#the last time I complained to my sister about my sizing issues she told me to get a reduction

[wutheringmights]

Does anyone have any good online dress stores they can recommend? Lulus and about 12 others sites have failed me.

I need a dress for a wedding rehearsal. I am fucking busty but have a small waist (44+ in bust, if I remember correctly). Straight sizes do not have busts big enough for me; plus sizes do not have waists small enough for me.

I have been aiming for a wrap dress for a better fit but it seems like no one is selling any, and those that are available are sold out for my bust size

I’m very frustrated and just really need more options right now 😭

[theereina]

Let Me Talk

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Plus Size Fem Black!OC

Wordcount: +2.4K

Warnings: MDNI (18+) mature content, such as cursing, no smut, heavily dialogue-centered, anxiety mentioned, childhood trauma mentioned, angst, heartbreak, fluff, a smidge of dirty talk

A/N¹: This is a single one-shot with no planned sequels unless requested.🤨

A/N²: I'm open to critiques. I am a little 🤏🏽 sensitive about my writing. Please, don't be too harsh.🥺 Feel free to bring my attention to any typos. Divider by @theereina. Also, this work is not to be plagiarized or reposted (on any site other than here on Tumblr). I do NOT give consent for any form of republishing or rewriting.

Masterlist: 🔥🔥🔥

It had been four months since I had seen Terry. There was little to no contact besides short phone conversations and quick texts. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss him. It was the little things that made it hard to forget him. The way he always smelled of sandalwood and musk. The way he held my hand when I was anxious. The way his smile lit up a room. The way every shirt he owned molded to his body like a glove. Ugh, I gotta stop.

I wanted nothing more than for him to return home to me, but pride got in the way. Not only for him but for me, too. We were equally as stubborn and stuck in our ways, unyielding to the love we shared. Being right somehow mattered more to each of us— more than a good morning kiss, a massage after a long day, the vows of our marriage.

Letting pride hinder our judgment, I told Terry to leave and not come back. Truthfully, I didn't want him to, I was just angry and tired of fighting. So, when he left without a fight, it reminded me too much of my abandonment trauma. Watching him walk out that door tore me apart. I was once again a five-year-old girl watching her father leave for the last time, never to return. The power Terry held over me in that moment was only a fraction of the hurt I felt. It was like the world around me shattered. With him, Terry took both light and love while I fell further into darkness more and more each day.

In other words, Terry and I couldn't comprehend that we could both be right even with two different perspectives. The basis of the problem as trifling as it seemed was an ugly nuanced one. Unfortunately, Terry was raised by his parents while I had to survive mine. This understanding is what caused the biggest fight we had ever had. No matter how much I explained it, Terry couldn't understand why I did things the way I did.

For context, I have had no contact with my family since I left home after college. I didn't talk to my sisters, brother, stepfather, and definitely not my mother. Terry's nurturing and supportive upbringing made him less receptive to the dysfunction that came with mine. He couldn't fathom not speaking to his family, let alone his mother, for years. So, when he brought up the idea of me reconnecting with them, it was a shock. The first time he asked I reminded him that I had my reasons— he only knew some. The second time I admired his persistence but still declined the offer. However, after the fifth or sixth time, I was fed up. I wanted him to understand how much these people collectively hurt and drained me. After days of explaining and retelling the story, he responded with annoyance— calling me childish and bitter.

Damn right, I was! I had taken care of every single one of them for years. I had put my health on the back burner to ensure they were good. I had stretched myself thin to the point of almost being hospitalized for a mental breakdown. No one other than my mom came, but we all know her true reason for coming— to save face. Considering she never believed or accepted my mental health issues, she just complained the whole time I was in the waiting room. This is the type of stuff I dealt with from them. This lack of care, kindness, appreciation, and love is why I left as soon as I was financially stable enough.

Even after talking about this for days, the only thing I was left with was a heavy heart and teary eyes. The more Terry pressed; the more distant I became. I didn't want it to get this far or this bad, but he wouldn't let it go. His mind was already made up. To him, family is family, and we should forgive them no matter what. Unfortunately, that wasn't and would never be my reality.

Present Day

“Caramel cookie butter iced coffee and a regular hot coffee for… Fallon!” yelled the barista from behind the counter. “That's me,” I said, facing the small woman. “Here you go. Enjoy,” she said, smiling and pushing the drinks toward me. I checked the sticker on the regular coffee to see if they remembered the two sugars. I picked up both drinks and searched for an empty table in the back of the coffee shop. I knew this conversation would result in both of us or at least me ugly crying.

I slid into a booth in the far back corner of the shop, facing the door. I knew that if it became too overwhelming for me, seeing the door would provide a certain level of relief— an exit or escape if needed. Immediately upon sitting, I began to remember some of the memories I and Terry shared here. This quickly became our favorite spot. Plus, it was right down the street from our shared home. Terry would come here almost every Monday and Friday morning to pick up my current favorite drink order. He called it a treat to start the week and a reward for finishing.

This is also the place where we had our first conversation about marriage. I can almost remember Terry's face when I told him I never thought about being married— until I met him. I didn't believe anyone could love me, especially a man of Terry's caliber. I felt like damaged goods that would never be good enough for him or anyone else. So, I never planned for that milestone. Terry's presence in my life felt like a reassuring message from God that I was loved and deserved it— properly.

Oh, God! Not me already crying, and he hasn't even made it. I quickly used one of the napkins to dab my eyes. Taking deep breaths and relaxing my shoulders, I tried my hardest not to get lost in my thoughts. I knew that once I let myself be sucked into that abysmal cycle I would be trapped there before even a word was spoken between us.

I leaned back into the booth, watching the door. Terry wasn't late; I was just extremely early. I needed to prepare myself as much as possible before seeing him.

10 minutes later

ding ding

“Good morning! Welcome to the Coffee Cabin,” yelled the woman from behind the counter. “Hey, good morning,” said a familiar voice. I knew exactly who this was yet my heart refused to settle down. I didn't know how my mind and body would react to seeing him face-to-face for the first time in months. My hands were sweating profusely. How the fuck was I going to make it through this?

“Pumpkin?” Terry said, sitting across from me. “Uh,… Hi,” I said struggling to breathe. “Hey, mama. Look at me. Fallon!” Terry said, leaning over the table and lifting my chin. I looked up to see Terry glaring back at me. Those striking green eyes expressed his concern. His eyes spoke before his mouth could. There was no need to voice his worry.

“Terry, please,” I said, holding his hand. “Don't do that. Just tell me what's wrong,” he said pulling my hand to his lips. “This! What the hell are we doing right now? It's like we aren't even married. I don't…” I rambled. “Pumpkin,” Terry said, trying to stop me. “We aren't living…” I continued. “Pumpkin,” Terry said, gripping my hand. “I don't know what to do with myself half the time. It's…,” I said. “Pumpkin, enough! Stop!” he cried out. I could sense his frustration with my rambling. I hadn't stopped talking since he sat down. “Terry, I'm just trying…,” I said trying to continue. “No. Stop it! This isn't how this was supposed to go. Let…me…talk,” he grunted.

I pulled my hand away and placed it back into my lap. I dropped my head in embarrassment. I hadn't even made it one minute before making a fool of myself. “Listen, I love you. I know you are feeling anxious right now. We both have a lot to say, and that's okay. But before we can continue, I need you to relax, love. Okay?” he said, caressing my cheek. I shook my head, looking back up at him. “I'm sorry. This is hard,” I said. “I know, mama. I know,” he said, wiping away a single fallen tear.

“C’mere,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up from my seat. “Terry, I…!” I said, trying to pull away from him. “Nah, come to me, Pumpkin,” he said while wrapping his arms around me. It was as if life itself had started again. Terry's embrace broke me in the gentlest way possible. His body swallowed mine, providing me with the comfort I had been craving for months. I missed this man and everything about him.

“I'm sorry. I…,” I said, sniffling into Terry's chest. “Shhh, stop apologizing. I don't need you to apologize. I need you to let me— let me love you, let me take care of you, let me come home,” he said, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes. He leaned down and kissed me on the lips. I had never felt so much relief in my life. A single kiss had just washed away all the pain and guilt I had carried for these last four months.

“I don't know what to say. I had all these… these… speeches planned in my head. Just for me to remember nothing,” I said leaning further into Terry. “That's fine. Let me talk, you just listen. Turn your brain off for a minute and relax. Aight?” he said, releasing me from his hold. His hands held onto the sides of my face. He was awaiting an answer, but words were escaping me. Too many thoughts were fighting to claim power over my tongue.

“Turn it off, lil’ mama. Okay? Sit back down for me,” he said, gesturing towards my seat. His hand waved back towards the booth as I slid back in. Terry sat back down in front of me. He reached for my hands and pulled them towards him. It's insane how something as simple as Terry holding my hands made me feel lighter and calmer. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “There you go. Thank you, Pumpkin,” he said while stroking the back of my hands.

“Listen to me, okay? I should have never pressed you so hard about what was going on. Your boundaries were clear. I can see that now and wish I could have seen that then. These last four months have been absolute hell in the most silent way possible. I let my perspective overshadow yours when this was your experience— your reality, not mine. I won't sit here and lie to you like I'll ever understand how you feel. I won't. However, as your husband, it was my job to console you…. and… and care for you. I failed you at that moment. I don't deserve your immediate forgiveness, and I will do whatever you ask to receive it. I… uh… I left you to deal with all those emotions alone when it was my fault that you had to relive it in the first place. I was forcing you to see things my way because I thought I knew what was best for you based on my… my experience. You didn't deserve that. You deserved so much more than I gave you at that moment, and for that, I'm sorry. Sorry for how I handled the situation entirely. From this day forward, I promise to be a better man to you— a better husband. You deserve the world, mama. I love you more than life itself. Please, forgive me. Please,” he pleaded.

By this point, I was sobbing. I didn't need to say a word. I jumped up from my seat and ran around to Terry's side. There was nothing I wanted more than him— all of him. I sat in his lap and held his face in my hands. “Of course, I forgive you. I love you, too. I don't know what to say. Fuck… just… just kiss me already, papa,” I said, looking into Terry's eyes. They were the softest they had been in a while.

Terry’s urge was just as strong as mine as he pulled me in to kiss him on the lips. But, I needed more; so I used my tongue to part his lips. Terry's mouth opened, and I could feel his energy shift. The desire in him ignited like a flame. The yearning was mutually shared. His hands roamed wildly as teeth met tongue. Neither one of us cared that we were in public. Sharing breath and body, we became one again. With passion burning in our bellies, Terry pulled away first. I looked at him to be met with a pained gaze filled with a desperate hunger for something else.

“Pumpkin, I think we should leave. Um… the thoughts that are… uhh, shit… Woman the things I want to do to you have no business being viewed by the public eye,” he said, catching his breath. His chest rose and fell rapidly with every word. “Yeah?” I asked, stroking his ear and swallowing hard. My breathing was equally just as harsh.

Terry's gaze lingered over my body. “Yeah, we need to leave. Now!” he said, guiding me with his hands on my hips. “Did you drive or walk?” he asked, making me face him. “Walked,” I answered softly. “Okay. I drove. Unfortunately for you, you gettin’ in a car with me, and I can't promise to keep my hands to myself. Honestly, we probably not makin’ it home,” he said while leaning down to whisper in my ear. “Oh, fuck… Don't say stuff like that,” I said, clenching my thighs together. “You wanted honesty, mama. Hell, we should put that extended cab to good use for once,” Terry said, his lip curling up into the most sinful smirk. “You're nasty,” I said, hitting him in the chest. “Yea, and? You love it!” he said, pulling me into another kiss.

Part 2 => 🗣

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[thisisthinprivilege]

ANONYMOUS PLEASE <3 I’m at my wit’s end with my mother. I wanted to complain about her fatphobia, and I also wanted to you thank you for how reading here has helped me and my sisters. 

I’m a small fat in my 40s. I’ve been a bigger fat, and I’ve also been very, very skinny. I developed anorexia at about age 6 due to the usual issues one develops that from and was thinner than thin until I finally started to actually recover. I got very fat very quickly on the drugs I was put on, then dropped down in size to small fat once I stabilized and didn’t need them. No idea what my “comfortable” or “natural” size would have been without so much damage, but I’m going to guess “about this”, since it’s what I am when I’m neither restricting to the point of heart damage, nor on drugs that also made me sick in many other ways. For me, a comfortable size is the size I have when I’m not actively altering it in ways that hurt me, so I’m not going to question it.

My next younger sister, however, is a bigger fat, and pretty much always has been. In her 30s, she’s fat in a way that does restrict her clothing options and employment (she once told me that an interviewer had given her “feedback” on a job interview, and it was that she looked “sloppy”. She was wearing perfectly nice, clean, pressed, professional clothes- and expensive clothes of course, as that’s the rule for bigger clothes as we know. She was just fat in them.) Being “healthy” doesn’t really matter to this - and indeed if it did I wouldn’t have half of this rant - but she is. Fit and strong, great at physical things like endurance sports in a way I never have been. She is also perhaps the most self-aware and level-headed person I have ever met about stuff like this. When what people say bothers her, she will discuss her feelings and not try to hide them or their impact, but she will also deconstruct, and conclude that what the person has said is stupid. So it’s like she neither tries to pretend she’s immune to harm, nor allows others to be right in hurting her. 

And she eats exactly what she wants, and since we’re both autistic this also includes pickiness on sensory stuff - she doesn’t eat what she doesn’t want to, and does eat what she does. She was a great person to be around during my recovery, even though I never even mentioned to her at the time that I was in it (I didn’t tell anyone in my family about it until years later,) just because she made food such a non-issue. 

And our mother will not shut up about her size. Our mother is also fat, we’re a fat family, but my mother decided years ago that I am the one to make my sister “address her weight.” I literally left the country to get away from my family (not related to this specifically) and she STILL emails me about it. I don’t respond to those emails. I DO have lovely chats with my beloved sister on Skype though. 

I have tried all your scripts with my mom before - the team here have SO many great scripts that have worked wonderfully for me in other situations, like work or friend groups. I have told my mother I don’t agree, many times backed up with sources (sources thanks to you!) I have told her I’m not interested in the conversation and have hung up or walked away when she has persisted. I’ve called her out when she tries it on in public on multiple occasions. She will not stop. She is convinced that my extremely wonderful, fit and thriving, very happy sister is at death’s door. She’s also convinced that I, a person who has been repeatedly hospitalized for ED and the mental complications that caused it (which she now knows all about, and in fact did visit me in hospital the last time I was in, which was only a few years ago by the way) am the person to talk to her about it and make her see the error of her ways. My sister and I talk quite openly about this, and we’re both agreed our mother is full of shit and we’ll both be ignoring this. We both have also decided to persist in having a relationship with her, though with BIG boundaries around it. (Trust me, this fat bullshit is the thin edge of the wedge with her, and we’re both VERY exacting about when we will talk to her and what about. But we also both love our mother, and she’s the only parent we have.) The thing I’m most struggling with I think is that as I said, our mother is also fat. I actually feel some real sympathy here as I’m aware she’s clearly projecting her own issues on both of her daughters, but god is it mean. She couldn’t see how sick I was when I was skinny, even though I was very literally beginning to die (in fact, all she had to say to me was to mention my weight when I got fat) and she can’t see how happy my sister is in her life, because she’s fat so can’t possibly be happy, and she’s still, now, as perhaps some last gasp of control, attempting to make us fight each other over it. 

It hasn’t worked, thankfully, and it never will.

My mom has many other issues, I’m sure, but my god, it is sometimes quite astounding to look at what hell fatphobia hath wrought on my mom’s psyche and ideas of being a parent. I’m grateful my sister(s) and I instead read blogs like this so we’ll hopefully pass a lot less of this on. So I guess this rant is half a complaint and half a thanks. It’s been really helpful to be able to come here and read, for both of us (and our younger sisters as well, who we are steadily converting), to remind ourselves that mom’s wrong. My sister is fat and an exceptional person. I’m fat now too, and the world didn’t end (and in fact actually got a lot better.) Our mom is just plain fucking wrong.    Anyway, thank you. I know you’re not planning to be as active with new posts lately, but please know that you’ve been wonderful this whole time, and keeping your archives up is of immense help to at least this one group of sisters. It's been awesome to relay one of the younger ones to an older post from time to time (actually quite a few times!) Note: I wanted to tag ED as I do mention it but I don't see it in the list of tags under submission. I tagged "trigger warning", "Weightloss", and "food" to hopefully cover it. 

Apologies for the first post of this.

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

The Owl House and pacing, a perspective from a fanfic writer that works with a large cast

I’ve seen a bunch of complains about the way The Owl House is paced lately. People claiming that it’s bad writing, and rushed, and whatnot. But from how I see it, you’re complaining for all the wrong reasons, and to the wrong people.

TL;DR: this is an overlaying issue with Disney and the industry that doesn’t allow long shows anymore, essentially forcing writers to pick between good pacing and complex stories being told with large casts.

For context: the fandom I wrote for before I got into The Owl House had a pretty small main cast. There were a few reoccurring characters, but most of them only showed up like five total times over the course of four seasons or had little personality, so my main cast I was writing about always consisted of my main five characters, with occasional cameos here and there. All characters were living together and experienced the adventure from the same perspective. There was one overarching storyline and not multiple. The interpersonal relationships still varied, though, for obvious reasons.

Now think about how large The Owl House cast is, and why that’d send them running into issues. Or don’t, because I have a whole-ass in depth analysis under the cut because this got unreasonably long.

(Also I’d appreciate a reblog, I spent… an unreasonable amount of time on this, lol)

The Owl House is different. There’s the main characters: Luz, Eda, King, maybe Hooty, technically (someone recently pointed out that he’s technically the titular character of the show and I’m still processing that, lol).

But they also have a HUGE additional cast to work with. There’s Lilith, Eda’s sister, and the main antagonist of season one, who has a lot to her character and gets a ton of screen time. There’s Amity, and there’s Willow and Gus, Luz’s friends. They’re all very fleshed out characters, and got a bunch of screen time and development, despite “only” being reoccurring characters and not the main characters.

Then there’s characters that have played a fairly minor role so far. There’s Belos, the big bad villain, who we will likely learn a lot more about this season. There’s the Golden Guard, the new main antagonist our cast deals with personally, who we’re just starting to learn more about. There’s Camila, Luz’s mom, who, despite only showing up a couple of times in the show so far, is very relevant to Luz and how the plot will ultimately turn out. There’s Edric and Emira, Amity’s siblings, who despite only showing up a few times as well seem to have a very worked out personality and background and also have a story that is (at least to some extent) going to be told according to the AMA.

There is at least one more seemingly important character whose role in the bigger story is hard to tell at this point, Raine, but according to the description of the episode, they’re probably going to influence the story a bunch.

There’s Alador and Odalia, who are responsible for a lot of their children’s toxic behaviors, and seem to have bigger plans that will probably be relevant later on.

The characters that are only focused on for an episode or two (like Matt and the troublemaker kids) all have very worked out personalities and even short arcs.

And heck, even characters like Boscha, who is extremely minor and seems like a very one-dimensional bully for the most part, get their moments that hint at there being more to them. We know Boscha has a clingy mom, that apparently has a rivalry with Odalia and works with Amity’s parents. The scene at the beginning of Wing It Like Witches tells us a lot about her general mindset and how she’s embraced that winning at whatever cost is the only thing that matters.

This leaves us with: 3-4 main characters

3 friends with fleshed out stories

Lilith, who is probably the most relevant aside from the main cast

Belos, the main antagonist, and the Golden Guard, currently starting to become a lot more relevant

A whole handful of minor reoccurring characters that have the potential to become bigger characters at any point in time

A handful of minor reoccurring characters that mainly seem to be there to further the story, but still get to have distinctive personalities and motivations (looking p.e. at the troublemaker kids)

That is AT LEAST 9 pretty major, relevant characters whose stories have to be tackled in the same show, in addition to the people that joined in season two and a huge supporting cast of well-developed characters that clearly also have stories of their own, even if not all of them will get told.

On top of that, the Owl House lives from exploring different relationships and different storylines. There’s the overarching story of how flawed the system is that will likely end with them overthrowing Belos, but there’s so much more.

Eda and the curse. Eda becoming a better mentor for Luz. Eda coming to terms with the loss of her magic.

Luz learning to cast magic with glyphs. Making friends for the first time. Slowly falling in love with Amity. Fighting to be able to learn whatever kind of magic she wants to. Learning that she’s not a burden to people. Struggling with her relationship with her mom, and trying to restore the portal so she can get back to her. Figuring out her future and what she really wants.

Lilith trying to cure Eda, and now in season two coming to terms with the loss of her magic and fixing her relationship with her sister. Lilith learning to ask for help.

Willow switching tracks. Willow growing more confident.

Amity becoming a better person, fixing her relationship with Willow, standing up to her parents, falling in love with Luz. Starting to fix her relationship with her siblings.

King finding out where he came from.

Hints at Gus struggling with decision making and stressing himself out less. Gus learning to be more selfless. Struggling with his magic track and being the youngest in his grade.

The newly introduced plot point with the Golden Guard. The plot point about the rebellion that will get introduced next episode.

The mystery with the letters.

And I’m like 90% sure I’ve forgotten something.

That is… a lot of different plots and relationships that are in some way important to the story.

In comparison, as stated, the last show I wrote for focused mostly on the same five characters and their relationships with each other, and one overarching plotline aside from some minor interpersonal relationships with two people’s family members that weren’t even introduced for several seasons. The first season fully focused on establishing the bond within this found family with exactly 1 important reoccurring character, an antagonist that had little personality and got a total of one line of backstory before he died.

If you have 90% of a season to develop 5 characters who live together, that’s a lot easier to do than developing twice the amount of important characters + introducing reoccurring characters season one of The Owl House has—the majority of which have separate lives and do not live together and thus can’t be focused on at the same time.

I’ve seen a bunch of people complain recently that the pacing of The Owl House is off, that the writing is bad, that the show is rushed, etc. etc.

And I get those complains. Believe me, as a viewer and also as an author that takes a lot of time to develop each character and their issues individually, I 100% get it.

But as an author that’s currently learning how hard it is to tackle a cast of the size that The Owl House has, I’ve also come to a whole different understanding from the perspective of the writers on the show.

For context, Locked Out focuses on a couple of serious themes, in the same way that the show does. It has 4 main plotlines: Amity Camila and Luz, Edric and Emira, Eda and Lilith, Willow and the Grudgby Squad (as well as a Gus arc that ties into the last one while also being its own thing, we’re getting to that part). So far, it prominently features: Luz, Amity, Camila, Eda, Emira, Edric, Willow and Gus, and to a lesser extent King, Lilith and Boscha, Skara and Amelia in relation to the separate plots.

That’s eight main characters across five different households. And then there’s the reoccurring characters that will have a larger role later on that I’ve not even had the opportunity to bring into the story yet/feature in a more prominent way. The cast is still growing.

And heck, I have all the time in the world to write this thing, because I don’t have an episode limit, or a deadline, or a limited amount of money to produce it.

For Locked Out, it took me 120k to get through a single week of plot at a very high level of character development, with about as many important characters as TOH has in season 1, and with an equally high number of reoccurring characters, some minor, some major. I think you can compare it to the show pretty well. I’d say, if I were to split Locked Out into episodes, I’d set one episode at about 10k. That would be 12 episodes. 12 episodes to get through a single week. Heck, even if I said 20k words were to be one episode, which I’m pretty sure is too much realistically, that would still be 6 episodes for one week.

And TOH covers more than three months.

That would be at least 72 total episodes to get through the three months of summer camp. And we’re currently progressing past that point.

72 episodes.

Let that sit for a while o.o

Everything that’s happened in season one (which as we know now was about 2 months) would have happened in 48 episodes rather than 19. Pacing-wise, everything would happen at less than 0.5x the speed. The first four episodes of season two would’ve been 24 episodes, assuming we hadn’t skipped a week and a half and had instead shown the immediate aftermath of the petrification ceremony, too.

And I’d love if we could have that, and if we could actually develop the characters and their relationships that thoroughly.

But the sad fact is that shows like The Owl House do not get the amount of episodes that would be required to develop every single aspect of the show to its fullest potential. Disney rarely greenlits shows of 150 episodes anymore. They used to, once, (Phineas&Ferb for example had 130+ episodes—you could tell one hell of a story in that many episodes), but that’s not a thing anymore. And the writers know that going into a show. They know the chances their story will be told in that way are very low.

And thus, the writers, especially ones working with large casts, have to make a choice: cut characters they love, and plots that are important to them, because they know they won’t get the amount of episodes required to do everything perfectly, OR include most of what they want to do, but at the cost of the pacing being off and everything seemingly happening too fast.

The Owl House crew went with the second option. The biggest issue the show has isn’t bad writing. The show’s biggest issue is that its cast and the story the crew members want to tell are too big for the amount of episodes they’ve been given (especially now that Disney decided to cut season 3 down into just three 44 minute specials).

And that’s on Disney, and Disney alone.

The crew is making the most of the amount of episodes they have, and unfortunately the lack of time forces them to rush things, and to sometimes sideline characters to focus on others.

Lilith got a bunch of screen time in the first four episodes. I’m sad to see her go, but she’s basically guaranteed to be back by season 2B. And there’s other people that have gotten way less focus than her so far. We‘ve seen basically nothing of Willow and Gus for the first few episodes, and I’m super happy Gus finally got some focus! We haven’t been inside Hexside all season except to see Luz expelled! And episode seven is even going to introduce a new character. Sometimes there’s parts of the story that certain characters don’t have a place in. And it sucks if they’re characters you like. But Lilith has to go for a bit so other characters can get the same amount of spotlight she did. At the end of the day, Lilith is not part of the main cast. She’s a very important reoccurring character, yes, but so are Amity, Willow and Gus. The main characters are Eda, Luz and King, and they’re the only ones that will always be around. And heck, even Eda got sidelined for a bit in the last two episodes, because we needed to focus on other characters. If not even the main characters are always around because we need some spotlight time for other characters, you can’t expect any more minor reoccurring cast member to be.

God, I wish they’d be given more time and more episodes to bring every part of the plot to its full potential, but they don’t have those, so they sometimes have to take shortcuts that unfortunately cheapen the story here and there. It’s the only way they can hope to tell their story to the end at all. And that makes me hella sad because it’s so obvious that they have an incredible story to tell, and that there’s so much more to so many of the characters we just don’t have the time to focus on.

The thing is: I liked the episode with Gwendolyn. It sends an important message that will hopefully get some parents who watch with their children thinking, and I’ve seen a couple of people talk about how close to home it hit for them. I have also seen a couple of people complain about that being too fast—and also just in general about things in the show getting sorted out too fast. And I get it. At least with this particular episode, I 100% get it.

(I’ve also seen some people complain that “Amity stood up to her parents too fast in Escaping Expulsion”, but I vehemently disagree with that. We’ve been building towards that moment since season one, with her doing more and more things that were technically defying her parents. I don’t see how this was rushed.)

Just… please don’t blame the writers. Dana even said that Keeping Up A-Fearances is one of the episodes that hit very close to home for her in the recent stream iirc? So I highly doubt this was rushed on purpose, or because the whole thing is “bad writing” when the entire writing quality of the show says otherwise.

A lot of shows in general have the issue that they have to be written season by season rather than as a full story these days, because there’s always a chance that they won’t get a next season. How large scale the story they want to tell actually is doesn’t matter if there’s a solid chance they won’t get to do any of it.

From a viewer perspective, I get being frustrated at the pacing being off. But from a writer perspective, the chances are very high that this is a choice they had to make, rather than one they wanted to make. And I don’t think you can truly see this if you’ve never worked with a fleshed out cast that large—Locked Out was really eye-opening for me in that regard.

This isn’t simply a case of bad writing/bad pacing by choice. It’s forced. They’re forced to rush through their plots because otherwise they won’t get the chance to tell certain parts of the story at all. And the saddest thing about this is really that those 72+ episodes to flesh out these plot points further wouldn’t have been an impossible thing to get, at a time.

Go for Disney’s head. Yell at the industry for being what it is today, for constantly axing shows before even giving them a real chance. But this isn’t on the crew.

[likesrandomstuff]

Avalance Fic Recommendations Part 4

The final part of this series. Thanks to everyone who reblogged and liked, and a huge shout-out to @heywhereisperry who encouraged and motivated me into doing this.

As I said in Part 1, feel free to add any more stories you think should be recognised to any of these posts, and my ask box is open if you would like more detail on anything.

