#the yearning has gone absolutely crazy the past few weeks

[asfdhgsdkjhgb]

sigh. i need to be kissed on the mouth or i might start killing people

[dashboarddiaries]

Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen (@thelaurenshippen) and Cher McAnelly (@overchers). Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription by Laudable.

For ad-free episodes and more, become a pal at atypicalartists.co/support.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello Ozzians and Shiz Students. I am Lauren Shippen, Professional Writer, who is afraid of heights. So, I’m not going to be defying gravity anytime soon. 

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly, Profession Question Asker and Space Holder.

Lauren: Thank you so much, Cher. I really appreciate you holding space here for us.

Cher: Anytime, Lauren. [inaudible 00:00:22]

Lauren: And this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you – the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on in our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “tumbl-lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship.

So, Cher, it is January 2025. Our last episode was November 2024. What have your last two months on Tumblr been like?

Cher: Nothing really ... I don’t think anything really happened or went on. No, (laughs).

Lauren: No ... 

Cher: Just a few things. Well, I think one big thing is a teaser for the topic of our episode – Wicked premiered and took Tumblr by storm and has been trending on Tumblr for the past month(s). So, definitely excited to dive into that. In addition to that. Tumblr’s Year in Review came out in December. So, always a great time to dive in on fandon.tumblr.com for listeners who want to check out what were the biggest things that happened on Tumblr in 2024. 

To give you a quick little preview, Gravity Falls rose in rankings across the board. It actually gained 56 spots to become the number one TV series of 2024.

Lauren: Oh my god! The number one!?

Cher: Yeah. 

Lauren: That’s crazy. 

Cher: Isn’t that huge? I was shocked, especially about the growth – 56 spots on fandom rankings between 2023 and 2024. 

Lauren: Oh my god. Yeah, I remember we talked about Gravity Falls briefly in an episode because it did have some sort of new announcement or something last year ... that surely rejuvenated some of the interest in the fandom. 

Cher: Yeah. And I think definitely was the ember that sparked ... I’m looking for a metaphor here that is tied into Gravity Falls. And I am failing. I think I’m just going to circle back to the people on Tumblr are really holding space for Gravity Falls! 

Lauren: There you go! (laughter) You got there. 

Cher: There it is. We got there. And in addition to being the number one TV show of 2024, Gravity Falls also was #1 on the ships list with the Billford ship which is Bill Cipher and Stanford Pines. No, surprise there. Generally, when it’s the number one show it’s also the number one ship. 

But some great other nuggets of information there on the Tumblr Year in Review to check out. In addition to that, “nature core” was the number 19 most talked about topic on Tumblr. 

Lauren: Nature core!?

Cher: Which is really interesting to me. Yeah. 

Lauren: Huh!

Cher: My note for that is I just wrote, “The people yearn for the dirt.” (laughs)

(laughter)

Lauren: The people do. The people do yearn for the dirt. Yeah. That’s true. 

Cher: And then finally, Lauren, following our last episode I binge watched Dr. Odyssey. 

Lauren: Yes‼

Cher: And I just want to thank you so much for introducing me to this chaotic ship show.

Lauren: You’re welcome.

Cher: Just absolutely fantastic. Loved it.

Lauren: The most throuple to ever throuple. (laughs)

Cher: Uh, love the throuple. Love the fact ... I think I saw a post that I’ll re-blog to the Dashboard Diaries Tumblr. Essentially this show is the best, there’s no plots, it’s just like every week ... today is pink week on the gay ship. Like-

Lauren: (laughs) Perfect.

Cher: No notes. I love it. Also, fun fact - in one of the final episodes they introduced a new character. I need to go and check what her name is. She was the blonde Stu with short hair. I went to high school with her and did sketch comedy with her. 

Lauren: Oh my gosh!

Cher: Shout out Jacqueline Taboni on SI Live, you’re crushing it on Dr. Odyssey! 

Lauren: That’s amazing! I love that. 

Cher: Was very exciting to see. And I think I’ll get into this more in my Feels ... I’m sorry I have 15 million things. 

Lauren: No, this is so great!

Cher: ... the last month on Tumblr ... But I’ll get to it more in Feels Corner but Severance is back. 

Lauren: Yes.

Cher: I’ve been waiting. We’ve all been waiting. Do you watch Severance?

Lauren: Oh, we just re-watched the whole first season to prepare. Yeah.

Cher: Okay. Yeah. All right. So, we’re going to have some things to unpack there.

Lauren: Uh huh.

Cher: And then finally, there’s a new show called The Pit.

Lauren: The Pit‼

Cher: (laughter) 

Lauren: I am deep in The Pit!

Cher: Okay. I can see from you reaction that you also ... are you a The Pit watcher? Are you in The Pit? 

Lauren: I am so in The Pit.

Cher: YES.

Lauren: I think everybody should join us in The Pit.

Cher: Everyone needs to join us in The Pit. I mean, first off, are you kidding me!? Noah Wyle. ER ... 

Lauren: Okay. So, here’s the thing. Give our listeners a little bit of insight on to what The Pit is. 

Cher: Okay. The Pit is a new procedural doctor emergency room drama on Max. It stars ... the set up of the season is essentially like the show 24 where every episode covers an hour in the ER or The Pit as they call it. And Pittsburgh is also where this is taking place, unsurprisingly. And the lead ER doctor and lead in the show and in our hearts in The Pit is Noah Wyle who also was in ER and just I mean, he’s still in the ER, he’s still saving lives, he still looks great doing it. Really enjoying the show. And I feel like ... I’m hoping we can get a Grey’s Anatomy, I don’t know ... I feel like this is maybe a little more prestige than Grey’s Anatomy. Not to throw shade on Grey’s Anatomy.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: One of my favorite shows also. I’m excited to have another ER, that’s the obvious comparison, another doctor procedural hospital procedural to add to the list. Do you have anything to add, Lauren? Any thoughts?

Lauren: Oh my god. Yeah. I have thoughts on The Pit. (laughs) So, it’s funny ... I’ve never actually seen ER. I think I’ve seen half of an episode once because my parents were obsessed with it growing up. And yeah, The Pit is written, created by one of the writers from ER and yeah, stars Noah Wyle, and I think the thing that I know him from is Falling Skies the Sci Fi Channel show about an alien invasion that I think me and three other people watched.

Cher: Yeah, I was going to say ... missed that one ... got to add it to the list!

Lauren: Noah Wyle presumably made $700 billion doing ER. And then between ER and this show just made a bunch of really weird small little Sci Fi Channel shows, which I honestly love him for. But it’s funny, I was reflecting ... so, yeah. It’s on Max. It popped up and I was intrigued by that it’s 15 episodes, it’s covering 15 hours in real time in the ER room kind of schtick. 

And we went into it not knowing what to expect and now we’re, what, three or four episodes in out of however many have been released and I’m like, I’m LOVING it. It made me reflect on the fact that I have never kept up with a medical show. I’ve never watched a medical show from beginning to end. I watched the first like five seasons of Grey’s Anatomy maybe. I’ve watched the first eight seasons of Scrubs but fell off when the cast changed. And so I’m really curious to see if The Pit is the one that I stick to. Noah Wyle is the most charming motherfucker on the face of the planet on this show. 

I am immediately at ease even when he’s like looking at a women’s de-gloved leg. Like, I trust you. I am in good hands!

Cher: Truly. If I knew that he was the head doctor at my ER, I’m not saying I would be less careful but I would also, if something would happen I would know which ER I needed to go to. 

Lauren: Mm hmm. And maybe be overly cautious whenever you bump your head just in case and go to the ...

Cher: Yeah, exactly ... not less careful, overly cautious. 

Lauren: Overly cautious.

Cher: This paper cut could get septic. I should really ... check on that.

Lauren: I should really go to the ER. I should go to The Pit.

(laughter)

I’m so glad you’re also watching The Pit. I think it’s great. 

Cher: Oh my gosh. Me too. I am very excited to know more about all the characters they’re introducing. They’re starting to bread crumb it. I feel like that’s when the excitement about a show really kicks in. I feel like I’m not quite there yet. I’m still getting to know everyone. Except for Noah. I love him. He’s perfect. 

Lauren: Yeah. Well, I would say that’s a very good two months on Tumblr. And very busy.

Cher: Yeah. What about you? What have your two months on Tumblr been like, Lauren?

Lauren: I mean, I haven’t gone into The Pit tag yet. I need to. Obviously, yeah, finishing up sort of the Dr. Odyssey season half. It’s coming back in March, I believe with 911. So, I’m sure we’ll be talking about it then. But it has been, yeah eventually we’ll segue into our main topic – because it has been a musical theater heavy two months for me on Tumblr. And I re-blogged a little of this to my public Tumblr. But mostly on my personal. 

I did have a lot of feelings about Wicked. And I did have a lot of feelings about Elphaba and Glenda in Wicked, which we’re going to get to. But then also I am from New York originally. I was home at New York over the holidays and it was a pretty packed holiday season and I was also traveling around the east coast throughout it. But something that my family always endeavors to do every holiday is go and see a show either the 26th or the 27th – post Christmas, let’s catch a show.

And my sister and her family were in Canada with her in-laws this year. So, it was just me and my parents. And my mom was like, “What show would you want to see?” And I was like, I’m really curious about Water For Elephants. But also I just for the first time read The Outsiders this year. And so I’m curious about the musical of The Outsiders. 

And she got tickets for Water For Elephants and then Water For Elephants closed in November. And so she ended up getting tickets for The Outsiders and I’d read the book. I saw the Tony performance. But my parents had seen the movie in the ‘80s. But they didn’t necessarily have any feelings towards The Outsiders. They didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t, none of us knew what to expect musically. And we were all blown away. It is one of the best new musicals that I’ve seen in a really long time on Broadway. And when I say “new musical” I mean something that isn’t ... where none of the songs are existing prior to the musical existing. Right? Obviously, there have been a lot of new musicals in recent years that have been jukebox musicals or like medley’s or Moulin Rouge, Juliet, and all of those types of things.

And there have been some great new musicals the last couple of years. I thought Kimberly Akimbo was super fun. I personally have a lot of feelings about Dear Evan Hanson. But probably the best musical that I’ve seen over the last ten years was actually off Broadway – Octet. A Dave Malloy musical about internet addiction that is one of the best pieces of art ever. I think the last time that I had this kind of reaction to a new musical on Broadway was Hamilton in 2015. 

I don’t know. I was just totally reinvigorated by this musical. Then of course I’m diving into the Tumblr tag. Of course the Tumblr tag for The Outsiders is like popping, right? The Outsiders has been popular with teens forever. It is THE teenager book. But there hasn’t been that much chatter about the musical itself. And if you have feelings about The Outsider please come to thelaurenshippen.tumblr.com and put feelings in my Ask Box. I really want to share feelings about this musical with people and I don’t really know anybody who has seen it? Have you seen it, Cher?

Cher: I have not. No. But you’re inspiring me. I love The Outsiders growing up when we read it in high school. I haven’t read it since. But I remember really loving it, loving the movie, and also being torn apart from the movie.

Lauren: Okay. I’ve never seen the movie actually.

Cher: Being in love with the cast. Oh my gosh. Definitely watch the movie. It will reinvigorate all The Outsider feels. And now, I have to go see the show. I live in New York. I need to go take advantage of this and see the show!

Lauren: Oh, you HAVE to. I already ... I left the theater being like, when can I see this again? And I’ve been just listening to the soundtrack on repeat. And I think ... not to get too in the weeds on musical theater nerdery, but we are about to do that for the next 30 minutes‼ (laughs) So, actually I am going to take the opportunity to do that. 

So, for our listeners who don’t know ... which actually might be most of you ... my background is actually in musical theater. Musical theater is what I studied both in terms of performance and academically. And I grew up in a very musical theater household. I have family who work in musical theater. So, it’s very much like in my DNA. So, I am both always incredible inclined to enjoy myself and also can be incredibly picky. 

One of the things that I think frustrates me about a lot of new musicals now is that they ... even if the songs are new and even if the songs are great, can sometimes feel a little bit juke-boxy in the sense that it’s scene, here’s a song, here’s a scene, here’s a song. It feels like the musicals of the ‘20s and ‘30s, right? 

There’s nothing wrong with that, it just isn’t necessarily my personal taste. I’m a Sondheim baby through and through. And so I really like having a leitmotif that returns or like musical ideas that we revisit and reprises and stuff like that. And The Outsiders really delivers on that. Which is fascinating to me because the music is by a band called Jamestown Revival. These are not musical theater composers who wrote this musical. It’s a band that wrote it. But they still, they just repeat a lot of musical ideas. A lot of the songs aren’t necessarily bangers that you’re going to hear in auditions for the next 100 years. They are songs that are serving the story. And they are songs that are musically interesting both in terms of the melodies and in terms of the orchestrations. And all the vocal performances were UNBELIEVABLE. 

We saw and understudy for Daryl, the eldest brother, and the moment he opened his mouth I was like – what on the earth is the main guy who does this like!? This understudy is fucking incredible! Shout out to Dan Berry. You blew my mind! So, now I have to see it again with Brent Comer who is in that role. I’m just like it can’t possibly be better than this. But yeah.

And also, just in terms of theater craft and stuff, it’s some of the best directing and staging I’ve ever seen in my life. The way that they use sound design, the way that they used lighting ... I need you to see it and then we need to do a whole episode on it!

Cher: Okay. I’m genuinely going to go look into tickets for this. Because I similarly haven’t been overly excited or really very excited about a musical to the way that you fall into it once you’ve seen it since Hamilton. I saw Hamilton and I lost my entire mind. I was already listening to the soundtrack and entering the lottery every day. And I eventually bought tickets to see it and my boss let me go to a matinee mid day when I was working at Tumblr.

Lauren: That’s right! 

Cher: It was just ... oh my gosh. I think I didn’t stop listening to the Hamilton soundtrack for any reason for about a year. So to hear as enthusiastic of a review of The Outsiders as you’ve felt about Hamilton in so many words – yes – I’m sold. I’m going to go see this. I will keep you posted so we can do an Outsiders episode.

Lauren: Please! And if you can, I had the enormous benefit of when I saw Hamilton the [inaudible 00:15:56] had come out yet so I hadn’t been exposed to literally any of the music yet. I think it broke my brain in a very particular way because of that. And so I would say ... Yeah, I think musically-speaking The Outsiders isn’t necessarily even attempting what Hamilton is attempting. But I think the music is great. I would say don’t listen to the soundtrack if you can help it before you see the show. I always think if it’s possible it’s good to go into a show cold. I realized that’s an immense privilege to be able to do that. Right? To have the ability to see musicals ... and you live in New York, I’m from New York, and I go back there all the time. And so we have the opportunity to see shows, to get on the lottery every single day and not just the week that you’re there visiting or whatever. And yeah, that leads me to ... I say we just go right into our main topic – which is ...

[game show trill]

Wicked.

Cher, tell me your history with Wicked as a piece of art, as a fandom, when was the first time you encountered it?

Cher: I first saw Wicked or encountered Wicked as a teenager when it started on Broadway. I believe. And then finally I had heard songs from it. I knew Popular and Defying Gravity. I couldn’t even tell you where I heard these songs or how I heard them, just on the internet, on the ether. And was deeply obsessed with them. And then when Wicked came to San Francisco where I grew up I saw it at the Orpheum Theater. I think I was 16 the first time I saw it. I loved it. And I actually ... my funny aside, my dad worked downtown at a hotel and so they have these big six foot tall vinyl Wicked posters that they put all around. And when they took them down after Wicked’s run my dad managed to get one for me. So, in high school, in my bedroom I had one of the giant vinyl Wicked show posters.

Lauren: That’s SO cool. 

Cher: I think it’s in our basement somewhere because I told my parents, “Don’t you dare throw that away. I want that.” 

Lauren: Yeah. That’s awesome. So, were you a pretty big fan? Did you listen to the soundtrack a bunch after you saw it? 

Cher: Yeah, I listened to the soundtrack a bunch but I have always been ... I don’t listen to soundtracks or cds ... CDs???? I don’t listen to cds all the way through. Showing my age here. I don’t listen to ... I’ve always been pretty bad about listening to albums all the way through. So, I pick my two to three songs and this is during iTunes days, so I definitely got my favorite songs on iTunes and just listened to pretty much Popular and Defying Gravity on such a loop that I’m ... upon re-watching or upon watching the musical the film for the first time since I’d seen Wicked when I was a teenager, so many of the songs felt brand new. And my involvement in the fandom was definitely not ... I wasn’t in digital fandom really. And I think it ties into the letter that we’ll dive into from the reader who inspired this episode or the listener who inspired this episode who mentioned that Wicked as a fandom is older than Tumblr itself. 

As a teenager I wasn’t really involved in really any online fandom’s until I was 18, 19. So, yeah, it was a very offline but dedicated love of Wicked. What about you? What was your relationship with Wicked?

Lauren: Yeah, I think a similar trajectory. I also saw it on Broadway in ... I know it was 7th grade. So, this would have been like 2001, 2002 probably. I can’t remember when Wicked opened. But it was in the first couple of years of its run I think and I was in 7th grade. I remember this because 7th grade was when I started wearing contact lenses. I’ve been wearing glasses since the 3rd grade. And when I started doing plays and musicals in middle school I didn’t want to wear glasses on stage. So, I started wearing contacts. 

And I was still getting used to it. And we’d go out to dinner before the show. And something gets caught into my contacts and I don’t really know how to like deal with it yet. And I don’t bring extra contacts with me everywhere I go at this point. And so I end up tearing the contact! And so I saw Wicked with one contact in. (laughs) So, I literally was sitting there the whole time with a hand over the eye that didn’t have the contact in it so that I could just focus. But I saw Wicked with one eye. 

Cher: Oh my gosh!

Lauren: So, that sucked, right? Seeing it with one eye. But then the amazing thing was we just happened to get lucky ... I’m forgetting who originally played Fiero on Broadway but he had back surgery or something. He was out of the show for two weeks. And Taye Diggs who was then Idina Menzel’s husband subbed in. And so we got to see Taye Diggs as Fiero. Just because we got lucky with the timing or whatever. Which was very, very cool. He and Idina were still married at the time, so obviously their chemistry was incredible. And so, I mean, yeah, to the point of shipping ... I was definitely a huge Fiero and Elphaba and didn’t really think about the Elphaba/Glenda stuff until much later. But yeah, I do listen to albums all the way through. I did have the cd of Wicked. 

And it was one of those cast albums I would put in my blue boom box that I had. I would bring it into the bathroom and plug in for when I was in the shower so I could sing along to the soundtrack. And I did that for probably like two years. And then by the time that I was in sophomore year of high school, I don’t know, it just fell off the regular rotation. And I basically didn’t listen to it again, yeah, until I saw the movie. 

So, that brings us to ... I did at one point try to read the book that it was based on and like many people who attempted it, did not finish it, because it is a deeply weird book. But yeah, that brings us to ... it’s been 20 years basically since either of us saw the show. And now here the movie came out. And yeah, before we dive into the movie maybe, as you mentioned, this was a listener suggestion to dive into this, and they sent us this really wonderful email talking about their own history with the fandom and how it’s grown, but then also how despite the fact that the musical is this enormous, enormous worldwide phenomenon – I mean, it’s still on Broadway. Isn’t it? It’s still running.

And there’s global tours and all this kind of stuff. And being Elphaba in Wicked is like a big thing for a lot of women in musical theater to kind of launch to the next stage of your career. The fandom is still really small. And it’s a passionate fandom. There’s a huge sapphic shipping portion of the fandom. That is the biggest ship in the fandom. Gelphie, Elphaba, and Glenda. Obviously, now with the movie – they sent us this email before the movie came out, the landscape of the fandom may change. So, thank you for this Tumblr user who is @bannedfromtheaters or @wickedlyqueer. Thank you so much for this suggestion. And let’s dive into the movie.

Cher, what did you think of the movie?

Cher: I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. The singing was fantastic. Obviously. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I will say, going into it was a little concerned that with Ariana Grande’s casting as someone who is such ... she’s so well known as Ariana Grande, she’s one of the biggest pop stars in the world, that I would feel like I was watching Ariana Grande play Glenda instead of watching Glenda. 

And I will say, I got fully into it. I got fully caught up in the magic of the musical and the acting. I thought it was really well done. I’m excited for part two. It was pretty long. But I still feel like ... I don’t know, I watched some of the deleted scenes after seeing a lot of comments on Tumblr about how the deleted scenes added even more to it. And I felt like, yeah, a few of them should have been in there also. 

Lauren: Interesting!

Cher: I understand how it ended up being so long, especially for a two parter. Yeah, I really enjoyed it and thought it was fun. I also ... starting off, when I first saw Wicked and as a teenager the Gelphie ship never crossed my mind. I was just like, this is a show about two best friends, look at them being best friends, but they fight, but they’re best friends. Enemies to friends. Now, as watching this I guess with more ... I mean, now I am queer and I didn’t realize that as a teen. But so many other being involved in fandom and everything. Watching this, I was wondering to myself how could I have not noticed in the past how obvious that these two women are in love with each other? And I know that it’s not technically officially-officially canon, but it feels like everyone involved would agree that Gelphie is canon. Which I also really liked.

Lauren: Truly.

Cher: I saw a Tumblr post that I re-blogged and will share to the Dashboard Diaries Tumblr that said that there was fear in the fandom that this film might not lean into the queerness of the friendship and relationship between Ephaba and Glenda and how everyone was very excited that that was not the case and it actually seems to have doubled down, which again I don’t really remember the musical, the Broadway show, very well. But based on this I can see how the Gelphie ship is the number one and just very obvious ship in the show. And it feels canon to me, frankly.

What about you? What did you think?

Lauren: Yeah. I’m totally with you. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really fun. I thought it was really well made. I personally would have made some different choices on the sound mixing when it came to the songs. And at first I thought it was just my theater but then I talked to a couple of other people who also had the same reaction where just everything felt a little bit too quiet in an interesting way. Ultimately I think it just comes down to taste and to them doing some live recording of vocals on set, which personally, and this is another discussion entirely, I have a lot of problems with. I think that’s a bad idea. I don’t think we should be doing it in movies unless the music is [inaudible 00:26:08]. Like Once, the musical Once, where it’s about two musicians who are singing in the environment that they’re in because they’re literally at a piano or whatever. That’s ... anyway, that’s beside the point. 

Because the signing is just fucking incredible. And the orchestrations are beautiful. Yeah, that’s just a personal preference thing. So, that kind of took me out of it a little bit throughout the movie. But then also at the climactic moment in Defying Gravity when she goes, “It’s me” and then sings the big moment, I burst into tears. Just started inconsolably weeping. So, I’m like this is working. This is working. 

I can have as many quibbles and quabbles as I want but I think as a movie it was incredibly effective. And yeah, that is the thing. I totally agree about Ariana Grande. I had no idea what to expect. I would say I went in being like neutral to neutrally positive about Ariana Grande as a figure. I didn’t really know anything about her as a person. And I like three of her songs and don’t know the rest of her music.

I am a HUGE Ariana Grande fan now. I think she’s amazing. I thought she was amazing in that role. I thought she was so funny. Yeah, I was really blown away by her. I think especially because Cynthia Erivo is one of the greatest singers alive. And I’ve had the good fortune to see her perform live and it’s just ... there was no part of me that was surprised at any moment about how great of a performance Cynthia Erivo was giving. Whereas I think for Ariana Grande it became her movie in my mind because I was so surprised, just didn’t know what to expect. Right?

But I’m totally with you. I also ... I think I became aware of the Gelphie ship at some point maybe in like the last 15 years just by being on Tumblr and being in musical theater fandom that I became aware that it was a thing people shipped. But I never really felt it. And yeah, watching it now and knowing that I’m queer now where I didn’t when I was in 7th grade or whatever, it’s like Loathing is the ultimate enemies to lovers song. (laughter)

These two women are obsessed with each other and they’re in love and Fiero should be their random weird third and I just don’t understand why they’re not kissing all the time! 

Cher: I saw a post that we’ll re-blog as well that said – before I knew that I was gay I had a crush on a girl at my school and I just wrote her a note that said, “get out of my school.” (laughter) 

Lauren: That’s exactly it! It’s so good! Oh my god. And just some interesting numbers about ... one of the things about Wickedly Queer our listener mentioned in their email was just how they’re a fan fic writer themselves of Gelphie fan fic but it hasn’t been a very prolific fan fic writing community in comparison to the source materials populating. Right?

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: And I did look back ... so the way back machine for the AO3 page for Wicked goes back as far as 2012. In 2012 there were a little over 70 fics in the Wicked all media types tag on A03. And now there’s just over 2800 which is really surprising. I was really surprised that there are only that many fics for a fandom that millions and millions of people are into. So yeah, that was one interesting finding that I discovered as I dove in. How about you? In diving into the Tumblr tag and the fandom, what are the things that jumped out to you?

Cher: A couple of things. One similarly on the Tumblr side of things, though the Gelphie ship has been trending, it’s been in the top five ships and the top two ships for the past two weeks on Tumblr and I’m saying this while also mentioning that there was a little bit of break in fandom rankings postings due to Year In Review. So, it went October 28th was the last fandom rankings that we had until January and then we just did them for the last two weeks. So, though Gelphie has been ... was number two last week and number three this week I’m pretty positive that Gelphie actually has been trending in fandom at least since the week that the film premiered if not longer.

So, despite Wicked trending for the past couple of months and being one of the most talked about titles on Tumblr and it seems the internet because I think everyone has been very aware of the Wicked press tour, the Gelphie tag on Tumblr only has 3.4K followers and generally when you have a tag or a ship that’s trending you’re going to see much higher numbers than that – six, seven, eight figure followers. Additionally, Gelphie has been a top ship in fandom for the past three weeks. It was number seven, this most previous in the week ending today, as the day we’re recording, January 20th. It was number four the week previously and number two the first week of January. So, based on that and the fact that there was a break in fandom rankings between October 28th and January 6th due to Year In Review, I’m going to venture that Gelphie has been the number one ship for about a month and just started dropping because the film came out at this point a couple of months ago. 

So, so much to say. I, too, am really surprised at the juxtaposition between the amount of active posters and their impact on the kind of fandom eco system.

