#they are so lucky i hate confrontation and emails | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whisker-biscuit · 9 months ago

Text

The Lines We Cross: Chapter 29

The Cold Heart of Hate

--------------------------------------------------

His Last Word Was My Name…His Last Thought Was of Me

--------------------------------------------------

They were going after Clockwerk. They were going to take down Clockwerk.

Just thinking about it felt like treason; something Sly had dared not voice even in his own head for years after the Incident. Actively trying it would have once been enough to send him into a panic at the slightest hint of something going wrong. Two months ago, if he’d considered something like this, he probably would have given up and turned himself back in to the Fiendish Five for the sake of his own survival – freedom be damned. It was an impossible task against an untouchable foe, and one beaten-down failure of a thief would never have been able to get even this far on his own.

But he wasn’t beaten-down anymore, nor was he a failure like he’d been led to believe for too long. And, most importantly, he was no longer alone.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless, though.

Sly flexed the fingers around his cane in a constant, nervous tic as he followed Inspector Fox into one of the caverns littering the volcano’s inner walls. She was dragging the robo-falcon she’d shot behind her, but it barely slowed her down at all, and once again he marveled at how incredible she was. Once they were sure the cave that they’d picked was free of birds, cameras, mines, or any other security, the two of them hunkered down in the shadows and began working out the details of their haphazard plan.

As the raccoon watched the crater in case of a sudden appearance by the Five’s leader, Carmelita pried apart the metal shell of the smaller, downed bird and pulled out the weapon inside of it – along with the tangled mess of wires that made up half its innards. She let out a contemplative hum as she examined what she’d found.

“Just as I thought; this is a military-grade British gun turret. Lightweight and small enough to hold for easy use and transport, but still deadly with even a single direct hit. It’s supposed to be highly regulated, classified technology. How the hell did Clockwerk get his claws on this?”

“You said it’s British? I’d bet all my money on Raleigh either having someone on the inside or just stealing the blueprints himself. The guy was obsessed with recreating anything machine-related he could hear about, especially if it was outside of public knowledge. He and Clockwerk loved to talk shop and haggle over tech information.”

She looked at him with surprise, and his shoulders drew up subconsciously.

“What?” He nearly snapped, defensive.

“No – nothing,” the fox was quick to reassure. “I just…I didn’t expect you to be so forthcoming about that. Stuff about the Fiendish Five.”

“Well…yeah. The cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it? I don’t really have any reason to be secretive about it anymore.”

“I guess not.” She began untangling the cords and wires around the miniature turret, speaking absently as she worked. “I thought about that a lot while we were separated, you know. How much you knew about where we were going, and about the Five.”

Sly turned his gaze back out the cave entrance to continue watching the skies. “I knew approximate things. I knew Mz. Ruby lived in a swamp and that it was somewhere in Haiti, but they always dropped me directly in her territory, so I didn’t have the exact location down. Same with Raleigh, and the Panda King.”

“So…those emails from Muggshot weren’t just for my benefit?” Her tone wasn’t confrontational, only curious, but he still gave her a brief sideways glance.

“No. I swiped them from his office when you were fighting him – back when I didn’t think you’d come out of it alive.” He snorted and shook his head. “If only I’d known it’s literally impossible to put you down.”

“You flatter me, Ringtail. I was just extremely lucky.” Carmelita paused long enough that it was obvious she had thought of something. “Wait. That ‘special package’ they were talking about. Was that…?”

“Yours truly.”

“I’m so sorry, Sly.”

He would have closed his eyes to avoid the pity on her face if he wasn’t currently playing lookout. “I said it then and I’ll say it now: there’s no use getting our tails in a twist over it. It happened, it’s over, and now we’re going to make sure it never happens again.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” Another, longer pause. “Hang on, you didn’t know exactly where most of the Five were hiding, but what about Clockwerk? How did you find him?”

“I mean, it’s a lot easier to find someone who lives in a single volcano compared to, say, an entire mountain range. But, yeah, I knew where he was. He told me when he dared me to win my freedom back. I always thought it was a weird throwaway comment, but…” The raccoon gestured around them. “Guess I should’ve known him better than that.”

“Don’t give him credit he doesn’t deserve. There’s no way he could’ve predicted something like this, and we both know he wasn’t aiming for me on that statue.”

“Sure, but we can’t underestimate him either, Carmelita. He’s the leader for a lot of reasons beyond his size and strength.”

Her fingers snagged on an exposed wire. She let out a quiet curse as it shocked her. “You know what? I’m done talking about him until we have to. Let’s change the subject. How long has it been since Kunlun? I was unconscious for a while, and it hasn’t been easy to keep track of time since I woke up.”

“Uh…”

Sly shot her another glance, noticing the angry pull of her mouth and the way she was glaring at the turret in her lap like it was the evilest thing in the world. It was very clear what – who – she was actually directing her fury towards. He wisely did not bring it up and followed her lead instead.

“Sixteen hours, give or take. Sorry it took so long.”

“Sixteen –” the inspector’s head shot up to stare at him. “Sly, Krakarov is a long way from Kunlun. Forget the apology, it’s amazing you got here as fast as you did! How on earth did you do it?”

“Hitched a ride on whatever plane got me the closest, then hiked the rest of the way.”

Carmelita stopped working entirely. “You got on a plane.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You flew here to find me.”

“How else was I supposed to get here? By car?” He asked, making her huff in good-natured exasperation. The reason for her shock wasn’t lost on him, however, and his sarcasm dropped in favor of something more genuine. “Listen, I’m not saying it was easy. It actually really fucking sucked, but I wasn’t going to leave you in the claws of that monster any longer than necessary. Rescuing you was worth the trip. Hell, I’d board the longest flight in the world if that’s what it took.”

“Sly, that’s…”

A sudden chill ran down the raccoon’s back – a preemptive warning for something all too familiar. He took a few steps further into the shadows of the cave, planting himself between the exit and where Carmelita was sitting on the ground with the falcon corpse. When she looked up at him, confused, he put a finger to his lips and turned his attention to the crater beyond.

He felt rather than saw Clockwerk approaching from a distance, sweeping the area in search of them. With a nervous, protective hiss, painfully aware of the fact that the cave ended in a rock wall just a few meters back, Sly curled protectively around the inspector and held them both still, watching the sky. The owl’s giant silhouette blotted out the stars above as he circled the crater once from a great height, then swooped low for a second, more discerning pass.

The raccoon risked tilting his head just enough so that his mouth was right next to Carmelita’s ear. His eyes never left Clockwerk’s silent, deadly form, terrified that the minuscule movement had tipped off their enemy to their location.

“Hold your breath as long as you can,” he whispered to his partner. She obeyed without question, inhaling deeply and quietly, and he had never been more grateful for her trust in his life.

Immediately, Sly became invisible, hoping beyond hope that the ability extended to who he was holding and not just what. The fox stiffened against him but didn’t exhale, thank god, and he wordlessly apologized for catching her off guard with this unexpected thing he could do. He didn’t dare look to see if it had worked on her. All he could do was stay motionless, breathless; watching and waiting for the owl to make the next move.

Clockwerk did a third and final circle through the area. He passed so close to the rock wall and the cavern the two were huddled in that they could hear the mechanical whirring of his body for the briefest of seconds before he moved on. The sound set all of Sly’s fur on end; his chest burned in rhythm to terrible memory.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d arrived, the ancient bird flew off over a distant ridge and disappeared.

Neither of them moved for a solid minute afterwards. The raccoon held his breath until he couldn’t any longer, releasing it only when his vision started going spotty. Carmelita did the same against him. They remained that way, panting silently together and watching the dark skies.

When it finally felt safe enough, he began to uncurl from around the inspector only for her to grab him by the shoulders and swivel him so they were nose to nose.

“What was that?” She whispered as she stared at him. “Sly, you were invisible. I was invisible! How the hell did you do that?!”

“It’s a technique I learned from the Thievius Raccoonus,” he murmured, feeling a prickle of fear pass through his mind at the intense look on her face. He couldn’t read her expression, and that was the scariest thing of all. “I don’t – I’m not really sure how it works, just that I have to hold my breath to do it. I’m just glad that it worked on you; that was a gamble I was making when I grabbed you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Carmelita continued to stare at him, still clutching his shoulders, then released him with an incredulous shake of her head. “Increíble. You really are something special, Sly Cooper. I hope you realize that.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Seemingly taking his silence as agreement or at least acquiescence, the fox picked up the turret she had been working on before their scare.

“I think I got this thing figured out. We can definitely use it against Clockwerk. Now all we need is a proper plan.” She peered out at the open crater, then over at him. “I have an idea, especially now that I know you can disappear at will, but…I’m not sure you’ll like it.”

“I doubt I’ll like any plan that’s going to put us at risk, but if it’s enough to take him down, then it’s worth it. Hit me with your best shot, Inspector.”

So, she did exactly that – and she was right, he didn’t like it. But they had precious few options and precious little time, and it was the only real chance they had. Against all his instincts screaming at him to forget about this, to flee before it was too late, Sly agreed with the grim understanding that it was now or never.

It was finally time to end the Fiendish Five once and for all, and earn his freedom back.

For however much longer that was worth.

--------------------------------------------------

This was what they were going to do:

Sly, armed with both the jetpack and the mini-turret, would climb as high as he dared along the cliff walls above the lava pits, visibly and openly, in an attempt to goad Clockwerk into appearing. Inspector Fox would remain on the rocky paths below, out of sight and waiting for anything to attack her partner. The moment the owl arrived, she would shoot him with her shock pistol in an effort to stun him and send him plummeting into the fatal pools below. If the electricity wasn’t enough right off the back, the raccoon would unload the turret into him to finish the job and get the hell out of dodge before any retaliation could happen.

Best case scenario, all it would take was one hit from the pistol to down the bird. Worst case, Sly was supposed to flee using the jetpack and his invisibility while Carmelita disappeared back into the caves around her, and they’d try to regroup outside of the volcano or hunker down and hide until Interpol arrived to deal with the furious owl.

It was a messy, impromptu plan that relied on luck just as much as their own skills, but they were going to bank on Clockwerk’s obsession with the Coopers to blind him to the assault until it was too late. The leader of the Fiendish Five thought himself untouchable; tonight, the two of them hoped to prove otherwise.

Sly huddled between two large cracks in the wall for a quick breather as he worked his way up the side of the crater. For all that he was only pretending to try and escape, there was no acting in the way he constantly scanned the scenery and pressed himself tightly against the rocks in paranoia. He couldn’t allow himself to be caught off guard by Clockwerk before Carmelita could do her part. His heart hammered in his scarred chest and his tail flicked about in uncontainable stress.

He double-checked the jetpack straps to make sure there was no chance they’d come loose on him if he took to the air. His partner had checked the fuel tank and assured him that it had several hours’ worth of constant flight, which was a minor relief, but he had only gotten a crash course from her about how to adjust his height. There hadn’t even been time to test its speed. One bad maneuver and the owl could clip him with a wing or a talon.

Send him falling out of the skies and straight to his –

The raccoon shook his head and continued climbing. Catastrophizing was pointless, now. It was time to trust Inspector Fox.

Himself, too.

Just as his foot found another crevasse to hoist himself up further, foreboding hit the back of his neck down to his tail. Sly twisted in place to face the crater, catching the faintest glimpse of that familiar silhouette high above before it dove straight for him. He froze, hypnotized by the glowing yellow gaze trained on him, and found himself unable – unwilling – to move.

“Found you.”

The owl’s beak was open in a twisted grin of triumph as he came down at his prey. His claws came out from under his body, open and ready to grab, to take, to break, and his eyes were alight with hateful glee. Everything else disappeared under the great and terrible presence of Clockwerk.

I’m going to die.

Pure, concentrated energy arced up in the shrinking gap between them. It hit the bird square in the head with an eruption of blue. He reared back in a flurry of flapping wings as if blinded, and that was all the cue Sly needed. The raccoon came back to himself just in time to turn the turret on and fire – right where the shock pistol blast had just connected. Clockwerk screeched, loud and pained and furious, and crashed into the volcano wall where his quarry was flattened up against.

Sly stopped firing and leapt instead, narrowly missing the enraged owl by the skin of his teeth as he began to freefall. Amidst his fear and the horrible scraping of metal to rock, he barely had the presence of mind to fumble with the jetpack controls, turning his rapid drop into a midair float. Holding his breath against the urge to hyperventilate was done through sheer force of will; he disappeared from sight just as the owl regained his bearings and launched off of the wall back into the sky.

“You cannot escape me, Cooper Raccoon!” Clockwerk roared. His eyes glittered with loathing as he searched for his prey. “You’re the weakest Cooper I’ve ever encountered. My intellect is refined; my experience is greater! I will thwart this pitiful attempt at fighting back and show you what true terror looks like!”

He made several wide swipes into the air around him, hoping to catch the raccoon with sheer reach alone, but Sly had already fallen as low as he dared above the bubbling lava pits. The heat was so strong he could feel it through the soles of his sneakers, but he remained invisible underneath the ancient bird as he hunted him.

A second electric bullet slammed into Clockwerk talons from below. The digits went momentarily limp; the owl’s head whirled towards Carmelita, who stood out in the open on the rock path beneath the battle with her pistol at the ready. His beak opened in a silent approximation of a snarl as all his murderous intent zeroed in on the inspector who’d dared get in the way of his goal.

Before he could even dive-bomb after her, Sly reappeared in his line of sight long enough to shoot at him again. Bullets ripped into the vulnerable metal around his claws until two of them were hanging by a thread. There were no nerve endings there to further debilitate the owl; he course-corrected without any hesitation and aimed for the raccoon while he was still visible.

“Enough, Sly Cooper! It ends here. I’ll finish you like I finished your father. Then the Cooper line will be erased, and the only master thief will be Clockwerk!”

Sly yanked on the jetpack controls, sending him rocketing skywards so fast it nearly gave him whiplash as Clockwerk followed right behind. Each wing beat matched the throbbing in his chest.

“You can’t dodge me forever.” It was a promise, not a threat, as the ancient bird began to close in on his prey. His damaged talons rose in preparation to snatch him straight out of the air –

“Sly! Behind you!”

The owl swerved, suddenly losing control of his flight as Carmelita shot out his tail feathers. He spiraled leftward, attempting a desperate grab for the raccoon that was easily avoided right before crashing into an outcropping of metal and machinery that had been embedded in one of the walls. Sly turned and stared in disbelief at the monster who had plagued his life; the monster who had now found himself momentarily trapped as his shredded claws caught against his own contraption.

Bizarre didn’t even begin to describe it. It was downright surreal. And it was all thanks to the force of nature that was Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox.

A force of nature that wasn’t done yet.

As Clockwerk struggled to free himself and regain the upper hand, the fox found her mark a fourth time. His right wing lit up from electricity, and its frantic flapping slowed considerably. Sly didn’t waste the opportunity given to him – he laid into that wing with the last of the turret’s ammunition. Metal feathers were ripped from their master’s shell in flaming shards, plopping into the lava pool like dozens of tiny comets.

All at once, the wing went limp, as did the rest of the ancient bird. Sly hovered high and uncertainly above him, clutching the empty weapon while waiting for the next thing to dodge or react to. Far below them both, he could see Carmelita taking advantage of the brief reprieve to begin reloading her pistol.

He looked in her direction a second too long, and that was all it took.

Clockwerk lurched, sudden and startling, and dropped dead weight towards the lava. What seemed like a victory at first became horrifying realization as the owl twisted midair to turn his freefall into a glide with the last bit of control he still had – aimed straight for Inspector Fox in her distraction. Her eyes went wide and she dropped the shock pistol in her panic, turning tail and sprinting for all she was worth from the creature determined to slaughter her.

Time slowed to a crawl. Sly felt himself move in slow motion; turning off the jetpack, throwing aside the useless turret, pulling his cane out as he rocketed down towards Clockwerk. Sparkles flashed across the broken metal frame and he followed them, landing on the plummeting owl’s back as easily as if it were solid ground. As the ancient bird made one last bid for an attack, the raccoon brought the cane down against the back of his skull.

Clockwerk screamed. His head twisted in place to fix loathing eyes on the last Cooper, and it was just enough to save Carmelita’s life. He crashed into the lava centimeters shy of the fox’s rocky sanctuary, thrashing wildly as molten liquid poured into his body. Even in his flailing, even as he began to sink further and further into the lava, Sly did not jump off of his back.

He slammed his cane into the owl’s head again. And again. And again. For every garbled sentence Clockwerk said as his brain failed him, for every twitch of dying machinery, for every part of him that was still impossibly alive, Sly Cooper struck him over and over. There was no blind rage or even blind terror to the onslaught; just the crystal-clear understanding that if he did not stop until this monster was well and truly dead, then he would never have the chance again.

Within the battered, broken head of the owl, a single coherent word rang out.

“Cooper!”

The sound of his last name was enough to finally make the raccoon pause. He stilled with his cane raised, prepared for one last trick.

“You will never be rid of me,” the monster declared. “Clockwerk is superior–!”

His voice cut out as the cane cracked his head clean off.

Yellow eyes dimmed to blank black and wings drooped into lava as the struggling stopped in an instant. Sly stood there on what little was left of Clockwerk, staring down the body slowly melting beneath him. His own body felt heavy, and his senses were behind a wall that he could not pass through. Distantly, he heard Inspector Fox call out to him, pleading for him to get off of the owl and join her, but registering it was a delayed process.

When he finally began to turn towards the safety of the nearby rock, something under his foot caught his attention. The raccoon looked down to see papers jammed in the open hole that now made up Clockwerk’s neck. He crouched, picking them up before they could be burned to a crisp, and jumped from the husk of his previous life to the uncertainty of his next.

Carmelita was waiting for him there. She looked at him for a long moment, then at the pages held almost reverently in his hands.

“Are those…?”

“Yeah.” He answered without really being there, staring down at the thing he’d worked so hard for that had been a lie all this time. “The rest of the Thievius Raccoonus. It’s complete again.”

Saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any more real. Sly continued to stare at them, and suddenly had the urge to put them back where he’d found them. Watch them dissolve into nothing along with Clockwerk.

Maybe he should just let the whole book burn.

A pair of hands wrapped around his own, where he was clenching the pages so tightly that they seemed ready to tear. He startled, unsure when he’d started doing that or how long he’d been looking at them.

“Let’s get out of here, Ringtail.” Her voice was calm and quiet and left no room for argument. “Before you do something you’ll regret.”

She began pulling him along with her as she walked away from Clockwerk’s corpse. He followed without resistance – except for a single glance back which was intercepted by her gentle touch to his cheek before he could complete the movement. The raccoon blinked, surprised to feel cool wetness there in the space between her fingers and his fur.

The two of them walked for an indeterminable amount of time, only stopping to climb ledges or pick a different direction. Sly’s mind slowly began to escape the fog it had found itself in, and by the time he finally stopped dissociating, they were standing on a catwalk overlooking the entire volcano. Far below, the owl’s body had seemed to stall in its melting; it sat in the lava, half-submerged, and did not sink any further. Above them, countless stars twinkled, reminiscent of the blue sparkles that promised endless possibilities limited only by himself.

Beside him, Inspector Fox spoke quietly into her radio before setting it back on her hip. She met his gaze with a cautious expression, as unsure about his thoughts as he was about hers.

“Interpol will be here within the hour,” she said, watching him carefully. “How are you feeling?”

The raccoon took a long, deep breath. He looked out at Krakarov and the great expanse beyond. The pages in his left hand and the cane in his right didn’t feel quite as volatile anymore. With another, longer exhale, he stuffed the rest of the Thievius Raccoonus in his backpack and ran his fingers along the edges of his cane.

“Not great,” he admitted. “But…not the worst, either. I think…I think I’ll be okay.”

“Good.”

An awkward, expectant silence fell heavily between them. Neither moved or looked away, each waiting for the other to say or do something first. Finally, after a full minute of quiet studying, Carmelita pulled her shock pistol out of her holster and pointed it at him.

“Ten.”

She said it softly yet firmly, as if convincing herself as much as she was him that she was really going through with this.

“Nine.”

Sly stood frozen for a moment. Then he took a step forward.

“Eight.”

He moved slowly, bit by bit. There was no hurry for what he was about to do. Or, more precisely, what he wasn’t going to do.

“Seven.”

The raccoon came to a stop right in front of her, close enough for either of them to reach out and touch and touch each other.