Part 1: Bite Sized

Part 2: Snacks

Part 3: Meals

Banquets (Over 75,000 words)

When you do not have anything you need to do in the next couple of days

You're My Miracle by bihexualmess

My tags: Ava is FBI, Sara is a Private Investigator, Rip brings Sara on for a case

This just got updated the other week and ruined multiple nights of sleep for me. At almost 350k words, still going, I don’t know how to explain without spoiling stuff that happens a long way in. There are so many layers to both Ava and Sara here, and the trauma, and the issues, and the fact they will not talk to each other about anything. I jumped on this a bit late, as the title and description didn’t grab me, but oh boy, I was missing out. I did get to read a heap of it in one go, but that doesn’t help the slow burn. I would start this even though it’s still a WIP, just because it will take you a while, to read, and also the storylines need time to settle in, because they are heavy, but just amazing. It is now the longest Avalance fic with the latest update.

this is the way that we love (like it's forever) by CoffeeAndArrows, moonlitprincess

My tags: College Avalance dated and broke up, five years later they meet again, Ava’s dating someone else

This fic had me crying in the lunchroom during my second week of work because I couldn’t not read during my lunch break, and it was hitting me so hard. That was after starting it at 10pm, reading to 2am, sleeping until 6am, reading until 11am a couple of days before. Warning for major character deaths; the funeral for one is alluded to in the description. If anyone says something bad about Jordan, I will not be happy; one of the best original characters I have ever read in a fic. Sara’s not in a great place initially, but she gets there. And there’s some cute flashbacks to college Legends too.

you make me smile (please stay for a while now) by CoffeeAndArrows, moonlitprincess

My tags: High School Rivals AU, Ava’s class president, Sara is the superstar soccer captain, they have more in common than they thought

I just looked at the word count for this, and it must be the first time I have, because wow! It is a journey! There’s a couple of prequel, sequel and interjection stories in this universe too. Ava has to deal with her family not being super supportive when she comes out. Sara has to deal with Laurel struggling and their mum having a clear favourite (Laurel). Most of the Legends have really great arcs in here as well. Ava’s family is great. I wanna hang out with her little sister. Don’t be like 2018 me who gives up after the first chapter because they are mad about what Laurel is going through. She’s fine, and there’s a heap of great Sara and Laurel moments. I recently re-read the last 10 chapters, and I still couldn’t stop myself from reading like it was the first time.

i am who you used to love (and you are just a memory) by justpalsbeingals

My tags: The Vow AU, but Ava makes some better choices early on, they’re married, Ava gets into an accident and loses all memory of Sara

I hate the movie this fic is based on. The movie’s fine, and it was a delight seeing Tatiana Maslany in it while I was watching Orphan Black, but basically it is my worst-case scenario, losing my memory. The fact that this fic kept me hooked despite that, is a testament to the quality. The fic itself says “light angst”, I say it’s much, much heavier than that, but that’s just me. Warning, there are some intense twists in here, and everyone is a bit OOC to me, memory loss being considered, which might not be your thing.

and i will stumble and fall (i'm still learning to love) by lucylikestowrite

My tags: SwanQueen kid fic AU, yes, I know go with me on this, Ava adopted Sara’s unexpected baby, said kid finds Sara years later

In general, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like kid fics. Fics with future children coming back to meet their parents, or the couple going into the future? Some of my favourites ever. This has no time travel, but I trust Lucy. This story is under 75k, but the sequel is almost as long, so combined they’re over. The sequel is a WIP. I didn’t watch Once Upon a Time, but it’s the plot of the start of that, except the gay actually happens. There are a lot of issues our girls have to work through here, but the kid is so cute.

and we could try by plinys

My tags: it’s a story mostly told on twitter through fake screen shots of social media, Sara drunk messages Ava, Ava doesn’t block her

I’m sure this format of storytelling is not for everyone, and that’s okay! I was so confused by it at first. I would recommend starting with the shorter one, I can be your hero (in Part 2), just to see if you like it, before jumping into this. I read this when the epilogue, the fic, was released, and I was up until 5am because I couldn’t stop. It became part of my personality. Story wise, Sara and Ava are on different coasts, but both know Nate, Ray and Nora. Ray and Nora get engaged, and Avalance have to deal with planning that wedding, and whatever is going on with them.

take my hands now by plinys

My tags: Another Social Media twitter AU, Sara is The Canary, Ava is trying to arrest vigilantes, Nate accidently gives Ava Sara’s number

Another brilliant twitter story. Some of our gang is trying to arrest the other half. Sara knows who Ava is, Ava doesn’t know that Sara is the person she’s chasing. Everyone has public twitter accounts. Sara actually gets [spoiler villain] to stop an attack by sending them money for a drink.

your eyes, they shine so bright by plinys

My tags: Social Media AU, everyone works for not Buzzfeed, a colab series is pitched, Sara and Ava’s teams have to work together

Ava makes factual videos, Sara does not, they are forced to work together. Nate is everyone’s boss technically, but they do what they want. Nate and Ava are non-biological siblings, and Satan Camp is a running gag. Oh, fake dating is in there too!

right to the top, don't hold back by SJAandDWfan

My tags: American Ninja Warrior AU, Sara’s a veteran and the Legends train together, Ava’s a rookie, rivals to training partners to friends to …

I re-read this every year when the new Australian season comes out. It’s so burned into my brain that when I was watching the speed climbing at the Olympics I genuinely thought “I wonder how Amaya would go in this?”. Amaya’s pre-Ninja experience is rock climbing in this fic. I learnt so much about Ninja Warrior and how the show (at least in this universe) works, and it’s fascinating. Would recommend watching some clips if you’re unfamiliar with the concept. The story goes pretty in detail about the courses. For recommendations, either Jessie Gaff, who was a S1 Supergirl stuntwoman, or Australia’s own Olivia Vivian, who is just stages better than our next female.

biding our time (until tomorrow) by TheTruthAboutLove

My tags: Period setting AU, Ava’s too noble for her own good, Oliver’s dad is the villain

This was a really cool experiment. Basically, told in lots of mini chapters like a soap opera. I do not know much about this period of American history, but it did not matter. A lot of different Arrow-verse peeps show up along the way. I’m sure I complained out loud “you’re allowed to want things Ava!” at some point. There’s an attempt for fake dating, and it’s not the homophobia but the second daughter problem that gets them.

Click here to see all the parts

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for being Tony Stark’s stepkid

Tony Stark x Potts!child!reader

warnings: alcohol mention

a/n: i rushed these so bad i just wanted to post dhhshsnsna

prompt: y/n is pepper’s kiddo!

it was just you and your mom for a long time

pepper and y/n potts

she couldn’t keep up with you sometimes, too busy dealing with the manchild that was mister anthony edward stark

speaking of—

“uh, who’s this?” -tony, pointing at you

“mr. stark, i am so sorry, the school closed because some kid set fire to the science lab and i didn’t have time to find a sitter—”

“no, it’s fine, no need to apologize. hey, kid, you wanna sit in the boss’s chair? i’ll let you run the company for the day!” *cue you nodding* “sweet, would you mind that, ms. potts?”

“oh? no, not at all” *mouthing* “thank you”

“so, uh, what’s your name? no, don’t tell me: ketchup.”

*giggling* “y/n”

“no way! that was my second guess!”

tony wasn’t used to being around kids

he had no idea that he was actually kind of good around them

despite a few minor hiccups

“you sit in my chair and im gonna spin you around, sound like fun?”

he spun you around WAY too fast and you were diiiiizzy, also you fell off the chair

“don’t tell your mom that we did that. she may be my assistant, but she scares the shit out of me. also, don’t say ‘shit’”

dude he just thought you were a cool kid!!!

“hey, you know, ms. potts, you dont really need to hire a babysitter anymore. y/n’s doing just fine hanging out here”

“how am i not surprised you befriended an actual child?”

she still took him up on his offer, you seemed pretty happy

when your mom worked late, you passed out in tonys office

tony and you had your own little secrets (like falling off the spinning chair), tony showed you around stark tower, and you practically lived there

“i got you a happy meal from mcdonalds!” -tony every day after your school

in all honesty, you weren’t the “popular” kid at school...not even close

but tony made up for it

“y/n! i found this old racecar toy in a box of old stuff, you wanna hold onto it for me?”

you kind of grew up in stark tower tbh? it was pretty cool

and as you grew up, you started to notice more

“mr. tony, do you have a crush on my mom?”

“do i what? no, no, i do—who the hell am i kidding? you caught me”

“called it!”

after that you did everything to try and get them together

when your mom was talking to tony, you would stand behind her and wiggle your eyebrows and just taunt tony endlessly

no! tony cannot remember your mom’s birthday for the life of him! you are his calendar now

“dude, why dont you just ask JARVIS to remind you?”

“i may be a genius, but that doesn’t mean i have common sense”

“wise words, sir” -JARVIS

when tony disappeared for 3 months you were so sad???? like you were not okay at all

no

and when he came back, he literally exited the plane saying “WHERE’S ‘T-POTT??’”

(your wonderful nickname. ‘t’ for ‘tony jr.’ and ‘pott’ for ‘potts’)

“my mom missed you”

“oh, i bet she did”

“you turned my child into you, tony. i will never forgive you for this”

“well, at least y/n was here to fill in for me, huh?”

tony wanted to show you the arc reactor but he was actually afraid of scarring you lmfaoooo

but he did let you in on the iron man secret (he knew you wouldn’t snitch)

and just to make sure:

“if you dont tell anyone, i’ll buy you a car when you turn 16”

“man, that’s like, forever away”

“good, maybe you’ll forget by then”

ur mom kinda maybe sorta found out abt iron man :/ she told you that tony was a bad influence

“mom! no, tony’s cool! he’s like a superhero”

“no, sweetie, he’s a rich guy with issues. we’re leaving”

that didn’t last long

not long at all

and soon they FINALLY got together

“jeez, i thought you two would never stop pining after each other”

“couldnt have done it without my wingman” -tony *fistbump*

“as thanks can i have my own iron man suit?”

“yes.” *pepper glaring at him* “no.”

sooner or later your mom and you moved into tony’s house and you got a really big room!!!!

it was completely decked out

king sized bed, flatscreen tv, mini-fridge, microwave, computer, your own bathroom with a smaller tv, a poster of tony??? (you vandalized it and put it in his workshop), and more!!!

okay you were spoiled

“do you like it here? are you sure i made the right choice?” -pepper

“are you kidding, mom? this is awesome! plus, you’re happy, i’m happy, tony’s happy, i think JARVIS is even happy!”

“i am, mx. potts. simply ecstatic” -JARVIS

pepper was really happy!! it was a pretty cool family

you started giving your school tony’s number if you ever got in trouble, you knew he’d cover for you

“mr. potts, is it?”

“sure”

“your child, y/n, punched another student in the face today. we’re very disappointed in their behavior”

“why’d they punch the kid?”

“well, the other student punched y/n first”

“HAH! thank you for wasting my time. send y/n back to class and call me back if something important comes up”

he literally gave you a high five when you got home

“i gave him a black eye!”

“i couldn’t be more proud. i mean, i dont condone violence, but self defense is a whole other story”

a little help in the workshop, tony asks you to hold the flashlight

“why don’t you get one of your robots to hold this for you?”

“are you kidding me, you’re complaining? we’re having stepdad/stepkid bonding time! and dum-e can’t do anything right, i dont trust him”

youve had a few theme park trips as a family ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

also tony has 100% told you to wait in the car and then left you alone for 2+ hours

“i’m not like a regular dad, im a step-dad. want some beer? you can have a little sip. i’d rather you do it in the house”

your mother actually does love how he actually cares about you!

“y/n is 12% my responsibility” -tony

“tony, you are impossible” -pepper

no avengering for you! pepper said no!!!!!!

disappointed but not surprised

iron man 3: y/n potts is put through the wringer

Text Message to Mr. Tony: bro you better come get your girl, me and happy are watching this other guy flirting with her. he’s showing her pics of his ‘big brain’

Mr. Tony: HE WHAT

Text Message to Mr. Tony: Tony he looks creepy i don’t want him to be my new stepdad do something!!!

anyways ur house kinda blew up and ur mom and you kinda got kidnapped and u were right abt that guy being creepy and thankfully no experiments were done on you but like your mom kinda almost died and her and tony were fine!!! all good in the end

you met mr. col. james rhodes that day

“aw, you’re the kid ive heard so much about” -rhodey

“you mean the coolest kid in the world?check.”

“you cant tell me you aren’t tony’s biological child, good god”

you got to meet the avengers later on too! (you’d already met natasha tho, only briefly)

“i know it can be a little overwhelming, right? meeting all these heros, legends even—” -rhodey

“oh, my god, is that thor? thor!!” -you, leaving rhodey in the dust

literally why does pepper trust you around tony something always goes wrong there were literally robots attacking, you were only at avengers tower bc your mom was busy with the company and she thought you’d be safe with the avengers. the AVENGERS.

“please dont tell your mom that i created a bad robot that tried to kill us. the robot will be the least of our problems” -tony

he made happy pick you up and you had to miss out on FUN and it sucked a lot

“it’s okay, y/n! i’m fun, too!” -happy

then your mom and tony took a break and your life got mega-boring for a while, but they weren’t separated for that long. you try not to think about it. it was brutal

Mr. Tony: Does she miss me?

New Message to Mr. Tony: I think so. Either that or she’s crying and drinking wine in the dark for no reason.

Mr. Tony: Damn it, now I feel bad. I miss her a lot. Oh, also, the Avengers say ‘hi,’ I’m in Germany with some bad news, I’ll explain later if you don’t see it on TV first, and I found you the perfect friend! His name is Peter and I think you’d like the school he goes to, it’s in Midtown. Smart kid school.

New Message to Mr. Tony: I’ll look into it, thanks. Also, I don’t like how those all connect. Please update me asap

watching the news to see several avengers arrested, cap on the run, and more!

“maybe it was good i didn’t fall in with the avengers”

tony and pepper finally got back together and you actually transferred to midtown high! peter and his friend group accepted you quickly, it was great. you and flash unfortunately had the most in common

you’d literally text happy right next to peter and he’d immediately reply to you. it hurt peter’s feelings

Momma: Sweetie! I’m working in the office late, leftovers are in the fridge, hope you have a wonderful day at school! 💕

👉👈the vulture tried to kill you for being tony’s stepkid, tony made peter promise to protect you

“y/n, you gotta stay out of harm’s way. mr. stark gave me an actual mission and it’s terrifying, i have to make sure you stay safe”

legit why the fuck was this old man tryna kill you bro grow up

anyyyywayssss your mom and tony got engaged!!

“wow, i thought the day would never come!!” -you

ppl told you tony isnt your stepdad bc ur mom and him werent married but who tf asked

why is the earth always in fucking danger

you and peter were just vibing on the field trip bus and all the sudden: space donut

“go! i’ll cover for you...FRIDAY, call tony”

“...hi there, little one”

“what the fuck”

“oh, so you see the aliens, too? well, at least im not crazy”

tony stark has left the atmosphere

you and your mom were kinda......not chillin tho

she and you didn’t sleep for a few nights, then ppl just straight up disappeared

plot twist: you survived the snap and your family was lucky to be alive, you even got a little sister who became a big handful!

only bad thing was all your friends dusted and you were pretty lonely

but watching morgan grow up kept you busy

“ahhh, shes so big!”

happy times in bad times

bad times!!!!! bc after five years thanos came back as thanos from like ten years ago. outdated thanos. obsolete thanos.

but you made your first and only appearance in the suit tony actually designed for you many years ago

you should have just stayed home tho bc that fight didnt pass the vibe check

“please dont tell me he...no, no, no, no, no”

you and your mom latched onto each other in tears, tony was one of the best people in your life, he made you and your mom two of the happiest people on earth

best stepdad a kid could ever ask for

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedgiantfavs // @emygirl // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisbisexual // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @purpleskiesstorm // @ofthedewthesunlight //

[saebyeog-i]

bitter brews (i) | syh

“Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.””

genre | not quite a coffeeshop!au, (mild)slow burn, this thought about being an adversaries to lovers fic for six minutes

rating/warnings | a stupid amount of exposition about coffee plants, catch me throwing in the random recipes that have been my go-to for cooking during quarantine, is this angsty?, discussions of mental health issues {see tags for details}, overall mature content/themes {foul language, alcohol consumption, references & discussion of masturbation, awkward boners, future smut}, some soft moments, and some good ol’ tooth rotting waxing poetic nonsense fluff. Don’t expect too much out of this I just got tired of editing this part so I’m finally posting it.

word count | 19.6k (I meant for this to be a super long one-shot but it’s turning into a story in parts for the sake of ratings w h o o p s)

pairing | Johnny Seo x fem reader

writing playlist | Egotistic - Mamamoo, Black Swan - BTS, Sober - HYO, I Blame On You - Taeyeon, Heartbeat - BTS, Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) - Ellie Goulding feat. Red Velvet

—

“So, what you mean to say is… you’re not coming? Like, at all?”

The bright yellow plastic of the rotary phone was slightly cool against your overheating skin, which was constantly veiled in a thin layer of sweat whenever you stayed on the farm property instead of the main house on the opposite side of the island. It was the first week of May, which meant it was already humid again. If it wasn’t the time for the daily afternoon rain showers, it might as well have felt like it was raining with how saturated the air was.

“I’m sorry, Bean, I just can’t get on a plane right now. I thought it would be fine it we stretched out the time between flights, but all my doctors are saying I need to just stay here between now and the birth, so…”

Your sister’s voice trailed off and you had to wait for a moment to be sure it wasn’t the poor reception for the phone call running across the four thousand miles that separated you— the four thousand miles that would continue to separate you for the rest of the summer.

You exhaled and twirled the aged spiral phone cord that could barely hold its shape around your index finger, staring at the concrete floor and scrunching your toes. “Well, I’m already here, obviously… do you… you want me to stay here then? Take care of stuff?” You asked hesitantly, already having a feeling of what the answer would be.

A crackly sigh of relief came through the other line. “Little Bean, you are the best, Yunho was worried about asking you to stay and man the farm for the summer harvest but I knew you would just offer! You’re the best like that, you know?” You gritted your teeth and forced a smile through, even though no one was there to witness it. “Okay, so we’ll ship out the supplies in the next few days. Yunho is gonna email you a list of delivery dates of materials for the projects he had planned for the summer and a few contractor contacts…”

Her voice warbled on, and you could only nod your head and vocalize an ‘mhmm’ every so often, listening to her rattle off instructions and information that you knew would be sent in an email too. You’d been looking forward to spending the summer with her— you hadn’t gotten a proper chance to visit for more than a weekend since she and Yunho had gotten married about two years ago— but it turned out this wouldn’t be it. You couldn’t blame her though; she was approaching the third trimester of her pregnancy. You’d do anything for her, even this, even isolating yourself on a farm for four months. Alone.

Not exactly the leave of absence you’d been hoping for from work, but it would have to do.

✧ ✧ ✧

This was supposed to be a vacation. A break. Some much needed time off, away from your job, your career, and your “normal” life. You told yourself over and over again you were looking forward to it. And besides, it would all be worth it, because of all the time you’d get to spend with your sister after so long.

And then she had to betray you by going and getting fucking knocked up, with twins no less.

Fucking happily married couples with their god damn healthy ass sex lives and family planning and wanting to raise children. What the fuck was that all about?

It had been so long since your last vacation. Years, in fact. So long, you had over two months of paid time off accrued at work, and back at New Years you’d made the preliminary plans to spend a month on the farm in Hawaii with her, bonding and just relaxing. Sure, it would require some manual labor for the business here and there, but mostly just to rest.

What a joke that turned out to be.

The farm in Hawaii. You know, the coffee farm your brother in law bought four years ago on a dare from your sister, because he said he could totally pull it off as a side hustle, and she said he wouldn’t be able to? Yeah, that one. Fast forward to today and the side hustle became a full fledged passion that roped in a good amount of the family into the business. Siblings, cousins, parents, all involved in different aspects of package design, social media marketing, distribution and wholesale— everyone except you, who stuck with your soul sucking job in advertising, the same industry your brother in law had since left behind.

The farm and roasting wasn’t an overnight success by any means, but in the last year the brand had really taken off in the craft coffee scene. After all, Kona coffee was well sought after, and one could only claim the name ‘Kona’ if it was grown on the same two thousand or so acres of land on Hawaii’s big island. You know, the same area of land you were living on for the remainder of the summer?

Right. The whole summer.

It was just supposed to be the month of May. And then it turned into May and some of June, when you’d asked your sister to make more concrete plans, and she kept brushing it off. And then the week before you actually got off the plane, you hadn’t booked the return ticket, because you were still waiting for her answer. And then the phone call, and now, this was… indefinite? No, that was being too dramatic; if anything, it would be up through the birth. Based on the number of projects Yunho had planned for the farm, through the remainder of the summer was how long everything would take. Just you and a little over five acres of land and the summer heat. The thought of an extended isolation had your breath catching in your throat, but the last thing you wanted to do was complain or call for help. Stubborn and proud, you wouldn’t have made the offer to stay if you didn’t mean it, if you didn’t think you could handle it. There was no way you were backing out now.

When Yunho had first bought the farm, it had been a rough first few years of refining the coffee plants that had been on the land and uncared for for a number of years, but the last two summers had provided a steady increase in the harvest yield. There was a small farmhouse on the property, with two small bedrooms, a shower, and a small kitchen and living area. A few miles down the coast was the nicer, newer condo that the business had bought, a multi-bedroom unit with some better amenities for when more of your family wanted to visit. It felt weird spending time there— it was too nice, too clean, and quite frankly you had enough to keep yourself busy with on the farm property, you’d rather not have to spend time driving back and forth every day. So you opted to spend most of your nights sleeping here, even though it meant only ceiling fans and no air conditioning.

The farmhouse had very shitty, very limited wifi and a grand total of three electrical outlets outside of what was used to power the oven and refrigerator. One of those outlets was, of course, dedicated to an espresso machine on the kitchen counter, which you had gotten acquainted with over the last two weeks. It was an older model and a little temperamental (the one at the condo was much nicer), but it was still from a decent manufacturer, and you could still use it to pulled a decent shot.

Most of the time you worked in silence, and most of the time you were never too aware of how much time had passed, other than when the sun went down and it was suddenly dark out. You weren’t always this absent minded, you swore— maybe it was a byproduct of being alone for so long—

A loud, high pitched whine filled your ears, followed by some scratching at the door that lead to the lanai outside. You sighed, standing up from the kitchen table and walking over to face the monster that had made it.

“What? What do you want now?”

Staring back at you from the the other side of the screen door was what you’d affectionally referred to as The Thirty-Three Pound Menace— the medium sized stray dog that your brother-in-law so conveniently forgot to mention had been living on the farm for the last few months. It had been waiting outside the farmhouse when you first arrived, and you’d learned from the neighbors that Yunho had taken a liking to the stray and had arranged for them to feed it in his absence. But now that you were here, taking care of the dog was added to your list of daily chores. It seemed to not want to leave the farm property unless actively accompanied by you, with the assurance that you’d be bringing it back with you.

With a roll of your eyes you hip checked the door open just enough to let the dog inside the house. It circled you several times, sniffing at your knees before sitting and panting, staring up at you expectantly. In the two weeks you’d been here, the majority of your conversations were between you and this, a being that couldn’t talk back. Maybe you liked it that way. “What, dinner? Fine, fine,” you grumbled, shuffling to the cabinet and pulling out a can of wet food.

Your meals had consisted of relatively simple dishes, but today you were cranky at the confirmation that your summer was not going to go as planned. Tonight’s dinner featured a bowl of cereal and a coffee mug full of cold white wine.

You ate in silence. You drank in silence. The only noise came from the hum of the ceiling fan overhead, and the occasional sound of the dog, cleaning its paws and laying by your feet protectively. Why it seemed so determined to win over your affection, you had no idea.

After sitting in silence with only your thoughts and the now sleeping dog to keep you company for what felt like hours and downing a second mug full of wine, you found yourself letting out a loud yell, startling the dog and waking it. In a fury, you pulled out the laptop you had for the sole purpose of checking once a day for emails from Yunho and connected it to the shitty, sub-par wifi with just enough patience to navigate to an airline’s website and search flights back to the states. You were looking for the cheapest, most reasonable one you could find. After all of five minutes of research and a quick round on mental math, you clicked on a date and hit the ‘book now’ button before you could second guess yourself, slamming the computer shut once the payment went through and shoving it away from you across the table.

“September 10th,” you grumbled out loud for only you and the dog to hear. Standing from the chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, you crossed the room and stopped in front of the wall calendar your sister had put up the last time she’d visited the farm just after New Years. You lifted a few pages and flipped forward to the month of September. Red marker in hand, you found the date and circled it rather aggressively, several times over. You looked down at the dog, watching you patiently with its head tilted. “You got that? I’m getting off this fucking island on September 10th.”

✧ ✧ ✧

The day your life fell apart came twelve days later just before nine in the morning.

Mondays were the delivery day, that’s what Yunho had laid out in his instructional emails to you. Your only source of personal transportation was an older jeep, one you didn’t enjoy driving, given that it had no top and needed some mechanical work done. So you’d made arrangements and had your groceries delivered on Monday mornings, buying mostly direct from another farm on the other side of the island, and they were always kind enough to act as the courier for whatever additional miscellaneous supplies you’d request, regardless of where they’d have to go to procure them.

There was a winding driveway that lead up to the house from the main road, and a larger, wider drive up a less steep hillside for larger vehicles for delivery. You were fully expecting the truck that lumbered up the delivery road and came to a stop just outside the barn which housed the massive coffee roaster and stored most of the processed green beans from harvest. Even though it had only been three weeks, there was a routine that had slowly been settling into place: the sound of the truck coming to a stop riled up the dog, the dog came running from wherever and started barking, you’d get your groceries and any other assorted items, the dog would get a treat because your delivery boy had a soft spot for the creature, and you’d pay for your goods. “Hey Jin,” you called out over the barking from the front of the barn, hands currently full with a sack of processed coffee beans you’d hoisted over your shoulder. “You can just leave the groceries on the porch, I’ll put them inside in a few. Did you manage to get me the bags of fertilizer and some wood stakes?” A loud thud sounded as you dropped the bag to its resting place on the concrete floor.

“I mean, I can go put these inside if that’s easier. And yeah, there’s ten bags to get us started, we can have more delivered next week if you still need ‘em.”

You whipped around to face whoever had just spoken, because that voice was most certainly not Jin.

He was tall like Jin, had wide shoulders like Jin, and his hair was kept just a bit long and looked ridiculously shiny and soft and like you could run your fingers through it like Jin���s. It was a lighter brown with some honeyed highlights running through it, compared to the dark brown almost black of Jin’s. You tensed, seeing him carrying a brown paper bag with a loaf of bread and the leafy green tops of carrots sticking out the top. He wasn’t looking at you, rather, he was far too occupied with bending down slightly and scratching behind the ear of the dog who was currently whining and wagging its tail at his feet. Some guard dog it was.

Without a second thought, you reached for the first sharp object you could find, which happened to be the box cutter you used to cut open the burlap bags the beans came back from the processing plant in. “You’re not Jin,” you said tersely, holding the utility knife by your hip defensively.

“Chill out killer, he’s harmless,” a more familiar voice called. Seokjin, your regular delivery driver whose family owned the farm you bought directly from, came into view carrying another two bags of produce and a small pile of envelopes. “Picked up your mail on my way up, the box was practically overflowing. Do you ever check that thing?” You’d first met Jin two years ago when you’d come to visit your sister and Yunho for a long weekend. He’d become a good friend of Yunho’s and was one of the people who would take turns feeding the dog when no one else was here.

Ignoring the unknown man, you relaxed your shoulders slightly and placed the knife down on the table behind you. “Thanks,” you grumbled, taking the small pile of letters from him. Admittedly, you hadn’t checked the mailbox since the day after you’d arrived on the farm, mostly out of sloth and spite. You sifted through the letters— mostly junk mail, with a few bills and notices relating to the business. You put those in front so you could look through them later, when you’d finished the physical work for the day. You tore one envelope open in particular when you noticed it was addressed directly to you and had your sister and Yunho’s Illinois address in the upper corner. It was a letter postmarked from two weeks ago, which struck you as odd, because what the hell would he bother writing in a letter that he couldn’t just send you in an email or a text or a phone call? You started reading aloud softly to yourself.

“‘My Dearest Bean… First of all I want to apologize for the change in plans, but with your sister’s condition her doctors just don’t recommend her traveling,’ God, he’s so dramatic she’s not terminally ill she’s just pregnant. Blah blah blah, I don’t care, you’re full of absolute shite, Yunho,” you began skimming through his lengthy pre amble, looking for the purpose behind the note. Without reading the middle you flipped the stationary paper over to see his handwriting covered the entire back of the page, too. “God, he’s so long winded. Oh, here we go, the very end— ‘I promise we’ll make it up to you, thank you for running the farm and taking care of Puppy, please be nice to Johnny and treat him well, he seems like a good kid.” You stared at the words written on the paper and looked up at Jin. “Who the fuck is Johnny?”

The man next to him cleared his throat and held his hand up. “Johnny! I’m uh, that’s me. You must be _____— I’ve heard a lot about you from Yunho! I’m Johnny Seo, it’s nice to meet you,” he said with a smile, reaching a hand out.

You eyed it but made no move to reciprocate the action. “Cool. You know Yunho. Lots of people know Yunho, he’s a huge fucking flirt, social butterfly of the century, the man never shuts up. Why should I be nice to you?”

He shifted on his feet and his outstretched hand retreated. “Oh. Uh. I’m uh, here for the summer,” he explained, sounding almost confused. “Didn���t— didn’t Yunho tell you?”

Your eyes bugged out and you looked over to Jin. “Jin who the fuck is this and why is he on my farm?” You whispered.

Your friend laughed. “You read the end of Yunho’s letter. I’m sure if you read the whole thing it would explain more. This is Johnny, and he’s here for the summer. He’s gonna help you out! I know the list of all the projects you need to finish this summer is lengthy, and plus look at the guy, he’s jacked! You could use the muscle for manual labor. More work for him, less for you, right? And look, the poor dog you refuse to give a name to even likes him!” Jin gestured comically at Johnny. You looked over, sizing him up some— Jin wasn’t wrong. The stranger was muscular on top of being tall, and under the capped sleeves of his tee shirt you saw his arms that looked the size of your head. The dog was still circling him, sniffing and begging for attention.

Johnny tried smiling again. “Yunho mentioned there was a lot of construction type work to do. I uh, had nothing else planned so he said I could stay on the farm for the summer and work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. I take it he uh, didn’t run that by you first, did he?”

Your grip on the papers in hand tightened and you felt your jaw tense involuntarily. “No, he managed to not mention that once to me. How did you even get here?” You hissed back.

“I picked him up at the airport this morning,” Jin answered calmly, “Yunho gave me a buzz a few days ago to ask if I could bring him here with this week’s groceries.”

“So he managed to arrange for him to get on a plane and secure transportation to the farm but couldn’t be bothered to call me and let me know?”

Jin only laughed, his eyes crinkling. “I’m pretty sure he knows you well enough by now to know that this would have been your reaction whatever way he told you.” Despite the kinship you’d felt growing between the two of you, Jin was Yunho’s friend first, and it only made sense that his allegiance would be to him first. Of course he’d side with Yunho on this matter. “And yes, like Johnny said I did bring a bundle of plant stakes and ten bags of fertilizer— they’re in the back of the truck bed.”

“Oh, I could get those—” Johnny started, moving to step towards the truck.

You could barely think straight. First they bailed on you unexpectedly to spend the summer on the farm alone. That was fine— you’d gotten that through your head, and had come to terms with that. But suddenly springing a plus one on you, without your consent? Absolutely the fuck not.

“Yeah. Don’t need help. Thanks,” you spat, grabbing the bags of groceries from him and brushing past, stomping your way back to the farmhouse.

Johnny stood frozen for a moment before stammering, looking from Jin to your retreating figure and back again. “I should— I should talk to her, right? Or do I—”

“Whoa, don’t think too hard there handsome, I can smell wood burning. Don’t stress about it. She’s just a little… touchy. Let me talk to her,” Jin patted Johnny on the back before heading up the path to the farmhouse after you.

You’d stormed into the house and slammed the groceries down on the counter and let out a screech of rage before picking up the receiver of the yellow rotary phone and dialing. Tapping you foot incessantly, you waited as it rang.

“He-llo~?” The singsong voice that came through the other end was far too amused with itself, more so than usual, and that’s how you knew he knew why you were calling.

“Jung Yunho you better be thankful you knocked up my sister because if it weren’t for the babies in her womb I would fly myself across the Pacific and flay you alive,” you seethed through gritted teeth.

In true unbothered fashion, your brother in law only laughed at your threat. “Ah, so I take it your employee has arrived safely! I’ll have to thank Seokjin for getting him from the airport. Can you give the Kims a pound of the special medium roast as a token of my gratitude?”

“No!” You yelled back, “No! I will not! I’m already beyond frustrated that I’m on this island alone for the entire summer, I’m doing this as a favor because we’re family! I’m not your slave, Yunho! Where was my warning, huh? When were you going to ask if I was okay with you sending some stranger to live in the same house as me, huh?!”

