#takes place in mary's pov section

[shallowseeker]

one of these days i will break down the cinema in STUCK IN THE MIDDLE (WITH YOU) to show that it's Dean who Mary is assessing and suspicious of in the diner, not Cas.

[biocrafthero]

Why Sunny’s Halloween costume is a mummy instead of a vampire

Okay strap in guys this is a long one

(Under a read more because I have lost my mind)

(Also for some stuff I’m using Wikipedia as a source this isn’t a professional essay or anything)

Something I have noticed with Omori fans is that, much like with other fandoms, people like to assign fun Halloween monsters to their favorite characters. For a character like Sunny, I have noticed that many people opt to make him a vampire, which is a choice that seems quite understandable. The idea of the modern vampire can be traced back to many different authors, the most popular one in the minds of most being Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which was published in 1897. Some of the visual and behavioral trademarks of a vampire has to do with things such as aversion to sunlight, pale skin, fangs, and the need to feast on the literal blood of others to stay alive. Vampires have always been considered undead, which aligns with their history throughout folklore; there were several instances where corpses were staked after being accused of vampirism.

Reading this, its easy to see why fans would assign a character like Sunny to the idea of vampires based on all of the common traits of vampirism. However, while I do enjoy AUs and such of a vampiric Sunny, I disagree with this common interpretation and instead propose the idea of Sunny being associated with a different kind of undead monster: the zombie.

(“But Kaun, didn’t you say in the title of this post that Sunny is associated with mummies?” Yes, but we’ll get there.)

The origin of the zombie can be traced back to several different sources throughout the world, the most well-known one being Haitian folklore during the 19th century. Regarding modern depictions, popularized by the film Night of the Living Dead, zombies tend to be slow, rotting, human undead (while it must be noted that undead animals isn’t particularly uncommon either). Much like vampires, zombies need to consume humans to survive, but the difference is that, while vampires only need blood in most depictions, zombies tend to eat all parts of the body. The idea of the brain being the specific target is something that’s only come up within the last fifty years throughout pop culture; adding to these newer additions, it was only within the last twenty or thirty years that the idea of the running zombie was introduced and subsequently popularized.

So what does any of this have to do with Sunny?

Well, thought Omori, we are shown clear evidence of why the idea of the zombie resonates with his character. The most obvious example is with Hellsunny, who can be found throughout the entire truth sequence, in some parts of Black Space, and in a very particular cutscene in the Hikikomori Route.

Now, while its easy for us to assume things from the POV of Sunny himself, sometimes its important to take into account the intent of the creator in order to interpret things such as this. So, once again, why a zombie?

Well, the choice of the zombie is quite obvious to me: the fact it is commonly referred to as the living dead. Now what does this allude to regarding Sunny? It most likely correlates with his emotions in the wake of Mari’s death, especially considering he’s the one who killed her in the first place. It is commonly said by people who have experienced the loss of a loved one feel as if they’re just drifting through life after their passing, and the same can definitely be said for Sunny. At the time the real world sections of the game take place, its been four whole years since the incident had occurred, and Sunny has both figuratively and literally wasted away in his own home. Characters comment on how he seems very skinny and/or frail, and how he clearly hasn’t been taking care of himself. In a way, its like a part of him died alongside Mari.

This is where we get to what some would consider to be an extension of the zombie archetype: the mummy.

Regarding its depiction in horror since the history of real mummies is an entirely separate conversation, the modern depiction of the (male) mummy can be found dating back to the 1932 film The Mummy. While most historical, real life mummies had their organs removed before burial, the mummy from the film (named Imhotep) was deduced to have been buried alive after it is discovered that its organs had not been removed at all. Now while the rest of the film’s plot isn’t quite as relevant to our analysis, I believe these details are important to note. The idea of the mummy being something sealed away, only later to be awoken again as some kind of living dead, is very interesting considering the parts of Omori that make this comparison to Sunny. The allusions to the idea of Sunny’s own home being some kind of coffin or tomb adds to these ideas.

This is why I think the vampire comparisons simply do not fit. The idea of the vampire inherently implies that the afflicted needs to take something from others in order to survive, and while the same can be said about zombies it must be noted that within recent years the idea of a kind zombie has been slowly making itself known. Additionally with mummies, aside from the blatantly orientalist bullshit regarding its history in pop culture, don’t tend to be depicted with having to consume any physical part of the human body (but physical violence in general is still on the table for them. They tend to be depicted as more on the level of vampires in terms of their intelligence).

In contrast, the living dead (referring to both zombies and mummies) tend to be much more passive. Most don't go out of their way completely to hunt humans, only hunting if one crosses their path—mummies even more so, with them not even needing human flesh to maintain themselves. When not hunting, these monsters tend to just... exist, not doing much of anything at all. They don't expend energy on actively looking for what they need to survive, instead opting for what they need to find them, wasting away all the while. And the thing is with zombies: they rot. They decay, bound by more realistic things than mummies are (which tend to be sustained my more magical elements in pop culture).

While the idea of having to actively go out and hurt others to sustain yourself is very interesting, when specifically regarding Omori’s canon, it doesn’t quite fit in line with Sunny’s character and his arc. In contrast, him neglecting his own needs and wasting away is more in-line with all of that, which is why he’s more commonly depicted as being a zombie or a mummy by official material.

I know this post is extremely long-winded, but I think this kind of analysis is very fun. Additionally, you don’t have to take my word as gospel, either. I enjoy AUs where Sunny is a vampire, since he’s in a position where he has to violate his own morals in order to sustain himself. I think it acts as a very interesting way to deconstruct his character, and to push him to his limits (including the brink of death if he refuses to hunt).

[aspiring-artist-em]

I put this idea into a wolfstar discord server but I felt the need to put this into the world.

I PRESENT...

restaurant au

sirius's pov

server/bartender sirius, new at the job, freshly disowned at like 22 or something. he has a reputation around town for being a bit of an asshole because of his majorly asshole family, and when he's working, he is working, and he makes money because he's young and pretty (not necessarily because he's any good at his job) and some people don't like that. also because of the whole, straight into serving and thrown onto bar because he's friends with james despite no experience. but he's charming and people eventually warm up to him.

line cook remus (with the amount of cigarettes he smokes it only makes sense, also imagine sirius trying to flirt his way to free food and remus being like "lol no", might work with customers but not with me). HIS SCARS ARE FROM A WORKPLACE ACCIDENT FROM WHEN HE WAS LIKE 18 THAT CAUSES CHRONIC PAIN BUT HES SO GOOD AT HIS JOB THE KEEP HIM THERE AND HES BEEN WORKING IN RESTAURANTS SINCE HE WAS 16? ALSO FLEAMONT LOVES HIM.

fleamont owns the place, hence how sirius gets the job in the first place, and like james is a manager because nepotism. sirius and james met in school and were close ever since. james is like, the cool manager who actually listens to the employee and takes their side but does it so kindly that nobody really minds it. everyone loves james. he is the sun.

peter is a busser, (why did i put him as a busser? because they're overworked and underpaid and under appreciated which is how it lowkey went in their friend group, it also puts him in a place of admiration or envy because he wants to be where sirius or remus or james are at, and they don't see why because their jobs are all respectively hard but peter just sees the money BECAUSE BUSSERS ARE NEVER FAIRLY COMPENSATED FOR THEIR WORK (-a server)) he betrays them after effie and fleamont dies and james takes over the business he starts stealing money and stuff and forging checks to the homophobic organization called the death eaters.

lily is the main chef. chef lily. yes chef, please step on me. when remus starts to fall victim to sirius's charm she checks him right then and there and is like "uh no you don't". she yells at james to keep his servers in line because he manages foh and "GOD DAMN IT JAMES WHO THE FUCK RUNG UP THIS TICKET" (it was sirius). i present. chef lily.

marlene is also a server, and so is mary. the two are the work besties when they serve. they always are together, their sections are right next to each other and lily loves them so much because they know how to ring up a ticket. marlene is very popular with the younger crowd and older people love mary. their sections are always next to each other.

dorcas is a host and works to go. the end. she hosts and gets pissed off because her saying "Sirius. I seat in a rotation" and "McKinnon. You've been here for 10 minutes you are not cut." just make sense to me. she can take charge and lead and her manning to go and hosting at the same time makes sense to me.

eventually regulus escapes. he gets a job there and actually was a death eater. i think it would be funny if sirius convinced james to put him in foh to fuck with him, but he doesn't survive one day without threatening a customer (sirius intervenes and smooths it over. not really. there's a brawl in the dining room) and so james puts reg on the lined, where he meets remus and lily.

evan dies. he doesn't make it out of the death eaters. he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and he gets killed by a police officer. barty gets arrested, he goes to the police officers house and tortures him and his wife and gets arrested with other death eaters, even though they weren't gay and were white and straight and everything the group idealized. that's what made regulus run, and that's why pandora ends up taking her life.

tom riddle is a political figure. in the background of everything he is looming and is trying to write homophobic legislation and pass it into law. his followers are the death eaters. dumbledore is another political figure. it's the lesser of two evils.

the blacks are known as important polititians (orion) and a cutthroat lawyer (wally), and they make many donations and publicly announce their support to the death eaters. the potters are known for their monopoly on restaurants in london, with fleamont managing them and effie taking care of the legal part. they're both known to be kind instead of cold.

Anyway.

one time sirius gets absolutely berated, and actually hit by a table because apparently he was flirting with the girlfriend of the man there (he was not)and he acts impassively and just turns around and walks to the back where he starts sits in the walk in. remus comes in because they're all looking for him 10 minutes later because "sirius GET YOUR FOOD". he finds him just sitting blankly and tells him to get his food. when sirius flinches, remus realizes something isn't okay. the closer remus gets the more emotions slip out of sirius until remus is holding him, oh so gently, as the new server, not only a week into his job, breaks into pieces before his eyes. There's an angry red mark on his check and remus knows. Fuck. he knows what happened out there and he should have checked on him when he saw sirius walk past him with that numb expression he sometimes gets before plastering on a smile. fuck fuck fuck. sirius is sobbing and remus doesn't know what to do, he's not good at this, his hands break and ruin and can only create with the guidance of others like lily, and then they can make something divine, but right now there's nobody there and remus doesn't know what to do with sirius fucking black, now practically sitting on his lap as he cries about his brother (he had a brother?) and his mother and god he can hear her. please remus make her stop yelling in my ears. sirius doesn't know what to do and he just sits there, helpless as the tsunami of emotions drown him. he should have never convinced reg to skip swim with him because now he can't breathe and he's gasping for air as tears and snot fill his lungs and mouth and fuck he needs the money. his tables have been neglected for what, 20 minutes? what if he was sat. he needs the money but he can't go out like this, his carefully placed makeup smudged with the heel of his palm. calloused fingers swipe under his eyes and he flinches away and cries and apologized more. scarred hands hold his face and tell him it's okay and there's a noise and talk and maybe that's pete but he can't tell and james is here. james is here. and he's being led to the managers office and god it was so cold in there. he's being told to go home and fuck he's fired. oh but he isn't and the kind scarred man who hasn't left his side, who's rough fingers are interlaced with his, is going to drive him home and he trusts him. he trusts remus lupin.

[chocolatte-and-despair]

Rules and terminology of roleplaying with people

While roleplaying is a fun medium that is mostly a free place for people to express their creativity, there are some rules, terminology and regulations that you would have to follow, to have a good reputation in the roleplay community, and if you want to attract experienced roleplayers to you.

Let's start off by a few sites I use to roleplay

SITES

Aniroleplay - a good place to roleplay, mostly consists of people playing original characters or characters from animated media.

Roleplay.me - much more populated than Aniroleplay, and quite fun, for me personally. My preferred rp site. You will find a fix of real life and animated characters on there, though most people play their original characters.

Flist - mostly adult rp site, but if you're looking for that? That's gonna be perfect. It can be a bit difficult to navigate at first, but after you get it, it's wonderful. The profile making is very in depth, so that's fun too.

Quotev - this is mostly a reading site, like wattpad, but what makes this different is the group option, which is mostly used by people to roleplay. This will be the most different style of roleplay, if you've never roleplayed before. I'll explain more later in the post. There are two methods to find a rp on here. Either write the Fandom you want in the Quotev search bar and go into group section, or write on the Google search bar Quotev directory and look through them. Roleplayers have made up directories to find rp groups much easier!

Tumblr - another unconventional rp platform. It's quite common for people to set up accounts as a character and interact with others like that. It's a fun way to interact with the community and at the same time, roleplay.

Those are the main places I roleplay on. Now, I want to share some of my "wisdom" about the unspoken rules I learned of rping with others and some terms you might encounter, which might confuse you.

RULES

- preferably, use third person. On cai you will most likely use second or first person to roleplay. That's a big no no for rping with real people. It makes your reply look cheap and most don't enjoy that format.

(example of pov writing)

First pov (I ate ice cream)

Second pov (you ate ice cream) (using you as the pronoun to talk about your character)

Third pov (he ate ice cream)

- make your reply descriptive, use various words. Don't use the same words, or make the reply simple. The fancier or better sounding the better. It makes people excited to reply, and makes them add more flavor to their text. People aren't like ai, they like substance.

- one paragraph and up. The more you write, the better. Sure, you can discuss to rp in shorter sentences, but the rp will grow stale and you will get dropped, or drop the person.

- space your stuff with paragraphs. Don't wrote everything in one huge block of text. It's hard to read and people will not want to rp if you make it hard for them

- don't rp in script. I'll explain what script is, but the rp usually gets stale fast, and no descriptive rper wants to rp with a scripter.

- don't interrupt 1x1 rps. I'll explain what that means later down. It's rude and you can get people mad at you.

- don't control what the other person does. It's annoying, and will quickly get you a bad reputation in the rp community, and you might start seeing that good quality rpers don't want to roleplay with you.

- There is a social dynamic in rp communities, especially aniroleplay and roleplay.me. If you are an asshole, impatient or create mary sue characters, you will start getting rejected for rps by high quality roleplayers.

- Be patient. These are people you're roleplaying with. They will not reply to you as quality as AI does. It might take hours, maybe a day or longer. It's just how this shit goes.

- Read the person's profile. They might have rules, original character information or just other stuff you might need to know before you can roleplay with them.

- Don't jump straight into a rp from the get-go, unless the account says they accept starter greetings. Discuss the rp beforehand and make sure your partner is okay with what you want to do. If you want to do nsfw roleplays, discuss it beforehand as many people are uncomfy with that sort of stuff.

- When discussing stuff outside of roleplay, add a little marker to make it clear you're talking out of character.

(Example)

-

()

[]

/\

- They are not your friends, so don't make the first message you write something like "hi, how're you?". You guys are here for rp, so get to the point. If they have rules, include that you read them, and if you have a specific idea you wanted to try with them, include that in the message. Make the rp idea no longer than 4 sentences, as you can discuss the details together later.

- Avoid sending prewritten greetings. It's very easy to notice when you are doing that, especially if it's a long message. If you have to gave a prewritten greeting, keep it short, and add more info to it, based on the profile you are contacting.

- Don't use text language in rp. It makes your reply seem cheap and can turn a lot of people off. It also takes out the soul of your reply.

(Example)

u

totes

lol

TERMINOLOGY

Double up - It's a style of roleplay where you play two point of views. One being your original character and the other is the love interest of your rp partner. This is a popular roleplay style on quotev.

(Example)

Mary walked down the street, sighing.

----

Bakugou was mad that he couldn't see him today.

1x1 - It's when you rp one on one with someone. It's in other words, a private roleplay.

group rp - It's when you roleplay with multiple people at the same time, in the same roleplay, each taking a role, and adding onto each other. *I don't personally like this, as it can get messy*

rp - stands for roleplay

pov - stands for "point of view". I explain the different povs in an earlier part of the post.

AU - Alternative universe.

"You add, you message first" - Something you will often see on accounts that take a more serious approach to roleplaying. It means that If you add them, you will have to message them first, or they will delete you out of their friend list.

Script - It's a style of writing.

(Example)

John: I guess that's weird

Descriptive - It's a writing style

(Example)

John sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess that's weird"

Mary sue/Gary stu - cliche characters that usually make your character overpowered, or not fit in the setting at all.

godmodding - Taking control of your partner's character. Very frowned upon.

IC - It means "In character". It means the person will talk to you as their character.

OOC - It means "Out of character". This person will talk to you simply, not playing their roleplaying character.

OC - It means "Original character". It's the character you play, if you create them.

Admin - A term used when a person has more than one rp account. It's usual that you only contact and rp with one of the accounts under that one admin.

I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions, or need any help or anything related to roleplaying with real people, feel free to dm me!

[acacia-may]

Not All Heroes (OMORI Fanfiction)

Description: Kel was the type of person who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, but even if he wasn't, his older brother, Hero, would still be able to tell something was definitely bothering him. After all, he's been silently trying to fix their broken toaster for who knows how long... Little does he know that what's troubling Kel is far above his pay grade.

OR

Hero tries his best to be a supportive older brother and help Kel process some unexpected news.

[A Post-Bad Ending AU That Takes Place (Nearly) 6 Years After the Bad Ending of OMORI]

Relationships: Hero & Kel's Brotherly Bond and Kelbrey (Romantic Kel/Aubrey) [A/N: Kelbrey is more angsty & dysfunctional here than I like to imagine them, sorry. Blame the game's bad ending.]. Some Hero & Kel & Aubrey friendship. Mentions of Hero & Kel & Aubrey & Sunny & Basil & Mari friendship and References to Past HeroMari (Romantic Hero/Mari).

Characters: Hero (POV Character), Kel, and Aubrey. Sunny, Mari, & Basil are mentioned. Hero & Kel's parents and Sally briefly appear.

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life, Brotherly Love, Family Feels, Angst With A Hopeful Ending, Aged-Up Characters/Future Fic, Some Romance (Kelbrey), Heart To Heart Chats, Unplanned Pregnancy, Hero: The Savior of Kelbrey, Father's Day, Angsty Kel, Toasters, It Actually Has a Happy/Hopeful Ending (I Promise)

Word Count: 6945

Rating: T for some language and heavy themes and thematic elements (i.e. grief & healing from grief and trauma) and some more suggestive thematic elements/implied suggestive thematic elements due to referenced pregnancy (Note: There is nothing explicit in this fic whatsoever).

Warnings: Major Spoilers for OMORI Bad Ending! Heavy themes and thematic elements (i.e. grief & healing from grief and trauma). Some language, including one (1) somewhat vulgar insult. More suggestive thematic elements/implied suggestive thematic elements due to referenced pregnancy. Implied/Referenced unplanned pregnancy. Implied/Referenced Past Character Deaths. Implied/Referenced Mental Health Issues (i.e. depression, suicide ect.). Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms. Mentioned (of age) drinking. [Disclaimer: I am not advocating for any of the kinds of dysfunction and unhealthy coping skills referenced in this fic. Please don't try this at home, kids]. More tags on AO3.

Link to original post on AO3. Please do not repost to another website.

A/N: I am clearly entering my OMORI era and also my Kel Angst era maybe? I don't know. I prefer happy Kel so I don't know why I keep writing about him being so sad, but I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. I really just wanted to write in a "Post-Bad Ending" AU, I guess. Will I ever write a story in which Kel gets to be happy? This has yet to be seen. Sorry Kel.

Story below the cut. Thank you for reading! 💕

“Hey, Kel. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home. They were still out of tomato soup, but I got some potato soup that was on sale in the deli section.” Hero paused—waiting for Kel to make some obligatory joke about tomatoes and potatoes, but Kel didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t even look up from whatever he was working on over in the living room of their apartment as Hero set the grocery bags on the counter. Maybe he didn’t hear him?

“Kel?” No answer. “Kel?” he repeated a little louder to still, no answer. “Earth to Kel…” he teased, hoping that would get his attention. When Kel didn’t respond, Hero’s brow furrowed. Usually, his brother couldn’t wait to talk his ear off as soon as he got home, but today he was strangely quiet. It was more than a little concerning. “You okay, Kel?”  

“Huh?” Kel startled nearly dropping the screwdriver he had in his hands. Hero could have sworn his face flushed for just a split second before he hurriedly replied, “Oh sorry, Hero. I didn’t hear you come in.”

That was…odd, but Hero shrugged it off. “No worries. What are you working on?”

“Oh, just taking a look at the toaster. I think there’s a problem with the electrical circuit.”  

Hero sighed. Their toaster had been on the fritz for a couple of days now, and even though Hero had suggested that they could just buy a new one, Kel had gotten into his mind that he should be able to fix it. This in and of itself wasn’t anything new. Kel could certainly be stubborn when he wanted to be, but he was usually a total chatterbox when he was working, not so engrossed in his projects that he turned uncharacteristically silent.

“Seriously, Kel. We can just buy a new one. It’s no big deal.”  

“But what if we need the money for something else?”

“Like what?” Hero’s brow furrowed as a strange look passed over Kel’s eyes.

“I dunno,” he muttered quietly, turning back to the broken toaster. Hero took a deep breath. Something was wrong—call it brother’s intuition, but he knew it.

“Hey, Kel, is…is everything okay?” he asked with a slight tilt of his head. Kel swallowed hard and fidgeted, but he didn’t answer. “Is there something going on at work?” Hero’s mind was racing. Maybe Kel’s plant was downsizing or he had made a big mistake and was in trouble or there was something going on within the company that was making him fear for his job security and his ability to afford toasters…?

“Nah. It’s not that,” answered Kel with a shrug. He looked almost relieved, and his smile returned though it wasn’t nearly as bright as usual. “I think I’m squared away there. Mr. Talbot says I’m a great welder so I can keep working for him as long as I want, and I’ve been making lots of money working third shift.” 

A smile tugged at Hero’s mouth, and he sighed with relief. He was glad Kel’s job was secure and that he seemed to be doing so well for himself now. Hero had been so worried about him after Sunny and Basil had died, but his brother had somehow found his way—thriving in trade school and finding a job he loved in manufacturing. In fact, Hero doubted he knew anyone who loved their job nearly as much as Kel. Almost every morning, whenever Hero was getting ready to head off to one of his med school classes or his clinical work at the hospital, Kel was getting back to the apartment they shared after his late shift, smiling and excitedly prattling away about mechanical things Hero couldn’t begin to understand. He wished Kel would smile now—but he looked so defeated. Something was definitely wrong. 

Hero took a deep breath. He didn’t want to press the issue, but he knew Kel was the type of person who let his worries about burdening others prevent him from opening up sometimes. Over the years, Hero had learned that his brother sometimes needed some gentle encouragement that it was okay to share whatever was on his mind, even if it wasn’t his usual brand of upbeat positivity. “Kel…are you sure everything’s okay?” 

Kel paused but didn’t look up from his toaster project. “I─I just…I’ve got a lot on my mind I guess, but I’m sure it’ll work out.” 

“If you want to talk about it, you can tell me…” Hero reassured him, but when Kel just shrugged again, he sighed. He hoped that Kel knew he could always talk to him about anything, and he just chose not to. Hero had never really known why that was—though he hoped that it wasn’t because of something he had done, that the time he had lashed out at him after Mari’s death hadn’t scarred Kel in a way that made him scared of ever opening up to him again. In the best case scenario, Hero liked to think that whatever troubled Kel was awkward for him to share with his brother and so he was just more comfortable talking to someone else about it—usually Aubrey, if Hero had to guess. 

Aubrey and Kel were thick as thieves, especially since they had lost Basil and Sunny, and Kel had told him once that they could talk about things with each other that they could never say to anyone else. Hero had never been entirely sure what they talked about, and he respectfully stayed out of it for the most part, not wanting to pry into their business. He was just grateful Kel had someone to talk to about whatever was troubling him, and it was nice to have Aubrey around their apartment all the time for meals or to watch tv or to play cards or board games. Even if he hadn’t seen much of her lately seeing as he was so busy with med school and his clinical work, he could always tell when she had been around because the place was much tidier than if he had just left Kel to his own devices. But as nice as it was to come home to the dishes done or the kitchen floor swept up or to the silly sticky-notes she’d leave on their refrigerator, Hero missed actually getting to visit with Aubrey and wished they hadn’t had alternating schedules. 

Like Kel, Aubrey also worked a late shift as a nurse at a local psychiatric hospital. She didn’t like to talk about her job much—and probably couldn’t due to HIPPA and privacy concerns—but Hero couldn’t help but wonder if she chose that line of work to try to prevent another Sunny or Basil from… He swallowed hard and pushed the thought away. They had only discussed it once, very briefly when she first started working in a juvenile psych ward, but he would never forget what she said: “I just kept thinking that someday I’ll finally understand why—what could have possibly led them to think that was the only…”—her voice had hitched—“But I don’t think I’ll ever really know, you know, Hero?”

He had known, and, if he was being honest, he was still trying to make sense of it all himself even all these years later. He was proud of Aubrey for taking that on and trying her best to make a difference to people who were suffering in that way, especially since he knew he would never have the strength for it himself. He avoided psychological topics like the plague, and there was nothing in the world that could make him take a psychiatry residency after he graduated medical school—it just hit too close to home. Even sitting here and trying to help Kel with whatever was troubling him would probably keep him up all night with worry. Aubrey was much stronger—much better at this kind of thing than him. That’s probably why Kel felt like he could talk to her about anything. Maybe they could invite her over for pizza and a game of Jenga and she could help Kel through whatever he was going through. 

“Or maybe you could call Aubrey?” Hero suggested when Kel didn’t respond. Kel flinched—something sad passing over his eyes, and Hero’s insides twisted. Had he said something wrong? 

“Aubrey…” Kel fidgeted, before beginning to tinker with the toaster again. “Aubrey hasn’t been talking to me. She said she needed some space, and I’ve been trying to respect that, it’s just been hard.” 

“Did you two have a fight?” Hero’s brow furrowed. Sure, they still bickered with each other, teased and bantered with each other sometimes, but as far as he knew they hadn’t had a real, actual fight with each other in years. 

“Not really, but…” Kel swallowed. “I think I really messed up this time.” With a sigh, he set the broken toaster and his tools down on the coffee table, and he ran a hand through his unruly hair.

“Aubrey’s your friend,” reassured Hero. “I’m sure she will forgive you eventually. Have you tried apologizing?” 

“Well yeah, of course, I did, but like I said she won’t really talk to me…” He paused and swallowed hard. “Except for today. She called and said she wanted to meet up this morning. I was going to tell her how sorry I was for everything and maybe ask her to get some dinner with me or something but then—then she…” Kel stopped. He fumbled around for something in his pocket before pulling out a small square of paper. “She gave me this.” 

Hero’s eyes widened as he stared at the paper in Kel’s hand. The picture was blurry in grainy black and white, but it was unmistakable to Hero. After all, he must have looked through hundreds of similar ultrasounds during his unit on obstetrics. Still, he couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around it. He choked on his words though he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say.   

“It’s a sonogram.” Kel paused pointing at the grainy picture. “See, that’s the head, and there’s an arm. Aubrey said the technician laughed because it looked like he was waving at them.” 

“Aubrey’s…uh…that is…she’s…um…is she…?” Hero’s face flushed, and he stopped abruptly. He couldn’t say it. It made it too real.

Kel, however, must have caught on well enough to his rambled half-sentences, and he hummed and nodded in agreement though a sheepish smile twitched in the corners of his mouth. “Yeah… she’s—uh—having a baby. She says she’s due near Mari’s birthday, in March.” 

“I…I didn’t even know she was in a relationship…” 

“I don’t think she is”—Kel cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders slightly—“ Or maybe she is. I don’t know. She hasn’t really talked to me in a while.” 

“Is…is the father…?” Hero stammered, halfway hoping Kel would cut him off. It seemed like too personal a question and probably none of his business, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. 

Kel bit his lip and stared off at the wall as he rubbed his hand across the nape of his neck. “Oh—uh, so…funny story about that…” His cheeks flushed, and Hero could feel his own face begin to burn. He swallowed hard. No. There was no way… 

“Kel─” he barely managed to choke out, blinking at him in disbelief. 

“Uh, yeah so…” Kel sort of shrugged his shoulders before he chuckled lightly, awkwardly. “This is my kid. I’m gonna be a dad—pretty wild, huh?” he said with far more nonchalance than the situation warranted. Kel sighed down at the sonogram before holding out the paper to Hero. “And I guess that means this is your nephew or niece, right? It’s a little unbelievable honestly, and I’m kind of freaking out to tell you the truth.” 

Hero could only blink at him in disbelief before he pressed his palm to his forehead, trying to remind himself to take deep, shaky breaths. “Kel…I…What? How?” he tripped hurriedly over his words. 

“You’re really close to being a doctor, Hero. You really expect me to believe you don’t know where babies come from?” 

