rolled her eyes. 

Since turning eight a few months ago, Lily had started becoming more and more like her sister by the day. Spencer couldn’t remember the time she’d called him daddy or the last time she’d asked him to read to her. 

Life was moving way too fast for his liking. His little girls were growing up, soon enough they’d be leaving him. Now wasn’t the time to get down about it though, he still had exciting things in his future. 

“Fair enough,” he sighed. “I’m going to take Elijah and get a seat. Try not to upstage your mom, kiddos.” 

“He’s such a dork.” He heard Daisy say. 

“Yeah who says kiddos?” He heard Lily reply. 

He smiled to himself as he left the room, pushing Elijah’s stroller towards the large ballroom down the hall. 

Soft music played through small, indiscriminate speakers, as people started taking their seats either side of the grand aisle. 

Maeve had always dreamed of a big wedding, their own nuptials at city hall had left a lot for her imagination to desire. And Spencer was glad she was finally getting everything she’d always wanted. 

He came to a stop by the door where Bobby, beaming with pride, was waiting to greet people. He spotted Spencer and his son heading his way and waved at them. 

“Hey, how’s my little man doing?” 

“I’m not bad, thanks.” Spencer joked, now making Bobby roll his eyes. “Oh you mean Elijah? He’s good aren’t you buddy?” 

Bobby crouched down and cooed over his son for a moment or two, placing a kiss on his forehead before standing back to his full height. 

“Thanks for being here, man. It means a lot to Maeve that you approve of this.” Bobby smiled a gentle smile at him. 

“I just want her to be happy.” Spencer shrugged. “And I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you.” 

Bobby extended his hand and Spencer took it, shaking his ex-wife’s soon to be new husband's hand. 

It was probably extremely weird if he stopped to think about it, but that was a thought for another day. 

“Are you happy, Spencer?” Bobby surprised him when he asked. 

A smile toyed on Spencer’s lips as he closed his eyes briefly and gave thought to his life. When he opened his eyes again his smile grew. 

“You know what? I really am.” He nodded. 

Bobby patted him on the shoulder before Spencer took the stroller again and headed through the doors. 

He headed towards the bar in the corner, spotting JJ, Will and the boys already in their seats and offered them a wave as he passed. 

Towards the bar he saw Luke and Garcia, holding hands and giggling between themselves. Nearby Rossi sipped his scotch and tilted his glass at Spencer as he passed. 

Cameron was hovering on the other side of the room, looking much like a spare part. He didn’t know anyone here and was instructed to wait patiently for his girlfriend while she fulfilled her bridesmaids duties. 

The rest of the team were due to be here but the ceremony wasn’t due to start for another half hour so he had no doubt they’d be here soon. 

He pushed the stroller up to the bar and applied the brake, ordering himself a club soda and leaning on the bar top while he waited. 

Elijah started to stir, his gurgling noises starting to sound a little strained. Spencer stood back up and peered in his stroller. 

“Hey you,” he reached towards the tiny boy and unclipped him from the seat. “It’s ok.” 

He lifted Elijah from the stroller, his little face contorted as though he may start crying at any moment. Spencer held the back of soft head and brought him to his chest, cradling him in his arms. 

“It’s ok, it’s ok.” He bounced him gently. “Don’t cry, it’s your mommy and daddy’s big day. We don’t want tears.” 

He rocked him back and forth and thanked the bar tender when he placed his club soda on the bar. Elijah continued to gurgling, but the rocking motion seemed to calm him. 

“It’s ok.” He kissed the side of Elijah’s head. 

He’d missed this. He missed when his girls were this small and they didn’t talk back to him and one cuddle from their daddy solved all their problems. 

He missed sneaking into their rooms at night just to watch them sleep when the baby monitor wasn’t enough. He missed the way they would cling to his hand so tightly, the way they’d once thought their dad was a superhero. 

He loved his girls, more than humanly possible. He loved them as babies, as toddlers and he loved them now, one as a teenager and another who thought she was a teenager. 

But as time went on Spencer felt like his girls needed him less and less with every passing day. He sometimes felt redundant as a parent, like his job was done. 

Elijah was brand new. Maeve and Bobby would have all those things he’d taken for granted with Daisy and Lily. 

Sometimes he wished he could go back in time, really savour those moments. In the blink of an eye his girls would be going off to college, having families of their own and then they really wouldn’t need him anymore. 

He held Elijah a little longer than he needed to, momentarily pretending he was Daisy or Lily and he had a chance to do it all over again. 

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you little man. And you got so lucky. You’re mom and dad love you so much and you have the two best sisters in the whole world. And this extended family of yours…” he trailed off, glancing around the room at his family, his BAU family. “You don’t know how lucky you’ve got it kid.”

He started getting a little misty eyed as he stroked Elijah’s head, still rocking him in his arms. Elijah made a happy little cooing sound and Spencer smiled to himself. He closed his eyes and breathed in that new baby scent, imagining one of his daughter’s in his arms when they were so small and vulnerable. 

“That’s a good look on you, daddy.”  

His eyes snapped back open and he couldn’t hold back the smile on his face. He cautiously laid Elijah back down in his stroller, buckling him back in. 

“Just remembering what it was like, it's been a while.” He chuckled, reaching out his hands. “You look like a goddamn dream.” 

“You say that like you didn’t see me this morning.” You laughed, taking hold of his outstretched hands. 

“You somehow look more beautiful every single time I lay eyes on you.” He pulled you close by your hands and moved them to cup your face. 

“You’re not going to cry are you?” You teased him as he kissed you. 

“I can’t promise anything.” He laughed against your lips. 

“I may always have complicated feelings towards my ex but my feelings for you are anything but. I love you Y/N. I love you more than words can describe and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Please don’t walk away. Please give me another chance.” 

Your eyes misted with tears but you were not going to let them fall. You bit the inside of your cheek in hopes of keeping them at bay. 

You straightened your back, clenched your jaw and spat a simple, “no.” 

Turning away from him towards the door, you soon felt a hand on your shoulder. 

“That’s not good enough for me.” He turned you back to face him. “I cannot let you walk away again.”

Before you knew what was happening, Spencer caged you back against the door and kissed you. And despite everything, all the pain and hurt he’d caused you, you kissed him back. 

And the rest, as they say, was history. 

You didn’t walk away, couldn’t even if you tried. You hadn’t walked away in the six months since and you knew you never would. 

Four weeks later you moved into his new home with him and the girls. 

Daisy and Lily adored you and in return you loved them just as much. They enjoyed having another woman around and oftentimes the three of you would gang up on their dad, much to Spencer’s chagrin. 

Daisy talked to you about things she wasn’t always comfortable talking to her parents about. Lily liked it when you braided her hair. They both enjoyed the shopping trips you took them on. 

Spencer kissed you once more before letting go of your face and taking hold of one of your hands again. 

“This place is fancy.” You spoke as your eyes flitted around the grand room. 

“I did try to explain to her the benefits of eloping.” Spencer shrugged, a small smile tugging at his lips. 

“It’s not for everyone.” You chuckled.

Spencer raised your hand and placed a kiss on your knuckles, right next to your gold wedding band. 

“Do you regret it? Not having some big fancy event like this?” 

“Are you kidding me?” You pulled a face, glancing down at his matching band. “The only person I needed at our wedding was you, Doctor Reid.”

Some might say it was too soon, that the two of you had rushed into things but they would be wrong. 

When you know, you know and you both knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were meant to be together and didn’t want to waste a second not being married. Nothing had ever felt so right as standing up in that little Vegas chapel and promising each other forever. 

“I love you so much. Doctor Reid.” He squeezed your hand. 

The kiss lasted several minutes and by the time Spencer pulled back you were both panting. 

The look he was giving you was like no look anyone had ever given you before. And it told you all you needed to know. 

This man was incomparably in love with you, and would go to the ends of the earth for you. This man would do anything for you. 

He’d made some mistakes, but so had you. Life wasn’t always perfect, there would always be bumps in the road. But with any luck the hardest hurdles were now in your past. 

He loved you and you loved him and it was just as simple as that. 

“I don’t want the best days of my life to have passed me by. I want it all, Y/N. I want to get married, I want to have more kids. And I want it with you.”

“It really is a good job we don’t both work at Georgetown anymore, two Doctor Reid’s is just confusing.” You laughed.

“Well I think it could be done. There would just be the hot Doctor Reid and the other Doctor Reid.” He shrugged, his eyes sparkling playfully.

“Which one am I?” 

“You will never know, my love.” He chuckled, pulling you close again and kissing you slightly more fiercely than was appropriate for the current setting. 

Before things could get too hot and heavy, Elijah whined, tearing the two of you apart. You both moved to his stroller and looked down on him.

“Hey little man, what seems to be the problem?” You stroked his wrinkly forehead. 

He kicked his tiny legs, blowing little spit bubbles in his mouth. Spencer cooed at him while you continued stroking his head. 

Within a few seconds he calmed down again, perhaps he just wanted some attention. Baby’s and dogs weren’t all that dissimilar, Taco had a penchant for whining when he wanted attention. 

“Oh jeez, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask if you wanted a drink.” Spencer stood back up and picked up his club soda. 

“Just water, please. I’ve been feeling a little queasy again this morning.” You rubbed your stomach. 

“Hopefully that’ll pass soon.” He kissed your cheek before getting the bartender's attention again and ordering you a glass of water. 

Soon after handing it to you, Daisy and Lily in their beautiful dresses, carrying bouquets, were heading your way. 

Spencer saw the coy smile Daisy sent in the direction of her boyfriend and it made his stomach tighten. How he wished he could slow down time so his daughter never got older. 

“You need to go sit, it’s starting in a minute.” Daisy demanded. 

“Sit please.” Lily echoed. 

Spencer looked between his girls and you and little Elijah who could now barely keep his eyes open. He was flooded by nostalgia, weddings always did have that effect on him. 

The girls turned to leave, to finish their rounds but Spencer stopped them. 

“Hey, pumpkins?” His voice cracked a little as he spoke. 

“Stop it.” Daisy frowned at him, hearing the way his voice broke.

“Stop what? Spencer frowned back. 

“I can see you getting sappy. Don’t do it. Please, dad?” She begged him.

“Yeah please, dad?” Lily repeated.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” He looked over at Elijah again. “I just miss when you girls were that little. When you needed me.”

You slipped your hand in his, giving it a squeeze to try and tether him to the present before he went down a rabbit hole into the past. 

Daisy and Lily looked at each other, communicating subconsciously in the weird way sisters seemed to be able to do. 

“We’ll always need you, dad.” Lily spoke as they looked back at him. 

“You will?”

“Of course, you’re our dad.” Daisy shrugged.

“We love you.” Lily insisted. 

“I love you both so much.” His voice cracked again, eyes misting with tears.

“Oh god,” Daisy groaned. “Do not cry. Stop it.” 

“Make him stop, Y/N.” Lily looked at you pleadingly. 

“I wish I could.” You chuckled, giving his hand another firm squeeze. “But you know your dad, he’s an emotional kind of guy.”

“We can’t stay little kids forever, dad.” Daisy offered him a slightly sad smile.

“I know, I know.” He nodded, using his free hand to wipe his eyes before any tears fell.

“But hey, at least you get to do it all over again.” Daisy shrugged, nodding towards your belly. 

“Hey Y/N?” Spencer spoke to you from the bed of the Caesars Palace Honeymoon suite. 

“Yeah?” You called back from the bathroom. 

“Let’s make a baby.” 

You frowned to yourself and put down your toothbrush, padding back into the bedroom.

“Excuse me?” You leant against the doorframe, your new husband lying naked on top of the covers.

“Let’s make a baby.” He repeated.

You’d come off your pill a week or so ago after you’d discussed wanting to try for a baby at some point in the future. You were still using condoms though and Spencer still never finished inside of you. 

“Right now?” You questioned.

“Why not?” He shrugged. 

“We literally just got married like five hours ago.” You laughed, stepping further into the room. 

“I don’t want to wait.” He reached for you as soon as you were close enough, pulling you down to the bed. “Let’s make a baby.” 

Your hand involuntarily went to your growing stomach, the one that you could barely fit inside this dress. You were at fourteen weeks and only just starting to show, it wouldn’t be long now before none of your clothes fit you.

“That is true.” Spencer looked at you with a smile that lit up the entire room. 

He was now for three for three. Three times in his life he had unprotected sex, finishing inside of someone, and all three times he had gotten them pregnant. He often wondered if he had some kind of super sperm. 

He placed his free hand on top of yours on your stomach, on the future addition to his pumpkin patch, to his crazy, slightly unconventional family. 

He wouldn’t change his past, wouldn’t change Daisy and Lily or the way they were brought into the world. But this new baby growing inside of you, you at his side as his wife; this was the life he chose and the life you both chose to make.

“Anyway, you seriously need to go and sit down, mom will be pissed if you miss this.” Daisy snapped him out of his revere. 

“Please don’t use that word.” Spencer rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” Daisy shrugged. “Come on Lil, let's get the others.” 

Lily happily followed her sister while the two of them rounded up all the guests and motioned them towards their seats. It wasn’t lost on him the way his youngest lit up when Michael LaMontagne smiled at her.

He swore one day he would be at their wedding. 

Spencer glanced around and spotted Matt and Kristy hand in hand, closely followed by Emily and Tara who were chatting between themselves as they found seats near JJ and Will. He looked back at you, tears now back in his eyes.

“Don’t.” You shook your head. “I am a hormonal mess as it is. If you start crying, I will too.” 

“Sorry,” he sighed wistfully. “I’m just so damn happy.” 

“Me too, Spence.” You agreed, leaning in and kissing him. “Me too.” 

The two you hung back with Elijah now asleep in his stroller while everyone else took their seats. Your own eyes took in the room, the girls, the BAU members and everyone in between. 

This family had found you and accepted you as one of their own with open arms. The Reid family, the BAU family, without really meaning to you’d become a part of something you never knew you’d always wanted. 

It may be slightly unorthodox, but it didn’t make what you had any less special. In fact in your eyes, the oddness of this family dynamic made it even more exceptional. And you wouldn’t change a single thing. 

Spencer let go of your hand and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, placing a soft kiss on your head while reaching for the stroller with his free hand.

“Looks like it’s just me and you, angel.” He held you close, he always held you so close. 