The familiar ache in your chest started to swell, and breathing became difficult. ‘Not now,’ you thought bitterly, ‘Please not right now-’

You curled your free hand into a fist and pressed your nails into your palm, hard, grounding yourself. Yunho’s voice on the phone blurred out and by the time his words started making sense again, you’d already missed what he’d been saying. “I’m not saying you have to like the kid, just show him some hospitality, yeah? You just said it yourself, you didn’t want to be alone this summer, and now you won’t be. I know you’re a good cook so that’s why I told him food would be included. Don’t worry, I’ve already sent some pre-payments to the Kims, so your grocery orders are doubled for the rest of the summer.” His voice went quiet for a second. You rubbed at your temple in frustration, squinting your eyes shut and forcing the mere thought of tears deep back into the recesses of your brain. “Bean? You still there?”

“Don’t get all pretend concerned, Yunho. And stop using my childhood nickname any time you want something from me.” Your voice was quieter now, the intensity of your emotions subsiding, but the betrayal you felt still running strong. “Fine. I’ll tolerate him. But there better be a case of wine in next week’s groceries to make this bearable.”

“Done and done! You’re gonna love him Bean, he’s really great. He’ll be good company.” The continued use of your childhood nickname from anyone other than your sister always gave you pause.

“I said tolerate not befriend. There’s a difference,” you clarified quickly. A knock at the door startled you, and you jumped and looked to see Jin standing by the front door, a roll of wooden stakes under his arm. You rolled your eyes and waved your arm to shoo him away, pointing at the phone pressed to your ear. “Look, Yunho, I don’t know what you’re hoping to see me get out of this, but if he drives me insane I can’t promise that he’ll walk away from this unscathed.”

His laugh echoed through the receiver and reverberated against your skin. “I just think it would do you some good to have some human interaction, that’s all. Your sister too. She says hi, by the way,” he added softly, “And so do the little ones.”

You scoffed. Yunho always brought up your sister as a way of diffusing your temper. He knew it would always work. “They’re still in embryonic fluid, they can’t talk and they certainly don’t have cognitive function.” Sometimes you wondered if even Yunho had that with the wild ideas that went through his mind.

“Ever the romantic, you are. You know, soon they’ll be able to think! And they’ll be thinking of their favorite auntie, and how much they can’t wait to meet her! So she can’t be arrested for murder between now and when they’re born, because babies can’t go to prison!”

“I’m telling your sister you said that,” you challenged. With an exhale, you did your best to let go of the frustration and tension inside and politely ended the phone call. You were trying to clear your head and collect yourself before heading back outside when you heard a yell that sounded all too much like Jin’s voice.

“What fresh hell—” you started, shuffling back outside in the direction of the commotion where you saw Jin, somewhat struggling under the weight of two bags of fertilizer, and Johnny, now with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head, easily hoisting a stack of four bags without slouching.  

Your eyebrow ticked up upon the realization that it was almost seventy pounds that he was slinging around like it was nothing. “Anywhere specific you want these?” He asked innocently, looking up at where you stood on the lanai just outside the door. You almost cursed him out when he blinked at you twice.

You pointed your left arm down the hill, the opposite direction of the way to the barn. “Shed. Next to the vegetable garden.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “And lose the hat. Or at least don’t wear it backwards. Makes you look like an ass.”

Johnny’s mouth hung open for a moment before he hummed and winked. “You got it, Boss! Come on handsome, if you can carry those good looks you can carry some dirt,” he called back to Jin, who was currently grumbling about how manual labor wasn’t a part of his delivery arrangement.

The hairs on your arm stood up on edge as you watched Johnny laugh deeply as he ambled his way in the direction you’d pointed. The thirty three pound menace next to you whined and wagged its tail, panting as it went from watching you to watching Johnny’s retreating figure. You looked down and made eye contact. “If I survive this, I’m going to kill Yunho.”

✧ ✧ ✧

There was no case of wine in the grocery deliveries the following week. The reasoning Yunho gave was that per Jin’s investigation, the liquor stores were all out of your favorite wine, so there was no point in sending you a sub par alternative. It was absolute crap, but you had better things to do than chew out your brother in law over the phone. Took way more energy than it was worth.

So far, Johnny was making good on his word and earning his keep. At first, you’d tried avoiding him as much as possible, intentionally waking up hours ahead of him and starting your day when the sun rose. You never made much noise in the mornings, the loudest thing you did was make coffee, and lately you’d opted for a pour over versus pulling shots of espresso. You weren’t personally one for breakfast, choosing just coffee and maybe a piece of fruit instead. This morning you felt a little hungrier than usual, so you thought you’d get yourself a bowl of cereal. Peering into your pantry, you saw that on the shelf where there had been a stash of cereal boxes, there was now nothing.

“Where the fuck are my cocoa pebbles?” You swore in shock, not realizing you weren’t alone in the kitchen.

“Shit sorry, I ate the last of those yesterday.”

You whirled around to see Johnny, still seemingly half asleep and with some gnarly bedhead, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. His lips were so perfectly pouty, one small part of your brain almost thought he looked cute like this.

But no, he wasn’t cute, he was a thief— he’d stolen all of your cereal stash. “Did you seriously eat through four boxes in a week?” You asked incredulously.

“It was three and a quarter! And yeah I don’t know, I’m always hungry and just one bowl of cereal isn’t filling enough, so I usually have two, or three...” He mumbled, voice trailing off as he rubbed a hand behind his head sheepishly.

You snorted. And then a thought came across you. “Johnny,” you said calmly, the feeling of his name on your tongue foreign and strange. Was this the first time you’d addressed him by name since his arrival? You couldn’t remember. “Do you not know how to cook?”

He hummed thoughtfully for a second. “No-pe!” He popped the p sound in the word. How was he this cheerful, even first thing in the morning? “I mean, I can like, boil water and cook pasta and stuff like that. I think I successfully grilled pork belly once, though it was probably doused in too much oil and too many spices. My college experience was funded almost exclusively on instant dinners and takeout for two years, and then for the second half one of my roommates was an actual chef, so, no one was allowed in the kitchen ‘cept for him.”

“Honestly, I am shocked that you haven’t perished in some tragically strange idiotic accident yet,” you sighed and shuffled to the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs and a pack of bacon. You grabbed a frying pan from the cabinet under the stove and clicked the burner on, reaching for the oil bottle that lived on the counter top and drizzling some in the pan.

Johnny shuffled closer to inspect what you were doing and let out a gasp of appreciation. “You’re making me eggs and bacon?”

“I’m making me eggs and bacon,” you corrected, “But I guess I’ll make enough for you too,” you said as you peeled the strips off the packaging and placed them into the pan with a sizzle. You reached for a few eggs and cracked four into the pan directly, cocked your head at the amount of food, and then grabbed two more eggs and added them in before taking a fork and scrambling them all together, adding salt and white pepper to the bubbling liquid. You glanced up at Johnny, still watching you, slightly curious. “I don’t trust you. You say you’re an adult but you eat like a teenage boy still. There’s never any leftovers.” After a few minutes you flipped the strips of bacon over and then quickly chopped up a green onion and scraped it onto the scramble just before the eggs finished cooking.

Johnny watched you the whole time, and you felt only slightly uneasy under his gaze. When you turned off the stove after plated your food and stepping away to pour yourself some coffee and he didn’t move, you gestured at the pan in a fashion as if to silently ask him ‘What?’

“Oh!” He gasped out lightly, springing into action and plating the food for himself. You hadn’t bothered to sit down at the table, instead holding the plate in front of you as you leaned against the counter and ate. Johnny followed your lead, taking a bite and groaning audibly in enjoyment at he chewed. He smiled and his eyes shone, almost sparkling. You watched him curiously for a moment before he mumbled out “Your cooking is really good! It uh, reminds me of my mom’s. She’s a great cook.”

You kept your lips tightly shut at the apparent compliment. “It’s just eggs, you weirdo. Finish up and do the dishes. When you’re done meet me by the shed. Today you’re stripping off the old paint and removing any of the rotting boards and disposing of them,” you instructed while placing your empty plate in the sink. His tasks for the day were the next phase in slowly rebuilding the dilapidated shed on the west side of the property to make it useful for storage of all the tools you used to tend to the fruit trees and vegetable garden nearby.

He flashed a smile at you and gave a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain, I am at your service.”

“Oh shut up,” you grumbled, downing more of your coffee before trudging off.

It was going to be a long summer.

✧ ✧ ✧

“I’m telling you Wendy, I’m going to need an alibi, I really am going to murder my brother in law.”

“What, for giving you live-in eye candy for the summer and hinting that he thinks you need to get laid?”

“Ugh, no, that’s not— hold up, you don’t agree with him, do you?”

The sound of your best friend’s laughter through the phone had you dragging your hands over your face and pulling down at your eyelids dramatically, as if she could see your reaction.

On Thursdays, you finished up your work for the day around 4pm so you could pull up a chair next to the rotary phone and make time for the weekly scheduled phone call with Wendy. She’d insisted on the arrangement after you went six days without texting her, which you’d insisted was because service was spotty, but she’d accurately called you out on being cranky and stewing by yourself.

You and Wendy had met during your freshman year of college. By graduation, you’d lived together for three years, and made a vow to move to the same city together post grad, hence why she was still your roommate now— or was, seeing as you were on the island instead of back in the two bedroom apartment you shared. There was a five hour timezone difference between Hawaii and Chicago, so you’d figured out a schedule that worked for both of you. The calls had a tendency to last for several hours, and depending on how much wine you’d drink while on the phone with her would include bathroom breaks and you inevitably swearing at whatever you were cooking for dinner than night.

“Honey, please. I love you. Dearly, and against all other advice, you’re my best friend— but you need to get laid. You haven’t been this tense since our last finals week of senior year. And clearly you’re not opposed to the idea of Eye Candy banging your brains out, otherwise you wouldn’t have described him as, and I quote, ‘dumb hot and stupidly ripped’. When are you gonna send me a photo so I have something better to work with?”  

“Okay but are you sure you’re not the sexually frustrated one here and you’re just trying to live vicariously through me?”

Wendy’s hum sounded through the line. “I mean, can’t we both be desperately horny and in need of getting some? It’s not ideal but it is possible. Plus, I’m not the one that didn’t pack her vibrator—”

You let out a whine interrupting her as you leaned back in your chair, swirling the wine in your glass a few times as you held the phone to your ear with your shoulder. “Shut up stop reminding me! I regret it but no I’m not letting you send me a new one, especially not with a guy living with me. Come on, my stories are boring, it’s the same thing every day. I wake up, I feed the dog, I tell him what to do and then I hide away doing my own chores. When are you gonna tell me more about that girl you were seeing— what was her name, Joo-something?”

“Nice try, we’re not changing the subject with my dating life. Seriously, babe, you should just think about it.”

“And what, make it awkward for the rest of the summer? No thanks,” you shot her idea down quickly.

“I’m willing to bet money you’ll cave before the end of the summer. Plus, who doesn’t love a good ol’ summer fling? And who says you ever have to see him again once it’s all over?”

As much as you’d loathe to admit it, Wendy had a bit of a point there. “Cute, but you and I both know I’m too high strung for a temporary fling. Plus, I’m not in the mood to catch feelings right now.”

“If I find a way to replenish your wine supply, would that help?”

You groaned dramatically once more. “Not with the sexual frustration, but with my overall wellbeing, yes, yes it would.”

Wendy squealed on the other end of the phone. “Ha! So you admit it, you are sexually frustrated!”

“Woman, when in the years that you’ve known me have I not been at least some kind of frustrated?” You acknowledged.

Your best friend laughed in agreement, understanding she wasn’t going to get much more out of you about Johnny, and began a lengthy and detailed story about her last three dates with a girl she’d met through a friend of a friend. As you listened to how her voice held a dreamlike quality to it when she talked about her, you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy you felt and a sinking feeling in your gut that you’d been lying through your teeth earlier, and that maybe, subconsciously, you did want to catch feelings.

Maybe.

✧ ✧ ✧

“So… is there a story or a reason why you’re here instead of Yunho?”

You lifted your head from your focused task of sorting out the peaberry beans from the regular beans. It was tedious, time consuming, annoying as all hell, and made you want a drink stiffer than the coffee that you were certain made up more of your body fluids than blood or water did at this point. “Yes,” you said curtly after studying his face for a minute, not providing any further explanation. Johnny had his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips, nodding for a moment where he stood in the entrance to the barn.

You had set up your mad scientist level organization for the process all across the concrete floor of the refinished barn. Over the last week, Johnny had finished replacing the boards on the siding of the shed, stained the wood, and sealed it with a protective coat. He even managed to remove all the broken glass from the windows without sustaining any injuries, which you hadn’t thought possible for him. This morning you had him weed the vegetable garden, prune back the hedges along the back side of the house, and clean the deck of the lanai. How did he possibly still have any energy left? He was definitely a harder worker than you’d first given him credit for— you shook your head, not wanting to continue a spiral on Johnny and any detailed thoughts about him.

Back to your task at hand.

The harvest had been divided into several metal basins of five pounds of beans each, and in front of each basin you’d placed two dishes on either side. The point was to be able to weigh how many beans ended up being peaberry from each five pounds of harvest, and to see if you could leverage a steady average from the yield and better plan for how many pounds of the limited roast you could advertise for and set the price per pound accordingly. You wore a face mask and nylon disposable gloves while sorting, and despite being an annoying task, after a while it became a way for you to zone out and let the hours pass by. When the dishes were empty and you first started sorting them, there was a distinct echo of the small beans hitting the metal dish over and over again, until enough beans were lining the bottom that it started to dull the noise.

“Sigh.”

A slight puff of air washed over you. Did he just say the word ‘sigh’ out loud? And was he hovering over your shoulder?

“Can I help you?” You asked, pausing your sorting for only a moment.

“Isn’t it my job to ask you that question? I’m not some layabout, I am trying to earn my keep, you know,” Johnny said in response, rubbing his hands together and eyeing the basin of beans in front of him. You were almost inclined to hand it to him. Over the last four weeks, you’d gotten a lot of decent work out of him, even if you did feel somewhat micro-manage-y half the time with the tasks you did give him. “Okay, how does this work?”

You groaned exaggeratedly and excessively, rolling your eyes. When you didn’t answer, he reached forward and plucked a single coffee bean from the basin and examined it closely. “Hey, this one’s funny looking!”

“Don’t touch them with your bare hands, that’s just going to waste them.” You swatted the bean out of his hand and then looked at your own gloves and sighed. “If you’re insisting on helping, fine. But you need sanitary gear to handle them. Go wash your hands, there’s masks and gloves by the sink,” you grumbled, standing up and taking off your own gloves to dispose of them and replace them with a fresh pair.

Johnny followed obediently, trailing behind you a little too innocently for someone of his size. “Yes, the beans still need to be roasted and that’ll kill any bacteria, but I just like to be extra cautious, okay? Because it’s a mutation there’s no rule to how much of a yield I’ll get with each harvest so I don’t like wasting even a single bean,” you reasoned, settling back down and folding your legs back at the now half-sorted metal bowl.

“So, we’re just sorting the weird ones from the normal ones?” He asked while picking up another peaberry bean, this time with gloved hands and a mask over his mouth and nose.

You took a quick glance and nodded to confirm that yes, the bean in his hand was one of the weird ones he should be looking for. “They’re called peaberry. Normally, a coffee cherry has two seeds in it, or beans. Those two seeds mature in the center of the cherry and you get one flat side and one side touching it. Sometimes people call them ‘flat beans’ but those are the ‘normal’ beans, as you said,” you explained, sifting through your bowl rather quickly. “But the peaberry ones only have one bean inside. The bean is round, so that’s where the name ‘peaberry’ comes from, because—“

“Because it’s round so it looks like a pea, oh I get it! That’s funny,” he laughed, examining the rounded bean in front of him. “Okay, got it, so we’re sorting the peaberry from the flat beans?”

“You proud of your new vocab words?” You snorted, listening for the well known tink of a bean hitting the empty metal bowls. He giggled in acknowledgement.

You worked in relative silence, a small rhythm growing between the two of you. Johnny worked at about half the speed you did, but you couldn’t knock him for it, as it had taken you a while to pick up the pace when you first started hand sorting like this.

“How do you even know Yunho?” You finally asked. Four weeks since he’d arrived, and you’d never bothered to get to know him well enough to listen to the full story of how he’d ended up here.

Johnny shifted in his seated position, clearly a little taken aback that you’d bothered to ask him anything, given your track record. “Oh. Met him in Chicago when I was home visiting. At a local coffee shop, where my buddy Jaehyun is the manager. I went to go bother Jaehyun at work and he was just, shootin’ the shit with one of his coffee suppliers who was doing a visit. That supplier was Yunho. Started talking about how he owned the farm where the beans were grown, and that he wasn’t going to be able to spend the summer out there like he’d planned, so he was looking for some reliable help to uh, take care of things. Mentioned someone else would be on site and in charge, but offered the whole ‘room and board in exchange for copious amounts of physical labor’.”

“And you said yes? Just like that, no questions asked?” It seemed a little too easy, but then again, Johnny had proved to be a little too easygoing.

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. That’s kinda the point of my whole year. Just, go with the flow.” You glanced over, but Johnny was looking down, focused on the task at hand.

You nodded and hummed and turned back to your own basin to continue sorting. A few beats passed by before you couldn’t help yourself— “You’ve said that before. ‘Go with the flow’, or that you ‘had nothing else going on’. What do you mean by that?”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Johnny’s ears perk up, followed by movement of his cheeks implying the curve of a slight smile. “I’m on a gap year, I guess is what the kids would say. Or maybe sabbatical? Though it’s not like I have any tenure enough to qualify for the real meaning of the term. But yeah, anyways— year off from work. Not getting paid or anything, but, when it’s over if I want it, my old job is waiting for me.”

“How come? That seems so—”

“Impulsive?”

You frowned. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he repeated, but not in a mocking manner— it was in agreement. “I guess the best way to explain it is this: I was a huge workaholic. I’ve only had my one job post grad after studying business, and I woke up one morning a month before my twenty-fifth birthday and realized it was sucking the soul out of me. It was all I ate, slept, breathed, and it wasn’t even what I wanted to be doing with my life, I realized.”

His pain started sounding all too familiar. “What is it you wanted to do instead, then?”

Even under the mask covering the lower half of his face, his smile reached his eyes. “Photography. I got into an art school when I was applying to colleges, but it just seemed so… risky. I would’ve had to take out loans and instead I got almost a full ride for a bigger university, so I went for that instead. Studied business, managed to grind through undergrad and grad school in four years and walked out with a combined BS and MBA. Took classes every summer to make it happen. I think after graduation, I went back to my parents house and passed out and slept for twenty-three hours straight,” he laughed, clearly recalling a specific memory. “I felt really accomplished when it was over, and even had the job offer already lined up. But I wish I had had more courage to study what I was truly passionate about.

“So after an almost three year long stint at the company and a vested 401k, I decided to take a year off to just, travel the world a bit. I grinded so hard through college I never got the chance to do study abroad, so I guess I wanted to make up for that? I never used to act on impulse or follow my heart, so, that was the goal for this year. To do only that.”

His words struck you differently. This was a whole new side to Johnny that you really weren’t expecting— not that you had a particularly three dimensional view of him to begin with. “And your heart lead you here… to my brother-in-law’s coffee farm?”

He laughed again, trying to hide just how thrilled he was that you were actually engaging in a full on conversation with him. “Well, sort of. My year off started back in February, day before my birthday. Got on a plane and did a few months backpack trip around Asia. I had no clue what would be next, thought maybe Australia, maybe Europe, but when I got off the plane in Chicago to see my mom and regroup on my packing, I decided to go straight from the airport to surprise and bother Jaehyun at his coffee shop. That day I met Yunho. That was a little over six weeks ago. And now I’m here, with you.”

There was something about the way he said that that didn’t sit well in your stomach— with you, like it was a good thing, like he liked it. You didn’t deign him with a response to the end of his story. Like an extension of the current state of your mind, your hands were reaching, feeling around for something, but you were only met with the flat surface of the bottom of the basin.

You looked down to see the last of the metal bowls was empty. Somehow, you’d managed to sort through all twenty pounds of coffee beans. You pulled the face mask down under your chin as you stared at the metal surface for a moment before standing abruptly and turning on your heels.

Confused, Johnny called your name out after you questioningly. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. You uh, bag up the peaberry and set it aside and then wash out all the metal trays,” you gave him his next set of tasks quickly to make your escape back to the farmhouse to put some distance between the two of you.

A little over an hour later, you’d put together a curry on the stove with some stew meat and a base that included apples, carrots, potatoes, and melted dark chocolate for a more mellow sweet taste to balance it out. You thought about the first time Johnny complimented your cooking when it was just eggs, and how he’d continued to compliment it with every new meal you’d make. You wouldn’t call yourself a chef by any means, thinking that enjoying your go-to recipes would be a more acquired taste, and were in the midst of serving yourself when Johnny came inside with the dog trailing behind him. You didn’t bother saying much, you never did when you’d finished cooking a meal; just a grunt acknowledging his presence and a head nod at the food before you took your bowl and went through the door to go sit on the lanai by yourself. Absent-mindedly, you whistled for the dog to follow you.

Johnny kept to himself that night, eating at the kitchen table, content with looking up out the bay window to see you hand feeding small chunks of meat from your bowl to the dog, even going so far as to pet its head. He shook his head to himself thinking about how you pretended to be so opposed to the dog, and how you still hadn’t given it a name, and smiled as he took another bite.

✧ ✧ ✧

At five weeks, you stopped watching Johnny like a hawk, and started giving him more lengthy tasks that you, quite frankly, just didn’t want to do yourself. Though, if you were being honest, every task you gave him was one you didn’t want to do yourself.

Such as his current one, which was to prep the ground for a new row of sapling fruit trees. You’d walked down from the farmhouse over the hill to the open area next to a row of lemon and guava trees where you’d set him to the task of digging a row of four foot wide, four foot deep holes. The week after next, Jin’s delivery would be a much larger one, and include a number of sapling fruit trees from his family’s farm— rambutans, limes, and mangos, to name a few. You wanted to make sure the holes got dug and the irrigation system set in place properly well in advance.

When you came to a stop at the end of the row of freshly dug holes in the ground you blinked once. Twice. A third time. The sight before you was impossible to comprehend. Because not only was Johnny finishing digging the last of ten massive holes having taken less than three hours to do so, but he had been digging them shirtless.

“What. What?” You asked, staring, eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“Huh?” He asked, looking up from the bottom of the last hole and swishing his head to get his bangs, matted with sweat against his forehead, out of his face. The sun had crested over to this side of the hill now and it was blisteringly hot out. Standing in direct sunlight, doing physical labor, obviously he’d worked up a sweat.

You had to tear your eyes away from the shine on his torso and return them to just his face. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

He pointed to where a lump of fabric was off to the side next to a water bottle. “It’s fucking hot out, I was dying,” he reasoned.

“You’re hot,” you mumbled under your breath, turning on your heel to give yourself reprieve from the onslaught that was Johnny’s unexpected number of defined abdominal muscles that were usually covered by cotton t shirts.

“What was that?” He called, squinting up into the sun from the bottom of the hole.

“I said, put a god damn shirt on before you come back in my house,” you called back, already wrapping your arms around yourself and heading back to the farmhouse. “And dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so finish up,” you added, trudging off before he could respond.

What you would have seen if you’d turned back around was an open mouthed smile curl across his face, as Johnny hummed to himself at the joy he felt for this, the first time you’d bothered to warn him when dinner would be ready.

✧ ✧ ✧

Ever since you’d seen Johnny shirtless, you’d be restless.

Well, restless was the polite word. The word to better describe what you’d been feeling was… frustrated?

Distracted? Peeved? Worked up?

Horny.

The word you were avoiding was horny.

Wendy had been the one to get you to admit it during your last weekly phone call. You told her about the shirtless incident and the first thing she asked was if you had plans to throw out the washing machine and instead start doing your laundry on Johnny’s abs, which did not help your predicament any further. It was also Wendy who had pointed out that you’d been alone on this farm for almost two months with a dog and a man too pretty for his own good, and despite how he represented everything you were annoyed at in life at the moment, after seeing his half naked figure, it would only be natural for you to have been a little turned on. And a little turned on was exactly where you were— for the last week, you had been going on runs every night to release the excess pent up energy you suddenly had.

The last time you exercised this much you were still in college. Back then you went on hour long runs through the city with your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ because it was the only way you weren’t constantly bombarded with an on onslaught of messages from classmates, friends, family, or your on campus job that took up way too much of your time. And now, you found yourself returning to old habits, this time because what, you were too proud to just rub one out like the rest of humanity? (That phrasing, too, was courtesy of your best friend, when she again reminded you of your failure to pack your vibrator.)

After another eight miles up and down the road outside the farm that ran along the island’s coast your legs felt like absolute jello when you finished, but your head was empty enough that you were able to return to the property and exist near Johnny in peace. You walked by the barn on your way up to the farmhouse, sticking your head inside briefly to look for him. You didn’t hear any noise, and didn’t find him at first glance, but didn’t think much of it as you went back inside.

The dog was already in the kitchen, so that should have been your first clue. You opened the fridge and peered inside, pulling out a number of assorted ingredients to make a lemon cream sauce for pasta with chicken.

You set a pot of water to boil, turned the oven on to preheat, and began melting butter, garlic, oil, and a variety of herbs in a sauce pan. That plus the low hum of the overhead fan meant just enough noise that you couldn’t hear the water running from the small shower on the other side of the house, and you didn’t think twice as the heat cast off by the appliances made you feel even stuffier post-run, and you peeled your shirt off your body and rolled the waistband of your shorts down an inch, pressing your bare feet flat against the hardwood flooring to try and get some semblance of cooling relief.

It was only a few moments later, with the water boiling and pasta cooking inside and the chicken already seasoned and in the oven, when you peered over the bubbling sauce pan and dipped the edge of your pinky into the mixture to bring just a taste up to your mouth. Just like you’d hoped, it was light and had a kick of citrus to it from the lemon, but not so much that it was overpowering. You closed your eyes and hummed in appreciation as you licked the sauce off, which, in retrospect, probably sounded far too much like a moan for your own good.

“Jesus fuck—”

And suddenly, you realized you weren’t alone inside the house.

You screamed at first from the shock of being startled by the noise, and then again when it registered in your brain that Johnny was standing in the kitchen, hair dripping wet, chest bare and abdominal muscles just as defined as the last time you’d seen them, face flushed in some sort of embarrassment with a bath towel wrapped around his hips.

Johnny was fresh out of the shower, nearly naked in your kitchen, clutching his clothes balled up in his left hand.

You scream again.

“What are you doing?!” You shrieked out, raising your voice over the dog’s excited barking at the commotion the two of you had begun making.

He stammered for a moment, clearly frozen in place. “I was just! You were gone, and I was done for the day, so I took a shower but I— I forgot my change of clothes in my room and these towels are small and just— Jesus why are you wearing so little clothing?!”

Your fury returned full force at the comment. “Why am I wearing so little clothing? You’re in a towel for fuck’s sake! This is my house, I live here! I should be the one asking you where your clothes are!”

“They’re here, in my hand!” He yelled back, waving the bundle around frantically. “I just said I forgot them when I went to shower!”

Your eyes bugged out of you head as your gaze traveled down, taking in the entirety of the figure before you and— oh.

“Are you… are you hard right now?” You asked in bewilderment.

The way the color drained out of Johnny’s face and the speed with which he moved the bundle of clothing to hold it over the space between his legs answered your question.

“Oh, my god.” Exasperated, you slammed your eyes shut and held your hands up by your sides. “What the fuck, John.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— fuck, shit I made it weird— please don’t get mad, I can totally fix this,” he started spewing apologies, and you heard him take two steps closer to you. “Wait, were you looking at my dick?”

“Ah!” You spat out, turning away from him. His question was valid but you had no intention of acknowledging it. “Out! Get out of my house, go… somewhere else until that goes away or you can, I don’t know, take care of it!” You instantly thought of the implication of your words and then yelled again. “No— don’t— fuck, don’t do that! Jesus for the love of god don’t take care of it while I’m standing here—” you were stammering and beyond flustered. How the fuck were you supposed to talk to someone who had just gotten a fucking boner by looking at you, sweaty in a sports bra, while sucking a cream colored substance off the tip of your pinky?

You exhaled deeply, eyes still closed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go to your room. I am going to finish cooking my dinner. You will be absolutely silent until you hear me leave. I will be staying at the condo for the next week. You will either ration the leftovers or fend for yourself, I do not care. Got it?” You signed out again, eyes flicking open. Johnny held his bundle of clothes in front of his legs and nodded his head once, not bothering with any comeback before he shuffled to the guest room and shut the door quietly.

It took another twenty minutes for the meat to finish cooking and the dish to be full prepared. How you managed to keep your head empty and shut off your internal monologue during that time, you’ll never know, but you were thankful for it nonetheless. You packed two servings into a Tupperware container for yourself before shoving some clothes in a duffle bag and grabbing the keys to the jeep you hated driving. It was only about ten minutes down the road to the condo, but it was almost fifteen miles, so you figured this was the lesser of two evils. You whistled for the dog to follow you, and it was all too excited to jump in the passenger seat of the car. The farmhouse was now dry of liquor, what with Yunho not making good on his promise a month ago and your weekly wine dates with Wendy, but you knew the condo definitely had some spirits stashed somewhere in a cabinet. You were going to need that and a nice hot bath to destress after that encounter.

Meanwhile, Johnny sunk down on to the floor inside the guest room, his back pressed against the door. When he heard the sound of the jeep’s engine turning over, he sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. There were no better words to describe it: he was truly and utterly fucked.

✧ ✧ ✧

You stayed at the condo only for three days, and did little other than sleep, binge watch some TV since there was better electricity and internet here, and eat your way through slightly stale bags of chips and frost bitten freezer dinners that were months old. Because you couldn’t just open the door and let the dog out to run through the property for whatever exercise or bathroom needs it had, you had to actually walk it with a leash and everything. You paid less attention to how domestic the action of clipping the leash on to the collar you’d found in an unopened delivery package on the kitchen table was, and thought more about how slothful you’d felt over the last 60-odd hours of self isolation, especially after two months of working outdoors every day.

It was childish to keep hiding from Johnny. It’s not like you could prove that he’d gotten hard looking at you, and really, shouldn’t you take it as sort of a compliment? (Well, maybe you wouldn’t go that far.)

It was Monday when you returned to the farm, parking the jeep back by the barn and hip checking the door shut after the dog went running off in search of Johnny. It found him carrying pruned branches of trees down to the area where you burned excess brush, and you could hear the excited sound of his voice at the return of the creature as you walked slowly down the hill towards him.

