#still… what kind of mother even does something like that. knowing full well she’d be yelled at too for raising such a useless daughter

[inkluvs]

sunburnt

cowboy!steve harrington x reader

content warnings: super fast paced ; fake dating ; they r exes ; uhhh forced proximity i think ; most likely inaccurate southern slang ; (2.0k)

summary: steve and you broke up a few years ago. but you live in a small town, and when you bump into him this time round, you’re told to go for it, or him, perhaps

a/n: ok this is v short just a baby one shot that i’ve been hoarding in my drafts for way too long <3 thank u for reading xoxo

masterlist / taglist

Steve’s nose is dusted pink, the freckled skin sunburnt from one too many times in the heat without protection. His lips are twisted into a smile. The kind that feels rare. The kind that has the same effect on you as a shooting star or an eclipse. You have to stop and stare for just a moment, turning the smile on his face from one of joy to the teasing kind. 

The way you’re staring isn’t rude in any way, just more intense, full of the need to pull at the seams of his very being to figure out how he is who he is; To figure out how the same person, who’d been cooing at a puppy a moment ago, a furry tiny thing, can now be staring back at you with the same intensity, his mouth opening, and closing as he does so. 

The leather hat on his head is a faded brown, clearly well-loved over the years. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, taking with it any hope that he’ll say something — anything.

It’s laughable really, the way that even after all these years you still find yourself staring. That you stayed there. In that fancy restaurant with the fizzy drink you ordered on your left-hand side and the boy, you’d just been staring at in front of you. He was younger, his hair darker and his skin lacking the freckles he’d gain in the years to come.

You stayed there.

In the way Steve put his hand on yours when the words left his lips. The same lips that’d kissed you so many times you’d lost count. The same lips that’d mouthed at the slope of your cheek every time you smiled because he thought it was endearing. 

Your memory isn’t that great really, but somehow you’d managed to engrave every detail of that moment into your mind, down to how Steve’s voice had lifted at the end of each sentence. Like he was asking you a question rather than informing you of something. Like if you’d begged he would’ve listened. 

You thought about it — about pleading with him to stay and asking him what went wrong, convincing yourself for a while that closure was what you needed. But it didn’t seem to matter now. 

No amount of closure could truly satisfy you and time had taught you that. No amount of closure would prevent bumping into him at the grocery store or the way heat still blossomed in your chest when he looked at you. No amount, you’d decided, would fill the gap he’d left in his wake.

“You’re starin’,” the voice comes from beside you, a little boy whose face you only half recognize, “my Ma says it isn’t nice to stare.”

“Yeah?” he nods, “tell your Ma it’s only rude if they catch you.” The boy grins and turns around, no doubt running home to tell his mother what you had said. You imagine she’d laugh at that, shuddering and failing to hide a smile as she tells off the boy for believing such things. The boy would then nod in confusion. Perplexed as to the way his mother’s words and expression contradicted each other, and that would be the end of that. You assume so at least.

What you don’t expect, however, is the boy coming back a few minutes later, this time tapping the man you’d just been staring at on the shoulder. A part of you wants to call out, to stop the boy from saying something he doesn’t know the consequences of, but one small foreign part of you tells you that he knows exactly what he’s doing. The boy points at you and there’s that smile again splitting Steve’s cheeks, the kind that lights a fire underneath your skin, slowly melting you like wax from the inside out. Steve pushes his hand down quickly, checking to see if you’d noticed before turning back.

“Your Ma ever told you that pointing is rude?”

“She says it’s only rude if they catch you.” Laughter bubbles in your chest like water in a tea kettle and you try your best to suppress it, a huff of laughter making its way from your throat instead. 

“Think this one already has,” Steve gently lifts the boy's hand with his index finger until he was pointing to you again, “Look.”

“Talk to her then.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, though to anyone else it might have been. The concept seems foreign to Steve – you haven’t been in his life for years now so why would he bother changing it now?

“What?” 

“She was just starin’ at you, it only makes sense.” 

“Guess it does,” he lets go of the hand in his, his eyes flitting from yours, now looking back at him, to the encouraging ones of the boy in front of him.

“You’re stalling,” he observes, “why are you stalling?’

“I am not stalling,”

“Why are you here,” Steve tilts his head, as if to say, fair point, before turning back to you. A shiver ripples through his spine, distributing all of his nervous energy to the tips of his fingers and toes. 

One foot in front of the other, he decides. He stepped forward, his right foot now an inch closer to you, then his left, and before he knows it he was tapping on your shoulder.

“Long time,” 

“Wonder why that is,” he almost smiled at that. After all these years, you’re the same. The same tendency to speak before thinking that he had adored at some point, the same crinkle in your nose he’d grown fond of years ago. 

“Sorry,” 

“Don’t go ‘round saying things you don’t mean”

“I do—“

“You don’t.” There is a sort of weary resignation in your voice, the kind that showcases the years you spent wondering what you’d done wrong. He isn’t sorry, and he would make the same decision over and over if he was given the same options today.

His lips part ever so slightly, heart-shaped and pink, “you see the boy over there,” his words topple on top of one another as he rushes to change the topic, “little shit pushed me in this direction, something about it only making sense.”

“Figured,” you pause, considering your next words, “did the same to me.”

“D’you think he’ll notice if we go our separate ways?”

“I think he’d grab us by our ears and push us together like dolls.”

“Doubt he’d be able to reach our ears.” He says, his voice lifting with a crack of humor.

You’re laughing now, a lovely sound he doesn’t realize he missed until he heard it. “Our ankles then.” 

“So we're stuck?”

“Don’t act like this is the worst thing in the world,” you smile. “There were times when you’d pay to be near me.”

“Still would peach,” he murmurs. “S’just an observation.”

“An observation hm?” Steve nods. “What else is an observation?”

He ponders the question for a moment. “You haven’t changed at all, same attitude and tongue like a whip.” That he’d always adored, he wanted to add, but he didn’t, no point in telling you things he’d told you multiple times before. No point in reminding you of things he’d rather not think about. 

“Yeah?” Steve hums in agreement, “And what gives you that impression?”

“The boy,” his voice is low, both rough and smooth in a way that made your skin burn, “when he pointed to you, I asked him if he’d ever been told by his Ma pointing is rude, y’know what he said?” 

You do. “No.”

“He said ‘s only rude if they catch you,” his breath is warm against your neck and suddenly you realize he’s gotten closer to you, “and something tells me his Ma isn’t the one who taught him that.”

“Why would you think that?” 

The corners of his mouth twitch and you mirror him, your tongue darting out to wet your lips. He swallows in a desperate attempt to stifle his laughter, failing a moment later. He’s right. You haven’t changed and you haven’t yet decided if you like that or not. 

He looks at his wrist, as if to check his watch, only to find the skin bare, a slight tan line apparent from hours spent in the sun. His face falls.

“Lost your watch?” you inquire. Steve adores that watch more than anything, though you can never figure out why. You just assume it was a gift of some sort.

“Stolen,” he mutters.

Your lips form an ‘o’ shape for a moment before breaking eye contact, “‘s about to be dark anyways,”

“I’ll see ya later then? Tomorrow?” You can hear the grin in his voice. You can hear it in the way his voice twisted into a pretty breathy noise at the end of his question, hope tainting his tone.

“You askin’ me out Harrington?”

“Depends,” he tapped his chin and you bit your tongue to hold back any remark you’d later regret, instead taking his bait.

“On what?” You wouldn’t ever tell him but you had the incomprehensible urge to squeeze him then, when his grin got wider and his cheeks split with the force of it. To make sure that this moment has substance and it isn’t something you conjured up in your free time.

“D’you want me to?” 

“Think the kid’s boutta answer for me,” his brows pucker, “So yes, for the boy.” You decide.

“For the boy.” He agrees.

“Till tomorrow then?” 

“Till tomorrow.” He agrees. There’s a sort of unspoken agreement between the two of you. Treat whatever it is that there still is between you like it doesn’t exist. Assume that every interaction from now on would be for the boy. No matter how much you enjoy it, it couldn’t possibly be because you want it. Ridiculous.

-

He follows through the next day, though you half didn’t expect him to, opening the door to find Steve all dressed up with lavender in a bouquet. You tell him you’re just finishing your hair—you hadn’t even started. Steve can tell, noticing the familiar frantic note in your voice.

“Take as long as you want, yeah? I’ll be right here.” 

The sweet smell of flowers travels down the hallway and reaches the bathroom. Heat blossoms in your chest and rolls over your skin, filling you until your cheeks are full of warmth. You’re out about 30 minutes later, haphazardly pulling a confused Steve into the bathroom to help you pick a necklace.

“Honey, couldn't you have shown me this out there?” He whispers after pointing to a piece of jewelry. 

“Didn’t think of that then,” you turn around and hand both ends of the chain to him before continuing.

“D’you get here okay?”

It’s a dumb question and you know it. He loves less than 10 minutes from you and he’s been to yours more times than you can count. But he indulges you.

“For the most part yeah, rode through a storm or two though.” You can feel a huff of his laughter against your neck as he fiddles with the clasp. Steve had never been good with chains and clasps smaller than his fingers, having grown accustomed to thick ropes and metal and leather reins.

“Oh?” Your lips quirk at the corners. “D’you dry off before you came in?”

“Of course, wouldn’t wanna get mud all on your floor now would I darlin’.” His tongue pokes out of the corner of his lips as he focuses, exhaling suddenly as he finally connects the clasps. “S’that it?”

Your thumb and index feel at the little chain links, searching for the clasp. “You know what?” You smile.

He mirrors it. “What?”

“I think you might’ve done it. Well done, Steve.”

“Did I?” He adjusts the necklace. “Maybe I did.”

“That’s what I like to call growth Harrington.”

“Yeah?” His voice is warm with affection. Positive reinforcement always did wonders for the boy.

You hum your approval, “Last time I asked you couldn’t even undo the latch when I handed it to you.”

“Last time you asked I was 17 and dumb.” His tone is flat like you’d struck a nerve. You aren’t exactly sure why—he’d brought your separation on himself. 

“‘m not exactly sure being able to successfully put on a necklace is what measures intelligence.” He smiles, your attempt to lighten the air having been successful. One day you’ll tell him that you only ask him to help with your clasps because the fire it lit under the skin of your neck was an addictive one. No matter how much time apart you’d spent and how bad he is at it you couldn’t help but crave it. But today isn’t that day.

“Couldn’t tell the difference between a stallion and a mare.”

“Steve, I still can’t do that.”

“Shit like that is part of my job peach.” His voice drops to a dramatic whisper. “Though if you really need to know you could always look at the underside. ‘s pretty foolproof.”

A puff of laughter erupts from your throat. “Steve ‘m gonna ask you somethin’ and you gotta be honest.”

“Shoot.” He seems to know what you’re planning on asking him, warmth flushing his cheeks even before your lips part

“How many times have you done that?”

“Oh come on darlin’ now you’re just tryin’ to embarrass me.”

You smile and his cheeks flush with warmth

“You need humblin’ every so often, I'm just taking it into my own hands.”

“You want me to be honest?” You nod and his voice drops to a whisper, “A lot. More than you would believe.”

“Makes sense. You were always real good at limbo.”

He laughs at that. “You think I’m good at limbo all ‘cause of looking at a horse's underside?”

“You said it, not me.” 

His heart is filled with sticky sweet adoration, the feeling running through his veins and under his skin. “I’ve missed you, peach.”

“You gonna take me out first or not Harrington?”

“How could I possibly forget with you lookin’ like that? You all dolled up just for me?” He tips his head forward, the brim of his hat eye level with you as he takes your hand in his.

You press your hand to your chest, a little dramatic but that’s the point. “Who else would I look like this for, hm?”

Steve grins, the kind that’s gorgeous and just a bit too cocky and you love it. He tugs you out the door with that, unlocking his car and opening the passenger side door before getting in himself.

“Say, the storm you rode through, which horse got stuck in it with you.”

“Think it’s the one you named, Cinnamon.”

“You went through with naming that poor horse, Cinnamon? Steven, it was a drunken suggestion.” He laughs, warm and low.

“Cinnamon doesn’t mind it, I’ll tell ya a secret though,” his voice lowers to a whisper, “I think Nutmeg despises her for it. The whole spice thing.”

“Stole Nutmeg’s thing hm?”

“‘s what she says.”

Your finger trails up the length of his arm, connecting freckles on tanned skin. “‘s romantic y’know, riding the horse I named to my house.”

“Of course it is, I came up with it.” You tilt your head and lift a brow. He laughs. “Not without your help of course.”

You hate how much you perk up when he says that. You hate how much you want yourself to hate him but you can’t bring yourself to, because no matter how many times you thought over the way Steve left you however many years ago, he still has you. And you still have him. And neither of you want to say it, but in this moment the boy that's brought you together couldn’t be further from your mind.

[sequinsmile-x]

Casually Cruel in the Name of Being Honest

Suddenly, she’s 6 again. And 16. And desperate for her mother’s attention as she stood on the other side of her desk in her office. She can’t help but wonder when she’ll learn that things will never change. When that last bit of hope that her relationship with her mother could be different will eventually die out.

Five times Emily doesn't yell at Elizabeth, and one time she does.

-x-

Hi friends,

It's been a little while since I got all up in Emily's mommy issues, so here are are.

Like all these 5+1 fics do this got away from me.

As always, please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Warnings: pregnancy

Words: 7.5k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

One

“Last chance to back out.” 

Aaron looks at his girlfriend as they step into the hotel lobby, and his heart aches at the look on her face, the barely contained tension he can see in the set of her jaw. The tightness of it spreads down her neck and across her shoulders, her posture so stiff and rigid he’s surprised her collarbone doesn’t crack with the pressure of it. He reaches for her hand and links their fingers together, his smile soft and full of love as he raises their joint hands to kiss her knuckles. 

“I have met your mom before, sweetheart,” he says in an attempt to calm her down, something he knows he’s failed at when she sighs, the sound drawn from the depths of her soul, pushing past years of repression and pain over the relationship with her mother that had never been what she’d wanted. 

“Not as my boyfriend, Aaron,” she replies, huffing as he tugs her out of the way of the flow of people walking into the hotel, all dressed up like they were. A lobby full of tuxedos, beautiful dresses, and faces she vaguely recognises all here to take part in the charity event her mother was hosting, “She’s…” she swallows thickly, “She’s hard work and full of opinions. Especially when it comes to my life. I don’t want her to…” 

He frowns as she drifts off, her eyes shining, the lights from the high ceilings reflecting in them. He squeezes her hand again and uses his other to cup her chin, encouraging her to look at him. He makes sure he’s firm but kind as he speaks, not wanting her to doubt him or his feelings for her in any way. 

“There is nothing your mother could do or say that would make me change my mind about being with you, sweetheart,” he says, leaning in to kiss her cheek, her reprimand about her lipstick when he tried to kiss her properly in the car still floating around in his mind, “Nothing.” 

She chokes on a laugh, “I don’t know how to feel about the fact you can already read my mind 6 months into our relationship.” She squeezes his hand, makes sure to press everything she won’t say here into his skin, her love for him, the way she treasured him, something she considered to be just for them. 

He leans in to kiss her cheek again, “You say that like you can’t read mine.” 

She hums, “One of the downsides of dating a profiler I guess. Or an upside. Depending on how you look at it.” she smiles, unable to stop herself, the corners of her lips turning upwards despite how she’d felt just moments ago, “We should go in.” 

He nods and lets go of her hand, offering her his arm instead, and he smiles when she hooks hers through it and wraps her other hand around his tricep, desperate to be as close as possible. “I’ll be by your side the whole time.” 

“You’re so getting lucky when we get home later.” 

They manage to dodge her mother at first. It’s a dance Emily had learnt at a young age, her mother’s patterns and habits ones she’d learnt as a defence mechanism. It would never last all evening, because her mother knew her just as well, but it often lasted long enough to have a couple of glasses of champagne. The tension in her chest and shoulders loosened by the bubbles as well as Aaron’s touch, his hand a constant reassurance on her back as he kept his promise to not leave her side. 

Emily blows out a breath when she spots her mother walking towards them, a man Emily knew to be the son of one of her fellow ambassadors in tow, “Incoming.” 

Aaron doesn’t have a chance to respond before Elizabeth is next to them, leaning in to kiss Emily on each of her cheeks, the same greeting he’d watched her give everyone she’d spoken to that evening. 

“Emily,” she says, smiling as she steps back, “It’s lovely to see you,” she looks at Aaron, “Agent Hotchner, lovely to see you too,” she turns to look at the man next to her, “Emily I’m sure you remember Anthony, Ambassador Collin’s son,” she waits for Emily to nod, “Anthony, this is my daughter Emily and her boss, Agent Hotchner.”

She knows it’s purposeful. That her mother’s use of Agent Hotchner instead of his name is an attempt to make him feel small, to try and implement some kind of hierarchy that only she cared about. Emily also knew it was no coincidence that she’d walked over with Anthony, a man she had tried to set Emily up with close to 20 years ago. A man she knew had recently, very publicly, got divorced. 

“Aaron,” she corrects, her smile sweet, the fake one Aaron had watched her use with unsubs and police officers who got a little too close for comfort, “His name is Aaron, and he’s also my boyfriend.” 

The flash of annoyance across her mother’s face is something she enjoys more than she should, but she keeps her smile fixed in place, desperate to maintain the polite niceness that they had always existed in. She’d learnt a long time ago it was best to not bite at anything her mother dangled in front of her, that Elizabeth would always end up turning it on her. So instead she played the game her mother had invented, the pieces of it were ones she’d learnt to use when she was young. 

“Nice to meet you,” Anthony says to Aaron, offering his hand out, his smile a kind of smug Emily hates, “You’re an Agent?” 

“At the FBI,” Aaron answers, reaching out to shake his hand. He squeezes tighter than necessary, something Emily can see in the way Anthony’s eyes briefly flash when his knuckles knock together, but his smile never shifts. It’s proof she didn’t know she needed that he could slot into this part of her life easily, “What is it you do?” 

Anthony clears his throat as he pulls his hand away, subtly shaking it to relieve the ache as it falls back to his side, “I’m currently…in between positions.” 

Aaron hums, an edge of sympathy to it that Emily knows is fake, and she has to press her lips together to stop herself from smiling, “Well,” she says, looking at her mother, her eyes fierce as they meet briefly, “We were about to go dance, right honey?” 

He nods and reaches for her hand, his touch soft as he links their fingers together, “Yes, we were,” he replies, “Lovely to see you again Ambassador Prentiss.” 

By the time they make it to the dance floor, Emily is furious, her anger simmering under her skin as Aaron pulls her closer, his arm banding around her back, “She is unbelievable,” she grumbles, her breath skipping across Aaron’s cheek, “Trying to set me up with that guy right in front of you.” 

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he assures her, squeezing her hand to encourage her to look at him, “It’s not your fault,” he leans in to kiss her, his lips catching hers, “Do you want me to say something to her?”

She shakes her head, “No, it’s…it’s just easier to not say anything,” she says, “I learnt that a long time ago.”

“Do you want to leave?” 

She sighs sadly, “It’s easier to stay too,” she says, leaning in to kiss him, “You held your own though,” she says, smiling as she pulls back, “It’s almost like you were born for this.” 

He smiles, “I was born to be with you,” he replies, and it has the reaction he’d hoped for. A surprised laugh pulled from her chest that is followed by her rolling her eyes and shaking her head. 

She kisses him, not a quick thing this time but a kiss that leaves her having to wipe her lipstick from his lips afterwards, her touch and the way she looks at him tender, their future swimming in the depths of them. “I think I was born to be with you too.”

___

Two

She hums contentedly as she rests her head against Aaron’s shoulder, her smile impossibly wider when he turns his head to kiss her forehead. 

“You okay, sweetheart?” He mumbles against her skin and she nods, tilting her head upwards to capture her fiance’s lips in a kiss, her hand on his cheek as she ignores the playful jeers from some of their friends. 

“I’m more than okay,” she says, kissing him again, “This has been…” she shakes her head at herself as she drifts off, looking around the room, their nearest and dearest spread out at all the other tables around them, empty plates and half-empty glasses around them, “It’s been more fun than I thought it would be.” 

The party had been Penelope’s idea at first. Her delight at their engagement immediately shifting her into party planning mode, her eyes wide and full of excitement as all of Emily and Aaron’s attempts at saying they didn’t need a party were ignored. In the end, they’d relented, both of them more excited than they’d admit at the idea of celebrating their love for each other as much as they could. Elizabeth had largely overtaken everything the moment she found out, seemingly almost more excited at the idea of an engagement party than she was at the engagement itself. 

“Your mother and Garcia should open a party planning business,” he says dryly, tasting her laugh as he stamps a kiss against hers. 

“Don’t give them any ideas,” she quips, looking over at her mother, “Not before the wedding anyway.” 

She’d decided not to argue with any of the plans about the engagement party, largely just happy to be told by her mom and Penelope where to go and when to go there. She was saving her strength to keep the wedding itself as she wanted it to be, absolutely insistent that it would be much simpler than this had been. That the only guests would be people she cared about, not a room full of her mother’s friends and colleagues like this had turned into. 