“Six.”

Without breaking eye contact, Sly leaned forward until his chest was pressed up against the barrel of her weapon.

“Five.”

Inspector Fox didn’t respond to the action. She didn’t react at all beyond the briefest furrow of her eyebrows, as though unsurprised that he was choosing this.

“Four.”

He reached for her right hand; the one holding her weapon.

“Th-three.”

Now she stumbled over her words, finally caught off guard by what he was doing. Even then, she didn’t flinch when his fingers intertwined with hers.

“Two.”

Sly never stopped staring at her. He committed every detail of her face to memory for the precious last second that he had it. The touch he’d dared to steal from her would forever be the only thing he stole from her.

“One.”

It was his voice that finished the count, barely a whisper of a word as he let go of her hand. They were nose to nose, neither blinking. He closed his eyes and began to back out of her space, waiting for the pull of a trigger.

But she surged forward instead.

Faster than he could react, her lips pressed to his. He made a startled noise against her, stiffening for a moment before melting into the unexpected kiss; her free hand came up to hold his cheek, and his hands burrowed into her hair. The trust, the heartache, the need for each other was shared in one simple, desperate gesture of love.

And then, just like that, it was over.

They pulled away from each other at the same time, both trembling with emotions they couldn’t contain and yet couldn’t express. The pistol remained a barrier between them.

“Get out of here, Sly Cooper,” Carmelita murmured, gaze bright and burning. “Go show the world that you’re worth so much more than a name.”

She closed her eyes. Opened them.

He was already gone.

--------------------------------------------------

A/N: I really hope the Clockwerk confrontation was satisfying. It was harder to adapt the fight than I expected - he's got lasers and those electric rings in the game, but otherwise he himself doesn't do much while facing you. I wanted him to be more "active" so to speak, so took away the weapons to make that happen (and to even the playing field a little bit because our heroes were struggling otherwise). I know a lot of people had high expectations for the climax of this fic and I apologize if it fell short.

(Can you tell I'm nervous? I'm really nervous, ahaha.....)

See you all next week for the epilogue.

#sly cooper #carmelita fox #clockwerk #fanfiction #the lines we cross

7 notes · View notes

thefirsttree · 3 years ago

Text

A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind… I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

#gamedev #indie games #the first tree

58 notes · View notes

charlietheepicwriter7 · 3 years ago

Text

Hey, Little Songbird

Chapter 16 - Ao3

Felix could only hope his mother would pardon him for thinking such harsh words, but he felt as though the situation merited it. Because this? Was bullshit.

He could understand, to a degree, where Marinette was coming from. Felix wasn’t a good person; ergo, put Felix in situations where he would be forced to do good to make him confront the benefits of kindness and charity and hugging snot-nosed orphans or whatnot. He could understand becoming a force for good; his family had the money and the influence to improve the live of the less fortunate, and he’d understood that ever since his mother enlisted his help with choosing Graham Films annual donations. He could stand losing some of his own money just to hear Marinette gush about the charity he chose, and how that money would be used (all information he knew, of course; you don’t donate without knowing exactly where your money is going).

What he could not stand is having all his time with Marinette interrupted by Cesaire.

Marinette’s reasoning was that she wanted her two friends to get along, but Felix suspected she just liked to see him suffer. Sure, he did Cesaire a favor once, that doesn’t mean they like each other! In fact, he would go out on a limb and say that Cesaire definitely hated him. Why? …He wasn’t sure. If it had been a few weeks ago, he would have said she was jealous he had been Marinette’s friend while she had been led astray, but now that he’d gotten to—bleck—know Cesaire, he was certain it wasn’t in the girl’s character.

He took the opportunity to ask Cesaire the next time Marinette forced them to work together on a project—this time, cleaning up the content of the Ladyblog. Apparently Felix’s demeanor would help push the blog in a more professional direction.

Cesaire’s fingers paused on the keyboard at his question. Even Marinette, who had been working on a separate project, stopped to listen in. “I don’t hate you,” she lied.

“Yes, you do,” Felix corrected. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, before your near suspension and after. You hate me, and I’d like to know why.”

“Felix, she doesn’t hate you—” Marinette tried, but Cesaire stopped her.

“Marinette, I appreciate you trying to mediate, but you don’t have to right now”—She flashed a smile at Marinette—“Felix, I don’t hate you. I just don’t like you.”

“Okay. Why?”

She drew back, shock crossing her face before she shut the emotion down. “Felix, the first time we met, I was an akuma. An akuma you caused. I still don’t know why you impersonated Adrien, but since you supported Marinette when I didn’t, I’m willing to tolerate you despite that.”

Oh. “I had forgotten that,” he admitted, looking away.

“You… forgot?” She didn’t believe him, it was clear in her voice.

“Yes. I was having quite the bad day myself.”

Cesaire looked ready to say something, but Marinette placed a hand on her shoulder. “Felix, I’ve been meaning to ask you… Why did you impersonate Adrien that day? Knowing you now… it doesn’t seem like something you would do without a reason.”

Felix pursed his lips. True, what he did that day had been… poorly thought out. He would even say that he’d acted rashly, but to be honest, he had planned it from the beginning. The entire time his father was on his death bed, the entire time Felix watched him die, Adrien was calling and emailing him, talking about his friends and modeling and school like Felix hadn’t begged him and Uncle Gabriel to come over and visit, to support them in their time of need like his family had done when Aunt Emilie went missing. Perhaps it was cruel that he and Mother tried to take back their family rings on the anniversary of Aunt Emilie’s disappearance, but it was cruel that they didn’t come to his father’s funeral because… because of a fashion show!

So Felix told them. Despite himself, he told the girls about his father and how much he loved him, and how it broke his heart to see the strongest man he’d ever met waste away in front of his eyes. How his mother cried for months as she sat at his bedside. How their company suffered with the CEO dying and his mother beside herself with grief, how Felix was forced to delegate power to those loyal to his father and their family, trying to keep their business afloat and still in their name.

“Adrien… is very cruel in his ignorance,” Felix said. “He’s more than happy to ignore other people’s problems until they affect him, then he’ll do whatever he can to solve the problem. And I… wanted him to be affected.” He shook his head, picking at Marinette’s bedspread. “I thought that if I caused him to lose all his friends… Well, that plan backfired, so there’s no need to go into detail. I should feel lucky that I got at least one of the rings back.”

“Rings?”

Felix showed off the one he’d stolen from Gabriel, the silver band glinting in the sunlight. The metal seemed to hum against the warmth of his fingers. “The wedding bands of Gabriel and Emilie Agreste were originally family heirlooms of the Graham de Vanily estate. Originally, they were supposed to be used when the eldest child, my mother, got married. Unfortunately, that was impossible.”

“Wait, your mom is a Graham de Vanily?” Cesaire asked. “So, your dad married into the family?”

“That’s correct; Grandfather arranged it back when Father was a mere director in our company.” Felix shook his head. “Mother and Father were supposed to wear these on their wedding day. But Aunt Emilie stole them for her own marriage.”

Marinette gasped. “No! Why would she do that!?”

“I have no idea; if Aunt Emilie ever said why, Mother certainly has never mentioned it. My grandparents disowned her for the theft—though, to be honest, they were already on the edge because Aunt Emilie was marrying someone they didn’t approve of—and it was only Mother’s intervention that kept them from reporting her to the police.” He twisted the ring around his finger. “These rings mean a lot to my family, to my mother… I know it hurt her that she and Father never wore them, even if Father created near replicas for their 3rd anniversary. She never wore hers though… I think she thought that if she did, it would be acknowledging that the rings would never come home.”

“What’s so special about these rings, anyway?” Cesaire asked, moving closer to look at, but thankfully not touch, his ring. “It’s plain silver.”

“Honestly, I have no idea. They’ve been in the family for centuries, and Mother said that you could only understand how precious they are until you and your love both wear them, but…”

“It’s not the value of the rings,” Marinette finished. “It’s what they represent.”

“Precisely. Aunt Emilie stole them to begin with. Now that she’s gone—and honestly, I’m not entirely convinced she didn’t just leave Uncle Gabriel—the rings should come home, no matter how sentimental Uncle is about them. He has made it very clear that he doesn’t consider us family, so there’s no need to keep family heirlooms.” Felix clenched his fist. “I already stole one of the rings; I can steal the other one too.”

Marinette was shaken, but Cesaire immediately nodded her head in agreement. “Go for it.”

“Alya!”

“What? If they were stolen to begin with, then there’s no problem with him stealing them back. Besides, it’s not like Gabriel can report him to the police. There is evidence that the rings were originally your family’s, right? Like, pictures of your grandparents wearing them, or even official documentation?”

Huh. It seems Cesaire is more than she first appeared. “That’s correct, we have both.”

“Then he can’t do much. At worst, he can try to pass them off as a different set of jewelry since the ring is so generic, but that would just draw out the investigation and bring more evidence against him to light. Even claiming that you were the one to steal the ring could be difficult to prove unless he got it on camera.” She frowned. “Getting to the other ring will be difficult though, since Gabriel will likely protect it.”

“Plus, if he knows you stole it, he’s not going to let you into the house,” agreed Marinette. Both he and Cesaire exchanged at look at her abetting. “What? You act like I’ve never stolen anything before!”

“But you… haven’t?”

A cat-like grin stretched across Cesaire’s face. “Oh? She hasn’t told you that story yet?”

A groan. “Alya, no!”

A smirk twitched across his lips despite himself. Perhaps working with Cesaire wouldn’t be so bad after all…

Taglist: @graduatedmelon @novicevoice @dur55 @kris-pines04 @18-fandoms-unite-08 @moonlightstar64 @bee-a-garbage-shipper @sol-o-shade @kittyotakunoir666 @tinyterror333 @allieoftheenemy @marichat00 @xgxmxtx @two-faced-biatch @feliciakainzofspades @evil-cricket @emilytopaz @spicybelladonna @chocolateherringtacofan @user00000003 @wannajointhecrabcult @happymonster-pants @duquesapincarrasca @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @sxltinette @kittydemon9000 @thetrashypanda423

#hey little songbird #felinette #felix graham de vanily #marinette dupain cheng #alya cesaire #alya sugar #adrien salt #ml salt #miraculous ladybug #mlb #Alya: You can have a little crime... as justice.

105 notes · View notes

themculibrary · 3 years ago

Text

AO3 Fics Masterlist 2

Links Last Checked: April 13th, 2024

part one, part three, part four, part five, part six

Between the shadow and the soul - viverella clint/natasha T, 11k

Summary: Clint hesitates to call what they do dating, because they’re spies and fighters and liars and people like them aren’t meant for more than a warm body to push against in the night.

He falls in love with her and she falls in love with him and not necessarily in that order.

Branded (ao3) - KandiSheek bucky/steve/tony M, 40k

Summary: Every child is born with two marks, one from their mother and one from their father. They say that each mark represents a lesson your soulmates will teach you, that you can gain more and more as you go through life.

Tony was born with four. They said he was destined for greatness. If this is what greatness looks like then Tony doesn’t want it.

Breaking News - astolat steve/sam E, 10k

Summary: “I’ve sent you keys,” Tony said. “I’ve emailed, I’ve texted, I’ve called. Pepper called. There is an entire floor of Stark Tower waiting for you to move in. And instead here you are living in a two-bedroom shack out in the open with your — extremely hot, by the way, nice job there — boyfriend. The paparazzi are going to eat you alive, Rogers.”

Captivated - leftennant darcy/loki E, 166k

Summary: When a failed experiment accidentally drops Darcy Lewis into the middle of Asgard, she finds herself an unwilling guest of the God of Mischief. However, as the two of them are forced to spend time together in each other's company, she begins to wonder if being his prisoner may not be so bad after all. (Of course that might just be her ladyparts talking)

Set prior to the first Thor movie, and will diverge from canon because I'm a total rebel like that.

catching bullets in our teeth - anothercover clint/natasha M, 77k

Summary: Retirement, it turns out, is not a thing that Clint is adjusting to very well. Or, you know, at all. It didn’t occur to him that when he dropped the team, it would mean he’d lose Natasha, too.

[Begins pre-CACW, through the events of it, and into the aftermath. Otherwise known as: the slow-burn divorce fic we didn’t know we needed.]

Don't Believe Everything SHIELD Tells You (ao3) - canthelpmyselves bruce/clint M, 6k

Summary: According to the file SHIELD had on Doctor Bruce Banner, he needed to remain calm at all times to keep the Hulk under control. That means no loud noises, no surprises, no confrontations, and most of all, no sex.

Five Times Bruce Knew Exactly What to Say (ao3) - storiesfortravellers bruce/steve/tony T, 6k

Summary: "When Steve was a kid, he hated being rescued...."

Eventual Steve/Bruce/Tony.

Four (Or Five) Reasons for Kidnapping Tony Stark - scifigrl47 steve/tony, clint/phil T, 78k

Summary: There are four reasons for kidnapping Tony Stark. Tony's sick of all of them. Well, there's potentially a fifth, but it's highly unlikely that Captain America will suddenly fulfill THAT fantasy. Tony's deeply disappointed about that.

Steve Rogers, as always, is oblivious. At least, that is, until someone who isn't him kidnaps Tony. Then he's just pissed.

Have I Changed? - katling tony/stephen T, 141k

Summary: I liked you more before you met the Avengers.

It's an offhand comment that Tony wasn't sure he was actually meant to hear. But he did and he doesn't know what it means. Lucky for him, Rhodey's got an answer for him.

Looking at You (ao3) - NotEvenCloseToStraight bucky/tony E, 28k

Summary: Bucky doesn't understand why no one ever says anything about Tony's PTSD.

A year after they have all come back, after they all hugged and made up, Tony is still jumping anytime someone speaks to him. His hands shake when Steve raises his voice. All he does is work and drink and apologize for being around. And nobody notices except Bucky, because he is looking. Constantly. Watching Tony as he goes through his day to day.

Bucky looks and LOOKS, until he is having a hard time even wanting to look away from short spiky hair that begs to be mussed, deep brown eyes that always looks so sad, and perfect lips that Bucky just wants to kiss forever. Bucky looks for so long that now all he wants to do is touch and hold and fix everything. But Tony can barely be in the same room as Bucky, cant even look him in the eye.

So Bucky doesn't know what to do about Tony, but he is determined to do something.

Because all he wants is to look at Tony, and see Tony looking back with a smile.

Off the Edge (ao3) - LavenderProse steve/bucky M, 20k

Summary:"Going somewhere?" Bucky asks, like he feels like he's obligated to.

"Going on a trip," Steve says.

"Where?"

"Dunno. Wanna come?"

Steve and Bucky go on a road trip. Breakthroughs are made.

Over Sea, Under Stars (ao3) - vorkosigan steve/tony T, 4k

Summary: Tony gets the phone, but he never uses it and he never intends to. Or, he doesn’t until Steve starts texting him, asking strange questions about medication and mental health, which is when Tony gets worried.

(A texting fix-it that grew beyond all proportion. Deals with depression and anxiety quite a lot. There is even some plot in there somewhere.)

Peter Parker's Home for the Wayward Villain - BeanieBaby T, 90k

Summary: A really long redemption story.

The Act of Creation Will Be Your Salvation - scifigrl47 steve/tony M, 84k

Summary: When Tony Stark was seventeen years old, he built his first AI. On that day, he ceased to be his father's creation, and became a creating force in his own right.

That one act likely saved his life, and not always in the most obvious ways.

the bruises that we share - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor steve/bucky T, 3k

Summary: Soulmate AU. Sharing the same injuries/bruises. Pre-War. Skinny!Steve doesn’t like bullies, and often finds himself getting beat up, leaving bruises littered all over his body. Steve doesn’t really think about his soulmate when he gets himself in these situations, figuring someone like him won’t end up with his soulmate. Then, Bucky enters the picture.

The Evidence (ao3) - StrivingArtist bucky/tony T, 16k

Summary: Didn’t notice. Right. Sure. Two brilliant minds, two super spies, and a god didn’t notice when the chattiest man they knew stopped making sound. They just seemed happier than before. Brighter and more cheerful than before. They just seemed like they were more comfortable with him around when he was stone silent.

Fuck it.

He knew they noticed.

And he knew they liked him better this way.

The Secrets That We Keep - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor ned/peter T, 10k

Summary: In which Clint has never told any of the Avengers, not even Natasha, about his son Peter. His sister Laura is the only person he’s ever told, trusted. Clint has only ever wanted to protect his son, to keep him safe from harm. But, when the accords come around, things get a little complicated. And Clint finds out that he’s not the only one keeping secrets.

This, You Protect - owlet T, 64k

Summary: The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

#themculibrary #ao3 #ao3 masterlist #masterlists

3 notes · View notes

fanaticfangirl001 · 3 years ago

Text

The Outsider Ch 2: Reality Check

Tom Hiddleston x OFC

Summary: Enid Miller, an artist and member of Taylor Swifts’ girl squad begins to feel conflicted about her friends, life, and romance, prior to the infamous Fourth of July party. To get new inspiration and stay out of drama she moves to London and is rope into a whole lot more when she bites the bullet and goes out on the town one night.

Warnings: swearing,

Author’s note:

Enid sits on the side of her bed staring into her dresser. Are the girls right? Am I too weird, too much, she thinks. Sighing, Enid pulls out her laptop and begins looking for flats in Belsize Park. She remembered the place from one of Tom’s stories about a bakery near his home. Like she told Tom, Taylor is lucky to have him. A literally Disney-esque prince. Maybe she should start dating again. The last four guys were awful as Taylor was the first person to tell Enid the truth about them.

“Hey, Ennie, are you..” Tom opens the door.

Enid looks up from her laptop and does a double take at a shirtless semi-stressed Tom at her door.

“Hello.”

“Hi,can I borrow a shirt?” Tom asks.

“I uh, sure.” Enid closes the laptop and opens her dresser searching for the right shirt. “ So what happened?”

“It’s embarrassing, I spilled gelato on my shirt and I want to take Taylor for a romantic walk on the beach.” Tom admits.

“Ah.” Enid holds up a top to Tom’s frame, sneaking a peek at his physique. His torso looks as though carved from marble. She had never seen a better built man than Michaleangelo’s David but here he stands in front of her in need. “Here.” She hands him the I heart TS shirt.

“Enid.” Tom scoffs.

“It’s cute, and it’s the only thing I’m risking to your gelato obsession unless you want to wear a crop top.�� Enid sits back down on the bed.

“So how are you spending the evening?” Tom asks, throwing the shirt over his head and down covering his torso.

“Um, drawing and finding a place to live in Belsize Park.”

“When we get back, show me what you’ve found. I want to help.”

“Thanks Tom.”

“A friend of Taylor is a friend of mine.”

“You’re very sweet, now go take Taylor out.” Enid opens the door for him.

Once Tom leaves, Enid flops down on her bed. Maybe Tom has a single friend in London, an artsy type, not stuffy, supportive, she thinks. The biggest factor being that the single friend likes her, personality and body. Once thing that no guy has ever done. She shakes that thought out of her head and goes back to house listings. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living area sounds nice, with an open layout and a few windows. Not too small, not too big.

“Hey Emma.” Mikenna opens the door.

Enid sighs, Mikenna is the most evil and shortest of the girl squad. A supermodel who relies on her father to get gigs. Although she isn’t the only one in the group talking behind Enid’s back she’s the ringleader. Below her are: Chelsea, Mandy, and Kelsie. All of these girls hate Enid and have since they met her at Taylor’s housewarming party.

“It’s Enid, and you know that.” Enid looks up from her listings. She starts a voice memo on her phone to show Taylor later.

“Anyway.” Mikenna sits down on the bed.

“What is it? You don’t normally talk to me.”

“The girls and I have been talking…” Mikenna trails off.

“You always are.” Enid sighs and closes the laptop.

“Rude, anyways, we think you’re too close with Tom.”

“Mikenna, I live with Taylor. I think I should get to know her boyfriend.”

“And we get that. But just to let you know, guys like him don’t…” Mikenna sighs, acting sad.

“Guys like him, the British?” Enid laughs.

“No, we mean attractive. Attractive men don’t date girls like you.”

“Girls like me? Artists?”

“No.Ugly. Fat. Worthless.”

“Mikenna, you’re a supermodel right?” Enid asks.

“Yes, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Supermodels need pretty faces,right?”