You glanced at Elijah before looking back around at all the faces in the room.

Daisy and Lily were waiting by the doors with their baskets of confetti, awaiting their cue to take to the aisle. Bobby stood proudly at the end, his best man at his side as they waited for the music to begin.

You looked over at JJ and Will, at Penelope and Luke; Matt and Kristy. You surveyed Tara, Emily and Rossi before you looked back to your husband. 

“Yeah,” you smiled as you leaned closer to him, closing your eyes and breathing him in as though it was the very first time. “Just me and you and everyone we know.” 

@foxy-eva @kbakery @chrissyflo3 @simxican @aysixdy @givemeth @loonalockley @shamelessfangirl-3 @derekm24 @pinkiceee-prose @werewolfbansheelove @mindbelova @weridothatwrites

[itsnatt09]

(Tw for self-harm and abuse)

I just had a really weird ask show up, and instead of airing it (because it implied both that we choose to be gay, and that trans people wouldn't be trans unless we were m*olested as children) I'm gonna talk a bit about my long journey with identity.

Even though I spent a lot of my childhood being pretty confused about myself, I didn't hear the word 'Transgender' until I was an adult in 2009. That year I also got my license suspended for underage drinking and had to move back with my parents for a year. At my parents urging I started going to church activities every week, which is where i met my now ex-wife. I spent 2011 until about 2016 slowly knowing that I was going to come out eventually, but i was doing it all in secret. What I was doing was in pretty stark contrast to my religious upbringing and all the pressure being placed on me to start being a husband, and the huge expectation to have kids.

It culminated in me wearing makeup to my old Home Depot job for about a month, and even though everyone there was pretty ok with it, my parents saw me one day. And the entire situation crashed around me. My parents and my ex let it be known that I was going to stop this forever or I'd be cut off from the family, that I'd be homeless and alone if I continued. They said what I was doing was against God.

And I was so scared I went along with it. Everything fem was thrown away. I shaved my head. I had a kid, even though I had some serious doubts that I would be a good parent. The next 4 years of my life was pretending to be the cis straight man my family wanted me to be.

And it's not a stretch to say that I was dying. I slept 3 hours a day. I went through periods of binge eating and then starving myself. I had a terrible temper. I started working a driving job and every time I got behind the wheel I thought about driving off a cliff. I gave up control of my finances. I let other people decide everything for me. I didn't get pleasure from anything in life at that point, not food or entertainment or even sex. The light was gone from my eyes, hidden behind a big beard and a flannel shirt.

It wasn't until summer 2021 that I couldn't take it anymore. I broke down in front of my ex-wife in a restaurant parking lot while our kid was asleep in the car. It was a 2-day fight where I was called hateful things I've never heard before, by someone who claimed to love me. But eventually she relented. We agreed the relationship between us was functionally over, and I still had an obligation to our son. I started looking for therapy the next day.

All that brings me to now. That ask was sent by an asshole, who doesn't know anything about my life and isn't gonna change their mind based on anything I say. But I do hope there are people who find this and think a little more positively about queer existence. You could say I 'chose to be trans' and you might be right in a way. I was always trans, but I chose to transition. Because the other option was death. I decide my life, not transphobes or my shit family or a shit interpretation of God. Me. Gay people, trans people, all of us *choose* to live in a way that makes us happy. That's it.

[munchmemes]

fall out boy lyrics, so much (for) stardust edition

❛  what would you trade the pain for?  ❜

❛  we were a hammer to the Statue of David.  ❜

❛  we were a painting you could never frame.  ❜

❛  you were the sunshine of my lifetime.  ❜

❛  i'd never go. i just want to be invited.  ❜

❛  every lover's got a little dagger in their hand.  ❜

❛  there's no way off the hamster wheel on this rat race.  ❜

❛  give up what you love before it does you in.  ❜

❛  no matter what they tell you, the future's up for grabs.  ❜

❛  is there a word for bad miracle?  ❜

❛  we could dance our tears away.  ❜

❛  it's open season on blue moods.  ❜

❛  i guess i'm getting older 'cause i'm less pissed.  ❜

❛  you put the 'fun' in dysfunction.  ❜

❛  hold me like a grudge.  ❜

❛  the world is always spinning and i can't keep up.  ❜

❛  part-time soulmate, full-time problem.  ❜

❛  i guess somehow we made it back with a few dreams of ours still in tact.  ❜

❛  i got no map to my own treasure.  ❜

❛  i thought i knew better, i thought it would get better.  ❜

❛  i figured somehow by now, i would have got it together.  ❜

❛  if you put your heart in it, then we'll do more than just get by together.  ❜

❛  i'll call you up and demand you have no fun without me.  ❜

❛  i make no plans and none can be broken.  ❜

❛  do you laugh about me whenever i leave? or do i just need more therapy?  ❜

❛  love is in the air, i just gotta figure out a window to break out.  ❜

❛  i didn't take the love when i had the chance but i swear i'm not sad anymore.  ❜

❛  we all started out as shiny dimes but we all got flipped too many times.  ❜

❛  we did it for futures that never came and for pasts that we're never gonna change.  ❜

❛  i will never ask you for anything except to dream sweet of me.  ❜

❛  tell me, when the party ends, will you still love who i am?  ❜

❛  save your breath. half your life you've been hooked on death.  ❜

❛  be careful what you bottle up.  ❜

❛  i closed my eyes inside of your darkness and found your glow.  ❜

❛  shake things up and see what comes down.  ❜

❛  i got this doom and gloom in my mind but i feel all right.  ❜

❛  feeling so good right now 'til we crash and burn somehow.  ❜

❛  i know i've made mistakes but at least they were mine to make.  ❜

❛  all of my wildest dreams, they just end up with you and me.  ❜

❛  let's drive until the engine just gives out.  ❜

❛  i'll be whatever you need me to be.  ❜

❛  i cut myself down to whatever you need me to be.  ❜

❛  it's all just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes.  ❜

❛  i take pleasure in the detail, you know? a quarter pounder with cheese. those are good. the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain. a moment where your laughter becomes a cackle.  ❜

❛  here i am, not sure you should take a chance.  ❜

❛  i like playing dumb, letting you figure me out.  ❜

❛  just another day spent hoping we don't fall apart.  ❜

❛  let's twist the knife again like we did last summer.  ❜

❛  i'm just trying to keep it together but it gets a little harder when it never gets better.  ❜

❛  late at night in my room, i lie awake and think of you and all your little dooms.  ❜

❛  last night, i dreamt i still knew you.  ❜

❛  i carved out a place in this world for two but it's empty without you.  ❜

❛  i've got all this love i've got to keep to myself.  ❜

❛  all this effort to make it look effortless.  ❜

❛  confront all the pain like a gift under the tree.  ❜

❛  oh please, i can't be who you need me to be.  ❜

❛  one day every candle's gotta run out of wax.  ❜

❛  time is luck and i wish ours overlapped more or for longer.  ❜

❛  but you know what they say, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.  ❜

❛  what is there between us, if not a little annihilation?  ❜

❛  i'm pretty sure as far as humans go, i am a hard pill to swallow.  ❜

❛  i spent ten years in a bit of a chemical haze and i miss the way that i felt.  ❜

❛  i felt you at the beginning but needed you at the end.  ❜

❛  stop me if you have heard this all before.  ❜

❛  oh, but you don't know me anymore.  ❜

❛  that's the way, the world, it used to be before our dreams starting bursting at the seams.  ❜

❛  we're out here and we're ready to livestream the apocalypse.  ❜

❛  the view's so pretty from the deck of a sinking ship.  ❜

❛  everything is lit except my serotonin.  ❜

❛  everything is lit but my lightning bolt brain.  ❜

❛  i just need someone to hold me even though you don't even know me.  ❜

❛  what a time to be alive.  ❜

❛  they say i should try meditation but i don't want to be with my own thoughts.  ❜

❛  when i said 'leave me alone' this isn't quite what i meant.  ❜

❛  bad news, what's left?  ❜

❛  i'm in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now.  ❜

❛  i feel like something that's been stretched out over and over again until i'm creased and i'm about to break down the middle.  ❜

❛  the stars are the same as ever but i don't have the guts to keep it together.  ❜

❛  life is just a game, maybe i'm stuck in a lonely loop.  ❜

❛  we thought we had it all.  ❜

❛  i need the sound of crowds or i can't fall asleep at night.  ❜

❛  i'm pretty positive my pain isn't cool enough.  ❜

❛  ache it till you make it.  ❜

❛  i think i've been going through it and i've been putting your name to it.  ❜

❛  i used to be a real go-getter. i used to think it'd all get better.  ❜

[melanieph321]

Ruben Dias x Reader - Set Me Free Part 8/15

Part 9 and 10 are already out on my Patreon for Free!

+18

Ruben and Carla have grown apart. With Rubens career taking off he leaves Portugal to live the life of his dreams, breaking Carla's heart doing so. Years later, upon his return home, Ruben learns that Carla has moved on, happily engaged to another man, but not any man, Ruben's childhood bully João Mendes.

Enjoy!

Ruben ran around the local stadium. He stopped counting how many laps he had done once his smartwatch died. After running he made his way onto the football pitch, a ball at his feet. He moved fast, trying to keep control of the ball. Defending was his job and Ruben was set to not let anybody through, that started with knowing how to keep the ball at his feet no matter what.

He wasn't good enough, not yet. Years of training and Ruben was still not good enough. He certainly hadn't been good enough to keep the love of his life. How could he expect to be good enough for his team? The European championship was due this summer and Ruben had a long way to go. He had to work harder.

His family had left him for the day. Ruben's mother in particular, couldn't stand it when he got like this. His behavior was compulsive. Instead of expressing his emotions, Ruben would head to the gym and push his body to its limits. His family worried about him, but never knew how to reach him. They saw him as a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode from all the pent-up anger and stress. However, it's what made him the man he is today. That and other things.

"Hello, anybody home?"

"In here!" Ruben shouted.

He stood in the kitchen preparing his post-workout shake whilst waiting for the sauna to heat up. Emerging footsteps were heard out on the patio, followed by a sun kissed Santina popping her head through the glass doors.

"I thought that was you running up and down the street." She smiled. "Are you training for a marathon or something?"

Ruben shrugged his shoulders and took a swing of his shake. "I'm just trying to stay in shape." He said.

"You, stay in shape?" Santina invited herself in, her eyes wandering shamelessly to the pecks of Ruben's sweaty muscles as he stood shirtless before her. "Come on Ruben, you're built like a sculpture, what more do you want?"

He chuckled.

"I bet you can't do pilates though. I'm good for a spread eagle now that the studio in my house is fully renovated."

"A spread eagle?" Ruben frowned.

Santina glared at him seductively. "I'd show you how I do it but...."

"But?"

"But Carla is my friend so...."

Ruben flinched at the name. A grimace that did not go unnoticed by Santina.

"I saw you talking to her at the party." She said, resting her elbows on the kitchen Island and grinning when Ruben's eyes shamelessly diverged to her ass. "You left kind of early after that."

"Yeah, I was not...." Ruben scratched the back of his head, his gaze returning to hers. "I guess you can say I suddenly felt sick to my stomach." And he still felt sick. Not even the aching pain from working out so hard could mend what he felt inside. The fact that Carla wanted nothing to do with him was simply killing him from the inside out.

Ruben cleared his throat. "Was there anything you needed?"

Santina perked up. "No, not really."

With Ruben's success he had moved his family into a gated community. Santina had become their new neighbor as she lived down the street in the home that her family left her in their will.

"Alright, well I'm about to head into the sauna." He pointed.

"Cool. Mind if I join?"

It wasn't a question. Santina pushed off the kitchen Island and strutted down the hallway, peeling off the laces to her top as she did.

Ruben sighed but bent down to pick up the trail of her clothes, neatly folding them and placing them on the bathroom sink. The glass doors to the sauna were foggy, with Santina hiding inside of it. Ruben stepped out of his shorts and boxers before opening the door, welcoming the heat.

"What took you so long?"

Santina sat with her knees to her chin, head leaning back against the wall. She sat up as Ruben stepped up to her, his hand reaching to her lips.

"No talking during."

She smiled, "As you wish."

Ruben's hand went to the back of her neck, aligning her head with his erect cock. Santina's eyes widened at the sight of it, already pulsating in his hand.

She obeyed his wishes by not talking during, however Ruben imagined it hard for her to do anything with his dick in her mouth.

She squinted her eyes, tears running down the side of her face as he fucked her mouth, making her gag as he did.

"Good girl." He grunted.

Santina was no quitter either, swallowing his seed with the audacity to look up at him and smile as it went down her throat.

She had a hot body, no doubt about that. However Ruben was afraid that he would go soft seeing her face. There was nothing peculiar about her face, it just didn't belong to the woman that he loved. Nevertheless, Santina didn't mind getting fucked from behind, something told Ruben that she preferred it. She arched her back with his every stroke, gripping the wood and moaning like a maniac as he knocked his hips against hers. She had him coming within seconds. It would be embarrassing, however Ruben couldn't care less.

"We're done here." He said, falling back against the wood.

Santina nodded and made her way out of the sauna, letting out some of the fog. Ruben sat with his legs spread and glistening sweat dripping down his torso. He was still hard, so hard. Nothing did it for him these days. No other woman could satisfy him anymore. He was being a tad dramatic, but if Carla didn't want him Ruben would quit women altogether. He needed to focus on football anyway and now he could do that without looking back.

The wood burned his back as he slumped down against it. Ruben groand as he grabbed his dick, squeezing it in the palm of his hand. He stroked it slowly up and down, trying to picture her face behind his closed eyelids. "Carla." He moaned. Along with upping the tempo of the stroking of his cock. His biceps clenched, already tired from his workout earlier. He pushed through, biting down on his lip as he did.

Her name escaped his lips when he came.

He felt pathetic.

Ruben felt pathetic and disgusting. He was careless too, having fucked Santina without a condom. But who knows, maybe she could have his baby? Ruben wanted nothing more than a family of his own. But if it wasn't with Carla perhaps it was never meant to be.

Part 9 and 10 are already out on my Patreon for Free!

[stubblesandwich]

Return To Me - Chapter 4

A/N: It was requested I post this here, as well, so here ya go! (Sorry if I double tagged anyone.) I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you endlessly to anyone still following this story. You have all my love.