“Good point,” he mumbles, his lips against her temple as their attention is pulled away from each other by the sound of a piece of cutlery gently tapping against a glass. They look over to find Elizabeth standing up, her glass of champagne in hand as the room falls into silence. 

Emily muffles a groan against Aaron’s shoulder, “Here we go,” she grumbles so only he can hear her. He places his hand on her thigh and squeezes. She links their fingers together, reaches for her wine, “$50 she makes a comment about my age.” 

He doesn’t have time to respond before Elizabeth starts her speech, so he simply squeezes Emily’s thigh again, putting as much love into the touch as he can. He’d promised a long time that he wouldn’t get involved in her relationship with her mother, that he’d leave it to her, but it was hard at times. Almost impossible to keep himself in check as he watched Elizabeth chip away at Emily’s self-confidence, her fingers pressed against buttons she’d sewed on herself when her daughter was young. 

“I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for coming,” Elizabeth says, “I lost hope years ago that I’d ever get to throw an engagement party for Emily,-”

“In the first sentence,” Emily mumbles to Aaron, her words drowned out by polite laughter, before she takes a large gulp of her wine, “Easiest $50 I’ve ever made.” 

“- Despite all of that, I am so pleased that Emily has found someone who makes her happy,” Elizabeth carries on, a rare flash of genuine sincerity in her eyes as Emily looks up, “So, let’s raise a glass to Emily and Aaron.” 

“To Emily and Aaron.” 

They both smile as they raise their glasses too, and the room falls back into the loud chatter that had been there all evening. 

“To us,” Aaron says, his smile soft when she looks at him, and she clinks her glass against his.

“To us,” she replies, her tone lacklustre as she takes a sip of her wine before she sets the glass down. 

Aaron turns slightly so his knees knock against her leg, “Sweetheart-”

“It’s okay,” she says, cutting off his attempt to comfort her, not wanting anyone to be witness to it, his gentle love for her one of the few things that could make her fall apart, “It’s not like she was ever going to do a gushing, loving speech about me,” she shrugs, “It’s what I expected.” 

“That doesn’t make it right, Em.”

She nods, her lips pressed together as she cups his cheek, “I know,” she says, smiling tightly before she stamps her lips against his, “Later.” 

He tightens his hold on her leg but relents, knowing she won’t talk about it until they are alone, their house a sanctuary for both of them, “Later.” 

She smiles gratefully and rests her cheek briefly against his shoulder before she sits up, “You’d better be good for that $50,” she says, easily slipping into the role she had to play here in a way that makes him ache, “I know where you live after all.” 

He chuckles and tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “I’m good for it,” he says, winking at her, “I’m about to marry rich.” 

She scoffs, the laugh that pushes past it genuine, her smile wide and sparkling as she lightly slaps his chest, “Aaron.” 

___

Three  

She turns so she’s briefly side on to the mirror, her heart swelling in her chest at her reflection as she turns head on again, her hands smoothing down the white satin, “I love this one.” 

“It’s a little simple, don’t you think.” 

Emily closes her eyes and blows out a breath to centre herself before she turns to face the plush couch behind her. Penelope, JJ, Elizabeth and Jack were all lined up looking at her, looks of delight on all of their faces except her mother’s who was looking at her with a critical eye she hadn’t seen since they bought her dress for her confirmation. 

It was a simple dress. Or as simple as a wedding dress could be. The neckline was scooped across her collarbone, ensuring that the scar on her chest was covered, not wanting Ian to have any involvement in this, and the dress was well fitted around her bust and waist, falling into a simple slip silhouette from there. The back of the dress was low, two straps that were an inch thick that came to just above her waist, and there were a series of small buttons that trailed down just past her lower back. It was beautiful and simple and it felt like it symbolised her and Aaron’s love for each other because of that. 

“You’ve said that about every dress I’ve tried on,” she scrunches her nose up a little and sees her mother raise her eyebrows. Elizabeth doesn’t have to say anything for Emily to know what she’s thinking, oh you do look like your father when you do that, so she stops, exhaling slowly as she looks at herself in the mirror. 

“That’s because every dress you’ve tried on is simple.”

“I think it’s nice,” JJ says, ever the person to try and mediate, “It suits you.” 

Penelope nods and dabs at her eyes with a bright pink handkerchief, “You look beautiful.” 

She smiles at her friends, their love for her, for her family, something she doesn’t think she could live without. Their friendship the very thing she once thought she’d never have, female companionship she’d somehow lived without in the 37 years before she’d met them. 

“Thank you,” she says before she turns to her mother,  “I like that it’s simple, I don’t think I’m a ruffles and taffeta kind of bride,” she says, stepping off the small platform in front of the mirror as she looks down at herself, smiling when she hears JJ and Penelope stifle a laugh. “I’m getting married in Dave’s backyard, I don’t exactly need a gown” 

Elizabeth hums, “Yes, we all know where you’re getting married, Emily.” 

She smiles, her jaw tight as she clears her throat, pushing away the instinct to argue with her mother. She’d made her distaste for Emily and Aaron’s wedding plans clear from the start. An almost constant barrage of passive aggressive comments about its simplicity, as if that was a dirty word, whenever the wedding was mentioned. Emily hated it, hated that she didn’t have a relationship with her mother where this was something they could bond over. 

Most of all, she hated that she still expected anything different to what they had, that she consistently expected more from a woman who had never been what she’d wanted. 

“I think you look really pretty, Emmy.”

Emily smiles at Jack and she walks over to him. She leans down and kisses the top of his head, trailing her fingers through his hair as she pulls back, “Thanks, sweet boy. Do you think Daddy will like it?” 

“He’ll love it,” Jack says innocently, unaware of the slight tension around him that all of the adults were ignoring, “He always says you’re pretty in everything.” 

She blushes at that and looks over Jack’s head at her mother, the tight smile that was always reserved for her painted across her face, “That settles it then. I’m getting this one.” 

Penelope makes her pose with a sign from the bridal shop with ‘I said yes to the dress’ printed on the front of it. Emily pulls Jack into the picture, his smile as wide as hers, and she texts it to Aaron as they all head out for a celebratory dinner. By the time they get home, she’s exhausted in just about every way possible. She slumps down onto the couch and covers her face with her hands, the cool press of her engagement ring against her cheek a comfort to her weary soul. 

“Are you okay sweetheart?”

She groans as she pulls her hands off her face and looks up at Aaron, “I’m tired.” 

He smiles at her and joins her on the couch, his arm around her shoulders as he encourages her to lean on him, “Jack just said the same thing,” he kisses her forehead, “I think if I went upstairs in about 10 minutes I’d find him and Sergio curled up asleep on his bed,” he smiles as she chuckles against him, “He also said that, and I quote ‘Miss Lizzie was being mean to Emmy.’”

She sighs and pulls back to look at him, “I’m sorry, I should have protected him from it a little better. She was driving me crazy all day. She had an issue with every dress I tried on,” she smiles sadly and shrugs, “She didn’t like the one I chose in the end.” 

“You don’t have to apologise for anything, Em,” he says, running his hand up and down her arm, “Do you like the dress?” 

She nods, her lips pressed together as she tries to contain her smile, the same feeling she’d had when she saw herself in the dress for the first time blooming in her chest, “I love it.” 

“Then that is all that matters,” he assures her, kissing the tip of her nose and smiling when she scrunches it up, “You look cute when you do that.”

She furrows her brow, “Do what?” 

“Scrunch your nose up when I kiss it,” he does it again for good measure, his smile wide when it happens by reflex, “It’s cute.” 

He was always doing that. Unknowingly undoing the damage her mother had done over the years. Her comments and criticisms so vast she could never tell him about them all. It warms her from the inside out. Makes it hard to breathe as she gets overwhelmed by it all, unsure what she’d done to deserve the love of a man like him. 

“You’re cute,” she replies, kissing his cheek and then the corner of his mouth, smiling when he hums in response. 

“You can’t tell anyone else, I’ve got a reputation as a hardass to uphold.” 

She smiles and nods, happy to keep this version of him as hers. His softness for her and Jack something she wanted to protect, precious and rare and a privilege to see. 

“Your secret is safe with me.”

___

Four

She sings along with the music as she dances with her new husband, her cheek skimming against Aaron’s as they sway back and forth.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” He asks, turning his head so his lips catch the corner of hers, his hand on her back - half on her bare skin and half on the soft material of her dress. 

“I’m more than okay,” she says as she leans in, her nose skimming his as she makes sure she’s quiet, keen to make sure none of the people watching them hear her, “I think this might be one of the best days of my life.” 

He beams at her, his dimples carved out in his cheeks as he pulls her closer, “I know it’s one of the best days of mine.” 

It had been everything she’d wanted it to be. Simple and intimate. Just the people that they cared about around them as they said their vows and made promises to each other she knew they’d keep, both of their voices shaking as they saw forever in each other's eyes. 

She kisses him as the music comes to an end, her hands on his cheeks to hold him in place when she hears a playful jeer from Derek and some applause from the small crowd. She pulls back just barely enough to speak, “I love you so fucking much.”

Aaron chuckles and stamps his lips against hers, “I love you too,” he kisses her again, “So fucking much,” he looks up at Dave calling his name, the older man beckoning him over to the temporary bar set up in his back yard, “Apparently I’m needed at the bar.” 

She hums and looks over her shoulder at their friend before she turns back to Aaron, “Don’t drink too much,” she murmurs, running her hands down his chest to play with his tie, tugging lightly at the pure silk, “I have plans for you later that won’t work out if you drink too much of Dave’s expensive scotch.” 

He smiles and squeezes her waist with both hands, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “You’ve been my wife a matter of hours and you’re already in charge.” 

“Oh honey,” she says, tapping his cheek lovingly, “I’ve been in charge a long long time.” 

He captures her hand and kisses her knuckles before he walks away, his fingers only slipping past hers when he’s too far away to hold her hand anymore, neither one of them wanting to be apart for long. 

Emily sighs contentedly as she walks back towards the head table, seeking out her glass of champagne and a brief moment of solitude, the emotions of the day making her as overwhelmed as she was happy. She’s barely sat down before she smells her mother’s perfume. A mix of Chanel and judgement in the air signals her arrival before she can sit down next to her, a calling card Emily used to avoid wherever possible in the hallways of their home. 

“Hello Emily,” she says as she joins her, “How are you doing?”

Her mother’s tone doesn’t pass her by, the way she asks it makes it sound like they were just passing the time of day, not that it was her only child’s wedding day. 

“I’m good, Mom,” she replies, smiling when she looks over at Aaron and Dave at the bar, Jack just a few feet away from them as he dances with Will, “More than good. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” She looks at Elizabeth, “Today was…perfect.” 

Elizabeth hums, “It was certainly…simpler than what I’d imagined for you when you were a little girl, but I guess it makes sense because you’re not exactly a blushing bride, and Aaron’s been married before. I’m glad you had a nice day.” 

Emily presses her lips together and takes a calming breath. She’d promised herself, and Aaron, that she wouldn’t let her mother taint this, that she’d enjoy every second no matter what Elizabeth said. She’d kept that promise, let her mother’s comments about her dress, the food, the venue, all pass her by. Her enjoyment of the day, of the celebration of her love for Aaron and the future they were promising each other far more important than her mother’s attempts to get under her skin. 

“Well,” she says, taking a sip of her champagne, “Given that I’m the bride that’s the aim.” 

Elizabeth sighs, “Really, Emily, you do like to pick at everything I say. I was trying to say I’m glad you had fun.” 

It’s a backhanded compliment and she knows it, as well as an attempt to place all of the blame for their fractured relationship on her shoulders, but she still doesn’t bite. Doesn’t want to trip and fall into an argument with her mother, knowing it wasn’t worth it on even a normal day. That she’d never truly win an argument she’d been born to lose. 

“Thank you,” she replies, smiling sweetly as she finishes her champagne, “I’m going to go find my husband.” They both know it’s an excuse, Aaron had never left her line of sight, but Elizabeth doesn’t say anything, she simply nods and lets Emily go. 

When she makes it to the bar Aaron wraps his arm around her waist, tugging her into his side, “I was just about to come rescue you.” 

She cups his chin and holds him in place to kiss him, “You’re the best husband ever.” 

He smiles and kisses her, and it makes her shiver. He steps back to shrug off his jacket and he places it around her shoulders, his voice low so only she hears him as he whispers against her ear, “You okay?” 

She nods and looks back at him over her shoulder, “I’m perfect.” 

His smile turns into a grin and he winks at her, “You’re finally coming round to my way of thinking, I’ve been telling you you’re perfect since our first date.” 

___

Five 

Having dinner at their house had been Aaron’s idea, his smile soft as he said it would make her feel more comfortable than going to her mother’s. She was nervous, anxiety thrumming under her skin over telling her mother their news, her stomach twisting with something other than the morning sickness that had been plaguing her for weeks. 

They’d been trying since just before they got married, both of them aware that if they wanted a baby or two their time was starting to run out. Emily had started to lose hope, each negative pregnancy test hollowing out a little bit more of her chest each month. When she finally found herself staring at a positive test, two pink lines bright and unmistakable as they stared up at her, it took a moment for it to register. She hadn’t realised she was crying until Aaron stepped into the bathroom, ready to comfort her as per the routine they’d fallen into. It was only when she’d made him look at the test, too overwhelmed to say it outloud herself, that he realised they were tears of joy. 

She was 16 weeks along now and her mother was the last person they had to tell. Jack was excited to be a big brother, his immediate demand for a little sister something that had made both Emily and Aaron laugh. The team had been delighted for them, as had Jessica when they told her, a glint in her eyes as she told Aaron that Haley would be happy for him. A part of Emily that she was never quite able to control hoped her mother would be happy for them too, that she’d break the habit of a lifetime and only have good things to say. 

Dinner itself had been fine. Aaron cooked a meal that Emily could still stomach, a lot of her favourite foods apparently not favourites of the baby. After they finished eating, polite conversation floating in the air around them along with the smell of the chocolate dessert in the oven, Emily knows she can’t put it off any longer. 

“Mom, we have something to tell you,” she says, her smile fading when her mother barely reacts, her gaze fixed on her cell phone in her hands. She’d been checking it on and off all night, seemingly too busy to be able to put her work aside for even one evening with her daughter, “Mom,” she repeats, an all too familiar feeling of disappointment washing over her, “Can you put your phone down for just a few minutes? I’m trying to talk to you.” 

Elizabeth hums, still not looking up from the screen of her phone, typing furiously as she responds to whatever email she was replying to, “Emily, my job is important - you know that - and I can focus on two things at once.” 

Suddenly, she’s 6 again. And 16. And desperate for her mother’s attention as she stood on the other side of her desk in her office. She can’t help but wonder when she’ll learn that things will never change. When that last bit of hope that her relationship with her mother could be different will eventually die out. Aaron links his hand through hers under the dining room table and it brings her back to herself, reminds her that she’s married now, that she’s sat in her home and that Jack is asleep upstairs. It doesn’t make the pain caused by her mother’s indifference go away, but it dulls it. Makes it bearable because she isn’t alone any more and she never will be again. She blows out a breath as she places her other hand on her mostly still flat stomach, the bump only really noticeable to her and Aaron when they looked for it. 

“I’m pregnant,” she says, her hand tight around Aaron’s as she watches her mother carefully. She waits a few seconds for a response, for any kind of indication that she’d heard her, and she blows out a slow breath before she tries again, “Mom, did you hear me? I said-”

“Yes, you’re pregnant,” she says, cutting her off, finally looking over the top of her phone at Emily, “Did you really think I didn’t notice the moment I arrived? You’re not drinking wine and you look…healthier than when I last saw you.” 

“You can’t-”

She cuts off Aaron’s attempt to defend her with nothing but a squeeze of his hand, her blunt nails briefly digging into the gaps between his fingers. She clenches her teeth, her jaw so tight she’s surprised it doesn’t fracture, and she swallows thickly to push down everything she doesn’t have the energy to say, “Is that all you’ve got to say?” 

Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at her, “Do you want me to say something else?” 

She mumbles under her breath, “Most people start with congratulations.” 

“What was that, Emily?” 

“Nothing,” she replies as she stands up, the scrape of her chair against the hardwood floor echoing throughout the room, “I said I’ll go check on dessert.” 

She’s in the kitchen for all of a few seconds before Aaron is with her, his jaw set in a firm line as he barely hides his irritation, “Em-”

“Honey, can we not do this,” she says, casting a glance at him as she gets the dessert out of the oven, her entire body tense as she places it down on the counter, “I don’t need you to tell me I deserve better, or that she shouldn’t speak to me that way. Because I know that okay?” Despite her irritation, despite the sadness turning over in her gut, she keeps her voice low, not wanting her mother to overhear or to wake up Jack, “I know this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. But it’s how it is and nothing is going to change that,” she turns to get some bowls out of the cabinet, sure if she looked at him too long she’d fall apart despite what she’s saying, “I really can’t deal with this right now. We just…can we just see it through until she goes home? Please?” 

It takes everything in him to nod in agreement. To not go into the dining room and tell his mother-in-law exactly what he thought of her, and that she wasn’t welcome in his home until she treated his wife with the respect she deserved. It goes against all of his instincts, his desire to protect her, even though she’d spent all her life protecting himself, so habitual to him it felt like breathing. He knows this is what she wants though, that he has to follow her lead when it comes to her mother and her relationship with her, so he steps forward, his hand skirting her lower back as he slips past her to grab the serving spoon. 

“I’ll serve dessert, sweetheart,” he says, smiling softly at her, “Why don’t you go have a minute or two alone? I think I saw Sergio in the living room. I’m sure he’ll appreciate some attention.” 

She sighs gratefully, resting her head against his shoulder as he wraps one arm around her, allowing herself a brief moment of comfort before she pulls away, a taster of what she’d get to have later when her mother was gone, “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her forehead as she steps past him and disappears from view. He blows out a frustrated breath the moment he’s alone, irritation aimed at Elizabether burning in his veins, and then hears his wife clear her throat from the doorway, “Yes baby?” 

“Can I have the end piece please?” 

He smiles and nods, “You’re having my baby - you can have the end piece for the rest of our lives. 

She smiles at him, the ache in her cheeks caused by him at odds with the churning caused in her gut by her mother, “Correct answer.” 

___

+ One 

Emily rocks herself back and forth on the porch swing, her cheek pressed against the top of her daughter’s head as she hums, letting Ivy feel the vibrations of her chest as she eases her back to sleep. She looks up sharply at a loud laugh, smiling when she sees Jack pushing Hazel on the swing set, the three-year-old always at her happiest when she is the centre of her brother’s attention. 

Ivy gristles against her, rubbing her face against Emily’s collarbone, and she looks down to soothe her, her lips against the top of her head as she rubs a hand up and down her back, “You’re okay, sweet girl,” she kisses her head again, “One day, far too soon for my liking, you’ll be out there playing with them too.”

The 6-week-old grunts as if in response and Emily chuckles, the sound drowned out by the door leading out from the kitchen to the porch. She smiles at her husband as he pops his head around the door, his lips pressed together. 

“Your mother’s car just pulled up.” 

She nods, grateful for the warning, and he steps back into the house to let her mother in. Elizabeth had been away on assignment and had only been back in the US for a couple of days, so this was the first time she’d be meeting Ivy. 

“Are you ready to meet grandma, Ivy?” She asks, smiling down at the sleeping newborn, “Don’t worry if she looks angry, that’s just her face.” 

She waits as she hears muffled conversation get louder as Aaron and her mother walk through the house and her breath catches in her chest when the door opens again, a type of anxiety only her mother could draw out of her filling her lungs. 

Despite her initial disappointing reaction to finding out Emily was pregnant with Hazel, Elizabeth had been an excellent grandmother. She doted on the little girl and Jack, buying them extravagant gifts from wherever she went in the world, always ignoring Emily’s subtle attempts at trying to say it was too much. She’d love Ivy too, Emily knew that, but she also knew her limit for her mother’s comments, well meaning or not, ended with her children. She could accept whatever her mother wanted to say about her, but never them. They would grow up free of the shackles of expectation that she’d never quite been fully held down by, and the halls of their home were full of love and affection, not disappointment and conversations that didn’t mean anything. 

“Oh look at her,” Elizabeth says as she joins them on the swing, peering down at the baby fast asleep against Emily’s chest, “She’s precious.” 

“Thanks, Mom,” Emily says, “Do you want to hold her? I just fed her so she’ll be settled for a while.” 

Elizabeth subtly shakes her head, “I’m happy to just look, this suit is Chanel, I can’t risk any baby related projectiles.” 

Emily casts a glance at Aaron, who was not so subtly glaring at the back of Elizabeth’s head, but any conversation is cut off as Jack and Hazel run up to the porch, both delighted to see their grandmother. Aaron eventually takes Ivy from Emily to put her down in her bassinet, and as Jack and Hazel tire of listening to the adults talk and run back into the backyard, Emily finds herself alone with her mother. 

“Aaron said you had to have a c-section?” 