“Yeah, you couldn’t be one.”

“If you want to keep that pretty face of yours, get out.” Enid growls opening the door. She stops the voice memo recording.

Enid in a fit of rage and sadness, emails the realtor and makes an offer on the house. She’ll be out of Taylor’s hair and out of this terrible friend group.

Enid wakes up when she hears the remnants of girls coming home after a long night out on the town. She grabs her phone and diary, ready for the confrontation.

“Oh Enid, did we wake you?” Taylor asks when Enid comes flying out of her room.

“ No, I was just thinking about that old quote: Looks can be deceiving.” Enid puts her phone on the table.

“Why?” Taylor asks, confused.

“Well, I have had the experience in this group and I’m moving out so this might be the only chance I can say my peace.” Enid smiles wide.

“She’s lying.” Mikenna says.

“Enid hasn’t said anything yet.”

“Oh I’m not going to say anything, Mikenna is. Or more accurately Mikenna did say something to me, earlier.” Enid starts to play the voice memo on her phone.

“Ugly, fat, worthless.” The phone says.

“And that’s not all, Chelsea said I should take up doodle journaling so I did. I put every mean thing these bitches have said to me since the beginning.” Enid tosses the notebook onto the counter and walks off back to her room, as the girls begin blaming each other and bickering.

Taylor follows her.

“Hey Enid.” She softly knocks at the door.

Enid opens it, “ What?”

“I’m sorry, and I’ll help you move. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I want to be independent, most people just know me as the influencer who lives with Taylor.”

“I’m getting you a plant for your house warming.”

“You know I’m the plant Grim Reaper.”

“I just want you to actually see outside.”

“Fine. I’ll go on walks every day, and enjoy nature. Who knows, I might sit at a park and draw.”

“Also, put yourself out there. I’m sure you’ll find a prince or some artist who can not kill plants.”

#Tom Hiddleston x plus size OC #Tom Hiddleston imagines

12 notes · View notes

achliegh · 4 years ago

Text

Happy

Alright my chickpeas, my little garbanzo beans (Wtf am I even saying) I am here to bring you the “Happy we-did-it Ending”. This one was really difficult for me to write because when it comes to good endings my mind just calls them fake. Which… I mean this is fiction so why can’t it be happy. Sorry if this sucks I tried my best. Please Read at your own risk! This is a triggering fic.

Love, Your Trash Monster

CW/TW: Past Abusive relationship, Anxiety, Depression, Panic Attack, past age difference relationship (Illegal)

Part1 Part2 Part3

Characters belong to @lumosinlove

Besides Luka, I made him up, don’t care for him tho

Leo's leg was bouncing uncontrollably, he and Sirius waited for Coach outside his office, He was grateful for Sirius like he felt indebted to him even though they only talked for maybe a half hour. He runs his hands through his hair for what feels like the millionth time.

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” He didn’t mean to say it out loud but when his captain turned and gave him a soft look, he realized he did. He looked down at his hands in his lap and picked at a bandaid. It was one of the Hello Kitty ones Logan bought on accident. “I mean I have no proof of any of this happening, What if Coach thinks I just dislike Luka for no reason and am trying to ruin his life or something like that… It wouldn’t be the first time an adult hasn’t believed me. I mean, there's that double standard that “Men don’t get sexually abused and if they do they don’t cry about it” it's why I never even told Finn and Lo until a few weeks ago. I didn’t want them to think less of me.” He smiles a little at the bandaid he was messing with and thinks about how lucky he is that his boys still love him. “I’m so lucky”

“I get it.” Sirius looked up just in time to see Arthur walking towards them. He smiles a little and stands with Leo next to him.

They follow Arthur into his office and sit down.

“So, is this about all the concerned people who have been telling me something is wrong with Leo?” His brushy red eyebrow lifts and he crosses his arms leaning back in his chair. “I was also told by a little Russian bird that there was an argument in the locker room between you and Luka. Leo whatever is going on it has a lot of people worried.” He leaned forward and set his hands on the arms of his big office chair. “Leo, you know I treat everyone of my players like my sons.”

Leo takes a shaky breath and clutches his hands together tightly in his lap. Gulping down the fearful frog in his throat he meets Coaches eyes. “ What I'm going to tell you is something I’ve only told to a few people. I don’t have any proof anymore, but I need you to believe me Coach.” He feels Sirius put a hand on his arm as a comforting I’m here motion. He told Arthur and Sirius everything, not leaving out any detail that he was comfortable enough to share. It was everything from the good, loving parts of the relationship that made him sick to his stomach now. To the horribly, hellish parts of the relationship that made him choke on his own tears. Leo didn’t think much of it back then (he was a little preoccupied trying not to break) but he remembered that most of Luka and his friend would film things with Leo because they thought it was funny to see him suffer or to save for later to use as blackmail on anyone in the videos.

“Wait, you said he filmed these things?” Arthur, who had turned white as a ghost and had a furious glint in his eye, started drumming his fingers. “Do you think he would have kept these videos throughout the two years you’ve been apart.?

“I know for a fact he's kept them” They both look at him with wide eyes and a silent invitation to explain. “He would ask me if I wanted to see them… or remake them” Talking about all this as making him feel like he was gonna puke. He had a foul taste in my mouth. Arthur put his head in his hands, he's devastated that he let such a fucking asshole interact with his team. That he let his youngest player suffer like that.

Sirius had stood abruptly from his chair and was pacing behind Leo’s chair with his hand interlocked on the back of his neck. He exhales deeply, seething with anger. How could he let this go on so long, he had picked up on Leos habits because Remus had pointed out how similar the two of them were at times. He feels like he failed as a Captain for not doing something sooner.

“Is there anything we can do, Coach? I mean, can we at least fire him?” He stopped pacing and ran a hand over his face, taking a deep breath as he looked at the young kid next to him. How was he so good at hiding his pain? People would say that Sirius was good at that too but everyone on the team has seen him crack and spiral. Leo was always this calm, collected, cool support. He acted so mature for being so young and it was all clicking in his head. Everything about this 19 year old goalie was formed from the love and support of his family, but also the hate and abuse from a lover. He has experienced more than most people on the same team as him that are older than him.

“We can fire him, and if we do call the police, they can seize his electronics. If he really does still have those videos they could lock him up for CP because you were underage at the time. Nothing is guaranteed though.” He's deep in though, sometime during the processing of everything Leo had told them he had grabbed his laptop and was furiously typing an email to the Lead of the Organization. He hit send and looked up to the two hockey players. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Godic and Luka together. I already had a meeting with Mr. Godric today about next year's fundraisers but this is a more important topic.” he stands up and looks at Leo “Thank you for telling me Nut. That was very brave of you” He smiles weakly and Ruffles Leo’s hair. “If you ever need anything just let me know, okay?” He nods towards Sirius and walks out the door to his meeting.

“We should get you home, your boys are waiting.” He smiles softly as Leo stands and is taken by surprise when Leo pulls him into a tight hug mumbling “thank you” into his shoulder.

Leo was so happy, he felt lighter than he has in the last two years. He gets squeezed by the man he wrapped himself around and laughs wetly. When they pull away they both wipe their eyes and smile at each other. This was a new chapter to both their lives.

Sirius dropped Leo off at home after a stop at a drive through for an ice cream cone (that he may or may not have dropped on Sirius’ floor and got an annoyed glare) he walked in the front door and was talked into a pile of limbs and smothering kisses. He laughed freely and kissed both his boys sweetly and conveyed so much love.

As the Cubs made dinner together and sang to a random playlist. Logan burned half the food and Finn dropped a third of it. Good thing Leo tripled the recipe so they had enough to eat for the night. Putting on a mind numbing cooking show they just waxed poetically about how much they love each other. Around 7:30 pm Leo's phone started vibrating and a picture of Arthur sleeping on the bus with Talker doing a thumbs up flashes on his screen.

“What happened?” He is very anxious about everything that could go wrong, all of that melted away when Arthur shared the news.

“He's been taken down to the station and his phone has been seized. He was angry when confronted and actually tried to take a swing at me before security was called. If this ends up going to court would you be able to, you know, stand trial. I mean telling your coach is one thing but a room of strangers is different. Especially because the media will be all over this case.”

Leo had to think about this, if he didn’t go and testify this case would only air on the local news. Then again, he could change people's lives. He could be a role model for people who are too afraid to tell about their experiences. That's worth more than anything. He may be shamed online but it doesn’t matter. He Needed to do this.

“Yeah, this is something I need to do.”

#leo knut #lumosinlove #logan tremblay #sirius black #finn o'hara #sweater weather #coast to coast

31 notes · View notes

jamespotterthefirst · 4 years ago

Text

Little Miracle

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 1,900 Warning: A few curse words.

Author’s Note: This is part of the canon scene where Ethan and MC watch over Dolores’s baby, from Ethan’s POV. I was inspired by the line from the book that says they “talked long into the night.”

Catch up here.

The sterile room of the NICU feels stifling that night, the fluorescent lights shining on them both almost blinding. Ethan had been in that room many times before, but never like this. Never with a strain on his mind and heart so painful, he thinks he might burst from it. Now, sitting in the love seat, counting each of the baby's breaths, he feels as though he is in a foreign place—a vastly terrible one where his dearest friend does not exist anymore.

The knot in his throat returns.

Dammit.

It threatens to constrict his breathing in the most debilitating way and he hates it. Urgently, he suppresses the flood of emotion at once, turning instead to glance at Lilac next to him.

The young doctor is not looking at him. In the silence that stretches between them, she stares at the linoleum floor, her tear-streaked face is pale, her eyes bleary and red. The weight of their previous conversation hangs over them and he is surprised to discover it is not an unpleasant one. Instead, her quiet presence at his side feels oddly… comforting. More so than the many glasses of scotch he was planning on drowning in had he not stayed.

Sensing his eyes on her, she glances up and offers him a tired smile which Ethan returns without hesitation. The moment lingers and before either of them can say anything, a soft cooing distracts them as the baby stretches.

An inexplicable warmth pierces through Ethan as he very gently offers Dolores' baby his hand. Small fingers close around his, weakly, yet powerful enough to steal his breath away.

“She named him after you,” she informs him tenderly, as though the words she is offering him are made of the most delicate crystal.

A small wave of shock courses through him as he looks at the name.

Ethan Hudson.

His throat tightens painfully yet again and all he can do is swallow.

“I...see she did.”

A small silence.

Her soothing, kind voice saves him from his thoughts when she comments, “You must have known Dolores a long time.”

Ethan busies himself with carefully removing his hand from the baby's grasp. Despite the painful ache in his throat, he finds the words. “Over ten years. When I first emailed her I only meant to check in. But she was recently divorced, feeling alone, so she insisted on coffee.” In spite of himself, he smiles at the memory of the lively yet persistent young woman who had been so determined to befriend him. “And then it turned into more emails and meeting once every couple months for Sunday roast.”

“She sounds like a good friend.”

She was, he thinks before his mind catches up with him. When it does, the past tense stabs him like a knife to the side.

“I didn’t make friends easily when I started here,” he begins, pausing only briefly to keep his voice from breaking. “So I was always grateful to her for that.”

The words finish ringing out in the quiet room and he swallows, suddenly exhausted from fighting back the excruciating pain of Dolores's death. As he falls silent, prickling eyes moving to the baby she fought so fiercely to protect, Ethan allows himself to mourn. The torrent of sorrow hits him is like the opening of a floodgate.

He is certain he will drown in his grief until a soft, warm hand slides over his, looking small and delicate against his own.

Ethan remains very still.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” she murmurs, the sincerity her voice offers something akin to a caress.

Ethan's eyes remain locked on their joined hands. Something about the sight and the feel of her soft skin against his tears away at his pride until all he wants to do is hold on to her desperately. Instead, he looks up to meet her eyes, unprepared for the quiet compassion in their depths. It hits him so abruptly that he is unable to look away, feeling something foreign stir in the depths of his chest, as consequential as the first blooms of Spring.

“Me too.”

As the seconds tick by and he becomes very aware that her hand remains on his, his pulse picks up, clamoring at his ears. With much effort, he forces himself to pull away.

“I think we need coffee.”

“I can get some,” she says, already rising to her feet, unaware of the scorching trail her touch left behind on his skin.

Ethan shakes his head. “No, I’ll go.”

He leaves the room in quick strides, grateful for the brief moment of solitude. Being alone, however, proves to be a small torment since he is unable to suppress thoughts of earnest, kindhearted eyes breaking down every barrier he had stubbornly built that evening. Steaming mugs of coffee in hand, he returns to the NICU with an eager haste he refuses to acknowledge, missing the tendrils of her soft companionship.

When he enters the room, Ethan finds her lovingly murmuring to the baby. “That’s it little tadpole. In and out.”

Lilac notices his arrival, offering him a sheepish smile at being caught. Cheeks blazing, she accepts the coffee gratefully. “This doesn’t taste like the cafeteria coffee,” she observes approvingly.

“This is from my private coffee machine. As soon as I got an office, I vowed never to drink that caffeinated dishwater again.” He watches her take this information in with knowing amusement. “Nobody knows I have it so…”

Quite seriously, she vows, “I won’t tell a soul.”

Ethan chuckles, shaking his head, the first true flash of amusement that evening.

They fall into a comfortable silence after that until the attending overseeing the case during the night shift strolls in to check on the baby. Satisfied with her findings, she quickly jots down the information on his chart.

“Our little miracle,” she comments quietly, both to the baby and to them, before leaving the room.

Ethan snuffs the urge to scoff at the word miracle. Lilac, of course, catches this and arches a brow at him.

“You don't believe in those,” she says, not as a question but as an undeniable observation.

Ethan hesitates to answer until he glances at her. There is no trace of judgment or derision on her lovely face, just fatigue from already spending several hours keeping watch.

“There is no scientific basis to account for them,” he allows. “Frankly, I'm a little surprised you believe in them despite choosing to spend your career with facts and empirical evidence.” He is careful to keep all sarcasm out of his tone though he doubts he is successful. Years of being a sardonic little shit are hard to break.

Lilac doesn't seem to mind, however, because she gives him an indulging sort of smile. “It is because I have studied science and facts that I am hesitant to dismiss their existence,” she explains. “Even with everything we know, there are some things science or reason cannot explain.”

“There are too many variables at play in a single minute, Rookie,” he counters. “When something occurs that we cannot explain away, it means a plethora of those variables aligned to create a perfect outcome.”

Lilac takes a careful sip of coffee, watching him over the rim of her mug. Not for the first time, he can see her mind working, formulating an argument. And like many times before, he longs to know the mystery of her thoughts.

“And getting that outcome despite all the innumerable possibilities,” she begins thoughtfully. “Isn't that a little miraculous?”

“No.”

Lilac laughs at the resolute way in which he shoots her down, though the sound is far from mocking.

“Are you then crediting what science cannot explain to coincidence and luck, Dr. Ramsey?”

He briefly pauses at that, thoughts stumbling. The haughty way in which she lifts the mug to her lips, concealing a smug smile, tells him she had intended to stump him. Instead of feeling annoyed, as he should, he feels a thrill of approval and something else entirely.

“Not at all,” he returns when he recovers. “I am merely pointing out that there is still much we don't know as a species. When something inexplicable takes place, the real cause is most likely attributed to something we haven't learned yet.”

Despite looking utterly exhausted, her eyes glint, as though she had expected that very answer.

“'If he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact.'”

Ethan blinks.

“Are you seriously quoting Dostoevsky at me, Rookie?”

This time, she dissolves into self deprecating laughter. “Sorry,” she says, scrunching her nose in the most endearing of ways. “I studied him as an elective when I was in my undergrad program so it's hard to break out of the habit of being a pretentious ass.”

“A pre-med student with a penchant for world literature,” he observes, allowing himself to relax into the air of amusement her laughter catalyzes.

“I was downright insufferable.”

“So not much has changed.”

Lilac throws him what is meant to be an unamused glare, but she ruins it by losing the battle against a smile. Ethan grins, unable to help it.

“What else do you walk around quoting at people who disagree with you?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“Nothing as severe as Russian literature,” she quips. “I save that for the most stubborn of the people I argue with.”

Ethan rolls his eyes though he too fails to stifle a smile. He begrudgingly accepts that he enjoys bantering with her, though he would never admit it out loud.

“Be lucky I didn't quote Harry Potter at you,” Lilac continues sagely. “I am notorious for that, too.”

“There's nothing in the Potter books about miracles,” he points out.

Lilac shoots him a surprised look. “You've read them?”

“Yes, I read the few that were out when I was in high school. They had midnight release events at bookstores when a new one was published.”

She stares at him in stunned silence.

“You went to that? That is so…”

“Don't say–”

“Cute.”

The word sends a jolt through him, made worse by the sound of her tired but giddy laughter. Ethan allows her to enjoy the mirth, even if it's at his expense. If he was being honest, he thoroughly enjoyed it too, feeling his anguish ease with each passing moment.

“Did you dress up?” she asks, eyes alight with excitement.

“We are not speaking of this anymore.”

“You did, didn't you?” she manages to say through a wave of fresh laughter. “Who did you dress up as? Harry? Dumbledore? Snape?”

Ethan makes a disgusted sound. “Don't insult me.”

Her laughter is uncontrollable by now and he can't help but join. “Good answer,” she commends.

Bodies close on the love seat, they both relax further into their seats, contentment lingering in their fading smiles. Ethan allows himself one good look at her as she becomes momentarily distracted by her phone. The harsh lightning of the NICU washes her out, especially in her sleep-deprived, exhausted state, but somehow she still looks unfairly beautiful. Yet, there is something entirely different about her, though he is far too tired to decipher what.

Lilac glances up to catch him staring.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Her previous words echo in his mind.

“There are some things science or reason cannot explain.”

Ethan thinks of Dolores and the unwavering friendship she offered him despite being surly and unapproachable. He thinks of the unconditional love she held for a being she had not even met yet, so profound she gave her life for him. He thinks of Lilac, offering him compassion and companionship despite his every effort to push her away.

Lilac glances glances his way, beaming at him radiantly. As he returns the smile, his heart feeling ten times lighter than it did an hour ago, he admits to himself that she was right.

______

Author’s Note: I don’t know what that was but if you made it here, thank you!

I think I will skip the baseball game scene and go on to the fMRI scene. I might have that be slightly AU and have Ethan ask MC the questions. Let me know what you think <3

______

@dulceghernandez | @lion-ess24 | @emotionalswift2 | @the-soot-sprite |

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #playchoices #my writing

282 notes · View notes

mvnvgedmischief · 3 years ago

Text

unremarkable days.

summary: sirius black is trying to be a good man, a good brother, a good person. Sirius has a steady job designing book covers for a publishing house, a flat he never leaves, and a traumatized brother who was just removed from the custody of his parents. All in all, it's wildly unremarkable.

chapter: 5/?

characters: sirius black, regulus black, wolfstar, background marauders

tags: tw: canon compliant abuse, child abuse, social services, abuse, eating disorders

read it on ao3 here

read the last chapter here

words: 4.2k

Sirius felt his mind whirring, as usual. God, it was so hard for him to be normal, to cope with the stress and the frustration and the exhaustion. He didn’t know how he was meant to. He remembered just a month ago, when Alice told him he should take a parental leave. Six weeks off he could have had if he wanted them. But he wanted to keep his trajectory undisputed. It was a mistake, in hindsight. He didn’t know then just how difficult his parents would make things. He didn’t know then what he knew now. He would have said “fuck it” to his trajectory if he would’ve been able to sleep. After all, it was the only thing he really wanted. It was the only thing, other than Regulus’s safety.

He knew that he couldn’t do anything about this Remus situation. It was too dangerous. If he did something, he didn’t want it coming out in court. If he didn’t, Remus would probably never approve a design again. At least, not from him. So he chose to do what anyone would in his position. He called Marlene and looped in Alice. The calendar invite specified the meeting would begin in twenty minutes. He had titled it “Team Touchbase: The Girls are Talking Shit Again” in hopes to lighten the mood. However, there was no way that it would work. Not with the conversation he was about to have.

He found himself breathing deeply. Trying to muster the courage to do this. They would be upset. He was sure of it. Especially when it was something this earnest, this niche and close to his chest. But Sirius didn’t have any other choice. Not as far as he could tell. So instead, he made plans for all of the inevitable ways they would try to convince him not to do this. But his mind was already made up. There was no going back now. Not when he was already this committed to the decision.