Summary: Emma Swan is dying. Her last remaining hope is a heart-transplant, and those aren't easy to come by. But, as luck would have it, fate finds her worthy, and on a stormy autumn night, Emma is given a second chance at life.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Boston hospital, Killian Jones has been devastated by the sudden loss of his wife.

Inspired by the 2000 film of the same title with Minnie Driver and David Duchovny. Find on A03 here

++++++

Chapter Four - Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Three Weeks Post-Op 

Emma had been called a cynic plenty of times in her life. As it turned out, being pushed through the foster system for a decade and a half hadn’t exactly turned her into a beaming optimist. Like most cynics, she claimed she was actually a realist. She planned for the worst, because things tended to not work out that great for her, and hoped for the best. Sometimes she was pleasantly surprised. 

But in the litany of potential outcomes Emma had been preparing herself for, a new heart had never actually made the list. It was akin to winning the lottery, in her mind. Life had not been particularly kind to her. Yet, she had always taken her blows in stride, and she never took handouts. And the prospect of finally making it to the top of the transplant list at the age of twenty-six, after almost a decade of waiting, felt like a handout from life. 

Emma Swan had never been one to sit around waiting for handouts. 

There were other things she had prepared herself for. Increasing the handful of pills she took each day to keep her body from failing on her any faster. Moving from her full time job and supporting herself completely on her own to working part time, then very part time, to not at all. Getting on a government disability program. Each new punch to the gut from life she took in stride, as best she could. 

And through it all, righting her each and every time she stumbled, were David and Mary Margaret. They were some of the best, most genuine and caring people ever to be placed on planet earth. She didn't deserve them—there was a small, cruel voice in the back of her head that affirmed this for her every day. But they just kept showing up for her, and they wouldn’t leave, and they wouldn’t let her quit. 

As it turned out, after the first week, getting a whole new vital organ sewn into her chest wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be. By the third week, the pain was starting to subside, transitioning into a residual soreness, and her biggest struggle currently was not clawing at her incision every time it itched. When the skin itself didn’t feel like an odd mixture of both tight and numb, it felt ablaze with itchiness. It was all she could do not to scratch at it. (Every time she did, Mary Margaret would bark at her to stop it, or David would throw a random item in her direction. Most recently, it had been a box of tissues that had narrowly missed her head, and he threatened to get an extendable fly swatter to swat her with, as needed.) 

For the first time in her life, Emma was well and truly doted upon. She had family members who inarguably refused to leave her side. That is, of course, until Mary Margaret was forcibly removed by way of her impending school year start. 

She’d had almost a month left of her summer break when Emma had had her operation, and she had been able to push almost all of her classroom prep off until the very last minute. David helped her ready her room when he could, but Emma knew her friend was fraying at the seams from trying to do so much in such a short span of time. Mary Margaret had a handful of vacation days, but she hoarded them like a dragon for true emergencies, and worried constantly that if her students started off the school year with a substitute teacher, they would just end up watching movies all day instead of actually learning something. 

This was their last weekend before the new school year started and Mary Margaret went back to working full days. Emma was lounging on the couch, dozing, lidded eyes half focused on the episode of Friends quietly playing on the living room TV. She and Mary Margaret had just finished putting together twenty-five “Welcome back!” folders for her incoming students, as well as a second set for their parents. 

“Why couldn't they have been ready for you to have the surgery during the start of summer?” Mary Margaret lamented, as she plopped her last folder down on the pile.  “I would have had three months off to be here with you!” 

David glanced over at them from the pile of pans he was washing at the kitchen sink and gave his wife an odd look. “You do realize you're wishing the woman whose heart Emma has now had died earlier in the year instead of later, right?” 

Mary Margaret looked aghast. “No! Of course I don’t wish that. I didn't... I just meant...” 

David raised his eyebrows at her, but by now he was smiling gently at his wife. Mary Margaret huffed. A slightly awkward silence settled between the three of them. The fact that another person was dead and Emma was still alive because of it was something they all knew but typically left unsaid. David had said it out loud, and now the strangeness of that fact settled over them all heavily. 

“I wonder what she was like,” Emma murmured from her spot on the couch, puncturing the silence. “They couldn't tell me much. Well, couldn't or wouldn't, not sure which. All they said was that she was older than me, but not by too much, and in great health. Obviously we had to have the same blood type. But they couldn't tell me how she died, just that it didn't affect her heart.” 

“Probably head trauma,” David said sagely. Emma winced at the thought, but he was likely right. He had seen enough as an officer to know. Especially working night shifts, when the majority of car accidents took place in the area. 

“That sounds awful,” Mary Margaret said quietly.

“I'd never say I was glad someone else died,” David said after a while. “But I'm glad Emma's still with us.” The fact that these things were one in the same went unsaid. Mary Margaret reached over and squeezed Emma’s arm in gentle agreement with her husband. Emma glanced over at her and offered her sister-in-law a small smile, trying to convey to her without having to say it aloud that it was okay. 

But in truth, Emma was uncomfortable. It just made her feel so strange, knowing that for every happy moment she now got to have here with her family, someone out there was living new moments, making new memories, without their own loved one to share them with. Someone out there was grieving a tremendous loss—had lost a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife. The woman whose heart Emma now had could have been any one of those things, or all of them at once. She was presumably loved, adored, missed dearly. And Emma just didn’t know what to do with that information, how to carry these feelings with grace and proper gratitude. Often they \manifested in the form of guilt. David and Mary Margaret were quick to talk her out of that whenever it came up. That woman’s death meant something, they assured her. Part of her lives on, and part of her saved a life. That has to mean something to her family, right? 

They were right, Emma knew. David saw so much meaningless death in his line of work that she inherently believed him when he told her that it was a gift, her being able to use someone else’s heart. (She didn’t have the courage to ask him how he would feel about any of Mary Margaret’s vital organs going to someone else, if she died.) It was a guilt she carried nonetheless, and she carried it poorly. It was an awkward shape, this guilt, and heavy, and she didn’t know how to carry it well. It all too often made her fumble. 

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said Mary Margaret looked over at her sharply, instantly suspicious that Emma was still feeling off from the previous conversation, but Emma was quick to wave away her worry. “I’m fine,” she assured her. “Really. I just feel grimy, and I don’t want to taint the epicness of Last Dinner with my stink.” This was their last evening—Last Dinner—before Mary Margaret returned to work full time, and they were marking the occasion with David’s mother’s famous lasagna recipe, a favorite from David and Emma’s semi-shared childhood (and coincidentally the only meal David really knew how to make, but that was beside the point). 

“I second the vote for a shower,” David said, raising his hand in mock vote. 

“You would,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes that David didn’t even need to see to know was there. Mary Margaret started to rise with her, as if about to help her to her feet. “Relax, woman,” Emma said, putting her hand on her friend’s shoulder gently to stop her. “I’ve got it. I’m not a complete invalid.” 

“Jury’s still out,” came David’s response. 

Emma looked at Mary Margaret, half expecting her to admonish her husband, but Mary Margaret just stared up at her with poorly veiled anxiety. “I’m not!” Emma said. “Guys, it’s been almost a month.” 

“Three weeks,” Mary Margaret corrected. “Since you got a new heart. Not since you got your tonsils removed.” 

“Okay,” Emma said, stretching out her back a bit as she stood there, chasing a kink out between her shoulder blades. “Sure, it was a big surgery.” David scoffed from his place by the sink, and Emma shot him a warning look. “But the doctors even said I have to try to do more on my own. I think it’s safe to say that includes showering.” There was no argument from David on that one. Mary Margaret, on the other hand, looked unconvinced. 

“What if you slip and fall?” 

“I’ll be sure to have my Life Alert button handy,” Emma retorted wryly. “Seriously, guys, it’s okay. I can handle showering.” Before they could argue any further, Emma slipped away, locking herself in the bathroom.   

“Let me know if you need any help, okay?” Mary Margaret called through the door in a singsong voice only a few moments later. Emma swore she heard the doorknob jiggle, like her friend was testing to see if it was locked or not. It was, thankfully. Emma was already halfway undressed, and the last thing she needed was for her brother to get an accidental peep show because his wife thought Emma had already gotten stuck behind the toilet and died or something. “Emma?” 

Oh, my God, Emma mouthed to herself. “Thanks,” she called out. “I will!” That seemed to appease Mary Margaret. But the faint squeak of the bar stool at the kitchen island assured Emma she hadn't gone far. It was endearing, how much they worried about her. At least, that's what she told herself in the moments like this, when it was almost impossible to find even just two seconds of privacy. Sometimes, she really did feel like she was a little kid again. Only now, she was re-living a much different version of her childhood. A sweeter, kinder version wherein people actually wanted to take care of her and didn't think of her as a monumental burden. 

The tub's faucet squeaked shrilly as she turned on the water. When she’d first gotten home a week ago, just that motion, gripping the handle and giving the antique metal a yank, had left her arm feeling like a limp noodle. She was doing much better now, but she still felt pathetically weak and exceptionally out of shape. At one point, long ago, she had been fairly strong. A thin child, but always scrappy. Now she was a pale waif, muscles atrophied over the years as she'd gotten sicker. She vowed to herself that was going to change. Despite how frail she was, at the same time, she legitimately felt like she could take on the world now, with this new heart. She could finally breathe, take a breath fully in and out, without feeling lightheaded. That alone was a miracle.  

Gingerly, she lifted her tank top up over her head. Her scar, where a surgeon had cut into muscle and bone and forcibly ripped open her sternum, stood out, an angry red slash against alabaster skin. For the first few weeks, it had been concealed by gauze. By this point, it was still tender, but her doctor encouraged her to air it out often. She even had some skin mobility exercises she was supposed to be doing daily, to help the layers of tissue beneath the scar not permanently adhere to one another. The scar itself stretched from the top of her chest, dropping down in between her breasts, all the way past her sternum bone. It was a thick, gnarled thing, aesthetically ugly; but she found herself overwhelmingly grateful for it the longer she looked at it. As ugly as it was, this scar meant she was going to live to see her next birthday. 

Washing herself was still a slow, cautious process, but much easier than it had been when she’d first gotten out of the hospital. She took the time now to do her full, luxury, self care princess shower routine, something she hadn’t had the strength to do in months.  The venting system in the loft's tiny bathroom was terrible, and by the time she stepped out of the shower, steam cloaked the room like a fog. The sheer dampness of the air made her cough when she inhaled. Emma didn't care; she felt amazing. It was easy to underestimate how much better a good shower could make a person feel. She felt human again, instead of the fresh-from-the-hospital, invalid goblin she’d been feeling like for the past few weeks. Humming to herself, she dried off, turbaned her wet hair, and started to dress. 

David had the water running at the sink, and the apartment’s ancient radiator had kicked on next to the bathroom; when Emma finally opened the bathroom door, her brother and sister-in-law didn’t hear the faint creak of the old wood on its hinge as it started to open. 

“But you love your classroom.” David was saying in a low voice. It was clear he was trying to be fairly quiet, but this felt like intruding in on a conversation that had been going on for several minutes. Possibly the whole time she’d been in the shower. 

Emma didn't hear Mary Margaret sigh, but she could tell by the tone of her voice that her words had come on the end of one. “Of course I do,” she said, “And I really do miss my kids. But Emma needs me here. I can't just leave her! She just got a new heart, David. A heart. It's not like she had her wisdom teeth removed and just needs a day or two to get back on her feet.” 

The aforementioned heart skipped a beat in Emma's chest. A familiar, sinking feeling of guilt settled low and heavy in Emma's stomach. 

“But she will get back on her feet,” David said gently. “You know she will. She just needs time.” 

“Exactly! And she needs me here to help her until she does.” 

“No, she doesn't.” 

“David—” 

“Mary Margaret,” David interrupted lovingly. “She's going to be okay. Better than okay. This is the day we've all been waiting for, don't forget. She's getting a second chance at life here.” Unexpected tears welled in Emma's eyes at that. “And Emma knows that,” David continued. “You and I both know she's going to be chomping at the bit to get back out there. It's going to be hard enough keeping her here the six weeks it'll take for her to heal. She's not going to need our help half as much as you think she will.” 

Mary Margaret started to respond, but Emma couldn't take it anymore. She took the bathroom's old doorknob in her hand and gave it a good rattle, like she had just started to open it, and the door creaked loudly as she pushed it fully open. David and Mary Margaret grew hush until Mary Margaret piped up with, "Oh, hi Emma!" a little too brightly. David noticeably busied himself with cutting the garlic bread he’d pulled out of the oven moments before. The guilt at having eavesdropped coiled in Emma's chest like a snake ready to spring, and she swallowed around the lump that had grown in her throat. “Hey,” she said, trying her best to sound normal.

“Everything go okay?” Mary Margaret asked. “No dizziness?” 

“I didn’t hear the Life Alert alarm go off,” David said dryly, shooting his sister a wink. 

“I feel amazing,” Emma said earnestly. “Seriously.” She sidled up to her brother and successfully bumped him out of the way, taking over the cutting of the garlic bread despite his weak protestations. 

“Oh, good,” Mary Margaret breathed, and the relief was evident in her voice. She shared a glance with David, which Emma pointedly ignored, and moved to grab the stack of dishes waiting on the island so she could start setting the table. 

“I was thinking,” Emma went on, “Maybe I could come help you set up your classroom later today. If you think you need the help. Or I could just come keep you company, get a change of scenery.” 

“That sounds like a great idea,” David said, as he watched his wife’s expression. 

“That would be great, honestly,” Mary Margaret said, but was quick to add, “As long as you’re feeling up to it.” 

“I mean, as long as you don’t have me lugging around twenty-pound carts of Crayons or something,” Emma laughed, “I think I’ll be okay.” 

“Do fourth graders still use crayons?” David asked, as he popped open the oven one final time and withdrew the lasagna. The cheese on top was browning and bubbling and a minute away from burnt, just the way his mother had always cooked it, and the whole thing looked wonderful. 

“Not really,” Mary Margaret said with a shrug. “But it doesn’t matter. I have a big, handsome deputy to do all my heavy lifting for me.” She batted her eyes at her husband a few times, who grinned back at her. 

“All right, lovebirds,” Emma said, as she clicked the salad tongs at them a few times in playful warning. “Let’s eat. I’ve got my appetite back and I’m actually starving.” 