“I missed you! It’s been so lonely without you, but I guess I’m glad your mommy had you with her, huh?” He cooed at the dog, rubbing its face in his hands after dropping the bundle of branches and flopping its ears from side to side. Hearing Johnny refer to you as a mother, even of the animal, had you grimacing.

“Ew,” you said, making your presence known. He stood up suddenly, possibly just a little embarrassed.

“Oh! You’re uh, you’re back.” You nodded, lips pressed together in a flat line. Your hands were full, carrying two takeout coffees from a shop down near the condo you’d stopped at on the way back. You’d forgotten how much the farm felt like a different planet, a different space in time almost, because of how isolated it felt. The act of ordering a coffee to go rather than making it yourself in the morning was equal parts bewildering and soothing.

You had no idea what compelled you to order an iced americano along with the cortado you’d gotten for yourself. You didn’t really know much about Johnny beyond the one conversation you’d had about how he ended up meeting your brother in law and crashing on the farm with you in the first place. But somehow, ordering the drink had felt right, and you thought of it as a potential peace offering to cut the tension.

“This is yours,” you said plainly after some thought, trying to remove any and all emotion from your tone.

He blinked a few times before taking three steps towards you and reaching his hand out to take the drink. He mumbled a soft thank you and sipped without bothering to ask what was inside.

“You’re just going to take the drink a stranger offers you, no questions asked?”

“Ooh!” His eyes perked up when he tasted the coffee. “I mean, I’ve never questioned any of the food you’ve made me so far, why start now? Besides,” he shrugged, taking another sip, “I trust you.”

You snorted. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”

Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.” He nodded to the paper cup in your hand. “What’s your poison?”

“Cortado,” responded curtly, ignoring his comments that were cutting a bit too deep for ten in the morning.

“Ah, a strong espresso pull with a balance of steam milk and a touch of foam. Nice choice. I can definitely appreciate one, but I’m a little too impatient and drink them too quickly— I think that’s why I love americanos so much, because it lasts a little longer.”

You tilted you head to the side, puzzled. “Wait. You… actually know things about coffee?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughed, “What do you think I spent three hours talking with Yunho about the day we met? I did my time as a barista in college. Free coffee every shift was hard to pass up when you’re doing almost a double course load every other semester. I’ve always been curious about the growing and roasting process, and I know a lot of people do home roasting as a hobby but I just never made the time to explore it.”

Well, duh, you thought, that actually made sense. “Oh god, and here I’ve been making my lame ass bitter pour over all summer— you know how to pull a shot of espresso then I take it? You’ve seen the La Marzocco on the counter, how come you’ve never used it?”

He pouted his lips out in a flat line and shrugged comically. “Dunno. I mean, I’m a guest and a worker first, and it’s not mine, so, I didn’t wanna make any assumptions. But if this is an open invitation to use it, I’m more than happy to accept.”

You chewed on the inside of your mouth for a moment. You could feel it in the air as the hairs on your arms stood up slightly, goosebumps running down your skin. You hoped in wasn’t too noticeable. Maybe this was it— maybe it really was time to extend an olive branch and have more than half a conversation with him every four days. “It’s a little older and sort of temperamental, but it’s still a good machine. I’ll… show you the quirks tomorrow morning, or whenever you want something to drink,” you offered.

It was then that you discovered this: Johnny was not a great actor. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You figured this to be true because he could barely contain the smile that spread across his face, and the energetic nod he gave, and the mild soft exhale (squeal?) of excitement. You rolled your eyes gently and turned away, drink in hand. “When it cools down later after dinner, I’m roasting tonight. You’re welcome to join.”

You gave him the benefit of not bearing witness to the fist pump he made as you walked away.

Dinner that night was stir fried ground pork with carrots and zucchini from the garden served over rice. It was one of your comfort dishes, easy to make and easy to clean up after, since it used only two pans. As soon as you’d finished eating, this time sitting at the table together with Johnny, he’d cleared the dishes and got to cleaning up right away. You stretched your arms overhead and leaned back in your chair far enough to crack your back slightly with a loud pop.

“Oof, that sounded like it felt good,” he laughed from the sink. You hummed in agreement. “So what’d you do before this? Desk job hunched over a computer like the rest of us?”

“Mmm something like that. You may have been bored out of your mind in business, but I sold my soul years ago to work in advertising.”

“Why does that like, fit?” He asked, turning the water off and drying the pan you’d used for cooking by hand.

“You saying I have no soul?” You challenged.

He shrugged. “Hey, you said it, not me. We’re both just cogs in the machine that is late stage capitalism, I guess.”

You didn’t know how deeply you wanted to get into it with Johnny just yet. Maybe eventually, but, not right now. “Yeah, well, I was just a Project Manager, not like a Copywriter or anything. Did you know Yunho was a staff Art Director before he switched to the coffee business full time? We used to work at the same agency a few years back.”

Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at you. “Ah, that’s right! I remember him saying something about that, made the same jokes about having no soul. You two are a lot alike for not being related by blood.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong; sometimes you wondered if you’d become closer with Yunho that you were with your sister at this point. “Enough about that. If you’re done follow me, it’s probably cool enough to fire up the roaster. I just want to do a test batch of like, five pounds with the regular beans to see how this year’s harvest takes to our standard roast,” you explained, heading to the door and slipping on your sneakers. “Don’t let the dog out, it gets scared from the loud noises and I don’t need it freaking out.”

Johnny dried his hands and followed after you to the barn. You flicked on the lights and went straight for the sink to pull your hair out of your face, wash your hands, and put on a pair of gloves and a mask. Johnny followed your lead, even going so far as to tie up the top layer of his hair on top of his head. “Hey look! It’s like an apple,” he bobbed his head from side to side to make the tiny ponytail move back and forth, and you couldn’t help but snort as you tried to suppress your laughter.

“Dork,” was all you said. You went to the storage racks to pick up one of the sorted burlap bags of beans and hoisted it over your shoulder to carry it to a metal prep table where you carefully opened it and began scooping out the green beans and pouring them into a bowl on a metal scale that had been zeroed out. “So  obviously you know that coffee is counted by weight in pounds. That monstrosity,” you jerked your head in the direction of the massive eight foot tall machine in the corner of the room, “Can handle up to twenty-five pounds of beans in the barrel at a time. Because it’s so big, it’s best to not do super small batches, otherwise you risk burning the beans. Since I’m going for five pounds, it’ll be okay, but if I was doing any less I’d use one of the table top roasters, since they have a smaller barrel.” You finished weighing out five pounds and handed the container to him to carry.

You continued explaining the full process of roasting and science behind it as you flipped switches, checked that the exhaust was hooked up properly, and set the dials for the heat and time on the industrial roaster before pulling the door to the funnel open and having Johnny slowly pour the beans inside. “God you’re a fucking giant, I always need a step stool to reach that high,” you commented as he made the reach with ease.

You weren’t kidding when you said the roaster was loud when it was running. Thankfully with the size of the machine and this batch, it was only eleven minutes of the two of you standing just a few feet away in case anything went wrong and you had to hit the emergency stop, holding your hands over your ears to block the sound. Johnny began jokingly exaggerating mouthing something out, and you felt almost like friends as you laughed at his antics. You were never the best at reading lips. Especially not Johnny’s, they were too full and distracting on their own for you to make sense of the mouth shapes. When the machine came to a grinding halt and the noise suddenly stopped, he was still shouting words and his voice echoed around the space in the absence of the noise, “I said, I think you’re— oh, wow, that was fast,” he quickly diverted, catching himself from finishing whatever it was he was about to say.

Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of trying to pry out of him what he was in the process of saying under the protection of the loud noises. You shook it off mentally and showed him how to remove the beans from the roasting chamber. “So you take them out like this, and then they’re still going to be warm for a while, so it’s best to let them rest for a bit. If you were to brew them right away, the flavor might not be what you’re expecting, so if you wait for them to sit for a few days, you’ll notice a considerable difference in the flavor profile—”

You stopped suddenly, a sound in the distance suddenly registering to you. You left Johnny standing there with the roasted coffee in hand and trailed to the edge of the barn and then you heard it more clearly— the sound of the old rotary phone ringing. “Oh, shit,” you swore and took off running back up to the house. The only person who had the number for the landline other than Wendy were Yunho and your sister. Wendy didn’t call you outside of your Thursday night appointments. You did the math in your head— it was the end of June, your sister’s due date wasn’t til the end of August, but early labor was always something you’d heard about, especially with more than one baby.

Hands shaking, you got to the phone on what could have been the last ring and panted out a greeting of Yunho’s name, already knowing it was him.

“Oh thank god you answered, I’ve been calling for the last twenty minutes, where were you?” He chastised immediately. You felt uneasy at the tone in his voice.

You stammered in response. “I— we were in the barn, I was roasting so I couldn’t hear the phone— what’s wrong? Is she okay?”

Yunho sighed out heavily and was quiet. “She’s going to be okay, but there was a… scare,” you could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I don’t want to freak you out, but I don’t want to not tell you either. She slipped getting out of the shower, landed on her hip. Started having lower abdominal pain right after. We thought maybe it was going to be now, but, she’s fine. The doctors think they were phantom contractions? Whatever they were they’re gone now. The babies are fine, but she’ll most likely be in the hospital until the due date. If she starts experiencing any kind of contractions between now and then, though, they’ll want to induce labor.” You could tell he was still stressed and worried, but you nodded and listened as he explained some of the medical details a bit further. “Anyways, all this to say, the next time I call, it could be to tell you that you’re an auntie.”

From the moment you heard the phone ringing this late at night and calculated that it was almost two in the morning in Chicago, the tightness in your chest had been building. Listening to Yunho speak delicately about your sister’s condition was one thing— you thought it was a sigh of relief when he said that everything was fine, but then it was most certainly not fine when the gravity of his last words really hit you.

“Little Bean are you listening? Is the signal bad? I know the connection isn’t always great—”

You inhaled sharply as the pressure inside came to a head. “Yunho I gotta go,” you gasped out, barely able to make sense of thoughts to get the words out.

Before you could hear his rebuttal you slammed the phone on to the receiver to end the call and covered your face with your hands still in their nylon gloves. Despite standing in an open space, you suddenly felt like the room was spinning and the walls were closing in on you. Out, out, you had to get out—

“Hey, everything okay in here?”

Fuck.

Johnny was standing in the door, a look of concern on his face. You heaved into your hands and choked out a sob, feeling the wetness in your eyes building. No no no, everything was most certainly not okay in here. You shouldn’t have made eye contact, you should have known better, because looking at his face, his stupid perfect face and his genuine care for your wellbeing, it set you free falling over the precipice.

You were spiraling, and hard, and needed to land. It was instinctual, the way you cried out and ran pushing past him before breaking into an all out sprint down the hill to the fruit trees. Your legs barely kept up with the velocity of running at a decline, stopping short of tumbling and falling forward. The only thing that you knew to help this, the thing that had worked for you in the past, and you raced through the grove of trees for the larger one at the very end. It was one of the older trees, well mature and established with its root system, so you could always expect it to produce fruit.

But you’d harvested a large amount of the fruit in the last few weeks from the lower branches, and the only remaining fruit that would be ripe enough for your purposes was on the higher branches just out of reach. Over the sound of your pained sobs, you couldn’t hear Johnny’s approach or him asking what was wrong, your one track mind just trying desperately to jump and reach, fingertips barely brushing on the fruit you were reaching for.

“Hey hey, calm down, what are you—” he started.

“Shut up! Just shut— don’t tell— don’t tell me calm— calm—” you couldn’t make the words make sense, in your head you were screaming don’t tell me to calm down, but the act of translating that into words on your tongue was downright Herculean right now, it just wasn’t happening. Your knees began wobbling and standing too started feeling impossible. The tightness in your chest had expanded to reach your back, and though you were clearly still getting air by the fact that you hadn’t passed out yet, you felt like you weren’t breathing at all. You were crying outright now, tears wet and hot and painful as the sobs escaped your throat.

It didn’t take a genius to figure that you were trying to reach a fruit on a branch just above your wingspan. Johnny placed one large hand against your back gently and reached all the way up, fingers wrapping around what he assumed was the object of your fixation, before twisting and pulling to release it from the tree. “Hey,” he said softly, “This what you need?”

As soon as you made sense of the object in front of you you seized it from his hands, biting directly through the rind of the lemon. A muffled sob came out as your knees buckled and you sank to the ground. The bitter rush of citrus did part of its job, and brought your consciousness back down to earth. But your breathing didn’t steady, and your heart was still pounding, and the tears were still falling.

It wasn’t working, your grounding technique; not like it had the previous times, like the night you’d first gotten the phone call from Yunho saying they weren’t coming, and not like the time you bit into a lemon in the kitchen at work after first getting the phone call that your sister was pregnant, and even the time before that when she told you she and Yunho were moving, or when Yunho had asked you if he could marry your sister. If you were more with it, you would have thought for a moment longer about how all of your largest panic attacks of the last several years seemed to be linked to things about Yunho and your sister. Biting into a whole lemon had been your go-to for years, and suddenly, it wasn’t working.

“Fuck!” You cried out, spitting the lemon into your palms, “Fuck fuck fuck! Why isn’t it— why isn’t it working?!” Your words were absolutely frantic, and you were yelling at yourself more than your companion who, quite frankly, you’d forgotten was even there.

Until you felt a shadow pass over you in the moonlight and a pair of arms enveloping you in an embrace.

The top of your head was pressed against his chest and his hands found their way to the planes of your back and began rubbing soft circles. Softly he tutted out a shushing noise, voice barely above a whisper, steady. “Come on, let it out, I’m right here. I’ve got you, you’re not alone,” he said calmly, “You’re gonna get through it. Try to take a deep breath, that’s good now hold it as long as you can— okay, that’s okay, try again, try to hold on to it and let it out slowly this time.”

You’d never had anyone physically with you and help you through a panic attack before. You’d had them around people in the past, but no one had ever made a move to help you through it— not like this, not like him, not like he was doing right now by attempting to guide your breathing. The one time you had one in front on Wendy, you’d locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to answer her while you came down, and she never pressed you about it afterwards.

You had no idea how much time passed as Johnny held you in his arms, keeping a steady rhythm of his palms on your back and letting you cry it out into the fabric of his shirt, your hands wringing the material so strongly you thought you’d tear holes where your nails were.

One hand traveled to the back of your head and he stroked that too. “I’ve got you, I’m right here,” he said again.

After a longer period of silence, your ears stopped ringing and you could finally make out the chirping of the crickets in the night. You sniffled and rubbed the last of the trails the tears had left on your cheeks into his shirt, mumbling an apology into it.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly, keeping his voice low, almost as if he was afraid he’d scare you off if he raised it any higher. “I mean— haha, don’t apologize. It’s okay, whatever it is, it’ll wash out. If it doesn’t, it’s just a tee shirt, I can always buy another.” His tone was even paced and calm, and in pressing your ear against his chest you could hear the reverberations as he spoke.

The humid summer air was heavy as usual, even this late at night. You don’t know how long you sat there in silence, wrapped in Johnny’s arms listening to his heartbeat, but eventually you acknowledged that your heart was beating in time with his. Whether you liked it or not, he had been the thing to ground you, and not a stupid fucking lemon.

You shifted slightly, making a move to stand, but Johnny stopped you. “Whoa whoa, hang on lemme get ready— okay, hold on to my shoulders, that’s it.” Your fingers dug into his arms as he adjusted his legs and hooked one arm under your knees and the other around your back and stood up, taking you with him.

“Shit,” you mumbled out, head rushing at the quick movement and the realization that your legs were still bent over his arm, and Johnny was now carrying you. “Hey, heavy,” your words were still soft.

“Mmm, nah, nothing I can’t handle,” his response was easy, dismissive of your complaint, but not in a bad way. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to but— anxiety? Panic attack?” You sucked in a breath at the word. You hated that word. That word made you feel weak, even if it was exactly what this was. You dug your nails into his skin slightly on a reflex of bracing yourself, not with this intention of inflicting damage. “Got it. I get it,” he had approached the house and walked to the door, reaching for the handle with the hand under your knees. “I’ve had a few myself. Not recently, but back in college, maybe two or three? Don’t think they were ever as strong as that, though. I tried the lemon trick once, it actually worked pretty well for me. Didn’t make the next time I did a tequila shot all that fun though, couldn’t enjoy citrus for at least a month after that.” His soft laughter shook his chest and you leaned in further. Listening to his voice was comforting. It was keeping you steady. It made you feel safe, and in this moment, you were too tired to think about how you probably should have hated that. “Think you could swallow some water? Rehydrating is important.”

Your head nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna put you down now.” He used his foot to push one of the chairs away from the table and set you down on to the seat gently. The dog was immediately at your knees, whining lowly and attempting to give as many kisses as you’d accept. “Here,” he said gently, crouching down in front of you and holding a glass out. “Drink what can, but not too fast. There you go, that’s it,” his large hand clasped over your knee, thumb rubbing circles on the side. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” you rasped out, voice raw from all the crying earlier.

Johnny smiled softly. “Good, that’s good. Okay, I think you need to get to bed, yeah? Or do you wanna take a shower or something first?” You shook your head. “Okay, just washed your face then?” You nodded. Your conscious monologue was returning, but bringing words from your mind to your mouth was still proving difficult. Johnny didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he offered you his hand. “Need help getting up?”

You answered by gripping on to his hand and using his shoulders to help you stand up. Johnny walked you to your room, holding his arm out for you as a guide. You were able to bear weight on your feet now, and though your steps were slow, you made it to the bathroom to wash your face and and change into sleepwear. Johnny waited by the door, averting his eyes for privacy for you, and returned to your side to help you into bed.

When he leaned over you to pull the sheets up, you reached for his wrist and asked, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

His face went blank before it softened into a smile. “Because. I told you earlier, didn’t I? You’re a good person. Should be simple as that, yeah?”

You didn’t have a response for him, only shifting deeper into the pillows. He turned off the light and retreated to the door frame. “Try and get some rest. Call me if you need me, okay?”

Your head managed a nod, and Johnny finally left, leaving the door to your room slightly ajar. You listened for the sounds of him milling about the house, his footsteps softly shuffling against the floorboards, a few mumbled words to the dog that followed at his heels, until you finally fell asleep.

When you dreamed that night, you dreamt of him, the sound of his voice, and the way your blood felt on fire whenever he looked at you and smiled.

✧ ✧ ✧

Johnny never asked you about the panic attack.

He didn’t bring it up, he didn’t ask what caused it, he didn’t even allude to it in any conversation over the next week. The next day he was just a little bit more gentle with you with the tone and volume of his speaking voice, but when you showed no signs of still be affected from the previous night, he let it go and didn’t bother you about it.

You couldn’t tell if you loved him or hated him for it.

Confusion on your feelings aside, as June came to a close and the morning of July 3rd came, you woke up to the sound of the espresso machine running. Johnny had very quickly proven that he was worth his salt as a barista, even though it had been several years, and had a very nice shot pull. He even figured out the steamer, which was the most finicky part of the machine, and had been making you cortados every morning. That’s what you were sipping now from a metal camper mug, as you walked with him to the shed.

“I think that all that’s left is nailing down that last sheet of roofing and then we’re done,” he hummed cheerfully, inspecting the building. It looked brand new, a marked improvement from the broken windows and bleached paint job it had sported two months ago.

Two months. Was that really how long he’d been here? You didn’t want to think too much about it, about how those two months gone meant you had reached the half way point, and that there were about two months left.

Two months…

“We should celebrate,” he said suddenly, and you looked up puzzled.

“We?”

“Sure!” He exclaimed, “I had no idea what I was doing. I just did what you told me to. This was one of the biggest projects for the summer, right? And plus, not that I care too much for the holiday, but won’t there be fireworks and stuff for the Fourth? Come on, this house has been dry for weeks, let’s go get some booze and live a little, huh?” He prodded your side with his elbow and began needling at you, saying huh, huh, huh over and over until you groaned and relented.

“Fiiiiiine, let’s go before the stores get crowded when everyone realizes everything’s gonna be closed tomorrow.”

The dog was less than pleased that you’d sent it back into the house when you picked up the keys to the jeep. Usually you took it with you, but this time you decided against it, since you weren’t sure how the liquor store would feel with you bringing the stray dog off leash into the store with you.

“All you, big guy,” you said to Johnny as you tossed the car keys at him.

“Aren’t you gonna ask if I know how to drive first?” He quipped back quickly while walking to the driver’s side.

“Nah,” you shrugged comically, hoisting yourself up by the frame of the car. You buckled yourself in and watched as he did the same and adjusted the mirrors for his height. “Besides,” you looked down to inspect your fingernails as if they were the most fascinating thing on the planet, “I trust you, or whatever.”

“Bit of a stupid thing to do, but alright,” he smiled, echoing your words back at you. “Kidding, I’m an excellent driver. Alright, co-pilot! You have the most sacred duty bestowed upon you—”

“Navigation?”

“No, music selection, duh,” he scoffed and handed you the aux cord and pulled out a cell phone you’d never seen him hold before. You stared at the device as he unlocked it and pulled up his music library. Johnny noticed your surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. “What, it’s not like I have a use for it out here. Your wifi sucks and I’m not about to rack up a huge cell phone bill, so it stays off in my duffle bag most of the time. Anyways, this is a test! Pick whatever your heart desires.” The smirk on his face was beyond mischievous as he handed it to you.

You sighed and settled into the seat and began scrolling. What to pick, what to pick…

Surprisingly, there was a decent number of songs you recognized, and one album in particular you were a fan of. You scrolled down the track listing to about the half way point and pressed play.

The sounds of The Killers and the familiar guitar chords that were practically sewn into your DNA began to filter through the speakers. Johnny smiled and started clapping as the car reached the bottom of the driveway and he flipped on the turn signal. “Oh my god, Mr. Brightside, excellent choice! Okay, you passed the first test. But do you know the words?” He teased.

You gasped in feigned offense as the lyrics came to the chorus, and as he accelerated up to speed you began to belt the words out as loud as you could manage. For once you weren’t thinking about how you hated that the jeep had no top while the wind whipped past you on all sides as Johnny sped down the highway. As the song played, the magic high of belting the words to something fifteen years old that were still imprinted in your brain didn’t seem to wear off like you’d expected it to.

“Alright, chop chop what’s next maestro!” He called over the sound of the wind as the song came to a close. You already had something queued up, something a little more recent, and you smiled as the words to the next song began filtering through the speakers, letting the music carry the drive and not belting along with it this time. You tried to not think too deeply about the lyrics of the chorus as it played.  

'Cause you're the last of a dying breed Write our names in the wet concrete I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me? I'm here in search of your glory There's been a million before me That ultra-kind of love You never walk away from You're just the last of the real ones

As the bridge played and you neared your destination, Johnny tilted his head towards you while keeping his eyes on the road. “Growing up, it was like, a badge of honor as a Chicago kid to have gone to a Fall Out Boy show when they still played the smaller clubs. I snuck into one when I was 16— it was an 18 and over show— felt like I was hot shit when I got away with it.”

“Don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a Fall Out Boy fan,” you admitted. From your scroll through his music library, you saw most of their discography saved to his phone.

“Hey, I had my embarrassing wannabe emo phase too.”

“Had?” You couldn’t stop yourself from teasing. Johnny didn’t give a response to that one, and as another Fall Out Boy song played through the speakers you let yourself rest in a comfortable lack of conversation, instead sharing the music with him as he drove. It only took to the end of that third song to reach your destination and based on how he handled the drive and parking, true to his word Johnny was an excellent driver.

Johnny followed you closely once inside, his eyes scanning up and down the shelves of the tiny liquor store before he reaches and picks up a six pack of pilsner. “You ever try this one?”

Your nose wrinkles in disgust. “I don’t do beer.”

Johnny blinks twice in response and plops the six pack back down on the shelf. “Noted. What do you drink?”

“If I’m picking?” He nods. “I’m a slut for rosé or champagne. Any sparkling wine, really, it makes me feel fancy and you get to turn basic days into little celebrations.” You follow him as he walks down the aisle to where the selection of wine was shelved and starts looking through the options. “Hang on, you’re not gonna grill me about the beer thing?”

“You say that like your friends usually give you shit for it.”

You crossed your arms and shuffle your feet underneath you. “Well, yeah. Usually.”

“Then I would say,” he trails off for a moment, bending and squatting to see a label on a lower shelf before picking up two bottles of the same brand, “You need new friends. Or that your current ones need to learn boundaries, take your pick. How’s this look for one option? Since this is a celebration and all,” he says with a wink.

Leaning forward, you study the label on the bottle for a moment before nodding in approval. You agree to his point that since they were 15% off if you bought six or more bottles, it only made sense to buy more, and besides, “It’s not like you won’t drink them eventually when you’re on the phone with Wendy.”

Your eyebrows shot up at that. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m quiet not deaf, and you’re louder than you think you are,” he says matter-of-factly before heading to the cashier to pay for your selection. You bite your tongue then, hoping to whatever deity was watching you (and probably laughing) that he’d overheard one of the conversations that wasn’t about Wendy insisting you should bone him.

Johnny picks the music on the way back, opting for some Bleachers and Paramore now that he knew at least part of your music taste and how it aligned with his.

Your new selection of wine goes into the fridge as soon as you get home, and Johnny heads to the shed with a ladder in hand to climb on top and finish nailing down the roofing. You opt to help with this task, spotting from the ground and continuously yelling for him to ‘be careful’ and ‘you better not fall and break your neck while I’m watching’. It takes a little over an hour, and it’s late afternoon when he finishes, but when you climb the ladder yourself as he holds it steady from the ground to inspect his handiwork you have to say you’re impressed.

“You sure you never did construction work before? You’ve got shockingly good craftsmanship for a newbie.”

“My dad’s pretty self sufficient so he was always doing the handiwork around the house. Picked stuff up here and there from him growing up, but anything I didn’t know I could just look up on the internet.” You shoot him a pointed look. “What! I said your wifi was shitty not that I didn’t use it every now and again. There’s a YouTube tutorial for everything these days.”

Johnny insisted on cleaning up the last of the debris on his own while you worked on dinner— another pasta dish, orecchiette broccoli rabe, and while that was cooking you boil a pint of blackberries with water and sugar to make a flavored simple syrup. Since you were celebrating tonight, it only felt right to put in a little extra effort even to the drinks of choice. Kir Royales were typically made with a blackcurrant liquor, but it was a niche product you hadn’t found in the store, so the syrup and a slice of lemon for garnish would have to do.

While you waited for Johnny to finish up and take his shower (after the last time, you gave him plenty of space out of an abundance of caution whenever he showered), you started rummaging through the pantry cabinets and making sense of the dry ingredients you had on hand. You had time to kill, why not make a dessert with it?

You hadn’t talked about it much with Johnny, but you actually did enjoy cooking and baking. Something about spending time and energy making something and having someone consume it and tell you they liked made you feel good. You still remember the first time you made breakfast for a hungover Wendy in college and she raved about it for days, though you were pretty sure back then it was because the carbs soaked up the remaining alcohol in her system and stopped her from puking.

Dinner was finished when Johnny finally came out of the shower, this time fully clothed and his hair more dry. You explained that you’d gotten bored and made cookie dough but the oven hadn’t finished pre-heating yet so nothing was baked.

“Fuck it, cookie dough is always better than the cookies themselves,” he shrugged.

“But salmonella—”

Johnny held up a hand jokingly as he stopped your interjection and turned off the oven. “Still convinced that’s a myth parents made up to stop kids from actually enjoying childhood. Plus it’s hot as balls, chill the dough while we eat and then it’ll be even better after. Plus, you haven’t poisoned either of us yet, I think your track record is pretty good so far.” (There he went again, referring to you and him as an ‘us’.)

So you did just that, putting the cookie dough into the fridge and taking your dinner outside with the cocktails you’d made. You didn’t have any wine glasses here at the farm house— after breaking one stemmed glass during your first phone call with Wendy you’d moved the rest to the condo and replaced the drink ware with mason jars because the clean up was too annoying. Plus, you didn’t want to risk the dog stepping on stray shards of thin glass and getting them stuck in the pads of its paws. (You were still decidedly apathetic towards it, but that didn’t mean you were cruel).

So it was in the wide mouth Kerr jars that you poured your blackberry syrup and a half a bottle of champagne, after a comical exchange of Johnny insisting he wasn’t scared of the pop! that corks made coming out of pressurized bottles and the yelp he let out anyways when it happened as expected. The lemon slice garnish was more of an aesthetic touch than anything but you liked it nonetheless.When Johnny pulls out his phone for the second time that day and insists on playing music and making a dramatic toast before you could drink, you could only laugh and agree.

“To the best Boss I’ve ever had,” he said with a raised glass, “Even though you used me for cheap labor and to do all the hard shit.”

“Rude! I cook every day, look at all the chances I’ve had to poison you and how many times have I done it? Absolutely none because I am a saint and you know it.”

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol, the music, the low hum of crickets, the starry night sky, or the summer heat that did it, but time flowed so easily, and so did the conversation and teasing banter. Over the course of one meal you’d exchanged more words with Johnny than you had in the whole two months you’d known each other. Two hours later and you’d finished all the dinner (of course there were no leftovers, Johnny was still Johnny, but the amount of manual labor he did in a day made sense of how much he usually ate, you’d come to realize). The bowl of cookie dough was now sitting on the step of the lanai and you and Johnny were side by side on the deck, looking out over the farm and taking the occasional spoonful of dough into your mouths. He was right— the dough did taste better than the baked cookies probably would have, especially after it had chilled for a bit. With the way the stars and moon were hung in the cloudless sky, you could see the soft glow of their reflection in the water beyond the highway and the cliff leading to the beach.

“You ever go down to the shore?” He asks suddenly, and it feels out of nowhere and like he’s inside your head because how else would he have known you were just thinking about the ocean? But then you register that Andrew McMahon’s voice has just crooned something about Venice Beach and the California summer in the music that had still been playing through the speakers of Johnny’s phone.

You hummed for a moment before answering. “Not really. I should make more time for it, but I rarely ever leave the farm, as you probably noticed. I know this place is paradise for so many people, the vacation destination on a lot of bucket lists, but I think my… circumstances made me bitter towards the island, conceptually speaking anyways.” You watched the water with a bit more focus as a few waves crested, but you couldn’t see enough of the shore to see them actually crash. “I know I don’t talk about it much but, I needed a break from my work too. That’s… part of the reason I’m here, why I was waiting for my sister and Yunho to come out. It’s a much less interesting story than yours, so I won’t bore you with the details,” you wanted to reroute the subject before any questions started getting asked, but deep down you knew Johnny wasn’t going to press you for anything you weren’t ready to share. He’d figured that much out about you anyways.