Lauren: Yeah. It makes me wonder if there are ... and we would love to hear from you, listeners, other people who are big Wicked fans, if the fandom has felt different since the movie came out. Right? Are the people who follow the Gelphie tag just the old guard that have been there ever since the musical came out? Or are there new people joining, the numbers just aren’t quite reflecting that yet even though lots of people are posting?

Because yeah, our listener did point out that the fandom has really just been a self sustaining eco system for the last 20 years because the musical is still going on, but there’s no new content. Right? There’s nothing new to obsess over. There’s no ... and obviously the movie doesn’t like add more to the story necessarily but it still is new content. Right? And especially when it comes to the Gelphie ship. There’s now just even more material. And I think crucially, visual material, right? We’ve talked about in the past how Tumblr thrives and TV shows and movies in particular gain sort of new fans on Tumblr through gif sets. Right? And especially now that the movie has come to VOD I think we’ll start to see a lot more gif sets and I do wonder if that will help bring more people into the fandom. Because it does seem like it’s the perfect cross section of so many of Tumblr’s interests.

Cher: Absolutely. As you mentioned, the content before the film was a lot of the few gifs that were available from the Broadway production of Wicked, other non Broadway productions of Wicked, lots and lots and lots of fan art. And that was kind of pretty much it. And the letter that we got mentioned that posts were considered to break containment if they hit over 100 notes. So, it really was a pretty small community, small fandom, everyone knew who was posting, who was sharing content, and now just perusing the Wicked tag – you see posts at tens of thousands of notes, even more. And not just gif sets but also revamping of old Wicked content, original posts that are now getting brought back up, brought back to life. And yeah, I think the fact that there’s so much more source material, not only from Wicked itself but from the press tour.

Lauren: Yes.

Cher: I absolutely think that Ariana and Cynthia are Gelphie truthers.

Lauren: Yes! (laughs) That’s actually a really interesting question. Is if there is RPF of Cynthia and ... because I haven’t seen really much of that but it does feel like something that would pop up based on the press tour, right? Oh wow, there are eight fics for Cynthia or even Ariana Grande as a ship. That’s ...

Cher: Only eight?

Lauren: ... fascinating to me.

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, only eight! I should say, with all of these numbers, I am not logged into A03 because I’m on a different browser. But actually let me just ... yeah. Now I’m realizing that those numbers might be totally wrong because ever since ... and this is a side note ... ever since the sort of introduction of AI into the internet eco system there has been a lot of concern over AI eating people’s fics and sort of ... yeah. 

Okay, so a lot of people have locked their fics. Okay. When I’m signed in there are 13 works of Cynthia and Ariana Grande.

Cher: Oh, I’m going to have to log into A03 and check out the fic community around ... I’m interested to see also how the fics about Cynthia and Ariana align with the Wicked universe. Because I feel like there’s got to be ... I’m interested in if there’s crossover there. I feel like they did the press tour almost-

Lauren: As their characters!

Cher: Yeah!

Lauren: Totally! Also, with Wicked being about magic and we know that an ordinary person from our world can go into Oz, right, because that’s what Dorothy is, are there any fics where it’s like Cynthia and Ariana meet Elphaba and Glenda ... that would be my first thought. 

Cher: Ooooh. I like that.

Lauren: I don’t know. I would like to read that. If anyone wants to write it. (laughs)

Cher: They could get extra meta because there were also Kristen Chenewith and Adina Menzel were in Wicked, the film itself, they had that cameo in Oz.

Lauren: YES.

Cher: And I saw someone comment AU where Adina and Kristen are actually showing the happily ever after Gelphie, which is so sweet. 

Lauren: I really like that. 

Cher: I also saw related/unrelated to fic and its impact on Wicked, on the press tour, shipping – apparently I saw a post about there being a Wicked, Gelphie Titanic fic. And then I saw that during Wicked Ariana and Cynthia, or Glenda and Elphaba do the Titanic pose. And ...

Lauren: YES.

Cher: ... I am just ... I’m not saying that the powers that be or someone involved in the film in some way knew about the fic but the film read like people who are very aware of the fandom and the ships. So ...

Lauren: Yes. Yeah. I definitely agree with that. And I think that, too, when you think about the ... not to get too serious with it ... but when you think about the environment in which Wicked was written and released on Broadway and the environment that we live in now, obviously it is January 20th today. The world is complicated. It’s so funny, I can’t remember why we learned this but my partner and I were reflecting the other day, we saw the statistic that I’m going to now totally butcher, but 20 years ago the overall American approval of gay marriage was 13%. And now it’s like 78%. Just in two decades. It’s skyrocketed, right? 

And I think that sometimes ... we’ve talked about this before on the show. Sometimes I forget that gay marriage only became legal in the States in 2014. It’s been 11 years. Right? So, I do wonder, too, if the people involved for the movie felt more empowered to lean into those themes and that relationship because we just are existing in a very different environment than we were back then.

Cher: Absolutely.

Lauren: Oh yeah, just another thought that I had about the press tour. I don’t know what this says about fandom or what it says about these particular works of art or what it says about male/shipping versus femme/shipping, which is always a very complicated piece of discourse around Tumblr. But I think the reason that I expected so many more fics for the Cynthia/Ariana tag based on the insanity of their press tour is that red, white, and royal blue which is an incredibly ... one of the books that I think brought romance into mainstream fiction and also then was turned into a movie on Amazon, right, started as fic for The Social Network but not for the movie The Social Network. But for the press tour and specifically RPF between Jesse Eisenburg and Andrew Garfield. 

Cher: Are you kidding!? I had no idea about this.

Lauren: I am not. So, this is ... as far as I can tell, this is not something that you’re going to necessarily like Google and find [inaudible 00:39:17] talking about this anywhere or any kind of ... obviously the fic that they written back then doesn’t exist online anymore. But I have some people in my fandom circles who were in that fandom back in the day. And yes, that is where this book came from. 

Cher: Unbelievable. Fandom’s impact.

Lauren: So, like press tours ... yeah. Press tours can really bring out the real person shippers in people. So, I think I was expecting a lot more from that. But perhaps I also think that we live in a different time now in terms of celebrities relationship to the public and how much they’re talking to the public and stuff versus The Social Network was, what, 2011? So, it’s like we weren’t seeing celebrities constantly on Tik Tok and Instagram and wouldn’t have the same kind of access to them. And so maybe it felt a little bit more exotic to see actors being interesting with each other on press tours. 

Cher: This is like the Gerard Way, Twilight domino effect. 

Lauren: Yeah, that 9/11 led to 50 Shades of Gray.

Cher: Yes. Exactly! (laughs)

Lauren: Or no, my favorite is, yeah, 9/11 led to the fall of Ellen DeGeneres. Drawing a straight line between that and through Twilight. 

Cher: Oh my gosh. Oh, because of the ... well, actually, Ellen moment?

Lauren: Yes, exactly. 

Cher: Yep, I see it. Internet historians really doing some special work. 

Lauren: Really, truly. Any sort f final Wicked thoughts/feelings/observations?

Cher: One of my first reactions as I was watching this, or thoughts, was, “Wow, I am really interested in both reading the Wicked books and the Oz source material.” 

Lauren: Oh yeah!

Cher: But I feel like there’s so much that I don’t know that, again, speaking of the press tour, that Ariana Grande definitely knows because she was referencing deep cuts of like ... she is aware of the lore, which again makes me ... I think added so much to the film and obviously the press tour and is fantastic. I love it when an actor gets all in on the lore. 

Also really interested to know, you stopped because it was so weird, can we just get ... is there an example that comes to mind or just a general vibe of what made the ... was it the Wicked book that you read? Or the Oz books?

Lauren: Yes. So, I’ve read the original Wizard of Oz series and I actually love those books. I actually think that the first book in that series, the way ... I was always a huge tin man and scarecrow fan in the movie growing up. And the way that the book sort of dives into those characters is just a lot more three dimensional than the movie. And I LOVE the movie. The original movie. I wrote a paper on it in college. I’ve seen genuinely 70 times. But yeah, I really do think that the original [inaudible 00:42:12] books are worth reading. The Wicked book is just ... I found it ... granted, it’s been 25 years since I tried to pick it up. It’s very long. It is very dense in a way that’s like, or at least it was for me as a 13, 14 year old trying to read it. It was dense in a not fun way. It was pretty dry. I gave up on it pretty quickly but apparently at one point there is an animal orgy with all of the speaking animals. Which I did not get to.

Cher: Okay ... All right! Noted. 

Lauren: So, I can’t speak to the veracity of that rumor, but that’s what I have heard.

Cher: Dry except for the orgy. 

Lauren: Exactly. 

(laughter)

But yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts on both the original source material and Wicked if you get around to reading either/or all. 

Cher: Yes, I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got to add those to my Libby list. 

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. Well, I mean, in terms of going back to old source material, should we dive into our own archives and do some Dashboard Confessionals?

[guitar riff]

Cher: Let’s!

Lauren: Excellent. What do you have this month from your archives?

Cher: So, I have two posts this week. The first one I re-blogged in January 2018 from the Booty Diaries, one of my personal favorite Tumblr accounts. And I think this post just really encapsulates my overall vibe of how I feel today, January 20th, 2025. And it’s an Ask that says, “If you could change ...” by the way, I just want to clarify for our listeners that almost every word in this Ask is misspelled. “If you could change your name, what would you change it to?” @anonymous. And @iguanamouth answered, “40 exclamation points in a row and it’s pronounced like a person screaming.” 

(laughter)

Lauren: That’s so good. And so real. Oh my god. 

Cher: Felt like a really relatable for the day. The next post I re-blogged in 2020, January 2020 from @carrotdisks and it is a re-blog chain about the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings series. And first text post says, “Though I still love Chronicles of Narnia, the older I get and the more I learn the clearer it becomes to me why it would have driven Tolkien completely insane.” And then @offbrandhipster re-blogged and says, “The Santa part almost ruined their friendship.” To which @ivanfeurdivich has a text post that’s quotes from, fake quotes from Tolkien and Lewis, Tolkien says, “You can’t just patch random things together because you like them. Everything has to fit in a dense textual weave of reasonable causes and effects.” And Lewis says, “And then the witch from the other dimension turns the fox into stone for having a contraband tea party.” It just goes on like that. We’ll re-blog it to Dashboard Diaries. 

I felt like it was a great ... I don’t know, it felt like it tied in with the vibe of what we were talking about.

Lauren: Totally.

Cher: Universes that are created in fan fic and I am just a huge Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fan. So, any post that I see about it I will try to tie in somewhere.

Lauren: I love it.

Cher: What about you? What do you have from the archives this week?

Lauren: So, the first post I have is from flightcub.Tumblr.com and this is a post that is really going to work better re-blogging it to DashboardDiaries.Tumblr.com. But I will read it. It says, “My three favorite things are the Oxford comma, irony, and missed opportunities.” And the reason this is great is because it uses the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is present. And I just think that it’s a really solid well crafted joke. I really enjoy it. And I think it is the perfect Tumblr joke. It’s nerdy. A little bit stupid. (laughs) It’s just ...

Cher: It’s the perfect text post, truly.

Lauren: It’s the perfect text post. Absolutely. 

And then the second one I have is a little bit random. This is from January of 2017. I was curious, what was I re-blogging in January of 2017? Right? Obviously, January of 2025 is having some similar unfortunate beats to it. We’re revisiting some parts of our history that I’d rather we didn’t. And one of the things that I re-blogged was a post from December of 2016. So, just a month earlier. That is a Vine compilation. Vines that this person lumped and put together. 

And it just had me reflecting on A) Vines are still fucking hilarious and B) the more things change the more thing stay the same. And this past weekend we had this whole kerfuffle with Tik Tok. Once you couldn’t get access to it anymore ... I have been on Tik Tok reluctantly for the past couple of years and I was just like, “Great! Delete app.” And now of course it’s back but I can’t download it again so I’m just sort of like, “I think I’m free.” I think I don’t have to think about this anymore. And not to get too serious but I think that it’s so interesting to me how ... I do a lot of driving for a part time job that I have. And so I’m constantly driving past roadwork ahead signs. Right? 

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that Drew Goodin Vine that’s him saying ... have you ever seen this Vine? 

Cher: I’m not sure. Perhaps. I have the compilation going.

Lauren: So, it’s not in the compilation but it’s a Vine that was very famous, a subset of the internet. Drew Goodin is now obviously a pretty significant YouTuber. But it’s him driving and he passes a roadwork ahead sign. And he goes, “Roadwork ahead? I sure hope it does.” (laughs) 

Cher: Yes, I have seen that.

Lauren: Now every time I pass one of those signs I just think, “I sure hope it does.” And so not to get too philosophical but like there are a lot of Vines that have stuck in my head that I still see references on Tumblr all the time that I say with my friends as shorthand. Vine ultimately was an incredibly short lived platform on which some creators burned brightly but for a short time. And some creators moved to YouTube and ended up establishing pretty big careers over there, or on Twitch or wherever else. 

I just think it’s a really good reminder that you cannot rely on any platform for anything. And obviously I hope to never leave Tumblr and I hope that Tumblr can be the place that I can hang out with other fans of things that I love forever. And Tumblr has been the one sort of solid place in the last 15 years of my life on the internet. But now I’m over on Blue Sky, right? I left Twitter. I’m leaving Instagram in March – once the fact checking contracts with Meta are up, because I just don’t want to be there anymore once those are gone. And yeah. I just think it’s a good reminder that if you are an online creator, if you are somebody who is a fan artist and loves interacting with other fans. Your presence on a platform and the things that you create, no matter how briefly they exist on that platform or how briefly that platform exists, can still live forever in people’s minds. 

And also, don’t trust any of these social media platforms to sustain you. Right? And also may Tumblr live forever! Amen. 

Cher: Tumblr forever and always. Nevertheless Tumblr persists.

Lauren: Truly.

Cher: Yeah. And also, I mean, speaking of Vines that live forever in our hearts and tie in perfectly with what we’re talking about this week – and they were roommates. 

Lauren: And they were roommates! Well, also, not to mention, Wicked Witch of the East bro! You’ve seen that video, right?

Cher: Yes!

Lauren: She came down in a bubble, dawg! 

Cher: Grow up! 

Lauren: Grow up. 

(laughter) 

[gentle music]

So, beyond musicals and the ephemeral nature of the internet, what has got you in your feels this month?

Cher: Two things have me in my feels this month. One, we mentioned earlier in the episode and perhaps we should do an episode on later in the season. Severance is back. Genuinely one of my favorite shows I’ve ever seen. Just so beautifully shot. So weird and dark and twisty and confusing. I love it. And so I’m just really excited that Severance is back. Yellow Jackets comes back in two weeks. 

Lauren: Oh my god!

Cher: February 14th is the season three premiere and I am so excited about Yellow Jackets. I friggin love that show. As you and all of our listeners know. So, I would say what has me in my feels is these shows that I really love coming back and having new seasons. I love it. I love season premiere time. So, that has me in my feels. What about you, Lauren?

Lauren: I think similar. Yeah. I think The Pit has me in my feels. And I think part of why The Pit has me in my feels is because we also just watched the new season of Goosebumps which is a show that everybody is sleeping on. Both seasons of Goosebumps are fucking great. They’re just fun and they’re well written and well acted and it’s just a good time. I think there is a return of things like The Pit. Things like Goosebumps. Whether they’re anthology or more episodic stuff. We’ve talked about this in the past with 911, Dr Odyssey ... things you can jump into and not ... are part of a healthy balanced diet when you also are obsessed, like we both are, with things like Severance or like these more serious heady ... you gotta pay attention to all of the details kinds of shows. Right? I think that we need both. 

Cher: 100%.

Lauren: And yeah, I didn’t know that Yellow Jackets was coming back. That’s really exciting. Yeah, I was really excited about Severance coming back. The first episode of the season was fantastic. And now Thursday nights are Severance and The Pit, which is just a perfect double feature. I love it. The Pit is a good come down from Severance, which is hilarious because it’s set in an ER. (laughter) 

But it’s less stressful.

Cher: Take a breather at the emergency room show. (laughs)

Lauren: Exactly. And also in a couple of weeks my largest boy comes back to TV. The show that I shouldn’t love but I do – Reacher. Which I’m saying this now because ... and it’ll probably get me in my feels corner in February when it’s out but I want everybody to catch up on the first two seasons of Reacher. Have you ever seen the show?

Cher: I watched an episode I think maybe the season, the series premiere. But I haven’t since. It’s the Jack, John ... what’s his last name? Krasinsky show, right?

Lauren: No. that’s Jack Ryan. 

Cher: Oh! What is ... Reacher?

Lauren: Very similar thing. So, both of these are dad bait basically. Both Jack Ryan and Reacher as series are made for dads. Jack Ryan is written by ... sorry, they’re both based on book series. The book series have been very ... Yeah, so Tom Clancy wrote Jack Ryan and Tom Clancy has been doing that kind of book series forever. And that is an Amazon Prime show with John Krasinsky.

Reacher is a book series by Lee Child but same kind of thing. Right? And it stars and actor whose name I cannot remember. I am so sorry. But he is incredible large. He’s just a big man. And Reacher is essentially a show about him being very big and very autistic. That is what it is about to me. 

So, he is a Veteran and in the first season he just ... in both seasons, he doesn’t have a home. He’s not un-housed. He literally just is a vagabond. He has his wallet with him and that is it. Then he just will buy a new shirt at thrift stores and throw the old one out. And that’s just how he lives his life. And then he just sort of ends up being a sort of [inaudible 00:53:54] just showing up in these random American towns like solving something with immense violence. It’s incredible. 

And I told my sister after the first season that I loved this show. And she was like, “You!? You love this show!?” (laughs) Because A) it’s dad bait, B) if you’ve talked to me for two seconds about any piece of media and I will probably have taken it as an opportunity to turn it into a discussion about American masculinity, and this ... the Jack Ryan’s and the Reacher’s of the world are just like hyper masculine, American patriotism, rah-rah bull shit. Right? I’ve never seen Jack Ryan, but that’s very much the thing that I get from it. 

But somehow Reacher isn’t that at all. Because Reacher is just like ... he’s just very on the spectrum. I just don’t know what other way to describe it. He just reminds me of a lot of people that I know who are on the spectrum in the sense that he just ... he’s very specific, he’s into the stuff that he’s into ... I don’t know, he’s a very particular kind of person. And then his best friend / sidekick is this younger black woman who is basically textually asexual. In the second season they basically make that text. And it’s just like I don’t know ... it’s just every time you think it’s going to be what you think it is, it’s not. 

And it does that simultaneously while being everything that you think it’s going to be. I don’t know how else to describe it. It is big man beats up big men. That is the show. But also like it is weirdly clear eyed about American violence, about the American military, even while it’s still also a little bit patriotism foreign for the American military, but it’s not that. I’m talking a lot, but I would be curious to talk to other people about this show. And I would recommend it. It’s very fun. I’m very excited for it to come back in a month.

Cher: Have you checked out the Tumblr fandom around Reacher? Is there a Reacher Tumblr fandom?

Lauren: I have not, actually. There can’t be! (laughs)

Cher: Would that be too much of a REACH?

Lauren: (laughs) Surely not, right? Surely other people on Tumblr are not watching the show, but you know what, once we hop off I am going to dig into it.

Cher: Well, I’m going to check out this show because pretty much 100% of the shows you have recommended to me I have watched in a week. And very much enjoyed. So, next episode we’ll be taking a minute to talk about Reacher. At the very least.

Lauren: Yeah. Maybe a Reacher / Severance deep dive. 

Cher: There’s some kind of juxtaposition that we can do there.

Lauren: There’s some kind of juxtaposition there. 

Cher: We will find the connection. 

(laughter) 

Lauren: And with that, I’m Lauren Shippen, and you can find me at TheLaurenShippen.Tumblr.com.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly and you can find me at OverChers.Tumblr.com. 

This has been Dashboard Diaries. And ... 

[outtro music]

Lauren: May your anons always be loving.

Cher: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cher: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cher: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us!

It's Wicked-palooza! Cher and Lauren talk all things Wicked and Gelphie, the sapphic ship that's kept the fandom alive. Also, we get deep in "The Pitt" and revisit the wonderful time that was Vine.

Credits and transcript in our reblog. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!

[kikis-writing-world]

Whiskey Straight - The Briefcase (Prologue)

Jack Daniels x F!Reader

You don’t know when it happened, but your life had grown dull. Your husband, Jack Daniels, was often busy with work: as a high ranking executive at Statesman Distillery, he needed to put in long hours at the office and travel across the globe to represent the business. Your own boring office job and empty house had you yearning for something. When a strange man barges into your life claiming to be a spy, you’re thrust into the world of secret agents and international terrorism… a world you soon learn your husband is very familiar with as Special Agent Whiskey.

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: Bit of a slow start, but every story has to start somewhere. This part hurt to write. Establishing a less than stellar relationship with Jack? No thanks. but it’s all for the service of the story. Plus like... that’s life. That’s marriage, right? Things get stale, shit happens.

Series Masterlist  -  Prologue  -  One  -  Two  -  Three  -  Four  -  Five  -  Six  -  Seven

gif not mine. Lost the source, sorry! If it’s yours, let me know.

You were pushing your food around your plate absentmindedly, trying not to listen to Jack’s phone call in the other room. It was an absolute pet peeve of yours when he took calls during dinner but you knew your husband was an important man. Running the entire North East division of Statesman Distilleries came with more responsibilities than you could even list off. On top of managing the actual business, there were appearances to be made, meetings and expos to attend, schmoozing to be done. He didn’t just work 9 to 5, he worked all the time.

Even without listening, you knew that your weekend plans were likely about to be cancelled. Before the phone rang, you had been excitedly sharing ideas about things to do this weekend. The two of you were going to leave the city behind for some much needed alone time. No phones, no work, just the two of you reconnecting. It was planned spontaneity. You had planned the time, but nothing else. No rooms were booked, no route planned. The two of you were going to hit the road and have an adventure. When the two of you had started dating your relationship was full of adventures, planned and otherwise. Taking off to Niagara Falls for a weekend. A full day of driving just to see the changing autumn leaves. Lately he’d been too busy with work for anything like that.

You heard the conversation winding down, Jack bidding farewell to the person on the line before the phone was hung-up. You took a bit of the food in front of you, ignoring how it had grown cold while he was out of the room.

Jack’s hand grazed along your shoulders as he passed you before lowering himself into his seat with a sigh. You knew that sigh. After 6 years of marriage, you were able to read Jack like an open book. That was the sigh he made when he was about to break some bad news. You had a feeling you knew what the bad news would be, but you played along regardless.

��What was that?” You asked as he picked up his cutlery.

“Ambrose. You remember Ambrose from the Kentucky office, right?” Jack asked, cutting into his steak like the piece of meat hadn’t just sat there forgotten for the past minutes.

You nodded, taking a sip of water. You had met the man a few times, most notably at your wedding. If you hadn’t been properly introduced, you might have thought Ambrose was an older uncle of Jack’s. The charming older man reminded you a lot of Jack and you remember thinking that Ambrose was probably a decent representation of what your new husband might be like as he aged. Despite the years that Ambrose had over Jack, the older man still had a mischievous sparkle present in his eye. The sparkle was never more present when his patented lopsided grin came out.

“Of course. Is everything okay?”

“There’s a big to-do happenin’ in Georgia this weekend and their rep got sick. Food poisonin’ or something. He was askin’ if I could come down to replace him.”

You didn’t have to ask if he had agreed to go. That damned sigh had already given him away. You took another sip of your water, pushing back the sting of dejection. He hadn’t even asked you if you minded cancelling your plans. You wondered if he’d even put up any fight on the phone or if he’d asked if there was anyone else available to take over instead. You tried not to take it personally. Of course they wanted Jack there.

“When are you leaving?”

He was silent for a moment as he chewed his food, his Southern manners barring him from talking with a mouth full of food. “Tomorrow mornin’. Gotta meet with the team to get up to speed before meetin’ with any investors.”

You nodded, staring down at your half-eaten plate that no longer held your interest. “I’ll pack your bag for you tonight before bed.”

“You don’t have to do that, darlin’. I can pack my own bag.”

“I don’t mind.” You shrugged. That was true. You wished you didn’t have to do it quite so often, but packing for him made you feel more connected to him while he was gone. It also felt like you were helping him juggle the responsibilities of his job, taking something off his already over-full plate.

“Thank you, darlin’.” He dropped his knife so he could take your hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “You’re too good to me.”

“Yeah, don’t you forget it.” You teased.

“Never.” He winked, sliding his hand back so he could finish his meal.

That wink used to make your heart flutter. The first time he’d ever winked at you, it sent your stomach in knots for days afterwards whenever you thought about it. Lately, it barely stirred anything within you. You hated that your marriage had become this. You still loved the man to pieces, but the spark of your relationship had faded. The excitement of your relationship was long gone. This weekend was supposed to be an attempt to rekindle a bit of the excitement. Now though, you were thankful that you weren’t going to have to spend time on the phone trying to get any deposits back.

You packed his bag for him that night, making sure his jackets were neatly pressed and hung in their garment bags to stay wrinkle free. You packed a few options for ties, including two of his bolo ties, as well as his jeans and a pair of slacks in case he really wanted to go all out. His toiletries, socks, underwear and his spare pair of glasses. The glasses were added to the packing list after he had broken his while in Switzerland, leaving him with a headache for a week after returning from all the eye-strain.

“Thank you.” He hummed, pressing a kiss to your cheek as he picked up the bag, carrying it to the front door for the morning. Pecks to the cheek, chaste kisses to your lips, a squeeze of your hand. That’s what the marriage had become. Aside from during sex, you couldn’t think of the last time Jack had really kissed you. Swept you off your feet and kissed your breathless as you clung to him, the way he would when you two had first started dating and could barely keep your hands off each other.

You knew the blame didn’t sit solely on his shoulders. You weren’t sure what was stopping you from grabbing him and kissing him senseless instead of waiting for him to initiate. Maybe the fear of being rejected. The fear that this was more than a rough patch bred from familiarity, and that it meant something worse had taken root in your relationship.

“Do you want me to drive you to the airport in the morning?” You offered when he returned to the bedroom, the two of you getting ready for bed.