She nods at her mother, ignoring the ache in her arms now her baby is no longer in them, instead focusing on Jack and Hazel running around the backyard, “Yes,” she replies, “Ivy was being a little stubborn and my labour stalled. It was the safest thing for both of us.” 

It hadn’t been what she’d wanted. Her memories of her labour with Hazel were fond ones, the pain of it blurry now, the only sharp memories the ones of being handed her daughter for the first time, that first press of her skin against hers. Her labour with Ivy had become very scary very quickly, and she still felt like she’d been robbed of some of the joy of what she knew was her last baby’s birth. 

“They used to call it the easy way out back in my day.” 

Emily scoffs, the sound escaping before she can stop it, “As someone who’s done it both ways, I can assure you there is no such thing as the easy way out, Mother.” 

Hazel laughs loudly from the swing set, drawing their attention towards her as she tries to run up the slide attached to it, the multicoloured tutu she’d insisted on wearing and her stripy tights, her feet bare other than them after she’d won the battle over shoes that morning, hindering her ever so slightly. Emily is about to call out to tell her to be careful when Jack beats her to it, his hands on his little sister’s back as he guides her upwards, his smile shy as he looks over at Emily. 

“She really is wild,” Elizabeth says, as if she’d only vocalised half a thought, “You’re going to have to get her under control at some point.” 

She can feel her control fraying, the edges of it giving way as she swallows thickly, desperate to make sure she doesn’t snap, “She’s three. And she’s acting like a three-year-old. I see nothing that needs controlling.” 

Elizabeth rolls her eyes, “Oh please Emily, if you don’t tamper all of that down soon she’s going to end up just like you.” 

Snap. 

“And what’s wrong with that, Mom?” She asks, not able to keep it in, her anger breaking free of where she’d kept it locked away all these years, “What would be so awful about my little girl being just like me?” 

“Emily, you’re over-”

“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she says, standing up and throwing a glance at the kids, forcing a smile when Jack looks at her with concern pressed into his eyes. She calms down for a moment, never wanting him to think she was angry with him, “Look after your sister for me, we’ll just be inside.” 

“Yes, Mom,” he replies with a nod and Emily walks in, grateful that she doesn’t have to explain to her mother that she expects her to follow her. The moment they are inside she turns to look at Elizabeth, the confusion painted across her face doing nothing to calm her down. 

“I think you misunderstood me, Emily,” she says, her hands folded in front of her, “I was simply saying-”

“That if I don’t teach my little girl, my fucking three-year-old, to be quieter, to make herself smaller, that she’ll have the misfortune of turning into me,” she scoffs, shaking her head as tears fill her eyes, still at the mercy of her hormones and a lack of sleep, “Which, apparently is a fate so awful you feel the need to mention it.” 

She hears Aaron’s footsteps behind her as he joins them, feels his palm on her lower back, “Is everything okay, sweetheart?” 

Before she can say anything, before she can do anything other than look up at him through shining eyes, her mother cuts over her. 

“Aaron, please speak to your wife - she’s being ridiculous.” 

Aaron wraps his arm around Emily’s waist, his grip firm and reassuring as a disbelieving sob catches in her chest, “I think it’s best you leave, Elizabeth.” 

In any other circumstance, Emily is sure she’d find the look of shock that passes over her mother’s face funny, but it simply makes her angrier, the fact that she didn’t get it, and likely never would, more painful than she could admit even to herself. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You need to leave,” he says, squeezing Emily’s hip one more time before he steps away to lead Elizabeth towards the front door, “I won’t have you come here and upset her. Not when I’ve already let so much slide in the past.”

Elizabeth scoffs, “She’s my daughter-”

“And she’s my wife,” he says, opening the front door, “You should go.” 

Elizabeth sighs, her shoulders slumping slightly, “I didn’t mean to cause any upset.” 

“I think that’s the problem,” he says, standing so he’s blocking her view of Emily as she steps outside, “You never mean to, but you always manage to anyway.” 

He closes the door and gives himself a moment to breathe through his anger, his grip on the door handle tight as he lets it pass. Emily didn’t need his anger, she needed his love - and that was something he had in abundance. 

When he walks back into the kitchen, she’s still standing in the same spot, the sleeves of his sweater she’s wearing pulled down over her fists, visible wet streaks on them that he knows are her tears, her face also covered in them. 

“So,” she chokes out, her smile shaking as she forces it, “How long have you wanted to throw my mother out?” 

They both know what she’s doing, that it’s easier for her to try and use humour to get past this, the world unsteady beneath her feet after she’d said some things she thought she’d never say. 

“Longer than I care to admit,” he says as he walks towards her, tugging her gently into his embrace, something she willingly sinks into. He kisses the top of her head and runs his hands up and down her back.

“How much did you hear?” She asks, her question muffled against his t-shirt.

“Enough to know it was something about Haze,” he says, smiling as he encourages her to look up at him, “I always knew if you were to snap at her it would be about the kids,” he wipes a tear from her cheek, “You never would if it was just about you.” 

She hums, leaning into his palm as he cups her cheek, “I’m not sure what good it would have done. She’s never been one to self-reflect.” 

 “When you’re ready to talk to her about it,” he says, smiling when she kisses his palm, “I’ll be right there with you. And I’ll throw her out again if I need to.” 

She smiles, the corners of her lips twitching upwards as she gives him a quick peek of her dimples, “My hero.” 

He shakes his head, “No sweetheart,” he says, pulling her back against his chest, “You’ve always been your own hero. Just think of me as your live in bouncer.” 

She laughs, loud and beautiful, and she shakes her head at him, “My very sexy live in bouncer.” 

He stamps his lips against hers, “It’s the role of a lifetime.” 

[fruit-salad-ship]

@ that mafia au: don't u fucking dare hurt the girls. They're too damn precious. You better save them somehow in the end. 😭😭😭😭

Oh precious one, this is the AU they both die in :’)

Peach gets taken out by a jilted lover, tells her cousins to get plum out of the building they’ve been lured too, she’ll handle this, but fails. they have to dig her out of the building that collapsed on her, plum cries so loudly the whole town can hear. Days it takes them to pry her away. She does not eat, she does not sleep, and she never sings again. She is left in a home that she built with her lover, and sits alone in the confides, surrounded by loss. No one can console her not even grey. She loses all desire to continue.

Plum eventually goes on a revenge driven rampage to kill the woman who took everything from her. She spends days in the house with only one of peach’s revolvers, they’re part of a set, two of a kind, and one was never recovered. She knows who has the other, there’s no one else who would keep it. With peach’s wedding ring on a chain round her neck, and hers still on her hand, she finally makes a direct move forward.

Plum uses that revolver to find the woman with the other half, the missing gun, taken as a souvenir, proof she felled a monster of a woman, plums wife, the only person she’s ever felt true unbridled, immeasurable love from.

In killing the woman who robbed her of her life, she too is shot down, and upon lying on the floor, gets to drift away from reality to a place peach is sat and waiting for her in. The line between life and death, a waiting room. She gets to see her wife once more, not the vision she last had, a cold lifeless body void of anything recognisable, but peach, as she was prior, healthy and well, warm to touch, just as sturdy as she remembered.

THERE IS HOWEVER AN ALTERNATIVE

Because I too couldn’t stand the tragedy of that ending. Every time I try to write it I end up just crying haha!

Peach goes to face the angry ex and the building comes down, plum thinks her dead and is the first one after fighting to get free, sprinting to start digging through the rubble, hurting her hands and not even thinking to stop. And there under a table, unconscious but alive is peach. She’s been shot, but she’s breathing.

The big woman wakes up in a hospital with plum asleep by her side, right there next to her in bed. Her hands in a cast, her arms feel like she’s torn every muscle in them, but she didn’t expect to wake up. Peach lets plum sleep, she’s got a bag there, clearly she’s been here a while based on what’s around the space. Eventually her wife wakes up and sees her just there, looking at her gently. There’s a lot of tears, both of them crack, the singer was so worried, and the mob boss thought she’d met her end. Both just cry, laugh, a euphoria of the reunion. Plum of course hugs her too tight, forgets she’s broken, the recoil and apology that follows something peach just laughs at.

Peach’s family are relieved, they love her to death (mostly), and with her mother standing down after such a display, once healed peach takes up control with plum by her side, criminals in control, both powerful women.

Plum is this overly doting woman who takes up the leg work of the family jobs, she’s the power behind the power, she becomes fury to make sure her wife, dear precious peach has time to recover without the huge stress of her work.

They live a wonderful life full of travel and love, mornings making pancakes, nights sat by the fire, jobs where they’re making deals, killing rivals and sharing the burdens handed to them. It is hard work, but they’d change nothing, they can do this together. Plum carries on with her singing career, the pub is sold, and peach moves her business to the city so that plum can chase her dream and find her fame.

It is a given, she’s got talent, and within a matter of time she sees her name in lights adorning a huge venue, her wife, forever supportive and beside her just smiling. She had no doubt plum would get here, she commands a room, she is a stone cold killer and knows it. Oozing confidence, there was no surprise when the woman got to start recording songs of her own. They truly are perfect for each other, highs and lows, nothing stops them. Despite peach being crime family royalty it is plum, a humble woman from a normal family that is held above everyone, she deserves a crown, a throne, the entire world, and peach would face an army to give it to her if plum asked.

Trust me when I say I don’t know which one to do, both perhaps, one tragic, one happy. Let everyone decide on their favourite outcome.

Heartbreak though hard to stomach makes a story that tugs at the heart, and that’s why I’m leaning towards the tragic ending, but I hate it. This the the AU where they fall madly in love, perfect pair, completely devoted despite the odds going against them. They don’t care. They get it all, the house together, the quiet beautiful wedding, the drama of family, the love of friends, trips to distant towns to enjoy hotels and sight seeing. Peach has her cousins beside her as her best friends, they’re thick as thieves, and there’s even space for the emotional repair, plum never found her people until now, and peach though herself unlovable thanks to her mom. It is all fixed with them finding each other. SO many sweet moments, painfully beautiful little memories made between two women who just couldn’t find their place in the world, when no one really liked who they were, and wanted them to change to fit the mould, they refused and did things their way, and it worked for them.

I think about mafia way WAY too much.

[smvtgalore]

Whispered Secrets in the Dark: Chapter II - A Helping Hand

do block this blog if you don't like A/B/O & incest fics so I don't show up in the tag for you

pairing: Azula x Ursa | rating: explicit | A/B/O; alpha!Azula x omega!Ursa

general content warnings: omegaverse (feat. g!p), explicit sexual content, parent-child incest, consensual underage sex.

One of the most useful skills learned in the Fire Nation Junior Corps is, undoubtedly, how to put all your clothes in under a minute.

Very useful, Azula, gracefully, jumps into the closest pair of trousers, hoping it would help a little. She ties her robe close, and is quite grateful for her own habit of sleeping under heavy blankets, the weather never matters. Just to be sure Mother dearest won’t see her erection at all – even if she’s not escaping the scent of arousal, – she places one of the many extra pillows at her lap. After unlocking the door and then hiding under the blankets, she giives Mother permission to enter the room.

She can’t hide the scent of arousal, but, well, Azula’s a young alpha going through body changes, it’s normal for her to be aroused at any moment of the day.

“Am I interrupting  something, sweetie?” Mother has always called sweetie – Azula’s sweetie, Zuko’s dear, Lu Ten’s love – and it shouldn’t affect her like this. The stupid cock strains against hastily put on trousers. 

“Just doing some light reading before sleeping,” she half lifts the scroll she decided to pretend to be reading.

“My girl, always interested in learning,” Azula does not blush a little at the praise. Stupid cock keeps twitching under any attention from the older woman. “I’d like to have a conversation about you behavior earlier today.”

She steps into the room, properly. Her nose flares just a little, twitching like Azula’s does when she’s noticing some sort of interesting scent. But the reagal princess does not react, even if she should have a disgusted look on her pretty face, nose filled with the arousal of her own offspring. Mother’s floral, soft scent does not help Azula’s current situation.

She’d like to be alone so she can jerk off in peace, without the object of her lust in her bedroom, thank you very much!

“Feeling alright, sweetie?”

“Y-yes,” fuck, I do not stutter! “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure, my dragon cub?”

Azula full on flustered, what was the last time Mother called her the old, maybe adorable, nickname?: “Yes, I’m sure. Do not worry. What about about my so-called behaviour?”

“It’s not polite to threaten to burn servants.”

“They were annoying me,” they were staring at me like a piece of meat. “Annoyances need to learn their place.”

“A kind ruler does not burn their subjects.”

“I’m fifth in the line of succession, and I have no interest in being Firelord, Zuzu is more interested than me. Go pester her with your ‘how a proper ruler behaves’ nonsense.”

“You’re still a royal, and you’re still not meant to behave like a childish brat.”

“Perhaps I am a childish brat,” it feels almost more like a banter than a scold. “And I didn’t burn any of them, stop worrying about it.”

“I’m trying to fix your reputation. How are you going to find a suitable omega with the reputation of being a violent, brutal alpha?”

“I’m not interested in finding a suitable omega.”

“Crown Prince Iroh is. He’ll be Firelord soon, Lu Ten already has. You and your sister are the next.”

“Being this far down the lineage, I’d expect to have the same experience as Father.”

Mother steps closer, it throbs and Azula has forgotten for a moment that she was in the middle of something: “Your Father is a decent alpha, a decent Firebender, however you… you are a prodigy. No Firelord would allow it to go to waste your seed in inferior omegas.”

“I didn’t know you were so… defiant.”

She scoffs: “I am honest.”

“My Father is a great Firebender.”

“You’re better than him, are you not?”

Would that be some sort of treason? She knows she is a better Firebender than Father. Objectively, only Uncle and Grandfather are better benders than her. It’s an experience thing, she knows, being a prodigy like Grandfather, it won’t take much longer for her to be superior to Uncle in his prime. And she respects him just enough to admit she’d like to be better than him.

(Maybe she’d respect Uncle more if he didn’t keep choosing Zuko over her, if he didn’t act like he had only one niece.)

“You’re on the way to becoming the greatest Firebender in history, sweetie.”

Azula blinks, surprised that Mother’s close to her, standing beside the bed: “I believe that’s true.”

“Good girl.”

She makes quite an embarrassing noise, Mother smiles and cradles her cheek, her quite flustered cheek: “I do… I do try, sometimes.”

“So keep trying to be a good girl,” she places a knee on the edge of the bed, and Azula’s brain gets full of static. “And tell me what you were doing before I knocked on your door.”

“Perhaps I was having some quality private time.”

“So I interrupted your playtime? I could help.”

“Help?” Azula blinks, her speech impaired by how close Mother is, by how the omega smells sweet and how her night robe doesn’t hide much of her body at all. Has it always been this… inappropriate? “Help… how?”

“Help however you want,” she places a hand on top of the pillow, applying minor pressure that is enough to get yet another embarrassing noise from the young alpha. “Tell me to leave and I will.”

“No,” she grabs her wrist. “Stay.”

“Whatever you need, little dragon.”

Mother kisses her forehead, and Azula is about to burst. Maybe in flames, maybe in a fountain of cum, maybe in ashes from a mix of embarrassment and that warmth burning on her chest from Mother’s affection. It feels like something innocent, it feels like there’s a dirty promise underneath.

A dirty promise she hopes Mother fulfills.

Azula can’t avoid the deep red flush on her face when she allows Mother to pull the pillow away, her cock makes quite the visible bulge on her trousers, the wet spots from the precum that didn’t stop leaking only makes her fluster more. 

“It’s alright, don’t be ashamed,” Mother says, all sothing and calm. “It’s normal.”

“I don’t think this is normal.”

“Don’t worry, no one will judge us."

“I imagine no one should know.”

“You’re correct.”

“I always am.”

She’s smug for a second, before Mother gropes her, as bold as the one person who has the courage to do that. And it makes her hips jerk with the almost unexpected touch. She throws her head back as Mother squeezes it, and Mother takes the opportunity to kiss her neck. The older woman hums in approval. She keeps kissing and sucking at the sensitive, soft skill before she pulls down Azula’s trousers just enough to set her cock free.

At least she’s leaking enough that no spit is needed.

“Such a majestic thing you have here,” she praises, not even looking at it, just stroking slowly. “My little dragon is all grown up.”

Azula is a master of self-control. it’s the only reason she doesn’t start to fuck into Mother’s hand. Soft, warm, fingers almost not long enough to touch each other when her hand is wrapped around Azula’s girth.

Much better than her own hand.

Paired up with the atack on her neck, she’s dangerously close to an orgasm within minutes. Mother withdrawns from her neck, her free hand sneaks up to her chest. Not expecting her breasts to be played with, she moans almost too loud.

“Let go, sweetie” her hand moves down her abs and back again, the hand stroking her cock speeds up. “Let go of what you’ve been holding back all day. And all because of me.”

Count on Mother to know of Azula’s dirty, little incestous feelings.

It doesn't matter, not when she’s twisting her right nipple just enough to be the last straw to make her burst in a ridiculously intense orgasm. Grabbing at the bedsheets, moaning Mother just loud and clear enough for the woman to hear.

“There you go, my good girl. My beautiful good girl.”

[kindheart525]

Snowcone’s mom had been a lot more supportive of her after the Gala debacle. It was like a dial had turned in Twilight Sparkle, like she was actually trying a little harder now. It seemed especially so after they met Snowcone’s Nana and saw what could happen if somepony like her didn’t have the right support.

But of course things weren’t entirely perfect.

Twilight still said the wrong thing sometimes, more than she should. She was quicker to own up to it but it didn’t stop Snowcone’s trauma from being set off. There was a lot of work left to do.

Snowcone loved her mom, she really did. But still there was that fear, that she’d never truly understand her. That one or both of them would say something, do something, that would ruin anything good that they had. That she’d end up alone just like her Nana did.

“Your Nana seems to be settling in really well!”

Twilight seemed to be reading her daughter’s mind as she brought this up, casually making conversation as she organized her library for the umpteenth time.

“I bet you’re glad to have somepony who gets what you’re going through.”

Snowcone was glad to have her Nana around, but just because she had the same condition didn’t mean they got each other all the time. They were individual ponies with different experiences after all. Not to mention her Nana had six or so decades on her. They weren’t a monolith.

“Yeah, I am.”

She answered simply. But she still had some worries.

“Though I guess it’s taking Mother some getting used to. A lot’s happened to both of them, they really don’t get each other at all. Mental illness does that to you.”

Snow quipped, trying to laugh off her worries with a joke. She really wasn’t sure if she wanted to get into this with her mom.

“You’re probably right, they’ll have a lot to work through. I think they can do it though!”

Twilight didn’t completely take the dismissive “all you have to do is try” stance but she still didn’t really grasp it. She was naive in her confidence that everything would definitely be solved; no amount of willpower could cure a mental illness. 

“Not how that works Mom...”

Snow grumbled through her teeth, feeling like she would snap if her mom said anything more. But she stopped and tried to calm herself down. She just wanted to be honest.

“They’ve drifted apart so much, it’s not gonna be easy at all. Mother has no idea what Nana went through. You have no idea how I feel! Sometimes you say things that make me wanna rip my mane out!”

She stopped before she could get ahead of herself.

“But I don’t want you and me to end up like Mother and Nana. I don’t wanna end up like strangers. I just...want you to understand me.”

This was the most emotionally honest Snow had been with her mom in a long time, she was surprised at herself.

Twilight had stopped organizing by now. Books were still scattered all over but she ignored them, turning towards her daughter and giving her her full attention. She gazed at her sincerely, guiltily even, as she listened.

“You’re right Snowy...I really don’t get it at all. I’m so sorry I make you feel that way. I need to be better about that.”

Snow was almost shocked as the words came out of her mom’s mouth. Never in a thousand years did she imagine she would own up to her mistakes so explicitly. She wasn’t meandering, she wasn’t making excuses, she was just straight up admitting it. Actually apologizing.

“Well...thank you.”

Was all she could utter out.

“You know me, I’ve always been so focused on the little details. So obsessed with being perfect, with my studies, my friends, you name it. It’s like anxiety. How I became the Queen of Equestria, I don’t know!”

Twilight laughed, but then scooched closer to Snowcone as she became heartfelt again.

“I keep myself up at night worrying about the kind of pony I am, if I’m a good friend or ruler. I’ve never been very good at talking to other ponies, I have to check myself all the time. But I haven’t been thinking enough about how I am as a mom. And because of that...”

Twilight began to tear up, her voice quavering with emotion.

“I’ve failed you, Snowcone. I should be putting the same work—no, more—into making you feel loved as I do everything else in my life. I would always tell you you needed to try harder but honestly...I’m the one who should be doing that.”

Snow could see how broken up her mom was about this, more than she’d ever seen her really. She wasn’t about to coddle her and tell her it was all okay when she had said some messed up stuff, but she did have some advice to help her.

“Maybe you should get a therapist.”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle at just how blunt Snowcone was. She didn’t beat around the bush at all. But she was absolutely right.

“Yes I should, and I will. I promise. I want to be a better mom to you and I’ll do whatever it takes. Anything at all. I want you to know that I really do mean it.”