Hero choked—blushing a beet red. “No, uh, that’s not what I meant!” he frantically replied. He paused, trying his best to clear his parched throat. “I just meant that you and…and Aubrey…” His face flushed an even deeper red. Aubrey was a very private person about everything, especially her personal life, but Hero didn’t think she had ever had a serious relationship. Up until this moment, he would have sworn that Kel certainly hadn’t, and, as far as he knew, he wasn’t out there hooking up with a bunch of girls either. Then again, what did he know? He was just his older brother. Kel could be a real ladies’ man or maybe he had been secretly in a relationship with Aubrey this entire time and hadn’t told anyone for some reason or…? Hero’s head whirled. He didn’t know what to think. He supposed it was really none of his business, but the words tumbled out in his desperate attempts to make sense of what he was hearing. “Are you two…um…dating?” 

“I don’t think so. I wish she’d let me take her on a date, but she’s just been avoiding me ever since we…uh, well, you know…” Kel scratched the back of his neck and let out a long, heavy sigh before he shook his head. He cleared his throat and something almost helpless and genuinely remorseful passed over his eyes. “Listen, I─I really, really messed up, Hero. I don’t even know what I was thinking—I probably wasn’t thinking anything, and now…now this is just such a mess and I─I don’t know what to do…” 

“Do you…uh…want to talk about it?” He tripped over his words, sheepish and awkward. He was sure it wasn’t his place and truthfully didn’t really want to know, but he could tell Kel desperately needed to get it all off his chest and if the last decade had taught them anything, it was that carrying a burden alone, crumbling under the weight of it, could destroy a person. He had already lost Mari, Sunny, and Basil in this way—he didn’t want to lose Kel too, didn’t want him to suffer alone. “I’m here. If you ever…” His voice trailed, but Kel tilted his head with a conceding sigh. 

“It was a couple months ago,” he began. There was a certain relief that passed over his face when he started talking as if he had been desperately wanting to tell someone this story for a long, long time, and knowing Kel as well as he did, Hero could only imagine how hard it was for him to keep it a secret for months. “She was really, really sad since the anniversary was coming up. It’s been 5 years since Basil…” He stopped. “And 6 years since Sunny…and 10 since Mari…” His voice trailed. “It’s just a lot, you know? So she came over and we sat and talked about it for a long time, and she was really, really broken up. I probably should’ve stopped her from drinking with me, I just…I hate it when she cries, and she thought it would make her feel better. But I think it just made us stupid.”

He sighed and shook his head. “It was getting really late. You were still at the hospital or school or somewhere…and I was just listening to her and sometimes talking too—the details are all kind of fuzzy but eventually she started saying something about how she doesn’t have anybody—Mari and Basil and Sunny and her dad, they all just left her and now she’s all alone. And I just wanted her to feel better. I told her that she has me, you know? But I know that probably doesn’t mean a lot coming from me—nobody really needs me…” He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh it off, but Hero could see the pain in his eyes before he sighed again. “I know, I know it was a sucky thing for me to do, but when she said she needed me, I─I just…I don’t know…I just…kissed her and—she kissed me back. And then I kissed her back and…I don’t know if it was the alcohol or that we were sad or just both things, everything, but well… one thing led to another…” 

Kel cleared his throat, and Hero sighed with relief that his brother had cut himself off there. He didn’t want to interrupt Kel or make him feel like he couldn’t share, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was somehow invading his and Aubrey’s privacy. There were certain things brothers just shouldn’t ever know about each other. 

“It was huge mistake, and I felt so guilty about it the next day, like I took advantage of how broken up she was. She said it was what she wanted, but I just don’t think she would have wanted me if she was completely sober and wasn’t so upset, you know?” He let out a long and heavy sigh. “I tried to apologize to her, but she said she’d rather just forget about it—chalk it up to stupid drunk mistakes and unhealthy coping or whatever and just never talk about it again. I said that was okay, but I just kept thinking about it—not in a weird way, just in an ‘I really wished I could do things over and take her out on a real date’ kind of way. Seriously, the very next day I was planning to ask if she’d let me buy her breakfast or something, but she had totally disappeared when I woke up and like I said, she wouldn’t really talk to me after so…” 

Kel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, cursing under his breath. “I’m such an idiot and now…now she’s…” He shook his head in disbelief. “I almost didn’t believe it when she told me, but she had this picture and everything…” He gripped the sonogram until his knuckles began to turn white. “She had this video too—on her phone.” As Kel paused, his face began to soften, and a smile twitched in the corners of his mouth—”It was actually kinda cool. The baby was really wiggling around and stuff. I thought that maybe…maybe he’d be kinda athletic like me—or she would, if it’s a girl.” He somehow managed a shaky chuckle. “You could hear the heartbeat too—sounded really strong…” Kel’s voice trailed as he ran a hand through his hair and took several shallow, shaky breaths. “Shit, Hero. What am I gonna do?”

Kel buried his face in his hands, and Hero’s chest ached. He scrambled to try to think of something to say to comfort Kel, but all he could think about was whether he had ever seen his brother so scared before. He couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling right now—the complicated emotions—the disbelief, the fears, the uncertainty, the guilt and the helplessness that must have been eating away at him since he had found out about the baby. 

“I feel terrible—like I’ve ruined her life and probably ruined the kid’s life or at least I’m gonna ruin it eventually because I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. I don’t know anything about being a parent—I can barely take care of myself.” 

“I’m sure Mom and Dad could give you some advice…”

Kel interrupted him with a groan, muttering a string of curses under his breath before throwing up his hands. “I didn’t even think about them. They’re gonna kill me.”

“I’m sure they’re not going to…um…” Hero stopped. “Listen, Mom and Dad care about you. They’re probably going to be surprised, but I think they’ll be supportive and helpful.” Hero tried to muster a reassuring smile. “I mean…Sally was a surprise to them, right?”

“They had Sally after being married for almost 20 years, Hero. I haven’t even taken Aubrey on a real date. These are not the same things.” Kel huffed but shook his head waving his hands around in frustration. Hero could tell by the look in his eyes that he was spiraling. “Oh, Sally… I wasn’t thinking about her either. She’s gonna be more like a sister than an aunt, and what are Mom and Dad even going to tell her? Like ‘Hey, Sally, guess what, your big brother’s a manwhore. He’s a baby daddy now.’”

“K—Kel!” spluttered a red-faced Hero. “They’re not going to say that, especially not to Sally.”

“What if they take it out on Aubrey?” Kel cut him off, gesturing wildly with his hands, clearly spiraling too much to listen to him. “What are people gonna say about her? What are they gonna think? Especially the church ladies—they’re gonna whisper and gossip about her and think terrible, awful things, and it’s all my fault.”

“Listen, Kel, you can’t control what other people think, okay?” Hero tried to reassure him, politely failing to mention that Kel had much more important things to worry about than the church ladies. “And…”

“And Aubrey said her mom told her not to bother coming home if she ever got pregnant,” The words raced out of Kel’s mouth, faster than Hero thought he could even think them. “And—and Kim…oh shit, Hero, she wants to cut off—”

“Calm down,” interjected Hero placing both hands squarely on Kel’s shoulders until he was looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. Hero took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down too. It wouldn’t do Kel any good if he also started spiraling into a tornado of worries. “Okay? It’s going to be okay. Take a couple of deep breaths. The most important thing right now is Aubrey—how is Aubrey?” Hero paused, but Kel only blinked at him so he prompted,  “I’m sure she’s…she’s scared too, right? Has she been sick?”

“She’s not sick, Hero. She’s pregnant.”

He buried his face in his hand—willing himself not to roll his eyes. “Yes, Kel…” he said with a heavy sigh. “I know that. I just…meant…has she been feeling sick because she’s pregnant?”

“Oh.” With a thoughtful tilt of his head, Kel’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask that.” He pressed his palm to his forehead and shook his head. “I’m so bad at this.”

“It’s—it’s okay, Kel…” Hero reached out his hand to pat his brother’s shoulder, but Kel jerked away from him.

“No, it isn’t.” His face fell, and he sighed despondently. “This whole thing is just terrible—I feel like such a screw up. If I was just more careful or a better person, I wouldn’t have messed up and gotten her pregnant in the first place. If I really cared about her, I would’ve just called her a ride or something. I bet that’s what you would have done—you’d have been a gentleman, made sure she got home safe. You’d probably never even be in this situation, with anyone…” 

“Well…uh…,” Hero stumbled unsure of how exactly to respond to that. He didn’t really want to be involved, and he certainly didn’t think that comparison to him was warranted. He couldn’t even imagine wanting to be in a relationship with anyone—not anymore, not since Mari… He stopped—swallowing hard and ignoring that pang in his chest. He couldn’t even imagine kissing another woman. Let alone… He cleared his throat and awkwardly fidgeted with his hands. He supposed Kel was right. He probably would have never been in this situation—he was way above his pay grade here. 

“Listen, Kel…” he began, hoping he would think of something comforting to say if he just started fumbling his way through his words. “Don’t beat yourself up. I know it’s really scary, but it’s going to be okay. What’s important now is that you need to do right by Aubrey and the baby. You need to take responsibility and care of them.” 

“I know, and I want to—really. I just…I don’t know what I should do…,” Kel continued, a certain helplessness creeping into his voice. “I asked Aubrey if she thought we should get married or something…” He paused. “She said she’d think about it…” As Kel bit his lip, his face fell, and he fidgeted with his hands. He looked defeated—almost wounded. Even so, he managed an awkward chuckle as he scratched the nape of his neck. “I completely understand if she doesn’t want to marry me though. She can probably do a lot better. I just—I didn’t know what else to do…” 

“I’m sure it’s not about you personally, Kel. She probably just doesn’t want a shotgun wedding, you know?” 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kel sighed. “But I don’t think it would be just a shotgun wedding, you know?” 

“Would you have wanted to marry her even if she wasn’t─?” His voice cracked. He was still struggling to say it. 

“Maybe…someday—probably farther in the future after we actually went out, you know? We haven’t even been on a real date before.” He sighed and pressed his hand wearily to his forehead again. “I feel like I need to buy her some noodles or a piece of cake or something before we have a kid. She deserves a real date and a real relationship and stuff…Probably a real proposal too. I didn’t even have a ring or anything. I just kind of panicked.” 

“Kel…uh…” Hero stopped himself before he stammered ‘slow down.’ “Are you…? Uh…Do you love Aubrey?” 

“I dunno—maybe. Probably.” He sighed. “I just never really thought about it, you know? I just didn’t think she was ever gonna be into me, so I figured it would be best not to even consider it. But…I dunno… she’s pretty amazing.” His mouth curved into a smile, and there was something almost wistful in his eyes. “She’s honest and funny and kinda spunky—and her nose gets all wrinkly when she laughs”—he chuckled, then sighed—“Ever since Sunny and Basil died, she’s been the closest person in the world to me besides you. I’ve told her stuff I could never tell anyone else—all kinds of stuff about me and how I feel, even the bad stuff—and she still talks to me after. And—I dunno—it’s kind of like she sees something in me that nobody else does. I can’t stop thinking about her, and I want to be with her all the time and…I just want to make her happy—” Kel stopped and took a deep breath, shaking his head as if he had finally realized what Hero had figured out about five sentences ago. “Damn…I’m a moron.”

Hero stifled a chuckle before he ruffled his little brother’s hair with a gentle smile. “You’re just in love.”

Kel blushed. “You really think so?”

Hero shrugged his shoulders and nodded—the understatement of the century seeing as he never even realized Kel could look so besotted or lovesick, especially not about Aubrey of all people. Sure, he teased them a little from time to time, as older siblings tend to do, but he probably would have never treated it like such a joke if he had the slightest inkling Kel was harboring real, genuine feelings for her. To see how his face lit up just now when talked about her, Hero, honestly, felt pretty stupid for not having realized it before.

Kel’s smile had all but faded, and he buried his face in his hands, cursing under his breath again. “I have really, really messed this up…” he mumbled. “I’ll be lucky if she’ll even talk to me again.”

“She’s going to have to talk to you, Kel. You’re having a kid together…” Hero froze. The words felt so heavy—so real. Kel and Aubrey were having a baby. They were going to be the parents of a real, actual child. It was hard to believe.

“That poor, kid…” Kel sighed, then stumbled hurriedly. “I mean, Aubrey’s great—she’ll be an awesome mom, but the baby’s gonna be stuck with me for a dad. I’m probably gonna mess him up or something.”  

“Hey, don’t say that,” interrupted Hero. “You are both going to be great parents. This might not be the best situation, but that kid is going to be so lucky to have you and I know you’re going to be an amazing dad.”

“I dunno…”

“You are,” Hero insisted as he wrapped his arm around Kel’s shoulders. Kel rolled his eyes, but Hero’s mouth curved into a kind, gentle smile as he continued, “I can just see it, Kel. No one will be able to get your kid to laugh like you do—you’ll put party hats over your eyes or smash cake in your face just to see him smile. You’ll have splash fights for hours at the beach or push her so high on the swings that she’ll swear she can reach the moon. If your kid ever wants to try a sport like you, you’ll cheer louder and more enthusiastically than all the other parents at every single game. You’ll tell the best bedtime stories and come up with the most fun games to play. You’ll teach her how to throw a baseball and how to always win at cards. You’ll sit with him and listen when he’s sad, and you’d stop the world to make him happy again.”

Hero gave his brother a reassuring pat on the back before he sighed, “I know that this is a really tough situation and that it’s not always going to be easy. I don’t know how things are all going to work out, but there is no doubt in my mind that you are going to love that kid no matter what.” He gently pushed the sonogram back towards Kel. “I can tell you already do.”  

“You…you really think so?” asked Kel, a blush filling his cheeks as he fidgeted with the sonogram in his hands.

“I know it,” said Hero, nodding several times for good measure.

Kel’s mouth twitched into a slight smile as he stared down at the sonogram. “You know, in the middle of all this freaking out I’ve been doing, I…I was thinking about all the cool things we could do together—me and the kid. I could teach him how to play basketball or baseball. We could eat watermelon in the summertime or build sandcastles. Maybe I could build a treehouse someday, and she could play in it with her friends.” Something panged in Hero’s chest, and from the look in Kel’s eyes, he knew he was thinking the same thing—remembering those bittersweet moments from their own childhoods back when all of their friends were still together. “Wouldn’t it be kind of great if someday we could take the kid to all our favorite places from when we were kids? Maybe we can bury him in the sand at the beach like we did with Sunny, or teach her how to make flower crowns like Mari taught us, or take silly Polaroids together like Basil, or have picnics”—his voice hitched before it grew soft, quiet—“I wish they were here...”

Hero pulled his brother closer to him and leaned his head on his shoulder as he took long, shaky breaths. There were some kinds of pain that never really left a person—the loss of a friend was one of them. Even after all these years, his heart ached thinking about Sunny, Basil, and Mari. “I know…” he said. “Me too.”

“Aubrey says they know. She told them first. She said she was so upset and confused when she took the test that she just got in her car and started driving—she didn’t know where she was going until she was at the church. She went to visit them, at the cemetery and told them everything, though she was sure they probably already knew.” He paused, a light chuckle reverberating in his chest. “She said she felt so much better afterwards—knew she wanted to raise the baby and bring him or her back there someday, even if she had to do it without me.” Kel swallowed hard. His breath hitched, and Hero could feel his shoulders begin to shake as his voice grew quiet. “I don’t want her to have to do that alone. I want to be there—to be a dad. To take care of the baby and take care of her…”   

Hero’s expression softened as he comfortingly patted Kel’s shoulder. “That’s what’s great about you, Kel. You want to fix things. You want to take care of people and make them happy—to do the right thing.”

Kel sniffled wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve, but a lopsided, bittersweet smile twitched in the corners of his mouth. “I just wish I knew what ‘the right thing’ was…” He sighed with a somewhat helpless shrug of his shoulders. “What do you think I should do, Hero?”

“Well…” Hero sighed. “I really think you should be honest with Aubrey about how you’re feeling—the good and the bad stuff. She’s probably really scared too, so you should encourage her that you’re not going to go anywhere and promise that you’ll be there for her and for your kid so she won’t have to do this alone. Then, the two of you are going to have to sort out the rest together, but I think it’ll be easier to do that after you’ve had an honest conversation.” Kel nodded, and Hero shrugged his shoulders. “And eventually you’ll have to tell Mom and Dad because they will figure it out…But that’s good for a start, right?”

Kel blinked at him—words of gratitude that he couldn’t say glistening in his eyes as he nodded. “Yeah, that’s good.” His smile brightened as he immediately stood up from the sofa and rushed over to his car keys hanging by the front door.

“Hey…uh…what are…?”

“I’m going to go talk to her—right now,” he exclaimed with a certain determination.

“Well…I didn’t mean you had to go over right now,” stumbled Hero. “Maybe you should text her first and ask if it’s a good time…”

“That’s okay. I’ll call her on the way,” Kel chuckled before he paused. “Oh I almost forgot.” He fumbled around with the sonogram in his hands before proudly hanging it on the refrigerator with a magnet. Kel beamed at it before turning back to Hero and pulling him into a tight hug. “You’re gonna be the best uncle, you know?”

“I’ll try my best,” quipped Hero as he wrapped his arms around his brother.

“Thank you…” Kel’s voice was so quiet, Hero almost couldn’t hear him. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” he whispered before Kel pat him on the back and took off through the doorway.

Once Kel had gone, Hero stared at his phone for a long, long time debating whether or not he should text Aubrey and give her a heads up that Kel was on his way over, especially since this may or may not have been because he misinterpreted his advice. Eventually, he decided it was probably not his place to meddle, and he decided to fix himself some food instead. As he walked over to the refrigerator, he stared at the sonogram Kel had hung up, and he smiled.

One day that refrigerator would be covered in pictures. Another sonogram—several actually, of increasingly better quality. A photo of Hero stifling his laughter at an unamused and heavily pregnant Aubrey’s shirt that said, “Don’t Eat Watermelon Seeds” which Kel was so proud to have found himself. One of Kel, happier than he had ever been in his life, as he held his son for his first time. Of Aubrey practically beaming with the baby during a picnic they all took together in the park. Of Hero dressing his nephew up in a onesie that looked like a dinosaur or holding his tiny hands as he crooned to old records turned lullabies or taking him for a walk in the rain under an umbrella. Snapshots of the life of a little boy who Aubrey playfully teased was far too adorable for someone who looked so much like Kel, and who Kel would be the first to tell anyone was his whole world—the best thing that ever could’ve happened to him. The most loved little boy in all of Faraway Town who showed his Uncle Hero—who showed all of them that they could be happy again.

Hero’s phone dinged. It was a message from Aubrey. It read: “You know don’t you?”

He chuckled sheepishly to himself as he picked up his phone to respond and watched the bouncing ellipses of her typing a follow up text, but as he read it, he couldn’t help but smile.

“Thank you.”

*-*-*

Epilogue:  

One Year Later…

“I want to hold him! I want to hold him!” exclaimed Sally excitedly, practically doting on her new nephew as he was rocked to sleep by an equally doting grandma. Kel smiled but shushed her gently.

“Gentle, Sally. He’s trying to sleep—we have to appreciate those opportunities when we’ve got ‘em,” he teased with a wink in Aubrey’s general direction. There was a certain affection to the way she rolled her eyes that made Hero stifle a chuckle. By this point, he was fairly convinced he was never not going to find her and Kel’s banter with each other cute, even or perhaps especially if it continued to annoy them. Despite his best efforts to hide it, however, he knew Aubrey saw the way his mouth had twitched into a smile, and she quirked an eyebrow at him before cutting another piece of the cake they had brought over to his parents’ house for Father’s Day.

“You want another piece of cake, Hero?” she asked, that gold band in the shape of an infinity symbol clanging against the ceramic plate as she held it out to him.

“No thanks,” he replied politely. “I’ve already had one, and I’m already stuffed from dinner. Looks like Dad is too.” He laughed as he glanced over at his father who was dozing off in his new recliner—the perfect gift, all thanks to Aubrey.

Aubrey chuckled but sighed. “He’s definitely got the right idea. I wish that was me.”

“Really? I feel great,” interjected Kel excitedly. “We got six hours of sleep in a row last night! I may have actually cried a little when I woke up this morning.”

“Dork,” teased Aubrey with a playful roll of her eyes, but her mouth twitched up in the corners.

“Your dork,” Kel corrected. “Forever.” He laughed, smugly wiggling the fingers of his left hand to her. He even pointed at his ring a couple of times for good measure, but when she just blinked at him unamused, he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek.

“Kel…” she huffed, then turned to glare at Hero who could no longer stifle his laughter. “You’re making Hero uncomfortable.”

“Are you kidding? This is adorable. I wish I had a camera,” Hero teased in his dry way. Aubrey sighed, but, seemingly, decided to change the subject.

“We have something for you,” she said, disentangling herself from Kel’s hug. “Don’t we, Kel…”

“Oh yeah, that’s right!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded greeting card envelope. Aubrey pressed her palm to her forehead and shook her head.

“I thought you said you were going to take care of it.”

“I did,” Kel insisted. “It’s right here.”

Aubrey let out a long and heavy sigh as Kel unfolded the greeting card and handed it to Hero.

“Thank you,” he said as he took it with a kindhearted smile. “I’m sure it’s great. But I don’t understand why you’re giving me…”

“It’s Father’s Day,” Kel cut him off with an emphatic nod as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Hero’s brow furrowed. “Happy Father’s Day or uh—Uncle’s Day…or uh—Godfather’s Day…That works, right?” Kel looked to Aubrey for reassurance, but she was mid-facepalm muttering about how she really needed that nap. “Well, whatever it’s your first one as an Uncle-Godfather, so it’s special.”

“We also wanted to thank you,” added Aubrey with a gentle smile as she glanced over at her sleeping son who was currently being handed to a very excited Aunt Sally. “For everything.”

Hero smiled at Aubrey and Kel, before carefully opening the greeting card. It took him all of 5 seconds to realize Kel had probably picked it out given the bright colors and the joke about uncles being like superheroes. Inside were the punchline and the words “Happy Father’s Day,” as well as a gift card to his favorite coffee shop.

Smiling, he looked up to offer his gratitude and thanks, when he caught sight of a personalized message scrawled at the bottom of the card. His smile widened, and he could feel a tear prickling in the corner of his eye as he read the words: “Not All Heroes Wear Capes.”

[fluxweeed]

10 first lines

share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics / wips

hi @teeteringpileofunusednotebooks and @nv-md! tysm for the tag + i’m sorry i’m so late!! mari – i’m ridic excited for your stupid number of WIPs – also i feel like you’ve started writing at least? two more? since you posted your version? i’m laughing, but with love. ali – your lines are all so perfect and make me miss ur writing so much! nv-md binge incoming!!! 

the last time i did this was exactly 10 published fics ago, so this is actually perfect timing! last time i also completely ignored the rules and talked in-depth about each line, and u kno what? tumblr is about the only place i feel comfortable being stupidly self-indulgent, so here we are again lmao 🙈

in reverse chronological order:

1. For Lack of Wanting (8.4k, E, unrequited drarry)

I was obsessed with him, you know.

(this line and also the entire first section is so tell-y but tbh i purposefully didn’t care. i just wanted to write some fucked-up unrequited roleplay sex, you know? sometimes you have to forget about writing good and just treat urself)

2. Still the pine-woods scent the moon (15.5k, E, remus/harry)

It seems like a reasonable idea, at first.

(so this fic actually started off as a sirius/harry after i went on a huge @lqtraintracks bender one weekend [and if u haven’t already, stop what ur doing and go inhale all 19 lqt sirius/harry fics immediately]. then i realised there was nothing i could really add to a sirius/harry fic that hadn’t been done already - but i came across this art and it lodged itself into my brain forever. it’s just the vibes, u know?? how soft remus looks but also the way he’s looking right at the camera?? that man is in CONTROL. so anyway then obv i needed to find a way to get him into grimmauld place so he could walk in on draco fucking harry in the arse. thus: first line.)

3. Ferrety Little Mouths and How to Snog with Them (5k, T/M, soft drarry kissing)

“And she lost her shit, can you believe it?”

(can’t rly take credit for this one; this whole section with draco talking about his ex is almost word-for-word a convo i had with a friend about their ex and their friend who was weird about it. not quite sure the phrase “she lost her shit” was used, but that was def the vibe.)

4. Two to Lie and One to Listen (85k, E, drarry fake relationship [sort of])

She’d got another letter from the Ministry that morning. It was from the Muggle Liaison Office this time. 

(god, this fic. in the very first draft, hermione was the legit villain: the sort of friend who is well-meaning and loudly supportive, but is lowkey bigoted and doesn’t think that queer relationships are as meaningful as straight ones. then before the first big rewrite i started thinking more about her motivations and had the idea of making her trans – both to give her a non-bigot reason for agreeing to help draco hide his sexuality and not tell harry about it [it’s all about the trauma, folks!!], but also as a nice little fuck-you to jkr. so then she needed more of her own storyline, bc it felt like a bit of a cop-out to be like “hey this character is trans i swear! anyway let’s mostly ignore her and have her get in the way of the main pairing” [which, honestly, is still sort of the vibe of the fic], so she got her big Let’s Change The World Campaign.

the first version of this prologue was from draco POV; the second version was hermione POV but she was sooo mean and angry; this one is the third attempt. i wanted to show her desperate attempts at making any kind of change, anywhere at all, so it’s a bit more plausible that when she runs into draco malfoy, she’s like “ok yeah sure let’s pretend to be boyfriendgirlfriend!” lol. also does it bother anyone else that there are three different tenses in this one line? everything about this fic makes me sick lmfao)

5. Per my last letter (I hope you choke on it) (10k, T, epistolary author!harry/publishing-grunt!draco)

CURRICULUM VITAE: Draco L. Malfoy

(can’t remember whose idea it was to start with a cv? it seems like the sort of lazy backstory shortcut i would do, lmao, unless it was actually @lastontheboat​’s idea, in which case it was a genius move to introduce draco’s work struggle and set the tone for his journey thru the rest of the fic)

6. An Auror Error (1k, T, stupid drarry auror fic written in tongue-twisters)

Harry shivered under Malfoy’s stern glare.

(1. wanted it to be left a bit ambiguous what harry’s actually feeling here [reality: he’s shivering bc he thinks draco is sexy when he glares, but also he could be scared bc he’s being interrogated?] 2. playing around a little bit with the s/sh sounds. easing into the nonsense to come.)

7. Eight o’clock, tomorrow evening (11.5k, E, drarry legilimency sex)

It was seven fifty-five, and Draco’s stomach churned.

(listen, i thought i was doing something with the title being a line from the end of The Four Doors, which this fic is a lil sequel to. this first line was (a) tying that together even more and also (b) establishing the POV switch from harry POV in 4D)

8. The Taste of Țuică (15k, E, ron/harry/draco)

Mum always says my problem is that I care too much. I think that’s nonsense, honestly—one of those meaningless things mums say to make you feel better about overreacting to stupid shit. But I can’t deny that I care about my friends. I mean, really care about them. You know?

(i’m including the whole first line here instead of just the sentence bc i was trying to do sooo much here, lmao. first, i wanted to really ground this fic in ron POV, and the weasleys are so very Family [u know??], so i wanted to get that in asap. i also wanted to get in ron’s maybe-demisexuality in there – i love love LOVE getting characters to explicitly state something about themselves while also simultaneously not realising it at all [seriously i do this all the time, promptly forget about this if ever u plan to read one of my fics bc it will be all u can see now haha] and this absolutely an example of that. poor old ron is going “hey i love my friends soooo much, i love hermione, and also i love harry, i just love them both SO MUCH. wait why tf did i kiss harry that one time???” what a chump.)

9. Belatedly Consummated (4k, E, drarry post-arranged marriage fuck)

The problem is: Harry can’t stop touching Draco.

(idk man i just really liked the thought of these two idiots having to cohabit and try to remain platonic while they get a magical boner every time they touch each other ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ this one also gave me a chance to do another thing i rly like to do, which is take the first line and make it the last line, except the last line is somehow Resolved. last lines are fuckin HARD, i use this trick all the time, pls also forget this one before reading any of my fics, ty)

10. Show them the night that they dreamed about before (6.5k, E, percy/harry/draco)

Draco’s first thought is, Huh, Potter’s here again.

His second thought is, What is he doing, bent over the desk like that?

His third thought is, Oh. Weasley is fucking him.

(i think this was the first thing i wrote for this fic and i lowkey still love it. i think it’s maybe a bit confusing? clunky? i feel like one of my beta’s didn’t like it? but it makes me laugh and also i enjoy the mental image of percy going to town on harry and draco standing there experiencing a whole-ass face journey while otherwise completely motionless, so.)