“Colt is pickin’ me up.” He told you as he shucked his clothes from the day.

Colt was Jack’s business partner. His second in command. Wherever Jack went, Colt went, so it was not surprising that he would be joining him in Kentucky. The young man was sweet, but definitely wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. You wondered sometimes how he climbed the corporate ladder to where he was now, let alone the possibility that sometime in the future he would take over for Jack - assuming your husband ever retired.

“At least wake me to say goodbye.” You instructed.

“You sure, darlin’? It’ll be early.” He warned.

“I’m sure.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek as he laid out his clothes for the morning. “And call me when you land.”

“Always do.” He grins at you over his shoulder.

You climbed into bed, curling on your side as you waited for Jack to finish with his own nightly routine. He turned off the light before you felt the bed dip behind you. Silence passed in the darkness for a moment before Jack’s arm was wrapped around your waist, pulling you tightly against him.

“I’m sorry ‘bout this weekend, sugar.” He whispered in the darkness. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

You felt something akin to relief as he nuzzled into your hair. There were definitely issues the two of you needed to tackle, but the love was still there. You wrapped your arm around his, hugging it to your chest.

“I know.” You whispered back.

“Love you.” He murmured.

“Love you too.”

Jack woke you the next morning, a few moments to cuddle and a groggy kiss goodbye before you fell back asleep. As promised, the call came in a few hours later that he had landed safely in Kentucky. Colt shouted his own greeting, and a promise to keep Jack out of trouble. You chuckled, knowing it was more likely to be Jack keeping Colt out of trouble. Before he hung up, Jack promised to keep in touch if he could, but he would be busy most of the weekend. You were used to that.

He did try to call when he was gone, you knew that, but often he just couldn’t make it to a phone. When he wasn’t in formal meetings, he still had to make appearances and schmooze. The moments he wasn’t working, he was preparing for whatever was to come next or getting some much needed rest. It was the song and dance of business.

You knew he was busy but it reinforced the loneliness that had creeped into your marriage, so slowly it wasn’t noticeable until it felt like it was drowning you. The house was quiet all weekend and by Sunday it was driving you crazy. You grabbed a book and decided to go out for lunch. You hoped being around people, the sounds of chattering, of cutlery and dinnerware around you would ease the loneliness from your mind, not make it worse.

You ordered before opening up your book, letting the noises of the other diners fade into the background as you let yourself become immersed in the story of the dashing knight and his attempts to woo the beautiful princess. Jack would tease you for reading romance novels, but with the lack of wooing going on lately in your real life, it was a welcome reprieve.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit with you?” An anxious voice right above you startled you out of the book. The man was sitting across from you before you had a chance to answer.

You blinked at him, staring blankly in shock. He had wavy, dirty blond hair that ended just above his chin. He was wearing a light brown suit, the cream coloured button-up underneath had the top few buttons undone, showing his collarbone and chest. His wide, blue eyes were glancing nervously around the restaurant. Your brow quirked in confusion before you too glanced around, looking for whatever he was worried about. When you didn’t see anything, you turned back to him.

“Uh, I’m flattered, but I’m mar-”

He pushed something under the table until it bumped into your leg. You looked down, seeing a black briefcase resting against your leg.

“This is a matter of national security.” He whispered, leaning in over the table to avoid being heard.

“Excuse me?” You scoffed. Was this some kind of pick-up line? You’d been out of the dating game for years but you couldn’t imagine this was working.

“I can’t have them catch me with this.” He nodded downward towards the table. You assumed he meant the briefcase. “I need you to hang onto it for me.”

“What?”

“Shh!” He shushed you, looking around nervously once more. He barely held back a gasp as two men in suits walked past your table. You glanced between him and the men, staying quiet. You were too in shock of what was happening to do much else.

He watched until the men were out of sight before reaching across the table and taking your hand in his own. He gave it a squeeze before letting go, a moment before you were poised to pull it out of his grip.

“Thank you. I’ll be in touch.” He vowed before standing.

“Wait, what do you mean?” You asked, but he ignored you as he sped towards the exit. You watched in disbelief, mouth agape as he disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared. The briefcase still leaning against your leg was the only evidence that you hadn’t imagined him.

By the time your food came, you weren’t even hungry. Your stomach was in knots as you tried to process what happened. You asked for the food to go, barely having the wherewithal to mumble that something had come up.

You eyed the briefcase under the table as you waited for your doggy bag. What the hell were you supposed to do with it? He told you to keep it and he’d be in touch. Did he even know how to get in touch with you?

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you paid your bill and left with the briefcase.

It made you nervous as it sat in the passenger seat next to you for the drive home. You knew it was ridiculous but you almost felt like it was watching you. The latch was locked so you had no idea what was inside of it. You almost wanted to shake it, like a child trying to figure out what was inside a wrapped present, but had no idea if that would harm anything inside… or if anything inside would in turn harm you.

Your food was dropped on the counter, a complete afterthought as you set the briefcase down on the kitchen table. You crossed your arms, staring at it as you tried to figure out what to do. It felt like you were waiting for it to come alive and give you the answer. Hesitantly, you took it in both hands and gave it a slight shake. If anything, it was like a forceful glide across the tabletop. Nothing made any kind of noticeable noise, but you could feel the heft of it’s contents shifting as it moved.

No, you thought to yourself. You were going to leave it alone.

You marched into the living room, turning the TV on and flipping the channels for something interesting to watch. Being a Sunday afternoon, there wasn’t much to hold your attention and you caught yourself looking back towards the kitchen every few minutes.

One of the movie channels was airing the original Jurassic Park, and you figured it was good enough. You went into the kitchen with the full intention of grabbing the food you had yet to eat for lunch, but that damn briefcase…

You opened the junk drawer, digging through the mess of odds and ends until you found a paperclip. You sat at the table, unwinding the paperclip until it was as straight as you could manage. You pressed the wire into the keyhole of the latch, pushing and prodding. It clicked open after a moment, making you jump. Despite being home alone, you stopped and looked around to make sure you weren't being caught.

You took a deep breath, scooting backwards just in case, and opened the lid. Nothing happened. No alarm, no puff of smoke, no weird security measure of any kind. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, but nothing wasn’t it.

The briefcase was filled with various papers. Maps of European countries. Foreign money. Paperwork in a language you didn’t know. A passport, the picture matching the man who had dropped the briefcase with you. John Smith. That was just about the vaguest name you could imagine.

Under all of the paperwork was a gun. You jumped when you saw the shining metal, dropping all the papers back in the briefcase and closing it. Once again, you found yourself looking around to make sure you were alone. You’d never seen a gun in real life, let alone been in possession of one.

You knew you couldn’t keep this in the house. How were you supposed to explain this to Jack? You ran back out to your car, placing it in your trunk under some blankets you kept for emergencies. You closed the trunk and leaned against it, breathing deeply to calm yourself.

Now what?

Tagging: @wickedfrsgrl​ @insideafictionaluniverse​ @driedgreentomatoes​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @sheerfreesia007​ @and-claudia​ @weirdowithnobeardo​

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

I’ll Never Be The Moon

Pairings: Sokka x Reader

Summary: It’s hard to get someone to notice you when you’re competition is the moon but Aang’s always there to make you feel better.

Warnings: Talk of death, Aang says ass

Word Count: 2000

_________________________________________

Every night, there was always a little pocket of time when the camp was uncharacteristically silent and Sokka was sitting to the side, staring up at the night sky instead of cracking jokes and telling stories. It was your least favorite time of night because it was a constant reminder of what you’d never be. Katara, Aang, Toph, and you all usually talked amongst yourselves, used to this routine. Everyone knew why Sokka got like this, though, so nobody bothered him about it. Not even Toph. There were just some things that you didn't joke about and Yue’s death was one of them. 

But on some nights, like tonight, it got to you. Every single night, you watched the man you’d been crazy about for so long stare up at the moon, yearning for a lost love. He looked up at the moon like it held all the love and beauty in the world. He looked at you like you had mud on your face. 

You sighed and pushed yourself up from your seat by the fire amidst a story Toph was telling, “I’m getting warm. I’m gonna go get some air.” You excused yourself, ignoring the little comments of acknowledgement from the group. 

The view was beautiful here in this little piece of the Earth Kingdom. Camp was set up on the edge of a large pristine lake that was surrounded by a thick luscious forest. The mountains on the opposite side of the lake were reflected perfectly on the still surface of the water through the moonlight. 

Beauty always came back to the moon. 

You spotted a fallen log on the edge of the shore and found a home on it, just far enough away from the group to be allowed to have your own thoughts. But from here, you could see Sokka sitting there on the ground, his arms wrapped around his knees as he gazed up at the celestial being, mesmerized by her beauty.

“I’ll never be the moon…” You mumbled to yourself sadly. 

“Everything okay?” Aang’s voice asked from behind you. You spun around to see the boy walking up the path you took. 

“Hm? Yeah, I’m alright.” You lied, tucking your knees in and resting your chin on it. 

Aang walked around and moved to sit on the log beside you, “Are you sure? You said something about not being the moon?” 

You chuckled sadly. That must have sounded either psychotic or pathetic to him. “It’s nothing. Just talking to myself.” Were you even trying to not sound crazy? 

“About being the moon?” He questioned with a hint of humor in his tone. You didn’t know how to respond. All you’d done was make yourself sound dumb and you already felt inadequate tonight as it was. You weren’t exactly eager to continue that so you only responded with a shrug. “This is about Sokka, isn’t it?” Aang put the pieces together. But honestly, it wasn’t that hard to tell. Your crush wasn’t blatantly obvious or anything but if you paid attention, like Aang had found himself doing for the past few weeks, the signs weren’t difficult to see. 

You looked over at Aang with pleading eyes, “Please don’t tell anyone.” 

“Your secret is safe with me,” He crossed his fist over his heart with a confident smile. But when he saw that you were still down, he shrunk down to match your demeanor, “So I’m guessing it’s Yue, since you’re talking about the moon, right?” 

You nodded, cheeks squished up against the palms of your hands as you leaned over onto them, “I never had a chance compared to her. She was a princess! And she was absolutely beautiful and kind and selfless. I’d never seen Sokka so entranced by someone. I'm just me. A girl from a poor family in a small Earth Kingdom village. Sure, I can fling rocks but it’s nothing compared to being a beautiful princess. And who would want the Earth when you could have the moon?” 

“Y/N, you are beautiful, kind, selfless and more! And I really don’t think Sokka liked her because she was a princess. Yue wasn’t better than you; you two are just different people and that’s not a bad thing.” Aang comforted in his honest way. 

Crickets began to chirp around the two of you in the clearing. “I don’t know… I just… I know I’ll never be her.” 

“Why would you want to be her?” Aang asked, “I like you as you.” 

“Because she has Sokka,” You started before you chuckled and a small smile appeared on your face despite your down mood, “But thank you, Aang.”

Aang leaned back on his arms against the log, “Well, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but she doesn’t really have Sokka anymore. I mean, she’s the moon. It’s kind of hard to date the moon.” He pointed out the obvious observation. 

“That’s what I don’t understand! I know how bad that sounds. But… she’s gone.” You finally allowed yourself to say that dark little point (well, honestly, it was a pretty big point). Gosh, why did you feel like such a monster for saying that? “I know how terrible that sounds but when it comes down to it, Yue is literally the moon now. They can’t be together unless Sokka pulls some stupid hero stunt and gets himself blasted into the spirit world too but that seems pretty unlikely. I completely understand that her dying doesn’t take away his feelings for her or the hurt that came with losing her but it just hurts. It hurts me to see him hurting but it also hurts me to see him pining for a girl he fell in love with after three days when I can’t get him to give me a second glance.”

Your gaze fell on where the moon was reflecting in ripples on the water and followed its light back up to its large celestial source with a small sigh, “Even in death she’s beautiful. No wonder he’ll always love her.” 

Aang stood up with a sense of finality, “No,” He crossed his arms before grabbing your hand and forcing you to stand up, “I won’t allow this. You don’t get to think you’re worth less than someone else just because she was a princess or part moon spirit. Come here and look in the water.” He led you to the shore and leaned over the water with you until you saw both of your reflections. “Now what do you see?” 

Your face twisted as you made eye contact with your reflection, “Me? You? Us?” You guessed, not sure what he was getting at. 

“No, I want you to look at you and tell me what you see.” Aang insisted, pointing at your reflection. 

This time, you really tried to see what Aang wanted you to see. Though the reflection was dark from the limited light, you could still make out enough of your image. You just looked like you. Your hair was actually in place for once, which you attributed to not flying on Appa for the last few hours. You did have a smudge of ash on your cheek that you must have accidentally swiped across your face after moving a burning piece of wood back into the fire pit earlier. A small splice at the tail of your eyebrow was healing up but still visible, a "trophy", as Toph called it, after a run in with some Fire Nation soldiers the other day. You wore a green top that covered your shoulders and crossed around the front, held together with a tan tie. The top of your dark brown pants were visible but those looked a little ragged too. The wrappings that started around your thumb and went around your forearms, up to your elbows were getting dirty as well, more tan than off white now. Coming from the outer villages that were run by Earth Kingdom "soldiers", if you could even call them that after all the extortion, it wasn't exactly like you joined the group with super nice clothing to begin with. 

"I see a girl with a busted eyebrow, a dirty face, and clothes that she needs to wash tomorrow." You huffed a little, beginning to pull away before Aang pushed you back to stay where you were. 

You rolled your eyes before he started talking, "I see someone who fights for what she believes in, someone who didn't come from much but is going to help change the world. Someone that doesn't need to be a princess to be awesome or beautiful. Sure, you got a little scuffed up and you got ash on your face but who cares? I know Sokka sure doesn't. Besides, Sokka needs to do his laundry tomorrow too… he’s starting to smell kind of bad." You snorted as you stifled a laugh. Aang wasn’t necessarily wrong though. 

Before he continued, he looked over your shoulder to make sure you two were still alone. When he ensured it was still just the two of you in ear shot, he leaned in close, putting his arm around your shoulders and whispered, "And between you and me, Sokka was practically drooling over you when you took out those Fire Nation soldiers the other day. He thinks the badass thing you've got going on is super attractive." 

You turned your head to him with a skeptical look on your face, unsure if he was just saying that to make you feel better but when you thought about it, you didn't think you'd ever actually heard Aang lie before. That probably meant he wasn't lying now, though. "Really?" 

Aang nodded, "Yeah, but don't tell him I told you. He'll kill me." 

You couldn't help but smile at your friend. All he ever did was try and help people, even it was just dumb stuff like making a friend feel better about a boy. "Thank you." You reached over and pulled him into a side hug. 

When you pulled away, you looked back over to camp to see that Sokka had returned from his nightly mourn. He now sat on top of his sleeping bag, a stick in his hand, as if he'd been poking the fire, but instead of doing that, he was actually looking at you. It was only for a brief moment that your E/C eyes locked with his brilliant blue ones because he quickly looked down at fire, a tint of pink rising in his cheeks.

"Told you," Aang hummed, "He's been looking over at you for the last few minutes."  

A small glimmer of hope rose up in your chest but it felt tainted somehow, "Maybe he just zoned out…" Defeat already laced your voice, "I mean, if he likes me, why doesn't he say anything? He's never been exactly subtle with girls he's liked in the past." 

Aang stood up and walked around the log to the other side of you, "I think he just feels conflicted. A part of him still loves Yue even though he knows he can't have her, but he really likes you too." He put a hand on your shoulder, "I'm gonna head back to camp. But just give him a little more time, okay? I have a feeling that things are actually going to work out between you guys and my feelings are almost always right." He gave you a wink with childish confidence. 

Your gaze followed Aang as he jogged back to the camp, ready to follow suit, figuring the gang would start pestering you about being moody if you didn't return soon. Though you started watching Aang, you couldn't help but allow your eyes to flick over to Sokka again, just out of curiosity (okay, fine, maybe just because you really liked to look at him). Sokka's bright blue eyes were already trained on your firm when you glanced over but this time, instead of pretending to be burning a stick, he made a big show of reaching behind him to grab his boomerang, trying just a little too hard to look 'natural (if you could call it that). A warm smile crept up on your face and you giggled to yourself as you finally stood up from the log to make your way back to camp. Maybe Aang's feeling could be right after all. 

[the-awkward-outlaw]

Hello ! Can u write an imagine where Arthur s/o kills Micah and she is banned from the gang. Would Arthur follow her ? Thank u :)

Man, I have been in the biggest writing funk for the first time in like nine months but I finally got this one done! Here you go, Anon! Sorry about the wait. 

(Author’s note: Arthur doesn’t have TB) (BTW, Arthur is husband material and no one can change my mind)

It’s already been a long, exhausting day and it’s not even midday yet. You hate it here, always will without a doubt. Beaver Hollow is just a complete shit show and the gang has seriously deteriorated. 

You miss how things used to be. You can remember how everyone was: Mary-Beth and Tilly giggling over romance novels, Sean bragging about how tough and smart he was, Uncle’s jokes, Hosea’s stories about his past and how he always added a note of wisdom. Oh Hosea. He was just another casualty of Dutch’s plight against modern America. 

Everything’s changed since Hosea died and the boys returned from their tropical trip. Javier doesn’t sing or play the guitar anymore, no one laughs, people fight constantly. It’s a burden and a pain to be in the camp nowadays, and you hate it. The person who’s changed the most though is Dutch. He’s not the caring, almost paternal figure who was just struggling slightly to help everyone get back on their feet like he was right after the Blackwater mess. Now he seems to be on a suicide mission and intent on taking everyone in the gang with him. 

The worst thing about the whole situation is Micah. He’s always known how to butter Dutch up but when Hosea was around, he kept himself in check. Now that Hosea’s gone, he’s been in Dutch’s ear the whole time and you haven’t liked it. You’re not the only one; Arthur and John have been suspicious about the whole thing. 

Arthur’s faith in Dutch has been severely shaken. He questions Dutch much more than he ever used to. Dutch doesn’t like it, and he keeps on lying, saying he’s going to get everyone out. All he’s done is killed Cornwall, blown up a bridge, brought Pinkertons closer to camp than ever and used the war between the army and the Wapiti into his favor, even getting the chief’s son locked up during a feud. 

Arthur walks over to your tent after donating a deer to Pearson, who’s drunk again. He’s been coming to you to talk a lot more lately, though you’re not sure why. You’ve had a crush on Arthur for ages but never acted on it. You two have been friends for what seems like forever and you refuse to destroy that over some silly feelings you have. You’ve wondered if Arthur has a crush on you too. It’s just the way he acts sometimes, things he says. The way he wanted you to come with him to tell Mary he didn’t want to be her errand boy anymore. The way you catch him staring at you sometimes. How he always wants you to go off hunting with him but won’t invite anyone else. 

Just as he’s about to say something to you, Dutch calls him over. Arthur gives you a yearning look and then turns around to go see him. A few moments later, someone catches your attention, pulling you away from your work, with their voice. It isn’t Arthur, though or even John or Mary-Beth. It’s Micah. 

“Ah glad to see you’re putting an effort into keeping this place running. We can use all the help we can get,” he simpers. 

“The fuck do you want, Micah?” you snarl. 

Micah’s always been a pebble in everyone’s shoes but now with Hosea out of the way and Dutch going crazy, he’s been acting like he’s in charge of things. He keeps badgering people to do their chores (which most of them have been) and that everyone needs to pull their weight. This doesn’t bother you, what does bother you is the hypocrisy of it all. He never does a damn thing. The last job he helped with was murdering Cornwall but you felt he did it out of a personal interest and less of a needs-to-be done basis. 

“Always gotta be so bitter,” he says, smiling. “You know, if you were a little nicer, people might actually like you. Too bad nothing can be done to make you pretty though. Unfortunately you’ll just have to stick to nice but ugly.” 

You throw down the sewing you’d just been doing and stand up, marching over to him. He wisely takes several steps backwards as you whip out your pistol. 

“Give me one more goddamn reason, you cockroach,” you hiss. “I won’t hesitate to kill you.” 

He whips out his own gun and points it at you. “You don’t have the guts, little girl.” 

“Wanna bet? You ain’t the first person I killed, though I’m not sure I can really define you as a person.” 

By this time, your argument has attracted the attention of many of the others. They form a circle and watch, but no one dares interrupt. You get the feeling that most of them want you to kill him. The majority of them have had problems with him too. 

“Woe!” Dutch says, walking over with his hands in the air. “There is no need to have guns drawn in camp. Both of you fools, put them away.” 

He stands next to Micah and glares from him to you. Arthur stands a few feet behind him and shakes his head at you, clearly trying to stop you from doing something reckless.

“She started it, Dutch,” Micah says, his gun still drawn. 

“Bullshit! You’re the one going around insulting everyone. Trust me, if I don’t shoot you now, someone else will. Like Lenny said back in Colter, when you fall there’ll be a party.” 

“Watch your mouth,” he growls. “Keep flapping your gums and you’ll end up just like Lenny and Hosea. Better yet, maybe you’ll get your head shot off like good ol’ Sea-”

Before he can finish, he’s silenced by your bullet slamming into his neck. He sputters and drops his gun, grabbing at his gushing neck. People start yelling and Javier and Bill grab you, making you drop your gun. 

“Let go of me!” you scream as Micah falls to his knees. Dutch glares at you, clearly shocked. As Micah slumps down onto his stomach, he stomps towards you. Javier and Bill hold your arms tight and you can’t fight them off. 

“You know the rules, Y/N,” Dutch says quietly. “There’s absolutely no reason to shoot anyone in camp unless they’re traitors.”

“How do you know Micah wasn’t a traitor, Dutch?” you snarl. “Ever since Guarma, those damn Pinkertons have been nipping at your heels more than ever.” 

Dutch lowers his brow. “I’m going to give you five minutes to get away from here. Never come back, Y/N. I never want to see you around here again.” 

Javier and Bill let you go, but you look around, silently pleading with the others to help you. No one does and your eyes finally fall onto Arthur. His mouth is partially open but his eyes say he wishes you hadn’t done it. He says nothing though, and you feel your stomach drop. Of course he’d choose Dutch over you. He’s known him for twenty years and Dutch saved his life. You’ve only known him a few years and maybe helped him get out of a few scrapes. You’ve got nothing on Dutch when it comes to Arthur. You don’t blame him either. No matter what kind of mess Dutch has gotten everyone into, Arthur’s been doing his best to keep things together. All you’ve done is create a bigger mess for him to clean up. 

You know it’s time for you to leave. There’s no doubt in your mind that Dutch is just crazy enough to kill you, and the clock is ticking. You push your way between Tilly and Karen and go to your tent, packing everything up quickly. You feel everyone’s eyes on your back until Grimshaw barks at everyone to get to work and for Charles and John to get Micah’s body taken out of camp. You throw everything onto your horse and then run off down the path, feeling your heart break. You’ll never see any of them again, not even Arthur. Your best friend and the man you love will never be part of your life again. 

********************************

It’s been three weeks since you were forced to leave camp. You’ve gone back west, back to where you’ve always belonged. You’ve found a small cabin not too far from Aurora Basin in Tall Trees. When you first arrived, the cabin had clearly been abandoned for a long time. You cleaned it up and made it habitable. You’ve decided to hang up the hat on being an outlaw. The Pinkertons won’t be coming out this way looking for the Blackwater robbers, not when they know exactly where Dutch is, so you’re safe out here. Besides, you weren’t even involved in that mess, so no one will associate you with that. 

It’s been lonely but peaceful out here. No more having to rob people, no more feeling like you’re chasing your own tail in Dutch’s crazy schemes. No more having to worry about anyone else besides yourself. You’ve missed them though, all of them. You miss joking with Tilly and Karen, discussing books with Mary-Beth, listening to Javier’s stories about Mexico. Even Pearson’s cooking since you’re not much of one yourself. 

More than all of that though, you miss Arthur. You miss the sound of his voice, the conversations you had during long hunting trips. He was the only person you could tell anything to. There were many nights you spent under the stars with him and even a few curled against him to keep out the cold. You miss the way he smelled, the way he’d hesitatingly touch you. You two were a perfect hunting team, you were able to track and kill prey without hardly saying a word. You try to settle with the idea that you’ll just have to reminisce in the memories of him but to forget a future with him in it. Not that you had much hope for that before. Arthur may have told Mary to take care of herself from now on, but you always knew he;d never go for you. 

You’ve been fishing in the lake for some time and gotten hardly any luck. You sigh and decide to call it a day, collapse your pole and pick up your almost empty bucket. You head up the road, feeling lonely and missing the company of your family. When you round the bend leading to your cabin, you look up and see a familiar face. 

“Arthur?” you say quietly, not sure if he’s really there or not. 

He rubs his jaw and looks at you, clearly searching for the right words. You stop and look for him, your stomach clenching. Has Dutch sent him? Dutch said you only had five minutes to get out of camp, but not that he wouldn’t hunt you down. The only reason you can think that Arthur’s here is because Dutch told him to find and kill you. You hover your hand over your gun, hoping you won’t have to use it. 

“Arthur, please let me explain,” you say. “You know Micah was just making things worse. Let’s just put this all behind us, okay? Just tell Dutch you killed me, at least do me that favor.” 

“Dutch didn’t send me, Y/N,” he says softly, his hands on his gunbelt. He takes a step towards you but stops when you back up, clearly worried. He raises his hands. “I ain’t here to hurt ya, darlin’.” 

Darlin’? He’s never called you that before. He’s always addressed you by your name. If you didn’t know Arthur, you’d think he might be lying and pretending to be harmless, but you know him too well. He doesn’t lie. 

You blink heavily, feeling your eyes water. “Why else would you be here, Arthur?” 

He sighs and takes another step towards you, his hands still up. “Y/N, I ain’t followin’ Dutch no more. You said it weeks ago, he’s gone crazy. He didn’t get better when you left either. Micah might not have been around to stir him up, but he’s just gone worse. He was real angry when Charles and I went and broke Eagle Flies out of jail, tryin’ to clean up his mess.” 

Arthur goes on to say how the army tried to kill Chief Rains Fall for the oil on his land and how the gang went to help try and save Eagle Flies as he went to get revenge for his people. By the end, Arthur got trapped beneath a soldier and nearly killed. Dutch had been the only one there and could have easily saved him, but chose not to. When Arthur confronted him about it, a huge fight broke out between them and Arthur decided he’d had enough. He snuck John, Abigail and Jack out that night and then decided to find you. 