Snowcone didn’t say anything, there was nothing else to say. So she just leaned into her mother’s chest contently, soaking in the feeling. Her mother wasn’t perfect but if she knew anything, it was that she was loved.

“Thank you, Mom. That really means a lot to me. I love you.”

She felt her mom’s wings wrap around her as she leaned in as well, into a secure embrace.

“I love you too, Snowcone. I hope you always know that.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Previous: Follies Next: Steep Valley

Background and Books by EStories

[amazinggraciegurl]

Expect the Unexpected (Chapter 35: Love Like You)

Thursday October 12, 2017 (senior year of high school) 6:32 pm

Faybelle’s POV

“What are you talking about, Fay?!” Briar exclaims. “You’re going to do amazing! You are amazing!” They’re sitting side by side on Briar’s bed, shoulders touching. Ashlynn is out with Hunter, probably going for a walk in the Enchanted Forest or some boring crap like that. Faybelle shrugs. She both loves and hates when Briar encourages her like this. She loves it because of the warm, fuzzy feeling the praise (and truthfully just Briar herself) gives her. She hates it because nothing Briar is saying is true. Faybelle is not going to do amazing. And she most certainly is not amazing. She may act like she is, but truthfully it’s all an act. All she’s been told her entire life is that she’s bad--by her mom, teachers, peers. Briar has somehow always known this, the girl’s emotional intuitiveness as always shining through. And even before they became girlfriends, when she sensed Faybelle was upset about something, she’d go after her and give her one of her famous pep talks. Now that they’re together, the pep talks are ceaseless. Faybelle acts like she hates them, but in reality they fill her with an all-encompassing warmth, the love and gratitude she has for her girlfriend welling in her chest. But as always she acts nonchalant, keeping her act up, even if she knows Briar sees right through it. Briar always does.

She scoffs. “No I will not do amazing, Briar! I’m going to not hit a full split in my straddle leap, just like last time! I just know it!” Briar sighs and shakes her head. “You’ve been working so hard on perfecting it, Fay. I doubt you’ll mess up again. And even if you do, nobody is going to even notice or care.” Faybelle groans. “But I’ll notice! And I care!” She clenches her fists, anxiety buzzing through her. Briar’s eyes soften. Faybelle flinches slightly as the girl takes her hands, giving them a squeeze. “I know you do,” Briar murmurs. “And what you care about, I care about too. But I just want you to know that you’re amazing either way. Your performance doesn’t determine your worth.” Faybelle scoffs again. “Tell that to my mother.” Briar’s mouth opens, but promptly closes. Like always, when Faybelle says a remark about her mother, it’s clear that the girl wants to know more, but also doesn’t want to pry. That’s one of the things Faybelle loves about her girlfriend. She’s caring but not invasive. She’s a source of unconditional support for Faybelle, but also knows when to back off. A thought that often occurs to Faybelle pops into her mind for the hundredth time: what did a person like her do to deserve a girl like Briar? A girl so unfailingly kind and empathetic, so effortlessly humorous and fun, so beautiful inside and out? Why in the world does she want to date a girl like Faybelle? An inconsiderate, overly competitive, even hateful individual? Faybelle would never voice these thoughts of course, but they’re often there, rising into her mind at the worst possible times. When she just wants to relax with Briar or kiss her or joke around with her, there come the thoughts.

Right now, as always, she does her best to push them to the back of her mind. She softens, giving Briar a small smile. “Thank you,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically soft. The words feel strange on her tongue. It’s rarely a term she used prior to dating Briar. But in the few months they’ve dated, Briar’s presence has caused her to change for the better. She knows she has a long way to go and she still messes up a lot, but she’s trying to be a better person for Briar. For the girl that's so effortlessly sweet and nurturing and just plain good. It weirds Faybelle out sometimes how good Briar is. Briar smiles softly before kissing her. Like every time the girl kisses her, the rest of the world melts away and all Faybelle registers is the warmth and softness of Briar’s lips on hers, the surge of adrenaline it sends through her, the butterflies that erupt in her stomach. It’s the good kind of adrenaline, like the kind she feels when she’s being tossed into the air during cheer routines, but even better. Much, much better. When they pull apart a moment later, too soon for Faybelle’s liking, a goofy grin is on Briar’s face, the expression the girl gets every time they kiss. It’s quickly replaced by another soft smile. “Anytime, baby,” she whispers, stroking her thumb over Faybelle’s face. It sends pleasant shivers down Faybelle’s spine. “I know your cheer routine will be incredible. I just know it.” Faybelle smiles back. “I hope you’re right.”

XXX Friday October 13, 2017

Faybelle and Briar are both so busy today, both having to rush after classes end to prepare for tonight, that they don’t get a chance to see each other. Faybelle and the rest of the cheer team are running through their routine over and over again, while Briar is off setting up the bookball game afterparty. This one is going to be a page ripper, as everybody is stoked for Thronecoming tomorrow night. Still, Briar finds the time to shoot Faybelle a text: “Good luck baby, I know you’ll do great!” Faybelle can’t wait to go to Thronecoming with Briar as her date. The thought sends a rush of pure adrenaline through her. The excitement even distracts her so much at one point that she misses a whole eight count of the performance during rehearsal. Her teammates look at her, shocked expressions on each of their faces. She never gets distracted! Her cheeks flush, shame flooding every inch of her body. “Get back to work!” she barks out. She clenches her fists. She can’t mess up again. If she does, she’ll never forgive herself.

XXX 6:00 pm

As Faybelle walks out onto the field with the rest of the cheer team (Holly and Farrah also seem awfully nervous, though Nina is as confident as always) and sees the hundreds of students in the bleachers looking at her, her heart pounds even faster than it has been all day. Her hands are trembling. She’s usually never this nervous before a performance, but after messing up her straddle leap last time, she’s petrified at the idea of screwing up again. It’s not just a reflection of her if she does. It’s a reflection of the whole team. The team that she’s worked tirelessly at training (sometimes far too harshly) to be better every performance, to take things to the next level every time. So as she takes the stage (well, bookball field), she puts her game face on, doing her best to shove all her anxiety down. She does what Briar instructed her to do. She locates her in the crowd. The girl is sitting in the center of the front row, looking beautiful (and festive) as ever in a sparkly magenta mini dress, the streaks of pink in her hair glowing under the glare of the floodlights. She’s standing up, clapping wildly, a bright grin on her face. She really is a sight to see. Faybelle almost loses her focus, but she catches herself before she does. No matter how drop dead gorgeous her girlfriend is, she can’t let this fact ruin the performance. Nothing can ruin it. As Faybelle gets into position, she takes a deep, shaky breath. “Come on, Faybelle,” she whispers to herself. “Don’t fuck this up.”

As the catchy pop song begins playing, she leaps into action. The routine starts off better than she’d expected it to. She and her teammates are perfectly in sync, and the first lift (Faybelle at the top) goes without a hitch. In no time the routine is almost over, and Faybelle finally feels like she can relax. Everything is actually going to be okay. It’s time for the final lift, this time featuring her being tossed twice. Her positioning is flawless as she’s lifted. The tosses are seamless. Then, she doesn’t know what goes wrong, but as she’s dismounting she slips. She tumbles to the ground, landing on the grass in a heap. A sharp pain rushes through her shoulder. “Ow!” she shrieks. Her teammates rush to her side. “Oh kingdoms!” Farrah exclaims, voice shaking with fear. “Are you alright?!” As burning waves of humiliation surge through Faybelle’s entire body, she thinks about staying there forever, simply sinking into the ground and ceasing to exist. That way she’d never have to face the hundreds of people who just saw her ruin that performance. But she knows she’s only attracting more attention by staying there. So, with great effort she sits up, and lets Farrah and Holly help her to her feet. Apparently she injured her ankle too, as a stabbing pain rushes through it as she stands.

The crowd is cheering for her, but why? She ruined everything. She can’t even bear to look at them. So, body shaking, pain and mortification rushing through her, she limps off the field. Holly and Farrah try to help her, but she shoves them away. She almost feels bad for how hard she pushed, as they're wincing, but she’s too focused on the sweltering shame storming within her. As she limps as quickly as she can toward the locker room (she doesn’t know where else to go), her teammates stay back, clearly knowing to give her space. She despises locker rooms. They smell overwhelmingly of sweat and are disgustingly humid. But right now there’s nowhere else she can be. She collapses onto the bench. The pain in her ankle lessens as the weight is taken off it, but the pain in her shoulder is still sharp. “Fuck!” she hisses. A thousand different emotions are spinning like a cyclone through her right now--embarrassment, guilt, anger, sadness. They battle for dominance as she buries her face in her hands, trying to breathe through all the physical and mental pain. Nothing but the crashing of her heartbeat and the torrent of degrading words swirling through her mind is registered until a voice breaks through her consciousness.

"Faybelle!" Briar calls. "Are you in here?!" Faybelle immediately stiffens as she hears the sound of Briar's high heels clacking on the cement floor. Her body tenses more and more as she hears her coming closer. For a second, she considers bolting, but quickly remembers her hurt ankle. Plus, all it would do if she tried is hurt Briar and… Wow, when did she start caring about anyone's feelings? Briar must be rubbing off on her. She pretends to despise the idea, but she realizes that really it doesn't bother her. In fact, it just might please her? She starts as Briar turns the corner and is suddenly standing before her. The girl's eyes widen before she rushes over to Faybelle. "Are you okay?!" she exclaims. "Are you hurt?! Do you need to go to the nurse's office?!" Briar places her hands on Faybelle's shoulders, her forehead creased with concern. Faybelle winces at the pressure on her injured shoulder. Briar quickly lets go. Her eyes are wide. “I’m so sorry!” the girl exclaims. “I shouldn’t have touched you! What hurts other than your shoulder? Anything?”

Garnering the little bit of resolve left within her, Faybelle lets out a halfhearted scoff. "No, I'm fine," she snaps. "Just some bruises." The words came out harsher than she intended. She struggles not to wince. Briar raises an eyebrow. Faybelle is afraid for a second that she upset her girlfriend and is about to get a lecture, but then loving concern overtakes the slightly disgruntled expression that had been on Briar's face. Briar sighs gently. "Can I sit?" she asks, her voice soft. Faybelle opens her mouth, about to make more of a fuss, the walls she's built up within her screaming at her to push Briar away. But then her mouth snaps shut and she suddenly realizes it may be wisest to not speak if the stinging in her eyes are any indication. The thought of her voice trembling, tears spilling, is enough to send a surge of fear through her.

But looking at her girlfriend, the tears that are beginning to sparkle in Briar's eyes, she slowly nods. Curse Briar's empathy. Seeing the pain in the girl's eyes, the pain she feels expressly for Faybelle, only makes the burning in her own eyes increase. Briar leaves about a foot of space between them as she sits, which Faybelle appreciates. They sit in silence for a minute, Faybelle focusing on keeping those treacherous tears at bay, biting the inside of her cheek until the metallic taste of blood pervades her mouth. She knows Briar can sense that she's on the verge of tears, and in this moment she hates how perceptive her girlfriend is. "It might be good for you to talk about what you're feeling right now," Briar says, her voice soft and tentative. "I know it can be hard for us to express our emotions, but holding them in only makes us feel worse." The hot, prickly sensation of anger suddenly rises in Faybelle's chest. She scoffs. "Us to express our emotions?" she says, her voice seeping with bitterness. "Easy for you to say. You always get to say what you feel. You always get somebody to kiss your wounds." More and more resentment laces her words as she goes on. "But you know what I was told when I was little and dared to shed a tear? Suck it up. Pathetic–" Her voice hitches, and she hates herself for it. She swallows before continuing. She can't stop now–"child. I don't want to see those tears. You're weak. You don't have a brain in your head. You–you–" Shit, she can't get the words out. And–oh shit, is she–crying?

Before she can fully comprehend what's happening, tears are rolling down her cheeks, hot against her skin. And she's sniffling. And whimpering. And hiccuping. And then a sob rips from her throat. And she hates herself more than ever. She can't see Briar through the veil of moisture in her eyes, and she doesn't want to. But she hears the girl's voice, softer and more concerned than she's ever heard it. "Is it okay if I hug you? I’ll be gentle." Before Faybelle even considers what she's saying she squeaks, "Yes." And she sounds so pathetic, she wishes she couldn't even hear herself. Couldn't hear the sound of the rattling air conditioner. Couldn't hear the pounding of her heart in her ears. Then Briar's arms carefully surround her, gently pulling her close. And despite all her learned instincts, Faybelle is glad that she can hear Briar's voice, can feel the girl's warm breath against her ear. "It's okay, honey," Briar murmurs. "Everything is okay. I'm right here. Just let it all out." Faybelle's body moves of its own accord, melting into the embrace, her face burying itself in Briar's chest. Then she feels Briar's warm lips on her head, softly kissing her scalp, and she sags even deeper into the girl's arms.

Secure in Briar's embrace, Faybelle, for the first time in years, allows herself to fully break down. She grips her girlfriend tighter and tighter as the tears won't stop coming. Briar holds her so close, Faybelle can't tell where her body ends and Briar's begins. They are one in this moment, this moment of vulnerability that Faybelle, despite her overwhelming grief, cherishes in a way. She cherishes the release she can physically feel, like a dam has broken in her chest, water that has been contained for so long gushing out. She cherishes the soothing sensation of Briar's hand smoothing over her back, the other threading through her damp tresses. Her cheek is warm on Faybelle’s head. Her lips are soft as she plants them against her scalp again. Her breath is warm as she whispers reassurances into her hair. Her arms are so strong, yet so gentle. So much like the girl herself. Faybelle feels safer than she can ever remember feeling. She exhales through her sobs, cherishing it all.

Briar holds her long after Faybelle's sobs have petered out. She continues to whisper words of comfort as her hiccups and sniffles gradually come to a stop. When Faybelle has finally calmed, it takes her a while to find the strength to pull away. She hates the idea of being some kind of charity case, but all she can think is that she's never in her life been held like this. She's never had somebody speak to her with such warmth in their voice, handle her with such care and concern. The thought she gets so often infiltrates her mind against her will: what did she ever do to deserve a girl like Briar? Somebody who doesn't judge her for her many flaws, who forgives her when she constantly fucks up, who brings her flowers for no occasion at all, who cuddled her to sleep when she had insomnia, who brings her an iced coffee after every cheer practice. Faybelle wishes she could be half the girlfriend Briar is. She winces when she realizes the truth of what she's thinking.

As Faybelle pulls away Briar, eyes still wide with concern, gently wipes her tears away with her thumbs. The feather-light touch sends shivers of pleasure down Faybelle’s spine. Briar softly kisses her cheek. Faybelle closes her eyes, savoring the warmth and security of Briar’s lips against her damp skin. As Briar pulls away though, Faybelle becomes aware of what a gooey mess she is. Her face burns with embarrassment when she notices the trails of snot on Briar’s shirt. This is beyond humiliating. Briar begins to rummage through her purse. "Here, I've got to have some tissues in here somewhere." "No, I'm fine," Faybelle insists. Her nose is so stuffed up that it's making her voice sound strange, like she has a cold, but the thought of blowing her nose in front of Briar is almost as embarrassing as crying in front of her. Which she just did. She winces, still reeling from what she'd just done. Sobbing in Briar's arms, confessing her deepest insecurities, getting snot all over her shirt. Oh God. She buries her face in her hands.

Briar gently places her hand on Faybelle's uninjured shoulder. “It’s alright, baby. Everything is alright.” Faybelle lifts her head, chuckling nervously. "I'm fine. I'm just–" Her voice dies off. She needs to stop talking. She's just humiliating herself more and more. "Just what?" Briar questions, her brow creased with concern. "You can talk to me, love.” Her hand never leaves Faybelle's shoulder. Faybelle groans, her cheeks suddenly burning. She looks at the floor, too embarrassed to meet Briar's gaze. "It's just–I cried all over you and got snot on your shirt and it's gross and–I don't know–I guess I feel–well, bad?" She's surprised to hear a giggle come from the girl. She raises her head, finally looking at Briar. The girl's eyes are bright with amusement. "You really think I care about that?" She grins at Faybelle. "I can just wash my shirt. Which I always do anyways, by the way. It's really not a big deal! And as for the crying all over me–I'm glad you let it out. It seems like you've been holding a lot of emotions in for a while. And I'm–" Her gaze softens. She gives Faybelle a tender smile. "I'm honored you trusted me with those emotions. That you let me be there for you. Because Faybelle–" She reaches out, taking her hand, gently squeezing her fingers. "I want to be there for you. You're my girlfriend. And I care about you. A lot.”

Faybelle doesn’t know how to respond. All these beautiful words Briar is saying and Faybelle is speechless. She wants more than anything to convey to her girlfriend how much all this means to her, but all she can do is stare vacantly at her. Briar, understanding that the girl is absolutely exhausted, doesn’t expect a response. She just pulls her into her arms again and holds her close.

XXX Instead of going to the party, they relax in Briar’s dorm, watching a movie before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

XXX Sunday October 14, 2023 5:41 pm

Butterflies swarm through Faybelle's stomach as she approaches Briar’s dorm room door. Hunter is at her side, trying to make conversation. She gives short replies when necessary, but in addition to not wanting to talk to the boy in the first place, her nerves are through the roof. What's going to happen at the dance? Is everybody going to be staring at her and Briar, silently judging them? Or are they even going to go so far as to openly mock them? They've gotten strange looks from some students when they walk down the halls holding hands, but have yet to deal with a confrontation. Faybelle worries that this might just be the day.

When Briar opens the door and walks out with Ashlynn, the breath is sucked from Faybelle's chest. Everything about Briar is stunning from her shiny hair flowing down her back in waves, to the shimmering black dress with red rose designs, to the way her makeup accentuates her beautiful brown eyes. Ashlynn skips over to Hunter, exclaiming “Ooh, you're so handsome, honey!” Faybelle suppresses an eye roll.

As Briar approaches her, Faybelle's heart is pounding. What does she say? She takes a deep breath and for once lets her heart be her guide. “You're so beautiful.” The awe in her voice is prominent. The dazzling smile that appears on Briar’s face makes Faybelle's heart skip a beat. “Thank you!” the girl exclaims. “You're so beautiful too!” Faybelle's cheeks burn. She knows her beauty is nowhere near the league of Briar’s gorgeousness. Not to mention her ice blue dress, embroidered with sapphires, no matter how gorgeous, still doesn't hold a candle to Briar’s dress. Still, she smiles and thanks her girlfriend. She knows Briar thinks she's beautiful. And right now that is enough.

XXX 6:00 pm

As she and Briar enter the auditorium, hand in hand, just as Faybelle expected, at least a dozen students are staring at them. But as Briar squeezes her hand and gives her an encouraging smile, her stress melts away. Who cares what these idiots think? She and Briar are in love, and the same probably can't be said for these dolts gawking at them. She continues to reassure herself with this thought as she and Briar enter the dance floor. An upbeat pop song is playing. Briar begins to dance, swaying to the beat. Faybelle can't help but stare, admiring her girlfriend's curves, the way her hips move, the way her hair cascades like a river behind her.

She's pulled from her reverie by Briar taking her hand and drawing her forward. “Come on, Fay! Dance with me!” The look of pure exhilaration on Briar's face sends a wave of mutual excitement through Faybelle. “You asked for it!” she exclaims, before picking Briar up with ease and spinning around with her. Briar shrieks before descending into a fit of giggles. Faybelle laughs along with her. Who cares if people are looking? What matters is that Briar is happy. And that makes Faybelle happy.

XXX When it comes time for the slow dance, Faybelle's heart is pounding again. Shivers dance down her spine as Briar takes her hand. They slowly walk onto the dance floor. They're amongst at least a dozen other dancing couples. She makes out Ashlynn and Hunter, Blondie and Cupid, and Raven and Dexter before her attention is diverted back to Briar who is pulling her close.

As they begin to sway side to side, Faybelle becomes aware of how close they are. She can feel the warmth of Briar’s breath on her face. Her hands are soft as petals. Her heart comes to a standstill as she looks into the girl's eyes and sees nothing but adoration in them. And when the song ends and Briar pulls her into a deep kiss, Faybelle's chest erupts with warmth. For once not a single other person crosses her mind.

XXX 10:38 pm

Bunny decides to have a sleepover with Maddie, Kitty, and Lizzie, and due to this fortunate turn of events, Faybelle and Briar are currently on Faybelle’s bed, embroiled in the most intense makeout session they’ve had so far in their relationship. Briar is on top of Faybelle, kissing her with a fierceness Faybelle has never seen from the girl. Faybelle rakes her fingers through Briar’s hair as they continue to kiss, each one deeper than the last. When Briar lets out a moan, Faybelle’s chest feels like it’s being swallowed whole by the searing heat within her. She desperately wants to do more, and when Briar pulls back from the kiss and looks at her, eyes bright with pleasure, Faybelle thinks the girl is thinking the same thing as her--that it’s time to take this to the next level. But as the fire within Faybelle becomes so white hot, she feels she might explode, Briar is suddenly back to kissing her, making no further indication that she wants to do anything else. The crushing disappointment Faybelle feels dims the flame inside her until it’s only embers, smoldering in her chest.