BONUS WIPS:

1. 10k/15kish written, E, silly drarry vagina fic

As soon as Harry wakes up, he knows that Something is Not Right.

(i feel like this might stay the same in the final version? this wip is about 5 years old lmao but i’ve been playing with this beginning section a bit recently. have made it 100% sillier and imo it’s improved it so much. still not sure i’ll ever finish it.)

2. 27k/50kish written, M, drarry polyjuice clubfic

In general, Harry is grateful for Hermione’s efforts to keep him alive.

(i strongly suspect i’m going to rewrite this entire first scene once i actually finish the fic and realise there are secret themes that currently elude me. atm it works as a way of getting them to where they need to be [on a brisk morning walk!] and also as a joke later on in the fic, but there’s nothing else really going on with it.)

-

god i’m so sorry for hijacking a simple tag game to talk about myself at such obnoxious length ;_; hope it encourages more writers to talk about their processes tho, i need more fic writing meta content now galla’s bonus podfic episodes are offline. tag me if u do this / come across this pls!!! love u ❤️

[transformersprimefan1]

Surprise!

(Jem’s POV) (6 weeks later)

I finished cleaning the house as Megatron walked through the front door. I dumped the dirt in the dustpan into the trash before he wrapped his arms around my waist. “You are so beautiful.” he whispered into my neck, making me giggle and turn to him after placing the dustpan on top of the trashcan. “And you are Handsome, beloved” I whispered as I caressed his faceplate before leaning my head onto his chest. “Movie and cuddles tonight?” I asked, making him nod as he let me go, allowing me to put all of the cleaning supplies back. Once put away, we laid on the couch, my head in his lap. “What movie do you want to watch?” he asked, making me think. “Can we watch Mary Poppins?” I asked, making him chuckle and click the film on the screen. 

(Megatron’s POV) 

The music began playing and I chuckled as Jem sat up and watched the movie. When it came to the room cleaning scene, she became very excited and began to sing along.

“Well, it depends on your point of view. You see, 

In every job that must be done,  

There is an element of fun.  

You find the fun, and snap!” 

She snapped her fingers 

“The job's a game.”

“And every task you undertake  

Becomes a piece of cake

A lark, a spree it's very clear to see”

I had to resist the urge to laugh, my wife was practically bouncing in her seat as she sang.

“That a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down  

The medicine go down  

Medicine go down  

 Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down  

In a most delightful way”

She stopped singing and watched the movie eagerly. I was also soon drawn into the movie, it was very interesting. As the movie ended, Jem stood up and stretched her back. “I see why you love this movie so much. The music as well.” I told her as she sat back down and placed her head on my chestplate. “Yeah, it’s always been one of my favorite Disney movies.” she whispered before she slowly fell asleep, making me smile as I began to pet her hair. After a few hours, I picked her up and carried her to our bedroom, placing her under the covers before joining her, falling into recharge shortly afterwards. I woke up in the middle of the night to Jemelle suddenly jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom. I then heard her become sick. I ran after her and found her kneeling in front of the toilet, holding her stomach with one hand while the other was holding the bowl. I held her hair up as she panted and continued to become sick. Finally, she was done, making me release her hair to grab a damp washcloth and wipe her mouth. “I don’t know what happened.” she whispered, making me kiss her forehead. “Did you eat something bad, perhaps?” I asked, making her shake her head. “No, I fell asleep without eating.” she explained, one hand still on her stomach before she looked at me. “Let's go back to bed and see how I feel in the morning.” she said and began to stand, only for her to sway and nearly fall had I not stood up and caught her in time. Now I was really worried. I put her back to bed and laid next to her. I was worried about leaving her alone in the morning, while I did have to go to work, I also had to take care of my wife. After a little bit, I fell asleep as well, everything should be fine, right?

(Jem’s POV) 

After Megatron left for work, and assuring him that I was fine, I ran to the store. I didn’t tell him, but I had also gotten sick a few days ago while he was at work. So now I was on my way to the store to get something special … pregnancy tests. I arrived at the store and greeted the cashier as I usually did before heading to the feminine care section. I grabbed a few tests and paid for them before heading home.

At home, I immediately took the tests and began to wait. While it wouldn’t be an extreme shock if I am pregnant, it would still be a pleasant surprise. With shaking hands, I turned over the three tests … all were positive. I immediately called June and she told me to come to the hospital. Arriving at the hospital, I was greeted by a very excited June. Getting me into a room, she had an ultrasound done on me. “You’re about a month and a half along.” she told me, making happy tears come to my eyes, I was going to be a mother. June wrote me a prescription for the right medicines and vitamins, allowing me to go get them before getting home. 

Megatron arrived later that afternoon and we cuddled on the couch until it was time for dinner. I secretly began recording, I wanted to get his reaction on camera. “Honey, can you get me what’s in the oven please?” I asked, making him do so. He opened the oven and seemed very confused. “Why is there bread in the oven?” he asked as he pulled out a hamburger bun, making me giggle. “What type of bread is it?” I asked, making him look at it. “It’s a bun.” he stated, still confused. “And where did you find it?” I asked, confusing him even more. “In the oven.” he said before looking between me and the bread. “Darling, why is there a bun in the oven?” he asked before realization came to his face and I began to smile while giggling still. “A-are … Are you pregnant?” he asked in a shocked tone, making me nod before he came and picked me up, spinning me around happily. “I’m gonna be a sire!” he exclaimed happily, making me laugh before kissing him. 

After Megatron calmed down, he let me finish dinner, allowing  me to grab the small camera, and we ate before going to our room, cuddling on the bed before we both fell asleep, very excited for what our future has to hold for us.

[orlissa]

February reading summary

Another month has passed, so it’s time for another book round up :)

In February I managed to read 8 books (and had one DNF). Altogether, altogether, I’m at 16 individual books read this year, which is pretty good considering that my goal is 50 books by the end of December.

But now let’s see what was on the menu for this month:

Rob Sears: The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump -- Just to make it clear, this is not a poetry collection written by Trump XD No, it’s a poetry collection edited together from stuff he has said, which is nothing short of brilliant. Like, the author(s) when through everything he has said, and rearranged them in a way that they mean something (every line is annotated, bwt). It’s just simply funny and even poignant at some places -- a “poem” especially stayed with me, where what he said in the Access Hollywood Tape (”grab them by the pussy”) was juxtaposed with a pre-prepared speech about the horrors of domestic abuse and rape.

Jenna Evans Welch: Love & Gelato -- Overall a nice coming of age story about a girl, who, after the death of her mother, moves to Italy to live with her father she’d never even met before, and then discovers Florence through her mother’s diary written the year before she was born. I love Florence, so it was a treat to me in that aspect, but I did feel like that author didn’t really know the place (the characters were complaining about the lack of AC, lack of American fast food, bad internet...), and I think the present-day romance was a bit stupid (the author clearly wanted to parellel the past/the mother’s romance with the present/daughter’s romance, to make the point that the daughter is not making the same mistake, but that wasn’t exactly what she ended up doing). Plus I read the Hungarian edition, and there were some seriously issues with the translation.

Mary McMyne: The Book of Gothel -- Easily my favorite book this month. I went in expecting a Rapunzel-retelling from the witch’s POV, and I got so much more, a lamentation on wise women’s situation, on magic, the occult, Christianity, and Christian mysticism in the 12th century Germany. Wow. Absolutely recommend.

Liz Braswell: What Once Was Mine -- DNF. Sigh. So after The Book of Gothel, I decided to go with the other Rapunzel story on my list. This book belongs to the Twisted Tale series, which is basically standalone novel of Disney What ifs with a dark twist. I read the Mulan one some time ago, and that was absolutely phenomenal (in that one Shang gets injured in the mountains instead of Mulan, and as he is dying, she goes down to the underworld to bring his soul back), so I had high hopes for this one. Yeah... it didn’t work out. The whole book is framed as a 16 years old guy telling the story to his twin sister while she is getting chemo, the language/narrative stlye is all over the place (sometimes it’s all jokey, sometimes it very serious and old timey, but nothing like how a 16-y-o kid would speak), we keep switching back to the hospital room which breaks the rhythm, and for some reason it takes place in the real world, and apparently Elizabeth Báthory is the bad guy? Yeah, I gave up after about 10%

Cory O’Brian: Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes -- There were only two reasons why I finished this book: 1, I didn’t want to have two DFN’s right after each other, and 2, it was a quick read. It is supposed to be a funny, modern retelling of myths (not just Greek, but from all around the world), making them widely accessible and weeding out the classism aspect surronding them, and it even started out promisingly when the author talked about Joseph Campbell’s work in the preface. But then... Sigh. It’s endless dick jokes, misogyny, and low-key racism (e.g. the African section has three myths, and in the section preface the author talks about how hard it was to choose these three, because there are just so many different myth. Yeah, dumbass, because Africa is a whole continent with a bunch of cultures. He could have just chosen to focus on, let’s say, Yoruba myths, he could have avoided this).

Katharine & Elizabeth Corr: Daughter of Darkness -- Solid YA fantasy based on Greek myths (but not a retelling of them). In a world where the tyrant Orpheus reigns over most of what we know as Greece today, some people are being marked by the gods--they get a fraction of the power of the god who marks them, which mark appears in early childhood, after which they are brought to and raised in Houses; after their training is complete, they are to work there for forty years as indentured servants. Deina, our protagonist is marked by Hades, and there is nothing she wants more than freedom--which seems to be within reach when Orpheus is looking for volunteers for a quest, which turns out to be going down to the underworld to retrieve his queen’s soul. I really enjoyed the early/worldbuilding parts, and the last couple of chapters after the twist(s), but the middle part--where the characters were traipsing through the underworld--did drag a little. The characters were generally very interesting, and although the authors built a bit too much on secrets and the twists coming from these secrets being revealed, and the romance aspect felt a little weak, and it went really dark, and I mean really dark by the end, I actually enjoyed it a great deal. It was the first part of a duology, with the second one coming out in July I think, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna read it.

Karen Cushman: Katherine, Called Birdy -- I downloaded this book when I saw the trailer for the movie back in like September, then promptly forgot about it. Anyway, so it’s the fictional diary of the daughter of a 13th century English knight, on the cusp of adulthood, chronicling her daily life for a about the span of a year. It’s delightfully medieval and modern at the same time, in a sense that the narrative focuses on the realities of everday medieval life, while Birdy... well, Birdy is being a teenager with an attitude that that reflects the attitudes of modern teenaged girls. Really funny and thought-provoking, an absolute delight.

Natasha Bowen: Sould of the Deep -- Sigh. Nope. No comment on this one. 

Sasha Peyton Smith: The Witch Haven -- YA fantasy set in New York, 1911, with the driving force behind the narrative being the murder of the protagonist’s brother. It started out really strong (like, it’s almost as if the first two-three chapters were written by a different author), but the rest is a little (a lot) all over the place. The book is somehow about too much and too little at the same time, trying to virtue signal and address everything, but in the process making most of the characters unlikable and just underdeveloped, swmming in a mess of a plot. But I did like Oliver, the protagonist/her brother’s childhood friend, who depicted as a model of gentle masculinity. Also a duology, but I don’t think I’ll read the second book.

[sister-claire-critical]

rest in peace to that anon who lost their place in the MiMos you'll take like 2+ hours getting back to where you were <3 i'm still salty the interesting little zora-in-eden story we get (from her POV!) is buried under all this nonsense, including a billion illustrations that ended up in zines anyways so why do they need to clutter the MiMos for literally 20+ pages or more at a time

Unsure! They have a whole section of their website for "extras" but it doesn't look like they've been moving stuff there much.

—Mod Marie 🌸

[timetot]

Fools Rush In

Chapter 1

chap 1/2, 5.9k words, rated T

Supernatural fic, Cas POV, TFW 2.0, Jupernatural, Yiddish folklore, the Wise Men of Chelm, about canon levels of Destiel

---

Summary: Castiel accidentally drops several hundred foolish souls in an 18th century Polish town. He regrets it for a long time, until he doesn't.

An unusually introspective Chelm tale featuring storytime with the Winchesters, the Law of Buttered Toast, tortured heavenly geometry metaphors, and a found family comprised entirely of schlemiels.

---

Notes: so this one isn't actually finished, but i wanted to get something posted for @jupernaturalweek! today is day 8: free space, but this behemoth could fit for several of the previous prompts (day 2: community | interfaith, day 4: home | reconnection, and day 6: judaica | stories)

the rest of this is entirely outlined and i'm hoping to have it finished by hanukkah, at which point i will cross-post to ao3. in the meantime, enjoy the wip and ask to tag if you'd like a notif when it's done!

Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are about as Jewish as I am in this—that is to say, they have one Jewish parent (Mary), they didn’t have their b’nei mitzvah, they don’t keep kosher or Shabbos, they celebrate some holidays and know some Yiddish and some children’s stories. If anything, they are even less connected with their heritage than I am, since I at least grew up with my dad and all the deeply Jewish philosophy he imparted on me. Dean has what he learned in four years, and Sam even less. If I messed something up, it’s not like the Winchesters would know any better than I do. That being said, I am open to corrections in the comment section for my own edification/enrichment. Or just let me know your favorite Chelm tale!

Content warnings: Naomi’s memory wiping.

---

"Khelem iz, vi ir veyst, a shtot und got iz, vi ir veyst, a foter.

Chelm is, as you know, a town, and G-d is, as you know, a father."

-Itzik Manger, "Ballad of Chelm," Lamtern in vint (1933)

---

The orders came down from on high several centuries before the end of days.

"Ishim, Mirabel, and Uriel will take the wise souls. Spread them far and wide. Castiel, Balthazar, and Benjamin will take the fools and place but one for each town."

"Is this not a task for a lesser rank of angel?" asked Castiel. "A cherub perhaps?" The distribution of souls seemed more the purview of Heaven's matchmakers than its warriors.

"It is not for us to question the will of Heaven," rebuked Anna, blinking harshly with her innumerable insectoid eyes. "Once the end times are upon us every soul must be in its proper place."

She was right of course, as she always was. Chastened, Castiel ruffled his feathers and accepted the souls, tucking them close inside his spinning wheels of fire.

The wise souls shone bright and ethereal. Mirabel’s peacock feathers fanned out behind them as they preened with pride. Ishim stared at his charges with thinly disguised fascination, passing them from one claw to the next tentacle, as if turning them over for inspection. Uriel held his souls as far away from his core as possible, a strange distaste written on the bared teeth of his lion’s maw.

Castiel thought Uriel ungrateful for his indisputably more glamorous task. His own souls were a dull, muddy brown. Nonetheless they pulsed with inherent power when he engulfed them, sending sparks sublime and sacred through his being. They felt heavy in his hands and his core.

Balthazar took three of his foolish souls and tossed them between two of his starlight limbs like the human juggler Castiel had once curiously observed at a masked carnival. Benjamin’s otter face tittered with amusement, but Anna’s rings spun quicker and her flames jumped high in reprimand.

“Take care,” she ordered. “Human souls are not playthings. You wouldn’t want to drop them.”

The angels took to the skies in separate directions, their precious cargo in tow. Had any human looked to the heavens that night they would have seen empyreal meteors streak across the stars in the south and the aurora borealis smear the night sky with blue and green in the north as Heaven’s servants set to work.

Castiel went from village to village, placing one foolish soul in each. In the morning, the parents-to-be would awaken, newly expectant with what was sure to be a challenging child. He had no concept of parenthood, yet he did not envy them.

To his consternation, the weight of the souls did not lighten as he unburdened himself one by one. If anything, they felt heavier and heavier. He took them from within himself and passed them from one limb of numinous starlight to the next. Still, they weighed him down. His massive wings, blacking out the night sky behind them, beat with difficulty against the weight of his cargo. He found himself flying lower and lower, skimming across the mountaintops of eastern Europe.

This was his mistake, and one he would certainly come to regret.

It was only several short hours after the angels departed—a blink of an eye to supernal beings such as they—that one of Castiel’s wings caught on a jagged mountain peak. With a jolt, his flight came to an abrupt halt. To his horror, he felt his grip slip. The rest of his charges went tumbling down the mountainside like a bag of luminous marbles cut open at the bottom. His wings still tangled up in the rocky crags, Castiel watched in helpless dismay as hundreds of foolish souls streaked down to the village below, where faint firelight flickered in the darkness and wisps of smoke curled from chimneys.

Oh. Oh no. For the first time in his millenia-long creation, Castiel felt the urge to let slip blasphemous words.

"You have returned early, Castiel," Anna said as the garrison reconvened in Heaven. Castiel had been buzzing with anxiety, wheels clicking like grinding gears, for the longest handful of hours in his eons of existence.

“Yes,” he acknowledged and said nothing else.

Anna prompted them each for a debrief. Ishim, Mirabel, and Uriel’s deliveries went off without a hitch, sprinkling wise souls here and there throughout the world.

“The wise will do great things,” proclaimed Mirabel, “create ingenious inventions that push humanity forward, cure illnesses, care for the people in their communities.”

“Solve the problems that the foolish create,” Uriel grumbled.

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Balthazar said with a jag of laughter from his hyena’s mouth. “One per town, as you ordered, sister. To create problems or to provide a bit of levity perhaps.”

Benjamin nodded in agreement. Anna turned to Castiel expectantly.

“Ah. Well,” he said, flicking his zebra-like tail.

Anna batted her great lepidopteran wings slowly.

“You see,” he said, his halo blushing aurora purple.

Anna cocked her eagle’s head to the side.

“I dropped them,” he said, finally.

Anna stilled. “You… dropped them?” she repeated, uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Not all of them,” he rushed to clarify. “Perhaps… half? All in one village in what the humans call the Carpathians.”

Silence stretched out between the angels.

“Well that is sure to be one idiotic village in a few decades’ time,” Ishim said drily from his cuckoo’s beak.

Uriel laughed unkindly. “Perhaps you ought not be the Angel of Thursdays, Castiel. Perhaps we ought to call you the Angel of Fools from now on.”

The garrison exchanged amused looks. Any joking moniker from Uriel was sure to stick. Shame-faced, Castiel kept his many eyes fixed on Anna.

“I will accept whatever punishment is deemed necessary.”

“It is not up to me,” she said, with a hint of apology in her resonant many-layered voice. “I will inform our superiors of the error.”

Castiel hung his heads low in acceptance.

Next time he handles a soul, he will be sure to grip it tight.

---

The Righteous Man’s soul glowed dimly beneath the blood and gore of Hell. Its rusty red was but a few shades from the brown of the fools’ and it felt as heavy as all those souls combined. Castiel clung tight enough to leave a mark.

---

The Lucifer Sword’s soul was within its vessel in the Cage, or so Castiel assumed. He raised the body from perdition, leaving Sam behind.

He can’t seem to get a handle on this soul business. Either he grasps far too tightly or not at all.

---

Castiel remembers all of this curled up in a lumpy sleeping bag in the backroom of a Gas-N-Sip in Rexford, Idaho. His back aches from sleeping on it all twisted up, there's a mosquito bite on his left elbow that won't stop itching, and his stomach feels like it's about to eat itself, it's so empty.

He's never felt more like the Angel of Fools. Rather, he wouldn't, if he were an angel at all.

There's one small blessing, though Castiel is torn between calling it a curse: Naomi's conditioning seems to be meant solely for angels. Now that all his multi-dimensional awareness has been folded up into relatively uncomplicated three-dimensional human neural pathways, her needle-sharp control over his mind is fading. Every other morning, he wakes from dreams of Egypt—caught literally red-handed as he painted lamb's blood on unmarked lintels—or of Sodom and Gomorrah—smuggling children from the city walls as the holy sulfur and flame came raining down.

The village of fools was not a memory she stole from him for it hadn't been a rebellion, simply an accident. They wanted him to remember his mistakes, as long as they weren't defiant, so that the shame kept him obedient.

It may not be a newly recovered memory, but Castiel finds himself revisiting that night in the Carpathians often lately, in the brief lulls between customers and the long hours of restless tossing and turning before he finally slips into unpracticed slumber. Watching the angels plummet to Earth, their wings burning to tattered sinew and bone, had been a lot like watching the souls fall to that tiny ramshackle town in the mountains, except that this time he had watched from below instead of above. He had dragged his brothers and sisters down to his level instead of simply letting them slip from the heavens. Either way, it was all his fault.

If not the Angel of Fools, he was certainly the king of them. The leviathans, Purgatory, Metatron—just the latest in a long string of foolish decisions.

Limited by just two eyes and two hands, Castiel can’t perceive souls anymore, the fuzzy edges of their auras pulsing gently behind a human’s eyes and around their heart. He’s not sure if he himself even possesses one. Had a soul sprung into being, cradled in his human ribcage, to replace the grace Metatron had torn and scraped from his core? Metatron seemed to think so with his jab about living a long life and returning to Heaven only in death, just another human soul among billions. There is no way for Castiel to tell anymore, but if he did indeed have a soul, he is certain it would be the same mud brown, flickering dully, as the fools’.

He doesn’t deserve even that much.

Dean visits him in Rexford for a case. Castiel aches for him even as the sting of Dean’s rejection clenches around his heart. Dean’s judgmental ribbing about Castiel’s current employment reminds him of Ishim’s critical eyes and Uriel’s sardonic name-calling. He is certain if any of his siblings saw him now they would let him know exactly how ugly his soul was, if it even existed in the first place. They would sneer at how low he’s brought himself.

When Ephraim tries to kill him, it is out of pity and a perverted sense of mercy. He is not the first of Castiel’s brothers to try to kill him, and he will not be the last. There are many more angels dead at his own hands.

Dean leaves again in the morning, gone as quickly as he came. If there is a reason Dean cast him out into the desert, he won’t tell Castiel what it is, but he can hazard a guess. What use is Castiel to Dean now that he is graceless, powerless? He is a liability more than anything, making mistake after mistake in his hubris. That’s fine. In Rexford, he is carving out a simple life, one he has some modicum of control over. There is dignity in the day-to-day grind of lottery tickets and burnt coffee and gas station taquitos. Besides, he doesn’t trust himself with the levers of the universe any longer.

Still, he misses Dean’s laughter, his incomprehensible movie references, his steady eye contact. He misses Dean’s soul, still wounded angry red from decades in Hell, but glowing warmly now after several years topside. He’s greedy for it. 

After all these centuries, Castiel has found a reason to envy the souls he spilled. At least they had each other. Why should there be only one fool in each town? It is desperately lonely to be a foolish soul stranded by himself.

---

Dean apologizes to Cas while the King of Hell drives needles into Sam’s possessed body in the next room. Turns out, Dean made his own stupid mistake in the service of keeping Sam alive. Castiel is an angel again, at the cost of stolen grace. Needs must, but he can’t help the dreadful feeling that his act of cannibalism will loop right back around eventually; an ouroboros eating its own tail.

“I got played,” Dean says through frustrated tears.

“I thought I was saving Heaven. I got played, too,” Castiel responds. He has to remind himself it was Metatron who tricked him, Metatron who scooped out his grace, Metatron who pulled the trigger and cast all the angels out of Heaven.

Dean smiles weakly. “So you’re sayin’ we’re both a couple of dumbasses?”

“I prefer the word ‘trusting,’” Cas equivocates. “Less dumb. Less ass.”

Dean huffs out a silent laugh, more a quick shake of the shoulders and self-deprecating smile than anything else. Castiel can tell neither of them quite believe it.

---

It is several more years and additional cosmic pratfalls before Castiel finds his faith rewarded. Trusting in Kelly, in Jack, is his first choice in a long time—perhaps since placing his faith in Dean during the Apocalypse—that doesn’t come back to bite him. Well. He did die during Jack’s birth. But even that he cannot regret, now that the bunker is bustling with Apocalypse World refugees, with Jack and Sam and Dean, newly dispossessed of Michael. Even Mary on treasured occasions.

He had such a short time with Jack between his own resurrection and Jack’s stranding in the Apocalypse World. Already he’s grown into a sharp young man. Castiel can see Dean’s influence in his stubbornness, the way he shoulders the burden to care for everyone around him. Sam’s is just as clear in Jack’s curiosity and his drive.

Castiel is not blind to the parts of himself in Jack, but it’s easy to overlook the earnestness and love in favor of the faults; chiefly, the insecurity. Jack has clearly linked his own sense of value to his usefulness. Without his powers, Jack is floundering.

Castiel’s grace is long-since restored, though with most of it burned up in Metatron’s spell, he is not nearly as powerful as he once was, even before his promotion to the rank of seraph. Castiel remembers all too well the helplessness he felt locked in a flesh body. Though there are certain elements of humanity he misses—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, afternoon naps, the slowed perception of time—it was like a part of himself was missing when he was human. Castiel does his best to alleviate those feelings of worthlessness and loss in Jack—taking him out on hunts, just the two of them—but still Jack is often frustrated with himself.

This culminates in an early morning breakfast in the bunker kitchen. Dean is frying up more than enough egg scrambles and bacon for whoever blearily wanders in. Maggie cheerily hoovers an unholy amount of food in two minutes flat before bustling off to the library for a hunt briefing with Sam. Stevie orders her eggs with highly particular cooking instructions—Dean rolls his eyes, but complies. Charlie slinks in and out to retrieve her morning coffee, doctoring it with enough sugar to keep a trickster’s sweet tooth satisfied and grunting a thanks in Dean’s direction. He stares at her retreating back, a conflicted longing around the edge of his downturned mouth.

It’s nice, having the bunker so full. It reminds Castiel a bit of life in the garrison, though angels did not so much live in each other’s pockets as much as they existed together as one, singular notes in the harmony of Heaven, cogs in the machine that kept each other and capital “e” Everything running smoothly. After all, there is no one multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent without the sinusoidal wave itself. Angels are defined as the empty distance between each other, between the troughs and crests of the cosmos. Castiel should know—removing himself from the wave threw the whole thing into discordance. Now it is a flattened thing, the frequency tuning lower and lower to the weakest of radio waves, stretched out to almost nothing as the wavelengths are plucked from it. Only nine angels left in Heaven. The absence of wavelengths. What is the absence of empty gaps?

Tortured geometrical metaphors aside, the point is that Cas has grown to appreciate his independence, but he still misses being a part of something larger. He has had the Winchesters for the past decade—or at least, for interrupted periods of the last decade—and now he has Jack. The presence of the refugees from the Apocalypse World is comforting, even though many still glance at him with suspicion when they think he is not looking. He cannot blame them for their wariness. Their world burned in holy fire at the hands of Heaven. Those that stuck around the bunker seem to have accepted Castiel into the fold—some begrudgingly and others wholeheartedly—as an extension of Jack, whom almost all of them have adopted as a brother or son or leader after the months he spent defending them against Michael’s forces.

So it is that everyone who comes into the kitchen offers Cas a friendly wave or at least a simple nod. He often migrates into the kitchen once Dean is up and banging pots and pans together. For his part, Dean took a while to warm up to the presence of all these strangers in his home. They’re still mostly “Chief” Sam’s people, but after a while, Dean’s caretaking instincts kicked in and he’s taken to making a ridiculous amount of breakfast in the mornings. Despite Castiel’s own distaste for food, he enjoys simply sharing space with Dean as he cooks. Castiel has been permanently banned from helping after a disastrous baking incident involving the over-application of yeast, so he mostly sits at the table with a book.

Dean may have banned Castiel, but despite Jack’s equally poor cooking skills, he is allowed in the kitchen under close supervision. Privately, Cas thinks Jack has perfected Sam’s hangdog puppy dog eyes: one of Dean’s many weaknesses. On this particular morning, Jack has already burnt a few panfuls of eggs, so Dean gently redirects him towards coffee and toast.

Castiel looks up from the entomology book he's been idly skimming when Jack lets out a frustrated groan. Jack stares down at a piece of toast he had dropped straight on the floor, blinking back the angry tears welling up at the corner of his eyes.

Cas is up, out of his chair, and resting a calming hand on Jack's shoulder before it can turn into a full meltdown.

"It's alright, Jack. It's just toast."

"Exactly!" Jack grumbles. "It's just toast and I can't even get that right." He gestures towards the stove with the blackened remnants of his attempt at a veggie scramble.

Cas shoots Dean an only slightly panicked look, but Dean doesn’t see it, busy bending down to pick the offending piece of bread off the kitchen floor.

“That ain’t true kid,” Dean says, waving the toast around as if it is a key piece of evidence in a trial. It had clearly landed butter side down, smearing grease in a small spot on the concrete. “Look, you buttered the right side of your toast.”

The nonsense statement seems to stump Jack out of his impotent anger. “Huh?”

Castiel is just as confused.

Dean sweeps the bread into the trash and turns back to the stove. “I dunno, it’s just from this story Mom used to tell me when I helped her in the kitchen as a kid. I was four, I probably got in the way more than I helped.”