“Jeez,” David said, “You’d think she’d gotten a new stomach with the heart. She’s gonna eat us out of house and home now.”

Table set, food out, they took their respective seats. David uncorked a bottle of red wine he’d been saving for a special occasion, which Emma was definitely not allowed to have, but she told Mary Margaret to enjoy it for her. 

As Mary Margaret spooned squares of lasagna onto everyone’s plate, Emma took a moment to try to find the right words to say to convey how she was feeling to these people who would seemingly do anything in the world for her. But what she wanted most is for them to get back to living their lives, too. They had put off so much for her sake, and she was more grateful than she knew how to say. But it was time to move on now, to heal, for all of them. 

“I know it can suck, having such a huge surgery,” Emma started, pausing to clear her throat. “But this is different.” She glanced up at Mary Margaret, who was watching her closely. “I mean, a month ago, I was dying. I never told you guys this, but it just felt like the end. I was working on drafting a will.” 

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret said quietly. 

“That’s so morbid,” David said.

“I know it’s stupid.” Emma toyed with the end of her napkin as she stared down at her plate.  “I don’t really have anything to will to anyone. I was just going to leave anything I had to you guys.” She cleared her traitorous throat again and took a moment to blink back some tears. She needn’t have bothered; when she glanced up at her family, they were both openly tearing up as they looked at her. “Okay, stop,” she said, pointing her fork at them, “Or I’m going to lose it. Absolutely no crying in baseball.” 

“Got it,” Mary Margaret said, her voice watery and absolutely unconvincing. 

“Just… Thank you,” Emma said, when she finally got her voice back under control. “I don’t want to think about where I’d be without you both. From the bottom of both my hearts,” she said, with a wry little smile she couldn’t keep at bay, “Thank you.” 

David chuckled, wiping at his eyes, and Mary Margaret continued to stare at her, smiling and barely holding back the floodgates. “We love you, sis,” David said, and a moment later he raised his wineglass. “To Emma’s new lease on life.” Mary Margaret’s wine glass followed, and Emma clinked her water glass with theirs. 

“And Mary Margaret’s new school year,” Emma added. 

“Hear, hear,” Mary Margaret agreed. “I’ll take prayers, good vibes, anything you’ve got.” 

“You’re going to do great,” David assured her, as he put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her closer to kiss her cheek. “Those kids are lucky to have you.”

Dinner was splendid, and the company even better. It was the first full meal Emma was able to enjoy without feeling nauseated, which was a win in her book. She literally couldn’t think of the last time that had happened. Mary Margaret did indeed have Emma’s wine, and was perhaps a little tipsy when they later ventured out to put some finishing touches on her classroom, which just made it all the more enjoyable for Emma and David. 

And as Emma settled into bed that night, for the first time in a long time, she felt well and truly good. She felt full, warm, strong, and loved. And she knew, felt sure in her bones, that this was the start of one of the best years of her life. 

+++++

The funeral went as well as a funeral could--especially considering there was no actual body to bury. Milah had set it up long beforehand that all salvageable organs were to be donated to the nearest hospital at the time of her death, then the rest of her body donated to science. This made planning her funeral and memorial service a unique affair, as there was no body for a wake, no urn of ashes received. That he would receive later, whenever the hospital saw fit. So Killian honored his wife's memory the best way he could. 

Everyone who had ever known her in the past few years since she and Killian had moved Stateside was crammed into a small funeral home to celebrate her life and speak well of her. Her parents were long dead, but he had managed to get his hands on some childhood photos from her aunt who still lived across the pond; a small smattering of her extended relatives had sent cards to pay their respects. But the room was filled primarily with her coworkers and friends she’d made in the few years they’d lived in Boston. 

Milah had been a truly gifted photographer, both in her work and personal life, evidence of which sat neatly framed and displayed on nearly every available inch of table space in the room. All the best photos Milah had ever taken through her work had been printed and framed and displayed, tucked neatly between bouquets of flowers. One table was so long, it took up the entire back wall. 

Killian had almost, almost, completely lost the last tenuous grip he had on his sanity when the wrong flowers had come in that morning. He had distinctly ordered stargazer lilies, his wife’s favorite flower, for the table arrangements. Instead, what had been delivered to him were a rainbow assortment of Gerber daisies, of all things, which he viewed on this particular day as nothing short of an abomination. As it turned out, there had been a mistake with the delivery trucks, and his order had been sent to a birthday party instead. It probably should have embarrassed him, how angry a simple mix up of flowers had made him. But as he had very little pride left, he was literally seeing red, until Robin showed up beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and gently steered him out the side door and outside for some fresh air. Will took over, his general belligerence a helpful and actually useful tool that day, and tried to get the flowers sorted out with minimal shouting. 

As Killian stood now, gazing down at the myriad of perfect photos his wife had taken over the course of her career, he belatedly realized he had been the star of many of them, unbeknownst to him. His wife had apparently been a ninja behind her viewfinder when he wasn’t paying attention. It should have made him feel awkward, being the focal point of so many of her photographs; the last thing he wanted now was attention. And yet, he couldn’t help but smile at most of them. One of him leaning over the railing of a dock, for instance, staring pensively out at sea, squinting slightly in the light of the sun. Another of him from behind, a shadowed figure standing on the beach with his toes buried in the sand and his hands in the pockets of his shorts, staring out at the red slashed sky of an oncoming storm. He was the blurred, black clad figure in the background or at the helm in several photographs of the ships he and his brother had helped restore. 

It was visible, tangible proof of how much she had loved him, how often her camera found itself pointed in his direction, focused on him. And God, if that didn’t make him miss her all the more. His heart was an open wound, and he was never going to be able to staunch the flow from it. Day by day, he felt like he was bleeding out, until soon there would be nothing left of him. 

One photo, his favorite, and one that was already framed in his home, stood out prominently. His and his brother, Liam, in front of their first real score for the ship restoration foundation, a beautiful, towering piece of history in the form of a stunning antique merchant vessel. Liam’s arm was thrown over Killian’s shoulders, his face alight with absolute joy (and possibly the buzz from the beers they’d had over lunch). They were both squinting, laughing like fools at having finally pulled it off. Towering behind them, not to be overshadowed, was the ship, herself: the Jewel of the Realm. Milah had been sent by a local paper to get photos of the ship, and her new owners, as a focal point for a story on local maritime history. 

Killian felt fortunate he remembered that day so well. It had felt like the best day of his entire life, at the time. Seeing his brother so elated, after everything they had endured together, had been enough to send Killian to the moon. It felt like things were finally, finally going their way. He had taken to Milah instantly, and spent the hour regaling her with the history of the ship. A merchant ship, originally, but thought to have been used for piracy at one point. He leaned heavily into the implications of the latter fact, as he felt—rightly so—that it added intrigue, and Milah had been enamored with the Jewel. He'd joked that day about renaming it the Jolly Roger, much to his brother's chagrin. She’d had other work to get to that day, so she hadn’t stayed long, but she’d given him her business card, which he still carried in his wallet. Liam had been killed shortly after, on one of his last missions with the Royal Navy before his scheduled retirement. Everything had changed, then. But Killian had always felt especially lucky that it had been Milah that day who had come to take their photo. For one short hour, she had been able to meet his brother, before Killian had lost him forever. The stars had aligned, and for one short span of time, the man who had meant the most to him and the woman who would come to mean everything to him had met, briefly. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things, but to Killian, it had to be enough. 

And then there were the glorious photos of the rest of the ships he had brought on through the years. He had always marveled at Milah’s skill behind a camera, her ability to find just the right angle, at just the precise time of day, to truly capture the essence of the ships he restored. Through her eyes, even the in-progress pictures never made them look like pieces of floating shit, which some of them very much were at the start of the process. She managed to make them look like hidden treasure, just waiting to be uncovered. Pieces of history waiting to be lovingly restored to their former glory. That’s what he’d felt like, with her. She’d been the one to see past his flaws after the death of his brother, to see something worth loving in him, something worth restoring. 

And now what was he, without her? 

The frequent looks of sympathy that came his way over the course of the memorial service were one of the worst parts of the day. Each and every concerned glance that flit in Killian's direction was threaded not only with heavy condolences, but something much worse: pity. And he knew he was a pitiable sight, indeed. He was dressed well enough, in a deep black suit Milah had bought for him after his business had another big break. But, his arm with the broken collarbone was still in a sling and had no hand at the end of it. Dark circles cradled his eyes, which seemed to be permanently bloodshot these days. He had given up almost entirely on sleep.

Sleeping felt impossible, an insurmountable task despite its simplicity; the bed was too big, too cold, and too empty when he was the only one in it. He tried—really tried. Each night, he made a valiant attempt to sleep in his own bed. He'd toss, turn, and generally do a lot of staring up at his ceiling. Eventually, he resorted to Netflix. But his “recently watched” list was full of her favorite shows, episodes half finished, series just begun. It was a terrible distraction. 

The first week after he arrived home from the hospital, his recliner chair in the living room had been the only place he could comfortably fall asleep with his arm in a sling. It was a lumpy, unsightly thing he had inherited from his brother (it was this reason and this reason alone his wife had allowed him to keep it.) Milah had called it his old man chair. These days, he’d often fall asleep in the chair, wake up with a start an hour later, and make his way to the couch, where he’d try to fall back asleep, but would mostly lie awake, staring into the dark, letting his mind off its leash and letting it wander to dangerous places. 

Often these thoughts centered on what he would do if he could track down the driver who had hit them head on, then fled the scene. What he would do when he found him or her varied. Sometimes, he pictured lighting him on fire. The next moment, he'd revel in the thought of running him through with a knife, watching him slowly bleed out on the floor. Or he’d take his hand from him, too. Such thoughts kept him company and carried him through until morning. 

Now, with the lack of sleep and the general dissociation he felt, he often didn’t feel cemented in reality. When he looked around the room, taking in the funeral parlor, it felt like this was happening to someone else, and he was merely observing. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by a sea of people who didn't know what to say to him. The moment never came that he was spared the awkward indignity of a conversation with someone who had little else to say other than I'm sorry. 

She was a lovely person. 

(Each time, he bristled at the use of the past tense.)

She'll be missed. 

Pity had overtaken the room, lingering like a dense fog. Everywhere he turned, his friends, her friends, co-workers, even a handful of people he had never seen before in his life, were all wearing the same expression on their faces. It transcended simple pity. It was next-level pity, flashing from their eyes and those slight down-turned corners of their mouths like a brightly-lit billboard in the night that read "YOUR LIFE DEPRESSES ME." 

He couldn't blame them. He pitied himself, too, when he wasn't numb, pulled down so deep into his own despair he could no longer think straight.

At least the food was decent—or so he had been overhearing. One quick glance over at Will Scarlet in the back of the room, face stuffed with h'orderves, told him the funeral parlor's appetizers couldn't have been terrible. If there had ever been a time he appreciated his friends more, he couldn't think of it. Of all the people who had shown up to the service, Locks and Scarlet were the only two who didn't make him want to scream. Or run. Or throw a punch. All of it, all at once. 

Will and Robin sat apart from the rest, in a pair of wingback armchairs in the corner of the room. Killian hadn't had a chance to speak to either of them, apart from initial hellos and quick hugs when they'd first arrived, and of course the ordeal with the flowers, but somehow, he knew without even asking they intended to stay for the entire affair, likely planning to take him out for a drink when this was all over.

What else do you do for your best friend after his wife's funeral?

All in all, it wasn’t a very hopeful affair, and too often bordered on bleak. Killian had no words in honor of Milah he wanted to share with a roomful of people who didn’t know her very well, and he didn’t trust himself to speak without breaking down. So, people ate, drank, and made a reserved and somber form of merry. They swapped stories back and forth, each offering up little pieces of the woman they had known.

Milah's parents had died years ago, and she had no siblings, so the room was occupied primarily by people she had thought of as friends. That was a nice thought, and in the coming weeks, Killian would be touched by the food, flowers, and cards that continued to arrive on his doorstep in memory of his wife. 

But here, in this moment, he couldn't bring himself to find hope in anything. 

+++++++

One Year Later 

Was a house truly haunted if you didn’t mind the ghost?

It felt like a haunting for months after Milah’s funeral, this limbo state he found himself in, where he couldn’t bring his heart or his brain to fully comprehend that she was gone. They traded shifts in misunderstanding, his heart and brain. There were days where, logically, he understood his wife was dead. And yet, his heart still leaped at the sound of a car door shutting outside, or an imagined creak in the floorboards that sounded like her coming around the corner in the hall. Other days, his heartache was so profound, he could barely muster the strength to get out of bed. All too often, he’d forget, and for a few blissful minutes, reach for his phone to call her and ask her a question. Those were beautiful moments, the forgetting. But the remembering that followed took his breath away. 

Then there were the things around the home he couldn’t bring himself to toss. Notes she’d left on the fridge, a grocery list on the table. Leftovers from her favorite meal at their favorite restaurant he couldn’t bring himself to throw away until they were fouling up the whole kitchen. Her phone was recovered from the accident and eventually made its way to him, via the detectives working the hit and run case. He went through her email drafts, texts, anything he could get his hands on that held pieces of Milah. He'd saved every voicemail she'd ever left him, had them memorized, and he'd play them when he missed her most, poking the bruise in his heart over and over until it numbed and didn't hurt so much. It all felt relatively harmless, like doing this to himself couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. 

Until he found himself practically sobbing the floor of the shower one morning over a soggy clump of her hair he’d pulled from the drain. 

He just couldn’t seem to pull himself together. 

How do you bring yourself to purposefully excavate traces of someone from your life, after they’re gone, until it was like they weren’t even there at all, the life you shared existing only in snapshots and memories? How exactly does one get to that place, force yourself to loosen your grip on all you have left of the person you love, the person you’d give anything to see one last time? Killian couldn’t fathom it. He couldn’t picture himself ever ridding himself completely of Milah’s memory. 

But he could stop leaving land mines for himself. 

He’d always run a tight ship at home, in terms of cleanliness. He had never had much, by way of possessions, and wasn’t sentimental about keeping things. Now he found himself debating whether or not he should keep a note in the bathroom his wife had scrawled out for herself to remind herself to order new contacts. These were the silly, useless things he stared at for minutes on end, debating what to do with. This little scrap of her pretty handwriting he recognized and loved. The thought of it winding up in a landfill somewhere made him ill. 