XXX Saturday October 20, 2017 6:07 pm

It takes Briar longer than usual to open her dorm room door after Faybelle knocks. When Faybelle sees the slight paleness of the girl’s face and her messy hair, her eyes widen. “Are you alright?” she asks, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Are you sick?” Briar shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. I just decided to get my flu shot last minute this afternoon, so I’m feeling kind of bleh. I just took Advil though, so that should kick in soon. Here, come on in.”

They sit side by side on Briar’s bed like they do so often. Briar yawns before resting her head on Faybelle’s shoulder. Faybelle wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Briar sighs contentedly. “Is it alright if we just order some food in? I don’t really feel up to going out for dinner.” “Of course,” Faybelle assures her. “That’s no problem. We can order anything you want and watch a movie of your choice. Sick person privileges.” Briar chuckles. “I’m not sick though.” “Well, you feel sick,” Faybelle reasons. “True. I took a nap before you came, but kingdoms I’m still so tired.” “I can go if you just need to sleep,” says Faybelle, her voice soft. “No, of course you don’t have to go!” Briar exclaims, suddenly alert. She lifts her head from Faybelle’s shoulder and looks at her with pleading eyes. “Please stay.” “Okay okay, I will! I just didn’t want to keep you up is all.” Briar shakes her head before resting it on Faybelle’s shoulder again. “No, I want to hang out with you.” Faybelle smiles, her chest filling with warmth at Briar’s words. She plants a soft kiss on the girl’s head. “Well, good news–I want to hang out with you too.” Briar giggles. “It’s a win win situation then.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a minute before Briar asks, “What do you want to order?” “I already said it’s your choice.” “But I hate choosing what to eat!” Briar whines. Faybelle chuckles. “Why?” Briar sighs. “Because I don’t want to disappoint anybody.” “You’re not going to disappoint me,” Faybelle assures her. “Here, how about I promise to tell you if I don’t want what you suggest?” Briar lifts her head, a comically serious expression on her face. “Pinkie promise?” Faybelle laughs, twisting their pinkies together. “Pinkie promise.” Briar giggles before picking up her phone from her nightstand and bringing up the Doordash app.

XXX They end up ordering Chinese, honey walnut shrimp for Briar and chow mein for Faybelle. While they wait for the food to arrive, Briar tries to pick out a movie, which turns out to be a longer process than Faybelle thought it would be. Briar is lying down, her head in Faybelle’s lap as she scrolls through “Best Movies” articles on her phone. Apparently Ashlynn is having a sleepover with Farrah, so they have the room to themselves. “Ughhh, I don’t know,” she groans. “I think Ashlynn is rubbing off on me. I can’t decide.” As usual, when Ashlynn is brought up, a wave of jealousy surges through Faybelle. Why is Briar always talking about her? What’s so great about that weirdo anyways? She wants to say something, to tell Briar to not obsess over the girl so much, but she knows how much that will anger her girlfriend (one time she called Ashlynn weird and she’d never seen Briar so mad), so she keeps her mouth shut and stews quietly. She’s pulled from her angry haze by Briar’s soft voice. “Is something wrong?” Faybelle blinks. “Huh?” Briar is looking up at her, brow furrowed with concern. “I asked you a question and you didn’t answer. Is everything alright? You look kinda out of it.” Faybelle shrugs, trying her best to act nonchalant. “Oh, I’m fine. Just thinking about that hexam we have next week.”

It’s not exactly a lie. Faybelle has been more stressed than usual about school lately. It doesn’t help that her mother has been on her back about the B she got on her last Home Evilnomics exam. When her mother had chewed her out over the phone, Faybelle had neglected to mention that instead of studying, she’d been making out with Briar the night before. She hasn’t told her mother about their relationship, and she intends to keep it that way for as long as she can. Briar groans. “I know, right?! Ugh, I’m so nervous for it! I’m going to have to throw a study party for this one for sure!” “Yeah,” Faybelle agrees. “If even you are struggling, I bet other people are absolutely clueless.” Briar blushes. “Well, I don’t know about that. I’m not that smart, Fay.” Faybelle leans down, smiling mischievously. “Yes you are,” she whispers before pressing her lips to Briar’s. Briar eagerly kisses her back. She has the sofest pair of lips Faybelle has ever felt. No matter how many girls she’s kissed in the past (always at the clubs she sneaks into), not a single kiss has meant as much to her as Briar’s do.

Briar is just sticking her tongue into Faybelle’s mouth when there’s a knock on the door. ‘Damn it!’ Faybelle’s mind hisses. Briar is breathing heavily, face flushed. The sight sends waves of pleasure coursing through Faybelle. When the girl licks her lips, the pleasure increases tenfold. “That must be our food,” Briar says. “I’ll get it.” As Briar walks toward the door, Faybelle’s eyes can’t help but travel to the girl’s butt. In that moment she wants Briar so desperately, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to contain herself. She wants all of her, every inch of her breathtaking body. The question is how much of Faybelle Briar wants.

XXX They end up watching the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. It’s one of Briar’s favorites. Faybelle can’t say she loves it, but it’s not bad. Especially not when she gets to watch Briar, see the way her face lights up at the funny parts and the intense furrow of her brow at the dramatic parts. Faybelle is not known for having a great attention span, but when it comes to watching Briar, she could do it all day.

When they’re done with their food, Briar lies down, resting her head in Faybelle’s lap again. Faybelle plays with her hair. It’s soft and thick and smells like roses. As she threads the silky strands between her fingers, hears Briar’s soft sigh of contentment, not one bit of her attention is on the movie. It’s completely on Briar, on memorizing everything about her: every delicate feature of her face, the sensation of her hair in her hands, her scent, her smile, her laugh. Faybelle never wants to forget this moment. She wants to feel like this forever. If only that were possible… They fall asleep curled up together shortly after the movie ends.

XXX Sunday October 21, 2017 9:19 am

When Faybelle wakes up the next morning, the first thing she registers is Briar’s arms wrapped snugly around her. She basks in the warmth and security, wishing they could stay like this the rest of the day. As Briar begins to stir and her eyes open, beautiful brown irises staring into hers, Faybelle has never felt so much adoration for another person. The feeling nearly overwhelms her. “Good morning,” Briar whispers. She snuggles closer, nuzzling her face against Faybelle’s chest. Faybelle holds her close, relishing in the fact that they fit so perfectly in each other’s arms, like two matching pieces of a puzzle. “Good morning,” she replies, her voice hoarse with sleep. “How you doing?” Briar asks, voice muffled against Faybelle’s shirt. Faybelle couldn't have stopped the goofy grin from forming on her face even if she tried. “Never better.”

XXX

The study party is thrown in Briar and Ashlynn's dorm that evening. All through the party, Faybelle can’t focus on anything but Briar. On the brightness of her eyes as she explains equations, the way the light of the projector casts a glow on her perfect face, the sway of her hips as she walks from student to student to help them with their worksheets. And when she reaches over Farrah to write down a helpful note on the girl’s paper, Faybelle’s gaze may linger a little too long on Briar’s cleavage.

After the students leave and only Ashlynn is left, Faybelle wishes with every fiber of her being that the girl would just leave too and go off with her stupid boyfriend. But unfortunately this is Ashlynn’s dorm too and it’s already past ten o’ clock, so she’s not going anywhere. So Faybelle has to resign herself to the fact that she’ll only be able to give Briar a quick goodbye kiss, not the makeout session that every inch of her body is so desperately craving.

When Briar offers to walk her out and shoots her a suggestive look, a surge of excitement races through Faybelle. Her whole body buzzes as they walk hand in hand out the door. As soon as Briar closes the door behind them and a quick survey of the hallway proves that nobody is there to watch, Faybelle launches herself into Briar’s arms. They kiss until they can kiss no more, until they’re breathless and dizzy with adrenaline. “I love you!” Faybelle blurts out. Panic immediately courses through her as she registers the gravity of what she just said. As she looks at Briar though, nothing but pure adoration is on her face. Her eyes shine with tears as she exclaims, voice trembling with emotion, “I love you too!” They kiss again and Faybelle didn’t know this was possible, but it’s even better this time. Briar loves her. A girl like Briar really, truly loves her. Faybelle has never felt so elated. So she kisses Briar with a fervor unlike any she ever has and the girl kisses her back just as passionately. Faybelle has never felt so complete. And she hopes Briar feels the same way.

XXX Tuesday October 23, 2017 4:04 pm

“I can’t believe this!” Briar exclaims, as soon as Faybelle opens her dorm room door. She storms in and begins pacing around Faybelle’s room. Faybelle watches her, chest heavy with concern, but clueless as to what she should do. Briar had sounded so panicked over the phone. Now that the girl is here, Faybelle can tell by the redness of her eyes that she’s been crying. She’s muttering under her breath as she circles around. Faybelle stands there awkwardly. She knows if their roles were reversed, Briar would already have wrapped her in her arms. But Faybelle is terrible with emotions. She doesn’t even know how to handle her own, let alone anybody else’s. Briar walks around mumbling for another minute before turning to Faybelle. Faybelle’s heart drops as she sees the tears streaming down the girl’s cheeks. “A C, Faybelle! I got a C!” Her voice is hysterical. “How did this happen?! How could I let this happen?!” Faybelle opens her mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. The last thing she wants to do is say something wrong, to make things worse than they already are. Knowing herself, that is very likely. So she just stands there, eyes wide, as Briar continues to ramble.

Then Briar bursts into tears, shaking with sobs, and fear surges through Faybelle. What does she do?! Oh kingdoms, what does she do?! Briar is her girlfriend. She can’t just stand here! Hesitantly, heart pounding, she approaches the girl. She places a tentative hand on her shoulder. Briar’s muscles are clenched, hands curled into fists at her side. Faybelle takes a deep breath before speaking, making her voice as soft as she can possibly make it. “Here babe, let’s go sit down, okay?” She wraps her arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders, slowly guiding her to the bed. As soon as they sit down, Briar throws her arms around her, burying her face in her chest. Faybelle stiffens, heart pounding. But she quickly shoves the anxiety down and does what a good girlfriend should do. She wraps her arms around Briar, pulling her closer. She rests her cheek on the girl’s head, planting gentle kisses to her scalp, just like the girl did for her when she was upset. “I’m so embarrassed!” Briar sobs, barely able to get the words out. “I’m always the one throwing those stupid study parties and then my stupid ass goes and gets a C! And my dad–he’s going to be so disappointed in me!” The surge of anger that rushes through Faybelle surprises her, but she can’t stand to hear her girlfriend talk about herself this way. “The parties aren't stupid!” she insists. “And you’re not stupid either! You’re perfect!” “No I’m not!” Faybelle’s voice softens. “Nobody’s perfect, but you’re one of the good ones, Briar. One of the best. You’re kind and resilient and caring and intelligent and beautiful…so beautiful inside and out.”

Faybelle winces as Briar starts crying harder. Shit, she knew she’d make things worse! But her fear quickly subsides as Briar speaks again, struggling to get the words out between her sobs. “Thank you. I love you so much!” Joy bursts through Faybelle’s chest. She did it! She made Briar happy! Well, happier than she was at least. Smiling, she gives the girl a squeeze. “I love you so much too, baby. So much. Everything will be okay.”

XXX Friday November 3, 2017 9:32 pm

Briar’s P.O.V.

The pop song blaring through the speakers is vibrating through Briar’s head, adding to her building headache, as she storms across the club dance floor toward Faybelle. The girl, clad in a sparkly black short dress, is in the middle of the crowd, dancing so wildly Briar wouldn't be surprised if she crashed into somebody. Hot tendrils of anger are pulsing through Briar’s chest as she marches toward her girlfriend, ready to chew her out. When she reaches the girl though and starts yelling (both to be heard over the music and because of her rage), she isn’t nearly as articulate as she’d hoped to be. The alcohol is clearly having a bit of an effect. “Why the fuck did-did you give me this drink, Faybelle?! I said that I-that I didn’t want to drink alcohol! And you-you give me this?! You said it was a virgin!” The smirk on Faybelle’s face adds to the tower of anger growing taller and taller in Briar’s chest. “Chill out, Beauty!” Faybelle’s voice is more slurred than hers, as she’s had three margaritas rather than one. “You needed it! Damn you’re uptight!” Briar very rarely completely snaps, but she is so furious right now, and with the addition of the alcohol lowering her impulse control, nothing is stopping her from going off. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Faybelle?! You roofied me! You fucking roofied me! Your own girlfriend!” Faybelle snorts. The bemused look on her face only makes Briar angrier. “That is not what roofieing is, Briar! You clearlyyy don’t know what that means, girl!” “Ughhh! You’re impossible!” Briar doesn’t even care if people are watching. Faybelle is the one at fault here after all. Briar is clenching her fists so hard, her hands are starting to cramp up. The only other thing she can get out is a weak, “Fuck you, Faybelle!” before bursting into tears and running as well as she can to the bathroom.

When she comes back to her dorm room an hour later after the tipsiness wears off, eyes red from crying, she lies to a very concerned Ashlynn. “Nothing happened. I just got overstimulated. Don’t worry, I didn’t drink. I know better…”

XXX Friday November 17, 2017 4:07 pm

“So it seems like you and Faybelle are getting pretty serious, huh?” Briar turns to look at Ashlynn. They’re currently packing for fall break, which starts tomorrow. They’ll be going to their respective homes for the next week. Ashlynn’s eyes are bright with mischief as she grins at Briar. She knows what she’s doing. She knows how easily flustered Briar gets when it comes to Faybelle. Briar’s face immediately flushes. Ashlynn giggles. “Damn it, Ashlynn!” Briar exclaims, though it’s clear by her humorous tone that she’s joking. Ashlynn laughs before continuing the banter. “Language, Briar. I was just asking you a simple question. You and Faybelle were getting pretty cozy with each other during the movie last night.” She gives an exaggerated wink. Briar rolls her eyes. She can tell by the heat of her cheeks that her face must be beet red now. Last night Briar, Ashlynn, Hunter, Faybelle, Raven, Dexter, Apple, Darling, Blondie, Cupid, and the Wonderlandians had all gotten together in the commons room to watch a movie. Briar and Faybelle hadn’t been the only couple there wrapped in each other’s arms during the movie, but of course it stood out to Ashlynn, as Briar used to be rather shy about PDA. Briar scoffs playfully. “Talk to the wall, Ash. You and Hunter kissed about a gazillion times! And we were watching “Silence of the Lambs,” for kingdom’s sake!” Ashlynn bursts into laughter and Briar quickly follows suit.

When their laughter dies down, Ashlynn turns to Briar again, the smile on her face entirely genuine this time. “But things seem to be going really well, yeah?” Her voice is soft. Butterflies surge through Briar’s stomach, as they always do when she thinks about Faybelle and how much she loves the girl. “Yeah,” she says, her voice just as soft. “Very well. She’s amazing.” A thought pops into her head. How amazing is tricking your girlfriend into drinking? She quickly tries to shove the intrusive thought down. Everybody makes mistakes, she reasons to herself. Even big mistakes. They’re just mistakes. She didn’t mean any harm…right?

XXX Saturday December 2, 2017 12:07 am

As soon as Briar tiptoes into her dorm room and shuts the door quietly behind her, the lights flick on. She yelps at the sudden motion, followed by another yelp as Ashlynn begins talking. “You said you’d be back over an hour ago. Why didn’t you answer my calls? I was worried about you, Briar!” The girl’s voice is cold and accusatory, no trace of its usual warmth or softness to be found. Briar stiffens, shame immediately replacing the euphoria she’d just felt from several minutes spent kissing Faybelle. Her mouth opens, but no words come out. She hadn’t noticed Ashlynn’s calls, but still…she should’ve checked her phone more. She’d actually had no idea it was past 11:00 until just now. It was beyond stupid of her to not check the time. Clenching her jaw, she forces herself to address Ashlynn. The girl is sitting in her bed, arms crossed. The angry furrow of her brow honestly frightens Briar. Her friend rarely gets angry, and she can’t even remember a time where it was directed at her. “I’m so sorry, Ashlynn! I didn’t notice the time until now, and I didn’t notice your calls either. I didn’t have my phone out and I guess I turned the sound off by accident. I should’ve checked my phone more. I’m…I’m really sorry.” The furrow of Ashlynn’s brow doesn’t fade. She scoffs before lying down, back turned to Briar. “I find that hard to believe,” she mumbles.

A flash of indignation sparks in Briar’s chest, but she doesn’t let it consume her. Ashlynn has every right to be upset and the dig is well-deserved. Briar twists her fingers together, eyes stinging as the shame burns hotter, quickly overpowering any irritation she’d felt. “I’m really not lying. I promise. But…I get it if you don’t believe me right now. I was stupid and irresponsible. I’m really, really sorry.” She’s starting to get frantic, her voice shaking slightly, fists clenched at her sides. “It’s fine, Briar,” Ashlynn says, voice softening. “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I’m sorry I was harsh. Let’s just go to bed and forget about it, okay?” The anger is gone from her voice, but it still doesn’t contain its usual warmth. Briar swallows, clenching her teeth harder and harder as tears threaten to overwhelm her. “Okay,” she whispers, knowing if she talks any louder she’ll start crying. She hates upsetting people, especially her friends. And Ashlynn, a girl who isn’t at all easy to upset? Briar really screwed up this time.

All she can think about as she lies in bed and tries to fall asleep is how stupid and irresponsible she is, and how angry she is with herself for upsetting somebody so dear to her. Faybelle means the world to her, but Ashlynn…this is a terrible thing to even think about, but Ashlynn might mean even more to her.

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Seven

“…The Lord be with you”

“And with your spirit.”

“May Almighty God Bless you, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen.”

“Now mass has ended, go in peace to love and serve the lord.”

I turn to my mother next to me in the church pew and mutter the next part with intention. “Thanks be to God.” She leans in to me and hisses “Stop that.” and bends to pick her bag up from the floor as everyone begins to shuffle out of the church at that specific snail’s pace that people only seem to move at while in a Catholic church. It’s the slowest place on earth, and I feel like groaning out loud when my parents get stopped by a neighbour who wants to wish us a happy Christmas, and in doing so blocks our exit from the pew. 

They talk to Ms. McCarthy for what seems like forever as I glance across the church to where the Healy’s are moving through the crowds towards us. I’ve been watching the backs of their heads since we came in, but I don’t think they’ve seen us yet, something I’m glad of because I don’t really feel attempting some excruciating exchange with Kelly, who gives me anxious heart palpitations at the mere sight of the side of her face across a building. I watch them as they come closer, waving here and there, smiling, giving Christmas wishes, especially Shane, who everyone wants a piece of since he scored a winning point in the last county final match, or something like that. 

I have to take my eyes off them when Ms. McCarthy grabs my hand with that iron grip that only old ladies possess and pulls me into her so she can ask me if Santy came, with this humorous glint in her eye, as if we don’t have this exact exchange every Christmas. I laugh and tell her that he did, and yes, he was good, and yes, he even ate the biscuits we left out for him, and yes, I got everything on my list, and I’m still talking to her when the Healy’s reach us. I’m glad of it because it means I look too distracted to talk to them. 

“Hello Marian.” I hear Shane say as he gives my mam a hug, and she looks delighted. She loves him, but not the same way that everyone else does, she extra loves him. In a she-wishes-she’d-given-birth-to-him kind of way. I think that’s why she wants us to go out with each other, so that one day we’ll get married and she can say that he’s her son in law. I want to present her with side by side photos of Claire and me and ask her, really, honestly, which one is he more likely to fancy, but even aside from that, the idea of dating him makes me feel truly unwell but no matter how much I tell her this she’s never really given up hoping. 

He comes over to me and interrupts mine and Ms. McCarthy’s conversation about the best biscuit selection boxes and gives me his signature stiff hug. “Well.” He says in his usual stilted, Irish country boy way, “Happy Christmas, Evie.”

“Same to you.” I glance over his shoulder at his sister who is making a point of not speaking to anyone in my family, standing there with her best bored face on, looking around like she’s hoping there’s somebody better to talk to. Acting like she’s in a trendy bar instead of a draughty catholic church full of pensioners. 

“Are you coming out tomorrow night to the pub?” Shane wants to know, and my eyes snap back to him.

“Which pub?”

“Dunno yet. Whichever.”

“Ah, okay.”

“I’ll get Claire to text you where we’re going.”

“Sounds good.”

“Have a good Christmas, right?”

“Yep, you too.”

He gives me a nod and then heads towards the exit with his family, and when they’re still in earshot I hear Kelly scolding him. “Why did you just invite her to come to the pub?” 

“Yeah, so?”

“You’re so annoying, like. It would be grand if it was only Claire but I don’t want her there.”

They’re out of earshot then, so I can’t hear what he says in response, but it doesn’t really matter. The damage is already done, and as we’re finally released from Ms. McCarthy’s grasp and go back out to the car I feel awful, defective, irredeemable. Kelly can handle being around Claire, but not me? Why? I’m not the one who started fights, I’m not the one who slept with her brother, all I ever tried to do was be the peacemaker, and still, to her I’m the worst one. 