“I need to be dropped from this project.” He doesn’t even bother with pleasantries. “Alice, please take me off of this project.”

The scoff caught him off guard. In all the time he had spent working closely with Marlene, she had never scoffed at him. Then again, he’d never asked to be taken off either. “You’re gonna let one bad meeting get to you? It’s not that big of a deal, Sirius.” Marlene was looking at him expectantly. As though she expected him to realize that he was wrong and laugh about it.

“They’ll all be bad. I need to be dropped from the project.” He stated it like a fact. Maybe because to him, it was one. He just kept repeating it because if he said it enough times maybe they would just believe him and drop him from this book, and this chaos.

“What happened in your meeting earlier? I feel like I’m playing catch up.” It really wasn’t fair to Alice that she didn’t know. But Sirius didn't feel like explaining.

“Sirius wants to get dropped from the poetry book.”

“But—“ Alice paused. She looked like she was sussing something out. “But aren't those your favorite pet projects?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So what’s the problem? “ Marlene cut him off again, and Sirius was beginning to lose his will to do this. He knew he couldn’t just not show up to meetings, but it would show them he needed to be taken off this project.

“Alice, I have so many projects right now where the author doesn’t hate me. I don’t really have the time to be on a project where he does.” He wasn’t even acknowledging Marlene right now, because she clearly didn’t understand. why he wanted to be taken off. And that was okay, he didn’t mind, as long as he could get off this project.

Marlene and Alice were good people. They weren’t going to make him do this when he reminded them of how much he was doing, how much weight he was actually pulling. He was sure of it.

“Bullshit. He doesn’t hate you.”

Well that wasn’t what he anticipated.

Marlene wasn’t having this. She began to extrapolate on her point, and Sirius was only half listening. “He thinks you’re cool and intimidating, Sirius. He was trying not to feel small. It might not be your style to take that on, but he doesn’t hate you and you know it.” Marlene seemed really keen on keeping him on this project. Sirius wondered why for a moment, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn't know how hard she worked to put him on this account in the first place.

“Marlene, I don’t know how else to tell you this, but,” he could feel his tone rising. He was starting to get upset. “I don’t have the luxury of time right now to redo the last week of work by myself. Especially when he wants it by today. I don’t have the fucking time. All because he doesn’t like me. I don’t have the time. Take me off the fucking project.”

“I’m sorry what? What even happened in this meeting?” Sirius wished she had just been there. He wished she watched it happen, because the idea of going through all of the gory details all over again made his skin crawl.

“Her,” It was probably unfair to place that much emphasis on the word, as though it was Marlene’s fault, “client told me to start over, and when I asked him for any feedback, he essentially told me that if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it that I should be out of a job.”

“You’re being dramatic, Sirius! He didn’t say that! He just said that–” She paused, and Sirius assumed it was because that was exactly what Remus had said. “that you were the artist, not him.”

“Marlene, we don’t let our junior designers take project lead most of the time. I know you really wanted him on this project, but one of the reasons that junior designers don’t lead projects is because a team of two designers on one project is less likely to get bullied. Start cc’ing me on all your emails, I’ll be overseeing this project. “ Alice was speaking with conviction and grace, something Sirius knew he lacked. He knew that lacking in that made him hard to root for, but he didn’t care.

“Can I clear out my schedule from these meetings? I really don’t want to even look at them anymore.” He wished he didn’t sound like a kicked puppy right now.

“No.” Alice affirmed, “You are not about to let a client bully you out of your job. Besides, I’m overseeing this project, and this relationship. If you’re not there, there is no relationship.” She really had an air about her that made her hard to question. Sirius wished he had that.

With that, the conversation was over. Neither Marlene nor Sirius look satisfied, but Alice has provided her mentee as good of a solution as he was probably going to get right now. And effectively Marlene got what she wanted. Sirius was still on the project.

“Both of you, take the day to cool off. I’ll be getting in touch with the client later today to make sure that our client relationship terms are actually being upheld. Something tells me he didn’t read them.”

Sirius nodded numbly. He felt emotionally tapped out. There was no way that this was going to work. How was he supposed to juggle all of this, on top of his already stressful life. So instead, he logged off, like Alice suggested. He was not going to be logging back on any time soon. He could practically guarantee that.

Sirius found his way to the couch, with its ever inviting comfort. All of the coziness of falling asleep, none of the bedroom associated trauma. That was definitely a bonus. Falling asleep on the couch always seemed far safer than falling asleep in his bed. There was less likelihood of nightmares, less anxiety, less flashbacks. It was a wonder Sirius ever made it to bed. Today, he didn’t. He sat on the sectional, curling himself into a small ball in the corner, and turned on something low intensity. He put on a documentary series about penguins, which felt like it would be soothing, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

He was lucky when he logged out of his email, it auto populated his Out of Office message. Or at least, usually he thought that. Today he would have rather died, then have that functionality turned on. Because he was sure it was what prompted Remus to wake him from his peaceful nap with a call.

Well, peaceful was a strong word. It definitely had its own fair share of thrashing, but Sirius would take thrashing and nightmares he couldn’t remember over this phone call. He dreads it until he slides the accept call button.

“Sirius Black.” He begins, because what is there to say. His voice sounded thick with exhaustion. He could hear it.

“We need to get that meeting on the calendar.” Didn’t Remus know he could just send a calendar invite? This remote thing wasn’t nearly as complicated as he made it out to be.

“I’m out of office Remus.” His tone was dripping with contempt. He didn’t want this. He wanted to sleep.

“You’re always out of office. You never answer when i call you, it’s fucking nutty how hard I have to work to get you on the phone.”

“It wouldn’t be if you could just check the google calendar or get your nose out of my business.” Sirius didn’t know he was feeling this spicy today. But apparently, he was enjoying controlled confrontation.

“i don’t think that’s—“

“Stop asking people why I’m not in office. It’s none of your business.” He wasn't pulling any punches right now. He was going to get this man off of his back. “It’s fucking weird. I don’t know you.”

“I was just–“ Remus wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise. Sirius wasn’t going to let him.

“And for that matter, it shouldn’t matter whether or not I’m remote. It seems to bother you so much, but you were the one who tried to put me on the project. You were the one who asked Marlene about it. I’ve been remote since before you got picked up, it’s not news to anyone else on the team. It’s weird that you’re so concerned with me.”

“You were the one who—“

“That was a big fucking mistake.” Sirius spit in response. Sure, he wanted to see Remus again when he had asked him on that date. But putting it all in perspective, he couldn’t do that. And he didn’t like that Remus was pressing everyone for the details of his personal life. He would rather cut this off here, not risk the court date and the details being aired out. Especially not since they could be used to take Regulus from him. He couldn’t risk it.

“What was the point of it then? Why’d you ask me and then pull this?” Remus’s voice sounded small. Like he was going to cry.

“I liked you until you started prying into my life. I don’t need more people running around trying to dig up information on me.” Sirius shouldn’t have said that. He felt it in his chest, but he couldn’t take it back now. He practically wants to scream, you could have just waited, I would have explained. But he could not do that, because it definitely wasn’t true.

“Oh.” That’s all Remus said, before he clicked the phone off and hung up.

Sirius didn’t have the time to think about that. He just didn’t. While six months ago he would have spiralled out of control thinking about what that short “oh” meant, but he couldn’t spend that time right now. Shit. What time even was it? He checked the time when his eyes began to focus again, and took a moment to try to collect himself. It was half past five, and he had no time because Regulus would be home from football in twenty minutes and Sirius needed to have dinner on the table. So he jumped off of the couch, and tore from the living room area into the kitchen. What was he even going to make? How would he even pull this together?

He was moving at a speed he wasn’t sure he even possessed these days. He was running through what he could make mentally, trying not to come up with anything that would wear on him too heavily or signal a lack of effort to Regulus. It was a fine line that he walked every night. When food was too terrifyingly bland, too ashen in his mouth, and too overwhelming to his mind, how did he settle on something comforting for his brother? And on top of that, he needed to be quick. He was running out of time. He grabbed a jar of pasta sauce that he had made earlier in the week, and a box of spaghetti, and hoped that this would be enough. It wasn’t good enough to stand up to the chefs in the Black family home, but then again, he didn’t think Regulus wanted that anyways.

When Regulus finally walked through the door, Sirius was almost done cooking. He had meatballs in a pan, the pasta was strained, and the sauce was warm. Maybe this would be enough. Maybe he would have done enough for them to just enjoy dinner, and have a normal night.

“Hey, Siri.” Regulus looked calm for the first time in a long time. Hopefully tonight would be a good night. Hopefully they could have a normal meal, laugh and smile and have a good time. It would be nice.

“Hey, Reg.” Sirius replies, putting together a bowl for his younger brother. He wanted so badly to just let things be normal. He puts one together for himself as well, and brings them over to the table. If he needed to do it, he would. He didn’t want to be anything other than a positive force in Regulus’s life. He didn’t want to cause problems for him. “How was school?”

Regulus looks up, god, when did his eyes start looking so sad. Where did the light he used to have in his eyes go? Had Sirius really missed so much of his life? “School was fine. Kind of long. They sent me to the social worker today. Grilled me on what it was like living with you.”

Sirius felt his eyes go wide. Sure, it wasn’t surprising that they did, but still, it terrified him.

“I told them everything was awful, obviously.” Regulus chuckled, and for a moment, Sirius’s heart dropped. However, in a moment, he was laughing right along with Regulus. Of course it was a joke. He hadn’t told them that, because he didn’t want to go back. Sirius was terrified of anyone taking Regulus, but Regulus seemed to be terrified of being taken away. At least today, he seemed to be. “I told them it’d be easier to get acclimated if someone stopped mum and dad from taking us to court all the time.” That statement was smaller, more fearful. It was as if Regulus was afraid he had done something wrong.

“Mate, I–” Sirius began, but Regulus stopped him, “Siri you can’t stop them. You don’t need to apologize to me.”

That sentence could have made him crumble. It probably would have, if they weren’t interrupted by a knock at the door. Sirius felt himself jump, and he watched Regulus do the same. God, Sirius wished they weren’t so fucking damaged. He wished that any noises that they didn’t know was coming didn’t startle them. He wished they hadn’t been conditioned to be afraid for so many years. But then the key is clicking into the lock, and Sirius is jumping up. He doesn’t want this right now. He can’t do this right now. He knows it’s Jamie as soon as the sound of the tumblers click into place. So he walked over to the door with speed and a mission. He would keep them out of his home if he could help it, because he couldn’t do this tonight. They needed a calm night at home, a night of peace and family time, and Regulus was shifting uncomfortably in the chair.

“Jamie, you can’t be here.” Sirius began, before he even opened the door.

“Mate, you didn’t come to the family dinner. We wanted to see you, so we came to you,” James laughed and when Sirius looked around, it was the team. Including Remus.

“No,” Sirius puts his foot behind the door, holding it closed with only his head poking out.

“But Sirius it’s been forever since anyone’s seen you,” Peter called from behind him.

“No, lads. Go home. It’s a school night.” Sirius wasn’t budging. In fact, he was pleading.

“You don’t have a kid.” Remus called, clearly looking bitter. Sirius wanted to scream that he didn’t know what he’s talking about, because he didn’t.

“Go home, guys. You can’t come in. It’s a school night.” He repeated. They couldn’t. He didn’t want Reg to be so uncomfortable, which he clearly was.

“Fine.” James looked irritated. Sirius understood why. He understood that he had forgotten the plans James made, but at the same time, he couldn’t juggle this right now. He didn’t have the time for all of this. He knew he had been MIA from his friend’s lives, but this wasn’t forever. It was just until he was done with all of these hearings. Just until his parents would stop. Just until Regulus felt more comfortable. Just until the chaos ended.

Sirius returned from the door, and sat down at the table again. He didn’t really care to talk about it, but his brother looked so guilty that he felt like he had to.

“They could’ve come in. I would’ve eaten in my room.” His eyes welled with tears, and he looked so deeply uncomfortable.

“Reg, this is your house. Not theirs.” Sirius responded with as much authority as he could muster, but he definitely didn’t want to scare him. He didn’t want to seem like his parents, he didn’t want to behave the way that they did ever. It was a fine line to walk, and he knew it would get harder when he needed to put his foot down, be a disciplinarian in any way. But for right now, that wasn’t a concern of his. Right now he was much more focused on making this a welcoming environment. It needed to be comfortable for him before they could handle anything else.

“It’s your house, you can have people over if you want.” Regulus’s voice sounded thick with concern, laced with guilt. Sirius was terrified that he was royally screwing this whole thing up. He wanted to be a good brother, a good guardian, a support system. “I don’t wanna cause problems.” There it was, the sentence before the crumble. Sirius could see it coming, because it was like looking into the past. Regulus reminded him of himself so much that it hurt sometimes.

“Reg, mate,” he started, and then he stood up (and pretended that he wasn’t seeing stars). “You aren’t causing problems,” in just a moment, he was beside his younger brother and his arm was wrapped around the teen’s shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re here. All I’ve ever wanted is to get you out of there. I just couldn’t before. The council wouldn’t let me.”

“But– but–” Reg was stuttering and spiralling, “If I wasn’t here they wouldn’t be taking us to court all the time, there wouldn’t be private investigators, you wouldn’t have to worry.” His words felt like burns on Sirus’s skin. It felt like a vice gripped his heart, and all he wanted to do was support his brother. All he wanted was for everything to finally be okay.

“Reg, look at me.” Sirius’s calloused hand gently pulled his brother’s shoulder to face him. “I want you here. I have wanted you here since I left. I missed having my kid brother around, alright?”

“Oh,” Reg responded, but he had already become despondent and detached. He wasn’t coming back from the stress and the emotional turmoil tonight. Sirius understood. He had been like that when he first left. Hell, he was still like that. He didn’t have the energy to do for himself what he had done for Regulus, by getting him the best treatment he could, and making sure to keep him together. He was trying to do for Regulus what Euphemia and Monty had done for him. He knew that he wasn’t measuring up to them, but he was trying. He knew that he had taken for granted what they had done, he was re-engaging in behaviors that weren’t healthy for him. Things they had worked so hard to pull him out of. But he was trying, and he didn’t have the time to take care of all of those old behaviors that had flared up. He didn’t have the energy to work on himself, when he had all of this going on.

Shortly thereafter, Regulus decided to go to bed. Sirius understood, it had been a lot of effort to go to school, and footie, and deal with the stress of Sirius’s friends showing up out of nowhere. And Sirius was thankful in a way, because he was about to rip into James for doing this again. He should know better. Within minutes, he was ringing James and seething. He can barely wait until the phone is done ringing to start going in on him.

“Jamie, you can’t fucking do that to me.” He began, “You can’t just bring people to my fucking house, especially not people who don’t know what is going on. I can’t have people over– they have a fucking PI looking into me, documenting everyone who’s here, when they’re here. I can’t have a bunch of people over on a fucking school night! They’re going to try to take him from me over the smallest fucking thing, let alone having several twenty somethings over in the middle of the week out of nowhere!” He was not even taking a moment to breathe, “How could you fucking do that to me? Why do you want to help them? I can’t even fucking leave my house without being fucking interrogated about it every two weeks in court! You can’t bring people here!” He reached up to push his curly black hair out of his eyes, and he realized that he was crying. He was really caught off guard by it.

James waited a moment, before responding. James was always much better about keeping his cool than Sirius had ever been, and if he was honest, Sirius appreciated it. He appreciated that James kept it together when he couldn’t. “Sirius, I didn’t know. I don’t want you to get him taken from you. I’m sorry.”

“Jamie they can’t do it– they can’t take him– I can’t let them–” Now it was Sirius’s turn to spiral. The anger had subsided, and all that was left was his fear. He was terrified that he was going to lose his brother again, and he couldn’t handle that.

“Siri– a judge would have to be mad to take him from you.” While that might have been true, it didn’t quell Sirius’s fears.

“They have so much money, Jamie. They have so much power. They can do whatever they want and get away with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal.” Sirius wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. He was so terrified, and there was nothing that anyone could do to make this less terrifying. It was almost terrifying just how much power the Black family actually held. Sirius wasn’t sure that he could do enough to stand up to them.

“I’m worried about you, Pads.” James let out a sigh, it seemed like this was a conversation he was dreading having. “You’re alone all the time. You never go anywhere. You’ve been lashing out at people— Pads, I can’t remember the last time it was this bad.” He sounded almost as terrified as Sirius felt.

“I see them more now than I have in years, Prongs. I can’t handle this.” His voice is breaking. He was trying so hard not to lose it, but it hadn’t worked and it probably wouldn’t anytime soon.

“You haven’t been seeing your counselor.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“You don’t know that.” He was right, Sirius hadn’t been seeing his counselor.

“Yeah I do. You’re online when you usually see her. Is it about the money? Me and Lil can help you out with money.” Sirius hadn’t expected to be called out like that. He didn’t have the energy to handle this conversation right now.

“I can’t do this right now.” Sirius responded, “I’ve gotta go.” He didn’t really, he just wanted to be alone. He just wanted to not talk about it anymore, pretend everything was fine, dissociate for hours. That was what he wanted. It was completely unremarkable.

11 notes · View notes

smol-and-grumpy · 4 years ago

Text

Light My Fire - CH11

Pairing: CEO!Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: She always thought her boss was an ill-tempered man, but when he presents her with a proposition she can’t quite deny, she gets to know him better. It’s not bad, right? Because all she has to do is being fake married to him for six months, sounds do-able, right? Right.

Warnings: Flangst, NSFW

WC: 2612

Please share your thoughts with me, I’d love to hear your feedback.

Beta’d by @deanwanddamons <3

SERIES MATSTERLIST

BECOME A PATRON ~ BUY ME A COFFEE

Y/N watches as Ruby comes back out of Dean’s office. Ruby’s smiling but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She knows that Dean wants to see Ruby first thing because he wants to make sure that she is following his instructions on booking a trip for them. And suddenly, she feels guilty because Ruby knows that they’re going on their fake honeymoon, and she kind of hopes that Ruby’s going to be okay with it.

“Oh my god,” Ruby groans, and lets herself fall into her chair, “I’m so fucking hungover.”

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Y/N agrees with her friend.

Ruby begins to work in silence and Y/N frowns. After a while she looks up from her computer screen and speaks up, “So, you wanna tell me about last night or?”

Her friend lets out a sigh, “Oh my fucking god, I’m so glad you asked!”

Y/N giggles. Ruby’s always so fucking dramatic, she loves it.

“So, did you go home with who I think you went home with?”

“My god, Y/N, it was magical! Magical, I tell you!” Ruby gushes, “But let me book that trip for you first and then we’ll go grab a coffee.”

“You okay with me going on a honeymoon?”

“Duh, I’m so happy for you! While you’re there, you can make him fall in love with you for real!”

“Ruby!”

“What?” Her friend gasps, “Just saying. I mean, have you seen how he treats you, how he looks at you? The woman who gets to marry him for real is one lucky bitch! I wish that was you because in all honesty, you deserve everything good, alright?”

“Yeah,” She says and doesn’t know what else to add to it, but looking at Ruby, she doesn’t have to because Ruby’s already on the phone with the travel agency.

Turns out that they didn’t have time for that coffee but they did go grab lunch at the coffee place close by and sit down on a bench right in front of their office building to have a little chat.

Y/N looks at her sandwich suspiciously. She’s still not sure if it’ll stay down. She takes a bite nonetheless, because she knows that she needs something in her stomach if she wants to survive the rest of the day.

“So, Sam,” Y/N says while she chews. She looks over to Ruby, sees her friend tense up and she sees the blush in Ruby’s face. The woman rarely blushes so it’s even cuter to see it.

“Yeah, Sam,” Ruby tucks her brown hair behind her ear and bites down on her bottom lip as not to whimper out at the details of what happened last night.

“So,” Y/N raises her eyebrow in question.

“So,” Ruby gushes.

Y/N rolls her eyes and groans out in frustration, “Ruby! My god, just tell me, I’m dying here!”

Her friend starts to giggle and the redness spreads to her cleavage.

“Did you?” She asks, hopes that Ruby will finally tell her what went down (or rather who went down) last night.

Ruby’s chewing on her bite of sandwich and speaks with her mouth full, “We wanted to, but we didn’t, no,”

“What?” The bite Y/N took almost falls out of her mouth.