Eventually, he gathered these random scraps and pieces of her he’d found (except the clump of hair from the drain—that one did make it into the waste bin, thankfully) and gently shepherded them into a large Ziploc bag, which he kept in a box on her side of the closet. 

Robin and Will called often, texted even more often, and even dropped by now and again. They offered their help constantly, gladly would have helped with menial tasks like this (like throwing away scraps of paper Milah might have touched, God, he was a mess), but he turned them away each time. He just wanted to shut the world out, encase himself in a tomb of his own grief. 

He hadn’t even been able to see her, to say goodbye to her, because he hadn’t been bloody conscious for it. He had no memory of Robin telling him of her death; in the week following the accident, he left a slew of traumatized nurses in his wake as people had to tell him again and again for what felt like the first time that his wife was gone. 

Milah, bless her ever-loving soul, had signed herself up to be an organ donor. Of course she had. On some level, he knew this. It was marked on her driver’s license, and it was surely something they had talked about at one point. But now he resented it, resented the whole idea of it. He resented anything that didn’t allow him to see his wife one last time. One doctor had had the absolute audacity to tell Killian that he didn’t want to see his wife, anyway; the damage from the accident had been too great, the brunt of which had gone to her head, and that it was a miracle her heart was still beating enough to allow for any organ transplants. Killian, for his part, had an entirely different definition of the word “miracle”. 

So he waited to receive her ashes, held a funeral without her body. But he certainly didn’t wait patiently. 

He wonders sometimes what she would think of what he's become. No doubt there would be times she'd laugh at how ridiculous he was being, debating on keeping an old, wet clump of her hair like some kind of serial killer, and the subsequent guilt he felt at throwing it away, this gross little piece of her DNA. 

And yet, he reminds himself that there is, oddly, more of her DNA out there somewhere. Somewhere, out in the world, a select few of her vital organs are in new bodies, presumably thriving and keeping their hosts alive and well. Presumably, there are people out there who will be forever grateful for these pieces of his wife. Actual, living pieces of her. Killian has no idea how to feel about that, truly. There will come a day, when he is able to pull himself out of this darkness that perpetually feels more crushingly inescapable by the day, that he is able to see the true and abundant beauty in it. Milah, gone, but literal parts of her living on, providing life-giving support to someone else’s body and soul. That's the true miracle, really, and something he’d know she would be proud of. 

For now, in the depths of his despair, he feels annoyed, indifferent at best. Her benevolent medical and scientific donation was, for many long months, the thing standing between him and a proper burial for his wife, the thing that stood in the way of closure and him being able to say goodbye to her properly. This is the thing his mind latched onto, chooses as a target for his blame. 

Closure arrives on his doorstep one afternoon, boxed and bubble wrapped, in the form of an unassuming black urn. When he finally received her ashes, half a year after her death, he knew what he would do with them, knew immediately what she would want him to do with them. But he can’t yet bring himself to say goodbye, and the urn sat above their fireplace for months. This is the moment it hits him, truly, that she is gone. This is what it takes for it to finally sink in. He spends a long time building up the courage, brick by brick, to do what he needs to do. And as what would be her 37th birthday approaches on a warm July day, he finally gathered the strength to lay his wife to rest and honor her the way she deserved. 

What he doesn’t appreciate about the day, however, is the weather, which turns out to be an absolutely perfect New England summer day, which Killian very much resented. 

It was almost like it was mocking him. Jabbing a bright, sunshiny finger right into his face and laughing at his grief, which still, even almost a year after the death of his wife, was still a wound that had left him hollowed. When his brother had died, suddenly and with too much life left unlived, he'd felt like the ground itself had been pulled out from under him, and he'd been left in free fall. Now, with Milah gone, it felt as if his heart had been ripped right out of his chest and crushed in front of him. 

How did people live like this? 

If he were truly honest with himself, Killian wasn't certain what he was doing each day could actually be called living. He was alive, sure. Most days, the only thing that kept that from being true was the unknown lurking behind the veil of death. He had his own theories, his own hopes, for what awaited in a possible afterlife, but of course, no one really knows for sure until their time comes. He couldn't be sure what would happen to him, whether or not he'd see Milah, if he died tomorrow. Hell would be dying and not being reunited with her. And that was a hell whose existence he was not quite ready to test. 

The closest thing he had to his wife now was resting in his lap, ashes encased in ceramic. He had taken a small, private sailboat out to sea, sailed until there was no one else in sight, trying to find a good spot to release her ashes to the ocean she had loved so much. It had been close to two hours, now; he knew he was putting off the inevitable. If he didn’t do it now, he feared, with good reason, that he never would.

The best part about giving someone’s ashes to the sea was that there wouldn’t be one particular spot where her body would be laid to rest. The waves would take the dust of her and spread it for him, from shore to shore, just like they had taken his brother’s ashes. There would be no headstone, but the ocean itself would remind him of her, and he could visit her anytime he liked on a sea that had always brought him a sense of serenity. 

Killian Jones had never believed in soul mates until he’d met Milah.  And he still didn't quite believe in them, in the traditional sense. He didn't believe in a ready-made mate just waiting for him to find her. No, in his experience, life was far from ever that easy or that simple. But things had changed for him when he'd met his wife. Then, with her love, the broken pieces in him, irrevocably shattered the day his brother had died, shifted together into something that could almost be held together again. With her, he’d felt more whole than he could ever remember feeling in his life. 

She had been married at the time, when they’d met. Daydreaming of leaving her terrible husband, dreams which grew in intensity with each passing day. And while she hadn't exactly left him for Killian, she may has well have. Everything had changed for her that day, too. 

For while Milah had been his partner, they hadn't met each other and been perfectly content. But they had made each other stronger, in all the ways that counted. Now he believed wholeheartedly that soul mates existed. But they weren't found, ready made and prepackaged. They were made, forged through love and hard work working hand in hand. 

These were the things he thought, as the gentle salted breeze ruffled his hair and brought stinging tears to his eyes. As he looked down at the urn that held the last physical piece of the woman he’d loved, would always love, was lost and adrift without. 

“I love you, Milah,” he whispered to the wind. The tightness in his throat and jaw wouldn’t let him say more, but he knew he didn’t need to. She’d known how much and how fiercely he’d loved her, and he had to think that wherever she was, she still knew the hold she had on him. 

He held the urn against his chest with his prosthetic hand, working to unscrew the top. The breeze calmed at just the right moment, and as he leaned over the side of the ship to release Milah to the sea she'd loved, the dust of her settled gently down into the water. 

=========

gonna tag a few folks who I think might care this is up (again, sorry if I already tagged you!) @spartanguard @sunbeamsandmoonrays @caprelloidea @kmomof4 @queen-mabs-revenge @ahsagitarius @galadriel26 @t-tamm-

@lavendersoapsuds @its-imperator-furiosa @midnightswans @cigarettes-and-scotch-whisky @withheartfulloflove @captainswan-middlemist @sarahreadsff @princesseslikepirates @winterbaby89 @pirateherokillian @wordslovedreams

@hannah-mic @thecraftyartist @blackwidownat2814 @once-uponacaptain @kylalovesbabeme @swiftmicheles @emmaswanstlk @captainswanslay

@the-tones-of-wallflowers @kday426 @krystalsficpage

[manonamora-if]

The Roads I Maybe Should Have Taken

The TRNT Post Mortem

Oye oye! As was promised, so it is! The Post Mortem for The Roads Not Taken (which hopefully won't be as long as the actual game...)

Follow me into my journey of once again speed-running my way through a competition, and coming out scratched and bruised and still not learning my lessons!

First, some links:

if you haven't played the game yet, I recommend you do before reading this!

you can find its IFDB page here (if you want to leave a review?)

and the STF version source code here for the code curious!

shortened version of the PostMortem on IntFic

Then, a little Table of Content:

The Idea

The Story

The Implementation

The Reception

The Do-Over?

And finally, we start! (under the break because it will be long - LoL at me writing 1/5th of TRNT as a Post Mortem)

I should preface this Post Mortem with I entered the SpringThing on a whim. I had just come out of a conga line of competitions and game jams since last Summer (log of release/update), and had plans on finishing working on other projects instead of this one (which I probably should have... sorry The Rye in the Dark City for abandoning you...). But I obviously didn't do that because here was another new fresh game! And then another two of those just after... whooops...

The idea for TRNT just popped into my brain one day and would not leave me until I implemented it, no matter what (yes, I am still weak willed, I have not learned my lesson from The Thick Table Tavern, the one about not rushing a project and publishing it at a later date when it is truly ready). I did have that thought in the back of my mind that if I do do this, it would be very likely I would end up with a repeat of TTTT, as in: half-full drink with too much ice, and expired garnish falling from the very pretty fancy glass.

Also I did not start working on the entry until the SeedComp was in its voting round (so around the 4-5th of March?). I really wasn't kidding about the speed-running thing....

Another thing: I had never created a parser game before this point AND suck real time at playing them! This was also indicated in my Author's comment.

Nothing obviously stopped me anyway, because here we are...

1- The Idea

A few weeks before the opening of the SpringThing intent, the French IF community was streaming some older parser entries, including Aisle* and Pick-Up the Phone Booth and Die, two games where the player can only do one action before the game ends. I'd never really experienced this kind of game before (the closest being having a sudden death/continue the story choice). It packed a punch, it was funny, and also so very weird. It left me dissatisfied and super intrigued. I wanted to try and do that too someday. *Funnily, someone on the French IF discord thought DOL-OS had been inspired by Sam Barlow's work (it wasn't, but TRNT def was).

Not, I am not going to be hella pretentious and full of myself by putting TRNT on the same level as those games (because I don't think I did a good enough job to merit a comparison), but the one-action-only gameplay and multiple endings drew me in (I love abrupt endings, cf P-Rix). I've mainly written longer form of IF rather than short bites, and I thought it would be fun to try to constrict myself as much as possible, by having just one thing, one action, one outcome.

And also: parsers. I had only dabbled with the Choice-Based/Hyperlink format, so I thought it was time to try the last unexplored part of my IF journey: parsers. Since the SpringThing Festival is a nice place to experiment, I thought why not try to make one then! I could not have survived the anxiety of the IFComp reviews for that one...

Still, it was not going to be without a challenge. I had very little experience with parsers, and I honestly didn't think I could learn how to use a parser program in such short amount of time*, when I had a lot of other stuff at the same time. So I thought, why not make it in Twine**, at least I know this program inside-and-out(almost). There would not be a steep learning curve there... What could go wrong? *lol at me, having made an Adventuron game in a non supported language in about 2 weeks after that, without ever having tried the program beforehand. I could totes have managed!! **Also, when I got set with Twine, I realised how fun it would be to maybe put people's expectations upside down by doing something you're not supposed to with Twine... or parsers!

Well, it was going right at first...

2- The Story

I really wanted to recreate the same gameplay of Aisle with its only-one-action-and-it's-over, so I started listing possible actions and put them into a context where this choice of action would mean everything for the PC - because it is the only action you have. Which might not have been a good take? Aisle works because the setting is incredible mundane, and there are no stakes.

The context pretty quickly drew itself as the player will chose a profession/career path, and if they do/choose something wrong, then...😬too bad for them, they made their choice, deal with the consequences. While, in reality, we are not stuck in a life because of one choice, but with a myriad of them (and still we can change this trajectory), it's still a big pressure you get as a youth, having to choose where to go and what to do when you are done with highschool, and what path to take. It's a lot of responsibility that sometimes feels like it will affect/haunt the rest of your life. Do I still have some of that school/parental pressure from when I had to make that choice ingrained somewhere inside? probably...

But the more foolish idea was to let my brain continue to think more about that context and create a world and story further than the choice. Instead of going forward with the consequences and the hints of what could have happened or just let the choice being the centre piece, the brain just went backwards and created a society (some sort of futuristic one) and vaguely described beings (that are not humans), and the ritualistic culture of this society, etc... While it was fun to think about all of those, and maybe provided a fun setting and enticing story for the player to go through the game, there might have been a bit too much of it. I think, in hindsight, this may have devalued the choice itself (which became even more watered down when I continued on writing the first screens).

And so, the job choice soon became the player is going through some sort of ritual (v trope-y) to determine their place in society. If it has a vibe of The Giver, it shouldn't be too surprising, the book is on my shelf.

So we still have the one-choice-to-rule-them-all, but now there is a also backstory and setting... and I have to include it somewhoeeven if it means cramming it somewhere, anywhere.

Oh wait, I thought, I'll just make it like a prologue to build anticipation for the choice!

And so the brain went on zooming again to create the waiting room, and the agonising walk in the corridor, and the finding your way to the altar, before you cant finally make your choice..... only to end up with two(-ish) paragraphs for each endings. wow - what a good balanced game this is becoming...

Speaking of endings, I had originally listed over 50 actions, each planned to have a different ending.... only to end up with about 11, 7 of those were actually related to the final countdown choice. It made me sadder than when I cut onions :(

It wasn't just the player that needed to make...

At this point, we were two weeks away from the deadline. I had the backbone of the code (-ish), a good third of the writing wasn't complete (and this was mainly those 11 endings), and no one had tested the game yet. There was no way I could have included all 50 original options if I wanted to make the deadline. might have been good in hindsight to remove those choices, especially with the current command system.

So choices had to be made and a buttload of planned things had to be cut. I narrowly managed to finish the needed endings in time (which required re-writing some of those into a fake choice), at least.

At the end, I strayed quite a bit from the Aisle concept of a mini intro - one action - an ending puzzle-y feel (and making the player piece the story together from the endings), to arrive at... well... this anxiously geolian walk to one's doom (or dream). Making the story quite... well... linear.

And from going somewhat wrong, it went a little wrong-er...

3- The Implementation

Wanting to avoid the headache of learning a new program, I had settled on Twine pretty much from the start (SugarCube, because that's how I've been rolling for the past almost 2 years!).

The big problématiques of this project were:

Twine is not a parser program (duh)

SugarCube has its limitations still (and macros that don't always work the way you want to)

I had never written a parser game before and suck at playing them (thank you, French IF streams that helps me enjoy them without experiencing the frustration of not finding the right combo!)

I still suck at JavaScript/jQuery to do weird things with the page (and probably fix all those issues)

and well did I already say Twine is not a parser program?