“Anyways, maybe you’re on to something, Seo. Maybe I should take some time to actually relax a bit, seeing as now that I’ve tricked you into finishing the most difficult and time consuming of the summer projects Yunho had planned,” you stuck your tongue out between your teeth jokingly in an effort to mask the vulnerability you’d briefly shown.

Johnny took the hint and changed the subject. “The Killers, Bleachers, Paramore, Fall Out Boy… not saying I don’t like your taste in music, but I’m surprised it’s your picks were so astoundingly pop-punk-rock. Woulda taken you for a—”

“If you finish that sentence by saying ‘country kinda girl’ I’m locking you out tonight and taking the cookie dough with me,” you warned.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, you strike me as too high strung to enjoy country. Like it’s typically too slow for your tastes, or something like that.”

“Oh I’m obnoxious about my taste in media, if you couldn’t already tell. I’ve listened to mostly the same artists for the last ten years. In high school I was that kid that thought making it known that I ‘didn’t listen to the radio pop main stream’ was a personality trait, whatever that meant.”

“Oooh, so edgy and mysterious, did she used to cut her own bangs too?” He giggled into his mason jar, taking another sip.

“Nooo, that was only one time and I swear it was on a dare and not because of a break up!” You jokingly wailed out, throwing your head back in exaggeration. “Although I do regularly trim Wendy’s bangs for her because she can’t be trusted with sharp objects. Knives, needles, scissors, none of it, girl’s a total klutz,” you took another sip and uncorked the bottle again to refill your jar. You held the remainder up for Johnny to see, silently asking if he wanted a top off to finish the last of the second bottle you’d opened.

Johnny was a big guy— tall and muscular, you were sure it would take him a bit more than a bottle or two of shared champagne to get him tipsy. That’s why you didn’t think too much of it as he stared into the reinvigorated fizzing bubbles as he quietly said, “I’d like to meet her someday. Wendy, I mean— you talk about her so fondly, she seems like a great person. Like she’s good for you in your life.”

Why did you feel a little uneasy at the way he spoke about Wendy? He had no idea what she looked like, it was only from the stories you’d been telling that he knew anything about her. And it wasn’t even the real her, it was just her as she existed to you, so what was there to be uneasy about? You were overthinking again, so you had to come up with an answer to fill the silence you’d created— “Yeah well, Wendy’s sick of dick, she’s very bisexual and I’m pretty sure she’s head over heels in love with this Joohyun she started seeing recently, she’s just too much of a chicken shit to tell her how she feels,” you hid behind you glass and drank deeply, not minding as the floating slice of alcohol soaked lemon rested against your nose.

“Sounds familiar,” Johnny said quietly. “I… can relate, I think,” he mumbled out, and you glanced over in time to see him place his now-empty cup on the wood beside him. “Sometimes you just feel the way you do and you don’t really have a reason for why, but you can’t even put it to words to the person it matters to.”

This time when your breath caught in your throat, it wasn’t because of a mounting attack, but in anticipation of what Johnny would do next. The space between you had slowly waned as you’d been drinking, your bodies inching closer to each other without you even realizing it, almost like the way the moon pulled the tide to the shore over and over again. When your eyes traveled from where his hand was pressed into the deck flooring up to meet his hooded gaze, you don’t really know what you were expecting, but Johnny’s parted lips shining slightly (probably from that last drink of wine) was not it.

You knew this feeling. This was when you were supposed to lean in, right? That’s how this usually went. Your hand shifted closer towards his for a moment and then pulled back, and the end joint of Johnny’s fingers flexed as he pressed his fingertips into the deck.

You didn’t lean in. Your heart was hammering in your chest far too loud for you to be able to do so; instead, you look away, his eye and his lips and his face and his everything suddenly too much, and your turned your cheek to him instead.

Instead, he leaned in, and for just a brief moment the crickets stopped chirping, the distant ocean stopped moving, the music stopped playing, and your heart stopped beating as Johnny’s perfectly pouty lips pressed against your cheek, and then your temple, and then your throat. And then his head tilted down and his nose brushed against your skin delicately, leaving a trial of burning in its wake, and time didn’t start turning again until the snort of his laughter broke the silence and he fell into your shoulder in a giggle fit.

It took all of your patience and self control to make your lungs continue to function as you listened to Johnny giggle so much he stopped making sounds until he was spewing out between fits of laughter ‘The bubbles make everything funny, why is everything funny with bubbles?’

‘Why indeed’, you wondered silently, letting the clearly tipsy Johnny rest his head on your shoulder as he continued his giggle fits, stroking the palm of your hand against his back as he’d first done for you under far different circumstances, trying to not think about how much faster your heart was beating while doing so, and how if your accelerated heart rate was from his proximity to you, you didn’t mind.

How long did you stay like that, in such a familiar embrace with Johnny? Long enough, it seemed, for the playlist on his phone to come to an end and for him to start dozing off while resting against you, his light snores the thing that finally made you disturb him so you could go back inside. It was late anyways, nearing midnight you said softly and you tried to wake him gently—

A surprisingly loud boom shook the sky followed by a burst of light and color. Immediately the dog inside woke up and started barking, and Johnny bolted upright, eyes darting around in search of the source of the noise that had disturbed his snoozing.

“Fireworks,” you breathed out, more to yourself than to him. “Guess it’s midnight already.” Johnny didn’t say much, but his eyes twinkled as he watched in earnest as a few more went off before you tugged on his sleeve and insisted that he needed to make his way to bed and sleep. There were sure to be more tomorrow, and he could watch them then.

You didn’t sleep for hours that night. After helping the mildly intoxicated Johnny to his bed, you sat on the floor of your room, knees pulled into your chest and a hand laying flat against your cheek where he’d planted his trail of kisses. “He was just drunk, he’s just a flirty drunk, that didn’t mean anything,” you repeated to yourself over and over again.

But something about the way Johnny’s lips felt against the apples of your cheek and the hollow of your throat when he’d been nuzzling against you stayed with you all night long, sending a shiver down your spine and igniting a flame where your heart lived. You pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes and inhaled deeply, breath shuddering on the exhale.

Against all your hopes and intensions, Johnny Seo had slowly chipped his way through your armor and into your heart.

You had to get him out. Fast.

tbc.

—

author’s note | Me: this first part is gonna be like, I dunno, 5k? 6k? Also me: writes 19,000 words. We call this ✨processing your own trauma through writing as an outlet✨ Originally this was going to be one really long one shot and then I decided to split it up for ratings purposes because I am a thirsty whore for Youngho. The ending is rushed but honestly I was so sick of editing and overthinking this lmaooo. No I have not spent a summer living in Kona working on a coffee farm. Most of my coffee knowledge is second hand from the time my brother in law bought a coffee farm and started a roasting business because my sister dared him to by saying “do it you won’t” (an exact quote I shit you not). There’s more to this story and uh I dunno I’ll maybe post it eventually if people don’t hate this one *shrugs*

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Autumn Soulmate | Ben Hargreeves

✦ pairing — Ben Hargreeves x gender neutral!Plus Size Reader

✦ word count — 2k

✦ Soulmate AU

✦ request(s) — Can you do a soulmate AU with Ben (from tua lol) where you have a colorful mark wherever your soulmate first touches you, and youve always been confused bc yours has always been like tentacle shaped or some other weird thing from a monster? ; could you do something Ben Hargreeves x reader picking apples from an orchard or going to a pumpkin patch? ; can you do watching Halloween movies and baking/eating those dumb (but delicious) pillsbury sugar cookies with little pumpkins on them with Ben Hargreeves x reader? & Can you do a fic for fall with Ben Hargreeves, just like sipping hot cocoa or apple cider or something while reading books next to each other?

✦ warnings — angst, mentions of a shootout, mentions of food and drinks, reader is a botanist, fluff.

✦ author's note — I changed a few things from the requests to make them all fit here, but nothing too drastic.

✦ author's note II — this is late, I’m sorry!! But in my defense, apart from health issues getting in the way, I only started getting a taste of autumn last week.

════════════════════════

Your shoulders itched as you followed your sister through the pumpkin patch. She was getting picky over the pumpkins she wanted to buy for her son to carve.

The pumpkins were supposed to be a surprise for the kid with it being the first time he would be allowed to carve a pumpkin and all.

Rolling your shoulders, you pointed at a medium-sized pumpkin. “What about that one?”

She tilted her head, long hair flowing backward as the air breezed it. Why were your shoulders and back feeling so hot if cold air was hitting both of you?

Could it finally be...

You had had so many false hopes that you wished your heart wouldn’t skip that way still every time your shoulders warmed up.

Every time you were sure your soul marks were telling you your soulmate was close, and every time you became disappointed.

Often, you traced the tentacles embedded on your skin, bright in color and without texture. You wondered if your soulmate would like them if you ever found them — and most of all, you wondered why you had such strange marks.

Did they work with octopi? Or perhaps you had misunderstood the shapes and they were something else? Yet the thing you wondered the most was how had you met them, who could’ve touched both of your shoulders when you were a teen?

And why didn’t you remember them?

You lost sight of your sister which you should’ve expected. She was always quicker than you, and too antsy to stay in the same place for too long.

Taking off in order to look for her, you encountered what you assumed to be a family. The seven of them were obstructing the path so you cleared your throat.

All of them turned to look at you as if on cue. You couldn’t make their faces out, six out of seven faces blurred out and you only could see warm eyes and a bright sunflower.

“Well, are you passing or what?”

“Five,” the man you had been staring at chastised. He stepped towards you, hesitantly offering his hand. “I’m Ben.”

You gave him your name, pressing your palm on his to shake his hand.

The second it happened, you knew he felt it too. Your skin tingled and goosebumps erupted all over your body — your shoulders scorched for a moment yet you didn’t find the sensation unpleasant.

And then, Ben smiled at you — the biggest and loveliest smile someone had ever thrown your way.

“Did I do that?” you wondered out loud, unable to take your eyes off the side of his neck.

He nodded. “You don’t remember? I was trying to move you out of the way in that shootout and you grabbed me.”

“Well, I remember that day,” you blurted, “but not you. You had a domino mask on and—“ you interrupted yourself with a sigh. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, it was something horrible to go through.”

Yeah, it was. You lost your little brother that day. Which you were sure Ben knew because his smile faltered. You gave him a smile of your own, small yet genuine.

He understood that it was fine, that changing the subject would be for the better. “What’s up with the flower, though?” After a pause, he assured you, “I mean, I like it; I’m just curious.”

“Oh! I’m a botanist,” you explained.

Before you could say anything else, one of Ben’s siblings approached you both, dressed in a colorful outfit and sporting sunglasses probably due to a hangover.

“We’re leaving.” He took a long look at you then dragged his eyes back to Ben. “You can stay here and flirt all you want, though.”

“They’re my soulmate,” Ben announced.

“Oh my God!”

Slender arms wrapped around your neck, startling you. The hug was enthusiastic, warm, childlike.

“Klaus,” Ben chastised yet another one of his siblings but unlike Five, Klaus only hugged you tighter instead of ignoring him.

You hugged back, timidly saying hi. Klaus shook you from side to side, elated. You wondered if your sister would be as happy for you as Klaus was for Ben.

When you were finally let go of, you smiled at both of them. Perhaps meeting your soulmate was doing things to you because while you had always been polite, you had never smiled so much in such a short amount of time.

“I’ll tell the others, Romeo.” Klaus patted Ben’s back. As he walked away from you, giving you his back, he yelled, “Be safe, children!”

“I’m so sorry,” Ben chuckled. “Klaus is... well, Klaus. I don’t know how to explain it, or him, better said.”

“I’m guessing not all of your siblings are as enthusiastic?” you half-asked, hoping he wouldn’t mind that you were looking down at your phone.

You typed in a flash, letting your sister know what was going on. She didn’t reply instantly, but that was expected of her.

“They’re all good people,” Ben sighed, “messy, but lovable each in their own way.”

Your sister’s reply came in before you could come up with anything to say to him.

Have fun. Text me if you need me to get you out of there.

Of course your older sister would say that, ever the protective one. She too was a little messy, and extremely lovable. It seemed that Ben and you surely had things in common.

The two of you continued walking through the pumpkin patch, talking about yourselves instead of looking at the pumpkins — his siblings had already picked a few, just like your sister.

“I feel bad that your family bonding time got cut short because of me,” you admitted. “Are you sure you don’t want to join them? We can meet up any other day.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll understand. They know for how long I’ve been looking for you.” He stared off behind you, biting down his bottom lip. His eyes fell on you then and he said, “I’ve never picked apples from an orchard.”

You craned your neck, observing the red apples looked perfect, as though out of a painting. “We’re gonna need a basket.”

The slight chill in the air prompted you to drape the hood of your jacket over your head, afraid it would rain. Ben huffed a laugh beside you, fixing your hood with his free hand. He carried the basket in the other, excited to pick apples from an orchard for the first time.

He climbed the ladder, inhaling the sweet earthy scent as he admired the beautifully contrasting colors. Ben tilted his head, examining the apples closest to him.

Hesitantly, he touched one. “Do you like this one?”

Nodding, you told him, “Pick whichever you like, Ben.” You smiled in assurance at him once he looked down at your figure, watching him drop the apple in the basket.

You didn’t understand how or why, but Ben seemed to stay still for a moment. You were positive he was staring at you, and the only thing you could do was smile even bigger.

He almost started babbling there, he caught himself before his tongue slipped. Ben wasn’t good at complimenting people, and the only thing he could think about was that your smile and the way it made your eyes lit up made him feel calm.

He snapped out of it and went back to the task, giddy.

You saw him grow more comfortable once he had picked a couple of apples. Ben filled the basket with sweet red apples, handing it to you as he stepped down the ladder.

════════════════════════

You carried two mugs with you as you stepped into your bedroom. Closing the door with your hip, you approached him in gentle steps.

Ben looked up, immediately placing the book he had been reading down onto his lap, keeping it open with his thigh. “Thank you, love,” he said softly, taking the warm ceramic you were offering to him.

He inhaled the sweet smell of hot chocolate, blowing onto the lip of the mug in hopes that he wouldn’t burn his tongue.

You waited for him to take a sip before sitting on the bed. As the mattress dipped while you made yourself comfortable, Ben watched you.

He had called you earlier, asking if you would be home soon. He needed to unwind after a bad day. At first, he felt silly, but you didn’t find his complaining pointless nor childish as he had.

You placed your hand on the back of his head, feeling the tense muscles. Softly, you massaged the area with your fingers, applying the lightest of pressures.

And so you found a rhythm, you would stop the movement while he sipped hot chocolate and would take the opportunity to sip your drink, and when he would put the mug down, you would continue the massage.

Once the mugs were empty, Ben slid his arm around your shoulders, bringing your head onto his shoulder.

He picked the book with his free hand and held it closer to you. “Read it to me?” he whispered, “I love the sound of your voice.”

You were halfway through the book when Ben’s arm grew heavy on you, his head falling on top of yours.

Putting the book to the side, you carefully helped Ben lay down on the bed. Throwing the duvet over both of your bodies, reaching over to turn the lights off, you made yourself comfortable too.

════════════════════════

You woke up way earlier than Ben — a force of habit. He hadn’t stayed over many times yet, but you always would let him sleep as much as he needed.

Still, a couple of hours later, he wrapped his arms around your middle from behind, kissing your cheek in greeting.

You craned your neck, smiling at him. “Good morning.”

“Morning. What’s the plan for today?”

“I wanted us to go find last-minute Halloween costumes, but I was going through my movie collection,” you motioned to the boxes in front of you, resting on the dining table, “and I found the horror classics!” You sang, “Sooooooo, we’re baking sugar cookies and having a movie marathon.”

He whined. “You know I’m bad at cooking anything that needs measurements.”

“Baby, the dough is pre-made.”

His eyes lit up. “So we’re having warm cookies without having to measure, or knead, or wait a ton?”

You giggled, nodding. “And they're really cute; they have little pumpkins in the middle. They’re in the fridge if you wanna look at them.”

“Later,” he said, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Have you already picked which movies we’re watching?”

“I was waiting for you.”

His heart skipped a beat. Ben held you flush to his chest, staring at the movie titles before him as you placed your hands on top of his.

Each of you took turns to pick a movie. Begrudgingly, he let go of you in order to walk into your kitchen. You had been right, he admitted when he opened the fridge, the cookies were really cute.

You placed a baking tray on the counter, letting Ben arrange the cookies. You only reminded him to space them up and nothing else, busy with making sure the oven was pre-heated.

“Cookies for breakfast, cuddles, and Halloween movies...” he sighed deeply. “Sounds like the perfect day.”

“Yeah? Who said you would get any cuddles?” you asked teasingly.

He playfully frowned. “No cuddles? What is this? Hell?”

You chuckled, sliding the tray into the oven. As you stood straight, you felt Ben reach for you. Allowing him to pull you closer, you turned to face him.

“I’m so happy I found you.” He kissed your forehead, hugging you by the waist.

“Me too.”

“Yeah? You’ll give me cuddles because you’re happy to have found me, then?”

“You already know I will, don’t you?”

He hummed, smiling down at you as you shifted to gaze at him. God, he really loved your eyes. “And I’ll hug you tighter if you get scared.”

You knew he would.

[prorevenge]

He Ruined My Sister's Only Birth Experience So I Made Sure He'd NEVER Forget Her

Kinda my revenge, kinda my sisters, both of us really proud. This is gonna be long so TL;DR at bottom. Here's our cast:

My sister - we'll call her "Sara" for the story Sister's Ex-BF - "Paul" Ex-BFs New Wife - "Jane" Ex-BFs Parents - "Mr. And Mrs. Doe" Oldest brother - "Zeke" Our parents And Me :)

When I was 14 and my oldest sister, Sara, was 22 we found out that she was pregnant with Paul, her boyfriend of 4 years. They immediately got engaged and they were really happy. For a time. Sara had a horrible pregnancy, about 16-18 weeks in the "wonder of creating a human life" evaporated within her. She developed hyperemesis (which if you don't know is really bad morning sickness), she was constantly in pain, she developed gestational diabetes, and just all around hated the experience. Around this time Paul, the then-fiance, started getting sick of the complaining. I believe the argument was "your body is built to do this, it can't be that bad".

Sara was due around Valentine's Day and Paul's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, were very excited, both about the grandkid and the fact that he could be born on a holiday. She was very against that and really really hoped that her son wouldn't be born on a holiday, even one as small as Valentine's day (her birthday sometimes falls on Easter and she hates it) because it might make him feel that "his day" isn't very much about him. Well, Mrs. Doe says something like "Well if you name him Valentine or Valentino then that'll make the day even more special to him!" Again, sister HATED the idea. She thought it was tacky, he'd be bullied for it, and just really didn't like the name Valentino. Paul loved it, but agreed to go with a more average name like Daniel or Jared.

Fast forward to February and she was ready to Get This Over With. Sara had officially been put on bed rest because while standing or walking her blood pressure took unexpected spikes and dips. I look back now and goodness do I feel bad for her. She was doing her best to avoid giving birth on Valentine's day because, again, she didn't want him born on a holiday. Unfortunately, births happen when they happen and that baby was going to come on Valentines day whether she wanted him to or not.

I remember waiting out in the waiting room with my dad, brothers, and Paul who couldn't stand to be in the delivery room because it was "gross". I was so mad that he could have gone in but wouldn't because he thought my sister was "gross" while giving birth, whereas I had to stay outside because I was "too young" to go in with my mom and other sister. Dad went home with the youngest two brothers while the oldest, Zeke, stayed to watch me because I refused to leave. 16 hours after Sara went into labor my little nephew was officially part of the family on the evening of Valentine's day.

Unfortunately, Sara was not okay. She had to have an emergency cesarean section and while doing the operation discovered that the back of her uterus (facing her spinal cord) had a very large and very severe (thankfully non-cancerous) tumor. When I say large I mean it was twice the size of a standard uterus. The doctors were shocked and didn't understand why nobody had noticed it on an ultrasound. It accounted for her severe backpain and blood pressure issues. The doctors immediately went in for more surgery to remove the tumor, but sadly ended up having to perform a full hysterectomy. This meant that my nephew would be Sara's only child.

Now while Sara was in for surgery Paul was taking care of everything baby related to make sure his son was okay. In my 14 year old self's memory I remember him being suitably distraught, but I didn't really pay him much mind and spent my time in the waiting room with my mother and other sister. Zeke, however, wanted to be a good future brother-in-law and make sure that Paul was okay. He found Paul filling out the baby paperwork on his own looking (in my brother's words) "like he had not a single worry in his mind". Zeke asked why Paul didn't wait for Sara to fill out the paperwork as she should have been put of surgery within the hour, and Paul said that he just wanted her to get her rest and heal. That checked out with Zeke, as he was 16 and didn't know any better at the time.

Now I know what you're probably thinking. "No, he wouldn't. He knows how much she hates that name. And still, she'd need to sign the paperwork too!" My fellow peoples of Reddit, I regret to inform you that Paul forged Sara's signature on the paperwork and waited until she was out of surgery to hand said paperwork over. My sweet nephew, that was born on Valentine's day, was named "Valentino" on his first official birth certificate. I still to this day don't know why Paul and his family were so insistent about the name. He had even picked out a different one with my sister! And before you ask, no he was never brought up on forgery charges because his parents were "witnesses" to her signing the papers, even though they only got there at the last minute.

So Sara dumped him and got her son's name changed a month later. She was willing to do split custody with him because that's her son's father and she wants the kid to know him, but Paul vanished and she never heard anything back, which seemed weirdly out of character to us. Until a mutual friend on Facebook was tagged in his wedding pictures 6 months later. Paul had apparently started cheating on her not long after she got pregnant. Sara was livid but there wasn't much she could do so she filed for child support and continued to liver her best life.

Until 6 years later. This is where the revenge starts, my friends. So Sara has been a single mother for the past 6 years and has been amazing at it. At this point in my career I've been a hairdresser for about 8 months at our local GreatClips. I'm working one day and who is seated before me but Jane, Paul's wife, herself. I take her back for a trim and she clearly has no idea who I am. That adds up because a mutual friend that still keeps in contact with Paul said that Jane doesn't know a thing. She has no idea about Sara, that she was the other woman, or that Paul actually has a kid that he's been (infrequently) paying child support for. She's in the dark on it all.

I told myself not to be an ass and treat her like a normal customer, which I did. Now at this point, Jane was heavily pregnant, so a lot of our conversation was about that. She loved being pregnant but it was hard, her husband was so unsympathetic (big shocker), and she was due in 10 weeks and they still hadn't picked out a name for their baby girl.

Ladies and gentlepeoples, this was my chance.

I asked what kind of name she was looking for and she said "I want something unique and unusual, but not ridiculous like Brayntleigheigh" (you know the ones I'm talking about) and Paul had suggested so many already and she didn't like ANY of them. So I, conniving little weasel I am, said "what about Sara?"

My sister's name isn't actually "Sara" she was named after an older family member that passed not long after she was born, but there was no female equivalent for his name so our parents created one. It's a beautiful name and just what Jane was looking for.

She loved it, she stuck by it, and I found out by stalking her Facebook months later that she had put her foot down about it and that was their daughter's name. Now Paul has a daughter with his ex's name to remind him every day about her (and to also remind him to pay his ******* child support).

Little nephew is 10 years old now with a new name and no contact with his biological father, though we do still sometimes call him Val as a family nickname. He likes it but doesn't want to bring it to school so it's staying a family nickname. Sara pretends to hate when we call him that, in a joking way. As long as he likes it she doesn't have a problem with it. And she's seeing a new guy who's really great and like a father to Val. :)

TL;DR: My sister's baby daddy forged her signature on paperwork while she was in surgery to name their son a name that she had been avidly against from the beginning, then broke all contact when she dumped him and married the girl he was cheating on her with while she was pregnant. 6 years later I meet his wife and convince her to name her daughter my sister's name because the wife has no idea my sister and her son exist.

(source) story by (/u/AngelGuideIndi)

[theredhead23]

My mother is in the Hospital (end of life, please read)

Yesterday, I came home with the girls after Kira's first soccer practice and my phone started ringing. My first thought was, how the hell is calling me at this hour? I look at the caller ID, which yes, I need to know who is calling me because I don't want to talk to some people - mainly bot calls.

Anyway, the caller was a nurse from the care home. She told me that she had just sent my mother to the ER because she had a seizure. My mother has no history of seizures so I panicked a bit. I gathered some stuff and rushed out to the ER.

When I go there, a nurse was doing an assessment of my mother while the blood lady was taking vials and bottles, for blood tests and cultures. The nurse told me that my mother's temp was over 103 - which was very different than what the nurse from the care home told me, (she said it was 99.6).

Either way, my mother was laid out completely straight on the bed. She wasn't responding to anything other than grunting when pinched, swapped, or poked.

I sat down in a chair by her bed a bit shocked by this. If everyone who knows my mother, she can be a pain in the ass and always wanting her coffee. Here she wasn't really moving and breathing really heavy.

Shortly after I arrived, the doctor came in and started to ask me all sorts of questions. One that stood out was, 'has your mother had a CAT scan of her recently here or at any other hospitals?'

After a few moments of answering questions, he asked me to follow him to another room to talk.

He brought me into another room with a computer with about four screens. The biggest screen had a scan of a top of a skull.

For the next five or ten or even twenty minutes, he started to explain and show me my mother's CAT scan from 2014. It was 'relatively normal' for my mother. For those who do not know, my mother has Hydrocephalus - water around the brain. She has had it since birth and didn't get a shunt until 2011. (I can explain more about her condition later but the main thing I want you to know is that since she was untreated for Hydrocephalus for almost 50 years, her brain is damaged. (They knew she has Hydrocephalus but it was the 60's and I'm guessing they didn't know the best way of handling things or whatnot.)

Anyway, because of this, her brain has been damaged and in some was 'soften' in a way. I know there are better terms but for right now, I'm keeping it simple.

The doctor is showing me these scans from 2014 and telling me about them. Then, he clicks on the scans he had done that evening. Right away, I notice something is off and it's hard to explain in words what without the pictures to show you but they were not the same as the ones from 2014.

In the scans from yesterday, there is a large mass almost in front of her brain. It measured about 8 cm around.

One problem is with a CAT scan, you really can't see things as well as an MRI can. He continues to tell me that he had reached out to a neurologist to get other opinions. I said yes, I would like that and he showed me back to my mother's ER bay.

I sat with her for a while. I stared at her for a while. So many thoughts and almost was going on in my head.

I couldn't really tell you how longs things were taking at the point. but almost everything you could think of popped in my head.

Eventually late that night, we spoke to a neurologist who told me that it was more than a doubt a tumor - most likely cancer. The issue was that without doing a biopsy, there is really no way of telling what kind of cancer it is. Also, she added that since it is 8 cm and there was no sign at all in 2014, this has grown fast. Brain tumors do not become this size in less than seven years. So she had no doubt that it will continue to grow rapidly.

Here came the hardest debate I have ever had with myself; do I rush off like a madwoman and get it biopsied and get her treatment or removed or anything at all? Throw everything and the kitchen sink at it?

Two things popped in my mind at this point,

one: she barely beat COVID when she had it last November.

two: because of how fragile her brain is, doing anything that involves breaking into the skull is very risky. The risks will always outweigh the benefits - if any.

To biopsy this mass - this tumor involves getting into her skull and cutting a section of it out and testing it. Even if we are able to get a sample, there is a high chance that my mother would die on the table. And how helpful would that be? We know what kind of cancer it is, but she's dead.

Second, even if we know what kind of cancer it is, the treatment course of possible surgeries, chemo, radiation, and a whole cocktail of meds for her to take, what quality of life would she have?

Even before she had COVID, I choose for her to be a DNR. Because I know that life-saving actions come with risks - like CPR could break ribs. And with all of her health issues, the risk of getting the life-saving actions would do more harm in the long run than any good.

A lot of people are aware of my mother's history with me and her family. She has always been difficult, stubborn, mean, rude, and other things. Even with all these horrible qualities, she is still human. She is still a child of God. She is still a living being. She is still my mother.

As a human being, as a living thing, she deserves quality of life versus quantity of life.

Even with treatment, what would that do? Add a few months, maybe even a year to her life. But at what cost? She would be sick, weak, tired, and worn out. Just because treatment added a year, what was the benefit if she is miserable?

Please do not take this as I didn't think about it. I have at many points in my life with her.

I have watched my grandfather, my grandmother, and my grandmother-in-law die. Working at the care home for a few years, I have seen people die. I have seen some drag-on and try to fight with every breathe while I have seen others go quickly without much, or any fight. Some went peacefully with family while some went peacefully alone. Some suffered until the bitter end.

I have been quiet for the past 24 hours because I honestly don't know what to do - if I can do anything. Should I try treatment? Should I do more to extend her life? Should I just do nothing?

I have cried, stared at walls, talked to myself out loud, talked to her doctors, and even just stared at her. What is the right call for this? What is the right decision for this?

She will be turning 60 in November. My father passed away at 62-ish. Jimmy Carter is still alive at 97. Who the hell am I to make this choice?

To be honest, I'm no one. But I am a daughter, a mother myself, a wife, a sister, a friend to like four people and I am human too.

Today, after spending hours of trying to track down records for my mother (seriously, what is wrong with state and losing paperwork? [trust me, that's another story].) It was ruled due to not knowing if her shunt is MRI compatible, it's not safe to do an MRI. So the doctors decided to do another CAT scan with contrast.

With this test, nothing new was really discovered other than she has some necrotic, dead material around the tumor.

After a lot of thinking, talking, texting, calling, crying, complaining, staring, and other things, I have chosen quality over quantity for the rest of my mother's time in this world.

Now maybe writing this long babble of a post might not be the best or proper way of telling people but for me, right now, I needed to get all of it out at once and in a way, share it with everyone.

Was this easy to type? Hell no. I have spent most of the day typing bits and pieces debating on what to do and what to share.

Tomorrow morning, I am going to meet with the health care team and start making plans about hospice and end-of-life care. I will also be reaching to lots of people in the upcoming days, weeks, maybe months.

But for now, I needed to type up a long-winded post and share what is going on in one place with everyone.

I am open for emails, calls, texts, messages, letters, and any other way you feel like getting a hold of me. But for now, I am trying to take things moment by moment and not dwell on her dying but on the time she is still here. Which is really hard and really scary.

That is really all I know at the moment. I will update as I go and I will post more about my mother and stuff as well. This was not what I had in mind for October.

If you want to send well wishes to my mother, I will post about how to do it and stuff like that later. Right now, it's almost ten o'clock at night and she is asleep peacefully. I'm going to leave it here.

[ourplaceinthecosmosphff]

Chapter 23. Grief is just love with nowhere to go

‘These are the days that must happen to you.' Walt Whitman

One week later, Cadie was still confused about how I managed to pull it off. I was too.

But as grateful as she was to have her old job back, and as respectful as Auguste was of hierarchy, neither was happy to be working together. Auguste was still a little too liberal with his passive aggressiveness, and Cadie was not above having him do small tasks in revenge.