“I knew you’d come out west, Y/N. You’re too much like me, this is where you’ve always wanted to belong.” 

“But why would you want to come after me, Arthur? I understand why you left, but why come after me?” 

He lowers his hand and walks up to you until he’s only a couple feet away. “Because I care about ya, Y/N.” His gruff voice is soft, sending shivers down your arms. “Because you’ve always tried to help me. If you’d been there, I know you woulda saved my life, not leave me to die like Dutch did. I did everything I could for him, even almost died for him multiple times. I gave him everything I had and got nothin’ to show for it. I’m done, darlin’. I want to be with you.” 

Your entire body is shaking as he talks. He closes the distance between you and wraps his arms around you. What little strength you had holding you together crumbles and you sink into his chest, tears leaking out of your eyes. 

“I’m sorry I weren’t there for ya when you killed Micah,” he says, rubbing your back. “To be honest, I was happy when you killed Micah. He’s been a giant thorn in my side since he showed up and I’ve wanted to shoot him myself since Sean died. I was just shocked that you’d done it so quickly. I shoulda gone with you when Dutch forced you out.” 

You shake your head into his shirt. “No, it’s good you didn’t. If you’d left with me, Dutch would have hunted both of us down. He knows how essential you are to everything, he wouldn’t like it if you left with me.” 

He sighs and leans his cheek against your head. “Well, I’m here now, darlin’. If you’ll have me, I’d like to stay with ya as long as I possibly can. You’re my best friend and…” He pauses so long you look up at him to find his cheeks red. “I gotta be honest, Y/N, I’ve been sweet on ya for years.” 

It’s your turn to blush and you smile. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“We had things so good, Y/N. We been friends so long, worked so well together, I didn’t wanna ruin that. Besides, I know you wouldn’t have feelings for me. I’m just an old, dirty outlaw. I ain’t worth no one’s time.” 

You grimace at him. “Arthur, I hate how poorly you view yourself. You wanna know what I think about you?” 

“I suppose, though I doubt it’ll be anythin’ good.” 

You sigh and stretch up, placing your lips against his. They’re soft, though slightly chapped. He tenses up when you touch him but after a second he responds. His lips move with yours and you trace his with your tongue. After a moment, you pull away. He’s cheeks are darker but he’s smiling. 

“That’s what I think of you, Arthur. I’d love it even more if you decided to stay with me. I’ve been sweet on you for the longest time, it’s been so hard for me to keep it out of our relationship. I just didn’t wanna ruin our friendship.” 

He smiles in and leans in to kiss you again. You feel the first surge of excitement and happiness since you got kicked out of the gang. You can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you now.

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Crazy for you, baby

A/N: Having repost this as I touched something on my phone and it all went to hell. Sorry! I do have another short fic coming today though so there’s that!

Title: Aerosmith - Crazy

Summary: You and George have some pretty big news to share with the Weasley family. 

Pairing: George Weasley x Fem!Reader

Requested: nope

Warnings: one swear word

Word count: 1k+

The timer on the kitchen counter begins to ring. The sound so loud, it scares you from your daydream.

Pulling the oven mitts on, you grab the freshly baked cake from the oven. Steam rising rapidly, you place it on the cooling rack to cool down before icing it. The buttercream icing already waiting in the fridge. Thankfully, the nausea you were experiencing this morning has ebbed meaning you could finally look food in the face without wanting to be ill. 

You sit back down at the kitchen counter, your mind going back to what you were thinking of before the timer rang. The logical side of you knows there is no need to worry, that yours and George’s news will be received happily but you still can’t help but worry. The quiet soon becomes stifling. With a flick of your hand, the radio switches on and a song you recognise from your adolescence at Hogwarts is playing. 

“Say you’re leavin’ on a seven thirty train, And that you’re headin’ out to Hollywood.” 

With another movement of your hand, the song becomes louder as the volume is turned all the way up. Aerosmith is now blasting through your kitchen and you’re singing at the top of your voice. 

Instead of overthinking and worrying, you’re now dancing around your kitchen, singing your heart out. 

So loud that you don't hear George enter the house. You don't notice him until he grabs your hand and pulls you into an embrace. 

“George!”

“(Y/N)!” He shouts as he spins you out before pulling you back in. 

He moves his hands to your wait as he starts to sing along to the radio where Aerosmith is still playing. 

“That kinda lovin’ makes me wanna pull down the shade, yeah!”

He twirls you around in a circle before holding you closer, “I remember when you got this album. We used to play it constantly, I think that Crazy is our song.” 

“I remember being sent this album; my dad sent me it special, he thought I would like it. I agree though, Crazy is our song.”

The song finishes playing and you both stop dancing. George flicks his hand and the radio switches off. 

He spies the cake on the counter and starts to make a move towards it. 

“What do you think you’re doing, Mr Weasley?”

He grins at you, a shit-eating grin. “Nothing, nothing at all, my dear.” 

“Don’t you dare touch that cake. It is still cooling down and besides, it’s for your family for tonight.” 

George truly looks at you then; he seems to sense that something is off. 

“Love, you know you don't need to win them over right?”

You run your hands through your hair; an action you only tend to do when you’re stressed over something. “I know, but we’re announcing something pretty big tonight so I thought that if I bake a cake it will soften the landing that little bit.” 

George talks over to you, and takes your hands in his. He places a soft kiss to your forehead before kissing your lips. 

“My darling, everything will be okay. My parents already think of you as their daughter and my siblings love you. There is absolutely nothing to be worried about.” 

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure?”

You nod, comforted for the time being. 

George kisses you again, “We aren't due at the Burrow for another few hours. Plenty of time to ice the cake and get ready. We can do this.” 

You nod again, “Yes, we can.” 

----time skip----

George apparates you both to the Burrow since you were carrying the cake that had finally been iced. 

Molly and Arthur meet you at the door; smiles, hugs, and kisses on cheeks being passed around. The Weasley siblings are soon upon you both as well and George places a protective arm around your waist. Ten years you have been together (thirteen as friends) but you still got that little bit overwhelmed with the amount of family. It was wonderful, the Burrow oozed warmth, love and acceptance. You could only hope yours would do the same. 

You hand Molly the cake; she tears up slightly as you have made her favourite. She kisses you on the cheek again before pulling you into a bone-crushing hug. 

George finds you both like that, “Whoa, mum, be careful. Valuable goods here!” 

“Oh George!” Molly utters before turning back to the oven to check on dinner. 

George and yourself move into the living room where the rest of the family (bar Charlie) is waiting. Molly follows you in and grabs a seat next to Arthur who automatically reaches out to take her hand. The sight of it makes you yearn for this sort of family more; where after so many years together and so many children, you and George are still so in love with each other. 

Arthur takes the lead on the conversation; “Okay, George, (Y/N), what is this news you’ve got to tell everyone?”

George grabs your hand and squeezes tightly. You squeeze back and take a deep breath. You and George had agreed before the dinner that it would be him to hell his family whereas you would be the one to tell yours. 

“Well, Mum, Dad. To put it simply: you’re going to be grandparents.”

Molly bursts into tears. 

Arthur starts to shout that he’s going to be a grandad. 

The rest of the Weasley clan already deciding on who will be the favourite aunt or uncle. 

Once Molly calms down, she comes over to hug you. Folding you into her arms, you feel yourself relax completely; the news was received well and everyone is happy. 

Molly pulls away from the hug to ask you: “How far along are you?” 

“Just over 20 weeks. George and I wanted to wait until well past the 12 week safety zone and then we wanted to wait to find out the gender. We found out last week: would you like to know?”

Molly nods; tears welling up in both hers and your eyes. You register that the room has gone silent again in anticipation of your answer. George is soon beside you, an arm around your waist and a kiss being pressed to the top of your head. 

“So last week we had the gender scan, and George and I found out that we’re having a boy!” 

Tears start afresh, even Arthur is dabbing at his eyes. 

You turn to George and press a kiss to his lips. You are both so extremely happy - out of the corner of your eye, you spy Molly’s bewitched knitting needles have already begun to knit a babygrow in a pastel blue. 

You press another kiss to George’s lips. He’s smiling when you pull away and he places a hand on your stomach where the smallest of bumps is beginning to show. 

Dinner is forgotten about but Molly cuts into your cake with gusto - already chatting about the future.

[brideofcthulhu10]

Hi! Uh so Billy aka Dwayne and I have the same birthday (June 23). I don't really like my birthday because I've never gotten to celebrate. I haven't had a party since I was a kid and now I just always spend the day sad and with no friends. If you wanna write something with the lost boys celebrating Dwayne and reader's birthday together, I'd really love it. (No pressure tho. I really love your blog and hope you'll have a great day ✨)

Aw, I’m sorry to hear you’ve not been able to celebrate your birthday for such a long time. Hopefully I can give you a little taste of a great birthday with the boys, and a very special (belated) birthday to you from myself and all of my readers, you are an honorary Fang Babe which makes you a part of a community that’s there for each other! If you ever feel sad, I got my DMs open 24/7 if you ever need to just vent up a storm! All are welcome. 

Happy Birthday to You Both

Dwayne x Fem!S/O

Today was supposed to be special, yet the entire day everyone was so preoccupied with their own little lives that no one had even bothered to remember it was your birthday today. It was absolutely miserable. All the while your boyfriend Dwayne was currently tucked away at the abandoned hotel hiding away from the sunlight. Bursting into flames was certainly an occupational hazard. By this point the whole vampirism thing had come and gone, and while it did frighten you, nothing was more frightening than being without your dark crow.   

Rather than stay at home to be ignored you opted to go out for the afternoon, browsing shops for a special occasion. No, not yourself. See, as luck would have it, June 23rd also held significance to Dwayne. Marko, one of the younger members of the coven, had told you two weeks prior it would be Dwayne’s birthday as well. You had to keep your own secret. Not at their request, but your own. Overshadowing his birthday would be dreadful, you hated the idea of taking it from him. Besides, no one remembered anyways. 

Weaving through brightly lit shops, you pondered each piece wondering what would suit him best. Clothes were out, maybe a new skateboard? Just looking at the little white tags stuck to the back of them made you cringe. Okay, so that was out. You weren’t made of money. 

There was an old mystic shop selling a handful of oddities, somewhere called Madame Medusa’s Mystical Boutique. A few interesting necklaces caught your eye, but one seemed to be directly calling you. It was a crow skull attached to a leather cord, bordered by two carved red beads on either side. Two thick black feathers were wedged between the beads. Gently you slipped it off the hook, running your thumb over the chilled, smooth surface. 

“It’s a lovely item, isn’t it,” an elderly woman asked. Truthfully she startled you from behind the counter, almost making you jump a few good inches. 

“O-Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see-”

“Don’t worry dear, hardly anyone does,” she chuckled, tenderly plucking the skull from your hand. “Shall I wrap this up for you?”

“Oh- Well I wasn’t, I mean it’s nice but-,” you stuttered, but already she was shuffling towards the counter again. Boy pushy woman. You didn’t even know how much it cost, you weren’t exactly on a budget but you couldn’t be going on any big spending sprees.

“Hush now. He’s going to be waiting for you, somewhere nearby. I can guarantee that this is the one you’re meant to give him,” she insisted, wrapping the necklace under aged brown paper. 

“Yeah, I’m sure he’d like it but-,” you couldn’t help but trail off. How- How did she know?

The woman pushed the little baggie your way, giving a tender smile before she began to hobble towards a curtained room behind the counter.

“W-Wait, I didn’t even pay for it!”

She waved off your concern, looking behind her shoulder while she parted the curtains in her path. 

“Consider it a present from those who neglected you. Take it to him, you’ll see..” And with that she vanished behind them, leaving you stunned where you stood. Silently you glanced down at the small plastic bag, almost jumping in place when a dusty old grandfather clock began to ring through the store. One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh! It was already six o’clock. Crap the boys would be up any minute!

It didn’t take too long to spot the gang of vampires sitting on the worn, wooden banisters talking amongst themselves. Dwayne was just as eager to spot you, sweeping between the boys and lifting you up in his arms. “Happy birthday, princess,” He gushed, planting tender kisses all over your cheeks.

“How did you know? I didn’t-”

“My bad,” Marko spoke up. He leaned back from behind Paul to wave your way, as if he were waving a flag of defeat. Damn. You weren’t even sure how Marko figured out your birthday in the first place, there was just no keeping secrets from that guy! 

Dwayne set you down, although he carried a much more concerned expression this time. “Why keep it a secret in the first place, Y/N?”

You fiddled with the bag still clutched in your hand with eyes cast downward towards your feet hoping a good excuse could get you out of just admitting you’d rather play backseat. But, you didn’t. Not that you couldn’t come up with any excuses. Rather, you didn’t want to be sidelined even for your boyfriend’s birthday. It was yours too, and for the past several years it seemed like you were constantly being set aside so that other things could happen. Your sister’s wedding, that trip to Colorado your parents took, grandma and grandpa visiting, your brother’s soccer games- everything seemed to take precedence over the celebration of the day you were born. And worst of all is you never got your Sixteen Candles happy ending. No one would really recognize they screwed up. You wouldn’t be apologized to with tearful shock when your parents realized they forgot your birthday, your friends- if you could even call them that at this point- wouldn’t try to cheer you up, and there was no handsome crush ready with a birthday cake to make it all go away. It’s like Dwayne already knew your feelings because before you could get a word in he pulled you into a crushing hug. Your head pressed against his chest. Sometimes you forgot he had no heartbeat and instead only listened to him rumble when he spoke to you.

“Just because today is for me, doesn’t mean it isn’t for you too, princess.” 

Those words hit you harder than you anticipated. Your throat felt as if it were swelling, dry with each labored swallow, and a tight pressure squeezed the bridge of your nose. Inevitable tears eagerly rushed down your while burnt cheeks. 

Dwayne only held you in place. He never let go until you were the one ready to release him, wiping away those pesky droplets of emotion staining you. “Now, I was saving this for when we took you to the hotel…,” he began with his hand jammed into his jacket pocket, rustling around for whatever it was he needed. “But, I figure maybe you need it now.”

A thick banded ring of aged silver sat in his calloused palm, an oval cut of turquoise clasped in place by a weaving border. Veins of black and copper split through chunks of blue-green paths. Rather hold it out to you, Dwayne tenderly took your hand into his own to slip the hefty piece over your ring finger. It nestled perfectly in place and you couldn’t help but let out a breathless laugh, slinging your arms over his neck. He already knew what to expect. Iron arms engulfed your waist and lifted you up. His stubble scratched the edges of your mouth when you crashed your lips into his. The sensation was overwhelming. It wasn’t just that he got you this, it was what he had gotten you. 

Dwayne had often told you myths and lore on lazy nights when the hunting grew slow and the hours were long. Once you found yourself admiring a very similar cut of jewelry decadently adorned with many fine cuts of turquoise, finding your curiosity piqued when asking him what the significance was to all these pieces. Why was it such a commonly used stone in so much jewelry, especially with Native American tribes.

“From what I can remember,” Dwayne thought back at the time, leaning over you to admire the pricey baubles kept protected under a thick sheet of glass “, my grandmother told me that every tribe has always valued it. I mean, they all have their reasons. It’s a powerful gem that carries protection, life and strength. I’ve even seen it change colors depending on where you find it. I hardly ever saw it though when I was alive, even back then it cost a fortune.”

But now, through one way or another he’d remembered how you admired them from afar, yearning to have a ring like that of your very own. The one to five hundred dollar price tags always scared you off whenever you’d come to find them in stores- at least, the real ones. For once you didn’t care how Dwayne had acquired your gift. Gift! Oh!

“Oh, hold on,” You interjected between kisses with the little bag presented before him. “I um, got you something too. From that crazy lady in the mystic items shop!”

A warmth spread through your chest watching him lay the necklace over, the skull placing perfectly atop his many others. It suited him perfectly. 

The whole night was just perfect. You spent the entire time going on rides with the boys after they spoiled you for dinner, later dragging you to the hotel where you realized what Dwayne meant earlier. There were streams of colored paper hanging off the rafters and old piping, red balloons tied to the furniture, and a banner of paper reading out “Happy Birthday Dwayne and Y/N” written in big, red marker letters. You couldn’t even make a wish when they brought out a cake for the both of you. After all, what more could be asked? They had already given you the most perfect birthday you could have ever hoped for. 

[shireness-says]

skating in circles (with no way to stop)

Summary: Anne Elliot likes her life just the way it is. The last thing she needs is her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex... something to show up during lockdown and prove just how wrong she is about that. ~7.9K. Rated T for language. Also on AO3.

~~~~~

A/N: For @welllpthisishappening, who is going a little stir-crazy during the NHL break. Also because it is absolutely her fault I ever thought “What would a hockey-flavored Persuasion AU look like?” 

Special thanks to @snidgetsafan for her beta skills. Any mistakes, hockey-type or otherwise, are absolutely my own. 

Tagging the potentially interested parties: @profdanglaisstuff, @thisonesatellite, @ohmightydevviepuu, @thejollyroger-writer, @snowbellewells. 

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

~~~~~

Social distancing almost doesn’t seem so bad in weather like this, the snow outside Anne’s window falling in huge flakes more furiously each second. Weather like this is designed for staying inside, curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea and a soft knitted afghan. It’s almost enough to soothe the little voice in her head that chides her for not working; there’s genuinely little for Anne to do from home as a school nurse, beyond writing and filing the reports she usually puts off until the end of the year, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling guilty at not doing more. Even if she isn’t expected to. Even if she is actually supposed to bunker down. 

It’s been odd, adjusting to a life of jigsaw puzzles and overly involved embroidery projects and all the books she swore she’d read two years ago and never did. Hell, she’s even taken up online archiving projects after an old friend from school sent her a link, just for something to do. Her social life hasn’t particularly suffered; she’s a transplant to this town, anyways, drawn back by the memories of one beautiful, peaceful year, only really meeting with folks from work or her old roommate, and infrequently at that. Every few days, she’ll go through the motions of calling her sister Mary just so the younger woman can chatter away about all her own complaints; truthfully, that’s all the socializing she can handle. Anne has always kept to herself, and usually even likes it; the only difference now is that it’s by governor’s decree, not by her own introverted preferences. 

Way out here, it’s not surprising that the power eventually goes out; it’s not uncommon, when the snow gets too heavy on the power lines in heavy storms like this. This is exactly why she has a generator - it’s all but a necessity when you’re living here year-round. Sure enough, the generator roars to life a moment later - an auditory nuisance, for sure, but a necessary one when you like such things as central electric heating and wifi and refrigerated items not spoiling. 

The crunch of snow under tires outside her little cottage is more surprising, however,  especially under the circumstances. She hasn’t ordered takeout, or grocery delivery; there’s no reason anyone should be pulling up to her house, especially in this weather. Peeking out the window reveals the kind of SUV only people with money buy, and the last person in the world she ever expected to see climbing out of it; she’d almost think it a hallucination brought on by isolation, if she hadn’t already seen him from a distance at the grocery store, earlier in the week. 

Anne barely has a chance to pull herself together before the knock at the door sounds, bouncing off the walls of her little house. Opening the door reveals Frederick Wentworth, the dream she put away nigh on nine years ago, standing on her stoop in a ridiculous hat and a peacoat that’s not remotely suited to the practicalities of winter in rural New Hampshire. 

“Believe me, I hate this just as much, if not more, than you do,” he begins, plowing forward before Anne can even remember to reassure him that it’s not true, “but my power’s out, and I need your help.”

As it turns out, Frederick - her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex… something - is all that’s required to upset any equilibrium the snow might have brought. 

———

Frederick Wentworth hadn’t intended to return to Kellynch, New Hampshire. Then again, he hadn’t intended to be sitting out indefinitely with the rest of the league because of the current pandemic.

New York just feels odd like this, the tourists all gone, the streets practically empty. Fred has never credited himself as one of those maniacs who claim that New York is the only city in the world, and there’s nothing like it; he’d been happy in a small town, and he’ll be happy in a different city if the worst happens and he ends up traded. That’s the way these things work. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t formed opinions over the last years about how this city is supposed to feel, and it sure as hell ain’t this. 

So he gets in his car, arranges for a rental house, and drives up to Kellynch. If nothing else, he hopes it will be easier to look outside in a place he’d expect to see barely a soul even under the best conditions. Nothing ever happens in Kellynch, after all; maybe that will include the virus too.

(Well, that’s a lie. Exactly two things have ever happened to Kellynch, and he’s one of them. The other… if they’re very, very lucky, they’ll never have to deal with egotistical directors and their ilk again. Even pretty, quiet brunettes aren’t worth that trouble; in fact, sometimes, they make things worse.)

The irony to all this is that usually, Frederick craves a little bit of solitude. He spends essentially his entire life around the same group of guys, at practice and in games and especially on the road, when he’s got to share a hotel room to boot. Hell, he even lived with them for years, sharing an apartment with Harville and Benwick. A man can be forgiven for wanting some time to himself.

And he’d gotten it, at least for a while. Harvey had met his now-wife and moved out, and now Benwick’s got a girlfriend who giggles and his own place to giggle with her in or whatever. Fred can finally come home and just collapse in the closest thing to silence one ever gets in New York, and truthfully, he’s been enjoying every moment of it.

There’s a difference, though, in solitude on your own terms and solitude on others’ terms, and Frederick can’t help but feel lonely as he remembers that in the middle of all this, his friends and teammates are cozied up with those they love, and he’s all by himself in the empty apartment he once yearned for. In Kellynch, at least, it’s a solitude of his own making; his parents are long gone, Sophie out in Virginia with her husband, and for the most part, he hasn’t talked to his old school friends in years. There won’t be this constant awareness of all the people he can’t see if there’s no one about that he’d want to. 

Maybe he ought to try dating again, he thinks as he drives. Obviously, there’s nothing to be done in the moment, what with social distancing and impending stay-at-home orders, but maybe later. Maybe Harvey’s wife has friends he’d like - he’s always liked Amelia and her steady personality and good-natured humor, so unlike Benwick’s high-maintenance Louisa and her ear-piercing squeals. Her friends have got to be similar, and Amelia would probably even be kind enough not to make him sound completely desperate. 

It’s not that he hasn’t found anyone interested in the past years; he’s got a decent face, after all, and a better paycheck. But the thing about that face and that paycheck is that it’s hard to trust that any woman is interested in him, him alone, the person he is without all that. It’s not a great way to live, but it’s hard to move past. 

There’s also the matter of the pretty quiet brunette who came to Kellynch when he was 16, seized his heart, and never really gave it back. Walter Eliot may have been an asshole - every cliche of the self-absorbed Hollywood director, convinced that their town was “quaint” and “just what he needed” to spark inspiration while demanding kowtowing and wrecking havoc wherever he went - but his daughter, Anne, had been of a different mold altogether. He’d met her at the annual Fourth of July parade, of all places. It was obvious she hadn’t intended to be noticed; indeed, she’d blushed and done her best to fade into the background while her father and older sister had made some kind of scene that Frederick can’t honestly remember anymore. He’d been too intrigued - and later, enchanted - by Anne to pay much attention to the rest of the fiasco she’d called a family. 

She’d probably felt then the same as he feels about people now - some strange boy coming up to her out of nowhere with mini-donuts, someone she’s never met but undoubtedly knows her and her family, stuck wondering if he was interested in her or all the rest of it. But it had always been her; she’d initially been fascinating just in the contrast, but as he’d talked to her Fred had gotten to see her sense of humor and her brilliant mind and caring heart, and been smitten with the whole package. 

That was, until she’d ended things between them, insisting that they’d never work across such a long distance, that she didn’t want to try. Maybe they’d only had 8 months, but he’d been all in, with all the conviction of youth that this was it for them, in some kind star-crossed true love way. She was the first thing, besides his family, that he’d loved more than hockey; truthfully, he still hasn’t found anything or anyone else to match that. It’s hard to move on from that kind of heartbreak. Maybe it’s finally time he tried. 

The house he’s rented proves to be up a winding, hilly road lined with pine trees stretching in every direction. The seclusion is its own kind of calming - exactly what he needs, when the rest of the world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. There’s something about  being alone amongst the trees that feels comforting in a way that being alone in the city can never touch - almost like a hug. Or something else less weird-sounding. English was never his thing. The house itself is just a little two-bedroom cottage, but that’s more than enough space for just him. What’s more important is that there’s a TV and WiFi and plenty of blankets to bunker down with for however long this lasts. 

What he doesn’t expect is to see Anne Eliot - the same Anne Eliot who he thought had left Kellynch for good, who’d broken his heart - at the supermarket like any other local, presumably looking to stock up on supplies just like he is. He doesn’t think she spots him - Frederick ducks into another aisle as soon as he spots her - but just the briefest sight of her sets his heart beating faster in a way that he doesn’t really want to examine closer. 

(It would be ridiculous to still have feelings for her after all this time, even if that’s sure what it seems like.)

He tells himself that it’s just a fluke; that they won’t run into each other again; that they can avoid each other without any problems, given the situation. He is wrong on all counts. The cottage sits at the top of a hill, and on days where the fog hasn’t settled around the tops of the trees, he can see just a peek of a few houses and driveways down below. 

And just who should he happen to see wrestling with her trash bin one evening, but the woman herself?

(Some higher power really has it in for him, he’s certain of it.)

Still, they don’t call it social distancing for nothing. It’s easy to avoid the people you don’t want to see when you don’t even leave your house. He naps a lot and catches up on Netflix and even attempts a puzzle that he finds in the hall closet (though it just winds up abandoned on the dining table). 

In eight years, though, he’d forgotten about the weather up here. It’s late March, technically spring; the worst of the snow should be over. Should be over isn’t the same as is over, though, and he’d forgotten about the late-March snowstorms that pop up more years than not. They’d had them in Minnesota, too; the locals there had always joked it was because of the college basketball tournament. Well, the NCAA tournament may have been cancelled, but the weather sure didn’t get that memo, as the flakes start falling huge, heavy, and fast just outside the windows, almost pretty in a way that’s only possible when you know you don’t have to go outside in the storm. 