So I tried to get to the basic of parsers (an input box and text revealing itself onto the page when a command is entered) and prayed for the best. Easy, right?

WRONG!

SugarCube has an input box, but can only autofocus* inside one specific place (so you can't lock it somewhere else but the passage itself, which means you need to add it to every screen...) and when the passage is first loaded (doesn't work if the input box is added later on). *I have also hurt some kitten by overusing autofocus, which was only compensated by offering the the SugarCube God some bug reports about it so those issues could be fixed for the next update (TBA). But you really are not supposed to use autofocus as much as I did... 😬

SugarCube has an input box, but you can only move to another passage after you press Enter. So you can't have some fancy input checks, and you stay on the same page... without some custom listener macro* that is (Bless you Maliface and your Listen Macro) - or I guess some JavaScript code, but who has time for that... I had included a button as an alternative to confirm the commands (which was how I had coded it for DOL-OS), but it would have made the parser experience much worse if using Enter would not have loaded a response (this was a criticism from DOL-OS, which now that I know how to fix, I really should do so...). *at least until the next Sugarcube update which will include a listener.

SugarCube has an input box, but doesn't have a bank of commands, or set object indicator (like with the parsers). While you can technically separate the inputed words with some JavaScript**, whether you do so or not will end with the same amount of spaghetti code at the end, with the different conditional statements for each actions on each screen to show the correct text bits (mine amounted to almost 600 lines of code for 7 screens... without included the printed text! -> see the source code). Now that I've messed around with Adventuron, I can see how easy it is to make a parser game (set up commands and rooms and interactive object), when you have a bank of built-in commands and not have to worry about how to add the new text on the screen. Twine really added a new layer of complexity to this.... Was there a better way of doing this? probably, but don't look at me to find it. *this was how the name chosenname command came to be, and how it only printed the chosen name on the following screens. That and the autofocus being messy...

SugarCube can add text bits to a page, but unlike parser programs, it won't automatically scroll down to the bottom of the page, or at least to the added element. Adding a scroll down to the bottom or scroll up to the page was not too hard (I had some leftover js code), but it was not the solution: the UI is mobile/tablet accessible (smaller screens), which means scrolling to the bottom would make those players having to manually scroll back up (and I am usually quite verbose in my writing). So very much EH.... NOT GREAT! After quite a lot of testing, broken pieces of code, way too much swearing, and re-doing the base of the UI, I did manage to find a solution.... a month into the review/voting period.

But even with those limitations, I pushed through. I knew it was possible to make it work, so I either tried to find work arounds (and gave up the scrolling, at least until the deadline), and pushed through, banging my head against my desk because of what was achievable...

LIKE BUILDING A WHOLE COMMANDS SYSTEM...

Wanting to make things easy for myself (and the players), I thought maybe removing all verbs would make it easier to go through the game, even when having to interact with objects or people around. Enter the bolded word* from the text as the input, press enter, and read the new text! *It was important for me to have some sort of "easy" mode where the interactive things were obvious to the player, coming from a scene where parsers are not the norm/favoured.

Simple right?

This idea... stopped working as soon as I introduced physical actions (sit, stand, jump, etc...), directional actions (the story might be linear but it still has multiple rooms), but most importantly as soon as I wrote flavour texts for one same object. Even if I could get away with removing X/LOOK/EXAMINE*, adding verbs at the end was a necessity (I didn't want to see all the already written variation go to waste...). *I did include look in the code, but mistakenly didn't think about its synonym <- shows the no-knowledge of parser, and not having a bank of commands built-in.

So verbs were added, and then some of its synonyms (but evidently not the most important ones 😬), and then some prepositions just in case, and noun synonyms with adjectives because of how it is described in the text, and then.... so on and so forth. And because of how SugarCube is set, I ended up with lines like this at the end:

<<if ["initiate", "look initiate", "look at initiate", "remember initiate", "initiates", "look initiates", "look at initiates", "remember initiates", "recall initiate", "recall initiates"].contains(_cmd)>>

(and this is not even a correct or complete command list, since it is missing EXAMINE and X)

Et rebelotte for all the interactive words on the page, as well as the added variations requiring another set other verbs. There's not really a verb/noun aliases list to help...

BUT WAIT

Because I always like to make it difficult for myself and not think of the amount of work my ideas/plan will require, I had to make some bits of text appear only once (even if some commands could be used more than once on that page) OR removing the player's ability to make a different action when they do a specific one AND have some bits of text only appear after a command has been used on that page. Pushing the player through extra invisible gates on top of the different rooms. I could have made it easier on myself to break scenes further than I had already done, but nooooooo

And I did this not just once. BUT THREE TIME! When the player is called to get in line, in the corridor, and just before the big doors.

I could have fed myself for a whole week with the spaghetti that came out of my code.

But Manon, I can hear the little devil on my shoulder say, Why all the whining and excuses? You could have stopped if it turned out to be a bad idea, especially if you couldn't implement it properly. Why not have made the story in something else than a parser?

Well...

because Time (wa)s running out and I wasn't going to let all this hard work go to waste by changing everything up at the last minute (it could have worked/been easier, that's true)

because it was still a fun puzzle to solve, even if frustrating most of the time,

because you learn more when you fail than when you win

I'm not a quitter :P (hiding my too many WIPs waiting for me....)

Even if I doubted myself with finishing the game on time, I still pushed myself to cross the finish line, since I knew I would not have finished the project otherwise. Thought it could have been fun to get the 12 angry men passing judgement on my Twine monstrosity making a mockery of parsers had I submitted it to the very serious ParserComp instead. /jk lovingly

So after some "extensive" testing (rushed in the last week, because I am a nightmare to people, sorry @groggydog and @lapinlunairegames for making you go through this, but also thank you for your help!!), I made it to the end!

Well... barely. Ended up with a few bug fixes update along the way.

4- The Reception

(it was like that in my heart)

Like TTTT, this was not explosion of praise and accolades. And I fully expected it. You can't make experiments omelettes without cracking a few programs/rules eggs. At least my omelette didn't have too many eggshells :P

Looking at the numbers, at the time of writing this posts, TRNT is currently sitting at 5 stars (4 ratings) on itch, and 3-1/2 stars on IFDB (2 ratings)*, with 4 reviews on the Forum (bellow the median/average this festival). None of the ratings game with reviews/comments. *When some of the reviews will be moved to the IFDB, I do expect this average to get lower. The itch one is nice (really happy 4 peeps loved it!), but most people only rate when they didn't like it or when they loved it.

As for the feedbacks gotten, they came from a few sources: the people who playtested TRNT, dms on Tumblr and the Forum, the Twine server, and the awaited reviews on the Forum.

Overall, the people who liked the game really enjoyed themselves, from the writing and the worldbuilding being intriguing, or how pretty the UI was. Even with the issues raised during the festival, quite a lot of people (who sent me comments) thought the experiment was either a success, something really cool, or impressive considering the limitations (of the festival and/or of the program). Even in the more critical comments, this experiment was seen as an interesting one to be commended (with a bit of a why did you bother... sprinkled in there). Someone told me TRNT reminded them of the Divergent series (and fair comparison, considering the whole ritual to put you in one job for the rest of your life).

The most surprising thing was that people who never played parser before (or didn't really liked them) found the game entertaining and fun to go through, managing to get to the end without too many issues; while the reviewers with more experience in the genre had a bit more restraints due to the command system I put in place.

Whether my giddiness about verbose writing was to the liking of the player or not, I was honestly happy comments about my grammar didn't make much of an appearance this time around (yay, progress!), and that I would get kudos for the vague story behind the experiment itself, and the structure of the story itself.

But this doesn't mean that it was all sunshine and rainbow here. TRNT had some obvious issues, which should have been squashed during the testing phase had this one been longer (yet again, me speed-running through comps when I should take my time... when will I learn...). There were two main ones: the commands and the UI.

The biggest issue came from the commands, being either unclear or confusing, especially when it came to the cardinal direction, the choice of synonym for the actions, or special actions like the name input. Even if you could go along the story with just a noun or press C until you reached the end, missing important verb commands did not help the game feel complete (EXAMINE/GET/the shortcuts). This is where having some Parser knowledge/experience would have come handy, he.... As for the cardinal directions, it was probably most confusing because I used them as synonyms for forward/back/left/right instead of N/S/W/E (that and it wasn't clear where you were able to go in the text either). Quite a few players were also getting stuck in the corridor (after you come to a stop, you hear some thing up front and your choices are to move to the side/jump or stand still). Special actions like the name input or the final choice were felt a bit off/broke immersion. Party due to the way SugarCube is, partly due to how I organised the game. Having a simple input where the player is asked for their name before the game start and have a say name command, might have worked better there. That and a better hinting system. Fix for those TBD.

Closely followed was the UI being annoying (which ;-; bc I pride myself on creating good UI, but it was fair critique), from the scrolling being an absolute ass, to the confusing bolding of the start of passages being the same as the interactive words (if you didn't change the colour in the settings), to the back/replay last choice command on the END screen not going to the right spot, or the responses of computing an inputted command not appearing/being confusing (in relation to the scrolling), some quirks with the UI being wonky for some screen sizes, etc... Thankfully, all those have been fixed.... but too late for the reviews already published. A quick revamp of the UI base + solving the scrolling issue + slight reformatting of the printed new text bits solved if not all of those issues. Still... too little too late... That's what you get for making a UI in a large screen and only checking different width but not different heights....

A SIDENOTE ON WHY PARSER AND NOT HYPERTEXT

Or me going a bit on a rant. Scroll down to pt 5- The Do-Over to resume coherent levelled conversation.

Still, making a parser a Twine was a CHOICETM, which didn't work for everybody. I don't know if it was because the game was put forth as a Twine game before being a parser, or because the story was maybe a bit too linear/not very interactive compared to other parsers, or because I set out to make a parser before thinking of a story and it showed for some, (or probably because the parser system was not very well implemented) but I did have a few commenters wondering if my choice of making it a parser was the correct one, as in why would you use parser when hyperlinks would have probably worked better?

Maybe a cop-out answer would be Why not. Why not try to break the rules and the codes of what is a Twine game or what is a parser? Why not push Twine to where it is probably not supposed to go (sorry, TME)? Why not blur the lines of the divides between the subgenres of IF? I wrote some part while having a bit of a fever, and my notes had Why not make parsers less puzzle-y/more linear choice-based like? and oh boi is it good to re-read yourself... Cause yiekes what a load of BS.

The other part of the answer is Because experimenting and doing weird thing is fun! Doing weird thing, writing bad code that should probably not work but it does, putting the program on a lifeline, making up stories that are nonsensical, etc... and breaking people's mind in the process with what could be done. Also it was just fun to find out whether it was just possible to do it at all. The rush of happiness when you the puzzle is solved is so incredibly gratifying. It was really fun to try something different (for me but also for what Twine can generally do), to solve a puzzle of mashing two things that don't/shouldn't go together, to find what makes them tick and make it all work, and to challenge myself to do something new (did I mention before it was my fist time making a parser?). AND, having fun creating! And the SpringThing has always been a beacon to promote experimentation with the genre and more out there stuff. So it's was kind of like the stars aligned or something :P

Also Because it was possible!That one is pretty self-explanatory...

Maybe a bit more presumptuous of me: Because experimenting keeps Interactive Fiction fresh and exciting! I'm not trying to set a trend or anything here (honestly, it's not too strange, TRNT's weirdness kind of follows my previous work with TTTT and its mixology element, or DOL-OS with it computer interphase), but isn't fun to see what else can be done in IF, or what new area can be explored now that funky stuff has been tried, or what else should probably not be done (hopefully this doesn't apply to TRNT lol, I think it should be fun to have more parser in Twine). Even if my entry was not really a novel idea even in the gameplay (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C), I still think there should be more weird stuff out there, so I contribute to that where/when I can! It'd be sad if IF became same-y and stale... It'd be fun if someone did something like this because they played TRNT and thought it was neat :P

And Because it didn't fit with my original vision of the game. Even if the game changed quite a lot along the way, the parser element was something I would not compromise with, no matter how good or bad the final product was. Sorry TME for the kittens lost in the autofocus of the textboxes...

I did wonder for a while how many people opened the settings at all 🤔

5- The Do-Over?

Ha.

Haha.

Hahaha.

No.

Honestly... If I was going back to the start, I don't think I would change anything. Even if the length of the testing was more than minimal (still haven't learned my lesson), even if I rushed into the competition (again, not learned my lesson), even if I made errors along the way (well, maybe fixing the UI earlier instead) or let the story stray that much away from the original idea (honestly it was probably for the best that it ended not being too close to Aisle at the end, I might have gotten eviscerated in the reviews). It did what it was supposed to do, and checked all the boxes from what I wanted to try. At the end, to me, it was a complete (and stressful success).

Will there be some changes in the future?

Just a bit, at some point, TBD and TBA. Just to fix the commands a bit, maybe rearrange some passages, add a bit more variation/hidden codex entries, maybe even a new ending or two! But it wouldn't go further than that. TRNT was an experiment through and throuh.

==================== THE END ====================

Anyway, my weird hybrid beast of a parser in Twine and I are done rambling about my awesome show of tricks that may or may not have landed badly and with a broken skateboard. We will go collect our ribbons, now!

Make IF weird, Do word crimes, Have fun

I do wonder if me submitting the game in the Main Garden rather than at the Back Garden played into the expectations of the reviewers, since the BG is meant for more experimental IF. But in the same vein, there was the Kuolema running on a Google Form and people flocked to it so 🤷 It's probably the quality that made things the way it is whooooops :P

[corvid-language-library]

Future Plans

This is mostly me thinking aloud (or rather, writing shit down), so feel free to ignore (it's gonna get long).

Basically, I'm trying to decide what to do in regards to staying in Japan/moving on.

I love living here. I love my job. After a year of doing it, I've learned from my mistakes and I feel like I've become a much better teacher. With the new school year I've implemented some changes in my approach that I know are going to have positive outcomes, and I want to see it through. I want to keep working with these kids, I want to help them grow.

But... I have reasons for wanting to go back to the UK (never thought I'd say that):

Top of the list is my nan having quite severe dementia. That in itself doesn't affect me greatly as I've not seen her for years and was never close to her. However, I know my mum is struggling to look after her. She frequently drives 3 hours to see her, then spends a week caring for her, and while she tries to put a humorous spin on the stories she tells me I can tell it's hard for her. I want to be there for her, maybe even go with her to help look after my nan just to take the burden off of her.