My father’s staff, on their end, now managed to look at me with even more judgement on their faces, and less of an effort to conceal it. Unfortunately for them, I was around more now. Unfortunately for all of us, it was due to bad news.

The first happened that first week, days after our big meeting. The Savoy Express online published an article detailing my breakup with Christopher in what they described as a 'dramatic shouting match the halls of Callois Palace hadn't seen since the days of World War II’. They seemed to know not only about the breakup, but also about the proposal that preceded it.

Because my relationship with Christopher ended before an engagement, however, there was no need to confirm or deny rumors. The Palace merely released a statement saying they ‘would not comment on the Crown Princess’ personal life’ and that was, at least on our side, the end. On the press’ side, there was no end.

They wrote and wrote about this alleged proposal, about why I would say not, about cheating rumors, about the possibility the palace hadn’t allowed me to marry him, that I thought he wasn’t good enough for me.

Cadie thought we should release a proper statement, Auguste disagreed. To appease my own selfish discomfort, I decided not to. What I did want to know was how they could possibly know so much about that night.

“They know there was a proposal, they know he used his family ring, they know I said no and that there was yelling. How do they know so much?”

“I hate to bring up this possibility,” Cadie started, “but the most logical conclusion is Christopher himself must have told someone.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t he?” She asked. “Didn’t Stella know about it before it happened?”

“Because he wanted to ask about my ring size.” I shrugged. “His family and mine have been friends for generations. He would never.”

But other than someone who had been in that room leaking it, there was no other possibility. Therefore, there was nothing to be done.

I did, however, have to deal with texts from most of my friends demanding to know why I didn’t tell them about the breakup.

“A lot happened at the same time.” I said, time and time again, shrugging it off. “It just slipped my mind. “We thought you were getting engaged!” Stella whined. “And you broke up with him! How can it have slipped your mind?!” “We actually talked the next day after it happened!” Constance complained. “And all you wanted to talk about was work!” “Guys,” I sighed, “the truth is we never even got back together officially. Eventually the issues we had were bound to come back.”

They demanded a dinner, to talk in person, which we had to do in the palace as I wasn’t allowed to leave until my new security detail took over. In person, I assured them I was very comfortable with my decision, and it was final. They asked if there was someone else, and once again, I couldn’t answer.

The truth was too complicated. The truth was I still wasn’t able to stop thinking about Harry’s soft, gentle plea for me to not marry Christopher. The truth was I wasn’t able to go to sleep without hugging one of my pillows, remembering the way I had slept in his arms, in his bed, on the floor of his living room. But the truth was that, after a text assuring him I was home safe, we hadn’t spoken again. The truth was I felt incredibly guilty for having tried to kiss him for the first time hours after burying my brother. The truth was I also felt incredibly guilty for having actually kissed him while still having a boyfriend.

But the bigger truth, the more uncomfortable truth, was that he was the first thought on my mind when I woke up, and the last one that made me smile before falling asleep. The truth was I wanted to talk to him about everything that was happening in my life -- every detail of the meeting, every horrible threat I had read on my security file, every new discovery I made while researching the work I wanted to do. I wanted to text him about the delicious spinach ricotta cannelloni the royal chef had made last tuesday. And I couldn’t. 

Not only because of the guilt. Not only because I was so busy. But because I knew that after the meeting, having gotten most of what I wanted, I had to give it my best effort. And giving it my best effort included heading the words of everyone around me who had, in the past or present, hinted that Harry was simply too complicated to work. Not only was he foreign, he represented a different throne. The intricacies were too delicate. 

So, whenever I felt like texting him, instead I grabbed the book he had sneaked into my bag. And that’s how I started reading Harry Potter for the first time at 25 years-old to try and keep sane.

The first couple of weeks after the meeting saw a lot of other meetings with the Head of Outreach Relations, Caesar Bisset. We started by fully researching the Claire Bauton Foundation, which had been started in the nineties by Claire Bauton’s daughter Emilie Bauton, to be a shelter for women and children survivors of domestic violence. So, while Mr. Bisset did what was essentially market research – even if he didn’t call it that –, I spent a few days having meetings with experts of the field of domestic abuse: researchers, activists, and lawmakers, learning as much as I could beyond the initial research I had done on the subject myself.

With their perspectives on what the best way to help would be, we were able to make plans on how to cause the biggest positive impact. Right when we were planning my first visit to one of the foundation centers, we had another issue that took priority.

It started when news broke of Lourdes being suspended due to ‘possession of illicit substances prohibited on school grounds’. Somehow, the press had gotten hold of her record and that was how school administration had registered that she was caught with the group of kids smoking.

“Cigarettes!” She complained. “They make it sound like cocaine!”

Suddenly, day time shows were having whole panels debating the ‘issue’. Think pieces were written about teenagers smoking earlier and earlier. Op-eds were released about, and I quote, the ‘fragility of the Monarchy when one of the King’s daughters leans towards a life of consequences and the other must lead from a life of no consequence.’

“Poetic.” I said, sarcastic, in the meeting where my father and I were given the details on how the press was reacting to it even days after it broke.

“I’m afraid if there aren’t consequences, this might grow bigger, sir.” Said Edwald Dupont, Head of Palace Communications.

“What consequences?” I asked, “she’s a teenager. It was cigarettes.”

“Unfortunately, ma’am, if the Palace isn’t at least seen as strongly discouraging the Princess’ behavior, the negative impact of the story could affect His Majesty, as well.”

My father sighed, heavily.

“Send the plane for the Princess.”

“So, as punishment for being suspended for cutting class and hanging out with kids who were smoking last month, you’re… keeping Lourdes home from school again? How does that help anyone?”

My father looked at Mr. Dupont, who nodded, taking notes.

“We can strongly imply the message that our intention is separating the Princess from negative influences.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I said. “Lourdes can’t be influenced. She’s too strong headed.”

“They don’t know that.” My father said. “Besides, she’s always asking to be homeschooled.”

Although the plan was ridiculous, it opened an interesting door.

After Lourdes got home from school, we got caught up while walking my dogs through the Palace Gardens. She didn’t seem to be upset about our father dragging her from school because of bad publicity. She didn’t seem to be upset that mom wasn’t even consulted, as she was now too engulfed into planning a way to memorialize our brother. In fact, my sister didn’t seem bothered about anything at all. She seemed… perfectly absent from herself.

She wasn’t even upset that I had gotten her an extra protection officer – which made her safer but, sure enough, was very invasive.

It shouldn’t have been surprising when she told me she wasn’t going to go back to ice skating.

“It’s been months… I don’t really have the energy to make up for lost time.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to mask the utter despair her words and general demeanor awakened in me. “But, you’re home for a few days so you could spend a lot of time doing it.”

“I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m tired of it.” She shrugged.

“But… but you love it.”

“It was a hobby. I outgrew it.”

“Lourdes, you love skating. You were going to the Olympics.”

She smiled, so utterly humorless it terrified me.

“That was a dream, Maggie. I’m over it.”

I had no idea what to do.

My father just seemed so tired, all the time, about Louis, me, all of it, that discussing it with him was fruitless. I knew what the solution was.

I hadn’t had a proper conversation with my mother since my return from London. If her disapproving words after the proposal fiasco could be described as a talk, then that was the last time we spoke. After that, we exchanged a few words during meals, and nothing else. It made no sense that she didn’t berate me for running away in London, or for not seeing her when she came over. But not a lot about my mother made sense currently.

For instance, though she was out of her self-imposed exile after Louis died, she still spent all her time working on ways to memorialize him. Her lead ideas were a garden, a statue, or a new charitable organization in his memory – at times, it was all of it at the same time. All of her patronages and work had since been relegated to her Secretary, Madaleign Qadir, and on occasion, my father and me.

That day, after Lourdes went to her room after our walk, I marched to my mother’s office.

Ms. Qadir herself opened the door; it appeared she was doing some work from a table, while my mother was going over old pictures of my brother brought over by the Royal Archive.

“Maman.” I greeted. “Can we speak privately?”

“If it’s fast.” She granted. “I must finish these boxes today, Marie-Margueritte. I still have a lot to go through.”

Madaleign gathered her things and excused herself with a curtsey.

“Lourdes-Abigail is home.” I told her.

“I know, Qadir was telling me.” She replied, not looking up from the pictures. “Two weeks according to your father. Should be good for her, she likes staying home from school.”

“Yes, remember how many times she asked to be homeschooled and you said no?”

“I do.” She nodded. “Which is why I know she’ll enjoy it.”

“You wanted her to have a normal, full education.” I reminded her. “This isn’t very normal.”

“Not a lot we do is normal.”

“Maman.” I pleaded. “I don’t think she’s doing well. She’s… apathetic. Tired all the time. She’s… avoiding talking about her feelings, giving up things she enjoyed doing… that’s not normal.”

“Her grades are fine. She’s healthy, normal… she’s doing good.” “She wants to give up ice skating for good.” I told her.

“Your sister is fine.” She said, turning a page on a leather-bound album. “She’s a big girl, we can’t force her to do something she doesn’t want to do.”

“Mom.” I said, forcefully. “Lourdes is hurting. She’s loved ice skating her whole life! This is – this is just her grief–”

“We’re all grieving, Maggie.” She sighed, removing her glasses to scratch her eyes. “We all have to do what we can right now, so if quitting will help your sister, then we have to support her.”

She closed the album after turning one last page, placing it inside a box, neatly. She got up, and moved to a shelf by the wall to find another photo album, which she brought back to the table, starting to flip it. She was finding the pictures of Louis; every time she found a new one, she admired it for a few seconds before making notes on a notebook.

‘She’s hurting too’, I reminded myself, trying to make conscientious choices to have compassion on her.

Instead, what I asked was, “Do you even want to help her?!”

She was quiet for long enough that I wondered if she had heard me. “…Of course I do. I am.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing what you can, and what you can do is shut yourself off and let us figure out our own problems.”

She looked at me, harshly. “You’re an adult, Margueritte. The attitude was cute as a child, but you’re just sounding petulant now.”

“I’m sorry, attitude?!”

“Yes, attitude. You don’t need me to hold your hand every hour of every day, I think you can take care of yourself.”

“Yes, I can!” I said, louder than I was able to control. “But Lourdes is a child! She’s not even fourteen, Maman! She needs you!”

“Your sister-” She returned, interrupting just as loudly, “is fine. Believe it or not, you are not needed to save the day, Margueritte.”

“Right. Because we’re all fine?!” I laughed, humorless. “Dad is shut off in his office, you’re shut off here, Lourdes is giving up the only thing she’s ever loved to do, and–” I felt more than heard my own voice break in a cry, “and my life is up in the air-”

“My son died!” She yelled, hands shaking, staring at the photos in front of her. “I’m sorry we’re not responding to it to your liking.”

She got up again, and walked over to a tea tray someone had left for her on a chest of drawers near the windows.

“You’re a big girl, Margueritte, you need to understand that there are mature ways to handle things you disagree with. You cannot confront everything you don’t like. Some things you can just accept.”

I laughed, sarcastic, “Are you serious?”

I felt… lonely. So desperately lonely as I realized our hearts were aching for the same reason, and yet she had no idea what I was feeling.

She poured herself tea and started to stir it. I marched to the tea tray just as she held up her own teacup, grabbed the tray and threw the whole thing out the window, watching the liquid, sugar and cream splash to the ground amid the broken china.

She was silent when I looked back, staring at me, wide eyes, mouth agape, and confused. I felt tears starting to pool in my eyes, but forced myself to stand firm.

“You are not the only one who lost him.” I said, on a low, slow, angry, trembling tone. “We’re hurting, too. And Lourdes, your daughter, is a child who needs you. You can’t do anything more for Louis, but you can help her. And every day that you shut yourself in your room, with pictures of him, instead of just asking how she’s feeling and how you can help, is another day she convinces herself you care more about Louis dead than about her alive.”

She walked over, slowly. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” I shrugged. “How could we know? You’re not saying any different.”

A tear strolled down her cheek as she screamed now. “I am in pain!”

“So am I!” I yelled back, “You don’t think I wanted to stay in bed all day and open the door to no one?! You don’t think I wanted to cry for a whole week? You think I wanted to decide what fucking flowers to decorate the church with? Or what songs we sang to say goodbye to him? You think I cared which fucking priest did the readings?!”

“Language, Marg-” She sobbed.

“I was devastated! I was crushed! I was heartbroken!” I yelled over her, trying to dry the tears as they fell from my eyes, “I wanted to shut myself away in my room instead of having to force a smile and mediate Aunt Marilou and Aunt Katherine, and tell the staff how many rooms to prepare for the guests! But someone had to make the decisions, and you were not there!”

I stepped away, breathing heavily. I dried my face, sobbing slightly, and looked down the window, where the mess was still on the ground. I ran a hand over my hair, shutting my eyes forcefully.

“...Did it hit someone?”

I sighed. “I don’t think so.”

We were silent. 

“Is this you or your British boyfriend speaking, Margueritte?” I scoffed, humorless. “Really?” “Because it sounds an awful lot like him.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I agree with him. He was right, you know?”

“You think he was right to speak to me like that?” “I was there, Maman. I heard how hard he tried to be polite to you.”

“Where is this coming from, Maggie?” She asked, whispery. “You’re not like this.”

I walked over to where she stood near the sofa.

“Like this what, Maman? Honest?”

“You’re my lovely girl.” She said, shaking her head. “You don’t… pick fights, try to hurt people-”

I scoffed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just didn’t realize you were still capable of feeling anything that was unrelated to Louis-”

“Maggie-” She sighed, drying her own tears. “This isn’t your brother’s fault.”

“I’m aware.” I replied, quickly. “It’s yours. And dad’s. You’re the parents! You were supposed to know you don’t have just one child to take care of!”

She sat down; not in her usual, stiff, shoulders back way. She looked… defeated. Tired. I felt the same way.

Before my brother died, my parents had always been so loving. My mother in particular had strived to give us a normal childhood, without the cold, traditional ways of the monarchy. In her house, we weren’t sent to eat in a separate room just because we hadn’t learnt table manners yet. We weren’t put to bed or bathed by nannies. She didn’t just take those tasks at hand, as she would had she married a normal man, she made my father do them, too. She might have married a future king, she said, but he married her, too. He married a normal woman and she couldn’t be the only one to adapt. 

My parents couldn’t do it every day, but they always tried to put us to bed, read us a story, kiss us goodnight. They kissed our wounds and hugged us in celebration when we won a game. A lot of my family thought badly of my mother for these commoner traits. But she stood her ground. The way she saw it, she had to teach us etiquette, but her most important job was to teach us love. 

Now I couldn’t remember the last time she hugged me. It was in the hospital, I thought. Before she started hiding away from everything and everyone -- including us.

She sighed, longingly. “I love you and your sister more than-”

“Then why aren’t you fighting for her?!” I screamed, crying again and angry at myself for it. “She is not okay! Did you even know that she was starving herself when Louis died?! Did you know she slept in his bed every night after he went to the hospital?!”

I looked at the coffee table now, just to avoid looking at her, and my eyes fell on a picture of myself sitting on an armchair, holding baby Louis in my arms.

“And me? Well.” I laughed again, sniffing. “Let’s see, did you hear I had to sit through a Council meeting just hours after he died? Dad’s new heir, so I had to just… sit there as if my heart wasn’t being ripped from my chest! Did dad tell you he sent me to my work so I could quit my job and everyone could know, just to distract the press from the Adrien-Faye fiasco?! Did my security tell you about the condescending looks and wishes of success I had to take from everyone?! Have you heard that the press has been writing a new article almost every day about how I am not good enough to be Queen?! Apparently I’m the talk of the country! Sources close to the Prime Minister say there is a high level of apprehension among elected officials about the new Crown Princess!”

She was looking at me, finally, but now I couldn’t look at her.

“Did you hear they rearranged my security team? They took Joyce, who had been working with me for years, and gave me two guys with the training necessary to protect a member of this family that actually matters now, apparently.”

“Maggie...” She sniffed.

“Did Papa show you the threats? Apparently we have always received them, but they have increased now. They have creepy pictures of me. The unlisted numbers from inside the palace. My routine down to the minutes and where I used to park my car! And now, apparently, I need security that is actually properly trained. Fuck Lourdes, though, I guess.” “Marie-Margueritte! I--”

“And as to me not picking fights, mom, I don’t know what to tell you.” I shrugged. “I spent my whole life doing exactly what you needed me to do. I spoke softly, I wore dresses, I smiled, I said no to almost every party I was invited to thinking it was too much of a risk. Can’t risk people finding out a member of the royal family is just a normal girl inside! I–” I stuttered, stifling a sob, “I kept every opinion to myself, I studied hard, I said no to jobs and trips, I never even took a selfie in my life, all because I kept telling myself that there would be time for that later! I could be young and fun later! Just be the good, well behaved girl now, so Louis can live his life, and as soon as he is back it’ll be my turn! I’ll be able to live my life, finally! And now he’s gone and the life I spent years planning, dreaming, has been taken from me, and I have never and will never do anything! Did you know that?!”

I couldn’t see her reaction; my vision was too fuzzy with the tears. There was a knot on my throat that made breathing too hard.

“So, yeah, I’m sorry for the terrible offense of… having an opinion, Mom, but I’ve been making sure I am not a problem all my life, because I figured you had enough on your plate, so I am sorry, but it is a little upsetting that you can’t pay attention to the one child you have left that still actually needs you– what, I–”

She walked over to me, and pulled me into a hug I fought. But even in my state, even as I yelled about doing what I was taught to do, I couldn’t push her away. Not just because if felt… indelicate, but because she hadn’t held me like this since we were standing around Louis’ bed in the hospital. I missed it.

“I’m sorry, my baby.” She whispered, holding me tightly as I let myself sob. “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled me in until we sat on the sofa, but her arms only tightened more around me. I laid in her lap as she caressed my hair, whispering calming words in french until my sobs slowed and my breathing started to even out.

“I’m so tired.” I confessed. “I know.” She replied. “Me too.”

I couldn’t tell how much time passed, but my cheeks had nearly dried when I took in a long breath.

“What are we going to do about Lourdes?” I asked.

“Sh, It’s okay, my love,” she whispered, caressing my hair, “we’ll figure it out. We’re taking care of you now.”

--- ---- ---

In March, Harry announced his Invictus Games. In March, my mother hugged me -- really hugged me -- for the first time in many months.

In April, I attended my first engagement as the Crown Princess of Savoy. It was a visit to the Claire Bauton Foundation Center in Neunant, where I publicly met with the staff and some former  survivors who had now become volunteers. I wore a purple dress and shoes, the color of the Foundation’s logo, and shook from head to toe from the moment we left the Palace to the moment we were back.

Somehow, after our dramatic moment, my mother had decided it was time to become overly invested in my life again. So, she gave me a lot of suggestions on what to wear, to which my only response was trying to go to the other end of the spectrum completely and end up looking bizarrely like a punk teen version of myself. 

“I want to try to work with a stylist.” I told my team -- at this point, just Auguste and Cadie. “I don’t know if starting to wear a lot of designer brands would be a positive change, ma’am.” Auguste said.

“Stylists work with the client’s taste, don’t just make them wear something they do not want.” Cadie interjected. “I think I need help figuring out what my taste is. I’m either too traditional, or too modern. I have no idea.” “I’ll make some calls.” Cadie promised.

The engagement went well, if their recollection of it was to be believed. I was so nervous throughout the whole thing I could barely remember most of it. I had once been good at it, but now it just felt like there was too much riding in the balance. Too many people were watching. Too many people were even there.

I remember arriving, almost twisting my foot getting out of the car, having to force myself to smile through the flashes of photographers standing by, and breathing a sigh of relief once inside. I remembered the itinerary more than the actual event, which is how I knew I must have received a tour of the center, before meeting former survivors who were current volunteers. I remembered vaguely sitting down with a woman who told me her story -- a story of physical violence slow but steady, with no one believing her and the eventual kidnapping of her children by her ex-husband. I remember having to dab my eyes more than once to keep the tears from falling, looking away from where I knew we were being watched by the accompanying press. I remember the visceral reaction from hearing from the on-call lawyers about the times they had to run to a hospital in the middle of the night to assist clients who were attacked after a judge denied them restraining orders.

I remember looking down, knowing the press couldn’t see me losing it so much in my first outing.

I spent at least half an hour before leaving shaking the hands of well-wishers who came by to watch me in and out of the center. It was both terrifying and heartwarming -- seeing the faces of people who, for reasons I couldn’t understand, seemed to believe in me.

“I’m so sorry about your brother.” A lot of them said. “You’re doing a really good job.”

It didn’t feel like it.

My father agreed that the numerous pictures of me tearing up were too dramatic. My mother still thought I should have dressed more elegantly. But the results spoke for themselves: in the press, there was a lot of positive commentary of my ‘connection with the public’, my ‘sensitivity towards the delicate issue’, and even my ‘bright, modern look’, a ‘departure from more modest, boring choices of the past’.

It only made my stomach turn more. It only made me want to text Harry more. But my father was so pleasantly surprised he started talking about announcing my confirmation ceremony.

“Do I need one?” I asked, struggling against a tug of anxiety in my stomach. “That’s for heirs at 21 years-old, isn’t it?” “You weren’t the heir at 21. But you still need a confirmation if you’re the heir now.” He replied. “We’ll do it when you come home from the Olympics.”

“That should give us enough time to plan it, sir.” Montennon agreed. “And do some research on public opinion.”

My father rose from his chair behind the desk and walked around it towards us. Wordlessly, Montennon got up from his chair and stood back. My father took his seat.

“What is it?” He asked me, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees.

I sighed, smoothing the fabric of my dress with my hands. “I don’t know.” “You looked wonderful, regardless of what your mother thinks, you connected with the people, you highlighted the work… you did a great job, Margueritte.” I smiled, sheepishly. “I… I guess.” “Do you miss the law?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not--” I sighed. “It just feels… wrong.” “Helping an organization that helps people?”

“No, just…” I whispered, fidgeting with my hands, trying to stop them from shaking. “Just all of it… Him not being here. Being praised for the work he should have done. It feels wrong.”

He looked down, at his hands. He fidgeted, too.

“It’s not your fault he isn’t here to do that work, Margueritte.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I think I know… I just… I hate the way they talk about it. The press, I mean… the critics sound like they just don’t think I’m cut out for this because I’m not Louis. The praise sounds as if they’re just glad I’m not Louis... It doesn’t feel like a win.”

My father rose from his chair, slightly, and dragged it forward, nearer to me. He held my hand. “Margueritte, you will make a lot of mistakes in the road ahead.” He started. “But this is not one of them. I know you were nervous, I know it was tough, but you went there, you stood tall, you listened… you did a good job. You did better than any of us thought you would, if I’m being honest.” “That doesn’t help.” He grinned. “You’ll be fine, chérie. I am so confident about it that I want to release the statement about the confirmation next week.” “Already?” “Yes.” He sighed, letting go of my hand to lean back in his chair. “And I think we can do better than that. The V. E. Day celebration in May. Montennon?” “Yes, sir?” “Let’s have the Crown Princess make a speech.” “Me?” He smiled. “Yes, Marie-Margueritte. You. You’re doing a good job. Just keep at it.”

Keep at it. I can do that, I thought. I can be a good Crown Princess. I can keep learning, researching, working hard to highlight the good work of the people of Savoy. I can continue to look good and connect with the people. I can make a speech on V. E. Day. about the importance of the world coming together, about how much stronger we are together. I can do that. It’s a military ceremony about World War II, reasonably one of the things most of the world agrees on is that winning World War II was a good thing. I can do it. What could go wrong?

For instance, what are the odds that of all his family members, the chosen representative the British Royal Family would send to the V. E. Day celebration on Savoy would be… the one my whole family wanted me to stay as far away from as possible?

--- ---- ---

Outfit!

[A/N: Hey, all! How have you been this week? I know what you’re thinking: Natalia, literally how dare you give us 2 chapters in a row without Harry?! I know, I know, I’m just as upset as you are! But here’s my excuse: this was all important stuff i had to get out of the way. NEXT WEEK: A HARRY FEST! I promise, there’ll be so much Harry! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I really appreciate it, and also if you could let me know your thoughts (suggestions? critics? all welcome!) it’d make me so happy! THANKS AND SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!]

[kaleidescope-writes]

Faithfully Yours–Chapter 5: Heartbeat

In partnership with @accio-boys​

Billionaire!Tom Hiddleston x Doctor!Reader

Slow Burn! (Yay)

Warnings: Language, argument, taste of fluff, Cliffhanger(permanent warning), Dangerous act (Please don’t swerve when driving!) Mention of illness

Masterlist

“Dr. Knight, you’re needed in the Trauma Center,” a voice in the PA system spoke. You made your way to the call room, exhausted after two consecutive bypass surgeries. The first was a third time bypass that took about four hours. The one that followed immediately after was a first time bypass that took a bit longer, about six hours. You were incredibly tired, having a thirteen hour work day and still being on call. Your feet were begging for a break and your mind couldn’t think straight. Opening the door, you stepped into the call room and made your way over to one of the beds. Sighing heavily, you let your weight drop onto the bed. Closing your eyes for a moment, you took in a few steady breaths as you relaxed. 

You took out your phone, sending Tom a quick text that read “Had a long day, punching out at 8pm. See u then. Don’t run anyone over.” Locking it, you set it down to your side on the bed and closed your eyes again. You began to slip into a peaceful sleep, letting yourself rest for an hour before going to check your post ops and getting ready to go home. Your breaths became steady as you began to fall asleep.

“Y/N!” a voice called out before the door slammed shut, making you jump. You opened your eyes, feeling your heart momentarily stop before beating faster. “We need to talk about your engagement,”  the voice continued, coming closer to you. “What the hell are you doing here, Quentin?” you demanded, pissed that your rest was interrupted. “I need to talk to you,” he repeated, “I asked a nurse where I could find you and they led me to the call room. We need to talk about your engagement, I have some issues with it.” You sighed, sitting up on the bed. “You interrupted my sleep to talk about issues you have about my relationship?” you questioned, “That’s kind of a dick thing to do.” Quentin sat down next to you on the bed, facing you. “I have a few problems with it,” he continued, ignoring your previous statement, “Firstly, you were completely against marrying this guy when the engagement was announced. So what the hell changed within the span of three days?” 

He was right. When the engagement was announced, you made your displeasure with the arrangement very clear. He was right to wonder why the sudden change of heart. “I didn’t know the guy when the wedding was announced,” you confessed, “To make peace with the situation, he started opening up to me and gave me a proper proposal, ring included. He let me into his life and in return, I let him into mine. We’re not madly in love, but we’re already engaged, so we’ll get there. Love takes time.” Quentin laughed, shaking his head as he listened to your explanation.

“You’re too stubborn to agree to this. There’s a catch, isn’t there?” he pressed

“There isn’t a catch, we’ve come to terms with the situation and compromised.”

“You never compromise!”

“First time for everything, I guess.”

“That’s bullshit! You and I both know there’s something going on here. Just tell me!”

You shook your head, giving him a pestered look. “You’re looking too much into this,” you assured, “This is the best we can do in this situation. Besides, he has custody over his niece and she needs a mother figure. I’m just helping.” Quentin rolled his eyes, leaning closer to you. He took your hand in hands as he spoke, “You’re my big sister, I know you more than you think I do. I can feel when something’s not right, and trust me, something’s not right. I know a small part of you is still against it. Please just tell me why you’re doing this and maybe I can help.” You thought for a moment, looking away from him briefly before he spoke again, “I don’t want to see you get hurt over something that was never real.” 

Your breath hitched slightly. Memories from last night began to flood your mind. Everything you felt, everything you thought, and everything you said to yourself. The ring. The ring currently resting on your left finger suddenly became heavy. Every negative feeling from last night came back, hitting you at full force with all the weight of your insecurity. Was he right? Could he feel the negative tension between you and Tom? Your stomach felt uneasy and you felt your heart skip a beat before beating more intensely. You were nervous. You couldn’t tell him the truth, but you couldn’t keep it hidden for very long. Quentin would find out eventually--the way he reacted to the truth would depend on how he’d find out. If you told him, he would surely help you find another way out. If things played out, well, who knows what he would do. You had to tell him. You were scared to see how he would react to the truth after being lied to. And after last night, something like that was likely to happen again. When it did, you’d need the emotional support he could give. He’d help you through it. He always did. 