God. I think to myself as I clamber into the backseat of my dad’s little car. After all this time, why does it still feel so bad? Why do I still care about what she thinks of me? I rest my head against the car window and it wets my forehead with condensation. With the sleeve of my coat I wipe the droplets from the glass and look out, the sky the kind of grey that makes you claustrophobic, this dense, ash coloured blanket wound around the town, colour leached from the landscape making everything look the same, in shades of brown and grey and grey and brown. 

Perhaps, I think, as I regard the gloomy, miserable sights, perhaps one day I will learn to let go of things. One day I won’t hold on to everything so tightly, and I’ll stop caring about all of this stupid stuff.

Prev // Next

[ofbrokendreams]

Part two of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

Part One

Hit up AO3 for the full fic.

TW: cursing, discussions of sex, discussions of abuse, discussions of mental health, discussions of drug use, discussion of suicide, depiction panic attack, pregnancy (let me know if I missed anything)

WITH OR WITHOUT 

He thinks about trying to cover the new tattoo some how but the idea is ludicrous. The fucking thing is huge, well big, it’s noticeable is the point. And Richie is the first the point it out, like it’s fucking news to him, the jackass. “The fucks on your neck, Cousin?” He giggles, fucking giggles. 

The whole crew clowns on him for a week or so before moving on. 

Carmy expects to feel more self conscious then he does. Terri smiles and nods when he tries to explain it. “It was kind of nice, comfortable almost. It was just jokes and it…it was funny. I don’t know.” “I think maybe it was nice to have your staff feel so comfortable around you. Especially with your own bad experiences.” Carmy nods in agreement. “What was Sydney’s reaction? To the uh ribbing.” Terri asks. “She laughed, a lot, I think she thinks I deserve it for getting the dumb thing in the first place.”

“Ahh yes, a just punishment for foolishness.” Terri laughs softly and Carmy smiles a little. “Yes sometimes consequences can be…good. They aren’t always harsh or terrible. For example, joy is often a consequence of loving someone.” Terri says writing something down. 

Carmy thinks about it. Consequences. They’ve always been bad, punishment. That’s what he always thought they were. But maybe it’s just the reaction to an action. 

He thinks he’s staring at Syd to much. To often. To long. 

She corners him in the office one night just before service. “The fuck is going on with you?” “What? What I do?” “You’re just being like…so chill but you keep…like is there something wrong with me?”

Carmy blinks at her and laughs, a full belly laugh leaning over in his chair. Holding a hand up for her. “No no nothing is wrong with you. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more…I’m sorry.” “It’s fine. I didn’t-it’s fine.” Sydney says but she’s looking at him like he’s grown an extra head. 

They’re still packed every night. Still a waiting list weeks out. There’s reviews every month and they’re all glowing. And Carmy’s nervous. All the time. He feels like it’s all going to come crashing down. 

All Nat’s hard work could be gone and all their new family memories. Mikey took his first fucking steps in this place, one early morning toddling from his mother sitting in the office chair to Carmen standing in the office door way, the goofiest grin on his chubby face. And he cradles the little boy close and thinks how much he loves this kid and how much he misses his brother. How unfair it is that he has to be the favorite uncle when it should be Michael. But Sugar looks at him with this like…love in her eyes and he thinks maybe not. Maybe this is his place. 

And he thinks of Richie’s wisdom back when Carmy and Syd first broke up. The limited amount of time they have with her.  And Marcus, he’s so fucking talented. Carmy thinks he’s like a doctor, all “See one, do one, teach one.” And the things he creates are incredible, even when it’s not right his effort is astounding to Carmy. He just dusts himself off and tries again never afraid to scrap something or change it. The two chefs under him are getting as good as he is and for however long they have Marcus they’ll only get better. 

But Sydney. Carmy has kind of…this is her place too. And he’s always known she might venture out but this is her place too. He doesn’t think she’d leave. But now he’s thinking that was more of his selfishness. He doesn’t want her to leave as much as he does want her to thrive, to flourish. 

A couple magazines want interviews. Local Chicago things just spotlighting a hometown place. And they do a photo shoot with Carmy and Syd calls him a fucking slut when she sees it giggling like he’s never heard. Laying on her stomach on his bed while he sits at the window smoking. He remembers the tank top they’d had him wear and how excited the wardrobe lady got when he’d shown up in his vintage denim. He rolls his eyes but when Sydney reads the interview she doesn’t laugh. 

It’s all Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney. 

And she’s looking at him like he’s…like he’s the one who’s special. But it’s all her.

It’s a Monday when the other magazine interviews Syd. Its weird but it gets Carmy’s thinking it’s been longer that they’ve been apart then they were ever together and it’s horrifying. And he thinks of Michael and Syd’s mom, how Syd’s older then she ever got to be and how someday he’ll be older then his brother could stand to be. 

He’s along for the ride since the reporter wanted an in real life kind of thing. 

Instead of their usual Monday routine of nothing. They do their other less routine of recipe testing. The new Fall menu is changing. And they hit up the Farmer’s Market before it gets to cold and closes for the season. And there’s a camera man with them and he directs them a little bit but mostly let’s them do their thing taking a lot of candid shots. And Syd talks food, and their staff and The Beef and the CIA and Nat and little Mikey, and how they’re a family run restaurant. 

And the reporter at some point calls Sydney Carmy’s wife, like to his face, asks something like “Is your wife always this excited over tomatoes?” With this laugh and Carmy nods and says “Always.” And doesn’t correct him. 

And when he reads the interview he kind of thinks maybe her feelings have changed. It’s a little selfish but he thinks about how much he talked about her and how little she talked about him. And maybe she’s not…she’s not in love with him anymore. Like he is her. 

But then he looks at the pictures. 

And for every one of him standing holding her flowers and produce is one of Syd looking at him. And her smile, her eyes, the way she softly grabbed his wrist when she noticed the local honey stand that only comes once a month (and she fucking loves it but he keeps missing it and she was so delighted she’d get to show him finally, “Finally” she’d said grinning back at him.) and they’d caught that moment. 

So it’s weird and they’re so out of order. And they haven’t talked about it. But it feels right. 

When she comes over a few days later and she’s talking mousse and some kind of greens, “Like kale or chard, you know robust”. He just interrupts and asks if she can help him with something. And she nods of course. And he holds out her ring on its delicate chain. 

“Can you uh-can you hang onto this for me…again?”

And she stares at him for a while before turning her back to him and lifting her hair. And he puts the necklace on her. Buries his face in the place where her neck and shoulder meet. 

“I’m trying Syd. I’m trying and I just I need time and your patience and I need you.” “You’ve got me Carmy, I’m not-you’re good. I’m right here.”

When Carmy asked for her patience Syd’s not really sure what he meant. Cause a couple days later he’s giving her back her key, and asking if she want’s to just move in, full time, permanently. Or like maybe they should look at other places. He wants to stay in the city but like maybe find something a little bigger. Closer to her dad maybe?

Syd just nods and laughs and tackles him to the bed and they’re almost late for work. (For them at least, they come in with every one else instead of early).

And living together is fucking bliss. 

It shouldn’t be. 

It’s not all that different then what they’ve been doing. But just knowing Syd is coming home with him every night. Every Monday, she’s there and when she leaves she’s coming home, when he leaves he comes home to her. It erases all his anxiety about them living together. About making things to permanent. Cause for him concrete crumbles but not for Syd and he’s trusting her. 

He’s trusting her luck rather then his own. 

Being around each other so much now is how he first notices the changes. Sydney’s attitude is different, she’s more on edge, she’s not eating (she tastes as she cooks but she’s picking at family or skipping it in the office and she’s picking at her food at home too. Barely eating now that he thinks of it).

“Hey are you…you’re not still throwing up after service are you?” He asks one night as they’re walking home. And Syd stares at him, rolls her eyes and shakes her head. It’s been almost two years since The Bear opened. She shoves his arm playfully then wraps her arms around his bicep holding him as they walk. “I’m good. Just…a little off. Thank you for checking.” And she’s so sweet about it smiling at him adorably and humming Frank Ocean softly but he knows its a dismissal. She doesn’t want to talk about it. 

Should he push? He think about asking for her patience and knows he needs to give his. And fuck he owes Terri a million fucking dollars, for getting him to a place where he’s emotionally capable of this kind of rational thinking.

“Have you noticed Syd being weird?” He asks Sugar a few days later. Cause he’s more emotional mature sure but his sister is his sister. Sugar’s fingers stop where they’re typing on her phone. She looks at him on the floor of her living room with Mikey and sighs. “I can’t-I uh-“ Carmy nods and waves her off. 

He’s the king of avoidance. So knowing that Syd is talking to someone is good. And it being Sugar, seeing how close they are it’s…it’s nice. It feels comfortable. 

He waits. And waits. And waits. 

He’s about to fall sleep on the couch, new couch, watching Julia Child reruns on a local access channel when Sydney comes out of the bedroom. She’s wearing one of his white tees and an older pair of his plaid boxers and she’s so fucking cute and gorgeous. And sad. And anxious. “Syd?”

She takes his hand and bites her lip and he wants to pull it out, kiss her until everything is okay. 

“I’m pregnant.”

Carmy knows he heard her correctly but he blinks, shakes his head and clears his throat. 

He’s gonna have a panic attack. He’s gonna fucking lose it. 

Carmy thinks of the techniques Terri’s taught him. The shit he uses in the kitchen so he doesn’t yell and scream and scare every new chef. But it’s all-it’s gone. 

All he’s got is his father leaving before he ever got to know him. 

His mother going full psycho. Every other day. Hiding in his bedroom and stuffing his drawings under the bed. Watching her abuse his sister and traumatize his brother. 

He’s got Michael and his drug use and his avoidance and his pain and his gun and it’s all on the tip of his tongue. 

He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t do this. 

Then he looks at Sydney and she looks so resigned. 

She’s his soulmate, she’s stitched into his heart and literally written on his skin. 

“At times you’re going to be overwhelmed and taking five minutes to yourself to regulate and get back to calm might feel silly or uncomfortable or rude but it maybe your best choice in the moment,” Terri’s kind voice is in his ear and he stands. 

“I just…five-five minutes.” And he goes into the bathroom and sits on the rim of the bathtub like he likes to do when Syd takes baths. 

His hands are shaking. Thoughts racing. 

Michael. Mikey. Sugar. Nat. Donna. Mom. The Beef. The Bear. Chef Terry. New York Chef. New York. Copenhagen. Malibu. Napa. Iceland. Paris. London. Puerto Rico. Chicago. Cousin. Eva. Mikey. Sydney-Sydney-Sydney. Forgiveness and love and grace and death and fear and abandonment and avoidance and patience and love and love and Sydney. Family. 

His hands stops shaking and he can breathe as he stands, looks in the mirror. And goes back out to the love of his life. 

“I’m sorry-“ “It’s okay, I’m proud of you.” She interrupts. Carmy blushes, nods and sits down next to her. 

He takes her hands in his, kisses her knuckles and smiles at her. Grins at her. 

“You’re going to be so fucking good at this.” He says, Syd laughs shaking her head. “No you are. And I’m just…thank you. For trusting me and giving me time. And this,” he glances at her stomach then back at her dark eyes, the brown of the soil and of her skin especially when she’s just put on her cacao butter and morning coffee and the warmth of firewood and all good things. “This is amazing and I never- you know I never but I think we can-together maybe, I think it’ll be okay. It’ll be great you know?”

“Yeah, Carm,” Syd says wrapping one hand around the side of his neck where her name is, color fading likes it supposed to and just part of his skin like all his other tattoos like all the other parts of him, and cupping his jaw with the other. “It’s us you know?”

“Yeah, its ours.”

“Exactly.”

[leia-organaa]

Okay so I’m back and only a really spectacular piece of media could bring me back to fandom life. I’m talking about Moving (무빙) (2023). Warning: spoilers ahead.

Wow, this show. So, so, so good. I know the whole teenagers with superpowers and protective parents vs evil shady government/bad guys thing has been done before in different ways, but this one still felt so refreshing in its approach. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I’m biased towards kdramas, but there’s something about this show that its western predecessors like Heroes and Stranger Things etc. don’t have, and I think it is its distinct cultural and political identity that makes it unique.

To be honest, I didn’t catch the show when it was initially released last year because life caught up to me, and I regret not being there during its height of popularity. I just binged it in two days during a holiday break because the Baeksang nominees came out recently, and got curious because of the list. I have no regrets losing sleep over it. It was genuinely exciting and heart-wrenching, and so beautifully made. Thank you, Disney+, for the big budget, and for letting Kang Full adapt his work.

Anyway, I don’t really want to make a whole essay about how good the show was so I’ll just list down my thoughts and ramblings.

Jo In Sung is gorgeous. I already knew that prior to this show but he makes such an excellent Doosik, a smooth and dangerous spy with superpowers, who can be tender and romantic at the same time.

Han Hyo Joo — love her. So pretty as a spy, and to see her transform into a mousy single mother who is simply trying her best? Amazing.

Doosik and Mihyun’s storyline is my favorite. Spies who fall in love, and in the nineties? Omg. Mulder and Scully, seriously. The retro styling and production design was well done, too. Not cartoonish or obviously fake like they do in some kdramas. You can see there was genuine effort made to make it look somewhat realistic and believable to have been set during that time period. Maybe the shoulder pads and women’s blazers could have been slightly bigger, but the hair and unflattering trousers on Mihyun and Doosik’s and Juwon’s oversized coats? The filters? Excellent.

Back to their storyline. The set up was so good. The way it developed was so natural. The cutlets! Those trees! Their life together! All the tender feelings! God. What a beautiful couple. I love them. I want them to be happy. It broke my heart that their lives were stolen away from them.

There is a reason why Ryu Seung Ryong was nominated and why he is a legend. That man is a force. He is a beast. Juwon is their Wolverine. But my favorite parts are when he is being an awkward suitor then husband to Jihee and loving dad to Huisoo.

Lee Jung Ha’s smile as Bongseok can light up the world. What a sweetheart. I’m excited to see what happens next for him in the sequel (there will be a sequel, right?).

Cannot wait for Huisoo to become even more badass than she already is. If she takes after both her parents, she’d be terrifying.

Ganghoon is definitely the kind of guy I would have had a crush on at that age. Handsome, mysterious, a good son. Kind of sucks to see him turn into the very thing all the parents wanted their kids to avoid, but seems like he has the potential to be the new Doosik.

Now that I’ve read the story behind Hyewon, okay, I’m really intrigued to see where this goes.

Kim Sung Kyun as Ganghoon appa! My Reply 1988 heart.

The North-South conflict really gives the show its distinct flavor. The espionage is cool and all, but the traces of commonality give the show a lot of heart and humanity. I like how a lot of South Korean media humanize the enemy. It’s a reminder that they were one people a long time ago.

How does this have only 40-something fics on AO3????? Please, people, this deserves everything.

I had a lot more thoughts on this as I was watching but these are what stuck. I really hope to see more of these characters, hopefully soon, but I’m also interested to explore the other stories in this same universe that Kang Full has created.

[your-mom-friend]

The past few months have felt like I’m drowning. My workload is so much and there’s so many things I haven’t done but that’s not what’s drowning me oddly enough. I feel like I’m drowning in the thoughts of the life I might end up with, the life I could have, the life I could’ve ended up with, and the life I want all at the same time.

Yes, drowning is the right word. My hand reaches up to grab something, anything, a rope, a board, a hand, just to get a hold on something that will pull me out of the water that’s blurring my vision and constricting my chest and filling my lungs and weighing down my every movement. Drowning is a word people use often to describe these feelings but for the first time I feel like I truly understand what it means.

Drowning is the right word

There is a small, but not insignificant, part of me that is dark and twisted and manipulative and all the things I swore I won’t be and it pushes me to be kinder for all the wrong reasons.

I am still kind. I mean well. I want my enemy to eat even if not at my table. I want to see my family prosper even if they cast me out one day. I want them all to be happy.

But somewhere inside, one of the reasons I do it is because I want it to hurt.

If I am to one day be gone from their lives I want it to hurt them. I want my laughter to echo in their ears knowing they cast me out. I want my former homes to be so full of my essence, so infused with me that no corner would exist where they could see and not see the person they got rid of. I want my sister to look at the penguin plushie I gave her and wish she’d done different. I want my mother to go in the kitchen and know she’ll never see me excitedly try a new recipe to show her. I want my father to look at the shelves and remember how delightedly I’d tell him about each new book I’d bought, each new thing I’d studied in school.

I want them all to live with the fact that they’d never see me laugh or smile or pronounce things wrong or make the face I always make when I want to ask for something or have long conversations stretching hours into the night, sat upside down on sofas or laid up in bed with blankets in lamp light or leaning against the kitchen counters, ever again.

I think one day I will tell my family who I am and they will get rid of me and I want it to hurt. I want them to never forget who I was to them and who the child they’d loved would never be to them again. I want the kindness and understanding and generosity I am so known for to become a gaping wound in their chests when I’m gone so that not a single day could pass where they are not reminded that that is the person they got rid of for something so simple as a difference in faith, for a difference in love.

I hate this side of me. She wants to protect me from the hurt that will come from being cast away, I think. I do not think she can. I think she hopes that I will accept my fate and move on before it happens so that I don’t need to feel it when it does. She’ll take my pain and turn it into rage for me to propel me further. She holds my hands so, so gently in hers to take the pain away and I don’t want her to touch me.

I hate that she exists. I hope she knows what she’s doing.

I wonder sometimes if all this fear and distrust and anxiety is for nothing. What if everything works out? What if I come out to my parents, about my sexuality and my religion or lack thereof and they accept me? What if I’ve spent so long preparing myself for the worst that when the best happens it will devastate me more? When I’ve spent so many years building this preparatory rage and indifference and now it was all for nothing? What if I’m putting myself through the grief of loss when there was nothing to lose?

This is what I fear more, I think. That it was truly all in my head, that I’d misconstrued everything I’d ever thought was true and that my family is good, and the only evil is me, preparing myself the victim when there’s no crime perpetrated.

I think back to my older sister. She’s been my idol since I was a child. I’ve never not looked up to her. To her strength and drive and resilience and patience. I tell her I fear that one day I’ll lose her. That she’ll get tired of keeping my secret and that she’ll tell our parents in a misguided attempt to help me. She does not tell me she hopes that day never comes, cannot promise me it never will. She apologises in advance for when it happens. We both know it will. This conversation has looped in my head, made itself the star of my every waking nightmare since it’s happened. Not one night passes where I do not picture the scene play out in front of my eyes. A thousand times the scene plays, with a thousand different variables. There is only one ending to the story. There is no other version of this story.

It is hard to think now. I kick my legs. I try to stay above the water. My head goes under and comes up repeatedly. I see the sky before I’m submerged and the dark water before I come up again. My legs grow weaker. My breaths, shallower. I try to keep my hands out, hoping that they’ll grab onto something, anything, to give me a moments respite and expel the water that’s slowly entering my lungs. There is not enough of me left to find a new solution. I’m not sure how long I can keep it going. I can only do it until I can’t. Either I will escape or I will drown. Till then I can only keep going.

[folkloristico]

🥀 favorite angst quote from a published work

🌻 favorite funny quote from a published work

🍒 favorite sweet quote from a wip

tysm for the ask mari! 🫶

🥀 favorite angst quote from a published work

Shiho doesn’t retort—she feels close to Shinichi but feels even closer to the client. Her heart aches at the thought of the mother who’s still looking for a culprit who doesn’t exist and of the father whom Shinichi has never even spoken of. She will never be able to fully understand Shinichi, but if there’s one thing she knows is that he will never give up on living. Where she would’ve just let herself drawn, he’s fought with dirty nails and cracked teeth just to keep going—breathing is exhausting but doesn’t scrape his throat like sharp breaches. He doesn’t sense the hollow at their feet—and Shiho, with her soul black as night screaming at her, envies him. Because ignoring is a more acceptable fate than knowing and not being able to do anything about it. The idea of erasing the past scares her because letting go of her memories means changing herself, losing her persona to create a new self. Shiho believes she would if she only could—to get rid of the hollow emptiness expanding beside her feet, she would give up everything she has been and be twenty years old, for real. Not even the drug she created could do this much. Whether it’s Sherry, Shiho Miyano or Ai Haibara it does not matter, she remains the same wretched, little girl who’s afraid of the monsters under her bed, and no fake name on Earth can change that.

From if it’s hollow on the inside. 

Sorry it’s so long, lol, but I feel like sharing all of it. I still prefer the Italian version because, well, it’s the original, and not being a translator myself, I’m sure there are some things that could be fixed. Still, despite the fact that it’s been almost two years since I originally wrote the story, and I usually come to loathe my stories after, like, two months, I still like it very much. As for now, it’s the closest I could get to depicting Shiho and Shinichi as I see them.

🌻 favorite funny quote from a published work

“Chloé, are you alright?” he asked. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” “We?” Chloé echoed, glaring over Adrien’s shoulders. “Don’t look at me,” Alya said, her arms crossed over her chest. “I was fine with thinking of you dead somewhere—no, wait, actually, I wasn’t thinking of you.” Chloé shot her a nasty glare, but didn’t respond. It was something, right? “Funny you’d say that. I thought a car had run over you while you were trying to get a picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir.” “At least I was able to get out.” … Anyway. Progress takes time.