Related to that... I worry that my mum will develop dementia later on and I'll regret not spending the years we could've had together with her. She's the only family member I'm close to really and honestly, I miss her.

Also family-related... I'm missing my niece growing up. I'm not a part of her life at all and that makes me sad.

I'm still considering studying Education Psychology in the city where my brother lives. It would be expensive and I'd need to rely on my dad's money, which I don't really want to do, but it would set me up nicely to either go into research or then apply to do a teaching Masters degree in Norway (plus I'd get to actually be a part of my niece's life for a bit).

I miss having a fucking oven oh my god I want to bake so fucking badly you have no idea.

At the moment I intend to see my contract out for at least the rest of this year. After that, I'm not 100%. I might continue another year and stay until my visa expires (depends on the situation with my nan I guess).

Another plan would be:

Go back to the UK either when my contract reaches its end at the end of January or when my visa expires at the start of January

Come March, apply to university in Norway

Move to Norway the following summer if I get accepted

I'm also considering transfering away from Yamagata if I decide to stay on for a third year, but I'm in two minds. As mentioned above, I want to continue working with these kids and see through what I've started. I also love Yamagata and my team are great and I'm finally making friends! But I also want to explore more of Japan. It's so expensive to travel here from Europe and I doubt I'd be coming back anytime soon, but it's difficult to get to different areas of Japan from Yamagata. If I were in, say, Osaka, it would be much easier for me to go to new places.

Other options:

Just stay in Yamagata and get my visa renewed and settle down properly

Go do TEFL in a different country that's slightly closer to home (maybe Spain or France)

So yeah, those are some thoughts I'm having. I don't really know what to do at the moment and most people just politely listen and then say "well, it's down to you really" and that doesn't help lmao. Thankfully I've got quite a while to decide anyway.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Our apartment is through a management company. It's usually fine. The last several months, we've had issues with them 1) actually sending out maintenance, and 2) not fixing our fucking floor.

Our floor was put in during the Fall of 2022 after the fucking flood of June 2022. For the entire summer, we walked around on the original concrete floor of our renovated 100-year-old basement apartment.

Management company swore the problem was that the property owner was dragging his feet.

I'd met the property owner several times as he'd come to inspect the damage and understand what he needed to do as owner, since it would be his insurance covering things. I thought he was an asshole.

The new floor went in. We moved home. A few weeks later, I noticed a space between the boards in the kitchen. I debated calling the management company, then went, "I'm in no fucking mood" and threw a rug over it.

I'm not a professional, but I know bits and pieces of home shit. I figured, with the weather cooling, the vinyl boards were shifting a bit, and it'd either stay the same or just slip back together at some point.

And then the rest of the floor started buckling.

I put a maintenance request in. A guy came out, took one look at the floor, and went, "Oh, yeah, I know what's happening." He took photos. He pushed back together what boards he could, and he left.

Nothing for about a week, then a call. The owner wants to come out and look. I sighed and agreed. He came out and brought along his wife, the maintenance guy who'd come before, and our property management contact.

He was NOT PLEASED. His wife's job that day, very obviously to me, was to get my real impression of the management company while the owner asked some questions about why it was taking a week to even update me on next steps?

I told the wife, "We've never had a real problem with maintenance. Stuff's always gotten fixed."

"Have you needed it often?" she asked.

"Nope," I said because it was true.

When the whole apartment was getting torn up after the flood, the demo guy was 1) great and 2) informed me that all the finishes in the apartment were commonly used but also the high-end version. Yeah, they were all particle board and vinyl and what have you. But they were the top-notch versions of everything. I remembered thinking, "Wow, the dude who renovated this place gave a real shit."

We have not heard word one from anyone at the management company about our floor since around October. We have heard from the owner and his wife on a few occasions, calling to see if the next step of the plans had happened. Which is how I found out there were plans. Our contact at the management company (with 16 years experience, something she mentioned when she sent out her intro email at her hiring) had not given me any information.

A couple of weeks ago, our kitchen turned into a tiny swamp. There was water coming up through the fucked up floorboards. A pipe had frozen upstairs a couple of days before. There were four inches of glaze ice over everything.

We called the management company. We got an email back: "We are confirming with the owner how he wants to proceed."

I started cursing the owner's name up and down.

And then he showed up that night. In the ice and the snow. With it pouring sleet (literally pouring sleet). I thought he was being a control freak.

He looked at things, said, "I'll have to turn the water off." And then went upstairs to check on things there. He came back a few minutes later, needing to try and find the shut off. We couldn't locate it down here, either. He shut it off at the street, then took Sean out and showed him how to use the tool to turn it on and off.

"It's a very slow leak," he told us. "If you don't mind mopping up water when it comes up, you can turn the water on for short periods of time."

Two days with no water. The ice continued not to melt. I fell on the dog walk and slid into the side of a car (nothing serious). The owner showed up again when the roads were still barely passable. He had the leak fixed and the water back in by the end of the day. He apologized for the delay. He left the wall open so things could dry, and came back the next day to check things again.

He started to grow on me. He knows his shit. He works quietly. He tries to be as unobtrusive as possible. I sent my regards to his wife, for which he thanked me.

During these few days, I'm getting sporadic emails from the management company basically rehashing everything that had happened that day. Even though I'd heard him call them and explain things to them within half an hour of showing up each day.

So, they were in the loop.

And, yes, so were we.

But there's a way to do these things.

And acting like it's all brand new information to you when the email gets to me at six, after he's left again after apologizing for getting some mud on the floor because he's been in and out not only fixing the leak but also beating the shit out of the four inches of glaze ice with a shovel so he can clear the sidewalk for us. Which is one of those technical requirements that I don't expect of any owner or management company when it's below freezing multiple days in a row in a city where that does not happen regularly. Like, the official city policy during the weather was "please stay the fuck inside."

The contractors came to put the wall back together. The owner showed up to properly introduce them, then left them to it. They did good work as far as I could tell.

I've heard nothing from the management company for several days, and I continue to be very unimpressed by their current actions. Which is just additional unimpressed feelings since October when I got a call from the wife saying, "Did the contractor come out to measure?"

"Measure?"

"For the replacement floor."

"No, Ma'am," I said, not knowing until this phone call that a contractor had even been signed. "Last I heard anything was when the inspector came out."

"Did the company contact you about them?"

"Yes, but then the inspector didn't show the day he was supposed to, and we didn't hear why. He did show up a couple of days later."

The kind of pause you only get from a woman who knows how to use her powers for politeness, smoothing ruffled feathers, and fucking murdering someone. "I see. Okay. Thank you."

"I've worked on a lot of floors," the contractor told me yesterday as he wiped down all the places drywall dust and paste had gotten (everywhere; including the bottom of Bean's foot I discovered this morning). "You're definitely gonna need new floor where the leak was."

"Oh, yeah," I said, with a wave. "We need the whole thing replaced, actually. It's in work."

"Yeah, I noticed it was bubbling," the contractor says. "Not surprising. This is the cheapest vinyl floor you can get."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I've worked with the owner for years. I'm surprised he approved this."

About a week after the wife last called me, we got a letter in the mail from the owner. It read, in part:

...please copy us in all emails to the management company. We want to be fully aware when issues arise so they can be handled as quickly as possible...

Given all current evidence, I am beginning to suspect the problem was NOT the owner but the management company. As I have never worked in property management, I don't know who decides things like which flooring. However, having watched the owner over this last couple of weeks, I suspect the management company picked the flooring and the contractor to do it and the "dragging on" issue was the owner pushing for better quality.

I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that the owner was here today to paint the repaired wall and a strip of ceiling that has gone unfixed by the management company since before we told them the floor news.

I have been beyond happy with the speed of things with the owner in charge of repairs, and I've come to appreciate his dedication to keeping our place in good kit. He is proud of this place and wants it to show. He wants high-quality and good craftsmanship.

He also ended up not painting because the ceiling repair doesn't have the right texture when the lights are off. He is coming back tomorrow morning with the contractor so it gets done to his liking. "It can be difficult to match the texture of sheet rock," he told me. Having watched him work these past couple of weeks, I know he wants it done to a high standard that I appreciate as the tenant.

On the other hand. What an asshole.

[man-reading]

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Book Review - A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Fiction Book Review

22 Jul

It's difficult to know where to start with a review of 'A little life'. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean. It's the story of four graduates who move to New York to make their way in life. Willem is an aspiring actor; Malcolm wants to be an architect but finds his job unfulfilling; JB is talented and trying to break his way into the art world; and Jude, an ambitious, brilliant lawyer, but deeply troubled.

We follow their lives over the decades, as their relationship with each other changes. They come together, drift apart, fall in and out of love and deal with addiction. But it's Jude with his body damaged by injury and childhood trauma, who is the centre of the book, both for his friends and the reader. Can he overcome his demons?

That's about as much as I can say in terms of an overview.

Yanagihara

I bought this book at the Sun bookshop in pre-pandemic Melbourne, December 2019. I had a gift voucher, so picked this and a couple of others and dragged them back half across the world to Ireland. I can only think the sun and bushfire smoke must have affected my brain, because it must have pushed my luggage allowance close to the limit.

‘A little life’ has taunted me from my TBR bookshelf. I had heard about the subject matter, so kept putting it off until I was ready for it. Truth is, having read it, I don't think that time would ever have arisen. I did eventually read another Yanagihara book called ‘To Paradise’ which I found interesting, if a bit long, and decided this summer, with the sun arriving early in Ireland (as if that would help) I was going to tackle this 700-page door stopper.

Word of warning - this book contains descriptions of abuse, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. If you're not in a good place mentally, I wouldn't be reading this book.

Immersive

Initially, I found this book completely immersive. It doesn't happen so often to me these days, but one afternoon, I think around the 200-page mark, I realised I'd read for an hour and barely stirred. There it is, I thought, that’s the book I've been hearing so much about it.

But this was soon to change. I think this is a great book if you have a fitness tracker, as increasingly I had to put this book down and go for a walk. Sometimes into another room, sometimes out of the house and into the local park.

There are a lot of disturbing scenes and thoughts in this book. It was a challenge for me to lift it from around the 500-page mark, and there were times I could only manage a few pages. But of course, I was so invested in the characters of Jude and Willem that I was never going to walk away from the book. The characters are so rich and detailed, the prose is clean and evocative, and the storytelling and structure keep you engaged.

Jude St. Francis

I found it hard to imagine Jude's character. For some unknown reason, he became in my head Rami Malek's character 'Louis Dega' from the film 'Papillion'. Even when he was described slightly differently, it was too late. I think the lack of details from Hanya Yanagihara was deliberate - the reader had to compose their own Jude.

I liked how Yanaghira paced the book - the story of Jude's childhood is told incrementally, interspersed with a matter-of-fact narration of his life in New York. It's not dumped on you all at once.

For all the pain and trauma in the book, I think it's important to highlight the love and kindness shown to Jude by Willem, Harold, Andy, and others.

It asks the big questions - how much can a person take? Can someone be saved if they don't want to be and if they have suffered so much? Can you truly shield yourself through your money and career? And is love and friendship enough?

Polarising

Of all the books I've read and reviewed, I've never been more on the fence than I have with this one. On the one hand, it felt incredibly depressing and bleak at times, much too long and depressing ( I realise I said that twice).

On the other hand, parts of it, especially the initial sections, are completely immersive and it has a lot to say about the importance of love, of art, of friendship. And it will most likely break your heart a little, get under your skin, and I think that's a good thing too.

It's a book that has polarised opinion and I can see why. I am glad I read it and it's not taunting me from my bookshelf. I will never forget the character of Jude St. Francis, and I'm glad that this book challenged me - I think that's a good thing.

I think I would have to know you well before I could recommend this - only you know if you'd be able for it. Incidentally, reading it in an Irish summer didn't help, as the weather soon turned to shit.

If you've read it, please let me know below - I think I need to talk to someone after reading 'A little life'.

720 pages, Hardcover

Published March 10, 2015 by Doubleday

Amazon UKAmazon US

Hanya Yanagihara talks about ‘A little life’.

A Little Life Quotes

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”

“….things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.”

“Who am I? Who am I?” “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.” "And who are you?" "I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”

“He had looked at Jude, then, and had felt that same sensation he sometimes did when he thought, really thought of Jude and what his life had been: a sadness, he might have called it, but it wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it.”

“Harold sighs. “Jude,” he says, “there’s not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don’t get to a certain age and it stops.”

literary fictionContemporaryLGBTMental Health

[go-scottishgal14]

Dream of peace...

Dream of peace from my friend George....in 1970, I was 17 years old and on summer break from school...one of my friends was "George", who was a year older and had graduated that June...George was a good listener, a sweet,thoughtful, fun, considerate friend who I was very, very fond of...we didn't date, but we were buddies and he was looking forward to college in September...over summer, he had a job at an auto repair place, and from what I learned, a car was up on the rack and something exploded, covering George in flames and ultimately 2nd and 3rd degree burns...a mutual friend called me with the news and a week later, George died...I went to the wake and the funeral, and was just in shock that this happened...anyway, I thought of George and prayed to God on George's behalf for months, and I actually worried: was George with God? was he happy? did he miss being alive? all the thoughts a 17 year oldl would have...I'd wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts of my friend on my mind...one night, I fell asleep and I had a dream that 53 years later is still so alive and vivid to me I remember it totally...in a shortened version, it's that George comes to visit me at my house, we walk around my neigh-borhood, I ask him what it's like being dead, "not so bad...but I know that people are missing me....that's why I'm here"...my "dream" had color, dialogue/conversation, took place in familiar surroundings and was just an afternoon with my friend who didn't seem "dead"...at one point, we're back at my house, and I go into kitchen to make something to eat for us while George is in another room...he tells me it's time for him to go, that he knew I was worried about him and he just wanted me to know that he was alright...when I actually step into the room he was in, it's empty, he's gone...after that night and that dream, my heart, mind and spirit became so calm and peaceful because I had SEEN and SPOKEN with George, and spent time with him, my friend...I still thought (and still do think) about George and prayed for him, but I didn't worry about him, and I could finally start to sleep through the night...I really feel this was a message from God, that he saw I was troubled about George, and so George came to me to reassure me and let me know he was okay...this may not be a "psychic" experience but I do believe God arranged for George to visit me in my exceedingly life-like dream, my last visit with George, engineered by God and delivered beautifully by my buddy George... 53 years later, I still remember him, and as long as a person is remembered by others, that person never dies so for me, George still lives in my memories of him, another wonderful gift....