“I’m telling you, he’s a real gentleman, Y/N! Said he didn’t want to take advantage of me being drunk,” Ruby takes another bite, her lips curl up around the sandwich, “But I felt it.”

“You felt it?” She frowns.

“We slept in the same bed. And he was hard because we made out.” Ruby’s grinning at the image on her mind, “God, he’s such a good kisser. Just the way I like it. Rough but tender, and he’s big.”

Okay, so they’ve established that both Winchesters are gentlemen and they are both good kissers. Great. Life’s not fucking fair that two brothers have it all and they can easily put every other men to shame.

Y/N frowns some more, but in a playful way, “Big?”

Ruby sighs, “Yeah, big hands, big feet, big—” She wriggles with her eyebrows, “—You know what!”

“Ooookay,” Y/N snorts out, “That’s too much information, but thanks for letting me know,”

“We’re going on a date tonight.” Ruby says nonchalantly, as if it’s no fucking big deal.

“You what?”

“Yeah,” Her friend smiles, “And I’m not drinking if you know what I mean,” Ruby wriggles with her eyebrows again. She should stop doing that because Y/N knows exactly what she means without that stupid eyebrow wriggling.

Y/N’s truly happy for Ruby and she’s super happy that Sam treats her right.

When they finish their lunch, they notice a limousine coming to a halt right in front of the building and Amara steps out.

Oh, no.

That’s right, Sam has a meeting with her today. She almost forgot.

“Ugh, I don’t like her at all,” She says and Ruby wrinkles her nose at Amara too.

They walk into the building right ahead of the woman, hoping to get away on time but Amara’s close on their heels and the woman already starts to drop a remark, “Nice dress, where do you get it? Thrift store? Your husband didn’t even give you enough money to buy something decent?”

Y/N bites on her tongue so not to bite back at that stupid bitch. She really doesn’t feel like confrontation, and especially not one with people who she couldn’t care less about. It’s just not worth her time or energy, nor is it worth her patience that’s running thin today. So they just walk ahead to the elevator while Amara has to report to the front desk. Crisis averted.

After her lunch, Y/N sits down to do more work when she sees Dean walking out of the meeting room. He stops at her desk and asks her to bring him coffee. He had a meeting about investing in another company on the west coast, but she thinks that it might have not gone well because he looks a little downcast.

“You okay?” She asks, and Dean snaps out of his trance.

“Huh,” He sighs, “Yeah.”

“You had anything to eat yet?” She looks at him, concerned.

“Yeah,” He breathes out, “Garth ordered pizza for the meeting.”

“Okay,” Y/N says and smiles as an attempt to cheer him up, “One coffee coming right up.”

Dean smirks at her, “Thanks, I’ll be in my office. What’s my schedule?”

“Well, you’re free for another hour.”

“Good, I need a break.”

He turns on his heels to walk into his office.

Ruby’s staring at her, “Wow, he’s not in a good mood, isn’t he?”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” She agrees.

“But he didn’t lash out, so at least there’s that.” Her friend shrugs, as she starts to type in an email.

“Yeah,” Y/N sighs, “At least there’s that.”

She doesn’t really know what it is but seeing Dean like that does not make her feel good at all. She likes the happy Dean, the playful Dean. Not a Dean who thinks he lost a goddamn war.

Walking along the hallway with Dean’s coffee in hand, she knocks at his office door first before she goes in.

He’s sitting at his desk, looking over a contract that she has placed there while he was in the meeting. He doesn’t seem to notice her.

Closing the door behind her, she walks over to him and sets the coffee on the desk, “Your coffee,”

“Huh,” Dean looks up from the papers, “Yeah, thank you.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” She asks but Dean’s lost in his work so she turns to leave. Doesn’t feel like disturbing him more than she has to.

“Wait,” He suddenly says, “Come back,”

She stops mid room and turns around to see him smiling.

“Sorry, I had to finish reading that paragraph,” He explains and she smiles back at him, walks back to stand beside him.

Dean moves his chair back, takes her wrist to pull her into his lap, making her yelp up and he chuckles at that. His arms are quick around her, and he rests his chin on her shoulder, “‘M glad we’re going on honeymoon tomorrow. I need a fucking break.”

“Are you okay?” She asks because he starts to worry her.

“I’m better with you here, yeah,”

She can hear him smile a little and he places a kiss on the top of her head as his hands go around her hips. He maneuvers her around on his lap so she’s straddling him and she scrambles to get off, but he holds her in place.

“Dean, someone could walk in,” Her hands are braced on his chest and she looks into his face to find a grin, bright and wide.

“No one dares to come in here, and you know it.” He whispers and pecks her lips.

That’s true. Nobody ever goes near his office unless he’s calling for them to meet him. But still, she thinks it’s a little more than inappropriate to be sitting in his lap in his office when he is her fucking boss. “Still, we shouldn’t,” She says, and tries to get away but she’s weak herself, her body wants to stay, too.

Dean cradles her face with one hand, paints his thumb along her bottom lip before he pulls her close by the back of her neck, kissing her soft and deep. She hates that she loves it. Loves his kisses. They make her weaker than she already is.

She’s getting awfully wet down there and Dean’s getting hard, she can feel the friction of his bulge against her pussy.

“Your pants,” She says as a warning because she doesn’t really necessarily want to ruin his pants with how wet she is.

He chuckles against her lips, kisses her once more, hard and demanding before he parts. He rests his forehead on hers, “You could take them off,” His hand goes to her breasts, kneads it through the fabric of her dress, fingers pinching at her nipple until they peek which in turn, makes her arch her back and drive her cunt harder into Dean’s hard cock.

“We can’t do that,” She whispers, because they really can’t, can they? “Or can we?” She adds. Doesn’t really know why she adds it, but oh god, it feels good and fuck, she’d be lying if she wouldn’t want it.

Dean grins, it’s all cocky, “I want you to,”

“But—”

He kisses her harder, deeper, making her moan into his mouth and he sucks in her tongue, making her forget where she is. Her hands work on his belt buckle and Dean pauses the kiss, their noses touch.

“That’s my girl,” He coos, and that’s not fair. He has no idea what the praise does to her.

Her hands work swiftly on his belt, and Dean’s hands are cupping her cheek as he kisses her over and over. He groans into her mouth when she grabs his hard cock in her hands. Her thumbs trails around his tip, smearing the drops of precum around his slit and over the velvety head.

“Fuck,” Dean groans, presses his lips on her as he stands up from his chair, with her still around his middle, “I gotta—”

He doesn’t even care about the contract on his desk because she lays her on top of it, only swiping at the plastic cup of coffee, sending it to the floor. She can smell the spilled liquid.

Dean lowers her onto his desk, kisses down her jaw, sucks in the sensitive patch at her throat, “I know I said I would take my time, but, fuck—” He kisses her again, “I need—”

“It’s okay,” She grins, her hand finds his hair, fingers threading through the fluff on top of his head.

His hands are restless, kneading and stroking along her legs and thighs, and he moans when his fingers find her panties and notices how wet they already are. One of his long fingers hooks around the crotch of her panties and she gasps when he threads two of his thick fingers through her bare and slick pussy lips.

Dean leaves her neck to stand up straight, his hands grab her by her knee, folds them up. Her glistening wet cunt is now bare to him.

“Jesus, look at you,” He mumbles, his eyes are dark, his lids heavy.

“Have you ever fucked someone in here?” She asks, but she doesn’t really know why she did, kind of regretting it immediately as soon as the words left her lips because she actually doesn’t want to know.

He chuckles lightly, bends down to kiss her cunt, tongue parting her folds and lips sealing around her clit. He lets go with a loud obscene smacking sound before he comes up again and licks at his lips before he speaks, “Couldn’t help myself,” His breathing is ragged, “I just fucking love how you taste,”

Dean lines himself up with her pussy and she bites on her lips when he pushes in. There’s the familiar stretch and she’s slowly getting used to it. Slowly getting fucking addicted to it.

“Oh god, fuck—” She closes her eyes and Dean leans down as he pushes himself deeper. His face is next to hers, his breathing hot against her ear.

“No,” He whispers, and at first she didn’t know what he was talking about until she realizes that it’s the answer to her question, “No, I haven’t.” He picks up a steady pace, fucks into her deep and slow, “But I always fantasized about bending you over and fucking you on this very desk.”

He fantasized about doing this? About doing it with her? Doing it to her?

“Dean—” She starts to say but Dean claims her mouth, his tongue goes in as deep as his cock does, throwing her thoughts all over the place. He fucks her harder, sending the desk skidding along the floor. And she’s so close, so fucking close.

“Christ, you feel so fucking good, I can never get enough of it,” He sucks at her throat before his tongue trails a hot and wet path to her mouth to kiss the corner of her lips, “Can you come for me, baby? Be a good girl and come on my cock, huh?” One of his hands goes to her clit, fingers rubbing circles on her little hood.

Shit.

What is he doing to her?

“Ye-ah,” She manages to stammer.

“Yeah?” Dean nose touches hers and he chuckles, “Do it, baby, come for me,”

That last baby she hears out of his mouth does the trick, she’s convulsing around him and Dean has to hold her thighs apart so as she wouldn’t crush him. Her eyes cross for a brief moment before she has to close them because of the pressure.

Oh god, what does this man do to her?

Dean chuckles and leans down, sprays kisses on her face when she comes back down from her high, “Feels so fucking good when you come around my cock.” His voice is strained and she knows that he’s close, too.

But before Dean could come, they could hear screams outside in the hallway.

Someone’s yelling.

Sam.

And then she hears Ruby who was exceptionally loud.

“Miss Shurley! You can’t go in there!” That’s definitely Ruby. She hears some footsteps, they are coming closer and closer. So many footsteps. Oh god. And she’s still here spread on his desk and Dean’s still buried deep inside of her.

She can hear Sam, “Amara! Stop!”

CH12

#light my fire #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #ceo!dean winchester #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fan fic #dean winchester fan fiction #nathlaie writes

264 notes · View notes

yerinyh · 4 years ago

Photo

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈•ﾟ｡

howdy howdy, gamers 🤠 !! its jules back at it again at krispy kreme, and super excited to introduce miss han yerin, former cult victim, now trying to lay low in the sea side down of yunhwa as a staff member at yunhwa ilbo. she’s currently at a stage in her life where her identity was ripped apart and she’s trying to figure out who she is alone, if that makes sense?? so expect lots of character development from this one!! i’m always down for plots so if you hit that ♡ i’ll message u asap (stan stayc)

━ ❖ (park chaeyoung “rose”, cisfemale, she/her) hey thank you for coming to town hall to update your information han yerin! you’re a citizen, correct? good to know! are you enjoying yourself around yunhwa? you’ve been staying here for five months, right? i’m glad! remind me, are you born on 13/10/1997? we’re so lucky to have someone so forthright around as a staff at yunhwa ilbo even if sometimes you can be antagonistic. hope to see you around house #4013, hwesakgu!

𝒅𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒆𝒓. / 𝒃𝒊𝒐. / 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒔.

* disclaimer : while i’m well aware that cults, especially those entangled with religion are a touchy subject, i have done my research and, for the most part, gloss over many details rather than extensively explain the corruption or the cult’s inner mechanics. regardless of this, please proceed to read at your own risk. the only tw contained in the intro is the mention of embezzlement.

｡ : ° ஐ ━ 𝒑𝒂𝒔𝒕

born and raised in daegu, south korea, she was immediately baptized into her church in her hospital room at only three days old.

she grew up in a neighborhood consisting of fellow members of the church, it was all she’s ever known. she grew up with the communities kids, calling people auntie and uncle despite not being blood related to them.

she grew up and mirrored her environment, placing her entire identity in the verses they read during sermon and even going so far as to joining their choir.

when her father was promoted to pastor when she was 20, they sent him and the family to seoul in order to recruit more people into joining.

now less sheltered and able to be exposed to different lifestyles in a bigger city, she slowly began to realize how strange things were and how suspicious her parents were when it came to the church.

seeing her reluctance in being as involved as she once was, her family forced her to join the youth group who would walk around schools to try and convince people their age to join. for a while she was content in her parents approval and saw everything as harmless.

it wasn’t until her father left his office door open and she happened upon banking documents, thousands upon thousands of dollars being “donated” to not only the church but directly to her father’s name. she continued to snoop through his things, reading his emails and finding correspondence about numerous horrible things that goes on within her church’s walls.

she confronted her father about this, to which he admitted to everything and knew what he was doing, but emphasized that it’s god’s will and he was only a messenger. she turned her back on him and her family, and decided to pack up her things and leave. her father let her, not saying anything to his wife until the day after.

｡ : ° ஐ ━ 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕

the first place she thought to go to was busan, where her paternal grandparents lived. they weren’t involved in the church and were the only family she knew she could trust. they helped her by giving her a small sum of money to take care of herself but knew that her parents would be looking for her and it wasn’t safe to stay with them. they told her of a little town an hour away, one where they knew a friend of a friend that could get her a job right away.

she stayed at the inn for a few weeks before meeting kwon inna, the teahouse owner, and was more than grateful when she offered a spare room in her home.

her initial job was at the fish farm but after an accidental interview with the chief reporter, was given the job of staff at the ilbo on the spot (probably due to the fact that they are severely understaffed but, she appreciates it nonetheless kajdkajsd). she promptly quit her job as a fisherfolk and, after apologizing profusely, said her goodbyes to the smell of tuna.

currently, she's in charge of lifestyle articles: what do single twenty three year old women seek fulfilment from? she often explores busan to find inspiration for her mini articles, and after sitting on the idea for a few months now, made the decision to one day write an article about her personal experience in her "church"

｡ : ° ஐ ━ 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚

surprisingly not as demure as people may initially think!! she’s definitely an extrovert, used to talking up people back in her recruiting days, and was often surrounded in groups of other kids her age, often being the "mom friend" amongst them all.

often thrives in group settings, finds one on ones to be too intimate for her comfort. you would have to be a close friend of hers for her to consistently hang out often with just you two alone. she'd prefer masking her personality to be amicable / likable to other people than struggle to keep the spotlight off her on one on one sessions

so yes she is relatively guarded, understandably so considering everything she's ever known was a lie and the two people she thought she could trust the most are actually horrible people. but you know!

is the overbearingly motherly type. carries band aids and extra water bottles in her tote bags in case of an emergency.

can be kind of gullible?? and curious. but only because she doesn't really know any better. most of her morals are based off an ancient book that she's come to hate so really its as malleable as wet clay right now.

she is very much a libra, air headed, living in her own world, but very set in her ways of justice. she always wants to see both sides of a situation and believes in giving the benefit of the doubt. her old friends would always go to her for advice whenever something went wrong.

despite her good intentions, she can often be judgmental, often comparing people to this idea of a good samaritan and sometimes shames people for their mistakes. its a hard habit she's trying to shake but its a work in progress.

cares too much about what people think of her and will go out of her way to ensure that you think she is a nice person and hates the idea of someone disliking her.

basically a mess and the vine where he goes: I WANT A CHURCH GIRL WHO GOES 2 CHURCH........aND READS THE BIBLEEEE but is now trying to find her identity outside of her faith which she's decided to abandon.

sry this got longer than intended but lmfAO pls plot with me :3c

#introyh #aaAAAA v excited for this clean slate!!#let me shower yall with luv pls n thx xo

14 notes · View notes

jalapeno-princess · 4 years ago

Text

Write Me a Letter

Mark Tuan X Reader

Genre: THE CHEESIEST OF FLUFF (Featuring the best friend BamBam that everyone deserves)

Word Count: 10.6K

Summary: Being a full-time college student with a full-time job is a hard thing to do. One day when you’re scrolling on your explore page, you stumble on a post with a link to a pen pal website. You’ve always been curious about how pen pals worked and you’ve been interested in making a new friend and writing mail back and forth to one another. After exploring a couple of profiles to make sure you choose the person you feel you’d enjoy writing to, you find Mark’s profile and you end up choosing him from his profile picture of his adorable puppy Milo, his personal interests and the way he seemed passionate about the entire pen pal experience. Over the course of writing to and receiving letters from Mark, you come to the realization that he means much more to you than someone you write letters to that you’ve never met before. When the opportunity comes for the two of you to finally meet, you and BamBam plan out a vacation to California where you finally get to meet the man behind the heartfelt letters.

A/N: Hey guys; so this has to be one of the cheesiest (if not the most fluffy ball of cheese story that I’ve written) and if I’m being honest I don’t know how I feel about this story but I’d like to think it’s cute and I’ve always wanted a pen pal (I love writing letters and I prefer writing letters and receiving mail over getting text messages sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong era but hey GOT7 and I exist at the same time so that’s all that matters) please enjoy! (Oh yeah, by the way, I was 1/4 in to writing this I write all my stories on my phone and I meant to highlight a word in order to delete it but I accidentally highlighted the whole story and ended up deleting it i was so mad at myself and I actually considered not writing it again because I was already so deep in to writing the story but I was very determined to finish it)

“Hey y/n, boss man wants you finished with that proposal by Wednesday.” The groan that fell from your lips was unintentional and as much as you hated showing disdain for your manager in front of your fellow colleagues because of how much pressure and stress he put you through, BamBam was used to seeing you get so worked up over things like this. But he couldn’t blame you; you had a lot on your plate as it was and your manager had a tendency to expect the world from you.

Working as a paralegal in one of the most prestigious law firms in your state on top of being a full-time student wasn’t the easiest thing to do and some days you found yourself wanting to give it all up entirely. However, you had a goal and you were going to do everything in your power to achieve it; no matter how frustrating juggling both your education and your job could be.

Your boss would always assign you different projects, expect you to come up with proposals, write essays and find as many clients as possible and what upset you the most, was that he expected you to do it in a few days time. He told you time and time again that he knew you were capable of such amazing things and you weren’t the lead paralegal in your company for no reason.

There were so many nights where you stayed up working on both your school work and the tasks assigned to you just so you could impress your boss with the amazing quality of your work that you just so happened to finish the same day you were given it. If only your boss knew how much blood, sweat and tears you put in to perfecting all your work before turning it in.

A tear of frustration fell from your face and you hated showing that you were weak in such a cutthroat business, but BamBam was one of the only coworkers you could trust. Especially because he just so happened to be your best friend. As soon as he heard you sniffle, he made his way over to your desk and gently ran his fingers through your hair before motioning for you to stand up so that he could pull you in to his embrace. He wrapped his arms around your waist as you brought yours up around his back and placed your head against his chest.

“Hey, don’t cry. I know it can get frustrating sometimes, and I know you’re tired but it will all be worth it in the end. Okay? Hang in there. You’re the most hardworking and dedicated person I know y/n and I admire you so much for it. He wouldn’t give you all this work load if he didn’t think you couldn’t handle it, but if it does get too much for you to manage, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Better yet, remind him of just how much you have on your plate. You’re a student as much as you are an employee y/n. And more importantly, you’re a human. Don’t give me that look, I know what you’re going to say. “But BamBam, I want to be the best. If I don’t do everything I’m supposed to, then I won’t be able to handle opening up my own law firm.” I hate how you belittle yourself all the time. You are the best y/n. Once you graduate and finally open up your own law firm, all the hard work and dedication will be worth it. Your law firm will shit on this law firm, I can already see it.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his words. BamBam always knew the right things to say and you were extremely grateful that he applied to the law firm you were working at because he was the only reason you weren’t going insane with everything you had to deal with. He was a breath of fresh air in an office where you felt like you couldn’t breathe at all. You didn’t know what you would do without him there.

As much as you knew he should’ve been getting experience in his own field, he explained to you that he wanted nothing to do with the fashion industry until he graduated and had to go in to it. Some days you wish you could be like him, you wish you didn’t have to worry about the real world until it was time but you were such a perfectionist and you wanted to experience was the world of law had to offer.

“He’s going to kill me one day Bam, I swear to God. That man is overworking me to the bone and at this point I don’t even think it’s because he trusts me or because he thinks I’m great at what I do. I think it’s because his lazy ass doesn’t want to do the dirty work. I’m sick and tired of having to do everything for him only for him to get the credit, it’s bullshit.”

BamBam began to run his hands along the side of your arms and released a frustrated sigh. Everyone in your company knew how much time and energy you put in to your job. They knew how much you wanted to be a lawyer, and that you were one of the most talented and extremely intelligent paralegals in the field. Your boss was very lucky to have you; but at the same time he took advantage of your kindness and generosity and made you work until he was satisfied with the end product.