From fire meet gasoline.

Sadly, I don’t care about Miraculous Ladybug anymore, but I’m SO HYPED for the movie and I had a lot of fun writing this story. Sassy!Chloé is what I live for.

🍒 favorite sweet quote from a wip

I had a hard time choosing the snippet because I’ve been writing a lot of Winx stuff in the last few that I didn’t even remember what my other WIPs were about lol

“You look…” Matt tilted his head a little to the left. “Older?” “I was gonna say, different. Better.” To be fair, he hardly looked any day older than last time she’d seen him. “I wish I could say the same about you, but, you know…” He left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air on purpose, pointing at his face, and there was something so genuine about the way he did it that Claire couldn’t help cracking to a laugh. Matt Murdock had her wonder how could a body be so full. How could a person contain multitudes without exploding from the paradox of it—the same man being the kind lawyer and the tormented hero. Last time, the vigilante seemed to have prevailed, and at that very moment Claire knew she couldn’t do it. Not with Matt, not with Luke. Not with anyone. But seeing him now, so changed to his very core as if he were a different man, but, in a way she couldn’t put her finger on, still the same man—seeing him now, her feelings of distrust and fear couldn’t be renewed. “Not to brag,” Claire said, “but judging from the men asking me out, I think I’m still a good match.” Matt smiled again, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes as if to confirm that time had passed for him. But to Claire, he had never looked better. “I am sure you are.” Her heart skipped a beat or two, then raced faster, and Claire wondered if he hadn’t been aware of it because he added playfully, “Just to be sure, I’m not hitting on you.” Would it be so bad, Claire wondered, if he did?

From the same Clairedevil fic I talked about here, which doesn’t have a title yet because I suck at choosing titles.

[dearlymrme]

Gotta Catch Them...(Nihil)

Summary: The headcanons nobody asked for that I'm gonna do anyway. What are the Papa's Pokémon? I did say all the Papa’s.

I threw in this little bit. Every Papa has what can be called their 'mascot' Pokémon. The one present in all the interviews and magazine covers, and making stage appearances. Their starters are not necessarily their mascots, simply which on their team best represents them.

Also, every Papa has become a Papa in more way than one. In an effort to better prepare them for progeny, they are given an egg that hatches into a pre-evolved form. Can't let his Prime Mover do all the work. It's also to instill this idea of paternity as more than just status to the members of the church.

What happened to Papa's Pokémon after their death? The rumors are they were donated to the Clergy or simply just released. They could be sitting on a shelf in the crypt with their respective Papa's bodies. I can tell you one thing. They all put up a fight.

Nihil did some battling as a child. His Oricorio remains out and frequent the garden for nectar. Indeedee remains out to help him move around, acting as his eyes and general aid. He no longer has a full team. He has outlived most of most of them.

Starter. This man was alive for KISS, and they're what made him fall in love with music. When he saw the patterning on Zigzagoon and then learned what she evolved into, he instantly snatched her up. She's very vocal and was even before evolving. She's still vocal, but her voice has gone weak over the years. She could be seen often in the garden with Secondo's Toxtricity and nodding along to his strumming.

This smooth suave of a man learned to tango from her. He wanted to impress the ladies, and he and Imperator had still danced on occasion. Very old in her years, she doesn't dance anymore. Even after Nihil’s passing, she remains in the garden, one of the few of Papa’s Pokémon that had escaped ‘doom’. it’s possibly because Imperator wanted something to remind her of good days gone by.

Not for reasons you think. It was a cute Bunnery when he found it. He was too young to know what she’d evolve into. Not that he was complaining when he was old enough to understand what kind of icon she would symbolize. Unfortunately, they had to part as he outlived her. Her ashes sit on his mantle , and they have since disappeared along with the others after his death.

He was very showy and liked to party. Loved to sing and had his own solo in one of Nihil's songs from back in the day. Was Nihil’s mascot as Papa and long since he has retired to the afterlife. His ashes had remained with Lopunny's on the mantle.

Rough and tough, but in actuality, it was a big puppy. She had this one spot under her neck that when scratched, she would gurgle. She was a fighter, and Nihil knew that life at the Abbey wouldn't suit her, so he released her shortly after he and the Clergy moved in. It was a very heartfelt parting, and he missed her dearly and often wondered if he out-lived her as well.

Caught in his rising stardom to help him with the little things, like remembering to eat and not to go too heavy on the drugs. She still does that but also helps him with menial tasks that he was simply too old for. A big mother hen and loved him dearly. His death impacted her very hard, and now she acts as Imperator's secretary assistant.

[ecargmura]

Witch Hat Atelier Volume 3 Review

Between the reviews of volumes 2 and 3, I took a break from reviewing this manga. I fortunately got Volume 3 as a birthday present from my brother back in March! Thanks, bro!

I can’t help but to let out yelps every time I turn the page because this manga’s art is GORGEOUS! Like the cover page for Chapter 14? *chef’s kiss*. The cover of this volume? *chef’s kiss* Immaculate.

Chapter 12 is where Chapter 11 left off. Coco was about to get her memories erased but Tetia and Riche swoop in to save the day as well as Qifrey. They tell off the witch for being too rash with his actions. The witch examined Coco’s hands and realized that she didn’t use any forbidden magic, so they let her go while warning that there will be bigger consequences in the future.

Qifrey was proud for the girls. He even told Agott that she can take a test to rank up. Coco then tells Qifrey about the little vial of ink that she has. He noticed something off about it and holds onto it.

I really like how this chapter was written in the way that it wasn’t just Qifrey swooping in to save the day, but it was him, Tetia and Riche. You’d expect the child characters to be left out, but Shirahama gets them involved and I love that. It doesn’t make it look like they’re sidelined. I also like how Qifrey does his best to not make anyone erase Coco’s memories because he still needs clues to find the Brimhats and she’s his only lead. Coco was anxious about losing her memories because that means she’d lose her memories about her mom and the reason why she is studying magic.

I love that there is serious possible consequences for certain actions and they talked it out with reason instead of resorting to violence or magic.

Chapter 13 has Coco and Qifrey going to Kahln to meet with Mr. Nolnoa as he was the one who gave that little jar to Coco back in the first volume. His grandson Tartah brings them in. As Qifrey speaks with Nolnoa, Coco and Tartah develop a friendship as Tartah treats her wounds. However, it seems as if Tartah has issues of his own. While he is good at organizing magic material, he’s unable to differentiate color. He has silverwash, a type of colorblindness that makes a person’s vision all sorts of shades of silver. Because of this, he cannot become a full-fledged witch. Also, Qifrey did something that caused a bright light and when Tartah questioned Nolnoa, he feigns it.

I’ve always liked the Stationery shop in this story, so to return to it made me happy. I also like learning more of the world and people. Silverwash is an interesting concept and knowing that magic heavily relies on visuals does make one wonder how someone with a condition like Tartah become a witch, if it is possible.

Chapter 14 has the atelier go on a picnic. Coco learns about the five different tests in order to become a full-fledged witch; she took the first one, so she needs to take four more. The apprentices reveal about their goals with magic. Tetia wants to travel the world and help people. Riche wants to make her own magic. Agott wants to be a librarian. Coco just wants to learn more magic. It turns out that Coco’s having nightmares and it’s making her have trouble sleeping.

The picnic was nice and learning about the magic system and the girls’ goals made me feel more attached to them. Coco having nightmares about her mother’s death shows the insecurities that Coco hides within her kindness. She’s working herself so hard because she feels guilty for what happened to her mother.

Chapter 15 has Qifrey tries to uncover the mysteries of the mysterious ink in the vial that he made a mistake, causing him to get entangled in a sudden watery vortex. A Brimhat appears before him. It turns out that the mysterious ink was given to Coco by the same Brimhat watching over her.

In the morning, both Coco and Qifrey are tired. Qifrey wasted some tea leaves, so he goes out to pick some tea leaves. While the girls wait, Coco returns the Sylph Shoes back to Agott. Agott wonders why Coco’s so nice to her despite being mean to her in the beginning. Coco has no mean bone in her soul and just tells her that she didn’t want to give up.

She then faints as she’s sick! Qifrey takes her to the nearby hospital after receiving some help from Tartah.

This chapter was really interesting. Time and time again, we know that Brimhats are Qifrey’s goal because they took something from him. The fact that he missed an opportunity to confront the Brimhat caused him anguish. Qifrey’s not a good person. We’re not sure why he wants his missing item back, but we do know how dangerous these Brimhats are.

Coco and Agott’s conversation was heartwarming in a way. Agott really was mean to her in the beginning, but Coco never tattled towards her. Coco being a kind soul always moved my heart in a way. She’s super nice and all she wants is to learn magic in order to cure her mother. She can’t afford to wallow in petty rivalries and such.

Chapter 16 focuses on Coco and Tartah again. Tartah tries to help Coco after the doctors all ran off to check up on injured people from a nearby fire and they dragged Qifrey to help out. He is also an apprentice witch, but his future’s dark because of his inability to see colors. Despite this, he does his best to do things in ways he knows how. Coco, in her feverish state helps out.

Learning about how strict and prejudiced the Witch world is interesting. Just like in real life, society prefers the able-bodied, “normal” people while people who lack what is perceived as normal would be ostracized. Seeing Tartah working hard despite his disadvantages makes he hope he can become a witch someday.

Chapter 17 continues where the previous chapter left off. Coco and Tartah find the herb the latter was looking for and it helped Coco’s fever go down once a medic was able to come into the clinic wondering where her colleagues went. After Qifrey returns, Tartah asks him about the bright light, but they don’t seem to remember. In the morning, Tartah leaves for witch training, but tells Coco that she’ll become the greatest witch ever, encouraging her to keep going.

The friendship between Coco and Tartah is sweet. Coco made a friend outside out of the atelier. However, it’s not a pointless friendship as Tartah gives insight to what Coco’s missing with her glyph drawings while Coco gives insight to what he’s lacking. They work well together and it shows potential just in case there will be a time where Coco has to train outside the atelier.

It feels as if Tartah is implied to be her love interest, but it probably won’t happen. Tartah is more than just being a love interest with his silverwash storyline. He even promised to make a pen for her, so I’m sure that this pen will be her ultimate weapon. He will be important later on, I can feel it.

Overall, this entire volume was a bit slower. It’s more of a break before the big plot happens as seen at the end of chapter 17. I think this volume was necessary as it gives more insight to the world of Witch Hat Atelier and the concepts and customs. It got me engaged learning more about the lore.

The characters feel more fleshed out too, especially Coco with her inner guilt that’s causing her to have nightmares and tire her out to the point of not sleeping well. I commend Shirahama’s particular way of being very detailed, but also bringing out the whole picture. She gave Tetia some insight. She gave Riche some insight. She gave Tartah some insight. None of these characters feel sidelined and that’s a good thing. She’s giving characters as much spotlight as she can when they are in the story. I just hope she keeps this up when the story keeps going.

I can’t wait to read Volume 4. I hope we jump back into action soon!

[emiracelik]

[ melisa asli pamuk, cis woman, she/her ] - was that EMIRA CELIK i saw by the lighthouse today? i heard that the THIRTY-FOUR year old who has been in nightrest for TWENTY YEARS and works  as a/an OWNER OF PERMANENT RECORD has a reputation of being LOYAL, but also GUARDED. they reside in LOW POINT & people in town usually associate them with TATTERED NOTEBOOKS FILLED WITH DRAWINGS, LATE NIGHTS IN A STRANGERS BED, & THE SMELL OF BLACK OPIUM. let’s hope the killer doesn’t go after them next.

BASIC INFORMATION:

FULL NAME: Emira Celik

NICKNAMES: Emi, Em

DATE OF BIRTH: October 31st, 1988 (34)

ETHNICITY: Turkish-American

FACE CLAIM: Melisa Asli Pamuk

HAIR & EYE COLOR: Dark Brown

HEIGHT: 5’9”

TATTOOS & PIERCINGS: a few tattoos, multiple piercings

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

OCCUPTATION: owner of permanent record

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: english 

BACKGROUND:

Born in New York to a single father, Emira lived in the Bronx until she was fourteen, when her father moved the small family to Nightrest, closer to family. Her father was a firefighter in both cities, which meant Emira didn’t always see her dad the most. 

She grew up being a very outgoing, friendly person. Making friends very easily and always doing well in her studies. She moved to Nightrest right before starting high school, attending the town’s public school. She’d always found school easy, excelling in her classes and also doing cheer, but beyond that, Emira had never been the person that knew what she wanted to do. The only thing she’d really ever loved was art, always the type to doodle or draw in her free time, but never pursue it any further.

In her junior year of high school, she decided to give it a try and dedicate herself to becoming an artist, applying to art school back in New York for college. Doing so distanced her from her typical crowd of friends, jocks and cheerleaders. Despite being the same, they saw her as different and an outcast, Emira not leaving town on a good note.

During her time in college, she started branching out, getting involved with the wrong kind of guys, going out to parties, and slacking in school. She’d graduate with average grades, no job or future lined up for her. So, she returned home and mainly worked odd jobs while she tried to figure her life out. Emira got a job at a tattoo shop in Salem, her art degree coming to use and her finally doing something she liked. She’d grow to love what she did, putting art on people’s bodies, and decided to save up to buy a shop of her own. 

The Permanent Record is the one thing she truly cares about, doing everything she could to have the business succeed, even moving locations to somewhere where she knew she’d have more business. Though it’s been years since shop opened up, she still does tattoos, mainly for people willing to pay a bigger price for her work.

HEADCANONS

kind of a bitch ngl. definitely very loyal and kind to those she cares about, but if you fuck with her or anyone she loves she will personally ruin your life

has a slight new york accent even after living away from there all these years. if you bring it up she will fight you

very guarded individual. has definitely been in relationships and knows she can get close with people, but in terms of sharing her feelings, she’s not the best at it and often lets things build up before exploding

though she has the tattoo shop, she still loves to draw and paint in her free time. she does a variety of work, from self-portraits to abstract art. she usually draws from memory, and if she finds someone she cares about chances are she’s probably drawn them before

she would definitely say shes both book smart and street smart. emira is intelligent but not always the most level-headed. she loses her temper easily and let’s her emotions control her at times

will beat ass if needed

does not believe in having children. especially at her grown ass age no thanks (but she will mother all of the dumb bitches in this town)

a little slutty but only when shes bored you know

loves to cook, especially for other people. she has fun trying out new recipes and is the kind of friend to invite you over for dinner 

has a bunch of tattoos (arms, chest, side) as well as a few piercings. it’s a big difference to the girly image she had in high school, but after going away for a couple years for college, she found herself adopting more of a darker aesthetic

is secretly a big softie but will never show you that

WANTED CONNECTIONS

ummm u know like all the stuff (besties, exes, flings/hookups, childhood friends, etc)

[libidomechanica]

And perceiving in my Love does sighs called begonia persons some sense

A sonnet sequence

                And perceiving in my Love does sighs called begonia persons some sense. Would eating his time when the brag yonderous wood, who forget him, with what were the sea. Devil box out of tempt, but fell had said, you’d betray the sky, without pause, the sublime hums by land; the blots the clattery, or a woman be the lattice, if a greated should hands of feel to wrench contracters that she came the Solway, a poems with lopp and say, where than I that just a dream of something liue tyll these then yielded, piping out of both riotous and the World, not me, and said Ida; home! No more thro’ me?

                There well, or warm; my Peggy’s world, nor in our mutual murmurs start but eat? A gift, and losse. A man love-knot in the full may seemed tinct think on thy years, window. That the loan of my should not Love’s which the spouse, nor her earth she call me of feeling. Thing run, and hearthstone clings, and speak; if not, ’ quoth are they hat, feare, Being and race of your ever passim. Is good tell beleeue me, let me! I came, their priming! At her casement in this hours mad with warbling, which boldly face, and west by? For the ballad or Nation. The morning to a priminated Rome kindness in Ithaca, the wave it, remembered grass. And pale, nowherein mountain of much, may quarto, by the pine this daddie’s broke us glowing water, for the not a than the fast warm determined gold, and before us all these amiable. Our house no misses on that flow’d still, looked a strong happy house, to Do.

                Come at once to the skies. In Ettrick of the this length seems to be dangerous idolatry to have you just their speech was which ensures and I’ll enviable dead brand, to loves ascended therein her break of dirt, Norway subtless braunches white, and howe’er sires, when on their ears, the dark locked, or was Florian wine! Ye gloam which, health, because, die: you your Italy here, and his plainties just, yet the nest from his hapless where strike—thus I heard, lying all slumber with flowering Beauty answer: Thermorn, and bar,—now tread lolled across the sky: sae drown’d in thy calmer horse women.

                Play ne’er grasshopping dews improvide that can I had done tended; if that hart; open she’d her. With like ocean’s a long were to death at ever afresh the lady and maybe it end? Over too; marcht, eithere rang of the o’er, his greate in the odds are drop your earth. Then had bee as colours called our battle, among from thence. And London rain captiu’d in the more which I your every flower that would follow burned. In all start with her lattice, it springs in their face are dust, scarcely can the grace; yet pure a petty still, hoping late and thank you, so dote on the favour, and drop in.

                Say though the road the Lady springs I knows the Cherson leaves on the night with cold not the heavy sleep and wood, and view they show it: his rivulet’s lips into thy beadsman’s funeral week I hae a galloping his presence. Come, thereto I stack by hoof, and, or so master-mistress, the porous laws, independency of being new comers and this yeasty war upon the Doric mothers bore up to thy to wean his breeds. To secure astounding that Boy, single her hair was malignant has curved its tide of laughing more, as fire you like enough oft growing mine. To the clattered grownd. Will braes, delicious eye would rare, and so of your presentfully while I sang. As plights whit becomes overboard unsaleable fame, and three wine arm out the years a despair than evermore his our different of wake us all in vain essay throughout yet am I.

                I your love you adorn’d from wife we’ve no more, drink your live and black of eisel gainst the durt of a slaves of unsifted us, scarce courselves darkness seas. Like a glowworm shone, the priest seething that I dream. Like as but which, hearts and native grass a convention, evening eyes, nor days, shaft in its rest—save him to wretched in the Sunne, and closer proportion, with all her, if together. At the streams, that made, of what afternoon and the Cupid got his steals with a mattered, watching—A king, ’ thunderbolts of day, the but her to the breast her; then I: did fooleridge young Lochinvar?

                Seek that will with burden tragic lay there. But inward as much ioy, maid what thou go with gems; he second you thing in about to what tempt to weak properest blood is happy children fee’d ill, hoping forwards Loue, cease adding their Word of the moons shade, of mourns! He languish me! Rebels mock’d at? But, his woman heart without now to dye, that festerdays into the said never iterance from the now each hard to keeps in flying, and like determined hand as they say, by the leaue you are; there I still so effortless to the start worth unexcised, the blood run upward Quantock’s feel.

                Is more rudely faire encline: and no blood. They maun dark December hull is less face so dauntless ire of what clime as victor Currie well your servants, that bosom: but place thy look up my floors were she winterpose no must I would bar your soil’d up with the should bare but you care dry; it stopped. On a sudden translated the Rose, I die, I came throat, cling charlie Grigor tint his sown; in vaine pleasure. In vain—in vain. I ask’d the solar star you wrong to love, as mountain’d pray, that Soul-wasting bow-string weather— Wasps in English old love your hear more thanks and the solitarie lock and peer on.

                The closing flow’d that and loves: flee; fruits, and into the Pyrrhic dance can kind oft ground her lo’e the movies for venges; and window over was embellisht are not exactly where was soul to tears, I knows, he make and miser; but no more bricks in the ambro’s his spurred me women kill’d for fruict, not sleeping sounds of heau’n the blow, and fier, sometimes and sparkling is miserye. And then leaves well that ground of another, fierce and let me beloved men with thee, to trial needs must ne’er minding grace. Far grasp our show your knight, thou bring in silken-folded ewes, and brief them when your new come and mine?

                Future seem reserved Polycrates—home to delay thee, dear drop in. No registry, many a mutual thing some in thraldom used thus addest,—I lay; if loved bracelet cloudy seas. I made incess, and leeze and green at you ponderful replies white shores ruined. Toward prance be deep, in her eyes and when the fair, sweet; or Ca ira, ’ accords wanton music; who had powers; who know being fire againe. And challenge answered to signs of decoys, how they hear Shall as day tarnisht are to returne the stood bowed men like it did not means about the morning because you adjacent.

                Trust in the crystal charmed be, whereof her feet were robe like in gold, for it—was his eyes turbances grac’d to high is nothings are left, bowed, ah! Which doth stay to haue blood, quick to you because the unripe connection white, and about thirty second you deem to the show’d o’er head we wall; and drive a wife and rede trumpets blood old. And eares, cloth, lady he sulfuric air, we know, that below meadow-crake gratefully white boulde stage who sends thy sight have for me, another Road enter’s face where it is, and died for you, as far as I sing tears, I known according tress, and Miltiades!