[looselipssinkships-x]

what's your favorite fob album actually?

hi this is going to be a long answer because i could not decide on just one <3

pre-hiatus: infinity on high - folie ily but me and ioh have history. this is the first fob album that really sunk its teeth into me, even though i knew next to nothing about the band or much else of their music. i had a cd id burned and played it on repeat the summer i got my first real apartment. (this was also the year i really came out to myself. it was rough. but screaming along to ginasfs helped). also vincent van gogh was my hyperfixation before fob and id love to talk to mr joe trohman about it. This album is that first taste of freedom, that sense of coming into your own despite the cost. It's blaring thrillers intro as you peel out of your parents' place and head back into the city. It's realizing you're in love with your best friend and you thought love was supposed to feel warm and happy but not this kind of love (this new knowledge about yourself feels like a dirty secret you share with your shitty little car and the empty roads of the farmland around you). Infinity on high is an old friend you can always come home to, pick up right where you left off, they see all your new scars, your battle wounds, the ways you've grown and changed, and they tuck a dandelion behind your ear and love you just the same.

post-hiatus: so much (for) stardust - smfs is for the orchestra kids and you can pry that from my cold dead hands. Even though I'd casually listened to fob for years, this is the first album where i got to experience it from the first teases through the releases through everything that was and is tourdust. *tw* i initially made this tumblr when i was relapsing into some disordered eating habits, but smfs brought me over to foblr instead, and brought me to friends (looking at you @pluggedintosaverockandroll and @katrois ilysm). I listened to love from the other side a lot on my february trip to nyc, really thinking i was gonna end up there for good by september. It felt like hope. The first time i listened to the album all the way through was skating to work along the charles river. I think i played it on repeat until i started applying to jobs in Vermont and noah kahan got brought into the mix. Seeing them on tour healed a little something in me, i think. Especially with ginasfs as an 8ball song. That scared kid with a burned cd never would've believed we made it out of indiana, that we lived in a big city on the east coast, and that we get to have a body that feels closer to home more days than not, that we don't have to be scared of who we love anymore. Getting to see the band put together this album and go on tour and have fun gives me hope, because right now i'm in a folie stage of life. I have to believe someday i can heal too.

I loved this question <3 tysm for asking ily <33

[pepperf]

2022 has been, well, let's say a continuation of the pandemic years for me. I'm a little lacking in emotional resilience these days, and I'm dragging myself over the line with the hopes that next year will be kinder. But it hasn't all been bad. I've had some amazing times with friends and family, I paddled in the sea with my nephew, I finally saw @bethanyactually again after so fucking long, and I've learned a few things. So I thought I'd do the counting my blessings thing, and look back on the good things this year.

2022 was the year that I…

Wrote nearly 200k words. That's over 500 words a day. That is two full-length novels. And I finished and posted about 130k of it on AO3, which—look, I've not been tracking it this way before now so I don't have the stats, but it's DEFINITELY a higher rate of finishing than I've had before. And @wheresmytowel deserves all my thanks for, oh, so much of that. I'm gradually figuring out what works for me in terms of completing stories, and I'm really happy with my progress on that front.

Discovered that armpit hair is cute. I'm serious. Look, I've given up shaving before, but I don't think I've stuck to my guns for this long, well, ever. But this summer, after my last trip to the beach with the family, I decided, to hell with it. And now it's all grown past the spiky stubble stage, and the beard-on-someone-who-can't-really-grow-a-beard stage, and it's kind of luxuriant and…goddamn it, it's fluffy. It is cute. Why is it always seen as a Statement or an insult, something strident and unfeminine and unkempt, when long hair is otherwise seen as an ultra-feminine attribute? I love my fluffy little pits, and legs, and bits. It's possible I'll chicken out when summer comes around again—but until then, I'll get a fond little 'yay' moment, every time I see the kitten fluff under my arms.

Decided that I didn't want the career I've got. This is a difficult one, but it's been a long time coming. A large part of why I am where I am comes from me trying to live up to the (impossible) legacy of my mother, and…okay, yes, I am also a firm believer in the value of public sector work and everyone pitching in to make the country and the world a better place. But I've been doing something along those lines for nearly 20 years now, and I'm kind of burnt out, ngl. And I'm sad to say, I might be done with the NHS. I truly believe in it, and I am loyal through and through, but…it's an increasingly hard place to work, and I don't think I have the mental stamina for it any more. Maybe once I've stepped away, and regrouped for a few years, I will come back. But at the moment, it's a really bad place to be for my mental health, and as a result of that, I'm doing an increasingly poor job of things that I used to find easy. So, I just need to stop, really, for everyone's sake, and do something different.

Started painting again. Slowly and cautiously. I started to think about it in the summer, and took some reference photos of some stuff I might like to paint—then a few months after that I got my easel down from dad's attic and took stock of my paint and brushes—then I dragged out one of my old canvases that never got properly used—and a couple of months ago I ordered some new paint—and applied a base layer to wipe off a painting that was haunting me with bad memories—and then applied another base layer to start building it up into something new…and, yeah, that's where I'm at. But it's a start, and it's more painting than I've done in a very, very long time, and I'm…cautiously excited.

Put some other tentative stakes in the ground for things I might want to do—job stuff, writing stuff, house stuff…all too much to do all at once, and it probably won't all happen next year, because I don't think I could handle that, but at least it feels like I'm not stagnating. Even if I need to remind myself of that, sometimes.

Jesus, I sound fragile. I am fragile, honestly, my confidence is easily knocked, and I'm anxious about a lot of stuff, and I feel like I keep having to gently lead myself along like a 90yo with a broken hip, and I've got things in the new year that I'm dreading (particularly job hunting, god help us—but I'm on a temp contract at the moment, so I don't have a choice). But…I'm getting there.

Here's to 2023.

[jedi-bird]

You know what? Since I'm procrastinating going to sleep and this memory popped into my head, it's story time.

A long time ago, I made a joke that reading fanfic saved my life. Only it really wasn't a joke. I meant it to be, just so no one would worry about me. But in reality, it was very much the truth.

After my mom died, I didn't know how to cope. I wasn't allowed to openly mourn ("think of your grandfather," family would say, scolding me, "he lost his daughter, which is much worse than you losing your mom.") I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about it, except for my partner (later spouse who is still just as awesome and wonderful as they were then). I wasn't given any time to come to terms with anything. I was a full time caretaker for my grandfather. I just kind of existed in a state of numbness and bad thoughts.

Add to that having to deal with my stepfather again for the first time in years. Between him blaming me for her dying and him trying to convince me to move in with him and be his new wife, I didn't want to be here anymore.

At the time, I had very few friends with similar interests to me. But I had seen a few pics of characters I liked pop up on social media and I decided one night while unable to sleep to go looking online. It was the first time I had actual access to the internet too, so it felt like a sign. I wasn't on tumblr yet, but I did find it and lurked for a while back before you needed an account.

Then I found ao3. I can't describe the feeling that first click brought forth.

At the time, it was summer and our air conditioner was broken. We had no money, so I would sleep with my window partway open. Because of the cost cutting measures my grandpa took when having them installed when I was a kid, they only opened about three inches. Now, unless you walked right up to my window, you wouldn't know it was open; the seam was low enough that the opening wasn't visible. And my room was in the front of the house so I would know immediately if anyone came up; I could hear everything out there and was a light sleeper at the time because of being a caretaker.

My stepfather, who turned into a stalker for a few years, would drive down to our house in the middle of time night. How do I know? He let it slip once while berating me for my mom yet again. But also, I knew what his car sounded like. I lived in fear of it, because next he would walk around the corner where my room was and try to peek in the windows (I had blackout curtains nailed to the frame so that was impossible). And once he realized my window was partly open, he'd sometimes whisper my name. So here I'd be, laying a dark room, trying to ignore him, trying to pretend I was asleep. I knew he couldn't get in. And yes, I should have called the police. But years of abuse and mental and emotional beatdowns made me think I wasn't allowed to.

The third time this happened, while I was quietly having a panic attack, I remembered ao3. And since my phone didn't produce enough light to be seen through the curtain, I would pop in some earplugs and just read until the sun came to. Because once it got close to morning he'd leave so the neighbors wouldn't become suspicious.

I didn't sleep much that year. But I read a ton. Most of those fics I can't find anymore and sometimes I'm sad about that. But they also did their job and kept me going. They sparked an obsession and reminded me just how much I used to love writing. I started pulling out notebooks again and writing in spare moments. I read voraciously anything with my favorite characters in it. I learned what I did and didn't like in fiction. I joined tumblr and ao3 within the same week and never looked back.

Fandom, though I don't interact with much of it, kept me alive. Fanfic saved my life with distractions and entertainment. It still keeps me going, though I don't read as much as I used to (time makes it hard some weeks, since I'm always busy lately). I'm no longer in the same place and my stalker no longer tries to contact me; and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to get to our house. I still love the same characters that got me through that darkness. I still feel a sense of comfort reading fics about them. Life is better. Not perfect and definitely a struggle sometimes, but I'm here and I will keep being here.

And that's all that matters.

[kulemii]

My being GAY experience story

OKAY so when i was 19 i had just moved back to my state from college- some shit had happened and i was returning to my old job where i used to work when i was 16. there was a lady there who was in her mid 30s. we'll call her K. K was very attractive to me but i never really acknowledged that i thought she was attractive because i didn't acknowledge that i was attracted to women. it was like 'i can see why gay women would be attracted to her but im not....not at all.'

K was very popular where we worked. Cool tempered (before her sous chef promotion). Personable. Friendly. Always smiling. Easy to get along with- it seemed. She drew a lot of people to her. When i was younger i noticed this but she seemed to kinda ignore me because i mean i was a kid ya know?

however, when i returned, she tackled me and gave me the biggest hug out of anyone. weird, because we didn't have a close relationship when i was there before. so i get my job back and it was like she was going out of her way to talk to me all the time but i didn't mind it- i really needed the friends. but over time i realized she would slip things in about her relationship status.

she was in a long term relationship

she used to be engaged

it's over now

she's single- not looking for anything

oh- cool! good, you should rush into anything if you're not ready for anything, K.

during that summer i was having trouble finding somewhere to stay, as i said i'd come back to my state from college (short notice) and my mom wasn't intending on putting me up long term. so i was looking to friends. at the time, K, was one offering to let me couch surf at her place. i was so grateful, dude. i didn't have a whole lot of options so i agreed. i was staying any and everywhere people would allow me to and that got me into a lot of trouble that year.. it got me hurt too. im in therapy now for some of it but i wont get into tonight but just know i've learned that not everyone is always as kind as they say they are.

i never initially gave K any indication that i wasn't straight. i'd only ever talked to her about guys. i was nice to her and sure, she would give me compliments, calling me 'beautiful' and i would accept them but i never thought they meant much of anything.

i started having issues with my mother and i took up drinking and partying that year. if there was a party, i was there. the place i worked, they partied like animals- they could afford to and the alcohol they serve was the good shit, shit i could never get my hands on otherwise so i tried showing up when i could.

at one of the parties, K took to 'looking after' me and i drank so much that my judgement was all out of whack.. i was completely fucked up and i wound up kissing her in front of one of my best friends at the time (not the girl i went to prom with- a different girl i dont talk to her anymore...she's weird.. after this happened she told me that she 'always thought she would be my first lesbian kiss'.... um, girl... chile, anyways so) and she just.... let me. then she took me too the bathroom and made out with me some more when i very clearly should've been prioritizing vomiting. annnnnnnnd someone we worked with caught us and suddenly the whole fucking party found out.

next thing you know, im getting a text from my ex who i denied dating because i was 29 and he was 17 and why did that even happen and he's grilling me like DID YOU MAKE OUT WITH K??????? ARE YOU GAY??????? (nigga since when did i owe you anything??? WHYYYYY DID I DATE MY COWORKERSSSSS???? WHY WAS I DATING HIM AS A MINOR?????? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!)

work for the next month or so is this weird minefield of navigating rumors or me being gay that aren't actually rumors because they're based on the fact that i made out with a woman and she's not helping me dispel anything. if anything she's playing into the rumor mill because i was the young thing that several people were pursuing but weren't successful and she 'got me' after one drunken night. and suddenly my reputation is ruined and i'm easy, oh and gay lol

and at the time, i saw her as a friend because she made me feel like she was on my side but now that i'm older i realize how much of this was so fucked up. she practically tried to force me out of the closet.

i remember crying to her several times telling her that i was straight and she was like, 'yeah.. but why would you kiss me tho?' BITCh urrghhh

THEN eventually, when i felt like, i had no choice but to just accept it. i was going to come out to my mom WHO WORKED WITH US. WHO SHE WOULD FLIRT WITH ME IN FRONT OF!!!!! i was pretty much trying to weigh all of my options and she was pretty much trying to tell me how i had to be gay. she was going to be the stud. i was going to be the femme. she was going to kick up her feet and i was going to spoil her and buy her shit. MIND YOU! I WAS 19 WORKING FRONT OF THE HOUSE AS A HOSTESS, BARISTA AND DINING ROOM ATTENDANT living from couch to couch!!!! meanwhile this bitch was 35 making bank as a whole entire fucking sous chef with her own place i----

NSFW AHEAD

and if anyone is curious, since i am telling this story i dont mind sharing the sordid details- we had sex ONE TIME and it was horrible. all she did was finger me and it was so uncomfortable. i just wanted it to be over. so i moaned a little loud and faked it like i would with a man and she got a swollen head about how she made me cum soooo hard and wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. and i'm just like ??????? damn so even women can't tell when we fake it? tragic lol. she couldn't fuck, but she was an amazing cuddler! i give her cuddling 100/10 stars🥰! no one has ever cuddled me that well again in my life which is saying alot.

anyway, my only experience being kinda openly gay irl was full of anxiety and a sprinkle of coaxing and intimidation 🥰 i never had a proper date with a woman. never had the whole, does this woman like me, is this gonna go somewhere? should we go out... thing. maybe i'll experience it someday but so far- nope!