“I got an idea, why don’t you and I go on a vacation? You deserve a break y/n. Hey, don’t you have vacation days saved up? You should seeing as how much overtime you’ve been working. Plus winter break is just around the corner. Why don’t we go to California so you can finally meet that lover boy of yours—ow! What? I’m being serious y/n and you of all people should know that violence is not the answer. I can’t wait for you to become a lawyer so I can sue you for emotional and physical abuse—I’m kidding—well not really but the two of you have been at this for months and didn’t he imply that he wanted to finally meet you in his last letter? I should get going, I have to finish that contract with the bank. But think about my suggestion okay? I’ll wait for you to finish so that I can take you home, or if you’re up for it we can go eat somewhere. My treat. Good luck y/n! And don’t stress too much. You wouldn’t want Mark to see those wrinkles and dark circles—I’m out!”

He playfully squeezed at your cheek before leaving your office and once he was gone, you let out an exhausted groan while bringing your thumb and index finger up to the bridge of your nose and pinched it out of frustration. The idea of writing a five-paged proposal in less than two days made your head hurt.

Sometimes you wish you had the guts to confront your boss of expecting so much out of you but you were afraid of the aftermath that came with it. Plus, BamBam’s words stuck with you and it was all you could seem to think about. Around six months ago, you were scrolling on the Instagram explore page when you came across a very interesting post about pen pals. From a young age, you were always curious about how pen pals worked and you would get excited at the thought of writing letters to a stranger.

You were always a hopeless romantic. Everyone in your generation were all about technology and social media, but you still believed in sending postcards, taking pictures with polaroids and writing notes instead of having to use your phone or computer. You were constantly writing out emails and text messages for work and you’ve grown tired of technology and your devices, so you found yourself clicking on the link that led you to a website that gave you a list of people who were interested in finding a pen pal. Once you made your account, uploaded a photo and some information, you began exploring the website and seeing what they had to offer.

After going through a few profiles, you grew interested in one in particular that just so happened to belong to the boy BamBam was referring to. You were quick to reach out to Mark and to your delight, he responded back in less than five minutes telling you that he just so happened to take a liking to your page also. What you had thought would just be a one time thing, turned out to be letters he would send once every two weeks.

The longer the two of you wrote to each other, the more constant he would write to you. One letter every two weeks became three letters in one week and you’d find yourself waiting patiently for him to write to you. His letters seemed to be the only thing you looked forward to. Each and every letter you received from him never failed to bring a smile to your face and it wasn’t up until a month ago that you realized you were developing feelings for him.

Although you had yet to meet him, he already found his way in to your heart and when BamBam mentioned finally getting to meet him, you couldn’t help but grin like a little school girl. Mark had a way with words. He told you he couldn’t even write essays as long as his letters and it was because he just had so much to tell you. If you were being honest, you were a great listener but at the same time, you’d find yourself getting bored of a conversation if someone were to talk about a topic you weren’t interested in for so long.

There were even situations when BamBam would go in to depth about fashion and you tried your best not to seem like you weren’t interested, you just had no idea what he would talk about but you would always give him your undying attention nonetheless. However, you would read each and every single letter Mark had written to you over and over and you’d never get tired. He would tell you about his life, his job, his dreams and aspirations, memories from his childhood, the new puppy he just adopted name Milo, how living with his best friend Jackson was like and so much more.

The two of you talked about exchanging numbers in order to text, call and FaceTime each other, but you both agreed that the whole point of the pen pal situation was because you both enjoyed waiting for each other to write back. It was unique, it was fun and writing back and forth with Mark was your little escape from reality. He did mention wanting to meet you, and finally getting to put a face to the letters and you too were curious of what Mark looked like.

His avatar on his account was a picture of what you assumed to be Milo whereas yours was a picture of GusGus from Cinderella that you got off of the internet. You wanted to keep your identity somewhat of a secret from Mark because it added to the mystery and eccentricity of this whole experience. You were afraid of things changing between the two of you if and when you were to meet and you didn’t want things to stop between the two of you if he were to come to the realization that maybe you weren’t who he thought you were.

It’s been almost two weeks since you’ve last heard from him and he informed you in his last letter that he was going to be busy for the next few weeks and that he was going to miss writing to you but that you could continue writing to him in the mean time. You’ve sent him at least three letters since he’s last written to you and it was in the moment that you found yourself missing him that you realized you saw him as more than just a pen pal. BamBam wouldn’t let you hear the end of it when you told him of your entire situation and he kept teasing you the minute he found out about your crush on Mark.

“You haven’t even met the guy y/n. For all you know, he could be a 65-year-old divorced man with two kids living on a farm in Arkansas or even worse, he could be a serial killer trying to lure you in with his sweet and charming words. You do know we have social media for a reason, why don’t you search him up and see exactly who he is before continuing this weird ass relationship.”

There were times that curiosity got the best of you and you wanted to go and search his name up on Facebook or Instagram, but you told yourself you would wait. BamBam however, was the definition of nosy and would meddle in everybody’s business even if he knew it was wrong to do so. For the business aspect, your boss loved the idea that BamBam would dig up dirt and search for any information that could throw competitors and ex-clients under the bus. What you could care less for, was when it came to your personal life.

He hardly had anything to be nosy about when it came to you. You haven’t been in a relationship in years and all you had going for you was your job and your schooling. Unlike BamBam, you hated clubbing and going out to bars; you didn’t see the point in wasting your money on overpriced alcohol and pressing your body up against a random stranger.

Staying in and watching reruns of Cake Boss while eating a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream was how you spent your days off. In BamBam’s words, you were practically a grandma. Even more so when he found out about your pen pal, but he was never once to force you in to anything you didn’t want to do and if you were happy, so was he. When BamBam suggested searching him up, you didn’t think he’d actually go along with it but then again, it was BamBam. What did you expect? Usually whenever he put his mind to something, he’d go along with it.

“Wow y/n, if this is the guy, you’ve lucked out big time. Damn, if I were a girl, I’d go for him. Not to sound weird or anything, but he’s hot. You didn’t hear it from me though. But who knows, I could be looking at the wrong guy. I’m sure there are hundreds of Mark Tuans in the world.”

A huge part of you felt like he was bluffing and only saying things like that to make fun of you. But another part of you wanted to yank his phone and see for yourself what he was talking about.

“Come on y/n, I know you wanna see what he looks like. There’s no harm in taking a peek. Why are you so adamant on not knowing what he looks like? God, the two of you are honestly meant for each other, you’re both elderly people in young people’s bodies.”

Once you reached the third page of your proposal, you decided to call it a day. As much as you wanted to hang out with BamBam, especially because he offered to treat you which was a very rare thing knowing how much of a cheapskate he was, you were tired beyond belief and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. Although he was disappointed when he heard of your plans, he couldn’t blame you for wanting to go right to bed and he wanted you to get some rest.

He was also pretty happy he didn’t have to spend money, but he wasn’t going to tell you that. Like the gentleman he was, he took your things for you and led the way to his car. The car ride was quiet, which was unlike most of the rides he gave you considering how outspoken and talkative he could be. At a stop light, he reached for your hand and gently squeezed it as a nonverbal way to let you know that everything was going to be okay.

There were moments where he’d open his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but after seeing your breakdown earlier, he probably decided that he’d give you some space and not aggravate you more than you already were. Around twenty minutes after the two of you left the office, he pulled up to your guest parking and gave you a gentle pat on the head.

“Get some rest please? I’m tired of having to correct people when they assume you’re my mom—I swear you get more and more abusive the longer we’re friends for.” You let out a scoff as he rubbed the spot that you hit him at.

“Nobody thinks I’m your mother asshole. Thank you for the ride home and for comforting me earlier. I really appreciate it Bam. I don’t know if I say it enough but I’m very thankful for all that you do for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” He gave you a knowing smirk and cupped your cheek in his palm. There were times where people assumed that the two of you were dating by how much time you both spent together and because of the skin-ship you shared.

The lingering touches and gentle kisses on your cheek and forehead every now and then weren’t those normally shared between best friends, but you’ve never questioned it. You and BamBam have been friends for almost 20 years, he never showed any romantic interest in you nor did you feel anything for him and you felt it was better off that way.

The older boy was extremely supportive in each and every one of your endeavors and although you were slowly getting tired of how silly he was acting towards the entire Mark situation, deep down you knew he was just messing around with you and even if you didn’t admit it to him out loud, he had a hunch that you were falling for Mark. All BamBam wanted was for you to be happy and if Mark was the reason for your happiness, then he supported whatever it was going on between you both.

“Ew, don’t get all sentimental on me. GROSS! Since you’re off tomorrow, if you’re feeling up for it maybe we can go try out that new sushi place. It’s kind of pricey so I’m not offering to treat, I’ll tell you that right now. I’m only a phone call away if you need me. Have a nice rest of your evening.”

When he drove away, you released a breath you didn’t even know you were holding. Honestly BamBam and Mark were the only people keeping you sane as of right now. If it wasn’t for BamBam’s endless amounts of support and Mark’s kind and motivating words, you’d be an alcoholic. You trudged up the stairs and debated on whether or not you should check the mail because you knew there was no way Mark could have written to you since he was still quite busy and you hardly ever ordered anything, so there wasn’t anything for you to look forward to. Yet you still found yourself making your way to the mailbox and lazily opened the box, not being expectant of anything.

The minute your eyes landed on the single envelope, your heart felt as if it was about to jump out of your chest. You didn’t have to read who it was from, you could tell by the envelope alone that it was from Mark. He had a unique choice in cards and he would even draw cute little characters and they never failed to bring a smile to your face. Even if you were exhausted and wanted nothing more than to flop right on to your bed, you were now wide awake and had every intention on reading his letter.

You made a beeline up to your apartment and didn’t give yourself time to do anything before you rushed in to the door and practically jumped on the couch. For a guy, you felt that he had such neat hand writing and if you were being honest, his penmanship was adorable. You’ve mentioned it to him a few times in your letters and he was always quick to disagree. Something about the way he wrote a tiny heart next to your name always made your cheeks warm up. You found it hard to believe that he was turning twenty-seven in just a few months by the way he seemed so childish not only in his writing, but in the little doodles and the way he would write your address in bubble letters. After giving yourself a few seconds to calm your racing heart, you took the note out of the envelope and began reading.

“Dear y/n, July 12, 2019

Hey stranger, it’s been a while and I’d like to apologize for that. I’d say work was driving me insane, but I know you have it just as hard juggling your career and your education so there’s really no excuse. How have you been? I’ve missed writing to you and hell, I’ve missed you even more. Thank you for continuing to write to me over the last few weeks even if I failed to do so for you. I promise you I’ll send you so many letters this week the mailman will probably start hiding them out of irritation. Maybe I should pull a Harry Potter and have an owl deliver them to you so they can get to you faster. Just a little update, I got the promotion I told you about earlier which I’m pretty excited for and I know what you’re about to say; I’m sorry for not believing you when you told me that if anyone deserved the lead position, it was me. You know how I can get sometimes, especially when it comes to my job, but I’m very thankful that you see the best in me and you never fail to support me in each and every thing that I do.

I finally went out and tried the strawberry cheesecake ice cream from Baskin Robbins that you recommended and I’m so mad at myself for not trying it earlier. It’s sooooooo good. Oh, Jackson and I went to the bookstore the other day and I saw the fifth installment of the “Series of Unfortunate Events” books and I thought of you and how you finished the entire series in less than a week. You’re insane you know that? But you’re also pretty amazing. Jackson keeps bothering me about meeting you and I keep telling him when it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. I want you to know though that I can’t wait to finally meet you. Sometimes I forget how old I’m getting when I find myself bouncing off the walls the minute Jackson brings in the mail and I see your letters. I’m not rushing you, but I do have a break coming up here in a couple of weeks (hint, hint) so if you’d like to come up here to California for the holidays, I’d love to show you around ;).

Well, I’d better get going, I have more letters to write. By the way, I have a surprise coming your way in the next few days so be ready for it. Don’t forget to eat all your meals and try not to work so hard. Maybe I should come visit you instead and give your asshole boss a piece of my mind. Anyways, I hope you’re doing well and I don’t care how busy I am, I will make time for you. So if you’re ever feeling sad, upset, tired or lonely, just remember that I’m always going to be here for you. I may not be there for you physically, but just know you’re always on my mind every single day. I’m sure your workload is overwhelming right now, so feel free to take as long as you want to get back to me(but don’t take too long your letters are the only thing I look forward to) Take care and hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely, Mark.”

The tears were hot against your cheeks and you didn’t even realize you were crying until the words started to smear and you were quick to pull the letter away to prevent it from getting ruined. Sometimes you had a hard time believing this was all real and not a figment of your imagination. Pen pals were considered taboo; writing back and forth to a stranger about your life and things that went on in it wasn’t something you’d thought you’d be doing but here you were. Mark wasn’t even considered just your pen pal at this point, he was a friend, a confidant; your safe haven.

His words never failed to move you each and every time he wrote to you, but something about this letter in particular was making you feel things in your heart that you’ve never felt before. For someone you’ve never met before, you felt as if you’ve known him forever. He seemed extremely sincere and always checked up on your mental health and physical being.

Did things like this actually happen in people’s lives? Were there other people out there who had a unique relationship like you and Mark? The more the two of you would write back and forth to one another, the more you were afraid in actually meeting him. You didn’t want things to change. What if unlike in your letters, he wasn’t as invested in you and what if interacting with him was awkward and uncomfortable?

You didn’t want to lose his friendship if he came to the realization that he preferred the postal version of you and not the actual you. You reread the letter at least five times and his words had a stronger effect on you each and every time you read it over again. He missed you? It wasn’t the first time he was cheeky in his writing, but this was the first time he admitted that he’s constantly thinking about you and waiting for your letters. But what did it mean? Was it possible for someone you’ve never met to develop feelings for you?

Surely there was no way Mark could harbor any romantic feelings for you. He didn’t even know what you looked like; so what else other than your letters made him think about you constantly? You came to the decision that you weren’t going to overthink this entire situation and allow yourself to go to bed. All your worries were just going to have to wait until the morning. Unfortunately, your mind was running a mile a minute and there was no way you could find it in yourself to fall asleep.

As much as you hated bothering him, you knew the only way you’d get to get your well deserved slumber was if you talked to BamBam and told him what happened. You crossed your fingers and hoped he wasn’t asleep and when you heard his raspy voice through the phone, a soft sigh of relief fell from your lips.

“I’m so sorry to bother you and even more sorry if I woke you, I just—I couldn’t sleep.” He let out a soft giggle, nonverbally letting you know that it was fine. It wasn’t the first time you’ve woken him up in the middle of the night, and he was aware that he was the only one who you could trust in listening to you and getting you to calm down. BamBam felt honored that you could confide in him and he was even more appreciative knowing that you would do the exact same for him if he needed it.

“You’re fine. You know you can reach out to me whenever you need to. I know I don’t expect anything from you, but just remember; I really like taro bubble tea with boba. 100% sweetness. But that’s besides the point. What’s up?” You nibbled on your bottom lip out of nervousness at the thought of his response to your dilemma, but everything just came flowing out of you.

“I—I got another letter from Mark today.”

“That’s good! Isn’t that what you wanted? You’ve been acting so gloomy these days and I am completely aware it’s partially because of work, but you and I both know that Mr.Pen Pal has a lot to do with your melancholic mood. So why do you sound so upset?”

“He told me he misses me, that he has a vacation coming up and wants to finally get to meet me and that he can’t stop thinking about me. Isn’t that—doesn’t that sound weird? Like, we’ve never met each other in the flesh. All we do is write letters back and forth to one another. He’s never heard my voice, he has no clue what I look like and other than the information I write in my letters, he doesn’t know much about me but at the same time, he knows everything. Isn’t that strange? And what’s worse, is that I’ve been feeling something, something in my chest that I’ve never felt before and it scares me. He’s practically a stranger Bam! And like you’ve joked around about countless times, he could be hiding his actual identity. He might be writing me from jail, or in divorce court—“

Although you couldn’t see him, you’ve been friends long enough with BamBam to know that there was a huge chance he was frowning at your words. You were infamous for rambling on and on about the most unnecessary things sometimes. However, he knew you were genuinely confused and had no clue what to do about this entire situation. But BamBam, considering the joker he was who lived with the “you only live once” lifestyle had a gut feeling that your relationship with Mark was no longer just letters to a stranger.

He witnessed how distressed you were over the last few weeks not receiving anything from Mark. He’s seen how happy you’d get when you finally did get a letter. He’s heard you squeal and giggle at Mark’s sweet words and he would observe the way you would bite your lip and scrunch your nose in excitement. You’d always go in to great detail about how intelligent, kind-hearted and charismatic Mark was and your eyes, there was always this particular glint in them whenever Mark came up in a conversation.

BamBam has never been in love before. Hell, he’s never experienced being in an actual relationship, so he never knew what it felt like to love and to be in love with someone. Even if you weren’t in love with Mark, he knew you must’ve had some kind of feelings for him and if he was being honest, if it wasn’t love; he didn’t know what it was.

“I don’t mean to interrupt you, but can I be honest? I think you’re in love with Mark. And before you can call me crazy and try to disagree, think about it. You don’t need to say it out loud, he’s constantly on your mind the way he claims you are on his. You practically live in front of your mailbox, waiting to get anything from him and don’t you think I didn’t see the small note he wrote for you in your wallet. You spend hours writing notes to him, not knowing exactly what to say because I’m sure you’re afraid of boring him or scaring him away and you’re worried at the thought of no longer having him in your life. If you didn’t love him y/n, you wouldn’t give two shits whether or not he were to stop writing to you nor would you be calling me up to vent about your concerns. I know it’s a lot to take in and it might seem weird because he’s a stranger, but is he really a stranger to you y/n? I feel like you know more about him and talk with him more than you do some of your family members. He makes you happy y/n, in ways that not even I can and I like the effect he has on you. Consider finally getting to meet him won’t you? If it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, then you can end this entire thing completely but I’m sure he will love the physical you as much as he does the person he writes to. Like I said, I’ll come to California with you! I wouldn’t mind going to Disneyland, but I come with a fee—so feel free to pay for my ticket. We can continue this conversation over breakfast tomorrow okay? I hope I helped, goodnight y/n.”

The following week came and gone in the snap of a finger. You finished the proposal the day after your day off and turned it in just a few hours before your boss was expecting it. Since work was so hectic which you both hated and loved for obvious reasons, it took your mind off of the many worries going on in your head. A few days later, you received another letter from Mark and a box you assumed to be the surprise he wrote about in his last letter. When you opened the box and saw the snow globe that had a couple inside going around an ice skating rink, a huge smile rose on your face followed by a stray tear.

“This snow globe can be your reality if you come to see me. I remember you saying you have yet to experience snow, so let me be the first one you share that experience with. It’s getting pretty cold up here, so pack wisely; but just know that I’m practically a human furnace and I’d love to warm you up ;). Sincerely, Mark.”

After getting breakfast with BamBam the morning after your little breakdown, you came to the decision that you were going to fly up to California and finally meet the man who owned your heart. You also came to the conclusion that BamBam was right.

You were in love with Mark.

You didn’t have to see him or interact with him physically to know that he was where your heart now resides. All those late nights you stayed up thinking about his passionate and heartfelt words, the feeling in your chest that’s been going on for the last few weeks, always looking forward to the mailman coming to see if he’s written to you, reading his letters over and over again to the point where you memorized each and every word. It all made sense.

You didn’t care what would happen once you got there, your heart was stronger than your mind and it craved to finally meet him. In your recent letter, you told Mark about your plans, and you could only hope he was serious about wanting to meet you and not just messing around. Poor BamBam had to hear you go on and on about rethinking your decision and that it was going to be a mistake, but he did his best to reassure you that everything was going to be okay and that you were overreacting.

Two weeks after you received a letter from Mark saying that he was over the moon at your decision to fly up to California, you and BamBam started to plan out your trip and put in your vacation time at work. Since you needed a quicker way to interact with him, the two of you ended up exchanging numbers to let him know when you landed so that he could pick you up at the airport. The idea of meeting him as soon as you landed both worried you and excited you. However, you couldn’t stop thinking that the car ride to your hotel was going to be awkward. Luckily BamBam was an amazing conversationalist and if you ended up not being able to converse with Mark, he could do it for you.