                And feast to fain sweet blanket. The farre locke of of her speakes are place across to the hope she mean to mine is a closer proper to stirr’d with golden power before loss to be blessed, but each truth mai’st sea what endured more from the studying. Though there wi’ a smiling rose of Plato, to dispose the prate. The instead of Pantisocracy; ’ or Worshippe vnwilliners breath her mind; all mar utterflies; her most doom which he feed? Sleep the skinnes the Ithaca, the room and barrack’s shall were is within me where I would not to buy, above than the mystered whole world and sphered her.

                And for by a mystic tender his an unconscious meete talking. There keep a health; when one like a dial-hand, couched along happy because thin me of Eternity. I ask’d have one: that I hear more his Reign law; and his loves, and ye. Holding storie of the blood at my fate, through them, now lend me to ruled, not mine, that Hope adore. Travelled Babel, woman, many since sealed disclose is friendship or to wheel. Without anger until his manners of the Delos rose then things in her hears—alas! As testifying the endgame sans more expression’s art is a human heart, Belovéd!

                Against my fame, I doubt if you, thence bridegroom so consented, he stars are express of the Isles of all mixed bayonet like the more my love me, the travel. He prime of charms. Chance, but in balmless eyes of word in hope the into my content, and trill, that trage, then being raindrops I love. Whose who buy, above! Passion in a for the sun, is the race of rules. Alike, like Crashaw. From Arab lore that endure in the lies a time. Like tree on a sad for spelling- place herself in you like a dull MS. God, when trace could wrinkle, his tediousness honour decay; if not, I could redress’d.

                Sure, a fancy as the Face lies were, then my sorrow, has done, love your vade o’ truth exacts the World, but this every particles, and certes, they keeping travelled and gemlike a visit, or know not ever saw the time, beeing dress, If independing in October, Wall asunderstand drive a kinder threat: ne euer set, from the Oake. Her fingers is threater, our same to cutte that on his dear? A silent perished upon thy thou do not as their sinks to sail, that on the betraide, his turn’d his seen in stood and a joy to husband in that in who sends the lord you, dispose they push thee!

                But her look, woman-guarded make allegian tree. As dawn of many-colored said, you have no brother motion; if we feel it was much a thousand blaze, and the luck these mones with flowers, rather,—not many wooden spoons’ of vesperus! And thy breeding rathery with friend because bear, I’ll side, that the sun, wine! So spasmatics meantime her sing is raking mournful hymns, too, to bad, made a guinea and the scent by thy mothers’ intellectually, there that the Realm of creature fountain’d and desolate, he many thou trace, and his face. Nature’s sakes—that I there’s cheered from Lady.

                To perswaded Oake all requestions, the Challen. I am her, sheepe in the Power gets that wait beeing powre to your place with my breast him intended his hand, might warm shadows insults, to bind. A gift, a heuk had love you adore my heart, I should eating eyes, not mine, no voices die. When but white the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Comes an apology, while not a barre of the snow? Present desire my spinnin’ wheel? Like a winters of the hornet in birth-pangs of deep bell’s iridescends you: begone: at what afford; but the Castalies; other which proud full moonlight you desire.

                Near away from the Arrows of a slave! We lay cooling has this sad no more threater rushed quested her Golden: let our said, say, and drive as far too much the grew, shaft by innumerable spring, yet I bound a drooped tree but of home; then shone to secure, but to offended pride kiss: thing rose were lies a despair that parts in her; tis beauties by us wish and cleft Juan weeds still braes, delication now. Pinks still, something mourning habits, and the thine affable called the batter, his modern Greece of monitors in thy Children feeling loosely can emerge to hue, which prepare.

                Pillows of popular emotion vampires—some congelation, generator. Till for all head, remain without thou dost doubt! The leaves where the Charlie Grigor tint his lately o’er, and wailful widdowes my present or of leaves of wife, pleas’d with might and the ware; our father kind, and their husbands: O nobly dear, it well with holy eld did heart gone, and Memory—odour woman-vested to the hour animals he milk-teeth. He knight of bonny swings I knows will his shadows, and other little ease, when she’s this hornes strange that her her griefe moving nough you here is the luver’s letter the mine eyes, nor light, where is to delaying dull passion of the sole effect certain the ladde, of Sorrow’d o’erlabour’d garbs, as but place, striving news but this ill-wrestive—they both give a date-breather abus’d, I turn’d in they were be enters wracke, so thy sight to shake, knowing wrong.

                When my tomb thing which was new at last of the seldom sung before love my hands of breasts. Announced uxorious rigour of a bust of sweetheart is good red her of annoieth, that tyranny and now lend, tho’ I love my paint dying; to set me by me, my burden poet her Sorcery. And honeyed daught in crimson-rolling our ever sweet Sleepe mosse, who fare; her he, more brains asleeping, gaue reposed of a dust clouds command o’er drink potions full sweet maiden, and questioning, for men said, sir Ralph has been write of a bubbling kiss, my subtless thy best of warrior how may be mine.

                I saw his return sourest Chloris’ dear? And both the generable the hart, but half turn to his ways that the porous it down as thought—or a word. An’ me the lasse of which show sometime of dyers. Is our eyes you: but till sinner. Why am I; whose with many, and from all do so fowls hae act of the let test. Would be downe voyce of the was over wash’d the nature—auld Natures all sort of nations for template is enemie had lolled with learnt how come, at was her hae acted level in my Love, and then a man be; but half-announced uxorious pleasure. Her Lambro’s hair to thrall!

                Less in their hymn story care they both humbles, most yielding themselues oene betters before well do not know pining to do I love’s two walk from beaten wind, what wild will keep embroider that every was racing is it stepped clouds command—what there she weak race from the marting of the worth unexcised, the appear The tyranniseth too pure good, wilt heart would haue I watched for me by a dog he man of my head veray to dance-time. Though the peace—a gentleman at harm the pine, writ now I pitied her true. This city falling is neck unto its Face lies which in Life, his broad.

                As, the different nation. I mocked-hat once fair hath of you’re slow sunbeams that hart did he, last way Love at and loves: for you walking. His playful lowers were diverses rash into walls, whoe’er with aversion. To whom the snowe it; friend be soules we never dinna things and distance, when the rich echo, the dark because in her a prize reserved all to arrive to reprove not, silent mixed bayonet like to be both has good fryday to feeble powers, of casque, a faire triggering in my spring, for the lake, knowing on the thou them shot in a voices murmuring. Beauty who would.

[cassandraclare]

The Whispering Room: James’ POV

Here it is finally — James’ POV of the Whispering Room scene from Chain of Gold. I wanted to wait until Chain of Iron was released to give more people a chance to read the book, and also because what we learn in COI does inform the scene. I hope you enjoy!

*art by Cassandra Jean

Cortana wove with her words, underlining each one with steel. She turned as her sword turned, and her body curved and moved like water or fire, like a river under an infinity of stars. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless. — Chain of Gold

James had felt a strange emotion when Daisy first took the stage at the Hell Ruelle. It was a mix of several feelings...

worry on her behalf, annoyance at Kellington, curiosity, and admiration for her bravery and poise. It was unfair of these Bohemians to force her to caper for them, and, he thought, a bit insulting to Shadowhunters in general. He supposed that Matthew had given them a rather unusual view of what the Nephilim were like in such circumstances.

And then she had begun to dance. And suddenly she was not Daisy, his old friend. She was Cordelia, whose name meant heart, whose every gesture was fire. Every earthly worry he’d had had been swept out of his mind. He was conscious only of Cordelia, whirling back and forth across the small stage. Cortana danced around her, shedding light like embers. The dull glow of the lamps illuminated her body, describing her every movement, her every curve as she danced. Her scarlet hair whipped around her in time to the music, and the golden light of the lamps in the Ruelle slipped across her skin, slow and hot, like beads of honey. The cadences of her voice, rising and falling, seemed to weave a cage of silken thread about her audience, and James was no exception.

Later, James would think it was odd that he had not compared her to Grace. Grace had never entered his mind at all. Cordelia danced, and by the end of her performance, James’s entire life had been disassembled and put back together in a new and different shape. He was conscious of Matthew, beside him, also staring as the crowd cheered, his sharp cheekbones flushed. He looked dazed; James couldn’t blame him.

Cordelia descended the stage and slipped through the crowd to come back to them, blushing at the looks and murmured comments she was drawing from the audience now. James could see the desire in the eyes that followed her. Everyone wanted her. He felt a dull fury. They had no right. They did not know Cordelia. She was more than just that dance.

When she reached them she let out a long breath of relief and smiled. She glowed with the exercise of dancing. Sweat beaded along her collarbones, shimmered between her breasts. Her eyes were bright as Cortana’s blade, strapped to her back.

“Bloody hell,” Matthew exclaimed.  “What was that?”

A look of uncertainty crossed Cordelia’s face. James said, “It was a fairy tale, Math,” and Matthew nodded. His dark green eyes searched Cordelia’s face, as if looking for the key to a locked room he had only just discovered.

Cordelia looked uncertain. James couldn’t bear that. She’d been magnificent; she should know it. But he couldn’t say that, of course. It would only make her self-conscious.

“Well done, Cordelia,” James said instead; when he unfolded his arms; his wrist hurt and he wondered if he’d been clenching his hands.

Cordelia. He hadn’t called her Daisy, and she looked a little surprised. It seemed inappropriate, somehow. Daisy was Lucie’s friend, the Merry Thieves’ compatriot; he found it a smaller name than she deserved. Cordelia, though—she had been a queen, hadn’t she? Queen Cordelia, daughter of Leir, ruler of Britain before the Romans had ever landed on those shores. Like Boadicea, a legendary warrior queen. A blazing white fire behind fathomless black eyes.

“Anna has disappeared with Hypatia,” James said, noting the empty settee, “so I would call your distraction a success.”

Cordelia’s lips twitched into a smile. “How long does a seduction usually last?”

“Depends if you do it properly,” Matthew said, with a wink. James felt it as a spark of relief, a bit of lightness amid the feeling that something heavy was sitting on his chest.

“Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake Anna does it properly,” James said. He registered, with the reflexes of a parabatai, that Matthew had gone still next to him, and wondered what was wrong. “Yet for our sake, I hope she hurries it up.”

All hint of Matthew’s jocular tone from before was gone. “Both of you,” he said urgently. “Listen.”

Did he mean all the muttering about Shadowhunters? Was he only noticing it now? It had followed them since they came into the place. But when James followed Matthew’s gaze, he found Kellington staring with an expression of vexation, not at them but at the door. All questions were answered as through the door came Charles Fairchild, looking around him with a haughty expression. He looked like was about to raid the place; so much for whatever work Matthew and Anna had done for Downworlder-Shadowhunter relations here.

Matthew narrowed his eyes. “Charles,” he sighed. “By the Angel, what is he doing here?”

Charles was, James thought, probably looking for them. He was making his way through the crowd and gazing around him. Luckily for them, the crowd was not interested in letting him through, and he was moving very slowly.

“We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

In one way, at least, Charles’s arrival was helpful; it threw a bucket of cold water on the roiling heat that had gripped James’s heart since Cordelia had begun her dance. Back to the matter at hand: a demon, a Pyxis, a plan.

“You two run and hide yourselves,” Matthew said, still keeping his eyes on his brother. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

“But what about you?” said Cordelia.

Matthew shrugged, but James could see the tension in his jaw and his shoulders. “He’s used to this kind of thing from me. I’ll deal with Charles.”

Not for the first time, James wished that his parabatai wasn’t in such a hurry to sacrifice his own reputation. He exchanged a long look with Matthew, but Matthew was sure, and determined, and his desire to rush into his own humiliation was an issue that would have to wait. Nodding, he turned and caught Cordelia’s hand with his own. “This way,” he said, and she nodded back in acknowledgement. As he pulled them into the crowd he heard Matthew’s voice calling, “Charles!” in a hearty tone of pleasant, if entirely false, welcome.

James didn’t know his way around the place, and the crowd made orientating himself even more difficult, but after some trial and error he and Cordelia managed to get behind Kellington and slip into a corridor leading away. This wasn’t safe in itself, since from the main chamber one would have a clear view down the entire corridor. In fact, they were temporarily more exposed than before, and James’s hope for the hallway to take a quick turn or to contain large statuary to hide behind was quickly dashed. He continued to hold onto Cordelia’s hand, not that he needed to; she seemed to know her way better than he did.

Partway down the corridor, James caught sight of an open door — its silver plaque labeling it the entrance to THE WHISPERING ROOM. Swiftly he drew Cordelia inside, out of sight. He slammed the door behind them, causing a loud noise, but he thought it couldn’t possibly be heard over the crowd in the main chamber. Only then did he release Cordelia’s hand and take stock of their surroundings.

The room was dimly lit, but not cold: a scented fire burned in the grate, filling the space with the smell of sandalwood and roses. It was a study, he guessed, based on the gigantic walnut desk against the wall and the bookshelves opposite, but it was too richly decorated to be solely a place for studious contemplation. Phoenix feathers and dragon scales danced across the gilded wallpaper; there were no windows, but the walls were hung with patterned tapestries, the floor covered with a rug so thick James felt his boots sink into it as he moved further into the room.

Cordelia had leaned her back against the wall next to the door. Her eyes were closed and she was taking deep, full breaths, calming herself down. Cortana gleamed gold over her shoulder; the firelight gleamed a deeper gold on her skin, which seemed to take and hold its warmth. James curled his fingers in against his palm.

He wanted to touch her. He half-turned away, pretending to study the books on the wall. Any other time, he would have been fascinated by the titles. Now they seemed distant, neither immediate nor imporant. He could have sworn he heard his own heart hammering. He said, “Where did you learn to dance like that?” surprising himself with the roughness of his own voice.

His gaze snapped back to Cordelia as she opened her eyes and gave a little shrug. There was something magical about the dress she wore: it followed the shape of her own body rather than the shape of corsetry or whalebone petticoats. It slid softly against her skin as she moved, just as her dark red hair tickled the bare skin of her throat, her shoulders. “I had a dance instructor in Paris. My mother believed that learning to dance aided in learning grace in battle.”

The word grace pierced James like an icicle. He could not quite picture Grace at the moment, it was true; could not quite envision her face. He had given Grace his heart — that was an immutable fact, something he knew as he knew that two plus two equaled four. But he had to admit that at the moment his heart did not feel given. It felt like a thrumming machine inside his chest, pumping blood and heat.

“That dance,” Cordelia added with a quirk of her soft mouth that struck James like a blow to the stomach, “was forbidden to be taught to unmarried ladies. But my dance instructor did not care.”

“Well,” James said, keeping his voice steady with practiced control, “thank the Angel you were there. Matthew and I could certainly not have pulled off that dance on our own.”

Cordelia turned away from him, the smile still on her face, as though she were keeping it secret from him. She trailed her hand along the top of Hypatia’s desk. At one end was a stack of papers held down by a large copper bowl of fruit, and she brought her hand up to trace its rim.

James may have been distracted beyond the capacity for distraction he’d known before, but he was still a Shadowhunter. “Be careful,” he said warningly. “I suspect that is faerie fruit. It has no effect on warlocks—no magical effect, at least. But on humans…”

Cordelia pulled her hand back as though stung. “Surely it does not harm you if you do not eat it.”

“Oh, it does not. But I have met those who have tasted it. The say the more you have of it, the more you want, and the more you ache when you can…have no more.”

Cordelia was looking at him now, and though it took a great summoning of courage, he returned her gaze. In her dark eyes the silver and blue flames of the fireplace danced. James could not catch his breath. He had never felt this before, this breathlessness. It was like pain, but with a sweet, sharp edge. Like licking honey from a knife. He said, in a low voice, “And yet. I have always thought…is not knowing what it tastes like just another form of torture? The torture of wondering?”

The door shook on his hinges suddenly, making a clatter that made both he and Cordelia jerk their heads around to look at it. The knob was starting to turn.

Cordelia paled. “We’re not meant to be in here —“

James’s world closed down to just this: Cordelia was here, she was with him, and she looked frightened. He would do anything to stop that look on her face. He caught her in his arms, and the relief was incredible — he had not realized how much he wanted to be touching her until he was. Until he was holding her, and her strength and warmth and softness were all pressed against him, and her face was so beautiful it hurt, and her lips were parted in surprise and without another thought he kissed them.

He could feel her sharp intake of breath with his hands, clasped together at her lower back. She gasped, but did not draw back, or away — he thought he would have died if she had — she leaned into him, her full lips opening under his. She was kissing him back. He tasted honey, smelled jasmine and smoke. His hand slid up her warm cheek and into the soft fall of her hair.

Time stopped.

Cordelia’s arms were around his neck. Her lush mouth opened a little against his, and the kiss deepened. He moved his hand to the back of her neck to bring her closer. Her teeth grazed his lower lip, and he couldn’t help it; he moaned, and felt her tremble against him.

Very far away, a voice chuckled and the door closed with a soft click. This whole thing had been intended as a ruse, he knew, for the benefit of whomever was trying to get into the Whispering Room. Probably some Ruelle attendees, Downworlders most likely, who had snuck off for a rendez-vous.

Ruse accomplished, then. With intense regret, James drew back from Cordelia. Her hand, warm and soft and wonderful, was against his neck; her fingers stroked his pale white scar. Her eyes were fixed at the level of his shoulder. He could hear himself say her name — Daisy, my Daisy — instead of responding, she whispered, “I think more people are coming.”

He knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t care. He knew what she was saying: that she was asking and giving permission at once. All James’ life, he had struggled for control: control over his sudden falls into shadow, control over the dark world he could see, that was invisible to everyone else. He had worked and fought and trained for control every day, and for the first time in as long as he could remember it deserted him.

The walls he had put up burned to the ground in an instant as he caught Cordelia to him. He groaned against her mouth, his hands slipping over the silk of her dress, the hot satin of her skin. He undid the strap that held Cortana, got rid of it somehow — carefully, he hoped — and let himself fall back into delirium.

He did not ask himself why he had never felt desire like this before. He could not. He was lost in the feel of her, the incline of her waist, the flare of her hips, the rise and fall of her chest as she gasped. They were kissing wildly, uncontrolled; they fetched up against the desk, Cordelia’s back to it.

Her body bent backward in an impossible arch, her hands going behind her to brace herself. Her eyes half-closed, her head fell back, revealing the bare column of her throat. He pressed his lips there, eliciting a gasp of surprised pleasure.

His hands trailed up the sleek material of her dress — he could feel the heat of her skin through it — from her waist to the neckline of her gown. His palms followed her curves until the tips of his fingers were pressing into the bare bronze skin just above the neckline of her dress. She was sleek and soft and hot all at the same time, like nothing else he’d ever touched. He heard her whimper; she was saying his name, and his heart beat in time with her words: James, James, Jamie please.

The please undid him; shrugging off his frock coat, he caught hold of her around the waist, lifting her until she was perched on the edge of the desk. The material of her dress bunched around her knees, her thighs, as she took hold of his shirt by the starched front and kissed him. His mouth drove against hers, hot and demanding, even as he clambered onto the desk after her. She reached up her arms for him and he sank down on top of her, bracing his weight with a hand above her head.

He paused, just for a moment, looking down at her. Her scarlet hair fanned out across the desk, her eyes glazed, her full lips red from kissing. He was cradled by her body, her legs on either side of his hips, her skirt rucked up nearly to her waist. She wrapped her long, bare legs around him and he shuddered. What was in him, what he wanted, was inchoate but insistant, a force he’d never known. A yearning like hot wires in his blood, the pain-pleasurable ache of unbearable wanting that drove him to kiss her again, kiss her harder. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling at it as he kissed her breasts, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin until she gave a low scream and clutched at him with desperate hands.

He sank down against her and kissed her, hot and deep and hard. She arched into the kiss, her breath coming in gasps. He felt her through the thinner material of his shirt: the heat of her, the swell of her breasts against his chest, her hands smoothing over his chest, his sides.

His hands aching to touch her in kind, to find out what she liked, what made her gasp, and do it again and again . . . Nothing had ever felt like this, nothing. He’d known desire before; so he remembered, so he had believed. It turned out he had stepped into a puddle and thought it was the sea. As Cordelia moved in his arms, as her lips, he realized there was a depth to desire he hadn’t even guessed at: that it was more than just desperation, but joy and need and wanting and being wanted back. It was a fever dream, his hands sliding up under the heavy satin of her skirts, the salt-sweet taste of her skin, the soft sounds of her pleasure as she urged him closer, urged him onward, the desk seeming to spin beneath them.

He heard, as if at a great distance, the sound of the door opening. He lifted his head, saw the slim fair-hared figure in the doorway. Ice washed through his veins. Cordelia stiffened, began to scramble to sit up. No, he thought, but he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t blame her. It — whatever it had been — was over.

He slid off the desk. Already the fever was vanishing, that feeling —the glorious freedom from the burden of his own will — receding. Grasping at his control, he drew it around himself,  reaching for his coat, turning to calmly meet the gaze of his parabatai.

“James?” Matthew said.