Castiel steps on Dean’s foot. He yelps and glares at him before noticing the return of Jack’s sullen expression.

“Ah shit, I didn’t mean-” Dean sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Castiel knows the feeling. It’s painfully easy to make a misstep in parenting. “It’s just- I dropped things all the time, but she never got mad. She’d just brush it off and tell me about the law of buttered toast.”

“What’s that?” Jack asks. He looks curious despite himself, like he’s furious that he’s letting himself be distracted from beating himself up.

“Pretty sure it’s a Chelm story—a Yiddish folktale,” Dean clarifies. He pauses and tosses some turmeric into the scramble he’s frying, clearly taking a moment to collect the fragments of his memory. “I think it goes like this: it’s a well known law of the universe, at least in the town of Chelm, that whenever you drop a piece of bread, it lands buttered side down.”

“Corollary of Murphy’s Law?” Castiel interjects. He’s all too familiar; it seems to govern their lives.

“Bingo,” Dean says, shooting a smile over his shoulder. “So this woman is making her breakfast one morning when she drops a piece of bread and to her surprise it lands buttered side up.”

Dean turns off the heat and piles a couple of plates high with eggs and potatoes and bacon. With a hand on Jack’s shoulder he guides all of them to the kitchen table and plops the food down in front of himself and Jack.

“She rushes to the rabbi. Obviously this is a serious matter, so it requires a rabbi,” Dean says wryly.

Jack cracks a small smile, idly moving his food around his plate without eating.

“The rabbi gathers all the elders and the wise men of Chelm together to ponder the problem.” Dean says ‘wise men’ with a lopsided sarcastic smile. Cas doesn’t quite get the joke, but that’s not uncommon. He’s given up on asking. “After seven days of fasting and prayer and debate, they finally figure it out. The rabbi summons the woman back and tells her: ‘It’s all very simple. The laws of the universe remain unbroken. The issue is, you buttered the wrong side of your bread.’”

There's a beat of silence before the punchline hits and Jack dissolves into laughter. His whole face lights up with it, the golden glow of his soul shining through in the tilt of his lips and the crinkles around his eyes. Even without his grace, Jack's soul pulses strong and brilliant.

Dean exchanges a sly smile with Cas. Crisis averted, breakfast saved.

---

The Buttered Toast Incident, as Castiel has dubbed it in his mind, seems to have unlocked a treasure trove of similar parables from the depths of Dean’s memory. Perhaps not parables; although Dean tries to wring significant life lessons and meaning from them, almost all of them are absurd little tales with backwards logic and ridiculous solutions to what should be simple issues. It becomes eminently clear that the supposed “wise men” of Chelm are quite the opposite.

There’s one in which the townsfolk of this so-called Chelm are felling trees at the top of a hill for their new synagogue. They carry each log down the hillside. Once someone points out how much easier it would be to roll them down the hill, the would-be carpenters applaud the idea and carry all of the logs back up to the top so they can do just that.

Dean tells this one to Jack during a hand-to-hand training session in the bunker’s gym as he adjusts Jack’s stance. “Lower your center of gravity and use your opponent’s weight against them. You’re making it harder on yourself than it needs to be.”

Well, that particular tale works better than most as a teaching tool. There’s a similar story about driving a cart through the village with logs piled lengthwise. The cart can’t make it through a narrow street because the logs would hit the buildings either side. Instead of readjusting the logs to be parallel with the street, the townsfolk demolish the buildings to make way for the cart.

Castiel finds it difficult to believe anyone would be as stupid as the villagers in Dean’s stories, especially not en masse, but he supposes that’s the point.

“So the humor is derived from the subversion of the seemingly obvious solution,” he muses.

Dean rolls his eyes. “It ain’t funny if you explain the joke, Cas.”

Jack grins from ear to ear. He eats up Dean’s folk tales with enthusiasm, lighting up with laughter no matter how groan-worthy the punchline. Dean relates them with a rhythm that speaks to years of repetition, though sometimes he has to pause and squint into the middle distance as he scrambles to remember the details. Castiel can picture him at age nine or ten recounting them as bedtime stories for Sam.

This supposition is confirmed on the fourth or fifth Chelm story, the first with Sam in the room. For once, it’s just the four of them gathered in the library, poring over esoteric texts on archangels and scouring the web for any hint of Michael’s activities.

After several fruitless hours, Dean, very clearly reaching the end of his rope, slams his book shut and leans over the table towards Jack.

“Hey, kid, want to hear another story?”

It’s the first time Dean has dropped the pretense of a life lesson and just wants to tell a story for the story’s sake. Jack’s eyes flick towards Sam as if to ask permission to break from research, but Sam’s eyes are glued to his laptop screen, his mouth pulled into an annoyed line, resolutely ignoring Dean’s interruption. He’s had a lifetime of practice at that. Castiel, on the other hand, has only known Dean for a precious sliver of his long existence and finds his attention wandering to Dean, as it is wont to do.

“What’s six plus six?”

“Oh, is this one a riddle?”

“Something like that. Come on, what’s six plus six?”

“Twelve,” Jack says slowly, squinting, as if he’s fairly confident in his answer, but suspicious of Dean pulling the rug out from under him.

Indeed, Dean’s grin broadens. “Nah. In Chelm, it’s nine.”

Jack’s brow furrows in confusion. Sam looks up from his screen, surprise and recognition on his face.

“And what misapplication of mathematical rules did they use to arrive at such a conclusion?” Castiel prompts.

Dean opens his mouth to continue, but Sam interrupts. “Dude, you’re telling it all wrong.”

“What? No, I’m not,” Dean says, affronted.

“Yeah, you are,” Sam throws back. “It’s seven plus seven equals eleven. Not even Chelm logic gets nine from six and six. And it’s Chelm, not Helm.”

He pronounces it with a perfect voiceless uvular fricative.

Dean squints, counts on his fingers, and—evidently failing to produce nine from six and six—slumps in his chair, defeated. “Whatever. You tell it then, nerd.”

Castiel and Jack turn their heads towards Sam in unison. On the spot, he squirms under the scrutiny. “Um. So there’s this mother, right? And she and her husband both remarried. And they each had four children from their previous marriage-”

“Now who’s telling it wrong?” Dean interrupts smugly. “Come on, Sammy, it’s all in the delivery.”

“Well at least I didn’t start with the punchline!”

“It’s effective storytelling-”

The story itself is forgotten in the ensuing squabble. Cas accepts that he may never know how to arrive at eleven from seven plus seven and exchanges a long-suffering look with Jack. Castiel loves them both, but a decade spent in the company of siblings, with all their indecipherable in-jokes, stories, and long-running arguments can grate on the nerves at times. Now, with Jack’s mirrored confusion and exasperation, he has a kindred soul in the Winchester household.

“Since when have you been telling Chelm stories anyway?” says Sam eventually. “I haven’t heard any since I was, like, twelve maybe?”

“Aw, you jealous that Jack gets bedtime stories and you don’t, Sammy?” Dean needles with a fake pout.

“Shut the fuck up. I was just curious what reminded you of them.”

Dean shrugs, turning to Jack. “Nothin’ in particular. Jack likes ’em. Don’t you, kid?”

“I do,” Jack affirms with a grin, clearly relieved to once again be involved in the conversation. “They’re funny.”

Dean smiles at Sam and waves towards Jack as if to say ‘See?’

“I find them quite perplexing,” Castiel says, although he was not consulted. “I don’t understand how an entire town could continue to function when all the inhabitants are knocking down buildings to make way for carts and building walls around the village to keep out the cold.”

“You’re missing the point, Cas,” Dean says. “They’re just fairy tales.”

“And what, pray tell, is the point of an entire village of idiots?”

Dean looks around the library as if searching for said point. Eventually, he simply shrugs. “Not letting common sense get in the way of a really good idea? I dunno. Not everything has to have a point.”

“They’re just fun,” Sam agrees. “You can laugh at the hapless schmucks and their misadventures but also relate to them a bit.”

Dean snaps his fingers and points towards Sam. “’Zactly. We’re all schlemiels here.”

That’s certainly true, Cas thinks with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. Who in the room hasn’t made a cosmic fool of himself on more than one occasion?

“Besides,” Sam adds, “it’s best not to think too hard about how the town functions. They’re harmless idiots. Maybe they’re knocking buildings down or building staircases in the middle of the synagogue, but they’re usually not hurting anyone.”

“Usually?” Jack prompts.

Dean claps his hands together. “I haven’t told you how Chelm gets destroyed!”

“Chelm gets destroyed?” Jack looks heartbroken, like Dean just kicked a puppy right in front of his eyes.

Dean hesitates, eyes flicking towards Cas for help. Castiel just raises an eyebrow, refraining from throwing Dean a lifeline. It’s not like he’s familiar with the story himself.

“No help at all,” Dean mutters. “Don’t worry, kid, no one dies.”

The attempted reassurance does little to alleviate Jack’s crushed expression. 

“The way it goes is this,” Dean says. “Chelm’s got a rat problem. They're everywhere, getting into the pantries and the winter food stores."

Sam leans back in his chair, eyes fixed on Dean as he launches into the story, a small nostalgic smile tugging at his lips. His laptop is still open in front of him, but—for just a moment—Michael is the furthest thing from all of their minds.

“A traveling merchant sells the town a mouser cat. ‘Perfect!’ they all think. ‘The cat will eat all the rats and that's the problem solved.’”

Jack nods, but his face is still twisted up in worry over the fate of his beloved Chelmites. So far, no foolish logic.

“‘But what's the cat gonna eat once it runs out of rats?’ asks one villager. ‘Field mice and rabbits, I suppose,’ someone else answers. ‘And when it runs out of woodland critters? The only thing left in the town will be us!’”

Ah. Here we go.

“So they all get it into their heads that the cat’s gonna eat them once it gobbles up all the other animals in Chelm. Now they've got all their panties in a bunch about it, they decide they’ve gotta nip the problem in the bud. They chase the cat around but it’s way too wily for them. It ends up on the roof of the synagogue. The shammes—that’s like the caretaker I think—” Dean shoots Sam a look for confirmation, though neither of them are exactly regular synagogue or temple attendees; Sam nods—“yeah, he climbs up and tries to throw it off the roof. He falls ass over teakettle off the roof and breaks his leg, but obviously the cat lands on its feet.”

Jack huffs out a small laugh.

“The cat books it into the synagogue. All the townsfolk are so worked up that they light the whole thing on fire.”

“No!” Jack gasps in horror.

“Yep,” Dean says, shaking his head with faux mournfulness. “The fire spreads and next thing you know, Chelm’s in ashes. So it goes.”

“What happened to the cat?” Jack asks, his brows drawn together.

“Relax, the cat was fine!” Dean assures him. “Nine lives, yeah? Even more than a Winchester.”

Castiel himself is on his sixth.

“And all the villagers survived,” Dean continues. “They moved away and found new homes, becoming the local village idiots wherever they settled.”

“Spreading their particular brand of Chelm logic throughout the world,” Sam tacks on.

Castiel supposes it serves as a sort of origin story for foolishness in the wider world. The end of Chelm is just the beginning of something new. It’s bittersweet, but he can see how it would strike a chord with diaspora Jews—with Sam and Dean in particular, whose own childhood home burned to the ground, though Castiel doubts that Dean has consciously drawn that parallel himself.

Jack hums thoughtfully and after a lengthy pause says, “I don’t think I like that one. It’s sad. I bet they missed each other.”

“Eh.” Dean shrugs, a ‘whatcha gonna do?’ gesture. “Life’s sad sometimes. Even in Chelm.”

“I guess,” Jack grumbles, his head hanging low. He flips a page in his book without reading anything on it.

Sam clears his throat to get Dean’s attention and nods significantly towards Jack.

‘What?’ Dean mouths back, evidently content to leave it at that.

Cas rolls his eyes. “Any cheerier Chelm stories in the repertoire?” He, too, makes a subtle gesture towards the now despondent Jack.

Dean finally catches on. “Oh, uh… yeah, lemme think.”

Jack perks up, just a bit.

“Dean’s always starting at the end,” Sam says. “Has he told you how Chelm was founded?”

“I must’ve.”

Jack and Cas exchange a look and shake their heads.

“I don’t believe you have,” Castiel denies.

“No? Damn. Derelict in my duties. You’ll like this one,” Dean says to Jack. “It’s got an angel in it.”

Despite himself, Castiel leans forward in his seat, mirroring Jack’s interest. He doubts there will be any factual merit to the story; human tales of angels are invariably flawed depictions, galling and fascinating in equal measure. Castiel is still trying to dissuade Dean of the notion that he has a harp hidden somewhere in his trenchcoat.

“Legend has it that after dear old grandpa got done whipping up the universe, he sent the angels out to populate the world, sprinkling souls here and there. He gave one angel in particular two sacks; one with the wisest of souls and the other with the most foolish souls. The angel was supposed to scatter them evenly. One wise soul and one foolish soul in each town.”

Oh. That’s… uncomfortably familiar.

“But the sack of foolish souls was super heavy.”

“More fools than wise men in the world,” Sam says wryly.

“Right. So the angel flies lower and lower, dragged down by the weight of the fools, until whoops!” Dean mimes dropping a heavy load. “Butterfingers! He drops the sack and aaaall the souls fall out in one spot. The spot where they eventually built Chelm.”

Jack laughs, much more satisfied with this story than the previous.

“The angel didn’t get in trouble did he?”

Dean shrugs. “Dunno. Friend of yours, Cas?” He turns towards Castiel, but his grin fades when he takes in Castiel’s stricken expression.

“Cas?”

And then all eyes are on him. If Castiel could sweat, he would.

“It-” Cas coughs, tries to school his expression, but the damage is done. He can practically see the cogs turning in Sam and Dean’s brains. “It didn’t happen exactly like that.”

“No,” Dean says, amused understanding dawning across his face, like Christmas, Chanukah, and New Years just came early. “No way.”

Cas closes his eyes and—not for the first time—wishes he still had his wings, if only to beat a hasty retreat from this conversation and hang out on Saturn until his ego could heal.

“But-” Sam looks more confused than anything else. “That’s not how souls work.”

“You are correct, Sam,” Castiel says, getting to his feet. “It is not how souls work.”

Wings or not, he can still turn around and walk straight out, leaving the library echoing with Dean’s uproarious laughter and Jack’s confused “Wait, what’s going on?”

Even at his own expense, it’s nice to hear Dean let loose laughter that carefree and open. After he’s done licking his wounds, Castiel will surely forgive him for it.

[aubigney]

Our Wives Under The Sea lacks the depth to be a truly great novel (a review)

i have to admit that i’m one of those people who will read a book or watch a film or series because “it’s got lesbians in it”. i’m in lesbians with lesbians. my friend doe told me about this book and since i’m trying really hard to get back into reading (and listening to audiobooks. download libby! it’s free!) i decided to give this one a go. while listening to it i had the brilliant idea to start a series where i critique the story writing in books i come across — ones that need it, because obviously there are plenty i don’t have the skills or expertise to critique. this seemed like the perfect first book for this series. it’s interesting, well-written, and about lesbians, but as you’ll find reading this review, it has its problems.

there will be spoilers in this review! sorry to make this a comprehensive review but i figured i might as well because it’s my blog and i have a lot of thoughts. and i’m sorry that the tense is all over the place, i don’t have the spoons to correct it. just pretend it’s all in present tense, thank u love u mwah

let’s start with a short synopsis. the book is told through dual perspectives/POVs of both halves of a relationship. miri is the first character we’re introduced to: an anxious wreck who cares for her wife, leah, and doesn’t have much going on outside of her. leah is the second POV character, and she has just come back from being trapped in a submarine for four months. the book details their relationship during the period where leah has come back—she’s distant, cold, and dissociates frequently, leaving miri to anxiously fret over the state of their love for each other. not a lot happens in the book. the pages are filled with snapshots of leah’s time in the submarine, miri and leah’s brief interactions when she gets back, trips to a counsellor, and flashbacks to better days. the later chapters in the novel are where it first starts to pick up, an interesting choice which packs in conspiracy theories and tales of monsters deep under the ocean, but because these are introduced so late, they leave the book feeling unfinished and rushed.

if i could sum up my thoughts on this book in one sentence, i would say it spends too much time on miri’s anxious mess of an inner world and not enough time on leah’s fascinating time at the bottom of the ocean.

let’s start with the things i liked about the book. there were parts that absolutely took my breath away and some that made me sob so hard i wanted to curl into a ball and hide under the earth forever. miri details an anecdote leah told her about taking her first girlfriend to the aquarium where leah worked after hours and finding that the octopus had died. in this part, miri details how things would have gone differently if she had been the one leah took to the aquarium, how the octopus mary would still be alive. even writing this post makes me tear up because death just gets me and it was written so matter of factly that the desperation was very evident: miri wants to turn back time and rewrite a history where everything is good, great even, instead of what she has now.

i also liked leah’s recollections of her time in the ocean. i actually loved leah’s POV because she has so much to say about life, death, relationships and marine biology. i was so rapt by her sections that they made miri’s sections listless by comparison. i honestly wish the entire novel had been through leah’s perspective. i would have much preferred a whole novel or novella about being trapped under the ocean with a massive sea monster. leah describing the ocean and her fear of drowning coinciding with things like disappointing her father and sea monsters is amazing. these parts are done so incredibly well, especially considering the miri parts are so poorly written.

this book is half relationship breaking down and half horror story, but never meshes those two well. the body horror elements are interesting, but my main problem is that miri’s parts aren’t written well enough to make me like the book as a whole. there are many instances of “filter words” or what i call “sensing words” — words like thought, felt, imagined, heard, etc. words that tell us what the character’s experience is instead of describing it. miri’s parts are full of these. some egregious examples include:

“i felt good to have scrapped and apologised. moving around the party, i registered the ache between us, and felt grateful, irritable, loved her easily.”

in this passage we have: “felt,” “registered,” and then “felt” again. this is a prime example of the poor writing and something that both many authors do and many critics say not to do. clearly i’m on the side of the critics. the reason that filter / sensing words are bad is because they filter the experience that the reader has of being fully immersed in the novel. in a first person perspective (meaning “i”, and “me” perspective) if a character sees something, we know that they see something because the narrator describes it on the page. there’s no need for the character to say, “I saw this go down,” because by virtue of it being included we know the character saw it.

this can be played with more in and second person perspective, but it’s still more common in contemporary literature and genre fiction to filter the action through one character’s perspective, at least for that chapter if not the whole book. i would love to write a whole post about this or maybe do a video about it. it’s a very complex topic and leaves a lot of room for debate.

sensing words remove the reader from the action. they encourage laziness in the writer, because the writer can’t take out the filter sections and leave it like that. saying “it went down” is scarier than writing “i saw it go down” because the first one requires you to write more, whereas the second one allows you, even forces you, to rest easy. but i don’t want this whole review to be about sensing words. at least towards the end miri details the things she remembers without putting “i remember” in front of every item in that list, so i can’t say the writing didn’t improve right before the clock strikes 12. it’s incredibly important in horror to keep the pace and immediacy of the action. filtering the reader from the action in a horror story removes the impact the horror has on the reader. the section where leah’s eye explodes should have been written a lot better to make more of an impact. in miri’s sections, everything was made into an action with very little description, imagery, or literary techniques. miri does this, and then she does that, and then she feels sad about this. there is introspection in her sections, but it’s hollow and uninspiring, especially compared to leah’s. this is usually, but not always, due to the sensing words.

the most frustrating thing about this book for me is that miri is complicit in the breakdown of a relationship she claims she’s sad about breaking down. this book is half about mourning the loss of someone who both is and isn’t really gone, someone who metaphorically died and came back wrong. the sadness of the book rests on how miri mourns their relationship — but this is not believable nor sad.

throughout most of her sections, miri complains that leah isn’t the same person she was before the trip and that they can’t connect because leah spends all her time in the bath. but one of the few instances in the beginning of the novel when leah and miri are on the couch watching tv, leah tells miri a story, and miri ignores her and turns back the tv. she says something like “i pretend to watch the television and miss my wife.” girl she is TALKING TO YOU. she’s RIGHT THERE. it’s baffling. she mourns a relationship that isn’t over and we’re supposed to be sad about that.

another thing that ticked me off was how miri’s sections don’t have a structure. there were a lot of flashbacks that were seemingly thrown in randomly with little to no connection to the romance. there was a flashback about how she lied about having to feed cats, and for the life of me i can’t figure out why it was in there. i think it was to show that miri was having a hard time while missing leah, but all she did was… lie about having to feed some cats. there’s no shame in having a subdued novel, but it comes back to my number one pain point: miri’s sections are not well written enough to make them worth reading.

but leah’s sections are so good! she has a job, friends, a sea monster to befriend, the looming and ever-present threat of death by submarine, as well as all these flashbacks to her childhood with her parents. miri, by comparison, has leah and some friends. at the end she also has juna, which leads me to my next point.

the most exciting miri things happen way too far into the novel. the book is around 35 chapters, and chapter 29 starts with juna, the sister of one of the people on the submarine, talking to miri about what went down as the submarine literally went down. and then right as juna tells miri about what REALLY went down, the novel cuts to the next section.

like, seriously? that was the most interesting part of miri’s sections and the author just cut away! over the last few chapters it mentions a conspiracy theory that everyone involved with the submarine had about the company possibly stranding them down there on purpose, but it’s never explored — and i have no idea why. that could have been soooo interesting! that could have fuelled miri’s sections! in between caring for leah and mourning their relationship, she could have worked to uncover the truth about the conspiracy, and then not noticed how complicit she was in the relationship breaking down. that would have been so much better! she even says something like “the conspiracy should be a lot more interesting to me than it is” which is how i feel about this book.

there were some interesting phrases but they were few and far between. when the author tried to create imagery, it failed, particularly in this section: “coffee stained and sticky to the touch, long chunks of text irregularly underline… as though the previous owner had been using it to build a monster in a shed.” How can an underlined book be a monster in a shed? imagery has to make sense for it to be effective. something she could have done is connect this imagery to what leah was going through, maybe even “build a monster under the sea.” and then go on to write more using this imagery with better metaphors and similes. you can really judge how good a writer is by how the only literary technique they use is simile (like, as) and refuse to elaborate for more than one phrase. except that julia armstrong IS a good writer because leah’s sections were amazing! grrrrrr.

honestly, miri’s sections felt rushed and uncared for. if i was to guess, i would say that julia armfield wrote miri’s sections last because either she liked leah’s sections more or because she realised she needed to / her editor told her to write more, and then she ran out of time before the deadline to write it well. there is a tendency among writers to write the most exciting and interesting parts first, but that means you’re going to have to write all the worst parts of the book last. when you don’t enjoy what you write, it shows. you need to take the time to make sure this is what you want to write and this is how you want to write it. this book could have easily just been leah in the submarine and i would have loved that, but instead the author chose to write half the book in a way that was extremely disappointing and a lot worse than the sections she actually enjoyed writing. julia armfield writes a lot about the ocean (link at the end) and it really shows that she has a deep love for it, so it’s baffling that she wrote half the book through the eyes of a character who hates and blames the ocean for taking her wife away.

the most interesting thing to me personally about this book was the monster. my god, but i am a sucker for a good monster. it didn’t scare me like some book monsters do, but that could have been because i was listening to the audiobook and i find myself more immersed in the written form or the visual form, and less so in audio form. still, it was cool as fuck and leah writing her name in the logbook to show to the creature was intense — i fucking love it.

the last thing i’ll say about this is that the ending feels justified. sometimes we really do have to let go of the ones we loved. leah is no longer fit to live on this earth, and while the ending made me sob in my bed for like 20 minutes, it’s cathartic and well-earned.

that’s where i’ll leave this review. feel free to reply with any of your thoughts or link me to your own review! let me know if you enjoyed this book, or what you enjoyed about it! i also use storygraph but i’m going to write some reviews on tumblr because they are so. so. so long and i don’t know how interested people would be of my review on other platforms. cheers, big ears.

links:

[sidney-latrobe]

since she’s been around and in the bad parts of the neighborhood and she misses fez and wants to get back together with him but then she sees faye and it’s just a wtf type of moment/moment of confusion ? i’m picturing a multitude of sass, jealous, and angst since the reader and fez always been really okay even if they weren’t together. i hope this makes sense. thank you so much in advance! i love your work.

There was another similar request, but I'm just going to answer one.

Summary: You grew up in Fezco's neighborhood and went to high school with him. At some point, you started going out, but it didn't work, and Fezco broke up with you. You missed him and wanted to check up on him, trying to see if maybe there's a chance for you two to work things through and get back together, but then, you met Faye.

Content Warning: Jealous Reader, Sassy Reader, Angst, Strong Language, First-Person-POV Reader

Word Count: 2.028

Personal Note: Hey, thank you so much for requesting this. It's true, I haven't really dived into the whole angst and jealousy section of my writing yet, and I'm a little scared it's not as good as you hope. Anyway, thanks for liking the content I post. Don't @ me because of the ending. I know it's not the best :)

Life was not kind. It wasn't meant to be. Take a look at the animal kingdom; only the strongest survived. If you are too slow, you get eaten. Too visible, you'll get eaten. Too big, you'll get eaten. In Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, he describes how organisms evolve over generations through the inheritance of physical or behavioral traits. The theory starts with the premise that there is variation in traits within a population, such as a beak shape in one of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied.

According to the theory, individuals with traits that enable them to adapt to their environments will help them survive and have more offspring, which will inherit those traits. Individuals with less adaptive traits will less frequently stay to pass them on. Over time, the traits that enable species to survive and reproduce will become more frequent in the population, and the people will change or evolve.

Let's assume we can apply this theory to our society; everyone has different traits. Even in a community that wants you to be confident about your flaws and embrace them, we're still divided. Some are fortunate and grow up in a stable home, inherit their parents' money at thirty, and continue to sell what the family had been trading for over a hundred years. Other's came from nothing and built a life for themselves, lived the American Dream, some might say.

But some climb the ladder and get dragged down by forces beyond their control.

What about these people?

Was it fair their parents abused them?

Was it fair he got raped at the age of eight by his uncle?

Was it fair she was drugged and sold into slavery?

Was it fair or perhaps necessary for these people to experience this kind of trauma, this pain and hurt to become ... stronger? More adaptable to our world? If these people learn anything, no one helps you, that you are always alone and you can trust no one.

—

I was created in the womb of a drug addict, and my mother's mother was a prostitute. I was supposed to struggle from a young age, but I was temporarily saved by a lesbian couple that adopted me.

My mothers raised me in East Highland. They tried to buy a house on the east side of town-owned by Cal Jacobs, a well-known contractor, but the downpayment was beyond their price limit, so they settled for an apartment in the west.

It was a bad neighborhood; it was the sort of place where you could not walk around by yourself as soon as the sunset (no matter your gender, unless you packed a gun), and you were on a first-name basis with your weekly mugger.

One of our neighbors used to be a tall, blonde lady who always wore bright suits and heels, carrying a gun in her purse. I liked her. Whenever my parents couldn't watch me, they brought me to Marie. She allowed me to sit in front of the TV and eat cereal for dinner. Sometimes, she would shout things into her phone that I didn't understand and take off with two of three revolvers in her purse, but I didn't worry about it. I felt safe with her.

Then, around my tenth or eleventh birthday, I met Marie's grandson, Fezco. He had a brutal blue eye and was somewhat awkward around me as if he had never been around another kid his age, which, sadly, was the truth.

Fezco was the son of a strip club owner, and his mother was a stripper he had never met. I doubt he wanted to. From what I was told and overheard, he lived with his abusive father and worked in the strip club to earn his living. I don't know what sort of work he did there, and to be honest, he scared me sometimes. He was very intuitive that brain of his always scheming. Once, I stormed into his apartment to ask if he wanted to hang out, and I had startled him. It was the first and last time he pulled a gun on me.

He didn't like to be alone with me, and it had bothered me so much that I locked us in a cabinet and swallowed the keys. That day, our friendship began, and I got punched by a man for the first time but unfortunately, not last time.

Though we were close, Fezco and his grandmother tried to keep their illegal business away from me as long as possible. She didn't want the responsibility of another ruined future on her hands and my mothers, well, they were decent people living in the wrong neighborhood.

Fezco grew up too fast. His grandmother became sick, and he was forced to take care of her, his younger brother Ashtray and run a drug-dealing business from a young age. I offered him my help, but he never accepted. He didn't like to be a victim.

At the age of fourteen, my uncle died. My mother took his loss hard; they were twins. Quickly, she became depressed, never leaving the house, and used self-inflicted pain as a sort of escape. Seven months after my uncle's funeral, I found her body in the bathroom. She had overdosed and died from a seizure. I don't remember much of the day, but I do recall that it had been a warm day with fantastic weather that lured you outside and spread happiness.