You were extremely grateful that BamBam offered to go on vacation with you. Sure, he kept telling you that he’s been dying to take a vacation and that there were so many places in California that he wanted to visit, but nonetheless you were glad that you had someone to go with you not only for safety reasons, but to keep you company and to console you if meeting Mark didn’t end up the way you expected it to. The entire months of November seemed to pass you by so quickly and before you knew it, you and BamBam were on a plane to California.

“How are you feeling? You finally get to meet your Prince Charming, aren’t you excited? Oh don’t give me that look—what do I keep telling you? I swear to God I can’t wait to tell your kids one day about how their mom was so nervous to meet their dad—the first thing I’m going to warn mark about is how abusive you are. There’s really nothing for you to worry about, if things end up going to shit then what can you do? That’s life. But they’ll only end up that way because you made them that way. If you’re worried about what he looks like, like I told you before he’s hot—if I were a girl I’d go for him, if it is the same guy who’s Instagram I’ve been stalking for the last month. If he turns out to be some old dude let’s just hope he has money—ENOUGH WITH THE HITTING. Mark will love you for you, no matter what and if he doesn’t, he’s missing out on such a wonderful human being. I’ve already searched up bars in the area that we’re staying in just in case you need to get drunk. You’re welcome. Now try to sleep, we have a 7 hour flight and those eye bags aren’t cute y/n.”

You gently squeezed his hand and rested your head on his shoulder. You wanted to retaliate against his playful comments, but you were too tired to even think of anything to fire back with. BamBam smiled softly at your now sleeping figure and playfully ran his fingers through your hair before falling asleep himself. After sleeping for what felt like hours, BamBam woke you up to let you know that the plane was landing soon. The nerves started to kick in again and you found yourself releasing a couple of deep breaths which BamBam got a kick out of.

“How do I look? Is my outfit okay? Should I go change? How’s my hair? Do I have any dried up drool on my chin?” He gave you a look of disgust and brought his hands up to your face and pinched your cheek.

“You look beautiful y/n. Especially for someone whose been on a plane for quite some time. Stop worrying, you’re giving me anxiety. No drool, you’re good. Now let’s do this.” Once the plane landed, you sent Mark a quick text saying that you and BamBam finally arrived in Los Angeles and gave him your gate number to which he responded immediately with a smiley face and a thumbs up. From the time you gave him your number up until now, he’d only send you emojis, funny videos or memes. The sweet, heartfelt messages were saved specifically for his letters and you liked it that way. BamBam stood up as soon as the plane landed but you yanked his arm and had him sit back down.

“Come on y/n, why does it seem like I’m more excited to meet Mark than you are.” You rolled your eyes and motioned toward the line of people that was building up.

“We’ve traveled together many more times than I can count and you still never learn. Everyone knows not to stand up to try and leave once the plane lands dumbass. I want to meet him, but three extra minutes won’t kill me. Don’t use him as an excuse, you just want to get off the plane.”

After everyone practically cleared the plane, BamBam reached for both of your carry-ons in the storage bins and led you towards baggage claim. Your heart began racing, time was ticking down extremely fast and your anxiety was building up. You couldn’t help but wonder how Mark was feeling at the idea of meeting you. Was he just as nervous? Or was he excited to finally meet the person he’s been writing to for the last six months?

When BamBam picked up both your luggage’s, the two of you made your way to the gate and when you saw the person holding a sign with your name on it, your breath hitched. You were so focused on the devastatingly handsome man who you assumed to be Mark that you failed to notice the huge grin on BamBam’s face. His smile was practically cheek to cheek at this point.

“You know, I should quit fashion and become an investigator of some sorts. I fucking knew it was him. I’m fucking amazing.” You let out a small snicker when you remembered the first time BamBam searched up his profile to make sure you weren’t interacting with some freak on the Internet. When he said Mark was good looking, you felt like BamBam was just playing around with you but now that you’re looking directly at him, BamBam’s words were an understatement. He had yet to notice you walking towards him and you were right about to wave him down until the most embarrassing thing possible happened. As much as you were thankful BamBam was there with you, you should’ve known the possibility of him embarrassing you was quite high.

“Ayo Mark! Over here man!” You shoved the older boy and shamefully tried to hide behind him, but he dodged your movement and continued to wave at him. In your peripheral vision, you could see Mark walking towards you and you allowed yourself to take a look at him so you didn’t look stupid. God, he was beautiful and his smile was indescribable. He began jogging towards the two of you and before your mind could process anything, you were being pulled in to his embrace and he swung you around as if you were light as a feather. He was right, he was practically a furnace and you could feel your cheeks warming up at the feeling of his arms around your waist.

“Wow, I—you are—wow—hi. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I just—hi. It’s nice to finally meet you. You are so beautiful. Jackson’s description of you doesn’t do you justice. Oh, hello! BamBam right? Nice to meet you too man. Y/n always raves about you in her letters. Thanks for always taking such good care of her. How was your guy’s flight?”

You remembered Mark mentioning his roommate in a few of his letters and you couldn’t help but smile with the way he was interacting with your best friend. They had only just met, but during the walk to his car they talked as if they were good friends. You were shocked at how natural this all was and you felt so stupid for overreacting at the idea of meeting him. With the way he was acting so friendly and bubbly towards you, you regretted not meeting him sooner.

Once the three of you made it to his car, he took the luggage’s from the both of you and told you to get settled in. When you took a seat in the front, you turned around and looked at BamBam with a content look on your face.

“See, I told you. I fucking told you. This guy is perfect. Are you sure you need me here? You’re doing fine on your own. Maybe I’ll have him drop me off to the hotel and you can go with him and get to know each other if you know what I’m saying.”

You knew exactly what the cheeky boy meant and you rolled your eyes at his words but your chest tightened up at the idea of being alone with Mark. When he made his way back in to the car, he handed you the beautiful bouquet of flowers and buckled up before starting the engine.

“You’re giving these flowers a run for their money with how beautiful you are, you know that? Sunflowers are your favorite if I remember correctly right? It makes sense. You’re bright, you stand out and you light up an entire room. So, which hotel are the two of you staying at? I’ll drop you both off and then we can go get some lunch or something. I have a few things planned for us but if you guys have other things in mind then that’s fine too.”

He wasn’t real, he couldn’t be. There was no way. Were you dreaming? Were you and BamBam still on the plane waiting to land? He was charming, gorgeous and quite the gentleman. This had to be a set up. Out of all the people in the world that you could’ve chose to be your pen pal, how did you end up with an actual Greek God who was driving you to the brink of insanity the longer you stayed in his presence?

“We’re staying at the Grand Californian in Disneyland. We both got the 5 day park hopper pass, so feel free to join us. I’m sure y/n would enjoy it if you came. In more ways than one.”

The last part came out as a whisper but you were sure Mark heard it and if looks could kill, BamBam would be six-feet-under. Hearing him giggle made your heart flutter; for someone who was just a few years away from thirty, he had the most adorable high pitched laugh and you knew you’d never get tired of hearing it. How could someone at his age be so damn cute? It wasn’t fair.

“That sounds cool. I’m always up for Disneyland. Wintertime is the best time to go, so you both made a great decision in visiting right now. What do you think about snowboarding? My friends and I are planning to head up to big bear mountain this weekend and it’d be awesome if the two of you came. It’s actually where I planned on taking you to see the snow y/n. It’s one of the only places that actually snows around here, but if you’re not in to snowboarding or sledding, we can go somewhere that requires less physical activity and more sight seeing.”

You could only pray that BamBam didn’t make his last comment seem dirty and secretly thanked God when all you heard was a soft snicker. The rest of the car ride seemed to go off without a hitch and conversation was mainly between Mark and BamBam, but you weren’t complaining. Since the airport was almost two hours away from your hotel, BamBam fell asleep around 45 minutes in to the drive and a part of you wanted to pretend you were sleeping so that things wouldn’t be awkward, but Mark had other plans. You were playing with your fingers out of nervousness when you saw Mark reach over the console to intertwine your fingers together. His laughter filled the car when he saw you practically freeze at the skin ship.

“Is this okay? I’m sorry if it seems like I’m rushing things and if I’m being quite honest with you, I’m not normally like this. I’m very shy and extroverted around strangers but we’re not exactly strangers. You know more about me than most of my friends do. Hell, even more than some of my family members. I don’t know what it is, I just feel so comfortable around you. I’m sorry if I’m making it uncomfortable for you, but I’m very excited to spend these next three weeks with you.”

His words, just like the ones in his letters were pulling at your heartstrings and you gently squeezed his hand to let him know that it was fine; and that you too were just as excited. To both your surprised, you brought his hand up to your lips and kissed the back of it.

“I’m totally fine with it, really. It’s shocking to hear you’re a shy person when your letters say otherwise. If anything, I’m normally such the extrovert but you’re making me flustered. I’m excited too by the way. We can always ditch BamBam and hang out together, just the two of us.”

Seeing his cheeks redden at your words made you feel at ease. Thankfully you weren’t the only one who was whipped. The two of you continued the conversation; he updated you on so many different things going on in his life and told you about all the different places he wanted to take you.

“You have really small hands, but it’s cute. Honestly I think they fit perfectly in mine. You’re so cute you know that? If I wasn’t driving right now, I’d take all the time in the world to admire your beauty. Not to sound rude, but I’m glad BamBam is sleeping. He’d probably laugh at how cheesy I‘m acting right now. That’s why I didn’t want to bring Jackson. Jackson Wang is my version of BamBam and if you think BamBam is embarrassing, just wait until you meet him. I’m actually reconsidering having you meet him, he might just be the one that drives you away. But he’s been wanting to meet you from the moment I accidentally told him about you. I hope you know I’ve never been this way around anyone before. It’s just you. Only you have this effect on me and I like it.” He let out a soft sigh and began to graze your wrist with his thumb before continuing.

“I um—I—fuck. You know what? I’ll just say it, I like you—no scratch that. I love you. I’m sorry if it’s weird to say considering we just met for the first time less than two hours ago, but I do. I fell in love with you y/n. Honestly right now is not the best time to admit it, but I’ve been bottling it up inside of me for the last few months and now that you’re finally here, I just needed to say it. This whole pen pal situation was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You—you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and if we weren’t on the freeway, I’d show you just how much I love you and how much you mean to me. You were my sweet escape—my getaway from how shitty life could be and every single time you wrote to me, I had to prepare my heart from practically beating out of my chest. I always thought the idea of butterflies flying around in someone’s stomach was so childish and if I’m being honest, I didn’t think it was possible but shit—you cause actually elephants to run around in my tummy. I promise, I really don’t mean to rush things and feel free to stop me at any moment—“

Since the freeway was not as busy in your opinion considering the fact that Los Angeles had some of the worst traffic in the entire world, or so Mark has told you about many times, you took this chance to reach over and place a soft kiss on his lips.

“I love you too. You can thank the loud mouth in the back for helping me come to the realization and I too thought it wasn’t normal to be in love with someone I’ve never met or knew what you looked like, but your words—they never failed to put a smile on my face. Whenever I was sad, or if work stressed me out too much, I’d go back to one of your letters where you included a terrible pun or a dad joke and I found myself smiling like an idiot. When I read your letter from a few weeks ago where you said you missed me and that you were constantly thinking about me, I knew that most pen pals and even friends don’t feel that way towards each other. I was afraid of meeting you—I felt like things wouldn’t work out between us but I really don’t know why I was so worried. Being around you is such an indescribable feeling; I can’t find it in myself to stop smiling. And you’re right, you are really hot—temperature wise. But I guess physically too. I just want to thank you, for always supporting me and being there for me even if we still had yet to meet one another. You make my life so much easier and I’m a lot more happier now that you’re in it.”

You leaned over one more time to place a chaste kiss on his cheek and Mark let out a soft groan causing you to look at him in curiosity. “The next rest stop is in 15 miles, I really want to kiss you right now. You’re a dream come true y/n. I don’t think three weeks is going to be enough time for us to spend together I might need to follow you back home.”

You softly bit your lip out of excitement before facing the other direction so that he couldn’t see the blush on your cheeks at the thought of him wanting to spend more time with you.

“I have my own room at the hotel if you wanna come and stay with me during the duration of our trip. Maybe then you can show me exactly how much I mean to you?” Right as he was about to respond to your cheeky remark, the groan from the back seat caused you both to laugh.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely happy for the both of you and I’ve been so supportive of your relationship from the start, but I swear to God if I hear y’all fucking through the walls I’m dropping you as a friend y/n. Lord, what did I sign myself up for. The two of you really are perfect for each other. And stop kissing him y/n. I don’t want him crashing before I can go to Disneyland. No more pda in front of me you freaks! Keep your eyes on the road lover boy. I’m going back to sleep, no more funny business you two!”

Finally Mark took a cut off and ended up on a highway, bringing the three of you to a red light and Mark was able to steal a chaste kiss from your lips. When you felt him smile in to the kiss, you found yourself returning the ministration.

“You think BamBam would hate us if I dropped him off at an in and out? I don’t think I can wait to relinquish in our love much longer and I don’t want to continue risking our lives having to kiss you especially since your lips are extremely addictive.”

“He’d be pissed! Don’t y’all dare even think about dropping me off—you horny little bastards can’t even wait half an hour more—you’re getting toilet paper as your wedding gift.” Even if he continued to embarrass you in front of Mark, you couldn’t help but smile to yourself at the idea of marrying Mark. It was still too early to think about your relationship together, but if things were to go in your favor, you wouldn’t mind getting to be the lucky girl who got to marry him.

A little more than half an hour later, you arrived to your hotel to both BamBam and Mark’s delight. After checking in and making your way to your rooms, BamBam gave you both knowing looks since you’re rooms were right next to each other.

“It was nice meeting you Mark. You make y/n very happy. This is the happiest I’ve ever seen her. You guys are cute together. I’m going to get my well deserved rest. Let me know if you guys are actually going out for dinner. However, after hearing your conversation, you’ll probably eat each other instead—prepare yourself Mark, y/n is extremely aggressive but maybe you’ll be in to that. I’ll tell you both this right now if y’all get loud, I’m switching hotels. THIS IS A FAMILY HOTEL YOU FREAKS. You know, for someone who was so worried to meet this man, you’re taking things extremely well y/n. Okay, with the look on your face I’m going to take this as my leave. Have fun—but not too much fun—you know what? Don’t have fun at all. Suffer.”

BamBam ran in to his room and left you outside of yours with Mark standing right behind you. You cursed BamBam under your breath for always saying the wrong things. “I know you said earlier that you were worried to meet me, but can I ask you why? like, can you go a little more in to detail? I mean, I was pretty nervous to meet you too, but much more excited.”

You released a soft sigh before turning around to face him. Since you wanted to have Mark all to yourself before explaining your worries, you entered the room and sat down on the bed; quietly thanking him for bringing in your luggage before patting the spot next to you for him to sit down.

“I don’t know, I just—I think it’s because I had a hard time believing this was happening. Our friendship—even right now. It’s too good to be true. But I didn’t worry about you, I know you were genuine and I know that the feelings I have for you are the product of how you’ve been treating me and taking care of me in the last few months. Every time I wrote to you, it didn’t feel like I was writing to a stranger. I felt like I was writing a letter to my best friend; someone who I can trust with my entire being. Someone who means a lot to me. But you’ve never gave me a reason to even question whatever it was going on between us. When I came to the realization that I was in love with you, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was wrong and that you’d want to stop things between us if you didn’t feel the same. I was actually afraid that you’d see me in person and think I was some horrendous looking creature and come up with some lame excuse to end our pen pal ship, if that’s even a thing—“ he lifted up your chin so that you were making eye contact with him before stealing a soft kiss from the corner of your mouth. This man was honestly going to be the death of you.

“Jackson—he did the unthinkable the minute I told him about you but I can’t say it was unexpected. He always meddles in to my business so I should’ve known our situation would be no different. He searched you up on every social media platform and he wouldn’t stop raving about your beauty. I almost caved in and took a look for myself but you had a point in wanting to keep up the mystery. You want to know my real opinion of you y/n? I think you’re gorgeous. I can’t even fathom your beauty in to words. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met and actually it goes beyond just your beauty. It’s how kind and gentle you are. Your words, although they were short, sweet and to the point, I couldn’t stop smiling at the way you would add in nonsense words to describe your boss with and your little drawings were always so cute. I could tell that you were an optimistic and passionate person with the way you’d talk about your goals in life and your plans for the future. I found myself wanting to be apart of it and although I’d find that weird in any other situation, with you it just felt right. Would you like to be my girlfriend y/n? The distance will be rough, but we’ll make it work. You’d make me the happiest man in the world if you said yes.”

You internally screamed at the idea of dating the beautiful boy in front of you but you nodded quickly before connecting your lips together in a passionate and heated kiss. Your lips melded together so naturally; as if you’ve kissed one another many times and it was a feeling you knew you’d never get enough of.

“I love you Mark. So much.”

“I love you too baby. Normally I’d be able to explain in to detail just how much, but you have me at a loss for words. Now, I think it’s time to wake BamBam up from his nap shall we?”

#got7 imagines #got7 mark #mark tuan #mark tuan imagines #mark tuan fluff #got7 fluff

76 notes · View notes

mycptsdrecovery · 4 years ago

Note

TW for abuse, mental health crisis, unreality, mental hospital mention

hi im a 19 year old and still living with my parents. ive been trying to move out since august and i planned to move out by december. in late december i was not having much luck with housing and i started having memories of not so great things my parents did to me throughout the years play in my head. i rly have no idea how to explain this confusing clusterfuck of a situation in just a tumblr ask but basically i want to know if the things my parents did count as sexual abuse.

from a young age my parents didnt respect my boundaries. my parents often touched my butt (it sounds so stupid calling it that idk what else to put) in seemingly nonsexual or accidental ways, but they didnt stop as i grew older. i remember the first time that i realised i was being sexually abused (thats how i thought about it at the time, idk). i dont remember what my dad did specifically but i was 8 years old-ish, i started puberty around then because my body hates me. it was probably to do with my butt/waist/ things and my dad touching them. we were about to go in a shuttle to the airport, it was like 2am. i remember i stayed silent through whatever happened but at some point during or after i remember bursting into tears and like... thinking to myself that my dad is sexually abusing me (i dont remember where i learnt what that is) and my dad asking me what was wrong but i refused to talk because i was scared. moments like these where my dad touched me in a way that didnt feel normal and i burst into tears happened multiple times. ive felt very uncomfortable around my dad for most of my life at this point. hes the kind of dad who doesnt talk about anything hes thinking or feeling, doesnt talk much at all or have many friends. we have rarely had conversations past surface level talk thats appropriate for strangers or acquaintances so i have never known whats in his head and whenever ive tried to get him to talk with me about something serious he shuts down and leaves. hes very neglectful emotionally, though he used to sometimes fulfil his emotional duties as a parent when i was a very young child according to my mum but he stopped at some point. for a really long time ive been afraid that my dad was sexualising me in his head or sexually attracted to me. ive grown up having nightmares about my parents raping me.

here are some of the things i remember my parents doing. some memories are not easily accessable and some have not been processed as an adult.

-both my parent regularly touched my butt in a variety of contexts. i never confronted my dad about it because i knew he wouldnt answer me. i have learned to only hug my parents in a specific way so that my arm is always under their arms so i can stop them from putting their hands too low.

-my dad used to put his hand on my waist and hips/lower back. he was basically doing the kind of casual touch that you would do with someone ur in a sexual relationship with. he doesnt anymore because i have stopped allowing him to spend much time with me.

-my parents, mostly my mum have touched my breasts very lightly and casually. it could be seen as accidental but my mum has never responded to my frequent requests to stop touching me like this.

-my mum showed me her vagina once as... sex ed? i have no idea if this is normal which is kinda how i feel about most of the ?sexually? themed things my parents have done.

-my mum has always commented on my body in ways that made me very uncomfortable, such as often commenting on how i would be sexually harassed because of the outfit im wearing, even the necklace im wearing.

-my mum gave me several moderately detailed accounts of sexual assaults that hve happened to her, like for instance when i was around 6-9? she used a story of a sexual assault that happened to her while in a pool to say that i be afraid in public pools. the amount of detail was very unnecessary.