Looking up to meet his eyes, you took in a shaky breath, preparing to tell him everything-- including last night’s incident. Before a single sound could escape your lips, your pager went off, catching your attention instantly. Taking out of your pocket, you saw three numbers on the screen that let you know you had to leave instantly. “I have to go,” you sighed, standing and taking your phone with you. Quentin stood as well, eyes never leaving you as you prepared to leave. “You still haven’t told me what’s going on,” he insisted, stepping in your way to stop you. You gave him a look, “It’s an emergency. I got paged 911, I have to go.” He crossed his arms, standing his ground while still not letting you leave. “Look, I can’t tell you much, but I promise you that this is for the best. We came up with a solution that benefits both of us. We care about each other in a very specific way.” You gave him a smile, “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Quentin huffed, letting his hands drop as he shifted his weight. “Just promise me that this is real. That’ll put my mind at ease,” he muttered. Your smile faltered slightly. “I promise,” you lied. He nodded, stepping out of your way and letting you rush to whatever emergency you were called to. 

~~~~~8 p.m.~~~~~

 “Goodnight Boss!” one of the nurses called out. You waved goodbye at them before making your way out of the hospital lobby. It was a long day and the only thing you wanted to do was sink into that soft, king sized bed you shared with a certain billionaire. Maybe you’d help put Vivie to bed before that, however. Walking out to the doctor reserved parking spaces to where your car was, you took your phone out to finally read a message Tom had sent you three hours ago. It read, “I reserve that privilege for you alone😉.” You chuckled, looking away from the screen and paying attention to the dimly lit streets around you. Before you could put your phone back in your pocket, it began to ring. Thinking it was probably Tom checking up on you after work, you answered unbothered to look at the screen to confirm your suspicions. 

“Hey,” you answered, arriving at your car door and pressing the button on the handle to open the door. “Hi sweetie!” your mother replied, cheery tone almost making you cringe. “Mom,” you said in a false happy voice. Why did your heart fall slightly? “Honey, I know you just got off work and I was hoping we could discuss some details for the wedding while you drove home,” she explained. Setting your bag down on the driver’s seat, you closed the door and set the phone down, pressing the speaker button. “Now?” you asked, “Isn’t the wedding some time away?” You heard her let out a laugh, “Well that’s the thing, we don’t know when the wedding will be since you haven’t picked a date for it.” After putting the phone on the hands-free stand, you turned the car on and put your seat belt on as well. “Weren’t you the one who was going to pick the date?” you inquired, pulling out of the parking spot. “Well I do want to give power over your wedding day, since I didn’t give you a choice with the groom. But if you want me to handle everything, I’ll do it gladly,” she snarked, “Just don’t complain when you turn into bridezilla after nothing was to your liking.” 

“Fine,” you caved in, “But let’s skip the date, I have to discuss that with Tom.” You drove out of the parking lot and began your long drive home to Tom’s place. “Ok, so first off, we need to plan a date to pick the dress you’ll wear on your special day,” she offered quickly, as if reading off a list and picking the first item. “I’m not sure,” you drawled, keeping a firm focus on the road ahead of you despite the conversation and your tiredness, “I’m always working at the hospital. I’d have to ask for a day off, or maybe two.” You heard a sigh on the other line. 

“Well then, let’s skip that,” your mother grumbled, “How about the flower arrangements for the bouquet and decor?” You thought for a moment, keeping most of your focus on the road. “I’m not sure, isn’t there some traditional arrangement we can do? Something with roses, baby’s breath, and other flowers?” She groaned, “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I might as well take control over the whole thing myself. You’re clearly not half as interested in making important decisions as you should be.” 

“Mom, I just got off work. I’m not in the right mind to make any decisions.” you protested.

“It would be nice if you tried! Even just a little.”

“I am trying mom. I’m just exhausted. Maybe we can discuss these decisions later, when I’m not tired.” 

“Fine,” she agreed, “But at least decide on the colors.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, you answered, “Both of our favorite colors. Maybe with gold accents.” “Very well,” she acquiesced, “That’s at least one less decision that has to be made. Let me know when your days off are so that we can have a proper discussion about the wedding planning.”  You nodded, momentarily forgetting she couldn’t see you, then mumbled a yes. “While we’re on the topic of weddings, I want to inform you of another decision I made,” she added, “After some deliberation, I decided you and Tom will get married on the same day your brother and his fiancee will get married.” 

Your hands twitched, almost swerving the car to the left. “What?” asked in rage. “Well, both engagements were announced on the same day. Besides, you two have always been so close, so it’s only fitting you share a wedding,” she explained. “No!” you snapped, “The engagement wasn’t my choice! I don’t want to share a wedding with Quentin!” 

“Why not?”

“Because I just don’t!”

“That’s not a good reason. Honestly, why are you being so immature?”

“I’m immature?” you questioned indignantly, “I’m the immature one? You made me get engaged to a complete stranger just because of your friendship with his father and I’m immature?” Your mother sighed, "The circumstances are different, you wouldn't understand. This benefits both families. I just wish you were a little more open to this." You burned with rage, breath fast and uneven as you tried to calm down and respond to her in a controlled manner. "You're right mother," you. responded bitterly, "I don't understand why you would offer up your daughter to marry someone she'd never met before and claim it was in her best interest. But you know, I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to think of a great explanation for when we meet up to plan the wedding. Until then, I'm exhausted. I'll let you know when my day off is." 

With that, you hung up, too engaged to let her respond. You were almost home. Just a few more minutes away--enough time to try and calm yourself before you Vivie saw you like that. You decided to take a few deep breaths, clearing your mind off anything that was said between the two of you. You'd deal with that later. For now, you just wanted to focus on breathing and driving and putting Vivie to bed and going to bed yourself. You just hoped Tom wouldn't give you a hard time tonight. 

"How long is Y/N going to take to get here?" You heard Vivie ask from the living room as you opened the door. "Not long," Tom responded, "I'm sure she's-" "Right here," you finished, walking into the living room and opening your arms towards Vivie. "Y/N!" She cheered, running to give you a hug. You bent down a bit, making it easier for her to reach you, and wrapped your arms around her small form. A small smile found its way to your lips as Tom approached the two of you. "Did you save any lives today?" She asked, looking up at you with big, curious eyes. "Yes," you laughed, "a few, actually." 

"How about she tells you about how she saved them as a bedtime story," Tom suggested standing a few feet away. Vivie turned to him and nodded. "Well then, go clean up for bed. She'll join you in a moment," he gestured towards the stairs. Without a moment's hesitation, she ran upstairs, following his order. You relaxed for a moment, putting your stuff down on the couch to your right. There was a brief moment of silence as you unpacked some of your things. A sweet, calming moment that unfortunately didn't last very long. 

"Something's wrong," Tom commented, taking a step closer to you. "What, with you?" You asked turning to face him. "Not me," he snorted, "With you. You seem tense and slightly less annoying." He stood a foot in front of you, hands to his sides as he gave you a seemingly sympathetic look. Seemingly. You hesitated for a moment, remembering the conversation you had earlier. 'I don’t want to see you get hurt over something that was never real.'

Sensing your hesitation, he took your left hand in his. "Tell me," he pleaded, eyes continuing to soften as he looked deeply into your own. You took a beat, closing your eyes as your lips began to speak. "I had a conversation earlier," you began, "Two, actually. Quentin came to the hospital just to tell me he isn't convinced that our 'relationship' is real. And as if that wasn't enough, my mother wants to start planning the wedding. Which, by the way, we'll have to share with my brother because why the fuck not." You let out a sorrowful laugh. Tom's eyes darkened with concern, the grip he had on your hand tightening slightly. 

"What did you tell your brother?" He asked in a calm voice. A sudden feeling of worry arose,despite your efforts in trying to stop it. "I told him that we care about each other in a very specific way," you answered, "Which technically, we do."

"So you didn't actually lie," he said more as a statement. 

"I just didn't tell him the full story," you smirked, "You taught me that." A smile appeared on his face, but was gone again in the blink of an eye. He smiled. "What about the wedding?" He questioned, concerned look returning. "I don't want to think about that," you sighed, closing your eyes for a second, "I just want to go to bed. I've had a long day." Tom nodded, letting go of your hand and taking a step back. He was holding on to your hand for the entire conversation. "Before you do that, I believe you promised Vivie a bedtime story about your day," he reminded, making his way to the stairs, "I'll wait for you to come to bed before I turn off the light." 

You walked into Vivie's room, silently admiring the layout. Your eyes roamed around the room, taking note of every small detail in the child's expertly decorated bedroom. "Ready for the story?" She asked, making you turn to look at her as she sat on the bed. "Are you?" You responded, raising an eyebrow. She just nodded, quickly lifting the covers and laying down, her braids resting on each side of her head. You walked over to the bed and sat down on the corner, facing her. "So, what do you want to hear about first?" You asked softly, setting a hand down near her head. "Can lay down with me until I fall asleep?" She pleaded, giving you puppy eyes. You smiled, silently going along with her request. Once you were laying down next to her, she began her requests, "How many people did you save today?"

"Three," you chuckled, "Two of them needed surgery and the third one was having a heart attack. They were ok when I came home." Her eyes went wide with amazement. "Why did they need surgery?" She asked, fully invested in everything you told her. "Well," you began, "Your heart is responsible for pumping blood through your veins. That's what keeps you alive. Sometimes, the veins near your heart get stuffed with a bad type of fat that sticks to the walls, like ice cream through a straw. When that happens, they need a special surgery called a coronary bypass. It creates another route for the blood to take so that it avoids the fat that's blocking the path for the blood. That way, their heart can keep beating.” 

You heard her take even breaths. Turning to look at her, your suspicions were confirmed; she’d fallen asleep. You smiled softly, deciding to stay there for a while longer just in case. Looking up at the ceiling, you focused on whatever little sound in the room. Closing your eyes for a moment, you listened to a faint thumping. Thump. Thump. Silence. Thump. Your eyes shot open, focusing more intently on her heartbeat. You counted ten seconds on your fingers while focusing on her heartbeat. Ten seconds, seven beats. It skipped a few beats in between. You felt a strong sense of worry spread. It could be a number of things, but the most probable cause was arrhythmia. Did Tom know? 

Standing up slowly, you began to make your way to the door carefully to not disturb Vivie. Once you reached the door, you opened it cautiously. Tom stood on the other side of the door, making you jump slightly. He took a step back, allowing you to fully exit the room. Closing the door gently, you turned to face him. “How long were you standing here?” you whispered, still being careful. “Not long, I just wanted to make sure Vivie was asleep,” he said in a hushed tone, also taking Vivie into consideration. You nodded, speaking again, “She’s asleep, but I heard something that has me a bit concerned. Her heartbeat has an abnormal rhythm. Did you know that?” Tom sighed softly, nodding sadly. “Her father had a history of heart problems. Unfortunately, she got his bad genes. They diagnosed it when she was three. She’s been on a strict, healthy diet and non-addictive meds.” I knew it! You nodded, taking a moment to think about what you’d say next. “If it’s ok with you, I’d like to take a look at her medical records, both as a doctor and her future legal guardian,” you whispered. Tom gave you a confused look, “Why would you want that?” 

“I’m one of New York’s top Cardiothoracic surgeons. I want to make sure this isn’t something that will require surgery later in her life,” you explained, “That and I’m emotionally invested in her well being and I want to know what I can do to help.” He gave you a small nod, “I’ll show you her records tomorrow before work.” You smiled and began to walk to your shared room, spirits lifted slightly now that you’d be able to take care of Vivie both as a patient and as a ‘mother’. 

Meanwhile Tom watched you leave, an incredulous smile forming. He reminded himself of what his father said about the marriage. He said Vivie needed a mother figure in her life and maybe Y/N was it. “Maybe he was right,” he whispered to himself, “Maybe Y/N could be a good mother for Vivie.”

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

A/N: This took a while to figure out, but it’s here!! I had to do some research for this chapter, but I’m no expert. If you know more about this, please feel free to correct me as some advice would be very much appreciated. Anyway, as always, show some love for @accio-boys​, my wonderful partner in crime. Check out her blog, as she makes covers for fanfics and they look absolutely amazing (All the covers I have on the Masterlists were made by her). Stay safe, Stay Proud, Be careful out there, and I love you! Please remember that!  😘💖💖💖💖

And to all my new followers, Welcome to the family😘❤🧡💛💚💙💜

~~~~~~~

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[spine-buster]

the storm before the calm (f. andersen) | 5

A/N:  Last week I did a double post of Chapter 3 AND 4, so make sure you’ve read Chapter 4 before reading this!  I attempted a dual narrative in this chapter.  Hopefully you guys like it!  As always your feedback and comments are much appreciated! :)

Fred found himself in Aleida’s bed.  Above her.  Body looming.  Lips kissing every inch of exposed skin.  Worshipping her.  Making sure she knew how much he was enjoying this; how much he wanted her to enjoy this.  

She scratched her nails across his shoulder blades and down his back in approval.

The sighs and soft moans she was letting out were driving him crazy.  When she’d tug on his hair – like she did in the car – he would almost go feral, but he knew he wanted to take this slow and steady.  To show Aleida that he was with her for more than just her body, unlike so many others in her past; to show her that she deserved more than what she had experienced before.  To show her that he saw her in whatever way she wanted to be seen.  

She unbuttoned his dress shirt and slid her hands underneath the fabric, pushing it off his shoulders delicately.  He helped at the end, tossing it onto the floor beside his bed, joining his suit jacket.  Her hands wandered along his broad chest.  “God, Fred,” she breathed out.  “You’re so big.”

Fred couldn’t help but smirk.  He leaned down to kiss her again as she began to work on his belt, quickly unlooping it and pulling the zipper down.  He did the same to her pants, sitting back on his knees and slipping them off delicately before his body loomed over hers again.  They kissed and kissed and kissed, with Aleida still scratching her nails down his back.  His hands snaked behind her to unclasp her bra, giving him access to her perfect breasts.  

“Freddiiiieeee,” she huffed after his mouth had paid particular attention to her breasts for a while.  “Freddie…Freddiiieeeeee…”

He was silent.  He was rock hard at this point and with her hands dancing along the band of his boxers he knew she was getting antsy.  He kissed every inch of exposed skin down her body until he reached her lace-topped underwear, pulling them off gently.  She pulled him back up so she could continue to kiss him, apparently not wanting the alternative.  “Touch me, Freddie,” she breathed out.  “I want you to touch me.”

He complied.  Hands all over her body.  Hands everywhere.  More sighs from Aleida meant more hands from Fred.  More hands from Fred meant more hands from Aleida, too.  She slipped off his boxers.  Her nails scratched all the way back up his back.  She gripped at the skin of his shoulder blades.  He wrapped her legs around his torso.

“I love the way you touch me, Freddie.”

Her words caused Fred to shudder.  He gave her one last kiss before looking her in the eye as he entered her.  Her grip on the skin of his shoulder blades got tighter.  Her eyes rolled back.  “Ffffrrreeeeddddd…fffffu…fffuuuuck.”  He shuddered again.  He gave her a quick kiss on the lips as she opened her eyes to look at him again.  “God, Freddie.”

As he bottomed out, she took a couple of moments to adjust to his size – and not just the size of his body over her.  She had never been with anybody like Fred; she had never been physical with someone who was like…him.  She didn’t know the words to describe him.  Especially now, above her.  Looking into her eyes.  Moving within her.  It was completely different than what happened in the car.  There was something else happening here, in his bed, that she didn’t quite comprehend yet, but it was something she knew would change something within her.  

As he began moving in and out of her slowly, he looked her in the eye again.  “You okay?” he asked.

She nodded her head quickly.  “You’re so good to me, Freddie,” she whispered.  “You’re so good to me.”

He didn’t know what to say – what he could say in that moment.  So he continued to move in and out of her, to revel in the feeling of her legs wrapped around him.  As her nails scratched down his back, he grunted at the feeling.  He watched as she closed her eyes again, and felt one of her hands snake around to her core, starting to rub circles.

He grabbed it.

“No,” he groaned out, bringing her hand up above her head and holding it there.

She looked shocked as he did so, not believing he would do that.  But then she nodded her head knowingly.  “Make love to me, Freddie.”

He began thrusting in and out of her harder until he could feel her walls clench around him.  She let out a string of expletives followed by his name over and over as her body began shaking while the orgasm ran through her.  He came with her too, quiet but powerful, letting out just as many expletives and shaking just as much until he collapsed onto her.  Her legs tightened around him.  Her nails dug into his skin.  They lay there silently.

Fred thought about her words.  Make love to me.  He wondered if she had uttered those words to anybody before, and if she had, if they complied.  He wondered if he was the first one to treat her this way – to make love to her instead of just…well, use her.  He wondered if she expected it from anyone else, or if she only expected it from him.  He wondered what she had to be feeling to make her say those words: make love to me.  Not fuck me.  Make love to me.  

Fred thought about everything she had told him up until now.  About being looked at, but not really seen.  About her eating disorder.  About certain groups of people trying their hardest to make her life a living hell.  About people being obsessed with her body and practically sexualizing her the day she turned legal.  He thought about what she had to go through, and while other people had to go through much more, he understood how much it all ate away at her.  How it killed her spirit, her vivacity, and left her a shell of what she could be.  It left her rough.  Fred thought about the concept of ‘fixing’, and how some people relied on others to ‘fix’ them.  Aleida wasn’t that person.  He knew she had it in her to fix herself and that nobody else – let alone him – was going to do that for her.  

Fred thought about what Aleida said to that Gina girl.  He thought about their fight afterwards and how he asked her what the fuck was wrong with her; how Aleida stomped away and demanded he not follow her.  They hadn’t addressed that night.  They hadn’t addressed much of anything, really, to do with what happened.  Fred knew that wasn’t a good thing – he knew she had to be held accountable, or at least explain her actions, for him to understand why she went off like that.  He knew the underlying and root issues, sure, but he felt like there was something more.  

But he knew she wouldn’t want to.  At least at face value.

He slid off her slightly, his huge body still snuggled against her.  An arm draped over her torso.  “What was your piano teacher’s name?” he found himself asking.

He could feel Aleida’s body stiffen slightly beside him.  Her eyes looked at him briefly but her head didn’t turn towards him.  “Yelena.”

“When did you meet her?”

“I started piano when I was five.”

Fred nodded his head.  “And she was a saint?”

“She put up with me for all these years.”

Aleida’s tone told Fred she didn’t want to talk about it, but he persisted.  “What did you mean when we first met and you told me that she was the only one who saw you?”

Aleida finally turned her head to look at him.  “Are we really going to talk about my love for my piano teacher after that?”

“Yes.”

He could see her mulling over the idea in her mind.  He could tell she was hesitant.  “Well…what do you want to know?”

“What did you mean about her seeing you?” he repeated his question.

“Exactly that,” Aleida said.  She couldn’t believe they were doing this naked.  “She…she gave me an outlet to express myself in a way that didn’t use my body or my beauty.  I had to rely on sheer hard work and talent, and she understood that.  She motivated me to do that – to focus on something that I could create versus something I already had that I could use.  She saw that I wanted people to focus on something else besides my beauty and she took that and ran with it.  She just…she saw me.  She saw me for what I could be, not for what I was.”

“And that made you love her more than your parents?”

“Yes,” she stressed.  Her voice became strained.  “Well – I mean – at the time.  There were times.  I know that’s probably cruel to say, especially since I benefit tremendously from who my parents are.  But I did.  Half the time my dad wasn’t home because he was on call or on some 12-hour surgery he was going to get recognition for.  The other half of the time my mom wasn’t around because she was injecting new boobs or lip fillers into people and running her business.  And I don’t fault them for that – I really don’t.  But that left my sister and I practically raised by a plethora of nannies or house staff and I hated it.  Yelena was my stability.  Yelena was the reason I ever wanted to achieve anything.”

“Who—”

“And then, you have to think, when I started, well, blooming, and everybody was focusing on my body and my beauty rather than what I had in me, Yelena was the only one with a consistent message to never change myself.  When I would complain to her about how I felt my mom favoured Alejandra over me because Alejandra turned out to be just like her, she stayed consistent.  When she found out about my eating issues, and the trouble I was having with it, and my dad trying to help me, she was consistent.  When people started to know me and talk about me and use me and…and whatever, she was the only one who brought me back down to Earth.  I’d sit at the piano and let everything go and she’d let me.  She’d let me and she’d be there and she’d listen and she’d see me.  And I needed that.  Nobody seemed to know how desperately I needed that, but she did.”

“So when she saw you,” Fred began, “what did she see?”

There was a moment of silence.  Of hesitation, almost, on the part of Aleida.  “She saw that I’m just a girl trying to navigate her way like everyone else.  That I’m just a little boat looking for a harbour.”  

***

“We’re really looking forward to it, Frederik.  My husband is a big fan.”

“Aleida didn’t seem too enthused.”

“She’s just being a moody teenager,” Alejandra said through the phone.  Fred didn’t even know how she got his number.  He assumed she stole Aleida’s phone to get it.  “I’ve told her about it so there should be no issue.  We’re planning to eat at 6:30.  Is that okay with you?

“That’s fine,” Fred forced out.  “Um, listen, Alejandra…are you sure Aleida is okay with this?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“I just know how protective she is of family,” he said.  “Regardless of her…feelings…or whatever issues,” he said.  He thought back to what she said to Gina when Gina brought up her niece and nephew.

“Frederik, it’s not a big deal,” Alejandra said dismissively.  “It’s not like you’re some random guy I’m inviting over for dinner with our family.  You’re…I don’t know…you.”

***

Alejandra and her husband, Oliver, lived in a mansion on Harper Gardens in Moore Park, perched on top of the hill looking over Moore Park Ravine.  The house was old on the outside, but brand new on the inside, with grand principal rooms and expensive furnishings.  Oliver was a lawyer with his own firm, Rowe & Parsons LLP, and came from old money – something something about John Graves Simcoe, something something about Spadina House and Ardwold Gate, and something something about Moore Park.  He and Alejandra made more money than you could shake a stick at.  Their kids – Aleida’s niece and nephew – were adorable; Gabriela was eight and Matias was six-and-a-half, and they were goofy and polite.

Dr. Felipe Casillas was tall and lanky, smiled generally, and was clearly an upstanding member of society.  He had short, well-kept hair, think lips, and crow’s feet.  His wife, Dr. Leonor Casillas, was more glamourous, with long tight curls and perfectly sculpted cheekbones that, despite her profession, Fred could tell were natural.  She didn’t have an inch of work done on herself.  Fred didn’t know whether expecting a plastic surgeon to have work done was malicious or not, but he was pleasantly surprised that for someone who ‘enhanced’ people’s faces for a living, she let the test of time show on her face. 

Aleida didn’t look like either of her parents.  

“My son in law tells me you’re a hockey player, Frederik,” Leonor said as everybody sat down at the formal dining table.  Her voice was an elegant baritone.  Their plates, full of food, were already on the table – a generous slice of beef wellington with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli – made by the cook currently working in the kitchen.  Fred wondered if he worked for Oliver and Alejandra full-time.  “A goaltender?”

“Yes ma’am.  For the Toronto Maple Leafs.”

“And you enjoy your job?”

“Y—Yes,” Fred almost giggled out.  “I love my job.”

“So how on earth did a hockey player manage to meet my daughter?” Felipe asked as he unfolded his napkin and set it on his lap.

“I told you we met at an event I sang at,” Aleida butt in quickly.  “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I do believe you, darling, I’d just like to hear Frederik’s side of the story too.”

“Y—Yeah, she was hired to perform at one of the smaller charity events we hosted for the MLSE Launchpad, and I met her there.  She uh, she sounded amazing,” he lied through his teeth.  

“Aleida has always been an excellent musician,” Oliver nodded his head.  

“A smaller event – so not the Night With Blue and White,” Alejandra clarified.

“No.  That’s usually in January.”

“Oliver and I attend that one,” she explained.  “His law firm buys a table.”

Fred saw the look of strain on Aleida’s face as Alejandra spoke.  She was looking down at her plate, perhaps biting her tongue.  “That’s awesome that you’re fortunate enough to go.”

“And Oliver tells me you’re from Denmark, Frederik,” Felipe inserted himself back into the discussion.  “Whereabouts?”

“Herning.”

“And your parents?  What did they do?”

“Oh, they played hockey as well,” he reached out for his wine glass to take a quick sip.  “My entire family plays hockey.  My younger brother Sebastian plays for our local team in Denmark; my younger sister Amalie plays for the women’s national team and Maine; and the baby – Valdemar – plays for the under-17 team.”

“A sporting family!” Leonor smiled.  “How lovely.”

Frederik thought so.  He loved his family more than anything.  And with everybody getting busier and busier these days, and older, family time became more important to him.  It became part of the glue that held him together; the balance he so desperately needed.  “I like to think so,” he said.

Dinner conversation erred on the side of extremely polite but extremely inquisitive.  Oliver asked questions about the Leafs and Fred tried to answer with as much mystery as he could muster; Leonor continued to inquire about his family, specifically his parents, and what they were doing now that they no longer played hockey; Alejandra was the one focused on him and Aleida the most, asking questions about them and what they got up to when they hung out together.  It was Felipe who was a little bit more forthcoming about the Casillas family – not focusing so much on the Andersen family, or Fred himself, but on his family’s story and his own work as a renowned cardiologist, along with his wife’s work as a plastic surgeon.  

Aleida didn’t speak much.

***

Alejandra and her husband, Oliver, lived in a mansion on Harper Gardens in Moore Park, perched on top of the hill looking over Moore Park Ravine.  Alejandra could have never moved too far from their parents, whose own sprawling mansion on Roxborough Drive in Rosedale was just a half an hour walk away.  Oliver was a partner in a law firm and made an exorbitant amount of money on top of his inheritance from his wealthy, old-money family (specifically his great-great-uncle, who died wifeless and childless) who had helped establish Moore Park or something – Aleida always forgot.  For a city obsessed with money and status, Oliver Rowe was the perfect bachelor, and Alejandra Casillas was the luckiest girl in all the land.  Their match was one that oozed wealth, power, and status.  Everybody was obsessed with them.  They were the talk of the town – in a good way.  Their dining room had seen more dinner parties than family dinners.

The only thing Aleida was particularly excited about was seeing her niece and nephew.  Gabriela and Matias were the loves of her life, and her greatest teachers, besides Yelena.  If she could have dinner with just them and Fred, she’d be a happy camper.  But it wasn’t meant to be.  

When she and Fred were ushered into the house, shoes off and jackets hung and handshakes had, Aleida held her breath.  Her parents were already there – her father trying to dress casually in a sportsjacket, her mother dolled up and in a calf-length dress.  Aleida saw the way they looked at Fred; she saw them eye him, notice his red hair, his height and width and stature.  She wanted to get in their head and know what they were thinking, but in the same vein, didn’t care what they thought.

“My son in law tells me you’re a hockey player, Frederik,” Leonor began the interrogation as everybody sat down at the formal dining table.  Aleida tried to decipher her tone.  “A goaltender?”

“Yes ma’am.  For the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Frederik answered.  She wished he wasn’t so polite – ma’aming everyone like he was the Prince of Denmark.  She wished he had a couple teeth knocked out for good measure.  

“And you enjoy your job?”

Aleida couldn’t believe the gall of her mother to ask such a question.  Did she enjoy injecting people’s foreheads with Botox?  Did she enjoy handling double D implants every week?  Did she enjoy putting lip fillers into every fresh-faced eighteen-year-old with a new condo on King Street West thanks to dad’s down payment?  She was about to speak up when Fred answered, with a slight giggle, “Y—Yes, I love my job.”

Aleida calmed down slightly.

“So how on earth did a hockey player manage to meet my daughter?”

She wasn’t calm anymore.  

“I told you we met at an event I sang at,” she butt in quickly.  She knew her tone sounded a bit indignant but it wasn’t a question her father should be asking.  She’d already told him how they met.  Well…a version of how they met.  She wasn’t exactly going to tell them the exact story.  There was no need.  “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I do believe you, darling,” he looked at her quickly, eyes judging, “I’d just like to hear Frederik’s side of the story too.”

At that point, she wished she could communicate telepathically with Fred across the table.  Please, for the love of all things holy, say something at least vaguely similar to what I told them.  “Y—Yeah, she was hired to perform at one of the smaller charity events we hosted for the MLSE Launchpad, and I met her there.  She uh, she sounded amazing,” he lied.  She thanked God.  

“Aleida has always been an excellent musician,” Oliver nodded his head.  

“A smaller event – so not the Night With Blue and White,” Alejandra clarified.

Aleida stiffened.  She looked at her sister, her emotions bubbling and threatening to spill over.  Of course Alejandra would clarify that it was a smaller event – that Aleida and The Havana Cats wouldn’t be able to book the Night With the Blue and White, meaning that Aleida or her band weren’t good enough, that Aleida wasn’t good enough, that despite all her talent and work she could never—

“No.  That’s usually in January,” Fred’s words interrupted her thoughts.  Apparently he didn’t think too much of it.

“Oliver and I attend that one,” Alejandra gloated.  Of course they attended one of the biggest charity galas in the city.  “His law firm buys a table.”  Of course they do.  

Aleida looked down at her plate – at the stupidly pretentious beef wellington on her plate – to calm herself.  “That’s awesome that you’re fortunate enough to go,” she heard Fred’s voice say politely.

“And Oliver tells me you’re from Denmark, Frederik,” Felipe inserted himself back into the discussion.  Aleida rolled her eyes before looking back up.  “Whereabouts?”

“Herning.”

“And your parents?  What did they do?”

“Oh, they played hockey as well.”  Aleida watched as Fred reached out for his wine glass to take a quick sip.  “My entire family plays hockey.  My younger brother Sebastian plays for our local team in Denmark; my younger sister Amalie plays for the women’s national team and Maine; and the baby – Valdemar – plays for the under-17 team.”

“A sporting family!” Leonor smiled.  “How lovely.”  Aleida could tell the smile was forced.

Dinner conversation erred on the side of too inquisitive for Aleida’s liking.  Fred tried to be polite about it all, to make a good impression she guessed, but when Oliver began asking questions about the Leafs, Aleida wanted to slap him – it wasn’t like Fred was going to divulge insider information to him over dinner.  For how great of a lawyer and father he was, he could still be stupid sometimes.  Her mother kept asking about his family, and Aleida knew it was because her mother thought ‘sporting families’ were an interesting subculture, not just normal people whose kids happened to strike big.  Alejandra kept focusing on Fred and Aleida the most, which made her want to vomit all over the beef wellington, because it was none of her fucking business.  Her dad focused on telling Fred about the family, some cute or funny stories from when she and Alejandra were young – like a typical dad, really – but then he segued into his work as a cardiologist and Leonor’s work as a plastic surgeon, and, well, he lost the plot.

It was a very specific form of torture only Aleida could experience.

Somebody had cleared their plates but Aleida followed him into the kitchen away, desperate to get away, even just momentarily, from the dinner table.  She looked on the countertop near the stove and saw that her mother had made an assortment of pastelitos de guayaba, while the chef had prepared a really posh-looking arroz con leche.  

“I don’t know what you’re so moody about, darling,” she heard her mother’s voice as she entered the kitchen.  Leonor walked directly to her, pulling the plate of pastelitos towards her.  “Did you not want to do this?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

Aleida shrugged her shoulders.  “Alejandra forced us into it.”

“Well if he’s your boyfriend we would have met him eventually, right?” Leonor asked.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Aleida said as a knee-jerk reaction, regretting it immediately.  Her mother gave her a look.  “We haven’t put a label on it.  I’m not sure what it is—”

“He’s your boyfriend, Aleida.  He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”  Aleida wanted to scream.  “I don’t know what you’ve been nervous about all night.  He’s a perfectly lovely guy and we’re perfectly lovely people.  You were so nervous you barely ate.  All that food going to waste.”

Aleida wanted to scream even louder.  “Don’t you dare say that I don’t eat,” she warned.  

“Why?”

“Because I worked really fucking hard to get to a place where I can eat.”

Leonor stared at her daughter.  She picked up the plate of pastelitos before turning around.  “Are you going to come back and sit or will Frederik have to endure us alone?” she asked before disappearing out of the kitchen and back into the dining room.

***

“They love you, you know.”

Aleida looked at Fred as she sat on top of the counter.  He was finishing pouring wine into the two glasses he’d set out.  The smallest of smiles played on his lips when he set the bottle down and looked at her.  “I know.”

“You say that but I don’t think you really grasp it,” he said.  “They aren’t out to get you like you think they are.  They care for you.”

“Is that why my mother told me I could get lip injections if I wanted and she wouldn’t tell anybody?”

Fred digressed.  “Okay, so maybe that was a lapse in judgement, but—”

“Maaaaybe a lapse in judgement—”

“Aleida…” Fred said, sauntering over to her.  He handed her a glass of wine and moved to stand between her legs.  “Sometimes I think you need to be more aware of how good you have it,” he said.

She glared at him in spite of the fact that his body was so physically close to her.  “I am aware of how good I have it.  I’m, like, hyperaware of how good my life is.  The problem is—”

“I mean, your mother could have been an alcoholic like Bee’s,” Fred cut her off.  “You could have grown up in homeless shelters or in rooming houses with other alcoholics or druggies instead of in Rosedale with two doctor parents and a pretty hefty inheritance.”