I never dealt with my mother's death as I probably should have. My mother, who had been sexually assaulted a year later by her boss, quit her job and took off one day without telling me. I was sixteen.

Fezco and Ashtray took me in, and to no one's surprise, Fezco and I slept together only a month later. I thought he saw me as a younger sister and still did even after having sex a couple of times. I didn't know I loved him as much as he must have loved me until he remembered my birthday and tried to bake a cake. It tasted horrible and was hard as a rock, but I ate it all, throwing it up later because it gave me food poisoning, but I was never happier.

Our joy, however, was not destined to last. After graduating from high school, Fez and I got accepted to the local community college. Fezco dropped out of school after only a few months. He never told me why, but I suspected it had something to do with his criminal business. Knowing he didn't trust me enough after all these years pained me. We had a massive argument that night, and I moved out the next day.

Though we were no longer together, I remained in contact with him—for Ashtray, he was my godson after all.

—

Ashtray's birthday was coming up—even if it may not be his actual birthday, Marie had decided that the day his mother abandoned him at her apartment should be replaced with better memories. Although I haven't lived with him for over a year, we still called and texted regularly.

I placed the wrapped gift onto the passenger seat before starting my car's engine, waiting for the motor to finish howling before I shifted gears and drove from my apartment complex parking lot. The drive toward the shop was short. Although I still lived in the same town, I haven't heard any gossip about Fezco. A friend of mine mentioned his name once, and I had almost strangled them just to find out she visited his shop to buy weed.

After a short fifteen-minute drive, I pulled up to his shop. It looked just as it had done a year ago, and a slight grin curved my lips. Though it was just a place, I missed it.

I stepped out of the car and took the present from the passenger seat before heading inside. Fezco sat next to the counter, smoking a cigarette as he always did. He lifted his gaze, and the cigarette almost dropped from his lips as he stared at me dumbfounded.

"Y/N?" asked Fezco, jumping from the counter.

"Hey," I said and allowed the smile he ignited to take over my face.

Fezco had remained the same. His hair was cut short, but his long and thick lashes still made me envious. He took a step forward and embraced me briefly. After smelling him, I had to swallow hard to clear my brain; he smelt fantastic.

"What you doing here?" he asked, looking hopeful.

"I wanted to give Ashtray his present —"

"Hey, can I—oh, hey. I'm Faye."

I glanced behind him, and the smile vanished from my face as fast as it came. Behind Fezco stood a tall, thin blonde woman. She wore risky cut-off shorts and a top that didn't need to leave anything to the imagination because it covered practically nothing. She was pretty, stunning. My eyes flickered between her and Fezco, and I hoped he would say something, anything to put the worries inside my head to rest, but Fezco remained silent as if he didn't know how to explain why she was here.

"Who's this?" I asked, my tone harsher than I hoped it would be.

Fezco glanced from Faye to me and muttered, "Oh, she, uh, she's staying with me for a while."

Faye turned and took a seat on the cooler. I almost let out a growl as I saw her perky butt cheeks. She wasn't the kind of girl Fezco dated, she couldn't be, but to be honest, he didn't date anyone besides me. The stranger smiled at me, and I gave her a mere glare.

"Y/N?" said Fezco, concern tugging at his brows. "You alright?"

There was a scream from deep within that almost forced its way from my mouth; it was as if my terrified soul had unleashed a demon. All I felt was anger; all I felt was that I didn't want to imagine what she was to him. Yet these filthy imagines flashed in my mind, and these fists clenched, and my teeth lock up once the sound is out. I'm just gonna have to walk away for a while, see this "elephant" from a few miles away, figure it out.

"Yeah," I spat. "Didn't know you were running a charity for homeless addicts now."

Fezco ran a hand over his face, "It's not like that, Y/N."

"So, you're not fucking this bitch?"

"No! Why the fuck would I fuck her?"

Though I was relieved, the anger controlled me still. "Why would you let her live with you?"

"Because she murdered someone and is hiding from the police, and her boyfriend asked me for a favor because I owed him!"

Oh.

"God damn, Y/N. Faye, could you just fuck off for a second." The blonde left. "What's wrong with you?"

"I just … I was wrong, sorry."

"You jealous?"

"NO!"

"Come on, Y/N. Don't lied to me."

"I'm not jealous. I just … didn't think he moved on so quickly."

"We've been broken up for over a year."

"So? Doesn't mean I don't miss you!"

Now I had done it. I lost my temper. Fezco took a deep breath before he leaned against the fridge next to me.

"I missed you too."

Please like, comment, reblog, or follow if you like the content I post. Go check out my other works for Fezco here.

[mcmoth]

Dream SMP fandom etiquette

So. This post is probably too little, too late, considering the fandom and the issues I'm about to talk about have existed for so long now, and a lot of the people who need to hear this probably aren't on tumblr anyways, but I just wanted to dedicate a quick post to talk about fandom etiquette. Mostly pertaining to discourse, and interactions with people outside of our circle. These are just going to be my own personal thoughts, of course, but I felt it could be good to bring some of this to attention. So without further introduction:

Where to (not) talk about discourse:

Don't go into other streamer's vods to only focus about a different character. If you want to analyse, for example, c!Techno, do it in Techno's stream. Don't go into unrelated streams, like Tommy's, Tubbo's etc. to do it, even if they were a part of the event in question. This is, of course, with the exception if the character in question didn't stream their own pov. But otherwise, stay in your own space. This is to prevent cluttering a streamer's comments about unrelated discussion. To give further example: Tubbo's vod comments should primarily focus on Tubbo's character. Not Tommy's, Ranboo's, Techno's or whoever else's.

Don't start discourse in the comments of animatics. Seriously, stop that. Animatics aren't discussion boards. The comments are there to analyse and appreciate the video presented, not argue. It's especially rude if you pick a small detail, that wasn't even the focus of the animatic, or even a completely unrelated issue to rant out your frustrations about. To give examples: starting disc discourse in an animatic of Tommy talking to Wilbur, or rambling about how tragic Techno's character is in an animatic focused on clingy duo, etc.

This applies to fan songs as well.

Video essays are the exception to these rules. I think it's safe to say they're the place to bring your hot takes, if you really feel so inclined to argue in youtube comment sections (Though I'd personally advise to still keep the topic relevant).

Keep negativity out of fanfic comments. This isn't nearly as big of an issue as the last points, but I've seen it happen a couple times, so I'm deciding to mention it. Fanfics are written for fun. Even if you disagree with the characterisation or something else, unless the author is clear in accepting critique, keep criticism to yourself. And definitely don't rant about how you dislike a character unrelated to the fanfic. Sharing your thoughts on the fanfic itself is of course fine and welcomed, but when it turns from discussing the author's story to talking about how you dislike a character in canon, that's when it crosses a line. Example: comment talking about what you don't like about c!Tommy on a Bench Trio fanfiction.

When commenting on art, keep the feedback positive. Even if you dislike any presented character, keep that to yourself. Example: Don't say things like "I hate x character, but this art is good". You might think the author would feel honoured, but it's actually just hurtful.

How to deal with discourse:

This is gonna be a shorter section, because I think we all chose to do it in different ways, and that's valid. Also, it's just that I, myself, am still learning how to do this well, but I thought it could be good to try to lay it out anyways.

Try to scroll past takes you disagree with instead of arguing if you don't think you'd be able to keep your cool. Noone likes a random person yelling at them through a screen, and if you rant, you'll get an equally frustrated reply back, and noone will be happy. Either explain your point in a calm manner, or scroll past/ unfollow/block.

On the keeping cool thing, remember to just step away. Take a deep breath and calm yourself down before proceeding. To minimize the frustration you feel on a daily basis, filter tags, block people, avoid videos and youtube comment sections that you know will upset you, and leave certain internet spaces if you find yourself unable to escape negativity even with all those steps. Remember: in the end, it's all a game played by friends, a story, and your enjoyment of it lies in what you take from it. Abandon what makes you unhappy. Marie Kondo your fandom experience.

Also, here's your reminder, to whom this is relevant, to take care of yourself. Hydrate, eat, sleep, clean up, get fresh air, remember the things outside of all this. There's plenty to do outside of this fandom, and what you can do here can wait. There is no pressure, or obligation. Not for the content you create, not for the discussions you bring, not for responding to discourse, not for anything. Fandom is meant purely for fun, so take care <3

Interacting with people outside of the fandom:

This is something that I've seen a bit of talk about, and I thought I'd drop in my own thoughts on this as well. No matter the differences, we're all just trying to vibe, and I think these are important things to keep in mind to leave both sides better off:

Don't interact with hate posts. Just don't. You don't want to see them, they don't want to see you. Even if your response is lighthearted, their animosity is not. They will feel frustrated regardless, and the grudge will only grow. And if they're being agressive, calm discussion most likely won't happen even if you're being polite. Just leave it, please.

Correct misinformation calmly. I completely get how it can be frustrating to see blatant lies and all, but with our reputation, people will not listen if you're being antagonistic. Provide sources, explain, and leave it at that.

Don't be hateful, send death threats, or assume privilege or whatever else. That's stepping into the same shoes of the people you hate. Misunderstandings go both ways, and the fact of the matter is, I think most people who dislike DSMP, even the ones who are agressive about it, don't have their stance rooted in maliciousness. To expand on why the situation became what it is today, taken from a discussion on discord:

I think it's just a combination of Dream growing so insanely quickly + how internet spaces have changed over the years. When ccs like jackstepticeye or pewdiepie etc. grew popular, activism wasn't as prevalent and held to such importance. Now it's thankfully more talked about, but that also leads to Dream being more scrutinized in comparision. Add twitter trends and the general prevalence of the fandom, and you've got everyone feeling tired and frustrated and paranoid. People also tend not to fact check stuff, especially when it comes to celebrities and stuff they're not really interested in, so rumors spread fast.

And actually, I think there's absolutely valid reasons to be made uncomfortable by Dream SMP, either in it's creators, content or fandom, and there is, of course, stuff to criticise in general. The problem is the hate and misinformation and overexposure, but we are not going to solve any of that by being aggressive in return.

(This is, by the way, not talking about more serious cases. Like doxxing, or leaving gore images in hashtags, or similar instances. That's a whole different complicated issue that I don't feel qualified to tackle.)

And finally, don't overwhelm outsiders who merely mention the Dream SMP. Don't send asks asking them to watch it, don't write paragraphs explaining the lore, don't confuse them with inside jokes, just... Don't jump on people like that. Unless they're explicitly clear in wanting interaction and getting into the fandom, that kind of thing will just drive them away. This is in no way exclusive to the Dream SMP fandom, pretty much every fandom has people enthiastic to have more people involved, but since there are so unbelievably many of us, it's especially easy to go overboard with this stuff. Just... be polite, and don't pressure anyone. Be nice, please.

So.... ya! This would be it for this one, I think. Sorry that it's kinda long, thank you if you read it at all. Hope y'all have pleasant days ^^

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

この　秋

by alexander (shwishu)

By 1899, the age of outlaws and gunslingers was at an end. America was becoming a land of laws... even the west had mostly been tamed. A few gangs still roamed, but they were being hunted down and destroyed. The most infamous of which being the legendary Blackbeard's gang of black-hearted rogues, who, following a failed heist in California were being pushed east of Blackwater for the first time in ten years. Enter Stede Bonnet, clergy from Barbados, who, whilst on vacation in Saint Denis with his family, decided to flee and pursue the life of crime that was dying ever so quickly. Things did not go as planned. - Welcome! This is a rdr2 au of ofmd, but you don't need to play the game or have any knowledge about it to read this - all you need to know is that the places that the fic takes place in are fictitious representatives of real US states, and that our boys (+ mary read, anne bonny, and jim) are gunslingers! Any rdr elements that are included will be explained within the text, and a map will be linked in the first chapter. (the title translates to 'this autumn' and is pronounced 'kono aki')

Words: 2841, Chapters: 1/10, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV), Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: M/M, Multi

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Israel Hands, Oluwande Boodhari, Jim Jimenez, Lucius Spriggs, Crew of the Revenge, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Benjamin Hornigold, The Badmintons, Mary Allamby Bonnet, O'Driscoll Gang (Red Dead Redemption), Other Character Tags to Be Added, "Calico" Jack Rackham

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Oluwande Boodhari/Jim Jimenez, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Anne Bonny/Mary Read

Additional Tags: red dead redemption au, no, you don't have to play the game, you'll understand, Alternate Universe - Western, Bandits & Outlaws, Alternate Canon, it mirrors canon, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Angst, Canon-Typical Disregard for Injury, canon-typical disregard for historical accuracy, Changing POV, vague mentions of red dead characters maybe, i doubt i'll be able to resist, if they rock up you'll find them in the characters section, but for all intents and purposes the van der linde gang only exists when it is convenient for me x, no beta we die like men, NO RED DEAD SPOILERS, ofmd spoilers obv

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/40091349

[copias-thrall]

Cause I'm Young and I'm Here and So Beautiful

A look into the rise and fall of Mary Goore's flash-in-the-pan modeling career.

~12.5K Mary Goore/Reader *drug/alcohol use; mentions of past child abuse; brief homelessness; plot no porn; POV shift*

This fic was inspired by and is very loosely based on Aurelio Voltaire's early days in NYC in the 90s, though I have set it in Boston in the early aughts. 😊

Many thanks to the artists who did commissions for this! 🥰

One Way Streets

Mary stepped off the regional rail and gripped his backpack. He had $72.57 in cash rolled into his socks and a give-em-hell attitude.

When he’d packed his bag the night before, he wasn’t even sure if he’d go through with it, but he couldn’t stand being home anymore. Some of his friends had told him he was crazy.

"Three more months, dude. You got this. Just finish high school, then bounce."

But they didn’t have to live with his dad and the step-monster. Every day was a new indignity. Having them bitch about his music and his style was one thing—that he could have dealt with—but everything else had just kind of…escalated.

Now that the kiddies were older, they’d turned into gremlins. They’d somehow sensed that Mary wasn’t their beloved older brother—he was some sort of half other. They’d stopped questioning why "mom was so mean" to him and had accepted that she was because there was something wrong with Mary. They realized they could be little shits and blame everything on him.

And dad just didn’t care. He’d throw up his hands and say, "I have to live with her"—as if Mary wasn’t in the same boat.

Dad hadn’t stopped her when—in a rage—she’d smashed every single vinyl album Mary had owned because the twins ruined her nice tablecloth. He’d shrugged when she cut all Mary's guitar strings so he couldn’t play "the devil’s music." He’d held Mary back when she took a match and burned all his secret stuff that Mary kept under his bed—action figures, books, guitar mags, journals—in the backyard because he got detention for smoking. He hadn’t said a word when the police showed up after she came at Mary with scissors because he’d dyed his hair black and he’d pushed her away before she could scalp him.

Mary thought for sure he was going to get carted off to jail as she screamed about him terrorizing the family and being afraid he was going to kill her sons in their sleep, but the officers had just looked at her bored and told her being a teenager wasn’t a crime.

So, no: Mary couldn’t wait 3 more months.

He’d scraped together what money he had left from his secret shifts working as a busboy under the table at a local dive downtown, packed his backpack with the essentials, and walked the 5 miles to the train station instead of going to school.

Eighteen was 10 weeks away. He could fudge it for a few months, especially since he could already get away without using his fake ID to get into shows most of the time.

So, to the big city it was.

He shifted his weight and tried to pretend that he belonged here in Boston, but actually facing the busy streets was a lot different from looking at a bird’s-eye view map. He had a printout in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look like a doe-eyed tourist. So he set off down the seemingly labyrinthine streets in the direction he could have sworn was the correct one.

It wasn't.

When he came out a side alley into Faneuil Hall, he almost wondered if he'd gone through a fairy portal, since he was clear on the other side of town. Begrudgingly, he checked his creased map, and set out once more.

And ended up spit out by the State building.

Finding the hostel turned into a fraught adventure, and he got turned around several times more. When he tried to ask for directions, most people pushed past him while one lady shoved $5 at him. He used the cash to buy a hotdog, and it was the vendor who ultimately gave him directions in his thick, Southie accent.

Of course, making it to the hostel ended up being just part one. The rates were almost double what it stated online ("Sorry, honey—that site hasn’t been upgraded since the 90s."), and two nights were practically all his savings. Mary had thought he’d at least have a couple of days to find a job, not 36hrs.

He left the hostel, wondering for the first time if maybe he shouldn’t go back home…but he decided it was a nice day out. Surely there was some place he could hunker down. Just for the night.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the cops at every fucking turn telling him to move along. And any place out of line-of-sight seemed to already be inhabited.

He finally found a place behind some rocks in the Seaport where he didn’t think he’d be murdered in his sleep, curled around his backpack, and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Mary woke up damp from the dew and the morning sun streaming into his eyes. The birds were creating an awful racket, but Mary guessed it was as good an alarm clock as any.

He ran his fingers through his bird's nest of hair, and he made his way back to the South Station. The men’s room may have smelled like a sewage treatment plant, but at least it was free. He had expected it to be mostly empty at the crack of dawn, but it was full of commuters making that last run to the head before they had to take the train 2hrs out of the city for work.

And it was a sight: a bunch of suits with their fancy lattes washing their hands, and Mary in the corner trying to surreptitiously wipe down with paper towels under his Misfits t-shirt and his shredded jeans. At school, he’d have probably gotten into several altercations by now—no one would have let him just turn into Mary Goore without a fight—but this was Boston, and no one gave him more than a cursory glance.

Just another college kid.

It emboldened Mary to go full-out in the kind of way he had only done when going out to the punk shows downtown at night: kohl all the way around his eyes, and some on his cheekbones; mascara because his lashes are long and thick, and he knows it (his dad had said it made him look hard, and Mary had sneered that maybe that was what he’d been going for. But maybe it had been because he’d liked the way it had made his green eyes pop.); a smear of the step-monster’s fanciest matte lipstick on his full lips; and airplane glue in his hair to give it that lift.

He made a kissy face at himself in the mirror, and headed back out.

It was a nice Spring day—almost boiling in the direct sun—and it tempted Mary to wear only his battle vest, but even he kind of figured applying to jobs half dressed was a mistake.

He walked all over the city, trying not to get lost, looking for any kind of work—dishwasher, busboy, barback—but all he had to show for it was blistered feet and a raging appetite. The only good part of the day was that he noted any restaurant or bakery that looked like it might toss perfectly good food at the end of the day.

He and his friends had become experts at dumpster diving in his podunk town, and he felt confident that he had a good feel for a jackpot. Mary staked out a bakery and was rewarded with a find of "old" bagels. He shoved as many as he could into the nooks and crannies of his backpack before slinking off to the Commons to inhale at least two of them.

Cold, stale dough never tasted so good.

He watched the tourists and the professionals walk by in ones and in groups while he ran his bare feet through the grass. Some laughed with each other as they sauntered down the path while others seemed singularly intent on their ultimate destination. A pack of dogs ran and played with each other as their owners looked on fondly, and nearby the baseball diamond hosted a casual game.

Mary counted his lucky stars that his first week in Boston was April at its kindest—always mild during the day, even when it turned cloudy, and a few times even downright warm. The nights turned chilly, though, and it had Mary in more layers than an onion. If the birds or damp didn't wake him, his butt cramps from being curled in a tight ball all night did.

He spent those days walking around the city proper looking for work. He wasn't adventurous enough to make the leap across the bridges to Cambridge just yet, but his travels gave him a good sense on how the different sections of Boston connected—and showed him potential places to crash at night. He didn't even mind living off day-old garbage food and drinking from bubblers (he'd bought a water for the express purpose of reusing the bottle), but the barren wasteland that seemed to be the job market was beginning to weigh on him.

At home, he could always find a shit job if he was willing to put up with shit hours and ridiculous requests. Here, though, Mary was just one of many desperate people willing to do desperate work.

And he didn’t look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

@dipendancesld

Hashtag WTF

I’m scrolling through Insta on the T, and I’m way down the rabbit hole of hashtags. New content was at a minimum this morning (how can I follow accounts in triple digits and only see the same 4 posts?!), so I’d started with some art tags and ended up where I usually end up—trolling social media for blurry pictures of my boy.

His band has been a local staple for years—or at least that’s what he told me on our first date. I had just moved from New York after a nasty breakup, ready to start fresh, and I’d seen him at a coffee shop hanging posters for his next show in his leather jacket, asymmetrical Metallica crop top, and stomping boots.

Fresh had never looked so good.

Then, a few months back, an online publication had featured his band in the year’s 50 best bands "you’ve never heard of," and now the band's starting to gain traction.

He’s starting to gain traction.

Finding the new online content of him first has become a game the two of us play. We had to stop counting images posted from the popular fan accounts because Mary's now acquaintances with most of them, and I said it was hardly fair to snipe me that way. Mary had pouted—but it was to cover up his grin. So now we troll for the pictures of his latest gig or at his favorite haunts from either his  casual fans or one of his new ones. I even have a whole range of hashtag typos saved if I really want to triumph, since Mary just doesn't have the attention span.

I usually win, though, by virtue of not keeping Rockstar Hours—and because Mary doesn’t have a smartphone. Mary delights in spending the wee hours while I'm sleeping finding new content, and I'll often wake to one he's pulled up on my laptop and a "suck it" sticky note stuck to my monitor.

(But I’m reigning supreme.)

There’s a thirst tag I sometimes comb through (for reasons), and today I’m desperate for that morning serotonin to keep me from dozing off, which is why I stumble across a particularly convincing cosplayer in some…risqué poses and outfits.

The dude is really good, and I have to admit he really does have Mary’s mannerisms down pat. He’s younger and a little skinnier than Mary is now, but his facial expressions are on point. I zoom in to see the contouring technique because he's using one of those filters to make it look old…and that’s when I sense something off. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but usually there’s an uncanny valley to his serious cosplayers, and this dude looks so real. He’s even 100% accurate with the mole placement, which is something I never see.

My heart does a flip-flop.

Is that…actually Mary?

Foundling

Mary's sixth night in the city, it rained. It was more of a brief Spring shower, but it was still enough to soak him and his backpack through. He shivered through the early morning hours until the sun came up, then he made his way to the Commons to lay his belongings—and himself—out into the sun to dry.

By midday, he had a slight sunburn across his nose, but most of his things were dryish—though the food was a soggy lost cause. He cut his losses and decided to buy a sausage from the hotdog vendor, even if that meant he was down to $52.37 in his sock bank.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life (sometimes he still dreams of it), and he gobbled it down as he sat in the grass and watched the show of people pass by.

He could take today off from his job search.

Just another Groundhog Day of rejections.

A gaggle of kids about his age walked past, and he lit up when he saw them: studs and bright hair and cuffs and combat boots. They ran and shrieked and shoved at each other, and Mary had never felt such longing to be a part of something.

Not that nebulous feeling of "my world is out there somewhere," but "my world is right there if I can just get to it."

And he realized maybe he could.

These were his people.

Mary hopped off the bench and approached the boisterous group.

"Uh, hey…guys."

The pack stopped and looked him over, confused but not hostile.

"Oh hey, man" said a girl with green fins and a studded, leather jacket.

"Hey."

I have nowhere to go. Can I go with you?

"Sorry, I forgot your name."

"Oh, you don’t—"

A guy in a tight striped shirt, snake bites, and blue hair interrupted him.

"Shit, were you in my intro into film class last year?"

Mary was a high school dropout.

"Nah, dude. I’m new and shit."

…But he wasn’t stupid.

A curvy white goth with bleached blonde hair and a cream princess dress smiled at him.

"Aww, that’s rough, honey. If you think about it, they really ought to give transfers on-campus housing. It sucks to be so new and away from the action."

Mary nodded. "Yeah. Sucks."

"Well, we’re going to The Pit, wanna come?"

"If you guys don’t mind…"

"Fuck, the more the merrier!"

Mary smiled as they assimilated him into the group. He found out the goth’s name was Vanessa ("But call me Vanity."), green fins was Alexa ("Or Alex. I’m trying it out."), striped shirt was Billy, and the two other punks were Mandi (Manic Panic red) and Aaron (band tee, spiked collar).

No one laughed at him when he introduced himself as Mary or asked him why he had a girl’s name.

They took him onto the T at Charles MGH, and Mary marveled at the setting sun over the Charles River before the train ducked underground to barrel in Cambridge. At Harvard, they ushered him off the train and directly into The Pit, and Mary almost cried when he saw the pit rats there playing hacky sack, strumming guitars, and smoking cloves. Mary watched as his group high-fived, bumped chests, and hugged nearly everyone there before introducing him as if they’d known him for years.

He was shit at hacky sack, but he accepted a round on the guitar and shared a clove with a white girl who had a rat's nest of hair.

"Fuck their beauty stands," she said when she caught Mary staring.

Mary smiled and pointed to his own mess of hair. "Fuck ‘em," he repeated.

She cackled and handed him a brown bag with what he expected to be whiskey, but tasted like turpentine.

She laughed harder at his face as he coughed, and she pounded him on the back.

"Moonshine, dude. Lenny makes it in his bathtub."

"Which one is Lenny," Mary asked as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, he’s not here. He goes to MIT. We have a strict trade agreement—booze for pot. I’m Katie."

Head fuzzy, Mary had made out with her until Aaron tugged on his arm.

"Shit dude, we gotta go before the T closes. You live close to here?"

"Uh…"

"Aww, I think he got into Lenny’s moonshine," said Vanity. "If he’s a transfer, I bet he’s at some shithole in Allston. You in Allston, honey?"

Mary just nodded.

"All right then," said Alex, taking charge. "We’ll put him up tonight. There’s no way he’s gonna make it back to Allston by himself, and I’ll be fucked if I’m trekking out there without a BU party to crash."

Mary wobbled slightly as Alex took his arm in his and led him to the T.

"Ok, we gotta go now or we’ll all be hoofing it."

They took Mary back to their dorm by the Hatch Shell and signed him in as a guest.

"Is this ok?" Mary asked warily—he didn't want to get kicked out in the middle of the night.

Mandi patted him on the back.

"We do it all time. No one really gives a shit. Vegan Mick dropped out 2 semesters ago and they don’t even check for his ID."

That night, Mary slept in the common room on a lumpy couch that was half as long as he was.

It was heaven.

The next morning seemed like the end, and Mary slumped as Vanity to sign him out. For one brief day he'd been a part of something, and now it was back to Mary, party of one. But Vanity took one look at his face and asked if he wanted to get breakfast at the dining hall.

Of course, he wanted to…but he thought of the dwindling cash in sock bank and hesitated. Vanity, bless her, misread his trepidation.

"It's on me, sweetie. I know most transfers don’t opt in. Too expensive when it’s not bundled. No worries, I got a ton of points I don’t use."

Alex and Aaron were already half done with their food when Vanity and he joined them, and they looked on in amusement as Mary ate half the breakfast buffet.

When the subject of classes came up, he shrugged off questions.

"None this morning."

Alex narrowed her eyes at him.

"What year did you say you were?"

"Sophomore."

"Not a freshman?"

Mary shook his head. "I’m not a freshman."

She seemed about to ask another question, so Mary quickly changed the subject.

"I thought I’d spend the day applying for jobs. You guys know of any place that’s hiring?"

"No work study?"

"No."

"What kind of work you looking for?"

"Shit, anything. I’ll sweep the fucking floors."

They bandied about ideas, places for Mary to try, but no one had any leads. Too soon, some unknown gong had them scurrying to get to class.

Mary suddenly panicked.

"Hey, do you guys mind if I spend the night again? I mean…"

"Yeah, sure," said Vanity. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, man. Meet me after class and I'll swipe you in."

It apparently was a time-honored tradition, passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen, on gaming the guest system. Most kids used it to essentially move their significant others into their dorm rooms, but a handful every year used it to give haven to others who had questionable housing situations.

So, just like that, Mary had a place to rest his bones.

@dilfpassing

A Deeper Look

I’m so intent on scrolling through the comments on the grainy pics—which I'm sure now are actual scans—that I completely miss my stop, and I have to put my phone away so I can wheeze lightly jog my way to where I work as a receptionist at an alternative hair salon.

It’s really important that I start a good hour before we open so I can return any calls left on our voicemail first thing in case I can fit anyone in today. Which means I have to shelve my find for now, much to my irritation.

Mornings are super-busy because apparently there are some people in the world that like getting up with the sun and want everything done by noon. (June Cleaver’s salon lets me get away with a lot—like coming to work in denim short-shorts and ripped tights, free hair colors, and a snarky attitude—but late start times aren’t one of them.) I honestly don’t have room in my brain to obsess about the pictures because I’m too busy answering calls, making coffee, settling accounts, and giving the new customer spiel for the 57th time to a walk-in.