Fate has other ideas, though. At least, Frederick has to believe it’s fate, otherwise this is all a cruel, cruel trick, and he doesn’t like to think about what he might have done to deserve that. Where he’s going with this is that the power goes out, knocking out the heat and the lights, as well as all those systems he’d been so thankful for until now. There’s a fireplace, but he hadn’t planned for this, and there’s not enough logs and he doesn’t know where or how to chop more and as much of his life as he spends at an ice rink he is not prepared to spend the night in these kind of temperatures without heat and —

— and when he looks out his window, he can just see a hint of light from Anne’s house, just hear the hum of a generator.

And he really doesn’t have any option at all but to throw himself on the mercy of the last woman he wants to see. 

———

Anne’s house is neat, from what Frederick can see - small, but cozy, with everything obviously in its very particular place. It reminds him of her, in a way, or at least the her he remembers - quietly comforting and well turned out. It’s exactly what he expected, somehow - just the kind of house he’d expect her to inhabit.

The woman herself, on the other hand, looks tired - vastly different than what he remembered. Anne is worn down, somehow, in a way that makes her look older than she is. Frederick supposes that’s what happens when she’s undoubtedly been carrying her family members in the way she always has; it would exhaust anyone, especially under pandemic circumstances. 

“Nice place,” he comments as Anne leads him towards a promised spare bedroom once he’s retrieved his bag - more out of an effort to fill the empty space than anything. Anne was always quiet, but this is just unnerving in its discomfort. They’d always been able to talk, or at least exist contentedly in the quiet; this is the opposite of all that. 

“Thanks,” she replies. “I like it.” Just the kind of response a person makes when they don’t know what the hell else to say. 

And maybe that’s what makes Fred dive straight into topics they should politely ignore - the absolute blandness of everything else they could say. 

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he tells her foolishly. 

“In my own home, during quarantine?” She says it with a slight smile and the tone of voice she’s always used to hide her sense of humor, and suddenly Frederick is hit with a powerful wave of nostalgia. 

“No, here. Kellynch here.”

The amusement flits away just as quickly as it had appeared, the smile turning polite and wooden. Another look he vividly remembers. “I didn’t plan to come back, either,” she tells him softly, “but I like it here. I got out of school and there was a position open and… it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I’m a school nurse,” she clarifies. “Over at the elementary.” 

And that… fits, in a way he should have realized. She’d talked about going into nursing way back when, back when they were still practically kids, but this makes a lot more sense than trying to imagine Anne in some busy hospital. More tender, more stable. 

“I bet you’re great at that.”

“Thanks. I like it. You’re… good at your job, too,” she finishes awkwardly. 

(Even if the words are halting, uncomfortable, they send a little thrill through Frederick’s veins. Does that mean she’s watched, sometime in these past couple of years? They’re decidedly out of Rangers country and New York broadcasting range, way up here, but there are ways around that and she’d said…

Had she watched? For him?)

“Just doing my best,” he replies, just as uncomfortably. What a pair they make now. 

“I don’t know if you’ve eaten already, but I was about to make up some dinner,” Anne tells him - an abrupt, but welcome, change of subject. “I’d be happy to do up another serving if you like.”

“That’d be great, thanks.” He has no idea what kind of meal he’s committed to, but who the fuck cares; right now, it’s a way to get a moment to collect himself. 

“I’ll see you in a little bit then.” 

(If he’s not mistaken, Anne flees the room with just as much relief as he feels watching her go.)

(Kellynch was supposed to be his getaway, his haven - but right now, all it seems like is a terrible mistake as Frederick wonders what the fuck kind of situation he’s gotten himself into.) 

———

Dinner isn’t exactly an illustrious start to this whole thing, to say the least. Anne stresses about every step of making spaghetti - spaghetti, for goodness sakes, jarred sauce and boxed noodles, nothing a normal person could possibly find a way to stress about - only to realize as soon as they sit down that this is what they really should have worried about: what in the world two people who have unwillingly been forced into the same space have to discuss. 

(“How’s your family?” he asks at one point - probably a subtle dig, if he’s remembering the same uncomfortable dinner that she is, in which her father had done his best to treat Frederick like an utter idiot. Fred had always thought she’d let them walk all over her, anyways - an accusation that isn’t far off.

“Mary is fine. She just got engaged to a lawyer,” Anne relates as neutrally as she can. “I don’t much talk with Walter or Elizabeth anymore.” There’s a variety of reasons for that - especially their tendency to never listen to a single word she’s ever said in her life and making snide comments about how she’d rather live in some backwoods nowhere than in someplace with civilization like LA or New York - but the memory of the way they’d treated Frederick, and everyone else not like them had contributed too. “And your sister?” That’s a safer topic; Sophie and Anne had liked each other. 

“She’s good. She lives down in Virginia now - her husband’s some big shot in the Navy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”)

(And that had been the end of that feeble attempt at discussion.)

Anne thinks a lot that night about what she must have done to deserve this. Clearly, something terrible in some past life to have earned this particular variety of torment. Frederick is everything she remembered, only colder - not that she can blame him. After what she did, all those years ago, the way she broke them… she’s more than earned it. 

Still. She can be strong, Anne tells herself. She can remain detached, and collected, and unaffected by his presence. She’s had years of practice, after all, pretending that she still isn’t carrying a torch. 

(It was always a foolish idea to watch him play online - but then again, she’s always been a fool.)

It’s a little harder to keep up that calm facade, however, when Frederick is walking out of the bathroom in the morning with nothing more than sweatpants and wet hair. God, but he’s handsome, between that face and that wonderful smile and the fit frame he must be displaying just to taunt her, like a reminder of all she rejected. Naturally. It’s no more than she deserves. Her relief is near palpable when he emerges from the spare room in another bright blue t-shirt. 

It gets easier as the hours pass and one day bleeds into another. It’s not Frederick’s fault that she’s so shaken by his very presence, and he really is trying to be a good houseguest. He picks up after himself and helps with the dishes and doesn’t argue with whatever she puts on TV. It could be worse. 

Still, she can’t help but feel like everything from their past sits between them, unspoken, in every interaction. It’s the elephant in the room, the loudly unspoken words in every little mundane interaction they share. They can reach a point where they’re able to converse without the overt distrust and borderline hostility of where they started this, but comfort is too much to ask.

(Does he feel it too - the pressure of all the what-might-have-beens, pressing down upon them? Or is she the only one that’s haunted?)

She can do this - survive Frederick’s presence when every moment is a reminder of all she threw away. But that doesn’t mean it won’t just crush and kill her. 

———

Frederick finds that he doesn’t mind being cooped up with Anne, likes it much more than he anticipated or planned. It’s not that they do much of anything - there’s limits in a small cottage like hers - but the companionship is nice. As it turns out, he was maybe lonelier than he’d wanted to admit. Even the stupid jigsaw puzzles go easier in her company; she’s got a system of sorting that Fred never would have had the patience to implement. 

Really, Anne is better equipped, literally and emotionally, for this whole isolation situation. Frederick has always needed to be out and active and doing, little planning involved; Anne, on the other hand, has all the supplies she needs, and the temperament for these kinds of quiet, time-wasting tasks to boot. It’s so entirely in character; he should probably have guessed. Then again, he was trying very hard not to think of Anne until he was forced to show up at her door, practically begging for shelter. 

Anne, of course, has plenty of firewood, unlike him, stacked neatly under a tarp at the side of her garage where it’s protected from the elements. She lives here year-round, after all; unlike his own dumb ass, she obviously remembers that it’s not uncommon to receive snow all the way through March and into April, and planned accordingly. Her central heating works fine, obviously, but there’s something about this weather that calls for a roaring fire. Plus, retrieving the firewood gives Frederick a chance to think away from Anne and all her distraction.

He’s not sure what he expected of her - tears? Begging? Apologies? The kind of aloofness the rest of her family has so perfected? None of that is Anne; she’s always been too accepting of her circumstances, even to her own detriment. Once upon a time, Frederick had viewed that tendency with a kind of fond exasperation, had wanted to help her understand that she deserved more than she had always settled for; now it just makes him sad, and angry. She should feel more than this, should be angry or distraught or anything now that he’s here.

He should be paying more attention to the task at hand than the woman in the other room, unfortunately, as the end of a twig clipped off a log slices the skin of his palm as he deposits his load by the hearth, causing Frederick to hiss in surprise at the mild pain. It’s not a deep cut, or hurt that badly - he plays a contact sport for a living, for fuck’s sake, this is nothing - but he can already see blood starting to bead. After making sure the logs are stacked as best as he can one handed, Fred quickly crosses to the kitchen sink to rinse it out. Anne finds him moments later as he examines his hand for splinters. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, that soft voice filled with the kind of concern that sends a pang through his heart. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just scratched myself on one of the logs. No biggie.”

Still, Anne pulls his hand closer to examine the little cut herself - gently enough that he could easily pull away, but somehow, too tenderly for him to ever want to. This is her life now, Frederick realizes suddenly - scrapes and bruises and doubtless all other kinds of minor playground injuries that need more tenderness than true care. School nurse, after all. 

“I’ll get you something for that.”

“Oh, you don’t have to —” but it’s too late; Anne is already walking down the hall with her determined pace, disappearing into the bathroom. Resistance is futile, or something. Faintly, he hears the squeal of a cabinet hinge before Anne pads back into sight in her stockinged feet, carrying something he can’t quite make out clutched in her hand.

“Just a bit of neosporin,” she explains, tugging his hand back towards her to apply the cream before peeling open the wrapper of a band-aid - the skin-toned butterfly kind.

He nods towards the little adhesive. “What, no fun prints? I’m appalled.”

“Left all my princesses and superheroes back in my office at school,” she smiles back. “You’ll just have to make do, I suppose.”

“I guess I’ll make it, somehow.”

(When she smiles, the ridiculous urge to ask her to kiss it better pops into his head with an ease that nearly frightens him. With a care that would impress even her, he shoves it back down.)

———

It gets easier  to share the same space as the days drag on - to learn to expect another person in her space, to expect that other person to be him. It would be overstating the matter to say that she’s not affected by him anymore; indeed, Anne is almost painfully aware of his presence at every moment. But she can prepare to face it when she’s come to expect him, and that feels like a victory all its own. She is braced and ready, long since versed in ignoring and minimizing those feelings that still linger from so long ago. Frederick’s physical presence in her space is a complicating factor, but certainly one that she can overcome. 

If she can ignore the way her heart aches, it’s almost kind of nice, having him around. They fall into a pattern of meals and Netflix and quietly finding their own distraction in between. It’s the kind of mundane existence she could almost dream of sharing with him if she was foolish enough to entertain those thoughts.

(She can’t afford to be such a fool - not when it’s only a matter of time until the snow stops and the roads clear and he leaves once again. She likes her life as it is, and that will have to be enough.)

It’s probably inevitable that, on the fourth night, when the snow has finally let up but the temperatures have turned bitter and icy, they find themselves huddled up next to the fireplace with a strong drink apiece. Frederick sips on a glass of the nice whiskey Anne keeps in the back of a cabinet for occasions that call for a little something stronger, barely kissed with enough soda to call it a mixed drink; Anne, at least, pours the same stuff into a whole cup of tea. She’s never been much for liquor, especially straight, but there are occasions that call for it, and being cooped up with a man she never expected to see again is certainly one of them.

“What are the fucking odds?” Frederick declares after his second glass. “I come out here, trying to get away, and I find you. What are the odds.”

“Well, the last couple of years, I’d say pretty good. Since I live here and all.” He’s kind of cute like this - drunk and verbose. It’s something she never had a chance to see, before.

“Oh. Yeah. That.” He takes another swig. “Still. What are the odds that I came back while you’re here?”

“It’s a mystery, I guess.” Maybe it’s the last few days; more likely, it’s the drink. Whatever the case, Anne finds herself telling Frederick something she should never admit. “I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him softly. “I… missed you.”

He tenses up at the words; not the reaction she expected, honestly. A feeling of dread starts to bloom in her stomach instead. “Really,” he comments, utterly flat. 

“Well… yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“A little bit,” he tells her bluntly. “Especially since you’re the one that wanted me gone in the first place.”

“It was for the best.” For him, that is; this was never about her, anyways. 

“Was it now?” His laugh is bitter, utterly devoid of joy. 

“Frederick…”

“I just want to know what the hell is going on here,” Frederick demands, a liquored slur rounding out his consonants. “Because I’ve been here for days, and I can’t get my feet underneath me where you’re concerned. You sit there with that sad smile and you say it’s for the best and yet you don’t seem happy. And I don’t fucking get it. You’re the one who wanted to break up, but you don’t seem happy that we did.”

“I wasn’t,” Anne admits softly. “I’m not.”

“Then why? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for nearly nine years, and all I’ve ever figured out is that you must not have felt anything. And after a week spent here, I don’t know that that’s true. So tell me, why?”

“I did it for you!” Anne finally bursts out, more a plea that a shout. “And I know that sounds like a lie and an excuse, but that’s why. We were so young, but God, I loved you. And you loved me, so much that you were about to throw away your chance at everything, ready to find some lesser school near Kellynch rather than taking Minnesota’s offer just so we’d be closer to each other. And I wanted it too - God, Frederick, you don’t know how much I wanted it, how close I was to letting you do that, because I wanted that too. I wanted you close. I loved you.

“But then… it wasn’t even some big game, but you wanted me there, so I went. And you looked alive out there on the ice, throwing insults and elbows and grinning like a maniac. I realized… that’s who you were supposed to be. I couldn’t hold you back from that, just to keep you close to me. Minnesota was your path to the kind of career that would last. How could I ask you to throw away your future?”

“Why didn’t you just say that? We could have figured something out. Done the long distance thing, I don’t know.”

“And you would have been hopelessly distracted from the start. Your mind would have been halfway across the country when you needed to be focusing on hockey and classes and everything else.”

He doesn’t have any response to that, not that Anne expected one. Frederick has never been great at admitting to things he doesn’t like.

“It was never because I didn’t care enough, because I didn’t love you,” she finishes softly. “I did it because I could see everything you could be, and I love - I loved you too much to let you waste that.” God, Anne hopes he didn’t hear that slip of the tongue, even if it’s true. “We were seventeen, Frederick. Kids. There was so much still ahead for you. I couldn’t be the reason you hindered your own dream, or even let it slip away. And you made it, didn’t you? You’ve reached that dream. No matter what I wanted for myself… I had to. For you, so you could have this.”

“I wanted you more than any dream.” Frederick has practically collapsed in on himself in the armchair, the very same one Anne was occupying when he’d showed up and shattered her quiet little world. It seems almost fitting that he sit there while she does the same. 

There’s no words for this; nothing that could make it better. Telling him I wanted that too won’t fix what’s already been done, even if she wishes that was the case, even if that’s true. “Frederick…” she finally whispers for lack of anything else to say. 

It’s too late, though - though that’s not quite the right phrase, not when it was already too late before this conversation even started, before he even showed up at her door in the snow. Now is just when he pries himself out of her armchair, standing with a finality that’s impossible to miss. “I’m tired, Anne,” he tells her. Anne doesn’t think she imagines an extra level of meaning to his words. “Goodnight.”

There’s nothing left to say - and no use saying it to an empty room anyways as she hears the spare bedroom door click shut down the hall. 

There’s no changing the past, but not enough words to explain it either.

———

The next morning, the roads are finally clear, and Frederick can go back up the road to his own cottage. Anne watches silently as Frederick emerges from the guest bedroom, his duffle bag in hand. The silence only becomes more tense as they stare at each other, the luggage a physical barrier between them, both blessed and cursed. 

“I suppose I should thank you,” Frederick finally says, breaking the silence. 

Anne shakes her head. “It was nothing. Basic kindness. You don’t need to thank me.”

(Can he see the way this pains her? Read the plea in her eyes - for forgiveness, for understanding?)

After another beat of silence, Frederick finally nods decisively, turning towards the door. “Take care, Anne.”

“You too, Frederick.” It feels final; it feels like a farewell, of a permanent kind. 

And then, with a last soft click of the door, he’s gone.

And Anne is left to herself again. 

———

He should feel peace, now that he’s back in his own space, away from Anne and every memory that she’s dredged up.

He doesn’t.

Because now, back alone in the little house at the top of the hill, Frederick once again has to face the particular kind of loneliness that comes with knowing that it doesn’t have to be this way.

What it all circles back to is this: he should feel smug. After all, this is everything he’d wished for in his most bitter moments over the years: Anne, all alone, with no real support system, just living a quiet little life of little note and, to all appearances, little true happiness. 

But it doesn’t feel good - not even remotely. How has he suffered? Sure, he hasn’t had her, but he got drafted, went to a top rate school, wound up playing hockey for a living in the NHL. By any measure, it’s a damn good life - all while Anne has been left to become the shell of herself he found four days ago. 

And that shouldn’t be his problem. Technically, you could argue that she brought this upon herself; dug a hole of her own making. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel… sad, he supposes, to see what she’s resigned herself to. Maybe a little guilty, even. 

And still, he can’t help but feel like there’s questions left unanswered. They’d talked plenty about the past, how they’d felt and why they’d acted the way they had, but that hadn’t touched on where they stand now. If there’s one thing he’s learned in these last few days, it’s that his own feelings aren’t nearly as dormant as he’s tried to convince himself all these years. If there’s any chance Anne might still feel the same… well, he owes it to them both to find out. 

This chapter of their history doesn’t seem quite finished yet, and Frederick knows exactly what he has to do. 

———

This time, she should have expected the knock on the door - social distancing be damned. 

It’s been three days since the storm’s finally stopped - three days since snowplows had cleared everything out, three days since Frederick had left, back to his own little house up the road.

She’d been content by herself for so long - happy with her plants and her books and all the little hobbies that take up her time in the evenings and weekends. Anne had even found a new kind of solitary contentment in the pandemic, discovering tasks to give her days purpose and goals. Frederick was here for a matter of days, not even a week; it’s absurd to think he could change any of that.

And yet somehow, he has.

Because Anne had been… content by herself for so long - not happy, per se, but satisfied - but the house feels empty now without him. Even when they’d barely talked, or were in separate rooms, he’d been there, the energy of another person making the whole house feel full. She’d grown used to him, she supposes; allowed herself to remember, for once, all the reasons she had loved him, and all the dreams she once had had of what a life together could have been like . 

She chose this life - here, in Kellynch, by herself. But for the first time in the only place that’s ever really been hers, she feels not just alone, but lonely. As much as she’s always claimed to like her life, just as it is, there’s no denying that the past days have illuminated all the ways that she’s been lying to herself. She tries to pass the time the same way she always has, but it’s just not the same; she even calls Mary at one point, hoping her sister’s dour moods might be an efficient distraction, but Mary is even more snippy than usual. It’s been days since Anne last called, and her sister feels an outsized outrage about the so-called abandonment; truthfully, Anne hadn’t even noticed it had been a week since her last call. Moreover, she finds that she doesn’t really care about Mary’s bad mood the way she always has, doesn’t feel the need to fix it or blame herself for the outburst. It’s easier just to hang up the phone. 

(Maybe this is the first step in moving on: accepting that you deserve more than you’ve ever settled for. That doesn’t stop the yearning; moving on isn’t the work of a couple days, especially when the man himself has only just exited her life again, and is staying just up the road.)

As if she’s summoned him, tires crunch on the drive outside, heralding his reappearance. It isn’t right, the way her heart lurches with happiness and hope and excitement when she peeks out the window to once again see his SUV, once again see him climbing out in that ridiculous blue hat and shuffle to her front door without once slipping on her icy walk. There’s a sense of déjà vu as Anne draws a deep breath before she opens the door. There’s only so many times she can go through this, be subjected to such a blast from the past, before it will eventually break her. And yet, like a fool, she keeps opening the door. 

“Can we talk?” Frederick asks. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched inwards, but there’s a look in his eyes that Anne is afraid to name. 

(It almost looks tender - almost looks like hope - but it will hurt far worse to be proved wrong if she allows herself to believe that.)

“Of course,” Anne says softly, stepping aside just enough to let him in. It touches a special little bit of her heart to see the way that Frederick carefully knocks the snow off his boots at the threshold as he pulls his hat off his head, trying his best not to track anything in to her rug and floors. It’s such a simple little thing, but it’s care for her home - and, in a way, care for her. More than she ever expected again from Frederick Wentworth. 

“Anne…” he begins, reaching out a hand for her, but she quickly takes a step back. Touch will be too much, too permanent a memory if this is the end. 

“I think we ought to keep a bit of distance,” she explains at his odd look. 

If anything, that only serves to confuse him further, his brow crinkling up in that endearing way she remembers. “We already spent days together. I think social distancing is kind of a lost cause, at least where we’re concerned.”

Anne shakes her head. “It’s not about the virus.”

She can see the moment it hits him, just exactly what she means by distance, as he physically flinches with the realization. She can also see the moment he decides to plow forwards anyways with whatever he came to say. 

“I’ve been thinking, these last couple of days,” he tells her, “and I’ve had a lot of time to consider things. Everything you said and did, the other night and way back when. And I realized… I did a lot of talking about what I wanted, and what I felt. And in the middle of all that shouting, I never asked about what you wanted, or want, or how you felt. And you never told me, because that’s what you’re used to - people not caring enough to ask. That’s on me, and I’m sorry. But —” he swallows heavily, as if he’s forcing down the nerves he evidently feels — “but I’m asking now. I want to know what our break-up meant to you. Because the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to believe you did all this because you didn’t care.”

Anne fights the urge to turn away from Frederick; he deserves that much, after everything. Meeting his eyes is too much to ask, however, and she fixes her gaze instead just over his right shoulder, crossing her arms over her body protectively. “I loved you,” she tells him quietly. “I knew what I had to do, but I loved you. I hated every word that came out of my mouth.” Anne smiles sadly. “You weren’t the only one who wanted. You were the first person - the only person to look at me and see something wonderful and worthwhile, and it killed me to throw that away. I’ve had to live with that ever since.”

“And now?”

Anne turns pleading eyes upon him, sure that every emotion is now splashed across her face and too distraught to care. How dare he do this? How dare he make her speak this into existence if he’s only about to crush it all? “Don’t make me say it,” she begs. 

“Please, Anne.” His voice is nearly as desperate - and that’s, ultimately, what breaks her, leaving the words to spill forth almost without her permission.

“And now… that doesn’t go away, you know. A love as big as that. You got to go be this success story, doubtless had all kinds of… distractions over the years, but when you have a quiet little life like mine, you don’t forget. It doesn’t go away. There’s a large part of my heart that is still yours - probably always will be - and I have to find a way to deal with that.”

“You still love me?”

Anne nods, whispering her response. “I do.”

She suddenly feels his hand trail down her arm, causing Anne to jerk abruptly to meet his eyes again. “Well that’s lucky,” he smiles down at her, achingly gentle, “because I haven’t forgotten either.”

Even as Anne’s heart lurches with hope, she shakes her head. “Don’t tease, Frederick. Don’t be that cruel.”

“I’m not,” he assures her, twining their fingers together. “Because you’re right, I’ve tried to distract myself, but… you have no idea just how unforgettable you are, Anne. How could anyone ever compare? And I tried so hard for so long to move on, to hate you, but I never could. You were a little spark in my heart that I could never quite stamp out. And now…” Frederick pauses as if to gather his breath, squeezing her hand as he does so. “And now, I hope I won’t have to.”

“You’d want that? You’d want to…” Even with new-found hope singing through her veins, Anne still hesitates to finish the sentence. This all feels like a wonderful dream; she’d hate to wake up and discover that’s all it was. 

“To try again?” he finishes. “Yeah. Yeah, I want that. The real question is… do you?”

And she does, she wants that so terribly much, so badly that it aches, even as she hesitates. How could he want that, after everything she’s done? When their separation was her fault in the first place?

“I don’t deserve you,” Anne murmurs into the miniscule space between them, caving to the urge to brush his hair back from his face. It makes him smile, just a little bit, just a twitch of his lips, but that more than anything else sends a flood of peace rushing through her soul. 

“I think we deserve each other,” Frederick tells her in return, his voice almost unbearably soft. “I believe that, and somehow, I’m going to make you believe that too. We deserve this, Annie.”

And he kisses her, like he wants to, like he’s thought about it just as much as she has. His lips are soft against hers - just like she remembers, all those years ago - but there’s a surety to his hands now that wasn’t there before, in the way he pulls at her waist to bring her closer and his fingers thread through her hair with purpose. There’d been a handful of ill-advised attempts at dating in the past eight years, but nothing ever came close to this joyful swooping sensation in her stomach or the feelings of safety and love and home. That’s something only he can manage; something that only exists between the two of them. 

Her hands find their way to his chest as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate, heads adjusting their position to allow tongues to tentatively begin to prod and search. Anne had known the difference 8 years had made on Frederick’s body, had seen with her own two eyes the way he’d filled out with more muscle, but feeling it is something else altogether, even through his shirt where his coat gaps open. It’s a reminder that they’re not the same - they’re older and more mature and have experienced different things than they had at 17. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, change can be good; it’s brought them here, together, at what otherwise feels like the end of the world. 

Even as they break apart - to get a breath of air, to process what just happened - Frederick continues to stroke his thumb across the round of her cheek, like he can’t bear to stop touching her. It warms her heart in a whole new way, like it’s proof that he meant every word he told her - as if she needs any more after that kiss. It would be easy to let herself get swept away on that little touch, perhaps into another wonderful kiss, but Anne forces herself to meet his eyes. 

“Stay.” It’s more than a question, but less than a demand - a plea, the dearest wish of her heart that she’s never admitted, now given voice. 

“For as long as you want me, Annie.” His voice is tender and husky as he smiles down at her. “Because I really don’t want to ever leave you again.”

And that’s awfully lucky, as Anne doesn’t ever intend to let him go again. 

[uncommoncold]

Eyes On You

Summary: Separated by the holidays, Seonghwa and Yeosang share their yearnings through a late night phone call.

Word Count: 2k

Content Warning: Dom Park Seonghwa, Sub Kang Yeosang, Phone Sex, Masturbation

Yeosang checked his phone for perhaps the three hundredth time in the last two hours. Seonghwa was supposed to call him at some point in the evening but he wasn’t sure when. The holidays were killing him, they were taking a two week break and they had all gone home to spend time with their families. Yeosang was in Seoul but Seonghwa’s family lived in the middle of nowhere, Jinju was almost three hours away from Seoul. Before that, he had been with Yunho, Hongjoong, and Jongho in Tokyo. It had been three weeks since he had laid eyes on him and to be honest, he missed him. It was just as simple as that, he missed him. Yes, there was what they did together, what had begun as a slight itch was now driving him crazy.