“This isn’t some sort of who-had-it-worse Olympics, Frederik.  I’m allowed to feel this way.  I have just as much of a right as Bee.”

Fred leaned his head down to put a quick kiss on her lips that she didn’t reciprocate.  “I didn’t say you weren’t allowed.  I’m just saying it’s not as bad as you think it is.  They love you, Aleida, and you need to realize that.”

Aleida sighed, leaning her head on Freddie’s broad chest.  She didn’t feel like fighting with him.  Not when he endured a few hours with her family.  He should be rewarded rather than punished.  But she needed to make a point.  She needed to have the last word.  It was her family, after all.  “Freddie…”

“Hmm?”

“Can you please just let me have this.”

She could feel his chest rise and fall from a giggle.  He put his hand underneath her chin and kissed her again.  She reciprocated this time, however small.  “Okay.”

She laid her head against his chest again, bringing the wine glass up to sip as they stayed in that position, silent, for a few minutes.  His body exuded heat, and his chest was as wide as a fucking California King bed.  For a moment, Aleida envied every girl who came before her for being able to lay their head on his chest.  When she raised her head, she decided to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders, making sure not to spill her wine all over him.  She was wearing a skirt, so his hands slip up her thighs.  

“What’s your family like, Fred?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.  “What are your parents, your siblings like?”

She kissed him as an incentive to tell her.  “Sebastian’s a terror, but he’s alright,” he smiled slightly, thinking about his younger brother.  He watched as Aleida smiled too.  “You second siblings are something else.  He’s hockey obsessed – I mean we all are – but he sometimes doesn’t know how to switch it off.”

“Sounds like you rubbed off on him.”

Fred scrunched his face and gave her a quick kiss.  “Amalie is smart as a whip.  She’s the boss, really.  She puts all of herself into everything she does and she’s rewarded for it.”

“Is she allowed to date?”

“Maybe,” Fred said, but then proceeded to shake his head, causing Aleida to laugh again.

“And the youngest?”

“Valedemar is only fifteen.  He’s just a baby.”

“A teenage baby.”

“No, he’s always the baby,” Fred clarified.  “God, I still remember the day he was born.  There’s such an age gap between us that I remember everything.  I don’t care how old he gets – I’m still gonna remember holding him in my arms.  Seeing him is always a highlight – more than the others, almost.  Cause he’s like a mini-me.”

Aleida almost couldn’t handle the look on his face and his tone of voice as he spoke about his siblings.  She couldn’t help but kiss him again.  “And growing up in Denmark?”

“The dream,” he whispered silently, looking away like he was going into one at that very moment.

“Tell me,” she begged.

“The absolute dream.  Just…just family, and our house, and hockey, and all the best things you could think of.  The town, the people, the nature and scenery, the weekend road trips to Copenhagen.  My mom and dad would allow us to take sweets with us in the car.  We’d rent bikes and explore the city…go see the palaces.  Boat rides.  Then have a nice family dinner.  It was the dream.”  Fred looked at her again, pecking the tip of her nose.

“That’s what growing up should be like,” Aleida lamented.  “That’s what a real family is like.”

Fred furrowed his brows.  It was one thing to be angry at her parents and sister, but it was another to declare the statement that they were not normal.  Sure, their circumstances were extraordinary, with all the money and the jobs and whatnot, but they were completely normal in terms of their family dynamics.  It was normal to not always get along with everyone.  It was Aleida’s almost contempt for them that made her situation different.  At least to him.  “What was it like growing up in Havana?”

Aleida looked surprised.  “You remember me telling you that?”

“Of course I do,” Fred said.  “What was it like?”

Aleida sighed.  “We had – have – a huge private mansion in Miramar.  With staff and everything.  Even when we’re not there my parents keep them employed on a good wage.  We’d have pool parties all the time.  All the time.  I’m actually pretty sure my parents hosted Castro once, but they don’t talk about it.”

“Seriously?”

Aleida nodded her head.  “We’d just hang out at the house or around Miramar.  My mom would take me around to the cafes or the public squares in Old Havana to listen to Cuban music when she wasn’t on a call or something.  Same thing with my dad.  They really love Cuban culture, but their jobs…their jobs became too demanding.  We’d go but we couldn’t actually enjoy it, you know.”  She paused, thinking about how it started to seem like a chore for her parents to leave Toronto to go back to their home country.  They would measure the time by how much money they could have made – especially Leonor.  Felipe, not so much.  “But whenever I was there, I absolutely loved it.  Like you said, it was the dream.  Havana was where I could just…let everything go.  Become a new me.  Or a different me, at least.  Like a spiritual cleansing.  I always felt at peace there.”

“See…our childhoods weren’t very different.  It’s all in the perspective,” Fred said.  Aleida wasn’t so sure.  His family were still a lot more normal than hers in her eyes.  “You could have that again, you know.  That happiness.  That peace.”

“I wish.”

[misssophiachase]

For @klaroline-events​ KC Bingo - “Flower Shop” On FF and AO3

Who says the customer is always right? 

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

“She told me I never give her flowers,” he huffed. “How was I supposed to know that was a thing?”

“Who would have thought that giving someone flowers was a thing,” she shot back wryly. “You’re really asking the owner of this type of establishment that question?”

“You know what I mean,” he insisted. “I can’t do anything right hence my impromptu trip to what is, I’m sure, a very fine establishment.”

“Well, you’re here, so that’s a start,” she murmured. “And as much as I’d love to discuss the merits of giving flowers versus not giving them, it’s sort of busy in here right now so...”

“Oh of course, my apologies,” he replied, shelling over a wad of notes for his purchase. 

“How about a card?”

“Why do I need a card? It’s not like she won’t know who they’re from, right?” 

Caroline had to resist the urge not to roll her eyes at a customer. If this guy was her boyfriend she’d have dumped him by now. Who was she kidding? She never would have gone out with him in the first place. 

Yes, maybe he was kind of attractive with those untamed, blonde locks, short stubble that demanded to be touched and lips the colour of her favourite primrose. But he clearly had no idea about how to be a decent human being. 

Call her traditional but Caroline loved flowers and the generous act of giving them, hence why she started her own business five years earlier. 

Wild at Heart wasn’t big compared to some shops but what it lacked in size it made up for in its artistic bouquets as well as its warm ambience from the freshly baked, pumpkin scones in the adjoining cafe to her friendly staff. Well, except when Katherine was in a bad mood or hung over.

“A card is an accompaniment to the flowers and allows you to properly convey your message.”

“There’s definitely a message I’d like to convey but not sure it is very card friendly, if you know what I mean?”

Caroline was incredibly curious at his response and had to bite her tongue from responding. The obvious question being why he was buying flowers in the first place? But she could see the long line up of impatient customers behind him and knew they wouldn’t appreciate her views on the matter.

“If that’s the case, I think it’s best we just stick with the flowers.” 

Caroline wondered about his choice of flowers too. Most men, who had no idea about flowers, went straight for the roses. Beautiful, yes, but they were a safe option. Mister Sunshine, however, had chosen the namesake at the heart of her shop.

It was a combination of wildflowers. A mixture of Lavender, Daisies, Forget Me Nots and Queen Anne’s Lace to name a few. Although they were her absolute favourites, it was usually the last bouquet to sell in a day. Given it was only 9:09 am this was a first.

“No, I think you might have a point. So, what do you suggest I write?” She could hear the impatient groans from the people behind. 

“Look, here’s a card that says To and From,” she gestured to the plainest gift tag they had in the shop. One she only really kept on hand for situations like this. “All you need to do is insert names, easy right? Then you won’t feel the need to share opinions which might negate the positive act of giving flowers in the first place.”

A slight smile tugged at the edges of his mouth and Caroline was struggling not to reciprocate but then she remembered he was an ass. 

Before he could reply, she pushed that and the flowers towards him trying to ignore the way those crimson lips curved into a knowing smile followed by a flash of not just one dimple but two. 

“Next, please?”

27 hours later

Klaus had been standing outside the shop for a good fifteen minutes. He was debating whether or not to go inside. 

He looked down at the flowers he’d purchased yesterday, surprisingly still in relatively good condition given the way she’d thrown them at him. 

That would teach him to buy her flowers.  

Most people would take the rejection and either re-gift the flowers or throw them in the trash, Klaus, however, thought they were too beautiful for that and decided recycling was probably the best course of action. 

It had absolutely nothing to do with the beautiful, sarcastic blonde who’d sold them to him. Well, that’s what he kept telling himself.  

“Let me guess, you couldn’t help yourself and gave her the non card friendly version?” 

He turned slightly to his left, noticing the familiar blonde watering the flower pots outside the shop. He thought she looked stunning yesterday in a blue sweater, the colour of which he’d committed to memory, but today her jeans and white t-shirt combination was distracting him even more so. 

“Excuse me?”

“I couldn’t help but notice that my flowers are firmly grasped in your hand,” she noted. “If you’re looking for a refund I’m afraid...”

“Uh, no, of course not,” he stumbled. “I actually thought you might like them back.”

“I’m assuming they didn’t go down too well with...”

“Rebekah.”

“I’d apologise but given the way you were speaking yesterday I don’t really blame her for thinking you’re probably a bit of an ass.”

“Oh really? Is this how you usually talk to your customers, love?”

“Well, you’ve already paid for the flowers so I figure I’m safe.”

“You think you know me?”

“I know your type.”

“Wow, I’m a type,” he replied. “Please, tell me all about it.” 

“You did something wrong and you think buying this Rebekah flowers is going to fix everything. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work like that.”

“What do you think I did?” Klaus was beginning to get a complex and had no idea that a stranger, albeit a beautiful one, could make him feel so guilty. 

“Something bad if you’ve still got those flowers,” she murmured, her blue eyes gazing into his intently. “Maybe Rebekah wants more than flowers, did you ever think of that?”

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“If I gave you these flowers, would you like them?”

“I think that’s beside the point and extremely insensitive to poor Rebekah,” she scoffed. “I think I’m starting to realise her issues with you now.”

“Rebekah is my sister.”

“Yeah sure and that guy over there is my husband.” Klaus felt his chest constrict, not realising just how disappointed he was to hear that.  

When he’d made the trip, Klaus was secretly hoping she’d agree to go out with him. He knew he hadn’t made the best first impression but he truly felt like there was something between them. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, love,” he murmured. 

“Hang on, Rebekah really is your sister?”

“Unfortunately and you’re married, so it’s probably best I take my flowers and go.”

“What exactly did you do to your sister, you know besides not giving her flowers enough?”

“Her husband is in the Army and currently stationed in The Middle East. She’s heavily pregnant and incredibly moody and apparently I haven’t lavished enough attention on her. In my defence, she’s been like this since we were children but she’s one hundred times worse now.”

“Well, that I wasn’t expecting.” 

“I’ve taken her to every doctor’s appointment even though she complained about my supposed lack of driving skills and I’ve made plenty of late night trips to the store to buy the most disgusting combinations of foods to fulfil her voracious appetite. Then I thought flowers might help but apparently they weren’t to her taste.”

“Wow, you’ve been needing to get that off your chest for a while, huh?”

“You have no idea. I love her but she drives me crazy,” he chuckled. “I’m sorry to download on you, I should really let you get back to work.”

“I’m curious, why did you pick those flowers?” He looked down at them noting the diverse array of colours and shapes. He’d found himself immediately drawn to them in the shop but not exactly sure why at the time. 

“My sister, as it turns out, wanted roses, hence the tantrum. I suppose I thought these were understated, but at the same time wild and unexpected in a really beautiful way.”

“They grow not far from here actually,” she shared. “I usually go out and pick them a couple of times a week if you wanted to come with me?” 

Was she asking him out? Klaus couldn’t believe it, his initial disappointment a distant memory. 

“Your husband won’t mind?” She gave him a wicked smile, a slight blush crossing her creamy cheeks. 

“I won’t tell him if you don’t tell Rebekah,” she teased. 

When they married three years later, the bridal party carried wildflowers Caroline had picked herself. Rebekah’s daughter Florence was the flower girl and Klaus promised in his vows to always write a card to accompany his flowers even if she knew they were from him.

[in-this-body-of-mine]

To The Bone (2017) - Analysis and Charting

Let’s go! I’m NOT excited because life is hard but what better way to distract myself than to do this kind of shit. No one cares, anyways.

Since this is the first one, let me tell you what we’re gonna do here. I’ll include the IMDB summary, a summary with spoilers, the placements in the chart, we’ll go over each item (also, spoilers abound) and finally my review and final thoughts. Yes, it’s gonna be long. Read at your own risk.

IMDB summary:  A young woman, dealing with anorexia, meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.

Summary with spoilers: Lily Collins plays Ellen/Eli and from the start of the movie she is on the brink of her disease. She was just kicked out of a recovery center and she gets an appointment with a ~cool unconventional doctor~ played by Keanu Reeves. She goes into ANOTHER inpatient treatment home to be treated by him. Shit happens, she seems to be getting better somehow, but then she spirals down, runs away, and after a... near death experience (I wish this was an euphemism) she decides to try recovery again and goes back to the treatment home. That’s where the movie ends.

Chart placements!

Now for each item:

White: Ellen or Eli is played by Lily Collins, who once played Sandra Bullock’s daughter in that movie were she was a Karen. It doesn’t get whiter than that.

Female: She changes her name to Eli mid film (which is how I’ll be calling her here bc we respect chosen names in this household) but she still seems to identify as female and be referred to as such, so here we have it. We do have a guy in the treatment home, but we’ll come back to him later.

Teenager/Young adult: I’m pretty sure she is 19 but every review I see says she’s 20. Either way, she dropped out of college even though she just started it. The actress, however, was 28 at the time the movie was released.

Wealthy/seemingly well-off: Her family has the money to send her to inpatient a bunch of times, and they make a point to mention how they have connections so she didn’t have to wait in line to see this new doctor. Case closed.

Skinny actress from the start: As we know, Lily Collins is already thin and she did struggle with anorexia in the past. Why, however, did she lose weight for this movie? They said it was her decision “to make the character more authentic”. As if not being skin and bones wouldn’t be enough. As if eating disorders don’t come in every size. They shouldn’t let her. The need to shock people is a very dangerous sign to me.

No distinctive personality or hobbies/interests: I’m glad Eli has a thing she loves. It’s not super present, but it’s there, and it’s plot relevant. She loves art and in the story, she had a tumblr (look, it’s us!) where she shared drawings related to her ED and a girl liked her drawings so much that, when she killed herself, she mentioned Eli by name in a note. But that isn’t really explored too much and I kind of got disappointed by that.

Good student: We don’t really know about that... and I don’t think it matter, it’s ok.

Seemingly irrelevant love interest: Why? Just why do we need Luke? Luke is the only guy in the home, and we can SEE that he’s only there to be Eli’s love interest. He wasn’t needed. None of the important plot points have anything to do with him. Make her date a girl. Make her date NO ONE. This is about eating disorders. She could have closer friends in the house. Why was this necessary. Her whole speech about how love is a lie could come from a friendship but no. They had to shove pretty white boy there.

Daddy issues (sometimes coupled with mommy issues): I find this extremely funny but her dad isn’t in the movie. At all. He’s alive and well, but he makes a point to never come home when Eli is even awake. I don’t think they cast an actor for that. As for mothers, she has three, and it’s a trip. Her stepmom on her dad’s side is very out of touch but she wants what’s best for Eli, but she really hates Eli’s biological mom. Bio mom, in turn, is described as a “bipolar lesbian” and the stereotypes are just... ugh. Bio mom has a wife and she is a bit weird too. They sent Eli to live with her absent dad bc “they couldn’t deal with it anymore”. This brings us to a great scene where we can see Eli shrinking in her seat and when the psychiatrist asks her what she is feeling she says “I’m sorry I’m not a person anymore. I’m a problem.” And that’s great to see. But at the same time, I hate that her whole issue in this movie seems to come from her family and anorexia is just a thing that happened, with some vague references to control. 

*Triggering event*: We never see it and it’s okay - but I kind of wanted some more explorations of motives because we have ZERO.

Anorexia as diagnosis: As I always say, what is even the point of making a cool looking movie about EDs if your protagonist is not only anorexic, but also terminally anorexic? Ugh. That’s the only portrayal of anorexia that happens in media and I’m fucking tired.

Checklist of habits (manual for those looking for one): I mean, I mark this down but as I always say: everything is a manual if you’re looking for one. But if you’re doing more than not eating or purging or exercising I’ll judge it as a new tip. A lot of us already thought of/did most of them probably. But the marking remains.

Inpatient treatment (or extended hospital stay): As I said, she is kicked out of one treatment center and goes straight into another. What fucks me up is that the movie HAS other characters with other diagnosis, but we never see anything about them. We don’t see their journey. We only know Luke is a dancer bc he is the love interest. We only know Megan is pregnant and then she’s not bc this sends Eli in a spiral. We only know Kendra is not straight bc she makes a joke about it (and Doctor Beckham follows with a horrible joke about conversion therapy). Did you notice Ciara Bravo was in this movie? I didn’t on first viewing. She has like two lines. The whole movie is centered around Eli and every scene in the house feels like all the other patients only care about her too.

Emotional tipping point: Megan loses her baby and for some reason this affects Eli. Luke kisses Eli and for some reason she’s pissed. At that point, I was annoyed. She has a bad session with Doctor Beckham who basically tells her to grow a pair and stop complaining (which is insensitive as a doctor, but as a person I wanted to do the same) and she decides to quit and leave. She has to go to her mother’s home and I’m supposed to care. Stepmom is mad but doctor says she needs to hit rock bottom. She weights like 70 pounds dude. Rock bottom was about ten pounds ago, next stop is a coffin, mate.

Mom hugs: And here we have the emotional turn around of the movie and it’s just... make it make sense. She goes to her bio mom’s ranch. Her stepmom # 2 tells they’ll have therapy with horses (?). Eli goes sleep in a tent and bio mom cries and says she accepts if Eli wants to die. Very supportive I guess. They have this weird bonding moment where the mom feeds her a bottle like a baby and look, if you liked that, good for you, but I don’t get what I was supposed to feel about it (but that’s mom hug #1). She goes on a hike next morning and... dies? Either way she has an out of body experience where she talks to Luke and sees how she looks - which is weird to me. Didn’t we go over this in the beggining of the movie? Didn’t we establish that she does know what she looks like and doesn’t care? But still she seems shocked and they have a cryptical conversation and she wakes up. And just like that, she’s ok now. She meets up with the other stepmom (mom hug # 2) and goes back to the home.

Happy ending: In the last scene Eli is back to the home and we understand she’s going to try to recover for real this time. I’m okay with that specifically, I think it would be bad if they pretended she just got better with no relapses and everything is fine, but it’s a hopeful ending. Despite the fact that we have no idea if she won’t have a fit and leave in two days and that we never know anything about anyone else and Megan, who lost the baby, never comes back. It’s fine. At that point, I didn’t expect much.

Analysis: I was hesitant to be critical bc this movie was based on the real life experiences of the director and Lily Collins. But fuck it, this is my circus and I’ll clown as much as I want. While I do understand that, I have a lot of thoughts.

Mainly, I need to say that while I understand this is her story, this is a story that was told so many times. I’m tired.

The general public that wants to defend the movie says “well you can’t tell ALL stories”, and while I agree, these people probably only saw this movie about the subject. If you HAVE (or had) and eating disorder, you probably saw tons. And they ALL tell the same story. Which is why I started that chart in the first place.

This movie does have good moments. I do like the acting, I saw people complaining about Keanu Reeves performance - but I do know these were people who disliked the movie entirely. I think his performance was great, Lily Collins performance was great, and their chemistry was great. The best scenes in the movie happened between the two of them. The one thing that I LOVED was their first interaction when he calls her on her bullshit. “You’re not thin, you scare people, and I think you like that.” YES. I never heard anyone talk about that. And I guess I’ll never will, bc the movie itself never talk about this again either. Also when she justifies the tumblr where her art triggered a girl so much, she says that she was just drawing what she knows, he calmly tells her that she can draw, but she doesn’t have to share it online tho. I liked their interactions because often ED patients are treated with silk gloves (is that the expression?) and sometimes there is a need for some though love. I also love Liana Liberato who plays her sister and that’s about it.

The problem with the doctor ends up being: what’s his method? How are you going to cure her? The method makes no sense. I don’t see the reasoning. I don’t think anyone does. And somehow it works and she goes back there. 

I think my major problem with the movie is that it has the same issues every ED portrayal before it. It’s the same story again. I think it shines the most in the whole “it’s not about food, it’s about control!”. It IS about food though. For a lot of people, it is. Maybe not for this director or for Lily Collins, but for so many people it is about food. It’s about control as well, and it is possible that there is other factors related to it, but you can’t chalk it all up to a control issue and pretend it’s just whatever. If the food didn’t matter, it wouldn’t be an eating disorder.

Because of that, we have this heavy focus on her family issues and nothing to do with food. We have people trying to rationalize - maybe it’s bc your mom is a lesbian, maybe it’s bc i didn’t bond with you as a baby - and all that does is to make her lesbian bipolar mother seem like a crazy asshole and her dad seem like an absent asshole as if this is the only factor here. Give me SOMETHING. Any connection to food. Any sense. Nope. She just won’t eat bc her family is fucked up. Hoe, that’s all of us.

And I think the movie unintentionally DOES glamourize anorexia. Subtly, yes, but it does. Eli has SUCH an easy time refusing food. She doesn’t seem to think about food as much as she thinks about herself and her family and Luke and being annoying. She knows a bunch of calories and she overexercises. Idk.  Not to mention that moment when Kendra asks her about purging and she says “it’s not her thing”. I mean. It is no one’s thing. No one likes it. It’s a compulsion. And if you have anorexia that severe and you are not with a feeding tube, you do eat every now and then, and you do have purging mechanisms. If she had said she prefers overexercising as a purging mechanism than to throw up, I would believe her. But the movie acts as if she just never eats ever and somehow she’s still standing. Give her a feeding tube then. It would be more believable.

I know it sounds kind of ranty, but my point here is: this extremely anorexic girl, that looks like a sack of bones, and gets that by never eating and doing crunches all the time, it is the wet dream of a fatphobic society with a 71 billion weight loss industry. This is the dreamy and frugal idea of anorexia that people have when they are deep into the illness - not when they recovered as the people involved say they did. I get that this is a very personal project. But it’s flawed. It doesn’t do anyone any favors. It just tells the same story, for the millionth time, but since this time it was in a big platform, more people saw it, and it was better done, with a better budget and with a good enough resolution so I can see every bone in Lily Collins body.

Anyway, that’s it for today. If you read all of that, thanks. Since this is Netflix, I’m assuming everyone saw, but the other movies are out there and if you need liks, hit me up. Be back soon.

[very-grownup]

THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 7

Episode 19.

Shinji's tortured screaming from the end of last episode isn't carried over into the beginning of this episode and I mistakenly think this means things will improve. I am wrong.

Rest of Episode 19 behind the cut.

Shinji is holding himself/his EVA hostage after being utterly betrayed by NERV and his shitty father in the last episode and seems to be threatening to blow himself, the giant robot, and NERV up. Everyone at NERV (except his father, because his father will never explain, justify, or apologize because he is the worst) tries to reason with Shinji about how lying to him and nearly killing Tohji was necessary and yes he may feel betrayed but no one cares about his feelings.

I feel like an apology or active listening would go a long way to making Shinji not want to blow himself and everyone up but instead they just keep justifying their actions and Commander Ikari has the EVA plug flooded with orange stuff and Shinji passes out from lack of oxygen.

Oxygen deprivation: NERV approved parenting technique.

They have to cut open the EVA to get Shinji out and then he and Tohji are both at the hospital because they are nearly dead. No one appears to come and visit Shinji this time, although Asuka and Rei hang out in the smoking hallway in the hospital and Asuka is pretty sure that's the last they'll see of Shinji.

Tohji has a flashback to eavesdropping on a conversation on the train between Rei and Shinji where Rei tried to convince Shinji to do all the emotional labour in his relationship with his father. He also gets an actual visit from the girl who doesn't pilot an EVA. They are awkward at each other about teenage romantic feelings that they can't express and also Tohji wants her to tell his little hospitalized sister that he totally wasn't nearly killed in a giant robot by a different giant robot. Will they show up after this episode? Shrug!

Discharged from the hospital before Tohji, Shinji is /escorted from his cell/ in /three sets of handcuffs/ to have a meeting with his father about his crimes of not wanting to kill Tohji in a long ominous red chamber. Shinji is fourteen.

Shinji tells his father he does not want to pilot the EVA again. Commander Ikari takes the 'you can't quit I'm firing you' approach both as a military commander and a father, straight up telling Shinji they won't see be seeing each other again. Cool dadding, very quality.

If he's no longer piloting the EVA, nothing else in Shinji's life as we've seen it will continue either. So, no more school, no more living with Misato, no more living in Tokyo 3 in general? I guess he's being sent back to wherever he was living before NERV had use for him? Don't worry, he gets a call from the glasses nerd that's basically SHINJI HOW COULD YOU NOT WANT TO PILOT THE ROBOT ANYMORE YOU SUCK I WISH I COULD PILOT A GIANT ROBOT I LOOKED UP TO YOU AND YOUR GIANT ROBOT and then the call gets cut due to military censorship I guess? Misato goes to see Shinji off and they take a moment to talk about how Shinji is such a loser that Asuka doesn't want to even see his face to say bye, but Shinji is reassured by this thing remaining constant. Misato continues to try and fail at being a parental figure for Shinji. she recognizes that it's important to make decisions for yourself and not because of what will make other people happy and this is the first time Shinji's been assertive about something but she really wishes Shinji would consider how they all want him to get in the robot and do what his father says. You can't have it both ways, Misato! LET THE CHILD SET BOUNDARIES.

Of course, as Shinji's on his way to living a normal life without his shitty father and giant robots, the emergency siren goes. Shinji realizes that this is not his problem and goes to evacuate with other, totally normal non-EVA pilot residents. Again, don't worry, he hears plenty of voices in his head the entire time telling him how terrible he is and what a failure coward he is!

Meanwhile, at NERV, they only have two teenagers to respond to the latest angel attack and one of those has an EVA that is down one arm. Asuka's sent out first while they decide to put Rei in Shinji's EVA (I guess cutting Shinji out was less damaging than the arm melting). It's a cute angel this time, like a rounded toddler's toy with stubby limbs and paper streamers it can shoot out that cut everything forever. Asuka takes her usual approach of giant guns for giant robots, even though it appears immune to gun. Maybe it's an issue of not using the right gun? She goes through a lot of guns and then the angel rips both her arms off. Asuka is determined to defeat it, though, all the moreso because Shinji is gone. So, armless, she rushes the angel and headbutts it. The angel cuts off the head of Asuka's EVA and that's ... a bad time.

Meanwhile, in Shinji's EVA, Rei is failing to synch with it and getting rejected. She can no longer pilot THIS giant robot. So ... one-armed prototype it is!

The severed head of Asuka's EVA crashes through the evacuation shelter right in front of Shinji in case he didn't already feel terrible about NOT WANTING TO PILOT A MURDER ROBOT FOR LIARS WHO DO NOT CARE ABOUT HIM.

Rei in her one-armed EVA just takes a giant bomb and does a suicide run at the angel because she recognizes that she is replaceable in the eyes of NERV and Commander Ikari. The angel closes the boss vulnerability hole on its torso before Rei can jam the bomb in there. Things also go bad for Rei but it's less limbs being pulled off and more the strange skeletal outline of bits of a giant robot after the bomb goes off.

Shinji with the evacuated residents is now outside of city limits and guys? FUCKIN' KAJI IS THERE WATERING A GARDEN. Fuckin' Kaji is there to go oh hey Shinji shouldn't you be in the giant robot? If I was someone who could actually do something in this scenario instead of being me, fuckin' Kaji, I'd definitely probably do that, but for reasons I don't even get to be at NERV these days.

The thing is, in this episode no one has empathy for Shinji.  Of course they want him to get in the giant robot and fight the angel, but even previously sympathetic/empathetic figures are dropping the ball and not showing him the consideration of earlier episodes. Shinji has been very good about getting into the robot for a while now and doing what he is told and his reward seems to be now no one is even going to listen to him because he's been doing it so surely he should understand the important of doing it! Stop complaining about piloting a giant robot after being forced to nearly murder a classmate because you've been agreeable about piloting a giant robot to fight alien invaders seems to be the stance. It sucks. Shinji needs more now and instead is getting less than ever.

Anyway, the extenuating circumstances have Shinji racing back to NERV as the angel is bearing down on headquarters and coming to his father and the EVA and asking to be allowed to pilot the EVA, /his/ EVA.

You can see Commander Ikari weighing the options of dying from angel attack against having to admit, even if just to himself, that his son is useful and perhaps even needed. It's not even taking the L it's just ... needing to win gracefully but he's still torn.

Luckily (I /guess/) Shinji is 'allowed' to get in the robot and goes absolutely fuck wild against the angel ... until his battery runs out and his EVA gets to be the third punching bag for this angel, cracking through armour and breaking limbs, shaking Shinji in his seat. Shinji is pressing all the buttons and shaking the controls and begging it to work just a little longer and then /it does/. Lights come on and the EVA catches the angel's attacks and there's an instant where maybe it's going to be okay, Shinji's going to save the day!

Then the EVA shoves the paper streamers from the angel into itself and uses that to regenerate the arm the angel ripped off and I'm like wait they can do that and everyone from NERV is like wait they can do that OH NO and then the EVA is moaning and it has white human teeth. AND THE REGENERATED ARM IS JUST A NORMAL FUCKING HUMAN ARM YOU GUYS JUST A GIANT ROBOT SIZED FLESHY HUMAN ARM AND RITSUKO'S LIKE OH NO IT'S GETTING LOOSE BECAUSE THAT WAS NEVER GIANT ROBOT ARMOUR THOSE WERE RESTRAINTS AND GUYS I THINK THE EVA MAY NOT BE A ROBOT AT ALL. SO THE BREAKING FREE EVA TURNS THE TABLES ON THE ANGEL AND STARTS RIPPING IT APART much like Tohji's EVA-angel was getting beaten and ripped in the last episode but there's no indication that anyone but Shinji is controlling the EVA now. AND THEN THE EVA STARTS EATING THE ANGEL WITH ITS WHITE HUMAN TEETH AND THERE IS BLOOD EVERYWHERE AND MOANING AND EVERYONE WATCHING KNOWS IT'S EATING THE ANGEL IS THERE A BUTTON IN THE COCKPIT THAT IS LABELED EAT HOW IS THIS HAPPENING I HATE IT IT IS UPSETTING. Fuckin' EVA leaping around and moving like a goddamn cryptid in a jumpscare videogame and it's worse than Tohji's angel-EVA in the last episode with its stretch armstrong choking limbs and this concludes my report on Episode 19 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.