It’s just after midday, when Penny, the shampoo girl, collects my cash for the salon-wide sandwich run, and I finally have a moment to breathe. And obsess.

I take out my phone again, and I have to retrace my steps because of course the app has refreshed, which is why Sonia has the time to look over my shoulder.

"Missing dream boy’s dick so much you gotta spend your lunch hour ogling pics of him on the internet?"

I zoom in on the one of maybe!Mary in his underwear.

"Who does that look like to you?"

Sonia makes a guh sound in her throat and backs away.

"I don’t need to see your intimates!"

"That’s the thing! It’s not mine!"

"Your boy’s nudes get leaked??"

I wave my arms around.

"I don’t freakin’ know! They may not even be him. Fucking. C’mere and help me out!"

Sonia warily creeps back over, and so does Ryan, since all the yelling has attracted him.

The three of us peer over the phone as I scroll through the images again.

By the time Penny comes back with lunch, we’ve gone back and forth on who’s in the images—Mary or a fake—and I haven’t been able to do any actual research. The afternoon rush starts, and I have to table the whole thing again, having made no progress at all.

It isn’t until near-closing, when most of the other stylists have gone home—and it’s only June who does the post-work crowd—that I can really dig into the matter.

A deep dive and a couple of defunct, decade-old forums later, I find that what I took as an aspirational hashtag was actually the name of a zine called "Heroes."

There’s like, zero online trail about it—except for a few other grainy scans of other pages of articles, poetry, concert pictures, and art—but it seemed to be an early aughts missive for local underground culture and color.

It still doesn’t explain why Mary’s in there in various states of undress and poses.

Or why Mary has never said a word about it to me.

Stripped Bare

Mary settled into a sort of routine. He spent most days looking for a job—any job—with his backpack full of food from their dining hall. Most nights he rotated couches on different floors so the RAs didn’t notice that he basically lived there.

He made friends with Vegan Mick for about 5 seconds until Mary had eaten an entire Rotisserie chicken from 7-11 in front of him. Mick had launched into a whole spiel, and Mary had pointed out that Mick's jacket and Docs were made of leather. He’d only meant it as a joke—a callout in answer to a callout, like he'd do with his friends back home—but Vegan Mick had turned purple, then iced Mary out every time he saw him after that.

Oops.

The brief friendship had lasted long enough, however, for Mick to give Mary some tips and tricks of being homeless.

Homeless.

That had been a tough pill to swallow. Until Vegan Mick had put Mary’s situation like that, Mary had just thought of himself between places.

But it was true: he didn’t live anywhere. He skated by on the kindness of his new friends, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the ruse of "transfer student who didn’t like his shithole apartment and was too busy job searching to concentrate on classes."

He still spent a few nights a week finding an out-of-the-way place outside to hunker down in or huddling in with Katie and a few of the other gutter punks under their boxes in the corners of the T stations. He knew they would have been more than happy to make room, anyway, but Mary always emptied his backpack of all the pilfered dining hall food for distribution amongst them.

It honestly wasn't so terrible now that he had friends and a warm place to go on cold or rainy nights, but.

He needed an actual place to live. To afford an actual place to live, he needed a job. To get a job, he needed a place to live.

It seemed like a catch-22, and he began to despair that he’d never get ahead…until Mandi offered him a leg up.

Mary was sitting on the grass in the Commons in the shade, thinking that with summer coming up, maybe he could fudge it until the gang came back in September. There was always Katie and The Pit, and Mary was sure he could chip in somehow.

Mandi sat down next to him.

"I thought that mess of hair was you, Mare."

"Hey, Mandi. What’s kicks?"

"You still looking for a job?"

Mary put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Don’t remind me."

"You over 18?"

Just last week. But Mary hadn’t said, since they thought he was a Sophomore.

"Yeah."

"Wanna be at least 21?"

Mary grinned at her.

"That’s what my fake ID says."

She laughed, a tinkling thing.

"You got anything against strip clubs?"

Mary furrowed his brows at her.

"Uh…what’s the right answer here?"

She shoved him playfully.

"Do you want a job?"

"Yeah?"

"Then say no."

"No. No problems with strip clubs." He squinted at her. "Are they looking for male strippers?"

She laughed again.

"Definitely not." She canted her head at Mary. "I mean, you're very pretty, Mare. I could probably put you on as one of the girls…even with these triple As," she flicked playfully at his nipple, which had him grunting and batting at her, "but I was thinking more behind the scenes."

Mary held up his arm and made a weak muscle.

"I don’t think I’d be much of a bouncer, Mands."

"You said you’d wash dishes, sweep floors and shit, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the club I work at—"

"The club at you what now?"

Mandi gave him a strange look.

"Yeah. The strip club I work at."

Mary’s eyes bugged out.

"As a…waitress?"

"As a stripper, Mary. Duh." At his dumbfounded look she shook her head. "It’s kind of extra credit, as a dance major. I’m going to turn it into my thesis. Plus, I make hella bank."

She swept her arm across the park that made up her college "campus."

"How else do you think I can afford this rock-and-roll lifestyle? Not all of us are here on scholarship or mom and dad’s dime."

She tilted her head at him.

"I thought you’d get it."

When Mary didn't respond, she touched his shoulder.

"Mare. I know you don't go here."

"W-what…? I…"

He looked at her, wide-eyed as the blood drained from his face.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not gonna tell anybody. Not if you don't want me to."

Mary looked down. "Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You know that means I've got no address."

Mandi bumped his shoulder and waved his words away.

"A lot of the girls dance. Paddy is used to dorm rooms as addresses. You can use mine."

Mary looked at her, hoping he could convey every ounce of gratitude he was feeling.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder.

"So, you up for it? Sweeping floors and bussing tables?" She leveled a look at him. "Cleaning up puke?"

Anything.

"Fuck, I’m desperate, Mands. I’ll hold their hair back if it means a paycheck."

"That’s the spirit!"

***

Mary was sure Patrick was part of the mob—or at least in cahoots. The guy had taken one look at Mary’s ID and had said, "But how old are you really?" and Mary had said, "Nineteen."

Patrick had thrown up his hands. "Well, you ain’t gonna be serving alcohol anyway, kid. Your job is to do whatever I tell you. Some asshole breaks a bottle, you clean up the glass so the girls don’t hurt themselves. Some idiot ralphs all over the toilet seat, you scrub the shit out of that fucker. A bachelor party leaves a table a hot mess, you better be out there clearing off the table for the next one, got it?"

Mary had nodded.

"You show up at 5 to help the girls set up the bar. You stay til whenever it takes to close down—but you only get paid 'til 2am—and you get an hour to eat, unpaid. You don’t bother the girls, and," Patrick had leaned in, "you don’t steal from me."

Mary had gulped and nodded emphatically.

Patrick had jabbed a finger at him. "That includes the booze. If I get fucked because some snot-nosed, underage kid is drinking with my good friends Jim and Johnnie, I’m gonna be very put out."

"Got it, sir."

"Don’t call me sir. I’m Paddy to my friends, so you can call me Patrick."

"Yes, Patrick."

Patrick had looked him over.

"You get paid as an independent contractor just like the girls, so you gotta deal with your own taxes, you got that? I’ll start you at $10 an hour."

Mary’s eyes had gone wide. Back home he was lucky to get 5.

"Ten…?"

Patrick had tilted his head again.

"No, you’re right, 12. Do a good job, and I’ll think about raising it to 15."

Mary had to physically stop his jaw from dropping.

"You do weeknights for now so if you fuck up it’s not that much of a problem. If you don’t fuck up and the girls don’t hate you, you can get weekends. Deal?"

Mary had sat up straighter. "Deal." He’d held his hand out, but Patrick had just looked at it until Mary pulled it back into his side.

"Ariel vouched for you, so I’m giving you a shot. Don’t make her regret it."

Mary had shaken his head as Patrick had handed him some forms to fill out.

"Come back at 4 tomorrow with these and we’ll get you started. Now, get out, I got shit to do."

Mary had taken the forms and skedaddled.

Mandi was outside waiting for him, all smiles.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but fuck—your boss is scary."

"Nah, he’s a teddy bear."

***

The job was awful.

The puke was an almost nightly occurrence, and by the end of the first week, little cuts covered Mary’s hands from the broken glass. The customers were loud, rowdy, and acted as if their mother was going to clean up after them.

Mary swore he would never get the beer smell out. It now lived in his soul.

One dude punched Mary and broke his nose for no reason Mary could tell before the bouncers dragged the guy away. The girls gave him some tampons to stop the bleeding, and Mary finished his shift.

Patrick paid Mary in cash at the end of every week with a "It’s your job to report that, not mine," and at the end of the month, Patrick bumped Mary up to $15/hr. He worked 5 days a week because, according to Patrick, "The Lord gave us a day of rest, and you get one day off per week."

Mary never reported a single cent to the IRS.

The girls loved him, and joked that Patrick had gotten them a pet. They showed him winged eyeliner and smokey eyes and how to contour. They guffawed when they watched him try out their shoes like a newborn deer. On slow nights, they tried to show him pole techniques.

He saw the gang less and less because by the time they were getting out of class, he was going into work, and when he was done work, they were crawling into bed. Fortunately, the desk sitters seemed to forget that he wasn’t an on-campus "student" and didn’t even bother signing him in anymore. There were a few sticklers, but Mary found that—while back home he was less than scum—here, he attracted all the right kinds of attention…and a smirk with the right compliment went a long way.

By the time their school year ended, Mary had saved up $1,000 (and he needed to transfer his money out of sock bank and into the ripped lining of his jacket).

Even though they didn't know just how much they'd saved him, Mary showed up on the last day as thanks to help them all move their stuff into family cars or rented trucks. They hugged him goodbye and said to ring them next semester.

Mandi bopped him on the nose and told him to keep his nose clean.

Mary took a sublet in Allston with 2 BU kids and a Berkley grad student. The "room" was a closed-in porch with a sleeping bag left by the last resident—but it was $400 a month until September, utilities included.

At first, Mary didn't know why the gang was so snobby about Allston, but the summer seemed to be one continual party. It didn't matter what day Mary got up, there were always broken beer bottles and stale beer on their front stoop, and the apartment had a designated watering can for washing away the vomit that dripped down from the top porches to their own.

But he took it in stride, and when he wasn’t at the strip club or sleeping, he was partying with the BU kids, or letting the Berkley grad show him better string fingering techniques.

Mary still tried to get out to The Pit with what groceries he could spare, but Katie had moved on with some of the others to do a protest tour with an activist street band that had come through town, and without her or the gang, it made Mary feel lonely.

By the end of the summer, Mary had saved up enough money for first, last, and security. He even had some left over to buy more than ramen and some new clothes. To Mary, it felt like a million dollars. He rented a garden-level apartment in the cheap part of Jamaica Plain for September 1st and spent that entire day with the BU dudes driving around in their rented truck for Allston Christmas’s best furniture finds.

Mary ended up with a mattress that he hoped on a wish and a prayer didn’t have bedbugs, a mismatched set of dishes, plastic drawers that were slightly warped, and a broken futon frame he swore he would fix. Throw in a few sets of slightly used string lights, and Mary’s cave felt downright homey.

When the gang got back, he simply told them he’d dropped out.

"Yeah, I just don’t think college is for me. Music’s my real passion, you know?"

Alex had groaned.

"I knew that Berkley kid was gonna be a bad influence on you."

Mary shrugged.

"My grades were shit anyway. But I’m still around, you know. The strip club’s only a block from campus."

"Because we saw you so much then," deadpanned Billy.

"Hey! Stop piling on Mary," said Vanity. "He’s following his path."

Mary shot her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Vanity."

Patrick finally gave him a little more leeway with his days off, and Mary started taking Saturday night to join the gang in Harvard Square for the shadow cast of Rocky Horror. One of Aaron’s classmates, Amber, was in it, and they all wanted to support her.

Mary felt that something again. That thing that told that this was his place and his people. This eclectic group who got up in front of strangers every week in their underwear for free enthralled Mary.

He and Amber bonded immediately, and Mary began going even without the gang. The cast welcomed him in as an honorary groupie, and Mary's friendship with the gang waned. There was still Mandi to cavort with at the strip club, but now when Mary wasn't there, he was at any one of the Rocky crew's apartments getting high and playing dress up.

"You’ve got such a Look, Mare," sighed Amber. "I’d kill for your cheekbones."

"I’d kill for your tits."

She slapped him playfully. "Don’t be gross."

"No, I’m serious. Someone once put it in my head that I'd be a hot chick."

The girls had giggled and proceeded to dress him up in bras and corsets with cutlets. They added a wig, and the glo-up surprised even Mary.

Still buzzed, they went out for girl’s night and hit up all the bars in Fenway and flirted their way to free shots from the dude bros before batting their falsies at bouncers to let them into the clubs ahead of the line and without the cover.

The cutlets eventually became a nuisance—and soon they were all flapping them about above their heads as they danced—but Mary had loved the feel of the lace and satin corsets against his skin.

When they’d all collapsed in a pile at the end of the night, Mary wondered if they’d tell him where to get some lingerie for himself.

***

By August, Mary was ready to quit the strip club.

He was tired of cut fingers (they were making it hard to play the guitar he’d bought), the drunks, and the sick everywhere. Now that he had a little cushion, he thought maybe he could at least find something with better hours.

Mandi had graduated and was well into a summer internship at Disney in hopes they’d bring her on as a dancer.

Alex had also graduated and moved out to LA to make it as a film editor.

Vanity and Aaron had started dating after finals, and they had moved in together in Cambridgeport for their last year.

Billy had stopped going to classes before dropping out altogether. No one seemed to know what happened, and when they called his home, his mother just said he was unavailable.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to stick around the Grid anymore, and it was a bitch of a commute back to his place if he wasn’t going to hang out with the Rocky crew. He landed a job at a record store that was walking distance to his apartment.

Patrick seemed surprisingly sad to see him go, saying, "Ah, the good ones smart up," and gave him a $500 bonus for not "fucking up."

Tim, one of the older Rocky people, turned out to not live too far from him, and when Mary started hanging out there, so did the party.

Now that Mary was no longer shackled by the strip club’s hours, his world opened a few more degrees. He spent his nights dressing up while he watched the cast rehearse. (When he showed them a move or two he learned from the women at the club, they tried to get him to do a guest star as Frank. But Mary had shaken his head and said that wasn’t the kind of performing he wanted to do.)

When they weren't rehearsing, they dragged Mary to TT The Bear’s, The Middle East, and The Milky Way Lounge for underground shows. They took him to fetish night at ManRay after a trip to Hubba Hubba for pleather and lingerie, and Mary made a lot of new friends.

Sometimes, Mary would show up to work straight off a night out in his club clothes, eyeliner smudged and lipstick smeared. It should have got him fired, but his boss just shrugged.

"I used to keep rockstar hours too."

Mary still wore all his old vestiges—his battle vest and his ripped jeans—it was just that now he sometimes added a corset and heels.

Wherever Katie was now, he hoped she knew he was still fucking their beauty standards.

ry.omen Insta

Answer Me This

I practically vibrate the entire way back to our place. I'm still trying to wring information out of the internet like it's too-wet clothes, but the only thing I accomplish is making myself motion sick on the bus, so I put my phone back in my pocket and breath through my nose.

When I get home, Mary is sprawled across the couch in his pjs with various limbs hanging over sides and edges as he watches some extreme sport show on my laptop.

I wonder if he just got up, but I see the start of dinner on the stove, so I decide not to snark at him.

"Hey," he says without looking up.

I am, however, gonna need some answers on "Heroes."

I gently close the laptop, and he meets my eyes.

"What?"

I climb onto the couch, and Mary’s limbs recede like vines to make room for me as I scroll through my phone to my photo app where I’ve saved screenshots.

"Lucy," I say in a terrible accent, "you have some ‘splaining to do!"

Mary squints at me and takes my phone, his expression morphing into one of surprise.

"Shit, babe. Where’d ya find these??"

"So they are you!"

He chuckles.

"Christ…I haven't thought about these in fucking years."

"Mind telling me what the fuck?" I ask, my hands on my hips.

I'm only half joking.

Mary grimaces at me.

"Ah."

"I'm gonna need more than that, mister."

He rubs the back of his neck.

"Fuck, you know those were hard times for me."

I know about his family, the homelessness. I know he tried out a lot until he found a life that fit. He'd given me the overviews with occasional anecdotes filled with names I never remembered.

But none of them included naughty pictures.

I worm my way under his arm.

"Yeah, I know, Mare."

His hand strokes down my arm.

"I mean, shit. I was kinda an asshole, you know?"

I wrap an arm around his chest.

"You're still kind of an asshole, Goore."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

When he doesn't say more, I poke him hard in the side.

"I’m literally dying here."

He laughs a little.

"Fine. But you gotta remember you asked."

Model Behavior

One day, Mary was walking down the street on his way to drinks with the new friends he'd made the weekend before. It was a good day. He wasn’t hungover as fuck, his makeup was only smudged artfully, and he was pretty sure he was going to get laid.

A guy in a leather jacket and tight jeans maybe a few years older than Mary stopped him on the street.

"Hey, man! I love your style."

Mary batted his eyelashes at him. "Thanks, dude."

"You ever think of dark modeling?"

Mary squinted his eyes at him.

"Dark what now?"

"You know—modeling but like," he gestured up and down Mary’s form, "for dark beauties. Show the world beauty isn’t cookie cutter."

"For like what? A website or some shit?"

The guy dug into his pocket, pulled out a card case, and handed one to Mary.

Heroes Greg Karson, Photographer/Web Design Butera School of Art

Actually, Mary had heard of this. It was a zine about the local happenings around town—concerts, art shows, parties, etc. There was a stack of them next to "Rrriot!" in the record shop. He’d flipped through one occasionally, mostly interested in the band reviews.

"We’re really on the lookout for anyone with the right look. You know, wear stuff you already own."

"So like a street fashion spread?"

"Well, we might do a little more with it, but—you know how it is. Most of the budget goes toward printing costs."

Mary perked up.

"Would I be paid?"

Greg laughed.

"Peanuts, my dude. But yeah. Even if it’s a T token. You interested, then?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Mind if I take a few test shots."

Mary smirked at Greg.

"How do you want me?"

"Just natural."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Mary arched his back and gave Greg his best snotty hipster face.

Greg dug out a digital camera from his carrying case and took a dozen or so pictures of Mary from different angles while telling him to turn this way or that.

Afterwards, the two of them huddled over the camera and scrolled through the shots.

"Aw yeah, this one. I love the attitude. The guys are gonna love it. You have a number where we can reach you?"

Mary gave him the number of the record shop. (His apartment had a phone, but he’d never gotten around to wanting to pay for service.)

Later, he and Amber looked up the Angelfire website on the back of the card. It was one page that contained the mission statement, bios of the creators, and locations to pick up the zine.

"Omigod—you’re gonna become a famous model, Mare!"

"Yeah, right. You know most of it ends up in the trash, right?"

But when Ben called, Mary said he was game. He directed Mary to a co-op in a converted warehouse in Dorchester, and Mary brought his favorite clothes in a borrowed duffle.

A girl in cat pajamas opened the door and pointed at a set of metal stairs with her cereal spoon.

On the second floor, Mary found Greg setting up a makeshift studio. A girl with multiple piercings and yarn dreads leaned against the wall in her black babydoll dress.

Mary sidled up to her.

"You here to model, too?"

She gave him an unimpressed once-over.

"I’m the art director, asshole."

Mary flushed hard as she turned to Greg.

"Couldn’t find one with brains?"

She turned back to Mary.

"I don’t know if you thought this would be a good way to meet chicks or what, dude. But I’m letting you know right now that I’m here on my day off to make sure this adheres to our aesthetic, so if you're not serious, fuck off."

Mary rubbed the back of his neck.

"Shit, sorry. I was expecting a dude named Ben."

She waved her hand in the air as if dispelling Ben.

"The Bens are morons. Good idea, terrible execution. I’m here to make sure we remain true to the idea of 'Heroes,' so don’t fuck up my shoot." She gave him a once over. "Christ. You have any experience?"

Greg turned from where he was testing the white balance.

"Angelique, stop harassing the talent. We get it, you have a degree from RISD."

Angelique snorted.

"As if I don't hear you going on and on about being a professional photographer. 'Hey, lemme shoot your portfolio, baby.' Whatever. As if we're not your only professional credit."

"Hey��you wanted a photographer for peanuts? You got me. You wanted models for peanuts? You got him."

Mary gave her his full snaggle-toothed grin.

"I take T tokens."

Angelique sighed, then pasted on a smile.

"Hi! So happy you’re here!" Her smile drooped. "You got your wardrobe in there?"

"Yeah."

Mary handed her the duffle, and she handed him release forms.

"Here: sign these"

She pawed through his offerings.

"Not bad, not bad." She pulled out a corset and his heeled boots. "We'll keep you in your jeans and have you wear your jacket over your corset. Cool?"

Cool.

The shoot was as professional as a shoot in a warehouse in what Mary was taking to usually be a living room could be. Angelique directed Greg with what she wanted. Greg called out positions and expressions for Mary to pose in.

It was surprisingly hard work, and by the end of a solid hour, his smirking lip was getting tired. Angelique and Greg scrolled through the shots, murmuring to themselves and nodding.

Mary waited—greeting at the other inhabitants as they squeezed by on their way either up or down—until Angelique approached him.

"That’ll do. You mind if we post on our website?"

Mary preened.

"Yeah, that’s kosher."

She handed him a pen and pocket notebook.

"Write down a quick bio."

He scribbled down a quick elevator pitch

Into general skulking and metal \m/

and handed the notebook back to her.

"Great, thanks."

She handed him a $20 bill, her eyes skimming him up and down.

"Next time we should show off those hip bones. Just jeans, I think."

Mary perked up. "Next time?"

"We’ll call you."

***

"Omigod, omigod!"

Amber perched on the record store counter, flipping through "Heroes," as Jon peered over her shoulder.

"Mary…look at you!"

Mary tried to swallow his smug smile.

Failed.

"Yeah. I’m hot shit, ain’t I?"

She bopped him on the nose with the newsprint.

"Don’t be vain."

He showed her his toothy smile.

"I like to think of it as confidence."

"So did Icarus."

Mary snorted and went back to putting prices on the new CDs.

"The camera loves you," said Jon, who was always quiet and reserved as you please…until he put on Frank’s corset and heels.

Mary had tried flirting with him, but Jon always ducked his head and played it off.

"Thanks, man," said Mary, giving him a softer smile.

"So??"

"So what, Amber?"

"Are you gonna do it again?"

Mary shrugged.

"I mean, if they call me, sure."

But he was kind of hoping they would.

When the next issue came out weeks later, Mary stared at the cybergoth on the pages and felt himself deflate. Listlessly, he thumbed through the delicate print, barely skimming the section devoted to the World/Inferno Friendship Society’s set he’d been at the week before.

He set it down with a sigh before he picked up his guitar and plucked out a tune he was trying to coax into a riff.

By the time a Ben called again, Mary had given up the modeling thing as a one-off.

"Hey, dude—thought maybe you guys forgot about me," Mary said in a teasing tone.

The Ben on the other end chuckled.

"It’s like herding cats to get shit out. Nah, dude—we definitely want you to be one of our regulars. You in for next Saturday?"

He was.

***

Over the course of a year, "Heroes" had Mary come out multiple times for shoots. Mainly, Mary wore his own clothes and did his own makeup, but occasionally, Angelique wanted something specific.

"How comfortable are you with boudoir shots?"

"With what?"

"Like a pinup, but more…saucy than sexy."

I'd pose nude if you paid me enough.

(Sure, he was a noodle boy, but he knew he had the goods.)

"Yeah, I’m cool with that."

Angelique brightened at him.

"Great!"

She picked up a set of complicated leather garters and thrust them at him.

"Put these on."

Mary had only ever worn lace garters—mostly out to clubs, but occasionally under his ripped jeans for an extra pop—but he found he liked these even more, liked the way they emphasized his thighs.

"Hey—where’d you get these…?"

(He was already thinking of what he could pair them with for goth night.)

"Local leatherworker. He mostly does pieces for Renn Fairs, but he'll also do custom. I can give you his info."

She led Mary into what was clearly someone's bedroom.

"Don't fuck anything up, or Joye will never let us use this again."

Mary shot her his best shark smile.

"Hey, I only mess up the sheets if someone asks."

Angelique gave him a flat look and called for Greg.

(But when he draped himself over the bed and told Greg to "Paint me like one of your French girls," Mary could have sworn she almost smiled.)

On one memorable occasion, she brought in a guy whose rope bondage demo she watched at a sex convention.

"Put on some of that lingerie and we'll truss you up. You ok with that, Goore?"

Mary ran his fingers over the coils and gave her a wolfish smile.

"You know I'm game for anything."

She gave him a vulpine smile of her own then, and she looked down at him from the height of her platformed boots.

"Good. I thought you should be submissive for once."

Mary had no witty rejoinder for that.

He listened with interest as the guy carefully explained what he was going to do, complete with pictures, and he relaxed easily into the process. (They put bunny ears on him, and it would be much, much later that he got that particular joke. Well played, Angelique.)

The ropes hadn’t let him do much posing, but Mary had kind of liked the constriction, and his thoughts were already on asking Amber to help him create a more versatile version for fetish night.

He’d left that day with a new kink…and the guy’s number.

"Why not just do one big shoot?" he asked another time. "Get it all done in one big bang!"

Angelique held up his garments to eyeball over him.

"Honey, we never even know if there's gonna be a next issue. The Bens spend most of the time arguing. My god you should hear them—Ben bankrolls the whole thing, so he says he should get final say on shit, and Benji wants total artistic control because it was his idea, because 'he's the graphic designer', and because it's his Kinko's employee discount they use."

She gave Mary a curled-lip smile as she tossed a few items at him.

"In the end it's this bitch you're looking at who gets shit done."

Mary began to change (they were long past modesty).

"How'd you get involved?"

"Went to school with Benji."

"Ben too?"

"Neg. The Bens are childhood friends. Ben works some cushy start-up job, so Benji lets him bankroll them both. Rent, utilities—everything. I love Benji to death, but he's a giant mooch."

"Shit, that must be nice."

Angelique shrugged. She stood back to appraise Mary's look.

"It's fucking lame. But it least it gets us fucking paid."

Mary didn't say I'd do this for free. Instead, he struck a pose and said, "I'm just happy for the exposure."

Angelique rolled her eyes and went to fetch Greg.

***

That year and a half would become a nonstop party with Mary as one of the VIPs; he wouldn't say no to anything—be it casual sex, club appearances, or whatever drug the current pretty thing was offering him in the bathroom.

But recognition started slow.

At first, it was customers who would leaf through the zine and recognize Mary.

Then, it was the occasional scenester who’d stop him on the street in JP as he walked about, and Mary would pose for grainy cell phone pics.

Soon, he was being approached at shows and clubs. The first time it happened, Mary was high off his new infamy and ready to please. A woman in a black bandage bra and pleated skirt with bondage straps approached him, and Mary was already thinking of what he could do with those.

"You look like that guy in ‘Heroes’!" she'd shouted to him over the music.

Mary had flashed her a crooked smile and leaned in.

"Maybe I am the guy in ‘Heroes’."

She'd given him an exaggerated once over before sidling closer with hooded eyes.

"I dunno…you're wearing way more clothes."

Mary had pulled his mesh top down by the collar in a tease as he'd curled over her.

"Take me somewhere more private and I’ll let you do a comparison."

She'd compared him all night.

And that was before he and the other "Heroes" models formed their own posse.

The Bens had thrown a BBQ and had invited everyone they'd ever met. There were people packed into their little 2 bedroom in Brighton, spilling down the back stairs, and equally packed into the little square of shared backyard. Ben had taken the 12-pack of 'Gansett beers Mary had brought, then introduced him to the other dark models.

"Now you're all here!" said Ben. He slung his arm around Mary. "Guys, this is Mary. Mary this is Mayhem, Lesley, Lola, and Bryan."

Mayhem was a rivethead, and Mary took to him instantly, but he was wary of the others. Lesley was the cybergoth who'd been in the first issue after him, and Mary still felt a bit salty at them, even though Mary knew by now the Bens rotated the models. Lola, the romantic goth, reminded him enough of Vanity that he felt guilty for losing touch with her and had him projecting a little. Bryan was a metalhead, so: competition.

Mary had thought they'd get along like cats and water, but weed, booze, and "Never Have I Ever" went a long way to creating a shared bond.

And there it was again. That pull. The magnetic force telling him that he'd found the place he was supposed to be. They quickly coalesced into their own pack, calling themselves the "Deathbutantes" (because they always killed it when they debuted for the night).