There was more than that though, he missed his laughter, he missed teasing him, he missed the sparkle in his eye when they shared a moment that only they understood. He missed just knowing that he was in another part of the house or safe in the knowledge that wherever he was, that he would be home soon.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, that was the saying wasn’t it? Seonghwa’s absence seemed to have left a hole in his life and he was struggling to understand why that hole was so much larger than anyone else’s. He missed all of the guys but it seemed as though Seonghwa was all he could think about. Even a trip to the convenience store had him buying things that he thought the man might like.

“Seonghwa…” Yeosang whispered into the quiet of his bedroom in the empty house. Much to his dismay, he didn’t appear but there was a quiet ache in his chest as an answer.

Just then, his phone rang. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, the vibration scared the hell out of him. He looked and saw Seonghwa’s name. He couldn’t stop the smile that slipped over his lips as he thumbed the answer slider and lifted the phone, praying for a video call. His smile widened further as he saw Seonghwa’s smile on the screen. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call.”

“I had to wait for my family to go to sleep. Are you alone?” Seonghwa ran his hand through his damp hair and adjusted himself in the bed, turning off the light. It left him cast only in the bluish glow from his phone’s screen.

“Yeah, I came back to the dorm two days early because my parents were going to my grandparents. I’m the only one here.”

“All alone huh?” Seonghwa gave a mischievous grin.

“Uh-oh.” Yeosang said warily though his cock was already hardening and his heart picked up its tempo a little. He hadn’t even said anything yet. “Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know, should you? It has been a long time since we’ve seen each other and I admit, I’ve been thinking about you…” He bit the edge of his bottom lip and his expression reflected his thoughts. “Have you been thinking about me?”

A shiver traversed Yeosang’s spine, sweet tendrils of molten sugar unraveled in his stomach and reached down to his balls. “Yes… a lot.”

“What have you been thinking about?” His voice dropped a notch and his gaze was intense. He tilted the camera down a little to show him running a hand over his bare chest and stomach.

“I’ve been thinking about how much I miss you.” He swallowed in his suddenly dry throat.

“What have you missed baby?”

“Everything … you touching me, kissing me, using me, hurting me, fucking me.” The amount of times he had made himself cum in the past week made his entire life up to that point pale in comparison.

“Did you make yourself cum?” The camera tilted again, Seonghwa’s hand pressed against his pajama clad cock. Yeosang could see it jump beneath the thin material and gentle pressure.

“A lot… I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He mimicked Seonghwa, dragging his hand down but instead of completing the action, he stopped just shy of his cock. He waited for what he knew was coming.

“Do you want to cum for me now?”

“God yes.” He wanted to cum for Seonghwa so badly. It was one thing to do it for himself but he wanted him to watch. He wanted him to tell him to cum, no to demand for him to cum.

“Take your cock out, I want to see you.”

He flicked a glance up at the door, making sure he locked it. He was home alone but there was no telling whether or not one of the other guys might decide to come home early as well. As long as it wasn’t Wooyoung and as long as it wasn’t any time soon, he didn’t really care. He just needed this. He tilted his phone down, showing himself slipping his hand into his pajama pants and pulling them down just enough to expose his acutely hard cock and his balls.

“You said you came a lot, show me how and tell me what you’ve been thinking about. I want to cum with you.” The screen showed Seonghwa’s long elegant fingers wrapping around his familiar length.

Yeosang’s mouth watered as he imagined wrapping his lips around him, “I wish I could taste you. I miss you fucking my face, forcing my head down onto your cock, fucking my throat.”

“Oh fuck baby… Show me.”

Yeosang fumbled putting his phone on the bedside table and angling it so both his face and his cock could be seen. “Do you want me to stroke my cock?”

“I want you to stroke your cock, I want you to fucking cum for me and then I want to watch you lick every last drop from your fingers, pretending its mine you’re licking up.” Seonghwa fucked against his hand. He wanted to go slow but being at home, he had to keep it quiet and his physical need contradicted his mental desire. He wanted to see Yeosang squirming, wanting desperately to cum but for now, he was sure he was the one who was desperate. Hungrily he watched as Yeosang’s hand expertly caressed and stroked. One of his hands cradled his balls and manipulated them as he stroked.

Seonghwa’s head fell back, his skin beginning to glisten in the glowing light of his phone. Yeosang was gorgeous, the way the muscles in his arm flexed, the set of his jaw, the expression on his face. He took in every last inch of him, “You’re going to make me cum baby.”

Yeosang whimpered and jerked inward, doing his best to make sure that his lover could see him. He wanted to make him cum so badly, “I want to cum for you, it’s been so long. Please …”

“Cum for me, Yeosang.” He fought to get the last words out as his balls tightened and pleasure ricocheted through him. “You- fuck, I’m cumming.”

That was all he could take. He couldn’t help the yelp that slipped past his lips as he came. It felt as if he hadn’t cum in months and was almost painful in its intensity. “Seo-Seonghwa.” His breathing came in short sharp gasps as his seed shot up over his still pumping fist, over his stomach and nearly up to his chin. He didn’t wait for his spasms to subside, he did as he had been told and lifted his hand to his lips and licked up every drop. Behind his tightly closed eyes, he imagined licking his lover’s cum from his cock.

Seonghwa groaned as he watched, “You are so sexy…I want, god it’s not fair I can’t touch you right now.”

“I want you to touch me, I wish you were here. I miss you.” His heart squeezed painfully in his chest and he swallowed against the tightness in his throat. Was he going on a little too much? He didn’t want Seonghwa to think he was being clingy or anything. “I - I’m sorry.”  

A strange but sweet little smile quirked Seonghwa’s lips as he searched Yeosang’s face on the screen. He still had no idea… Well he wouldn’t rush him. They had all of the time in the world for him to figure it out. “Don’t apologize. I miss you too.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to get any time when everyone comes home?” He had a surprise for Seonghwa. There were times when the house was absolutely bedlam and he just wanted to get away. He had rented a small apartment, just to get some time to himself now and again. It would be a perfect place for them to spend time together. It still required time to be able to sneak away to use it. In truth, it would be a relief just to have him near again, whether they could sneak off or not.

Seonghwa sighed heavily, their schedule was pretty packed when they came back from holiday. Maybe he could leave a day early … his parents would want an excuse though. It wasn’t as if he could go home whenever he wanted. “I don’t know.” Yeosang looked gutted and his heart dropped. “Oh baby, don’t look so broken-hearted. We’ll work something out - even if we have to sneak out after everyone is asleep. We’ll manage some time together.”

He startled, he didn’t realize he had looked broken-hearted. He shook himself and offered his lover a smile. He knew that one of the things he missed most was Seonghwa’s smile. If Seonghwa felt at all the same, he wanted him to take that picture of his lover’s smile into his dreams. “I’m fine, we’ll work something out.”

There was a sound somewhere in the house, Seonghwa got still and listened. It sounded like his father moving around. He had a heavy tread. “Listen, I wish I could stay on longer but I need to go.” There was something he wanted to tell him but he didn’t dare, not now. Not yet. “Sleep well, alright? I’ll see you Sunday.”

“Okay, you too. Goodnight.” Yeosang watched the screen after the picture was gone and until the screen went dark. Sunday felt like it was a century away instead of a few days. Two more days… two more days until he could see Seonghwa again. Who knew, maybe they could sneak in another call before then.

Other stories can be found on my Master List.

[a-detraque-barista]

Serendipity

Yandere Demon Jimin x Depressed Reader

Genre: Yandere, Fluff, Angst

WARNINGS: mention of depression

Word Count: 2k

A/N: THIS IS THE ORIGINAL WORK, ALL OTHERS YOU FIND HAVE BEEN STOLEN!!! I am not joking. I just updated this today cause I found out some disgusting people have decided to steal my work and post it on their blogs.

Summary: The only person to have noticed you and your nonexistent emotions is a demon that’s absolutely crazy about you.

The soft, gentle music echoed through the empty street. It was well past midnight. You stopped walking once the luring sound reached your ears. You've heard it before. Every night you have cried yourself to sleep and every night the music and beautiful voice comforted you. 

You supposed it was about that time, when you would be lying in your uncomfortable bed, regretting all the lousy decisions you made. All of your failures and mistakes coming to mind and tearing your already broken heart apart.

Today your boss decided to leave early while you had to stay and close the bar. You were a bartender at one of the most popular bars in the city. The pay was shit and drunk people tended to be stingy with tips. It also doesn’t help that there were always those sleaze bags that think they can get in your pants by either giving generous tips (which was rare) or by acting “seductive”.

It was Tuesday so the bar closed at 1 am instead of 3 am like during the weekends.

You had thought the music was only your imagination. Something that comforted you as you choked on sobs. So you wondered, how are you able to hear the lullaby that soothed you into a deep slumber every night?

Looking around you saw nothing but an empty street and dark buildings. Yet, the music continued. The calming melody has you moving toward the source. It was the opposite direction you wanted to go. But no matter how hard you tried to at least stop, nothing worked. You were led to an alley that was known for where people went missing.

However, you weren’t scared. Your legs finally stopped. Scanning the alleyway carefully you caught a glimpse of movement. You waited to catch something move from one end to the other. You were going to turn around and head home until the familiar melody began to play as two red eyes glowed.

A light hanging from the wall above turned on. You could make out the silhouette of a man but the light was behind the stranger so his face couldn’t be seen.

You’re my penicillium, saving me, saving me

My angel, my world

I’m your calico cat, here to see you

Love me now, touch me now

The lyrics were touching. You began to think of the meaning behind them when you heard breathing close to you. Raising your eyes they met with bright crimson orbs, not even two feet away from you.

He was just at the edge of where the light ended and darkness began. 

“Do you like the song?” you expected a deep and growling voice but all you heard was a voice that was smooth and sweet.

“I do,” you replied.

“I’m glad. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“You were worried about what I thought of it? Why? It’s not my song,” you spoke as though he was an ordinary person.

“Of course I was worried. I made the song for you,” pearly white teeth shone with his glowing eyes like an invisible Cheshire cat.

“You did?”

“Yup.”

Your eyes widened and lips parted. It was the most expression your features had looked in months.

The crimson eyes widened as well, “You haven’t shown any emotion on your face in so long.”

He noticed. “You noticed?”

“How could I not?” he asked.

You didn’t know how to respond. A non-human creature has paid more attention to you than your supposed friends. Your parents haven’t even called or texted to check up on you. But you see them post dumb events and rants on social media every day.

“If you’ve gone through this much trouble to get my attention then you must want something,” you concluded.

The man seemingly tilted his head and stayed silent as if he was thinking of the right words to say. Because saying he wanted nothing in return would be a lie.

“I want you,” his neck straightened. “I want you to be with me.”

“Like date you? Or just be around you?” you wanted to clarify before you started to overthink.

“I would prefer if, as you humans say, date me. But if you’re not ready for that yet then I’m willing to wait.”

You began to think of the pros and cons. The con was that he might torture you but you thought of so many pros. You won’t have to bartend, won’t have to push yourself to get out of bed every day, you won’t be so lonely, etc.

Nodding your head with absolute resolve, you stepped closer to the edge of the entryway. You were on the light side and he was on the dark.

“One more step, my angel,” he said as he took a step back to give you room. Holding out his hand so it was just barely in the light.

You took his hand and stepped over the line.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

You hesitated but did as you were told. Feeling a gust of strong wind blow all around you, you squeezed your eyes tighter.

The ground was no longer uneven and there was more light compared to the alley but it was still dim. The man was still holding your hand when he pulled you into a tight embrace, “I’ve waited for so long to finally have you in my arms.”

You thought it was a little strange why he was hugging you. But the relief and sorrow in his voice convinced you to hug him back.

“Can you at least tell me your name?” you asked.

He pulled back only a few inches so he could keep you in his arms. The man’s eyes were no longer red, but a dark brown. He seemed surprised before he smiled, “My name’s Jimin.”

His smile made you feel...warm and fuzzy. You can’t remember the last time you felt like this. Hearing a gasp you looked up at Jimin.

“You feel warm,” it wasn’t a question.

“How can you tell?” you were confused.

Jimin blushed before he stuttered, “I-I uh, suppose now is the time to explain everything.” He lead you to the plushest couch you have ever seen. Once he sat down, he pulled you with him.

“I’m sure you’ve realized that I’m not human,” you nodded and listened intently. “I’m, well, I am what you would call a demon,” he watched for your reaction but got nothing, so he continued.

“Unlike other demons, I can sense the emotions of both humans and immortals. One day, I was roaming the streets, in the human world, late at night being careful not to step into the path of street lights. I was just about to pass a bar that was loud and had countless people stumbling out as more entered. Luckily, I had to wait for people to pass so I wouldn’t step into a stream of light when I saw you come out. You weren’t drunk nor with someone so I was curious. Even more so when I sensed no emotions from you whatsoever. So I ended up following you home to finally feel what you were feeling. And all I felt was hurt,” when he finished his explanation his eyes slowly drifted to you to watch your reaction.

“And you’ve been watching me ever since?” you questioned.

He nodded. After a minute of looking for any feeling at all, Jimin felt flattery. You were flattered by what he was doing.

Jimin reached out for your hand but paused. He was scared of you rejecting him. Taking the chance, he gently grabbed your hand and held it. When you didn’t pull your hand away, he let out the breath he was holding.

“This is crazy but,” you brought your eyes from the expensive-looking coffee table to Jimin’s dark chocolate ones. “I feel warm and happy?”

Jimin smiled so wide his eyes turned into crescent moons, “It’s not crazy. I want to make you feel happy all the time. Will you let me?”

It could’ve been the fact that you yearned for the attention that had you say yes to the cute demon that yearned for your attention, and yours only.

_________________________________

After that night, Jimin kept his word. He did everything he could to make you happy. From cuddling you to getting you gifts that made you feel guilty. It was sweet of him to spoil you but he wouldn’t let you do anything in return. You tried to go buy him something with the little cash you had in your purse but he stopped you. Claiming it was dangerous for a human to go out in the demon world by themselves. When you explained why you wanted to go out he said not to waste your money on him.

When you said he shouldn’t waste his money on you either he insisted it wasn’t wasting money.

He sensed your irritation and went quiet. Jimin was brought to tears and started begging for forgiveness. You hugged and comforted him. After that, he never bought you anything you didn’t want and what you did want he didn’t get without you asking him for it.

Since you couldn’t go out you repaid Jimin by cooking, which he didn’t want you to do at first, but he let you anyway. Every week the two of you clean the house together before having movies and food sent to the house.

Jimin rarely went outside. The only time he did was when he would take you out behind the house to spend time in the garden.

He hated being without you for five minutes. But you didn’t mind. You had thought to have someone as clingy as Jimin was around would be a nuisance. However, you came to love all the attention and affection Jimin was more than happy to give you.

Slowly but surely, you reciprocated his affection. You were always nervous to make him uncomfortable so you were on the timid side of initiating things like hugs and cuddling.

Now, it has been six months since you started living with Jimin. You thought everything was going great but today, you couldn’t help but notice how Jimin’s smile never reached his eyes.

“What’s wrong, chim?” you were genuinely concerned as you played with his hair.

“I was thinking last night and-” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “I get the feeling that you don’t love me.”

“Of course I love you! Why would you think I don’t?” you sat up from your laid back position on the couch.

“But not in the way that I love you. And it’s like you never want to touch me cause you want to but only cause I want you to,” tears began to slowly stream down his face.

You had to think of a way to explain it to him, “Jimin, I love to give you all the affection that you want. I love all the affection you give me as well. If I seem like I don’t enjoy it, it’s because I’m nervous. I’m not used to receiving or giving it. I’m sorry.”

Jimin sniffled as he listened to what you said. He thinks he understands now, “Don’t apologize. I was crying over something that I misunderstood. I’m just glad to know that you at least like me,” his beautiful eye smile stretched across his face, at last.

You were scared to confess, scared of being rejected by Jimin even though he loves you too, and scared that he’ll make fun of you. It’s just how your anxiety-filled mind worked. But you did it anyway, “I love you.”

“What?” Jimin couldn’t believe what you had said.

“I don’t like you, I love you,” you whispered the last part but he still heard it, crystal clear.

A beat went by, two beats, three. You were about to panic and spew nonsense when Jimin tackled you to the couch.

“I’m so happy! I love you too!” his excitement took over as he kissed you for the first time.

He pulled away with his eyes wide, surprised at himself for what he just did. Not even a second later, Jimin’s eyes became dark. Even darker than the deep brown they always were, almost black.

He leaned in once again but stopped so your lips were brushing against each other as he spoke, “You’re mine, forever.”

[cynicalwonders]

Meanwhile we step back to when Akuma happen. Where was chat Noir? It might be the fact that it was becoming increasingly common to see LB fight crime outside Akuma attacks, w/o her partner and this left many speculations. Only the thing being if there was any drama going on Chat would keep appearing to fight besides LB and preferably going solo. There were theories and rumors but it didn't stop the duo. Yet, it goes without saying there was tension between them.

Adrien was – no, is – a coward. That's the only way he candescribe himself.

A coward for refusing to stand up for to his father. Acoward for letting Chloe use him and bully others without consequences. Forletting Lila lie and manipulate his classmates. For telling Marinette to stayquiet and not do anything.

And most importantly: he's a coward for failing to be therefor Ladybug when she needed him the most.

Although it was always Ladybug AND Chat Noir, the ‘and ChatNoir' part has slowly but surely been disappearing from the public's mind.Ladybug became more serious with her duties as protector of Paris in the pastfew weeks. More and more sightings have been popping up on social media ascitizens saw their heroine at every hour of the day, not just when akumasattacks. Questions, speculations, and theories flooded the Ladyblog on whyLadybug was so active. Was she close to finding Hawk Moth? Was she doing anafternoon patrol and a night patrol? Was she branching out to stop other crimesthat weren't akuma-related?

Yet no one questioned where her feline partner was.

When is first started, Adrien waved it off. Of course,everyone was going crazy about Ladybug. Who wouldn't? He'd just wave it off assomething she was doing during the day or maybe she wanted some escape from hernormal life. Adrien did that plenty of times. Plus that was more time he couldspend with his Lady without the threat of some crazy villain trying to taketheir Miraculous. And for a while, it was great! They hung out more and he feltlike they were getting closer, not romantically but he was fine with that forthe moment.

Then – like most good things – it took a dark twist.

People started to question where Chat Noir was. ‘Finally!'he thought. ‘They were finally noticing!' But then commenters startedtheorizing that maybe he and Ladybug had a fight. Okay, that wasn't too bad.Not true, but nothing to worry about. Until people started questioning hisloyalty to Ladybug and his skills as her partner. Some even went as far asbashing him online, noting that he was a useless hero as he always got hurt,hypnotized or used by an akuma while Ladybug was forced to do more work.

That stung.

Chat Noir told Ladybug about the comments but she just toldhim to ignore them, that there were always going to be criticism and hatefulpeople trying to bring them down. He himself should know as Adrien Agrestealways got criticism for everything he did – from modeling to his lessons,anything less than perfect was subject to scolding and harsher teachings. Thisshouldn't have been different and yet…

Chat Noir represented freedom to Adrien. Freedom from hisfather and his cold gaze, from the judging eye of the camera, from theever-increasing drama that was unfolding in his school. Without Plagg and his Miraculous,he wasn't sure if he could even remain happy in his current situation. And itwasn't like anything bad was happening. So what if Ladybug was showing up morepublically? That wasn't a bad thing, right?

Wrong. Because despite the mask and her usual upbeat charm,he could spot the underlining bag under her lovely blue eyes, the slight gaspshe had when they met up, the slump on her back when he ended a patrol. Atfirst, he said nothing. She was Ladybug, she could handle herself. But itstarted getting more noticeable, especially when akumas showed up and the fighttook more out of her than it did him. Chat Noir tried to gently dissuade her,get her to cut back on her patrol as there was clearly no need for such anincrease. But she was stubborn, fought back, snapped at him every time hebrought it up. Once screeching at him after a battle to leave her alone.

Soon they were fighting each other as well as the akumas. Itdidn't help when passersby started taping their fights and putting them online,allowing everyone and their grandmother to put in their two cents. Adrienwasn't even going to attempt to sugarcoat it, their partnership becamestrained. Rarely talking if it didn't involve a plan to take down an akuma, hisjokes were ignored and every little thing seemed to piss off his Lady.

What was a cat to do in such a situation?

Ignore it. That was he thought was the best course ofaction. Ignore it, give her space and maybe she'll calm down and see how sillyshe was being. Besides, he couldn't handle any more drama in his life. Not withthe whole Lila VS Marinette going on at his school. Adrien stilled tried to getMarinette to ignored Lila but she, like his Lady, refused to give in and whenout of her way to expose Lila. Honestly, he was ashamed that Marinette didn'ttake his advice. Exposing people never did anything good and Lila was going tobecome another akuma that he was going to have to take down.

So Adrien ignored it.

Ignored the drama in the class and ignored his Lady.

Ignored the growing concern for both girls

Ignored the vile rumors swirling around them both.

Rumors didn't mean anything, they'd died down eventually.

They'd both come to their senses.

All it took was some time.

And with that, Adrien was content to wait out the storm andhave everything go back to normal. Marinette would finally give up and seeLila's lies were harmless. Ladybug would stop being so uptight and relax. Theonline rumors and criticism then follow suit and disappear and things will goback to the way they were. Adrien was confident in that.

Then Juno happened.

Marinette hadn't come back from the break when the alarmsounded. Alya, being the sneaky reporter she was, managed to escape before theteacher closed the door, sealing the rest of the class in. Adrien started panicking,instinctually trying to find a way out. But then a part of him – the cynical,petty part of him – told him to give up, that there was no way he could get outwith raising suspicion. Plus, did Ladybug really need him? After their fight,did she really want to see him? Did he want to see her?

Without thinking, he sat back down in his seat.

A few minutes later and the Ladyblog began live streamingthe battle. Lila started crying on how Juno was her mother and how Ladybug musthave caused her akumatization due to her bullying her. People started rallyingaround her, bashing Ladybug on the comment section and getting into fights withloyal fans. Adrien paid no mind to that and was solely focused on the fight.

Ladybug looked overwhelmed. Tired. Desperate. Part of himfelt smug like Ladybug was getting her comeuppance for her arrogance. Or maybeit the endless rejections she gave that made him feel that way. Another yearnedto escape and help her. Despite the bitter note, she left him, he still lovedher. Plagg was scratching him under the collar, hissing at him to get a moveon.

"Something bad is going to happen, kid," hewarned. "I can feel it in my whiskers. We got to get out of…"

Rose's screaming cut him off.

Glaring back at him was a scene of Juno plunging her swordinto Ladybug's chest. Adrien was never a fan of gore or anything that remotelyhorrific. But seeing his Ladybug stabbed, her face frozen in abject shock andhorror, it didn't seem real. Then Ladybug opened her mouth and blood spilled outand suddenly time started going fast forward.

People – namely his classmates – started screeching.Garbled, unintelligible shrieks echoed throughout the room, deafening theteacher's unsuccessful attempts to calm the hysterics. Soon the entire buildingwas filling with similar screams and cries along with all of Paris. Adrien feltlike he couldn't breathe, his knuckle whiten as the screen on his phone focusin on Ladybug's bloody and terrified face.

Then the familiar beeping cut through the screams.

Everyone's eyes turned back to their phones.

Ladybug was gone.

Instead, Marinette was the one impaled on Juno's sword.

Whatever happened next was shrouded in Adrien's mind. All hecould remember was blacking out, then finding himself atop a building as ChatNoir, looking over the chaotic scene that was taking place. Marinette wasalready gone, no doubt taken by the ambulance that had just speed out of thestreet, leaving only a sizable red spot in the center.

Why he didn't chase after the ambulance was anyone's guess.Maybe he was still in shock? Maybe he was afraid to see how dire her situationwas? Maybe he felt like he had no right to see her after this? He had abandonedhis Lady, his partner, his classmate, his friend…

Did he even deserve to call her that?

Clawing at his chest, he felt the organ beat heavily insidehim. Marinette. Ladybug. The two people who he had respected, cared for, whocared for him, were one and the same. Marinette with her endless kindness, hercourage, her talent, and inspiration. Ladybug, Paris's heroine, their savior,their martyr, someone who would willingly give her life if it meant that Pariswas safe for another day. Two different characters were one and the same,giving her life to protect everyone around them

And he abandoned her in her time of need.

Plagg released the transformation after some time on theroof. Adrien stared on, absolute nothingness reflected in his eyes. "Comeon, kid," the kwami begged. "We need to get out of here! Weneed…"

"To come with me."

Adrien turned his head sharply. Standing behind him, hisentrance went unnoticed by him, an elderly withered Asian man in a Hawaiianshirt. Before he could say anything, Plagg beat him to the punch. "MasterFu! Ladybug was…"

"I know," Master Fu looked gravely. "We donot have much time to lose. Come with me, Chat Noir. I have something thatcould save Ladybug."

"Save? What do you mean?" Adrien looked at the manin confusion. "Wouldn't the hospital…"

"Hospital cannot save her from the real dangerinside." Master Fu turned and headed towards the exit. "Come, ChatNoir. Or do you wish to fail Ladybug a second time?"

Adrien needed no other words after that.

The vial he gave the feline hero glowed ominously as heraced towards the hospital. Master Fu didn't go into much detail about theillness Marinette would be suffering, or how this potion would help her. Butthe instruction was clear: put the potion into Marinette's IV bag and she wouldbe fine. He prayed to any and all deities that exist for this to be true. Newsof Marinette's successful surgery but the inability to wake up spread throughthe internet like wildfire. Crowds of fans and grateful citizens were huddledaround the medical building waiting for more news.

He took a deep breath, steady his nerves and prepared tomake a leap towards the hospital's roof before he nearly tripped himself asscreams from the crowd startled him. Glancing down, he scanned the area lookingany sign of danger and origin of the screams. He found none yet the screamscontinued to grow until their screams become one and the message was sent out.