It had been rare for Mary to miss Friday and Saturday night shenanigans with the Rocky crew, but now, every night was Friday night. There was always a show or a concert or club that one of them knew about—and if they couldn't get lucky with the local color, they'd just go home with each other.

Mayhem taught Mary what Lola jokingly called the "grab a bat" dance, and the two of them cut quite the picture on the dance floors.

Lesley took to Lola, and the two of them could always be counted on for scintillating conversation in dark corners when Mary's limbst needed a break from flailing about.

The clubs weren't really Bryan's scene—take him to a sticky hole in the wall with concrete floors and a stage close enough to feel the sweat from the bands, and he was in heaven—but he liked to come along to hang. He'd drink PBRs, rub Lola's feet when she invariably abandoned her heels for the evening, and argue with Mary about the purity of death metal.

Mayhem and Lola weren't really into live music of the screaming kind, so—while Lesley, Bryan, and Mary bounced off each other in the mosh pits—they'd save a "home" base at one the bartops.

Amber noticed Mary's diminishing presence and stopped by the record shop to call him out.

"So you're not dead! Could've fooled me."

Mary was organizing the albums into order, and he grunted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a cad. I'll make it up to you."

"You missed game night."

"Sorry. Jethro Tull played some tiny venue in nowhere Mass, and Bryan was salivating. I mean, Jethro Tull. Can you blame me?"

He looked at her, arms out wide in supplication. But she just blinked at him.

"You have no idea who Jethro Tull is, do you?"

"Sorry, dude. But christ, Mare. You should have invited me. I'd've gone. Maybe I would have even liked them. Now you'll never know."

"I could just lend you an album."

"Nope! The moment passed. Too late!"

Mary riffled through the stock and shoved a Jethro Tull CD into her hands.

She tapped it against her thigh.

"So, when do I get to hang?"

"I can get us into 80s night free."

"No, I mean, with your cooler friends. Your 'murder models', or whatever."

"You wanna hang out with the Deathbutantes?"

Amber scrunched her nose.

"That's so fucking pretentious."

Mary kind of liked it.

"Dunno if they're really your scene."

"Oh? And what's my scene?"

"Musical theater on crack."

She mock gasped at him, "Called out!" before smacking him with the CD. "Whatever. You love musical theater on crack."

Mary draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, I do. But I don't live it, you know? You guys have your niche—and fuck…I love to visit—but it's not mine."

Amber looked up at him, her expression serious.

"So the Dumbutantes are your niche?"

Mary shrugged and went back to shelving.

The Rocky crew had been good to him. They'd taken him under their wing, no questions asked, and helped him realize things about himself. Tim had taken him to the ER when Mary had come down with a serious case of the flu. Matty had taught him the basics of sewing. Gretchen had held him after a bad trip. Omar and he had had many drunken heart-to-hearts about their shitty home lives.

And Amber was his best friend. She'd been his #1 cheerleader for years and had never been afraid to call him out on his shit.

So yeah, he loved the Rocky crew…but they laughed at anyone who took anything too seriously. Mary would show up to game nights in his latest creation—with everyone else in pjs or jeans & hoodies—and they'd tease him about trying to impress the wrong people. He'd try to talk about the newest guitar god he'd been mainlining, and they'd make snoring noises at him.

How could he explain the kinship he felt with the Deathbutantes? That they were as serious about music as he was, that they just…got why he felt the need to dress the way he did to express the way he felt inside on his outside.

Instead, he said, "I'm just trying shit out, Ambs." He quirked his eyebrow at her. "I gotta do something while you guys do your real-person jobs."

(Amber had recently started as a junior marketing assistant at the American Repertory Theater. "Purely mercenary," she'd said. "Maybe it'll give me a leg up during auditions.")

She made a disgruntled scoffing noise in the back of her throat.

"Fuck, don't remind me. I actually gotta go to bed a reasonable hour now."

"Don't worry." Mary winked at her. "I'll keep ya honest."

"That sounds a lot like my head in a toilet, Mare."

"I'll hold your hair back."

She gave him a good-natured shove, and he pretended to cower.

If she wanted to cross pollinate, who was Mary to stand in her way? So, he invited her out the next time the Deathbutantes went to a show, and it went exactly like he thought it would.

They disliked her, and she was equally unimpressed. They thought she was too loud and frenetic, and she thought they had no sense of humor.

"I fucking told you," Mary had snorted as they sat on the curb sharing a clove.

"Shut the fuck up, Mare."

But she'd put her head on his shoulder.

"They make you happy, though. So I guess I approve. Just as long as I don't have to play nice."

Mary still hung out with the Rocky crew—there were still game nights and drug-fueled sex parties and theater games—but the Deathbutantes introduced him to the underground scene. They always seemed to have insider knowledge about the best up-in-coming bands and the secret shows. Theme nights at the goth clubs were always a must, and they rarely missed one. Sometimes, Angelique would crash, and they'd take the commuter rail to Providence to party at Club Hell before collapsing in a sweaty, smeary pile at a friend of a friend's hole in the wall.

As a bit player in the Rocky crew, Mary had been another made-up face in the crowd. As a certified member of the Deathbutantes, Mary became the face.

They all did.

The owners loved them because they bought round after round at the bar, and if word got out that the Deathbutantes were there, their admirers came to spend money as well. The employees loved them because they were fun and talked to them as equals. The clientele loved them because they were pretty young things.

Sometimes, though, Mary wasn't in the mood to party or get laid, so he talked to the DJs instead. He'd buy them rounds and stay past closing to help them pack up while they talked about the history of punk and 80s new wave and nu metal. There was one in particular, Dave, that Mary even considered a friend.

The two of them would sit in the club past closing, sharing a whiskey and talking about life while the bartenders closed down and cashed out. Occasionally, Dave's other friends would be around, and they'd all walk back to his place; he'd fool around spinning in his home studio, and they'd drink box wine as they danced and laughed before Mary would have to sit on the ground in an intoxicated exhaustion, good for only thumbing through Dave's vinyl collection.

Mary was just happy to talk shop with another music aficionado, but Angelique had pointed out that he should leverage his minor clout.

They'd been waiting for Greg to finish setting up, and Mary had been struggle city after a particularly hard night out. It was all he could manage to sit there quietly and hope some god would put him out of his misery.

"You need to get your shit together," Angelique had said out of nowhere.

Mary had cracked a puffy eye and had slowly (as to not bring the nothing in his stomach back up) turned his head to her.

"As if I haven't seen your melted ass on the floor wanting to die."

"Fuck, Mary. You've turned it into an art form."

He'd closed his eyes and given her the finger, but that hadn't stopped her.

"You wanna be a rockstar, boy? You can't just sit on your ass and hope the right person on the right night hears you. You're effervescent and charismatic—heads turn when you walk into a room and not just because of your skinny jeans—but you need more than air, Mary, which is all you are right now."

"Fuck you, Angela."

She'd clapped in front of his face, and she was lucky he didn't Exorcist bile all over her.

"You're a fucking pain in my ass, Goore. I'm doling out the good stuff, try not to bite my hand off, k?"

"All right, all right!"

"You wanna start that band? You wanna get play and amass fans? Well, make that demo you're always droning on about and give it to those DJs you're alway fanboying over. Fucking network, Goore."

At the time, Mary had been too hungover to care, but her advice would sink in…

Eventually.

For the time being, Mary was content. He loved the attention, and it made him feel invincible, made him feel like it was finally His Time. And he was going to make up for every slight, every unfair situation, and every beat down with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

With his newfound nightlife, Mary's day job had become an afterthought. He started sleeping through opening shifts, but with the extra foot traffic Mary brought to the store, his boss seemed resigned to let Mary slide (after a stern talking to and a pay docking).

The shadow cast had started using him as a mascot of sorts, and he was happy to show up on Saturday nights and hype up the waiting line with a pseudo striptease. (Even if it was sometimes to kick off his evening with the Deathbutantes and not hang with the cast after.)

Mary started a band ("auditioning" any and all of the many admirers who said they’d be more than happy to join it), and after a few false starts and a couple of lineup changes, they began working on an EP. (At least, when Mary showed up to rehearsal, they did.)

A Boston Phoenix reporter got wind of the Deathbutantes and called around about doing a story on them. The Bens were excited about the exposure that meant for their zine, and Angelique and Greg were excited about what it could mean for their careers. Mary did a brief interview over the phone where he answered questions about his style and talked about his dream of making his band a household name.

Mary saw his name up in lights, and he was reaching for it, full speed ahead.

But then things turned.

The story fell through at the last minute with no further explanation or contact by the reporter.

His boss finally fired him after Mary showed up too high to function too many times—or not at all.

The shadow cast had a turnover, and suddenly he was old news—a cringey hanger-on.

A trip to the clinic and a round of antibiotics for an STI had him way more wary of who he hooked up with.

"Heroes" lost momentum when imitators popped up and Ben cut off the gravy train.

Angelique moved to NYC for "better opportunities," and the Bens took their brand of counterculture to Portland, OR.

Greg took down the website when he got offered a legit job as an apprentice at a food magazine, and that was that.

The physical zines were cheap things, most ending up papering the sidewalk after trash day or lining the bottom of cages. Without the online presence, did Mary's "modeling career" even exist?

Mary was a little sad to see the era go, but when he woke up in Maine on the hood of some girl's car and only a hazy recollection of how they'd gotten there, he was beginning to see Angelique's point. He needed to get his shit together if he was ever going to become a rockstar. And frankly, he kind of felt like he needed to spend an entire month eating carrots and hydrating.

The 24/7 party had always been an ephemeral thing; it had been sand passing through his hands in a finite amount as he'd tried to hold onto it

He put himself on detox, and waking up sober for the first time in months felt like a revelation. And as it turned out, playing the guitar without badly shaking hands was way, way easier.

He found another job in another music store, and his starter!band was bringing butts into the smaller venues, like Toad.

He still had his old Rocky friends and the Deathbutantes. The club and venue owners still let him in for free, and Dave was always happy to give his demos a spin. By anyone's else's measure, he was steal one of the scene's darlings.

But Mary was beginning to realize that he needed to stop seeing himself as that scared kid who’d arrived in Boston 4 years ago with only a backpack, $72.57 to his name, and void where his family should be.

He needed to stop finding people to please into loving him.

Instead, he needed to live for himself and let them love him for who he was—fuck ups and all.

@slimylayne

Epilogue

"Honestly, that’s probably the reason I even got a band together," he says. "I was still kind of shit at guitar, but people came to see ‘Model Mary’ perform in his underwear."

He shoots me a smirk.

"I’m sure there’re pictures out there of me looking more glam than metal. I kind of played up the whole pinup thing for a while."

"Fuck, I would kill, literally kill to see that."

He pulls me into his lap until I’m straddling him.

"I could open up my underwear drawer and show you right now."

"Goore, you temptress."

I lean down to kiss him, and his hands sneak under my shirt, but I pull away again.

"I kinda thought I knew all your torrid secrets by now. Shit, how come Dave's never needled you about it?"

After 2 years with him, I’m surprised I hadn't even heard a peep from his oldest friend.

Mary snorts.

"Dave would miss shit hanging off his nose. Great dude, amiable as fuck, but he's always had fucking tunnel vision for his music."

I smirk at him.

"Sounds like someone else I know."

Mary pulls a face at me, and I apply kisses to every line until he laughs and bats me away.

"But really, Mare—how come you never told me about your brief career in blue steel?"

He blows out a breath, his hands smoothing up my thighs.

"Fuck. Cuz maybe I was a little embarrassed at how off the rails I was then, ok? Didn't want you to know what I fuck up I was." He takes my hand and kisses my palm. "And even I know it's a shit move to pitch woo at someone by telling them about banging half of Boston."

I make a face at him, and he laughs.

"Yeah, that’s what I thought."

His hands rest on my waist.

"Christ, everything about that year's a bit fuzzy, and it was like 10 years ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else, honestly. And shit—most of those people aren’t even around anymore. College kids who moved on and 20-somethings that grew up and moved who knows where. I used to watch Amber have—what is it when it’s four people?—and now she lives in bumblefuck Pennsylvania with 3 kids. After she left, I just kinda drifted away from all that."

He shrugs, his eyes downcast.

"I’m sorry, Mare," I say as I smooth his eyebrows.

He shrugs again.

"I mean, we all kinda keep in touch. It's like the only reason I have Facebook."

"When was the last time you even signed into that?"

Mary grins at me.

"Lola's birthday."

"One of the models? What happened with them?"

Mary bites his lip and thinks.

"Mayhem found religion after an OD and kinda ghosted everyone. Lesley followed a girl to New Hampshire. Uh…Lola pursued a PhD for something sciencey involving renewable energy with sugar beets in Idaho, and Bryan moved back to Florida to care for his grandma, who raised him."

Mary leans his head back on the couch and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I mean, shit. We were fucking babies back then. Head empty except for a good time and unlimited potential."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"You miss it?"

His eyes pop open to look at me.

"Fuck no. Not for a million dollars. Too many question marks." His eyes glint as he runs his hands down me. "I like what I got going on right here."

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and kiss his forehead. The fucking sap.

Mary picks up my phone and scrolls through the pictures again.

"Fuck. I used to be goddamn adorable, though. Half this shit wouldn’t even fit me anymore."

I squish his little potbelly, and he grunts at me indignantly.

"Do you still have any originals?" I ask.

He shakes his head, his eyes wistful and his smile sad.

"Nah. Got destroyed when my roof collapsed and leaked everywhere. Fuck, landlords are useless. Glad we fucking own now, babe."

He scrolls up, scrolls back down.

"Just these four?"

I nod.

"Yeah. They were the only ones I found—and I did a lot of searching."

"Christ, I think there were at least 10."

I smile ruefully at him. "It’s not gonna be long anyway before they make their way into the popular tags and shit starts coming out of the woodwork."

He tosses my phone onto the table.

"Whatever. Just shows that I’ve always been cool."

And then he’s kissing me again, his hand tangling in my hair.

"You know, I’m your family now, Mare. Just for you."

He brings my hand up and kisses it.

"Fuck, I know that. Why’dja think I put a ring on it?"

[loudsuitlover]

Doctor Harry XIX. Cuarto movimiento: La realidad

A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Preview

“You take off your clothes.” He whispers. “If you’re brave enough to wear that around me, you should be brave enough to undress yourself in front of me.” He smirks.

My eyebrows raise on my forehead and I give him a little smirk. He chuckles.

“D’you want a show?”

He grins as he nods, resting his back on the couch.

“And what do I get in return?”

“Oh, you’ll find out after the show.”

BLUE’S POV

Coco and I are late. When we enter the café, I tell the waitress Olivia’s name and she leads us to our table. The three of them are already sitting on the table and Ollie smiles relieved at our presence. She might be really hungry or maybe she just doesn’t know what to do about Marie and Jason.

They had a fight the other day. Apparently, it had to do with David Dick. Marie said something bad about it, also known as the truth, but Jason said she shouldn’t be talking about him to people who didn’t even known them. I have stayed out of this. No one has asked for my opinion either, thank God, so I’m just on backstage, waiting for them to make up.

The second Coco and I sit down, Ollie waves the waitress. She tells us we can think what we want while they order but I already know what I want anyway. A strawberry milkshake and the Nutella croissant. Coco orders a waffle and a vanilla milkshake and Marie gets surprised at our quickness. I just smile at her.

I tell them about the wedding while we eat and they keep swooning and making comments that make me blush. I show them the hundreds of pictures we got, for his mum and his cousin Laura had been stealing shots at us and also the photographer of the wedding thought it important to get pictures of the bride’s brother.

“Jesus Christ, he looked good.” Ollie says.

I laugh and she gives me a naughty smile.

“So do you, of course.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“No, seriously, Blue” Coco insists “you looked like a movie star.”

I don’t know how many times Coco’s seen the photos but she’s always been the supportive sister and ever since she’s in love, it’s just been something else. She’s so happy she has enough bliss to give the rest of us.

“Can you believe” Ollie says when she comes back from the loo “that I’ve forgotten to put on knickers?”

“What do you mean you’ve forgotten?” Coco laughs.

“I’m just not wearing any.” She shrugs.

“And you realize now?”

“When I went to the loo.”

Marie shakes her head with a smile and I chuckle at my friend’s careless being.

“Yeah and she would have been terribly late if I hadn’t called her.” Marie says. “It looks like she had a busy night with Mario.”

Olivia smiles.

“Right, because Adam and you were surely asleep at 9 pm.”

Jason laughs out loud.

“So Indie, what time did you go to bed last night?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Actually, pretty early. I think it was like 10 pm and I slept alone. In my own bed.”

“Oh, did Harry have work?”

“No” I chuckle “he was home, I guess. We don’t spend every minute together, you know?”

JJ shrugs.

“If I were with a man who could pull off a white fucking suit like Harry, I know I would be with him every minute.”

Then it’s me who shakes my head and laughs.

We haven’t been out all together since last week when we went shopping and even then, Jason wasn’t there so it feels like ages that we don’t just chat around and have something sweet together.

Marie tells us about her grandparent’s golden wedding too and we all drool over the pictures because they look so adorable.

“¡Madre mía, Marie!” My sister says. “You look so good too! Look at that red dress! Where was the red carpet, madam?”

Marie blushes and giggles and Jason smiles tenderly at my sister. I see the way Olivia’s looking at her, with her teasing smile, and I know Coco’s in for some Olivia jokes.

“Guido must be good.”

Coco’s confused eyes drift to Olivia’s.

“Or have a huge dick.”

My sister clicks her tongue and shakes her head giving our crazy friend a look but she just smiles.

“If it has anything to do with genetics” she starts “that should be the case.”

We all laugh and my sister’s cheeks tinge pink.

“Oh my God, it is!” Jason celebrates.

He seems so happy. He’s been laughing and joking around and even though sometimes he still gets a little into his own head, I reckon he’s gotta have to deal with a lot of thinking these next months. I remember when Javier and I broke up, it was like that for me too. Yet that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I wish him and Marie would make up. They are good for one another. They complement each other like sweet and sour and I know Marie’s sorry. I can tell by the way she looks at him.

After breakfast, the five of us go shopping. I’m not a big fan of shopping, to be honest, I get headaches and hate trying clothes on but these guys love it so that’s what we’ll do. Coco and Ollie are a very dangerous duo. If it wasn’t for the rest of us, they’d be in debt by now.

They make Jason walk into Agent Provocateur even though he tries to remind us that he’s actually bisexual and can’t really give his opinion on this without getting killed.

“You can keep saying you’re bisexual, you know? But you’re gay, pal.” Olivia says.

“Again, the fact that I am not sexually attracted to you does not make me gay.” Jason smirks.

“No, I know, it’s the fact that you always look at guys.”

“I look at girls too. I just don’t tell you about it.”  

“And who exactly would kill you?” I tease him, changing Olivia’s crusade on making him gay. “Mario and Adam are teddy bears, Guido’s shorter than you and Harry’s not jealous.”

He laughs.

“D’you think Harry wouldn’t mind if I saw you in lingerie?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

Jason smirks. I know it might be hard for him to understand but he is a jealous guy. He knows that, we all do. But Harry isn’t or if he is he handles it like a master and I think that’s the most beautiful thing he could do for me. I never understood why my friends in high school thought when their boyfriends acted like cavemen was something to be happy about. I mean I never really understood that well-trodden thought “he’s jealous because he loves me.” No. “He deals with his own jealousy and lets me be free because he loves me.” That’s how I see it.

“Should we get the same set?” Ollie asks Coco. “You know, in order to surprise the Matteoti brothers.”

My sister blushes and giggles and Olivia grins.

“I hope to God they don’t talk about that to each other.”

Olivia giggles.

“I used to think every man did but I actually think Mario doesn’t.”

“And you’re offended by that?” I offer.

Jason walks towards us swaying his hips like Beyoncé placing a bra over his sweater and the knickers over his jeans and Coco laughs and rushes to his side to stop him. The two of them go to the “funny section” where the crazy lingerie sets are.

I see my sister laughing at whatever it is that crazy Jason is telling her about the outfits.

“No, I just don’t know how he’s still with me.” Ollie says.

I frown as I turn to look at her.

“Hey, guys, do you like these ones?” Marie shows us a red lace crazy knickers with holes where fabric should be.

“I have no idea how you put those on.” Ollie shrugs.

“What do you mean?” I interrupt her.

“I genuinely don’t know with these many holes, it’s-”

“No, I mean about Mario.”

“What about him?” Marie asks.

“She just said she doesn’t know why he’s still with her.”

“What?” Marie frowns.

We both look at Ollie, whose blue-grey eyes are busy with the underwear she’s holding.

“I just don’t know how someone that’s… such a saint can be with me.”

I look at Marie but she just shrugs and gives me her best pursed lips.

“I mean… You guys are very different but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I like him.” Olivia confesses. “I really do, what I don’t like is to constantly feel like I’m waiting for the moment he realizes he doesn’t want to be with me.”

“Why do you say that?” Marie frowns. “I think it’s rather obvious that he’s crazy about you.”

“Yeah,” Ollie tilts her neck “now.”

“You are wonderful and it might not work out but that’s that. Every single relationship might not work out but that’s when you show you’re brave. If you get hurt, well, here we are for chocolate ice-cream or popcorn and movies.”

“Thank you,” she chuckles “but that’s not even what I meant. You guys know I’ve… Fucked around.”

“So?”

“Guys don’t like to thrust their dicks in a public hole.”

Her words freeze my blood. I hate that she thinks so low of herself and I hate society for putting that idea on her mind. I can’t pretend I understand her and I don’t know what I would think if I were her so as much as I want to tell her that’s silly, it might not be. I mean it certainly isn’t if it’s something she really thinks but also, I feel bad and I feel bad because I have been a part of that thought, unconsciously but I have.

I told Harry I didn’t want to be another notch on his belt. Isn’t that the same thing? Only, with men. But didn’t I somehow make him less worth it just because he had been with a lot of girls?

“Don’t you ever speak that way about yourself again.” Marie threatens her.

I am taken aback by her reaction but I let protective Marie take the lead her. I am foolishly speechless.

“I won’t even comment on how degrading and sexist the “public hole” thing is because what’s important here is that you are not a hole, Ollie, for goodness’ sake. Do you really think Mario sees you like that?”

“This is not about Mario.” Olivia defends him.

“Still, don’t insult him by thinking so little of him.”

“And don’t think so little of yourself either, Ollie.” I add. “Fighting sexism starts with oneself, don’t be sexist to yourself, let yourself be free, yeah? And just for the record, if Mario ever left you, it’s clearly his lost.”

“So clearly.” Marie adds.

Olivia just chuckles and wraps her arms around both our shoulders, pulling us into a hug in the middle of the underwear store.

I want to tell her to talk to Mario, to let him in and let him hear how she feels and what she thinks so he can have a chance at telling her the same things about himself but I couldn’t bring myself to be such a hypocrite. How could I tell my friends to talk to their boyfriends when I never do that with Harry?

I mean, we’re getting better or at least I think we are but there are still so many things to work on. I don’t want to hurt him and that means I don’t ever want to talk to him like I usually do. I’ve been thinking so hard about it, since that day he insulted me when we were having dinner at Bellamond. It sounded so terrible and it made me feel so little and unwanted and stupid so to think that’s how he’s felt every time I’ve done it makes me very angry with myself.

I’ve already seen how easy it really is to talk to him. I did at Marie’s house after I said those terrible things to him and he hasn’t made a big deal of it. So then I don’t understand why it is so hard for me to talk to him about what I think, how I feel and what I want… Because the truth is- I want him. He already knows that, I think, but I don’t think he knows how I really feel about him.

I would like to maybe text him right now and tell him I miss him, because it’s true, I do. I’ve barely seen him this week because he went on a congress from Monday to Wednesday and after that we’ve both been busy but I don’t know what’s holding me back. Am I really that scared of rejection?

I can’t get our fight on Marie’s house of my head. I think he let me know that night that he was addicted to me but he didn’t mean it like a good thing. He was sad that I was. I keep thinking lately… Did Javier really break that much?

What if that relationship has turned me into an abuser? I can’t believe I called Harry a junkie. I just… And then what? Then I cried so he would forgive me? I mean that’s what they do. Am I toxic to him?

I know ever since Dylan died I haven’t really been myself. I don’t even like the person that he left behind. I have felt… Empty and cold and heartless, I really have but… That has changed now. It has changed. But what if it has turned me into some sort of monster? What if I’m not capable of loving?

Out of all the people in the world who doesn’t deserve that, Harry’s the one who least deserves any of that.

“You can tell me.” Jason says.

We’re both sitting down on two velvety armchairs as the girls try things on. I give him a look.

“Whatever is troubling you, you can tell me.”

I sigh.

“Do you think I’m cold?” My eyes investigate his so he can’t lie.

“How do you mean?” His eyes narrow.

“I mean… Do you think… Do I remind you of David?”

“Of David?” He almost stands up from his chair as he frowns and turns to look at me. “You? Of course not! You’re nothing like David!”

“Well, you don’t know the way I treat Harry…”

Jason straightens his back before he sighs.

“Well, why don’t you tell me what you did so I can decide?”

“Because I’m embarrassed.” I shrug.

“You’re sorry, that’s what you are, which means you’re nothing like David.”

“What if I am? It’s not enough with being sorry, is it? The thing is never doing it again and I keep hurting him.”

“How?”

“I… I speak very harshly to him sometimes and I tell him terrible things… I… I don’t want to hurt him, you know? He’s become someone important to me, someone I care about. I would never hurt him and yet I keep doing just that and I don’t even know why.”

I look away from him and Jason sighs again.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

I tilt my neck to look back at him the moment he quotes The Perks of Being a Wallflower. He’s stern and understanding. I frown, I don’t know what the fuck does that have to do with anything of this but I listen because I love this guy more than I love most people.

“Indie” He reaches for my hand “is it possible that you do that when you feel like he’s getting too close?”

I look away. I don’t think it matters why I do it. I don’t think it would have hurt less that I had known the reason why Javier had me tied up on the bed. And what if the reason doesn’t have a solution? I mean what if the reason is my subconscious is trying to put him away from Dylan’s place? What do I do about that?  

“Indie, I can’t pretend I understand what it’s like to lose somebody you love as much as you loved Dylan-”

“I love Dylan.” I correct him.

“You love Dylan, sorry. But… Dylan… I mean… D’you think he would want you to be lonely?”

I don’t answer him nor do I look into his eyes that investigate me.

“Put on his shoes.” He whispers. “Imagine the story the other way, imagine you were him and he was yourself. What would you want for him?”

I let his words take me to that parallel world sometimes I wished it was the real one. If I had died that night, then Dylan would be here and if angels existed then I would be the one for him and I would look after him and protect him from whatever cloud angels get on the sky. But what if I saw him with another woman? What if I heard the same things he said to me said to her? What if he loved her more than he loved me? What would I be then?

I remember my therapist trying to sow that idea in my head- that we have to let go, that no person can live in the past forever, and that letting go doesn’t mean disrespecting. I wonder where’s the balance, I wonder if someday I’ll be able to find a way to feel good without feeling like I’ve forgotten all about him. But I know what I would want if I had been the one dead that night.

“I would want him to be loved.”

I feel tears on my lacrimal and Jason’s hand wraps around my arm and gently squeezes me.

“I know that’s what he would want to.” He whispers.

“I haven’t been able to go to his grave once.” I whisper. “I think if I could… Talk to him… Maybe let him now, I love him and I always will but… I think I love someone else.”

I hear Jason taking a deep breath and only then I realize what I just said. I tilt my neck so I can see his face. I don’t know what I’m expecting neither do I know why I’m expecting him to judge me. But he just smiles.

“I already knew that. Your face lightens up when he’s around or when someone talks about him. I saw that on Marie’s house the other weekend.”

I take a deep breath and give up. He’s right.

“Don’t worry, it’s the same for him. He treated you like a queen and was always looking after you and I think you guys understand each other pretty well.”

“We understand each other? We fight like cat and dog.”

“The way I see it, you’ve had your misunderstandings but you’ve always figured it out. D’you think any other person would have stick around long enough for you to figure each other out? And I’m not talking just about him, I mean, he’s got some issues too.” He frowns.

I finally chuckle. He does have some issues but they don’t come close to all the other good things he has.

“You know, I’m happy you got him. It makes it easier for me to finally do what I’ve always wanted.” He smiles.

“What is that?”

“The States.”

My mouth shuts. My lips pursed and I want to cry.

“The States? You’re leaving too?”

First Ollie and now him. No, no, no, there’s no way Marie and I are going to overcome this. They can’t leave; he can’t leave. I need him. My pulse accelerates. I never thought I was going to be losing my best friends so fast. He smirks and nods his head.