Marinette – Ladybug – had gone missing.

Again, Adrien had failed his partner.

Paris went into a full-blown panic. How could this havehappened?! Fans and police officials surrounded the hospital both day andnight. At first, they believed it was a hoax – some fame-hungry journaliststarted a crisis to drum up news – but it soon became real when the nurses anddoctors calling in nearby officers and putting the entire building on lockdown.

Chat Noir tried getting into the building but Officer Rogersforbid him to. Stating they couldn't have kids running around while a missingperson's case was emerging. The blonde looked at him in shock; did he notrealize that he was Chat Noir?! Ladybug's partner?! But the older man stayedfirm and told him to go home and that kids shouldn't dealing with adultmatters.

"We already failed in one regard," Chat heard theman muttering under his breath, glancing at the hospital room #7.

Journalist and reporters jumped him as he was escorted outthe building, bombarding him with questions on where Ladybug was, was helooking for her, and – the cruelest of all – why wasn't he there when Junoattacked. Too much. Everything was too much. And like the coward he was, heran. Launching himself away from the crowd onto a nearby rooftop and fleeing.He didn't care what the public thought of him anymore, not when the only personwhoever cared about him was gone.

As if his luck couldn't get any worse, once he got home, hisfather put him under lockdown. "Your hero got fatally stabbed and is nowmissing. Not to mention the psychopathic akuma is still running around doinggod knows what," Gabriel reasoned. "Paris is in a panic and thestreets are running mad with the masses. I refuse to see you get hurt in thischaos. Until the matter is resolved, you are under no circumstances leavingthis house."

He opened his mouth to argue but one look from his fatherquickly shut him down. Plagg encouraged him to sneak out, to Cataclysm the barson the window but the blonde couldn't bring himself to do it. Not with hisfather, Nathalie, and Gorilla all making rounds around the manor. Even now,with someone so dear to him gone, Adrien still couldn't' bring himself todisobey his father and fight for his own freedom.

Days went by with no word. News reports kept circlingbetween regular news and the search for Marinette Dupain-Cheng AKA Ladybug. Sofar, there were no leads, no suspects, nothing. Online was a clusterfuck oftheories, speculations, and rants on who or what could have happened toMarinette. Theories ranging from she ran away, memory loss, kidnapping by somesecret society or some religious cult and one group that fully believed thatHawk Moth stole her after her identity was revealed on the Ladyblog.

Speaking of the Ladyblog, nothing had been posted since theinfamous live stream, only the forum had become overrun with rabid fans.According to Nino, who had been his only link to the outside world, Alya had gonethrough a bit of breakdown since the incident. Going from a sobbing mess to araging inferno about the entire situation. At first, the reporter tried to getinto the hospital during Marinette's surgery; doing everything she can to be byher friend's side to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to repair theirfragmented friendship. When that went nowhere, Alya's grief turned to rage asshe set off to find the person that caused all this damage.

But surprise, surprise – Lila suddenly went missing too.

As did Juno. Police were split between searching for themissing comatose teenage superhero to finding the rogue akuma – if she wasstill an akuma and Hawk Moth didn't release it – and her daughter. The newsthrew Alya into a frenzy, tearing her room apart and smashing any tapes orphotos that had even a trace of the Italian girl in them. Thankfully Ninocalmed her down before her parents thought of sending her to a psychiatric wardfor her breakdown.

Things weren't much better with the other students. Guilt, sadness,and grief suffocated them like a viper. Some of the more stable, stronger oneslike Ivan and Alix kept their composer but you could still see the weight oftheir mourning on their faces. The more sensitive ones like Rose and Mylenecouldn't hide their feelings as well, tear tracks with red eyes were a constantfeature. M. Bustier didn't fare much better as the school forced her to have amental leave for obvious reasons.

Strangely enough, the only levelheaded person in the classwas Chloe! After the incident and the shock had worn off, the blonde girlstormed off into the direction of the bakery, went straight into Marinette'sroom and started going through her things. Alya and the rest of the class werefurious, screaming at her and asking what possessed her to do something soinsensitive. Chloe wasted no time explaining.

"Marinette is Ladybug! And she chose who got to beQueen Bee, Rena Rouge, and Carapace," she answered. "That means shehas access to the Miraculous. I'm not going to lie, I was horrible toMarinette, a straight up bitch. But I'll be damned if I let something happen tothe one person who actually saw something good in me! And to do that, I need myMiraculous! I need Pollen!"

Adrien and the rest of the students were shocked to hearsuch a statement coming from Chloe. What was even stranger to Adrien was thatNino and Alya were helping Chloe find her Miraculous! And just like that, Ninoleft Adrien hanging. No more text, no more updates. The only thing he got was amessage saying ‘helping Alya + Chloefind the miraculous' and that was it.

Plagg tried desperately to move his butt and get out thereand search for Marinette, but he couldn't. He wanted to, but his wallowing inself-pity, doubt and guilt kept sucking him back in.  This was all his fault. If he had just beenbraver. If he had actually stood up for himself. If he just, for once in hislife, fought for what was right instead of listening to his fault and kept hismouth shut then none of this would have happened.

It was only when he spotted Chloe as Queen Bee running therooftops with Rena Rouge and Carapace that Adrien finally snapped out of it.That and Plagg biting down on his fingers. After suiting up and destroying thebars, the feline hero escaped his room and ran after the trio. He had failedMarinette too many times with his selfishness and pacifism. Even if she neverforgave him and hated him for the rest of her life, the least he could do wasbring her back home.

He owed her that much.

[flying-elliska]

HS Reunion AU pt. 3/?

Heyyy I know we thrive on pain here ^^ but if you want a break maybe for a minute, here’s some more incredibly wish-fulfill-y fluff. They’re all thriving adults (for the most part), the reunion starts and Daphne has a surprise ! 

SAMEDI 17:44 

The day of the reunion dawns bright and sunny. They’ve just spent a lazy morning in bed, enjoying each other, only getting up after noon. Lucas promised his husband that this time would be for them, so he kept his itching fingers away from any keyboards or screens. Eliott made crepes with melted chocolate, deliciously decadent. They curled up together on their big couch, read, watched a weird documentary about deminer rats, and rearranged their utility closet. Lucas's still surprised about all the things they’d managed to lose in there, including four different brooms, one of Eliott’s best lenses hidden in an empty cereal box (why), a bag of onions that had taken on a life of their own, and an album of honeymoon photos they’d completely forgotten existed, maybe because it was the one where they both sported completely sunburnt noses after going off trail for a week in Nepal and looked like a pair of molting lobsters. 

The reunion is at 18. They will be having dinner in the old foyer, before going to party on a rented boat on the Seine. Lucas parks the car a few blocks away. He really wants them to have a little time to breathe and enjoy the sun before the madness starts.

It's a gorgeous early summer day, with a little breeze deflecting the heat and sunlight glittering on the water. It’s incredibly thrilling still for some reason, walking hand in hand with his husband along the Canal St Martin, this close to their old school.

Eliott can’t stop grinning at him either. He looks like a vision in his tight black turtleneck, camel longcoat swung over his shoulder, hair as wild as ever. His eyes are intense and full on mischievous, in a way that really does something to Lucas’ underbelly feelings. 

“Hey, so...things are heating up between you and that girl Chloe, huh ?” 

Lucas rolls his eyes. Of course he would go there, the asshole. 

“Yeah, she’s incredible. Woman of my life. Might ask her to marry me in the fall. I always wanted a honeymoon in Bali” 

“Bali, hm ? That’s cute. Are you sure she’s the one, though ?”

“Yes absolutely. She ticks all my boxes ! I mean, she’s such a ...female woman !  She even has breasts and everything ! I think. It’s amazing. Everything I need right there.” 

Eliott laughs out loud. Lucas loves that sound more than anything else in the world, and the fact that they can joke easy now about their earlier jealousies and mistakes feels very healing. 

“Love at first sight, then.” 

“Oh you know how it is, girl bumps into boy once, it must be true love.” 

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Are you talking about yourself now ?”

Eliott raises his eyebrows in a way that makes Lucas blush, then stops and pulls him closer, until their noses almost touch.

“I don’t know, do you have any boxes left for me to tick ? Or are you all ticked out ? Are you sure your boxes are being ticked appropriately ?” 

“Oh, okay, we’re playing it like that, dirty talk in the street ? I don’t remember that part.”

“Why don’t we make up for lost time ?”

“Wait, don’t you have an imaginary girlfriend, too ?”

“Nah. I’m not even playing at that.”

“Well then, you can tick my boxes anytime.”

Eliott smiles and wraps his arms around Lucas’ head, drawing him into a passionate kiss, unhurried and slow, that tastes like minty toothpaste and cigarettes. They have all the time in the world. Lucas thinks of his teenage self, who’d yearned for this so fervently even as the idea of holding another man’s hand in the street terrified him, and he kind of wants to do a victory dance on the spot. 

A few seconds or maybe minutes later, someone coughs loudly next to them. History repeats, apparently, but thankfully with better timing. 

“Well, I see you two are still as disgustingly in love as ever.” 

Emma is standing in front of them, an amused expression on her face. She looks good, if a little jet lagged - hair in a pixie cut, tanned, bag slung over her shoulder, looking as carefree and adventurous as ever. Lucas moves to hug her as if they’d last seen each other last week. 

“Glad to see you made it.”

“Daphne would have reached across two entire oceans to kick my ass if I didn’t. And you know, I figured my family might like to see me, accessorily. And you, still can’t get you past the Périphérique, I see ?” 

“That’s a gross overexaggeration. We toured half the world for our honeymoon.” 

“And let me guess, you’ve been shackled to your desks ever since ? Well, at least you’re rocking the “just rose from my coffin” look together.” 

“Oh, sorry, not all of us want to look like Australian beef jerky.”

They fall easily into bickering the rest of the way, insulting each other in a friendly manner. It really is like old times. The place hasn’t changed much, except for a lot more vegetation in the courtyard. Seeing it evokes a tangled knot of complicated feelings in him. They haven’t been back since graduation, really. When they’ve reached the gate, Eliott holds Lucas back for a moment, taking both his hands. Lucas can feel his husband is nervous. 

“You know, say the magic word and we’re out of there in a second, okay ?” 

Eliott leans forward muffles his laugh in Lucas’ collar. 

“How is this worse than Cannes, seriously ?"

"I almost wish there were paparazzi now, as distraction."

"Let's pretend there are and put our game faces on, then."

Eliott laughs again and ruffles through Lucas' hair, who protests but lets him do it. He always does.

From across the courtyard, he sees Manon come toward them. 

She looks better than the last time he saw her, when she was fresh from her breakup with some hotshot war reporter. He loves this woman, truly, that's his sister right there, but god he wishes for her own sake she’d grow out of her taste for passionate, moody assholes. And it's not the first time, nor the last, he feels he will have to help her pick up the pieces. But that's okay. She's always been there in his most difficult times.

And now she's there, standing tall, wrapped in a designer coat, rocking her signature red lipstick even though there are bags under her eyes and he knows this is the look she wears when she's pretending to be okay. He realizes then one of his goals tonight will be to make sure nobody bothers her about her love life. She's an amazingly accomplished woman. That's all anybody needs to know.

Eliott gives her an extra long hug. Those are the best thing in the world, and his husband has always been intuitive about these things. Good.

Together, they move towards the foyer.

Their old haunt is completely gone - the mural, their ratty old couch, all the things they'd painstakingly gathered together. The space has been merged with another room and is twice as large. Then again, it makes it possible to fit in enough tables, which might not have been possible back then. Their old beat down furniture has been cleared to make room for lush greenery and designer sofas, uncannily clean for a high school. It's been lavishly decorated too, with a banner, pastel streamers and golden balloons. In front of the window there is a buffet full of all sorts of drinks, salads and cakes. It's definitely too much for this type of occasion but then again. Daphne. 

When they enter the room, heads turn, and the gazes aimed their way are a bit too curious and insistent for his taste.  Well, they did end up being one of the most dramatic squads in their year, in the end, it was to be expected but...It’d better be admiration for his on-his-way to famous husband, and nothing else, because if he’s grown out of one thing, it’s suffering fools. He feels both Eliott and Manon’s grip on his arms tighten. 

A very enthusiastic Daphne appears out of thin air in front of them, as if on wheels. She looks like she stepped out of the pages of a magazine, baby blue dress, hair carefully plaited with little glass flowers, as peppy as ever. She welcomes them, kisses all of their cheeks and then directs them to their table, where they find little calligraphied tags to their names in the plates, before storming off again.

Their table is already half-full. Arthur is there, in a crisp suit, accompanied by a posh, bored looking brunette. He is pointedly not talking to Basile, sitting next to him. Lucas sighs internally. He'd really hoped that was over. Basile is accompanied by a vaguely bird-faced woman, who is wearing the exact same disastrous color scheme as him, brown and bright green and red. And then there's Imane, looking impeccable in her deep red scarf and elegant black dress, and her husband Yousef, in deep conversation. Finally, to round it off, there's two random people Lucas already feels sorry for.

They all greet each other. It's a little awkward. He's happy seeing Imane and Yousef though. It's been a while, what with their little daughter and Imane's company getting off the ground and his own crazy schedule.

Lucas gets a text from Yann saying he's going to be late. Basile launches into an explanation of his latest crowdfunding project, something about an app and cryptocurrency that barely registers. The room slowly fills up. Arthur talks about his family company's ventures into the South Asian market. Lucas slowly starts feeling like he wants to jump into the Seine. He didn't come here to witness how boring his friends have become and how adulthood is descending on them to make them into pre-mummified copies of their parents. He thinks he'd almost rather go back to hear college age Basile brag about all his conquests in graphic detail. Almost. And he can feel his husband tensing up next to him; he knows how much Eliott hates speaking about his work archievements, that it always feels like bragging to him, that he wants the work to talk for itself.

Thankfully, this is the moment Alexia chooses to make her entrance. Far from toning herself down, she's only become more colorful and boisterous over the years. Hair bubblegum pink, in a dress marked with a giant golden thunderbolt, she makes all heads turn in her direction. Lucas used to think she was a little obnoxious, to be honest, but she's like a breath of fresh air now. She plops into a chair at their table and immediately launches a debate about the worst part of the new foyer and if they could donate another paper toilet rolls sculpture. It's a relief from everyone posturing about their jobs. Although honestly, Alexia's probably the most successful of all of them. He can never wrap his head around what she does exactly, except that it involves millions of online followers, sponsorships in the US, dancing videos with cats and her own shoeline.

Eliott leaves and comes back with drinks for the both of them. They clink their craft beer bottles against each other and Eliott leans down to whisper in his ear :

"Too bad they took away our couch"

Lucas snorts.

"Fuck no, that thing was a health hazard when we were here already, can you imagine after ten years ?"

"I don't know, I mean. It could have been fun to recreate some memories after everyone leaves." Lucas chokes on his beer. If Eliott is trying to distract him, it's surely working.

Across the table he can see Arthur's date look at them with a contemptuous glance on her face. The woman exhudes as much fun as a bag of frozen broccoli. Petty, he plants a sloppy kiss on Eliott's cheek. If they've earned one thing, it's the right to not worry about what people think of their PDA, goddamn.

Daphne arrives at their table and sits down, slightly out of breath.

"Hey guys ! I'm so happy you are all here ! It's been a while, huh ? I have a surprise for everyone later, I hope you will all participate, I'm counting on you !"

For a moment Lucas is terrified she's going to quiz them on their lives or force them into some sort of weird bonding exercise. Then he sees the look on Basile's face and realizes they have worse issues to worry about. F*cking hell, they dated for a few months ten years ago, and he's still looking at her like she hung the moon, and right in front of his girlfriend too. It took him years to get over her, they were gross the first time, and if Basile does something stupid it's going to take the awkwardness levels from slightly unpleasant to excruciating for the rest of the evening.

Then a tall, beautiful woman with dark skin and long tresses comes toward their table, effortlessly elegant in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She puts her hand on Daphne's shoulder.

"Hey babe, sound's all set up."

Daphne blushes up to her ears.

"Hey everyone, uh. This is Sam. She's my work partner and also. Uh. She's going to be my wife."

The table erupts into shouts of congratulations, surprise and joy. Manon hugs Daphne, Basile's expression falls to the floor, and Alexia claps her hands laughing. Lucas isn't surprised, but he is proud. For a long time, Daphne was even deeper in denial than he was. And Sam looks awesome.

Lucas exchanges a smile with his husband. Maybe coming to this reunion was worth it after all.

[shouldwefall]

Nothing Like Us

The huge fight between you and Jungkook started off as a simple argument about how he never seemed to be home, and how he treated all your concerns for him as a joke. It began escalating when he, again, brushed off all your worries as overprotectiveness and clinginess.

It was infuriating to the point where you couldn’t stand to be breathing in the same room as him anymore, but damn was that boy slow. You increased the volume of your voice multiple times, before you finally lost it and proceeded to bellow on the top of your lungs. This wasn’t a game you wanted to play any longer.

It was when your throat started burning that you got some of your common sense back, and restrained from choosing the brash approach to handling the situation. You could tell Jungkook was utterly appalled by your unusual behavior; he’d always known you to be one of the most soft-spoken and calm figures in his life, and always thanked you for being so understanding with him.

You knew where this fight was heading, yet ignored the guilt gnawing away at your abdomen. How long could a sane person deal with the constant suspicion of being cast aside?

Jungkook quickly took note of the ceramic mug you were tightly grasping in your quivering right hand, sighed, and plopped down on one of the nearby chairs. He made himself comfortable on the velvet cushion, and placed a hand over his forehead.

He was pondering about something.

Your grip on the mug hardened.

The clock ticked by minute by minute, and your lover finally groaned, breaking the painful silence. He stood up from the chair and walked away from you, muttering the exact words you were bracing yourself to hear under his breath:

“Y/N... I’m sick and tired of you not trusting me. Let’s end this, okay? I can’t...”

He knew your hearing was spectacular.

Well.

This was no surprise.

Of course he wouldn’t stay, not after you told him about your constant paranoia of him leaving you. Your paranoia was rooted from the emotional abuse you received frequently from your ruthless aunt when you were a child, and you reminded him of it everyday when he sought after your attention.

Weren’t you deemed crazy by your last ex?

The main problem with this situation was that you thought he was different. You thought he was able to comprehend your feelings, that he understood whatever you didn’t wish to say aloud.

Your childhood was coming back to haunt you.

With tears brimming in your eyes, you nodded your head twice before rushing out the front door; not once, but twice, after you came to the realization that Jungkook would be gone from your side forever. There would be no more cuddle fests, no more picnic or movie dates, and no more seemingly endless video game sessions.

Your feet brought you to the nearest convenience store you could find, and with the three crinkled dollar bills you had in your jeans pocket, you bought yourself a Sprite, a bag of chips, and one steaming bowl of instant noodles. How much food would it take to fill up the empty void in your stomach?

You touched your throat.

How long had you been screaming?

How long ago did you lose your voice?

How long has it been ever since you left the only place you could call home, behind?

How could Jungkook do this to you? How could he be so cruel to mercilessly stomp on your heart? 

How could he leave you when you needed him the most?

🎵 lately i’ve been thinking, thinking ‘bout what we had 🎵

You’re scrolling through your phone a few months later, and your eyes drop down to a certain starred contact.

You haven’t deleted his number yet.

Despite everything books and movies had warned you about, despite the danger! red signals going off inside your brain, you knew you deeply missed Jeon Jungkook. You missed his bunny-toothed smiles, his loving caresses, and most of all, you missed his presence. You missed the feeling of safety when you passed through a dark alleyway, the feeling of him wrapping his arms around you to keep you warm, and most importantly, the feeling of being happy. You had lost everything.

Your everything.

Why did breaking up with him have to be so heartwrenching?

🎵 i know it was hard,  it was all that we knew, yeah 🎵

🎵 have you been drinkin’, to take all the pain away? 🎵

If your friends hadn’t forcibly dragged you out to meet the world weeks after to incident, to remind you that the grim reaper wasn’t ready to fetch you yet, the spark inside of you would’ve died completely. When you and Jungkook had broken it off, it was like you had lost a piece of yourself. You weren’t Y/N anymore, you were somebody else. Something else. You yearned for him to come back to you, to cry out for his loss, and to make you his one and only again.

It was a foolish, wistful dream.

🎵 i wish that i could give you what you deserve 🎵

Going out shopping alone had been a really bad idea.

A really, really bad one.

What were the chances of bumping into your ex, with another girl hanging off his arm? What were the chances of her being the most perfect person you’ve ever met? What were the chances of her actually making him happy?

It’s not like you’ve never made him smile. It’s not like you never made him laugh. It’s not like he’s never called you funny, or charming.

But this girl, this ethereal being standing next to him, must be a descandant from the goddess of jokes herself, because Jungkook wouldn’t stop letting out guffaws, and clutching his stomach in unbearable pain from the laughter. You’ve never seen him this happy before.

He deserved this kind of happiness, you thought.

But did you believe?

🎵 cause nothing could ever, ever replace you 🎵

🎵 nothing can make me feel like you do, yeah 🎵

🎵 you know there’s no one i can relate to 🎵

You’ve certainly met your fair share of cute and quirky guys after Jungkook left your life. A large portion of them were irresistibly handsome, all of them charismatic, and some of them highly intelligent. A few developed into serious crushes.

But that’s all they’ll ever be. A crush, a person whom you look forward to seeing everyday, but could survive without. You hated the idea of leading someone on, especially when you knew that another took up the majority of the space in your heart.

Dating was easy to you, but loving wasn’t.

Love reminded you of him.

It was absolute hell when you had to reject each and every one of your potential lovers because you knew you would compare them to Jungkook. The Jungkook who only had eyes for you. The Jungkook who was flawless in your book. The Jungkook that used to call you his love.

Jeon Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook. His name was like a chant- a spell casted specifically to bewitch you, a curse that would always hold your heart captive.

🎵 i know we won’t find a love that’s so true 🎵

Your days with him were the brightest moments in your life.

They were unforgettable memories, experiences, and you cherished them so much that you might as well be obsessing over the past.

You hated yourself for continuing to grasp onto that tiny strand of hope that he would come back for you.

🎵 there’s nothing like us 🎵

🎵 there’s nothing like you and me 🎵

🎵 together through the storm 🎵

hello everyone!

i’m the author of this short, song-based jungkook scenario that i wrote specifically for my darling mutual and best friend on tumblr...

@sassocrates!!

hello sweetie, i’m so sorry for the late birthday present!! this is probably one of the crappiest works you will ever set your sights upon but i did pour a lot of my effort into it; don’t be too harsh on me haha~

i hope you had a wonderful birthday, and spent it wisely with your loved ones~ thank you for being so kind and patient with me, and for gifting that pirate!jeonghan imagine for me! it was lovely, like every other one of your works and i enjoyed reading it very much <33 we need to collab sometime soon!~

for anyone wondering, this is a song by Justin Bieber that our golden maknae did a cover of. the song title, well, is the title of this story!

~word count: 1296

~time it took to write this: 4 days and a week to edit

[yogidreamz-blog]

waves:karmic destiny

          It is easy in life to get so wrapped up in our heads about where we want to be, that we forget to appreciate where we are. Anxiety happens when we are constantly looking towards the future.. Worrying about the outcome and cultivating attachments, which ultimately leads to suffering. Karma is about doing, the word actually translates to action. What we do now, in this present moment, doing so for the action itself, not for a certain outcome. Press pause, and appreciate where you are in your journey at the present moment. Trust in your inner wisdom, trust in your journey, and know that you are exactly where you need to be. You have come this far, and each step you take in a new beginning. The journey never really ends, remember that you can begin again and again. Life is that way. In constant flux, the waters of life ebb and flow to the sweet song of freedom.

          How did you get to where you are in this moment? Take a minute to reflect back on the many steps of your journey, all of them leading to where you are right now. Have you ever done something solely because of a feeling in your heart? Or perhaps, a stirring in your soul? Think about what sets your soul on fire.. Do you think that is an accident? Your passion is what pulls you.. If you allow it. "Playing it safe", and ignoring the yearnings of your spirit will only lead to suffering. Sometimes I think we just wake up and try to make sense of where we are and how we got there. Little footsteps, occasional leaps, and here we are. When we live with intention, we decide our dream. We feel the dream in our body.. We visualize the dream in our minds' eye, and sense the dream living on in our hearts.  

          About two years ago, I began a practice of writing down goals in my journal. I read a book about the power of writing down your intentions, and how it gives you something tangible to look back on and see where you are and how far you have come. I remember being really lost at that point in my life, incredibly unhappy.. And working my life away at a restaurant and a bookstore. It was actually the bookstore that sparked within me the desire to continue searching for a job that made me happy. To not settle for a place where I could just make my dollars and call it a day, but to really find a source of income that not only brought me money but also brought me peace and joy. I have been a practitioner of yoga for the past 5 years, and I remember writing that, "I am so thankful to be working in a yoga studio.. I am so thankful to be on this journey of becoming a teacher". A few months had passed and I had completely forgotten about the journaling your dreams exercise, when I stumbled across the journal entry talking about working in a yoga studio. My mouth actually fell open.. I was doing exactly what I had written.. In a matter of months, I was seeing my dreams come to fruition before my very eyes. Needless to say, I was completely amazed. Dreams do come true!

          I was so incredibly happy because I had never experienced something like that. Before I decided to teach yoga, I never knew that having a job could be so.. Fulfilling. So nourishing. I had totally bought into the helplessness of modern slavery. I had forgotten about my free will. I had forgotten that I can literally do anything I dream of. A full year passed, and I found myself taking a solo trip across the globe to further find and discover more of myself. I arrived in India on January 1, 2017. Alone. At 5 am. It was exhilarating. Never had I gone so far completely by myself.. I felt so free. It was in that moment, that I felt as though I had truly arrived in myself. That I am my body, that I am also my mind, and that my spirit is free, flowing within and without me. Breathing in air that I had never taken in before. Feeling the vibration of a place so incredibly.. Different than any place I had ever experienced.