“I need it, Indie. I didn’t go because of David and he… He treated me like shit throughout the entire relationship and I didn’t lose you guys because you are fucking angels from another planet but I think I just need to go away for some time, figure myself out, do what I want for a change.”

I take a deep breath. I really need to stop being so selfish. I don’t even know how long for he’s planning on leaving but the least thing I can do as a decent friend is to support him not matter what. I’ll miss him, sure, but I won’t lose him just because he goes to another continent. He’d have to change his name and go to a secret location for me to lose him.

“If that’s what you want and what you think you need, I’m all in.” I smile. “I’m gonna fucking miss you but I’m happy that you’re doing your thing. I hope you know, even when you were with David, you never changed the person you really are and I think that says a lot about you. What happened to you was not your fault, it was his, and it could have happened to anyone. God knows we both know how they find the way to get into your mind. but you’ve always been more than what happened to you.”

He frowns despite his smile and I can tell that’s his way to try and hold back the tears. He wipes the ones that scape out before he holds my hand.

“I fucking love you.”

“I love you too.”

“And you call me dramatic but look at what speech you gave for three months that I’m leaving.”

“You’re leaving for three months?” I frown and he laughs. “Then why would you say it like that? I thought you were leaving for good.”

He laughs.

“And miss your wedding and your pregnancy with Harry’s babies? Never.”

“Hey, hop off the horse!” We both chuckle.

“Just be honest with him, Indie.” He tilts his neck. “You’ve got him here” he flexes his fingers to gesture a handful and taps a finger on it “and here” he taps a finger on his chest where his heart is and I smile. “Now, why don’t you get some sexy ass lingerie for him?” He wriggles his eyebrows. “The straight guy in me can help you decide.”

“You’re on.” I smile.

I try on about five of them. The girls are the judges but they all know I’ll end up choosing whatever I like. I never listen to advices when it comes about clothes. I know what I like and what I don’t and that’s that.

I do have a thing for underwear. It’s the only thing I actually enjoy buying so most of my underwear is cute and lace or silk or nice soft cotton but I do get excited at the idea of surprising Harry with something sexier than usual.

Maybe high stockings would do, I could wear a skirt and underneath it some high stockings hooked up to the waist of a lace bodysuit or something like that. I find a black lace one almost see through except from some parts strategically covered with the black flowery pattern, the cut between my legs and my nipples. The straps are silk and from the one around my waist, the two clasps for the stockings fall on my thighs. I love it.

After getting our underwear and going go with JJ to the male section of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, we finally sit down on a terrace surrounded by bags and have a drink. I order a Martini because I guess I’m feeling fancy after all and my friends order a sort of fancy cocktail each, except from Coco that goes with a beer. Her and Ollie are the ones who look fancier by far, Marie does too but in a way that lets you know she’s the good girl in the family, whereas Ollie looks like the one who’s always late to family meetings and Coco looks straight out of a magazine and yet there she is with a beer on her hand not caring about the contrast one bit.

In front of the terrace, there’s an Italian restaurant where there are two guys at the door, opening them for the clients. I have caught them staring at me more than once but every time I look the look away. I’m afraid I even have a boob out with all the staring but when I look down I realize I don’t. Jason’s sitting next to me and I wonder whether he’s noticed too or I’m just being paranoid. I look up at them and one of them look to the floor. Jason laughs.

“Geez, they could get a photo.” Jason says.

Alright, I’m not crazy.

“You’ve noticed too?”

“They haven’t taken their eyes off you since you sat down.” He chuckles. “And I’m sitting right here, I could be your boyfriend for all they know.”

Olivia tilts her neck and turns her head around being the blatant bitch she is before she gives me a smile.

“Well, they can keep trying, they’re trying to get in the place of an Armani underwear model.”

I roll my eyes and so does Marie. My eyes drift to her.

“You’re so exaggerated.”

“He could be one.” I defend him.

My friends and sister giggle and I blush but join in. It’s true, he could really be one and I miss him and want to see him.

Ollie’s call coincides with the moment Jason gets up from our table to go to the toilet and Marie gives my sister a smile.

“Coco, how are things with Guido? Are you happy?”

“Oh, I’m very happy.” She smiles. “I’ve never had this before, you know? Knowing my feelings are reciprocated. It just feels great.”

“Oh, I’m happy to hear that. You deserve someone like that.”

“So do you.” I tell Marie. “How’s everything with Adam?”

“He’s a dream.” Marie shakes her head. “I do worry that everything is too good.”

“Why?”

“Well, he’s so gentle and loving and caring… I keep thinking when it is going to end.”

“Why would it end? I mean, obviously there’s always like the first few months where everything is just perfect and all that and after that there’s more comfort and less romanticism but… Don’t worry about that. It’ll come naturally.”

“See? But that’s what I don’t want! I don’t want him to walk in the bathroom while I’m peeing or for him to see me with my hair on a towel and a face mask on.”

Coco giggles.

“Well, maybe not now, but it’ll eventually happen if you guys stay together for long enough.”

She looks away from us and takes a deep breath before she speaks.

“The other day he told me to leave some things at his place.” She all but whispers as if it was some sort of secret. “Well, he got micellar water even though he didn’t know what that was because I told him once that I couldn’t stay over at his house because I didn’t have my micellar water to wash my face.”

“Aw.” Coco rests a hand on her chest and Marie’s lips pursed.

I giggle.

“And why is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not a bad thing.” She shakes her head. “It’s just… Are we not moving too fast?”

“I mean he asked you to leave stuff at his house because you need stuff. It’s not like he asked you to move in. I stay over at Harry’s all the time.”

“Don’t you think I’ll freak him out when he realizes I’m a high maintenance girl?”

“I mean, Marie” Coco’s sweet tone makes my friend look at her “I think he might have an idea already?”

“I mean” I giggle “he’s been to your house.”

“Yeah, but my skincare is all carefully kept in the bathroom cabinet.”

“Well” I smile “I don’t think that’ll be a deal breaker.”

She sighs.

“Maybe some day you can let him in the bathroom while you do your skincare routine. I do not think he’s gonna be faced by that.”

Her brown, good-girl’s eyes investigate mine whilst she considers my idea. I can’t believe she actually think that would be a problem. Adam is crazy about him. I don’t think there’s anything she can say that would make him not want her.

Jason comes back before Ollie does but it doesn’t take her long to stand next to our table.

“Guys, this was a very lovely day” she starts “but I won’t lie to you. Mario just called me, he said he had a hard day at the hospital today and I want to cheer him up with incredible sex and cuddles so-”

“We did not need to know about the incredible sex.” Marie tells her but Ollie just smiles.

“And of course you can leave to be with your lover, Ollie, no need to explain anything to us.”

“Right.” She smiles. “Then see you, guys.”

With that she picks up her uncountable bags and leaves and Marie bites her bottom lip.

“I think I’m gonna leave too, guys. I have a skincare routine to share with someone special.” She smiles at Coco and me and we both laugh.

“What?” Jason chuckles looking at both Coco and me. “I’m kind of tired too, girls. Your shopping gave me a headache.”

“I’m pretty sure you bought more stuff than me.” I reprimand him but he just rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, I love you all. See you.”

Coco and I walk together to her car and on the way there we both chat about how the group has changed in just a few months. It’s like we’ve grown up more in this year than we have in the last five. Jason went out of a terrible relationship and came out being stronger and more confident than ever and he’s going to the States for that internship he wanted; Ollie’s finally moved on from Jack and her inner crisis and seems to be done with being insecure and afraid of love; lovely Marie found her knight in shinning armour and is living the dream; and even Coco and me left the past behind and meet someone great.

I might miss the way things used to be because they’ve been like that for a long time but… I think they’re only getting better.

I dare to do it, if Marie’s going to show her skincare routine to Adam and Mario called Olivia because he had a hard day and needed comfort, I can tell him.

Indie: Miss you x

I rest my phone on my thigh and look out the window trying not to torture myself if he doesn’t answer straight away. He might be busy, he might be asleep even or he might be with his family.

Harry: Fuck, I miss you too

I grin like a kid on Christmas morning. Harry’s typing…

Harry: Are you done with your friends?

Indie: Yes :)

Harry: Can I see you?

Indie: Yes :)

Harry: Bien

I giggle like a teenager and Coco tilts her neck to give me an amused look. She’s not used to it.

“Do I drive you home or directly to Harry’s?”

“Do you have plans?”

“I wanna go home to shower but I’m going out with Guido afterwards.”

“Are you taking the car?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind dropping me at Harry’s then? So I can shower and stuff before too.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Awesome. Thank you.”

Harry: Did you have dinner?

Indie: Yes.

Indie: Are you at home?

Harry: Yes, I am. Are you coming?

Indie: Are you inviting me?

Harry: You’re always invited, love.

Indie: Then how about I visit you in an hour?

Harry: Can’t wait xxx 

After the shower, I butter my body with my strawberry and vanilla body lotion and put on my new lingerie set before I put on some lip balm and mascara. I put on a terracotta colour soft woollen sweater and a high waist black denim mini skirt that covers my stocking so they look like normal tights.

I’m excited to see Harry but on the way to his apartment while Coco drives and tells me about some of Guido’s jokes that had her laughing last time they saw each other, the excitement turns into nervousness.

Will he think this is too much? Will he find it funny? Because I would be mortified if he does and after all, this is not a special occasion. It’s just a random Friday night. Oh, God, he might think I’m crazy.

As I stand on the lift to his apartment, my sister’s compliment on my outfit gives me some nerve. I mean it’s just Harry. If he finds it funny or thinks it’s too much, I can always play it cool and pretend it was a joke all along.

He’s waiting by the door with a big smile when the lift doors opened and I make my way towards him keeping both hands on my brown jacket. He takes it and places it on the couch before we make our way towards his living room.

“Would you like anything to drink?” He offers.

“Um, maybe a cup of tea?”

He smiles amused.

“I was thinking you were going to say something alcoholic because it’s a Friday after all but you always surprise me, Blue.”

I chuckle.

“How was your day?”

“Good.” He nods his head as he turns the kettle on and takes two cups from the cupboard. “I had lunch with my mum. She asked me about you.” He gives me a smile that melts me. “How was yours?”

“Good too. We had coffee and then went shopping until we were hungry so we had a dinner and then a drink.”

“Sounds like torture to me.”

I laugh at his comment.

“That is not true. I’ve seen your closet, you’re into fashion.”

He smiles dimply because he knows I’ve caught him. God, I have seen him smile countless times in the last five months but still it makes my heart skips a beat. I approach him when he’s giving me his back checking on the water in the kettle and when he turns his head for he noticed my presence, I’m inches away from him. He wraps his arms around me and understands what I want so he leans down and kisses me. I let my tongue tell him how much I missed him and he hums as it pushes between his lips and caresses his. His hands find my ass and I moan against his mouth but the kiss is sweet and tender and we only pull apart when the kettle whistles.

We sit down on the couch and have our cups of tea as he tells me more about his lunch with his mum and I tell him more about my day. He also tells me about his congress and about an interesting case he had this week and I realize then how easy it is to talk to him. I didn’t realize there were these many things I wanted to tell him until I had him in front of me.

He’s been very handsy too and I’m sure so have I even if I don’t notice, but his hands have never left my legs and I’ve been a little nervous that he might move them a little higher and realize what I’m wearing but so far, he’s just been respectfully caressing my knee or calves.

“How is Jason doing?” He asks.

I find it so sweet that he asks about my friends.

“He’s better. Yeah, I think he’s doing good. He’s going to the States though.” My hand finds its bicep as I try to catch his undivided attention even though I already have it.

“What do you mean he’s going to the States?”

“Well, it’s only for three months.” I turn the drama off a little. “It’s this internship he got while he was with David Dick, he said no because David wanted him to stay but apparently he’s gotten a second chance and he said yes this time.”

“Wow, that’s great. Your friends are as nerdy as you.” He giggles.

“I’m not going anywhere though.”

“Yeah, thank God.”

He grins and his hands find my hips before he pulls me closer until I’m straddling him. He captures my lips with his in a long peck. Still, somehow, he hasn’t seen my stockings. I peck his lips again.

“Nah, I’m kidding, I would be very happy for you if you were going abroad for an internship or something too. You know that, right?”

I nod my head.

“I would miss you a lot though.” I confess and he grins.

“I would miss you too.”

I kiss him again and he kisses me back in a long, loving kiss until I pull away.

“I haven’t asked you: what did you get today?”

I lick my lips and feel my cheeks heating up. I’m sure when women wear these things, they don’t feel so shy. Plus, I have no reasons to feel shy when all Harry’s done is worship my body. I don’t know why I’m even doubting myself. He’s going to love it.

“I can show you.” I whisper.

I can feel his heartbeat accelerating under my hand and smile. Every doubt I’ve ever had flees my mind as I grab a handful of my sweater over my belly and pull from it so as to get it out of the hem of my skirt. His green eyes drop to my hand and his hands adjust to my hips over him. He swallows.

When my sweater springs free from my skirt, I just pull it up so he can see my lingerie bodysuit over my belly and his fingers sink of my hips as his lips part.

“Fuck me.” He whispers.

My lips curl up into a grin as his eyes search mine.

“You perfectly know what you do to me.”

His hand squeezes my hip once and I almost moan but then he takes his hands off me and rests them on the couch next to his hips.

“Well, do you want to see it or not?” I whisper.

He nods his head but doesn’t say a word. His eyes challenge me.

“You take off your clothes.” He whispers. “If you’re brave enough to wear that around me, you should be brave enough to undress yourself in front of me.” He smirks.

My eyebrows raise on my forehead and I give him a little smirk. He chuckles.

“D’you want a show?”

He grins as he nods, resting his back on the couch.

“And what do I get in return?”

“Oh, you’ll find out after the show.”

His green eyes, playful and filled on lust, narrow and this time it’s my pulse that accelerates. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I rest my weight on him as I get up from his lap and find my phone still on my purse. I go on Spotify and play Love Is A Bitch by Two Feet and hand him the phone so he can hear the song better. His grin turns nervous.

I have never done this before and I have no idea of how to dance for an striptease but here goes nothing. I sway my hips slowly much like I do when I’m fucking him because I already know he likes it from the times we have danced together. His eyes are set on me but instead of feeling nervous, I feel sexy and hot and lucky that he’s looking at me like that.

I turn around and give him my back before I bend over sticking my ass in the air to get my shoes off. Barefoot, I turn around and unbutton and unzip my skirt pushing it down my legs and letting him see my mid-thigh stockings. The corners of his lips curl up and he silently mouths fuck me.

Funny, I’m thinking the same thing. I caress myself like I’d like him to do, starting with the sides of my thighs and my hips and then my belly and my flanks, pulling my sweater up. I cup my own breasts under the sweater and don’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bops as he swallows. Still swaying slowly to the music, I grab the hem of my sweater and take it off dropping it on the floor.

I stand before him on my lingerie and feel fire burning inside me as his eyes roam my body up and down. He’s shifted his position on the couch but I can intuit the bulge between his legs.

“Do you want me to go on?” I whisper.

He shakes his head.

“Come here.”

I do as I’m told and his touch cuts my breathing halfway. His hand sticks to the exposed skin on my thigh and lustfully moves up to my hip where he squeezes.

“You must be fake.” He almost chuckles and I do.

“I’m real” I rest one knee on the couch next to his thigh and resting my hands on his shoulders, I straddle him “and yours.”

“Fuck.”

His fingertips press on the back of my neck and our mouths find each other with greed. The way he’s looked at me and the way he’s touched me and how hard I can now feel him against the inner side of my thigh drives me crazy and I push my tongue inside his mouth hungrily. My eagerness takes him by surprise but he’s just as eager as I am judging by the strength of his tongue against mine and the squeezes of his hands on my flesh. He pulls away but my mouth follows his blindly.

“Calm down, love” he chuckles against my lips “we’ve got all night. Let me enjoy you.”

I pout but instead of getting another kiss, he grins. I can’t say I’m disappointed with the outcome of my pouting. I love that he still looks like a child when he grins even when he’s acting so much like a man, full of lust and need.

“How did I do?”

Grinning, he takes my hand and lets me feel his hard on. It excites me to the point that my walls clench. He’s so hard and so hot… I want him inside me now. No, I don’t want him, I need him.

“I had never done that before.” I confess.

“Are you serious?”

I nod timidly and he sighs.

“You’re a natural then. That was the hottest thing I have ever seen and this thing…” His fingers caress my bodysuit “fucking hell, Blue, I’m gonna be dreaming about this.”

I laugh.

“Now you have to show me what I get for it.”

He grins and licks his lips as he tilts his neck.

“Well, when did the show end? You did ask me if I wanted you to go on.”

“And you said no.” I frown.

“Because I don’t want you to take this off just yet.” His tongue licks my lips like a cat. “But… If you want, I would love to watch you first.”

“Watch me?” I frown. “Doing what?”

He grins. He takes my hand in his and brings them both to my sex making me cup my dripping lips myself. I breathe in through my nose. He’s so close to me and he’s smiling in the way that turns my insides into jelly and I’m so wet and so needy… I need some relief now.

“I want you to touch yourself for me, baby.”

“You mean… Right here on top of you?”

He nods slowly but his fingers move over mine and make me caress myself. He does that a few more times before he removes his hand and lets me work alone. I keep doing what he was doing before and press circles on my clit as my eyes set on him. His hands hold my hips to give me more balance and I slip my fingers underneath the soaked fabric. His eyes move from the place I’m touching to my eyes and stop at my breasts.

“Fuck…” He whispers. “How does it feel, baby?”

I slip a single finger inside before I get another one.

“It feels better when you do it.” I confess.

He squeezes my hips and pecks my lips.

“I can show you how I do it.” His lips press on the exposed skin over my bra and I feel a current of electricity on my body. “D’you want me to?”

I keep touching myself with lips part, enjoying his kisses and his whispers. I love how his voice turns deeper and raspier when we’re having sex. It drives me crazy.

“Why do you want me to touch myself instead of you?” I whisper.

“Because having you pleasuring yourself on top of me… Fuck, baby… You don’t know how sexy you are.”

I bite on my bottom lip but his thumb pulls from it liberating it. I look into his eyes.

“If you do that, I’m gonna burst.” He smirks. “Do you not touch yourself?”

“Yes, I do.” I move my fingers slowly against my clit because I’d cum already if the rhythm was any faster. “I guess it’s just… I’m nervous.”

“Why? You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that.” I gasp. “I do, I just… I want you.”

He grins and cups my breast on one hand making me moan.

“I’m right here, love. I just want you to cum like this first and then we can do whatever you want. Only if you want though.”

“I do want.” I stop him. “Just show me how you do it.”

He slips his own fingers the fabric of my bodysuit and guides mine.

“You have to start here” he covers the upper side to my clit, the part closer to my belly and presses slow circles “slowly, yeah, like that and don’t be nervous, baby. If you don’t cum on your own, I’ll help you.”

I half laugh half moan and he chuckles. I keep moving my fingers like he told me to do until I find a spot that sends electricity through my body. I start rubbing faster and the feeling is so good I almost don’t notice he removed his fingers.

“That’s right, baby, faster, faster.”

I feel the lower part of my belly tensing up and my nipples hardening and I moan as I relax my neck and throw my head back.

“Now stop.” Harry’s hand covers mine and stops my movement and I frown and give him a death glare that only makes him laugh. “And do it slowly again.”

I let him guide me and move my fingers against my clit watching him watch me. His eyes are fixed on my hand and my pussy and he’s biting his lip. God, this is so hot. I’m horny as hell.

One of his hands move from my hips to my inner thigh and he slips his fingers under the fabric again, slipping two fingers inside me and making me moan out loud.

“Fuck, I just wanted to see how wet you are.”

He moves his fingers slowly in and out of me and between that and my own stimulation on my clit I am afraid I might faint. I bite on my bottom lip again and he pulls from it with his thumb.

“What did I say?” He whispers as his fingers keep moving in and out of me so I bit my lip again so as not to scream. “You’re not really as good of a student as I thought.” He chuckles.

He gets his fingers out of me and I whimper making him chuckle again.

“You do it, baby.”

I curl two fingers inside of me and move them with the rhythm he was using and one of Harry’s hands squeeze my hip. I shut my eyes and gasp.

“Imagine it’s me, love.”

“Oh, God.”

When I open my eyes, I see he’s stroking himself over his jeans and my eyes drop to his bulge.

“You don’t know how much you’re turning me on, baby.”

No, he has no idea how much this is turning me on. I thought this was something only done in porn but this is fucking hot. Having him right here as I pleasure myself, hearing his voice thick with lust and knowing how much watching me is turning him on drives me crazy.

“You’re always so good with me.” He captures my earlobe between his teeth and pulls from it and I moan.

“Touch yourself, H.”

“D’you want me to?” His voice comes out strangled then and I feel the power he gives me burning my skin.

“Yes, like I’m doing.”

I hear his zipper going down and feel him lifting his hips from the couch to take his pants off. My eyes set on his hard length, already leaking precum, shinning and tight, and his fingers wrap around himself.

I try to take this time to focus on what he does to himself so I know how to touch him better next time so I slow the rhythm of my fingers for otherwise I’d finish already. Harry’s mouth attacks the side of my neck so I can no longer see him because my neck tilts back without my consent to grant him better access and he keeps kissing my skin.

“I’m not going to last long watching you, baby.” He whispers.

“Oh, God, I’m very close already, Harry… I fucking… This is so exciting.” I moan.

“Fuck me, keep talking.”

“Oh, Harry… I want you to cum so I can cum too but…” I can tell his pumping accelerates and so do my fingers. “It’s such a shame you’re not on my mouth like last time… You taste so good.”

A guttural sound cuts his breathing halfway and I feel a hot liquid spurt on my thigh. That sends me into overdrive and I moan until my throat stings. Harry’s hands hold my hips as I sigh and try to catch my breath and then I smile at him.

“Stop that or I won’t be able to stop fucking you.”

I laugh softly.

“Then don’t stop.”

He smiles mischievously at me and I know he was hoping to hear that.

“I can’t decide whether I want this off or not.”

He says staring down at my bodysuit and I laugh.

“I’m glad you like it.”

He doesn’t say anything, instead he just smiles before he leans in to capture my lips with his. We kiss intimately for a while and then his hands pull my hips down and he penetrates me slowly. He swallows my moans as he keeps kissing me lustfully but slowly, almost calmly.

His hands hold my ass and he lifts me and sinks me back down so he’s fully controlling the rhythm, a very slow, torturous one that lets me feel every inch of him as he stretches me on his way inside. I feel him so deep too, I don’t think he’s every filled me like this but I love it and I let him known, with moans and bites on his bottom lip.

“You like it slow, baby?”

I hum and nod my head and we kiss each other as if we were the only people in the world. Right now, he is to me.

“Spread your hips wider apart.” He whispers.

I do as I’m told and replace my knees further away from him. His hands hold me in place as he slowly pushes back in and I feel him paving his way through my channel inch by inch until our pubic bones touch and we both gasp.

“Oh, God.”

And we repeat again. He pulls out almost entirely and then sinks in again. He kisses me passionately and I press my body against his as if we could get closer. He captures my bottom lip with his teeth and pulls from it like I normally do with his and when my lip sets free from his prison, we both smile at each other. He fills me again and, in this kiss,, it’s me who pulls from his bottom lip. I have never felt more filled of him and of feelings for him, lust and love bubble and mix together inside my belly and burst in every kiss.

“Fuck, Harry, you’re amazing.”

I hear him giggling.

“Don’t laugh.”

He slaps my ass cheek and I jump a little.

“I’ll laugh if I want to.” He grins.

I smile too.

“You’re right. Don’t stop laughing. I love it when you do” I gasp as he fills me again, he rolls out “And I love your smile, you’re so handsome when you smile” when he fills me again, I tangle my fingers on his hair and pull from it “and your hair, I love your hair and your eyes, when you look at me…”

He shuts me up with a passionate kiss and I hope he understands how I feel about him through this intimate encounter.

“Blue…”

I wait for him to speak but he doesn’t say anything even though his hips don’t stop moving against mine.

“What?” I press him.

“Nothing.”

I would have insisted but his hips attack mine hard and it cuts my breath halfway. I cling onto his shoulders and he keeps thrusting inside me hard and fast. I pull from his hair and listen to our skins clapping together and the wet sounds of our intimate encounter. His hand cups and squeezes my breast and I arch my back and tense up as I cum again.

His thrusts become faster and sloppier until he cums himself and before I have time to react, he’s standing up and carrying me on his hips to his bed. He lies me on my back and smiles as he stares at me.

He spreads my legs opened and gets on his knees between them and his hands hold my ankle and place it on his shoulder before he unclasps my stockings and put them down my leg. He does the exact same thing with my other leg and caresses my entire body before he takes off my bodysuit.

He then hovers me and pecks my lips a few times before he pecks my nose and my cheeks and then my neck and my collarbones and he leaves kisses in every inch of my skin. I almost giggle when he kisses the spots that tickle and I feel a different type of excitement on my belly at his attention for these kisses aren’t even lustful, even though we’re both now naked. I feel adored and I feel cared for and wanted and I feel my heart about to explode with love for him.

He kisses my legs and from the inner side of my thighs he moves back to my belly, kissing my skin there again before he smiles at me.

“What do you want from me, Harry?”

“Everything.” He smiles as his face reaches the level of mine and he pecks my lips again. “I want everything from you.”

My breath catches on my throat. I want him, no, more, I love him. I love him. I swallow and play with his hair as I stare into his eyes.

“Careful what you wish for” I whisper “If you play with fire, you’ll end up burned.”

“I’m already burned.” He smirks. “And here I am.”

I smile but the smiles turns into an o as he thrusts inside me again. God, this man is insatiable, but I can’t get enough either. He fucks me slowly again and he keeps biting my lips and squeezing my flesh as we both gasp and moan.

I sink my nails on his back as he licks and sucks on my nipples and I moan his name once and again whilst his hips keep drilling me to his bed. I wish we could stay like this forever. When the delicious torture on my breasts is done, he grants me again with the heavenly image of his face and that’s all I can see as he rests his forehead against mine and keeps on moving in and out of me. I feel his breath on my face and swallow his grunts and moans.

I am not sure he feels the same way I do. I don’t know if he loves me but I don’t think I could feel any of this if he didn’t. I don’t think he would make love to me like this if he didn’t love me. I think he wouldn’t touch me like he does, I think he wouldn’t squeeze my flesh so gently if he didn’t. I think his kisses wouldn’t feel like this if he didn’t love me too.

“You feel so good, baby.”

I feel my pulse on my skin and I feel the knot on my belly about to untie and with another push of his, I lose track of space and time and my head sinks of the pillow. I can’t even breathe for some seconds until I moan out loud and feel my throat raspy and becoming inflamed. He lets go too, groaning in my ear and shivering on my arms.

It takes him a few seconds to roll out of me, but he stays laying on top of me and I hug him to my chest as we both fight to catch our breaths. I don’t know what any of this was but he filled me in every level and I still feel my heart pumping proudly at the newly found sentiment.

Harry’s breathing pattern changes and becomes calm and deep. Carefully, I pull back just enough to look into his eyes but they’re close and his expression is peaceful. I kiss his forehead.

“You’re falling asleep on me.” I whisper.

“No…” He frowns but his eyes are still closed.

I smile and try my best to pull from the duvet so I can cover us both but I’m not strong enough.

“I just need help to cover us up.”

“I’ll warm you up.” He mumbles.

“You’ll freeze too, come on.”

With one hand he lifts my back from the bed and with the other he pulls from the duvet and rolls us both under the duvet before he hugs me again. This time he rests his back against the mattress and pulls me to him so I’m the one resting my head on his chest. I trace senseless figures with my fingertips on his bare chest.

“Blue”

“Yes?”

“Give me a goodnight kiss.”

I chuckle before I lift my head and peck his lips. His eyes are still closed but he frowns.

“Kiss me well.” He complains.

I press my lips against his again, not quite knowing what he wants, and lick my way inside his mouth, getting a lazy response from his tongue. When I think I did well, I pull apart and peck his lips as closure but he opens his eyes and the intense green in them paralyzes me.

“I want one of your kisses.”

Still impressed by his gaze, I press my lips against his again and I put all the affection I have for him on the kiss until my belly erupts in a fist of butterflies and my chest feels funny and warm. We kiss one another with love, it can only be love, and when I feel like my pulse has reached my brain, I pull away and Harry skims my nose with his.

I rest my cheek against his chest before he opens his eyes and realizes I’m blushing and I hear his heartbeat against my temple. His breathing slows down just like the movement of his fingertips on the low of my back and he sighs.

“Blue…”

I hum.

“I love you.”