          It was 3 weeks into my stay before I understood why exactly my soul needed to be there. You see.. The way I live is different than most. Some would say that I am impulsive, that I don't think things through.. And so on. They aren’t wrong. I am known to dive right into things and just ride the wave until it crashes. However, I have never been more ME, because of the way I live. What initially made me decide to travel across the globe alone, was that I wanted to go deeper within myself. I wanted to discover parts of myself where I had never been. In India, I was immersed in nature, and music.. And freedom. There was a spiritual clarity there that vibrated through out the trees, streams, and animals that resided there. I was 14 hours into a silent meditation when I met my inner child. The first 13 hours of this meditation was excruciating. I was plagued by a restlessness that I always knew was there.. But I had never sat through it. I had never endured it before then. Beneath all of the restlessness.. Was a part of me that was very upset. My inner child was afraid, shaking, quivering, and crying. All I wanted was to be comforted, to be heard, to be understood and to be loved.  

          Each chapter in my life is lived as a new beginning. Looking back on my personal journey, I see such a huge transformation within myself. Mainly the connection of loving myself. Within each part of my journey, I have learned to shed aspects of myself that were no longer true. That no longer served me. Within these experiences, layers of love came to life. I learned to sit with restlessness, to endure the pain.. To feel it all, everything that I had previously suppressed.. To transmute the depths of emotional trauma into love for my self. I am sharing these personal experiences with you because I want to make it clear that I do not know the answers. I do not know why I do the things I do. I live my life in such a way because it feels right. I try to remember to choose inner peace every time. When something happens, like me deciding to go to India.. I don't question it much. The reason I didn't hesitate was because I knew I had to go. I cannot tell you how I knew this. But I felt in every fiber of my being that it was what I needed to do. So I did.. Love unfolds.  

          Every single step of your journey is your destiny. The decisions you choose to make are your karma. You are where ever you are in the world, reading this book right now, because of your karmic destiny. Do I believe we choose? Yes, absolutely. I believe in free will. Do I believe we always have control? Hmm.. That is where it gets a little weird, a little esoteric, you could say. I believe there is a beauty, an art, in losing control. Reading a fraction of my journey, in the paragraphs above.. Would you say I was in control? I wouldn't. I would say that I was a leaf being blown by the wind. This life is the life that I need to live. Being blown by the wind is essential to my healing. Everyone is different. Everyone leads different lives, everyone has different experiences that shape them into the individual they are. I say all of this to say this: destiny is yours. Your life is yours. Your karma is yours. You can choose to give your free will away, by letting others live through you or by allowing others to control you. Will this bring you peace? Hell, no.

          Inner peace is within you. Every action we make in life can bring us towards this center of peace.. Or carry us a little further away. You will know. I tell you this from experience, when an opportunity comes into your horizon.. And you feel a strange stirring within yourself. Take it. Book the flight. Quit the job. Leave the relationship. Whatever it is.. Do it. Even if you cannot explain it. Do it. Everyone in your life will tell you are crazy. It doesn't matter. Do it anyways. When I bought my ticket to India, I didn't tell anyone in my family about the trip until it was a month away.. Because I knew they would try to talk me out of it. Sure enough, they all did. They said, "You're not going to do that.". And, "no way, you're a woman! You cannot travel so far across the world without a man", and many more. I looked at them calmly, smiled, and said, "I already bought my ticket."

          Everyone in my life told me I was crazy for doing what I was doing. It didn't matter. Because it was my destiny to go and discover different parts of myself in different parts of the world. Twenty one years old, not a care in the world. I owe such gratitude to my spirit, for pioneering onward. For being so wild, and furiously free that I couldn't say no. For me, ignoring the urge and staying in the same place would be so incredibly.. Stubborn. Stuck in a cage, stuck in the same wave, the same pattern. There are so many various patterns of nature, as we have talked about earlier in this book. Sometimes we need to change the pattern of how we think, perceive, and interact with the world around us. When we make the decision to listen to ourselves, to pay attention to those stirrings happening within.. Our patterns change.  

           We find ourselves in new careers, new relationships, maybe even new places.. Whatever it may be, I pray it brings you peace, joy, and love. In a world where external stimulation is of the norm, may we look within ourselves for direction and guidance. May we seek the truth inside of ourselves.. May we run into the precious space of unbounding love that lives in us all. Opening your eyes to destiny is really opening your eyes to yourself. When is that last time you sat with yourself and asked yourself, "what do I wish my life to be like?". I encourage you all to seek peace, to seek happiness and bliss. If you do not know where to go, or you do not know what you want your life to be like, it is alright. Sit with yourself. Spend time with yourself and allow your truest self to unfold. Within us all there are mystical spaces that have not seen the light of day in some time.. Breathe into those dark spaces and open the blinds. Come out to play.

          Your actions, that you choose to make.. Is your Karma. Your life, that you choose to live, is your destiny. May we all recognize what a gift it is to be alive. May we all make the choice to be present for our destinies.. To be present for our lives. May we all cultivate gratitude for our internal and external realms. Feel the rays of the sun dance across your face, experience the wind kissing your skin, tune into the space you hold within yourself.. Feel the freedom and the liberation inside. May we all rediscover the freedom that is in who and what We are. The freedom of the spirit, and the beautiful art of being whole.  

[seriouslyhooked]

Souvenirs (A CS AU) Part 5/14

A Modern CS AU where Emma has grown up in Maine her whole life and runs a store with Ruby and MM. Killian Jones is the new guy in town, who just bought the local bar. Only Emma and Killian have met before and now she can’t help but wonder if their past has influenced his plans for the future. Includes tons of fluff and a happily ever after. Rated M.

Part One Here, Part Two Here, Part Three Here, Part Four Here

A/N: Hey all! The first part of this chapter is from Killian’s POV and the second is from Emma’s. It’s so incredibly fluffy and when I first wrote it I truly thought I had out done myself on the fluff scale. BUT I am also introducing a new character who will be helping Emma and the others at Three Fates. So strap in for a bonanza of cute, and cuddly. We all deserve it in a world that is less than perfect, so just treat your self.

Even if he tried, there was no way that Killian Jones could keep the smile off of his face. It had been a few weeks since his first arriving in Storybrooke, and he couldn’t have dreamed that it would turn out this well. Hell, part of him had been worried that he’d come here and Emma wouldn’t even remember him, or that yes she’d already have found someone else, but he’d known, deep in his soul that he had to try. He couldn’t take another day living with the what-if, he needed to know if the two of them had truly been everything he’d felt during their one night five years ago.

Now he knew for certain that they were so much more than that. Emma was talented and determined, hard working and honest, but she was also kind and beautiful and incredibly easy to love. It had taken all of thirty seconds in her presence to be entirely sure he’d made the right decision. The way the flush had crept over her cheeks, and her eyes had widened when she’d first seen him. Her emerald gaze had been torn between surprise, frustration, and yearning and yet she’d been the brave one, saying yes from the start and giving him a chance after all this time. Killian was in awe of her and absolutely determined to never ever let her down again.

“Hey boss, what are we thinking for the countertops? High polish or a more natural sanding?”

Killian looked up from his desk in the back office of his newly acquired bar to find Graham Huntsman, his head contractor on this job and the lighthouse. Killian liked Graham and could tell that beyond his work ethic and clear skill in his field, he was a good man, an honorable man. It made working with him easy, which wasn’t always a given in his line of work.

“Do you have an opinion, Graham?” The man looked surprised at having been asked for his thoughts, but he nodded.

“Yeah, actually. I was thinking the more natural look might be better. Ruby showed me some of the pictures of what this place used to look like back in the day, and while the style would need revamping less polish would probably better work for the overall ambiance you’re trying to achieve.”

Though Killian and Graham nearly always stayed on the business when conversing, Killian noted that this was the third time today alone that Graham had managed to bring Ruby up into the conversation. Clearly there was a level of caring there, and he had to wonder how far it went past friendship.

“Sounds good, Graham.”

“Also, Sherriff Nolan is here for you.”

Killian stood up at that, eager to see his new friend. Over the past few weeks, Killian’s opinion of David had only improved, and it was nice to have someone besides Emma who made the town of Storybrooke seem more welcoming. He had never been the kind of man to have a swarm of friends, but he had left a life back in London, and between missing the presence of his brothers, and few best mates there, it was nice to know there were good people in the little town in Maine too.

“Ah Dave, what brings you here?” David smirked at that as he walked in before replying.

“I’m here on a mission actually. I’m supposed to invite you and Emma to a dinner party at my house this weekend. Mary Margaret has insisted that you be there.” Killian raised an eyebrow at that. He’d come to find that Mary Margaret was ever the planner, but surely David must know that he could have little to say about it without Emma’s thoughts.

“Mary Margaret works with Emma, but decided it would be best for you to invite me?” David shook his head.

“No I volunteered for the job, because I’m aware that you sprung for that ultimate cable package and Liverpool is playing Thursday night.” Killian laughed.

“So you were looking for one invite in exchange for another.”

“Well fair is fair.”

“Alright mate, sounds good to me. Hey can I ask you something?” David nodded. “Are Huntsman and Ruby together?”

“Yes and no. Yes, because it’s clear as day they’re both pining away for each other. No, because they’re both too chicken shit to do anything about it.” Hearing David swear signaled a growing frustration that Killian had to marvel at. It took a lot to bother the sheriff.

“Tell me how you really feel.” David raised his hands in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry, its just Mary Margaret is constantly talking about it. At least before you were here she had Emma to worry about too. Now almost all of our conversation is divided between an undying joy about you and Emma and utter despair that Ruby and Graham can’t get their shit together.”

Killian mulled this over. A few weeks ago, he never would have thought to get involved. It wasn’t his business whether Graham and Ruby confessed their feelings to each other, but as someone in the grips of love, who knew that taking that first step had a far better pay off than sitting around wondering what could be, Killian knew he should try and help. That didn’t mean he had to do it alone.

“So getting them together would ease the burden of your necessary emotional support?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Splendid. Let’s get that done then. Hey, Graham!”

Killian called and David just stared at him, his eyes growing wider as if Killian had three heads or had gone completely mental. Maybe he had, but Killian couldn’t fend off a sneaking suspicion that it would be more than Mary Margaret excited at the prospect of Ruby finding love. Emma too would rather like it, and there was nothing Killian wanted more than to provide Emma with anything and everything she wanted.

“You called?” Killian smiled, trying to ease the awkward blow of what was to come.

“Enough is enough, Huntsman. It’s time to pick yourself up and go tell the girl how you feel.” Graham crossed his arms against his chest and took a step back.

“Excuse me? I don’t know what you’re talking -,” Killian raised a hand.

“Look mate, take it from someone who knows, there comes a time when waiting is no longer an option. You care for Ruby.” It was a statement, not one that Killian needed answered, but one that Graham nodded to in the end. “And she cares for you, but if you don’t make your move someone else will and you may very well face a day when the girl you want is no longer the girl you can have.”

“Ruby and I are friends though. I don’t want to jeopardize that. I don’t want to risk losing her.” It was strange, seeing this mostly quiet man have a moment of insecurity, but Killian could relate. Love was a tricky thing that way.

“Care to step in, Dave?” Killian could hand off the imparting of Ruby’s feelings to his new friend. Hell, he shouldn’t be doing all the work here.

“Look, Graham. I’ve known you and Ruby a long time, and she loves you. You’re both like two puppies circling each other and have been a long ass time. And you’ve lost a lot of people a lot of money who thought one of the two of you would get it together and do something about it before now.”

Killian nearly choked on the water he was drinking at David’s blunt words. Well, that was certainly one way to try and convince the man to take the plunge.

“Okay.” Graham looked between David and Killian now resigned to the need for action, but then the man smiled and Killian knew they were in trouble. “But I’m gonna need some help.”

“We’re in,” David offered without any sort of reassurance and so it was. The three of them were off to see if Graham might be able to win the girl and secure Emma and Mary Margaret’s happiness in the process.

………………………

“I have to hand it to you, Mary Margaret, you were right, having help for the store has made this so much more manageable.”

Emma and Mary Margaret were enjoying a five-minute coffee break as the store’s new assistant, Tiana, helped a customer at the jewelry counter. Within days, Tiana had picked up the vibe of not only Three Fates, but of the friends who ran it. She stood at the case dressed in the put-together but casual attire that was unspoken but prevalent at the store, with wide brown eyes, long black hair pulled back in a tight bun and a faint blush of excitement kissing her darker complexion.

It had taken less than a day for Tiana to answer the ad Mary Margaret strategically put up at the local art college for help in the store, and from everything Emma could tell she was perfect for the job. Studying design herself, and always ready with an easy smile, Tiana had the personality and intuition needed to really make a difference in the store, and with her here, Emma could focus more on meeting the demands of her impending summer line launch than if she had to be monitoring the retail end too.

What had really sold Emma on Tiana though were her ambition and her drive. The girl was a force of nature if her resume was any indication. She was involved in a number of clubs and activities while maintaining top grades at school where she was on scholarship, and attending classes full-time. Despite the already harrowing schedule, Tiana signed on to work twenty hours a week here, and somehow, even though it seemed crazy, Emma knew that she was more than able to keep all those commitments. They were very lucky to have found her, though, and would enjoy her help until she no doubt found her own path to success.

“I just love her. You know, she showed me how to get the stain out of the office rug yesterday? I think she might be magic.”

Emma laughed at that. Worming one’s way into Mary Margaret’s good graces was easy, but her friend did not throw around the ‘m’ word lightly. Tiana must have truly been a special kind of person. Or Mary Margaret had just been desperate to get that stain out. Emma figured both of those statements were likely true.

“Hey, have any of you heard from Graham today?” Ruby asked as she approached from the back office. Emma and Mary Margaret both shook their heads that they had not. “I texted him about lunch, but he didn’t respond.”

That was odd considering that the two friends met up nearly every day to do so. Emma had always found it strange that her best friend, so clearly taken with Graham for so long, had never acted with her usual confidence and boldness. Anytime Emma or Mary Margaret brought up making the first move to Graham Ruby’s reply was always the same – ‘he doesn’t feel that way about me.’ Emma knew that to be blatantly false, all it took was sixty seconds in their company to know they were both head over heels, but Emma could only do so much to try and convince her friend.

Just then, something caught Emma’s eye outside and she looked past her friends through the glass windows of the store. There were people walking in the middle of the street, blocking traffic down the way, and a crowd was gathering. That was weird and very notable not the norm for a given weekday.

“What the hell?” Emma’s words caused Mary Margaret and Ruby to look too, just as Granny came running into the store.

“Do you know about this?” the older woman huffed out her breath as she had clearly raced over here.

“Know about what?” Ruby asked. Her grandmother smiled, a wide toothy grin and clasped her hands together with a look of pure delight.

“It’s time, honey.” Ruby was still confused.

“Time for what?” Granny looked to Mary Margaret and Emma.

“He’s finally done it.” Neither woman needed more context, because everyone knew that the whole town was waiting on Graham to make a move with Ruby. That was the only thing that could get everyone so frenzied, and Granny Lucas so excited.

“Really?! Oh Ruby, let’s go see.” Mary Margaret was brimming with anticipation and started playing with Ruby’s long flowing hair to have it looking the best it could.

“Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?!” Ruby was nearing panic at this point, so confused as to everyone’s reactions. Emma steadied her by placing a hand on her friend’s arm.

“There’s a reason Graham didn’t respond, Ruby.” The mention of Graham brought the same rush of emotions coursing over Ruby’s face and Emma smiled at her friend, who now looked torn between hope and fear.  “Be brave. It’ll be great, I promise.”

“Tiana, we will be right back!” Mary Margaret hollered over her shoulder as they all headed outside.

“Pay attention to every detail, I want the whole story!” Emma laughed at Tiana’s rushed words since the girl usually spoke slower with that charming Southern lilt of hers straight from New Orleans. There was no denying their newest employee was intuitive, and Emma had a feeling they’d be talking about today for a long time to come.

As soon as they stepped outside, Emma was surprised to hear no words from the crowd. Everyone was quiet, which made the music more apparent. String instruments were playing a song that she recognized, but it took a moment to realize that it was ‘All You Need is Love’ by the Beatles.

“They’re playing her song.”

Mary Margaret was already tearing up, and the friends hadn’t even made it through the crowd to see things yet. As soon as they did though, Emma was stunned. Before them was a huge, intricate chalk mural. With a variety of colors, but most prominently red, and a beautiful design of hard lines that still seemed soft enough to make them beautiful. Graham had made a message reading, ‘I love you Ruby’ the full length of the street. Yet the strangest thing to Emma, was that right there, at the front of the line, standing beside David and keeping the crowd at bay was Killian, looking at her with a happy grin.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asked as he came over and wrapped his arms around her. She let herself relax into his embrace, her back against his chest, but she still needed answers.

“Helping with this.” He handed Ruby a note that she took gingerly in her hand. Wordlessly, Ruby pushed through the crowd once again and into the library.

“So he does all this just to have her meet him in the book stacks?” Emma asked. Killian shook his head.

“What’s above the books, Swan?” Emma realized that the clock tower was there, and that the typically boarded up wooden windows had been replaced with a tinted glass.

“The perfect view.” Killian kissed the top of her head.

“Aye, love.”

“You two did this. You told him to go for it?” Emma asked surprised, as realization hit.

“It was Killian’s idea,” David confirmed as he held a weepy Mary Margaret.

“Mary Margaret, it’s okay. This is a good thing.” Emma was teasing, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Are you kidding me? This is easily one of my favorite days ever!”

“But what are we all waiting for, still?” Emma asked, confused as to what they could possibly be hoping for.

“Wait for it…” Killian said and then it happened, the clock’s white backing suddenly had red light shining through it causing the word ‘yes’ to appear in red over the handles and numbers. The whole crowd cheered, Ruby had told him that she loved him too, and the town was celebrating!

“He went so big on this,” Emma noted, glad that her own dates were never this public. Killian laughed at her evident confliction over being happy for Ruby and hating the idea.

“You have to take queues from the woman in question, love. Ruby likes a show from what I can tell.”

“That’s for sure. I bet she loved this.”

With that, Ruby and Graham exited the library to another round of whooping cheers and, as expected, Ruby was eating it up, going so far as to pull Graham in for a big display of a kiss before yelling at everyone to get back to their lives and give them a bit of privacy. The town listened, Emma and Killian included, as they walked back hand-in-hand to Three Fates.

“What you did for them was really wonderful, Killian.”

His hand came up and cupped Emma’s cheek, his thumb running over her bottom lip lightly. She could feel that same current of connection, like somehow the world was brighter and better for him being here and holding her like this. Emma never wanted that feeling to go away, and she knew as long as Killian was here that it wouldn’t.

“You make me happier than I ever thought possible, Emma. I just wanted to help Graham get that same sort of happiness for himself and Ruby.”

When he was so sweet and sincere and lovely, Emma had no choice but to pull him closer for a scorching kiss. She wished she could run off with him, find someplace private and hidden away from the world and show him how much she loved him – because she did, she really really did. But that would have to wait. Instead, Emma pulled back and smiled at him.

“You make me happy too.”

His responding expression set her heart fluttering as he kissed her hand and departed, off to go about his business, leaving Emma fully aware that the rest of the day would be spent thinking of him and just how lucky she was that he’d found her.

Post-Note: This chapter will hence-forth be known as the Ruby/Graham fluff parade. It came to me in a moment of need, when I couldn’t handle the angst of another show I was watching and I wanted to escape to a land of TLK and cuteness overload. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was also so excited to introduce Tiana to this story. She’s someone we haven’t seen on OUAT to date, but I love her movie and everything her character stands for. I think she would fit in really well with the strong women of Storybrooke and I am adamantly awaiting a day when she gets her due. Anyways, thanks for reading!

[jennylpaul]

Big changes

I should have written something before now.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year. We returned back to Toronto in April and had a really hard time getting back into life there. I missed the ocean, the big trees surrounding our house and the stars at night. I missed not having to worry about what I was wearing or what my hair looked like. I missed feeling free.

It felt like torture to put on tights and a dress and boots... and a coat. 

Even worse, everyone seemed so angry in Toronto.

We used to joke that people in Nosara could only do one thing a day. For a while Ryan was running a little dog grooming business and it was impossible for people to figure out what day they could come to drop their dog off. “Tuesday, I have yoga... and on Wednesday I have lunch plans...” It seemed ridiculous that an entire town of people was incapable of multitasking. But back in Toronto I yearned for the slow life. We had days packed with meetings, and having to meet clients in person meant that even more time vanished from each day. A one hour meeting easily becomes 3-4 hours when you factor in having to dress up, drive there, park the car, and then usually stand around socializing after the meeting ends. 

The other strange thing was that I started feeling anxious. In the car, surrounded by other cars, stopped at the stop light. In the mall. Even just sitting in my back yard, with other people all in their own respective back yards- on both sides and behind us. There were just too many people. I felt claustrophobic.

After a month, Ryan was doing a better job of getting himself into the swing of life in Toronto. He was coping. But I was depressed. Sure, there were things we didn’t like about Nosara, but to me, it felt like home. I felt displaced and distressed in Toronto.

We had been talking about selling the house for a year at that point. It was a huge decision because for the years leading up to buying the house, it was everything we thought we wanted. For so long we felt like we would have “made it’’ if we had our own house. But the house was huge expense. Because of the house, we had to work a lot and we took on on jobs that we didn’t want to work on. And no matter how hard we worked, we didn’t have money left over to pay off our debts or to increase our savings. The expense of living in Toronto didn’t seem to be worth it. We were making a lot of money but were getting absolutely nowhere.

I kept thinking: we could sell our house and pay off all of the debts, and bank the rest. We could rent a house in Costa Rica and cut our monthly expenses down by a third. We could work completely from home and we could work less. When we choose to work more, we would just have more money. We could spend more time with Austin, at the beach, in nature, and we won’t need to be around all of these angry people. We could escape the rat race! 

At first, the thoughts were quiet. Little nagging thoughts that would pop into my head and my brain would respond “Don’t be crazy. Our family would kill us. And we wouldn’t have the house anymore! We’d be homeless!” Over time the thoughts started to get louder, and they were accompanied with other questions... “Don’t you talk to your family and friends more when you’re living in Costa Rica anyway? Can’t you come back and visit and see everyone just as much as you do right now? What do you really need a house for anyway? Don’t you want to be happy? Don’t you want to spend more time in nature? Don’t you want to have no debt? What if you only have 10 more years to live? Would you be happy spending it working your ass off and getting nowhere?” (Yes, the voice got increasingly aggressive, but I guess I needed the tough love.)

And Ryan was in the exact same place. We were spending an unhealthy amount of time dreaming about escaping the life we’d built for ourselves in Toronto. It was time for a big change.

I started looking at house rentals in Costa Rica. But it seemed like prices had gone up, yet again. The houses that I liked were way out of our budget. Then, by a fluke, one day I zoomed out on the map and a gorgeous house appeared in the results. Except when I looked at it in more detail, it wasn’t in Costa Rica. It was in Nicaragua.

We’ve been visiting Nosara for almost 10 years now, and it truly feels like home to us. But the wheels started to turn. Costa Rica was becoming very touristy. Last year “our beach” was full of tourists. Hundreds of them. The restaurants were full of people. And it was getting expensive. The cost of groceries and going out was similar to what we would pay in Toronto. Nicaragua is not really known as a tourist destination yet. We had travelled to Nica a few times for visa runs and had been blown away when our grocery bill was $20 instead of $100.

I wrote the owner of the house in the ad and asked about long term rental rates. He wrote back and the rental rate was similar to what we’d paid last year in Costa Rica, but the house was much, much nicer. I immediately showed Ryan and he said “do it” without hesitation. 

So, we were selling the house and going to Nicaragua. Just like that.

The house sold quickly. To say that the whole experience of purging our things, getting it staged, moving furniture into storage, and selling our car was stressful would be a huge understatement. We did it all in about a month, and suddenly, we were off to Nica. 

We went through about two weeks of emotional distress after the house sold. Did we do the right thing? It was hard to believe we no longer had a house, and even harder to believe that we no longer had any debt. It took almost a month for me to train myself to start thinking differently. We no longer need to work 40-60 hours a week. We can work 5 hours a day. We can take the day off if we feel like we need some rest. Resting is ok! We don’t need to productive every hour of the day! (I’m still working on some of this.)

The first week in Nicaragua was rough, because Berkeley got sick within a few days and passed away. It was completely unexpected, shocking, and heartbreaking. It still doesn’t feel real. Deep chested dogs are susceptible to bloat, a condition where their stomach can twist. When this happens you only have 6 hours to catch it before they can start to experience organ failure. We were in Managua when it happened. He started throwing up and acting lethargic in the evening and we took him to the vet first thing in the morning. But it was too late. 

We left that day for Popoyo without Berkeley, feeling devastated and worried that this was somehow a sign that we’d made the wrong decision to come here. But we pushed those thoughts out of our head. We had to.

Popoyo has everything that we loved about Nosara and none of the things we didn’t like. The beaches are empty. There are enough restaurants to give you something to do, but not so many that you feel like you’re living in North America. Everything is inexpensive. And our house could not be more perfect. It’s even better than we imagined it would be. We can see the ocean from almost every window of the house, and at night we can see the stars and hundreds of floating fireflies from our bed.

We’ve rented this house until the end of May. We’ll go back to Canada in the summer to visit family and friends, but depending on how the next few months go, we will probably return to Popoyo after that. (Sorry, Mom!) We’re in love with our life here.

We took most of November and December off. I forgot what it was like to not work (or to not be thinking about money 20 times a day). It’s been a complete reset.

We’re starting to get back to work now, but we’re looking at work differently. We still have our company, but we’re being more selective about the types of projects that we take on. I'm developing an online course for Udemy, which I’ll hopefully launch next week. Ryan is doing a lot of work on his vaping blog. We have a few other ideas that we’re developing which will hopefully turn into ongoing passive income. And I’m writing a book. It’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing, but never had the time (and if I’m being honest, never believed in myself enough to even start it.) So far, I just have a rough outline, but I’m having so much fun working on it. It feels great to have a creative outlet, and to be able to work on something just for the fun of it.

The biggest lesson I learned this year is that no matter how scary it feels, you should always follow your intuition and live the life that you’re drawn to live. In the past, I built so much of my life around what I thought I should be doing and I lost a piece of myself in the process. I’m excited for the chance to start over.