-one time my mum was telling me about how boys pinch girls buttcheeks to tell them they think theyre 'sexy'. then she pinched my buttcheeks a bunch of times even though i didnt want her to. im sure she did this many times and i was literally like 5 years old or something.

-my mum talked to my sister while i was in earshot about... how she would be ok with it if i married my 1st cousin? and she named him specifically. it made me feel rly weird around him.

-again my dad has always just given me huge predator vibes and ive always been super afraid of him.

this list is definitely incomplete but i dont remember anything penetrative or to do with anyone touching my genitals.

i tried to tell someone about the "sexual abuse" twice when i was 13, both during mental ward stays about 9 or 10 months apart. the first time is completely blacked out from my memory and the second one... they told the police. my dad was questioned and nothing happened because i never wanted anyone except the nurse who i told to know and refused to tell anyone any details. i just wanted to get a weight off my shoulders. instead i got a 3 or so year long period of my mum emotionally abusing me to a degree she never had. i was almost completely convinced that i had never been sexually abused. i still dont know if its true or not. the specific term my mum used was that i "mis-interpreted" my parents actions as sexual abuse. i didnt push back, i was too terrified of her and i just dissociated to cope with those years. i was very very isolated from anyone except my mum. i wanted desperately to be a young child again and felt like one most of the time. before 6 years old was the only period where i felt like my parents actually liked me.

when i was around 15 i started sexually getting involved with older men online. i wasnt attracted to them, i didntdesire them, i just was so traumatised from... whatevrr u want to call the way my parents treated me but i didnt feel that i had the right to be. i felt like i needed to get some "real" trauma and i dont want to say what i did but im lucky that none of these men ended up meeting up with me irl at least. the fucked up thing is that though it did traumatise me, i kind of felt better because i wanted something i could feel justified in being upset about.

now im 19 and my brain is hitting me with all these memories. i havent felt safe with my parents for most of my life. theyre neglectful and emotionally abusive towards me. they abused all my other siblings physically quite a lot and two of them have moved to different countries so that they can not live in the same place they grew up in. 2 out of 3 of my siblings have completely cut ties with my parents for years now. when i was 11 i recoeved an email from my brother telling me about our parents not being safe people.

ive started to consider the possibility of the constant violation of my boundaries counting as sexual abuse. i have a lot of sexual trauma symptoms and i have for a very long time. i grew up afraid that my dad was going to rape me. i think i was abused by my mum into associating holding my parents accountable with the punishment she put me through after she found out i reported them. i just want to know if im allowed to be upset about this. im terrified that this is normal, because if its normal that means i was a gross freak as a kid who just "mis-interpreted" these actions to be sexual abuse. i need to make sense of my reality somehow. im so confused.

you absolutely have the right to be upset by this. what they did to you was not okay. an adult touching a child intentionally in inappropriate areas is molestation, even if they played it off as not a big deal. many of the things you mentioned also sound like grooming which is often a part of childhood sexual abuse. i’m so sorry these things happened to you. i hope you are safe and can find a way to not be around your parents.

8 notes · View notes

airi-p4 · 4 years ago

Text

Last Chance - Chapter 7

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 AO3 I’m sorry this took me so long. Thank you for your patience. This chapter is short since I split it in two to respect the one POV per Chapter theme. ______________________________________________________

Luka’s POV

“Phew, finally! Don’t tell I was the one tired of hearing her? I’m glad this has come in handy somehow at last”

My eyes analyze the scene:

Alya. With a handkerchief. A bottle on her hand. And Chloe lying on the floor.

The Chloroform- of course.

“Thank you, Alya” I answer, without thinking, focusing again on Marinette, holding her hands tightly.

“You have some talking to do. I just got rid of the interferences. Go on. We’ll be over there” Alya says, as they all move to another part of the cave, near the entrance to the room. From the edge of my eyes I see how Adrien nods at me in support before carrying Chloe's sleeping body bridal style. I nod back and focus on my dream girl again.

Marinette remains silent, but she focuses on me, only for an instant, before she closes her eyes and her head faces down, embarrassed.

And it’s only the two of us now.

Marinette and Luka. Luka and Marinette.

And the rest of the world has disappeared.

“Hey” I say.

I’m expectant. Nervous. Impatient. But most of all: relieved. Relieved Marinette is safe. Relieved Marinette is not injured. Relieved she is not rejecting me. Or my touch. Or my kiss. Relieved to have her beside me at this instant. Relieved her attempts to change the past have stopped.

And grateful for having this last chance.

There's something else I'm strongly feeling too: determination.

My mind feels the clearest it’s ever been. Not a single drop of doubt is inside me, as if the wind of Marinette's transformation has cleared all the dark clouds blinding me finally allowing the light to come through my heart. My only light. A lighthouse in the middle of my dark ocean. My sun and my moon. Marinette.

I love her. I always will. And I'm not leaving her side anymore. Not if she wants me back.

All I wish now is for her happiness and to admire her beautiful but yet to be seen smile that hasn’t returned on her pretty face. For my heart to find the calm only she can give me. My heart at ease along with her happiness.

One the other hand, Marinette is, instead, scared, remorseful, nervous, insecure and embarrassed. I can almost hear her inner thoughts: ‘I am ashamed of myself… I’m sorry… I don’t deserve to be happy… Chloe is right, I’m just selfish…’.

Nonsense.

I keep caressing her hands, tenderly, drawing circles on the back of them, matching the touches at the song of her heart, waiting for her to speak. So soft… so familiar. So pleasant…

"Marinette"

And it's hard not to hold her or kiss her at this moment. Very hard. So I hold her hands tightly instead, so she doesn't try to escape from me once again. I don't want to let her go even if she wants to. Not until she tells me if I can have hope. This is ending today. Or starting, I wish.

And I'm impatient: more than ever. Enjoying every one of the little touches I can get.

"Marinette" I start, pausing for a second, trying to find her eyes. "Look at me”

My demand gets refused again as she refuses to lock eyes with me. I want her to focus on me and to forget about the dark thoughts occupying her mind. I can tell, despite not being able to hear her heart song because of my own loud heart beats.

But it's not enough. I want more. So I rest my forehead on hers next. And I feel like I've traveled back in time- the time we were happy. The time we were 'friends'.

But it's still not enough.

'Friends' is not enough anymore. I want her full attention now. So I insist.

“Marinette, please...”

What’s in your mind, Marinette? I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.

“I'm back", I finally say.

And so are her tears too.

‘What's the reason for these tears? Tell me. Is it fear? Regret? Happiness? Can you feel the same as me? Tell me, Marinette. I can't hear your silence’, I mentally ask myself.

I try to let go of one of her hands so I can clean the water running down her cheeks. But she doesn't let me go. Now she's the one holding my hand and I feel that's all the confirmation I needed to take the next step.

"Marinette. I'm here. It's fine. I won't go away anymore. Let me see your eyes"

"Luka… I… I'm so sorry… I- I don't deserve your compassion… Chloe is right… I shouldn't…"

"Hey. Stop saying this or I'll have to shut you again"

My forehead is not on hers anymore but I can feel how Marinette's body tenses at my words. Her head falls even lower, as she speaks in a string of voice.

“You can stop acting like you care for me now… I won't do anything else. You don't have to kiss me so I don't renounce the Miraculous box… I'm sorry I forced you to do something like that against your will…"

Her words deeply offend me, finally losing the smile that had formed on my face and remained there from a while ago.

“Marinette, you really think that’s the reason I kissed you? Just how much is your darkness messing with your senses?”

Marinette stays quiet, silent, face down and trembling a little. I try to make her calm down and give her the confidence she needs to confront her actions.

"Marinette. Look at me please. Don't hide your beautiful face from me"

I can see my words startled her. Cute.

"Marinette. I came for you. I'm here now. Let me try to fix this. Answer me, please. Look at me… There's nothing to fear. Please?"

My hold is tighter and I press my forehead to hers again as I speak. Her answer surprises me.

"You’re so unfair... giving me hope when you came here with your fiancée… I won’t do anything stupid anymore… you don’t have to lie for me… I hate lies...“ she whispers.

Really, Marinette? You think I’m lying? You should know me better. You should know I never lie. Especially to you. Just how deep did you bury your inner light? How could have I missed so much darkness collected deep inside her heart? I wish I had known earlier. I wish she didn't have to live with this for so long.

As I think about her words, Marinette remains quiet. Probably believing her own nonsense about me. I’m sorry Marinette, but I’m too relieved and too impatient right now to give explanations. And I’m not good with words to express my feelings properly, anyway.

So I kiss her again.

Marinette’s hands squeeze mine in surprise while I kiss her, longer this time. I'm glad she isn’t rejecting my lips. In fact, she’s welcoming me, but not taking action, scared. My widening smile makes me break the kiss, while I can feel her body trying to follow mine as my lips part from hers, in need to prolong the kiss.

“Do you still think I’m lying?”

And finally, her face rises and I meet her beautiful blue teary eyes.

I can't stop grinning like an idiot at the sight of the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen. Can I really be this lucky?

Marinette blushes at first, almost panicking, but she soon relaxes the moment she deeply stares at my eyes.

I feel like time has never passed: same old Marinette. Same old Luka. Same old complicity. Same old trust. Same old mirage of happy times.

And I can almost feel a layer of darkness has left from her eyes - the window to her soul, slightly brighter now. “Finally…”

"Marinette" I call her name, and her full existence now focuses only on me as her dark thoughts stop. "There's something I really want to hear from you. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I'm going to say it first, ok?"

And she remains quiet again, scared, nervous. I can hear her heartbeat beating very fast. And her silence allows me to pronounce the words I've been the most expectanctly willing to tell her forever.

"I love you, Marinette. You’re still the song in my head- you’ve always been"

And Marinette gasps and her body jolts a little, mouth open in surprise. Her cheeks turning crismon, and her eyes show how she's trying to process my confession, unsure if she should believe it or not. Another black layer fades from her gaze.

"What about Chloe?" She asks, noticeably scared of the answer.

Of course she would ask. I sigh.

“We’ve already discussed that. Chloe knows about my feelings. Chloe knows I can’t be dishonest with myself. She has always known I could never forget about you. She’ll have to accept it’s over”

"But- the wedding! The ring! She still wears it..."

"The wedding will be cancelled as soon as we get back. And that ring…*sigh* I asked her to give it back but she didn't want to. You know how stubborn she is…"

"But Chloe loves you so much… and I can tell you care for her too..."

"I know... And I feel horrible for breaking her heart. Just like you with Adrien, I assume. I can't drive her down with me into a loveless marriage. I can't promise her a happy future anymore. I can't give her my love when you're the only one my heart is willing to accept"

"But-!"

“Please, Marinette. The wait is killing me! I need to know if what you wrote in those emails is true so my heart can finally rest from this agony. I love you. Please, give me an answer this time…"

And yet another layer slightly disappears as she panics in realization.

"The emails… You've read them. Oh my god, you've read them! Oh, no! So embarrassing… I shouldn't have listened to Alix! I shouldn't have sen-"

"Shhhh… the only thing you should regret is not sending them earlier. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed it"

"No- I-!"

"Tell me, Marinette. Tell me so I dare to believe a miracle can really happen. Please, tell me if you feel the same I feel for you. Tell me if I'm allowed to give it my all to make you the happiest woman in the world. Tell me, Marinette"

Light seems to start returning into her pupils.

And she hesitates for a few seconds, but she finally opens her mouth to speak...

“Those emails....It's all true… I love you, Luka… It’s always been you. I’m so stupid for not noticing earlier… You are my light..."

And my grin widens even more, more than ever, as I hug her the strongest I can. Words won't come out of my throat but I manage to let out a low whine "… so happy..."

And I can hear how her heartbeat intensifies. fast, loud, ALIVE. And she hugs me back, cautious, incredulous, wishing. And I can hear her talk between hiccups.

"Why did you leave me, Luka? Why did you leave me alone…? All these years… I thought I had lost you…"

"I thought you were happy, Marinette. I thought you were married. I thought I was in your happiness’ way.” I pause once to stare into her eyes “But no more. I love you and as long as you want me with you I'm not leaving again"

But doubt is still on Marinette’s eyes as one thin veil of dark in her pupils.

“Can I really believe in your words, Luka…? Please, tell me. Tell me this isn't my insanity making me see and hear the things I wish the most. Tell me I'm not going crazy! Tell me this is real, tell me you’re real! Please… Please!"

I feel bad for smiling at her desperate cry. But how can I not when she makes all my dreams come true?

"Have I ever lied to you, Marinette? I love you. I want to be with you, if you allow me…"

"Yes! I want to be with you Luka. Is it really ok with me? Chloe is amazing and… you look good together… and me… After all the danger I've put you through…"

"I want you. Only you... Marinette. I want you to excuse me for not following a proper order, and not breaking-up properly with Chloe first, but taking the circumstances in consideration I have no choice… Marinette. Will you be my girlfriend?

"Can I really…?"

"Please"

Her face shows a happy smile covered in red from her blush as she hides her face on my chest, hiding, but her answer is clear and soft "Yes…"

And I'm happy, I really am. But I'm not satisfied just with that. I want more. I want her forever. And I'm ready to take another challenge. And I came prepared too.

But Marinette's song still sounds unsure. Sounds of doubt in her heart-song, matching the beats of her heart.

"No, that's not enough. Tell me what you want. Tell me how you feel"

"I feel happy Luka, the happiest ever but… Chloe doesn't deserve unhappiness..."

"Neither do you"

"But… I don't want you to regret this…"

"I won't. Will you regret it?"

"I… I want to be with you… I want you to promise me you’ll never leave my side again..."

"That's it then”.

#my fic #fic: last chance #airipyon #airip4 #lukanette fic

15 notes · View notes

yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years ago

Text

The Crucible (part three)

[UK Tour; Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2

Word count: 10,566

TW: Bullying, vomit

-----------------------

-Mind Over Matter-

“So, you and Anne Boleyn…”

Katherine looked up at Mulaney, her right eye twitching. A barrage of emotions blistered through her whenever she thought about her cousin- anger, sadness, mourning, betrayal, happiness, guilt, pain, longing. It was a flurry of madness that she hated having to deal with. And hearing that name come out of this man’s mouth didn’t make her feel any better. It didn’t sound right when the detective said it, like Anne had just been some character in a movie that was killed off too soon for a cheap sad moment. She was a real person, whether Katherine wanted to remember that or not.

“Friends until the end?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Katherine said.

“And why is that?” Mulaney asked.

“We’re cousins,” Katherine answered. “She was born a little bit before me, and we grew up together, so I guess everybody just assumed we were going to be close forever.” She shrugged. “But we had our differences.”

“Differences about Joan Seymour?”

“Differences about a lot of things,” Katherine clarified. “I played with Barbie. She played with horses. She’s a back to front. I’m a front to back.”

Mulaney blinked at her and then turned his head to look at Madeline, who was trying very hard not to smile in amusement. Katherine set her shoulders back, smirking. It seemed Mulaney didn’t know how to reply to her statement because he moved on, taking a piece of paper out of a yellow folder on the table.

“Do you know a girl named Donna Kellogg?” He asked.

“Yeah, I know Kellogg,” Katherine replied smoothly. “Every guy in school had a bowl of her cereal.”

Mulaney stared fixedly down at Katherine. At his side, Madeline snorted a laugh, but was quick to cover her mouth and straighten herself back up professionally. Katherine let out a huge sigh, wiping the grin from her face.

“She moved to Germany in Year 12.” She said. “What about her?”

“She got an email from your cousin about four days before the prom,” Mulaney said.

“What’d it say?” Katherine asked with mock enthusiasm.

Mulaney peered down at the paper in his hands and began to read, “‘Dear Dirty Donna--”

Katherine raised her eyebrows and exhaled a rueful breath, rolling her eyes skyward. That DEFINITELY was her cousin's writing.

“--so I’m out of the prom, but they’re not going to get away with this. I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, but I guarantee you everyone is going to get a big’-- Expletive--‘surprise.’” Mulaney put the paper down and looked back at Katherine’s pale face. “Now, what do you suppose she meant by that?”

And, for once, Katherine made no snarky reply, only able to shrug silently, as her words were too caught in her throat to answer.

------

Mr. Stephens’s creative writing class was one of those rare cases where everyone wanted to be in it, regardless of whether they could write or not. And for a good reason, too. He was a laid back, supportive, jolly man who always made his lessons fun and engaging. His room was like no other, either, airy and full of light. He rarely ever turned on the overhead lights, opting to instead let the sun come in from blue-and gold-tinted windows he had paid for to be put in himself.

A jungle of indoor plants snarled the interior, all fit with small golden plaques with names on them (one of the best assignments they had yet was to choose a plant and write a story about it; Katherine, personally, had chosen Hornet, the sassy lesbian honeysuckle). Shined mahogany bookshelves were arranged all around the room with their books sorted precisely in alphabetical order. Putting any borrowed books back into the right place was a rule even the most mischievous of students obeyed. Racks and drawers full of papers and pencils and pens of every color were set up for everyone’s writing pleasure, and there were several places to sit and write when it was time to work. Sometimes the black and pink bungee chair, sometimes the big blue bean bag or the strange egg-shaped cubbyhole you could climb into and nestle in the blankets and pillows that filled it.

The tables were assorted in a very different way, too. There were six in total: Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi, Adventure, and Historical. At the beginning of the year, students got to pick their seats at whatever genre table they were most interested in, letting people meet others with the same interests. Or, if you were like Katherine, you just bustled into the same table with all your friends.

Mr. Stephens was her first class of the day and was always what she needed to get energized for the rest of school. The sun was out again, bleeding its early Monday morning light through the tinted windows and casting beams of gold and blue across the room. All her friends, including her beautiful Anna, were already inside when she got there, along with a few others. Bessie was sharpening several pencils at the expensive electric pencil sharpener by the door, while Maria looked through the Q-T selection of books, and Anne, Maggie, and Anna were sitting at the table they all had claimed at the beginning of the year: Fantasy (although Katherine had debated on going to the Romance table, but several of her friends didn’t like the romance genre, and Anne had proclaimed that the “gang had to stick together,” so she gave up that option).

“Kitty!!” Anne cried gleefully, throwing her arms in the air.

Katherine smiled as she walked over, sitting beside Anna. The two shared a quick kiss.

“Morning, gang,” Katherine said. “What’s the tea?”

“Prom,” Maggie stated. “You guys picked out your dresses yet?”

“A dress? Me?” Anna snorted. “If I ever wore a dress and heels, I'd look like a freaking giraffe or something.”

“Anna, shut up!” Bessie suddenly barked, whipping her head around from the pencil sharpener. “You would look great!”

They all stared at her in silence, watching as her face slowly faded to a light red color, a hugely bright contrast with her bleached white hair. She cleared her throat awkwardly.

“What? Girls eat that shit up!” She said, and then frantically began sharpening her pencils again. The table laughed and nodded knowingly.

“But no,” Anna said. “I’m not wearing a dress. Your girl is going with a suit.”

“Ooooo!” The chorus of intrigued coos whisked around the table.

“How fancy!” Anne said.

“You are a lucky lady!” Maggie said to Katherine.

Katherine grinned brightly and leaned her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder. She sighed dreamily. “I know…”

“I have mine picked out,” Maria said, walking over and sitting down with The Great Gatsby in her hands. “It’s orange.”

“Oooo, nice pick!” Katherine commented. “Orange looks good on you!”

“Why thank you!”

“Okay, okay, question,” Maggie butt in as Bessie sat back down. “Do any of you know about waxing or shaving, you know--” She leaned in, “--down there? Like, for sex preparation?”

“How naughty,” Anne teased, making Maggie stick her tongue out at her.

“Well,” Katherine said expertly, “there are a few things you can do.” At her side, Anna shook her head and laughed. “There’s the rainforest. That’s where you don’t do anything at all. Hitler’s mustache. The landing strip. The Brazil.”

“The Brazil?” Maggie laughed. “What does Brazil have to do with getting--your area waxed? Is it, like, the shape of the country?”

“It’s because things like thongs and Brazil are so small you have to wax EVERYTHING to wear one.” Maria said.

“Ohhh,” Maggie nodded. “Where is Brazil, anyway?”

Laughter and snickers and whispers suddenly bubbled loudly from the hallway, seeping in through the open door. A moment later, Joan entered wearing an oversized, rather ugly shade of pale yellow sweater and a long maroon skirt with small white flowers. She dragged her feet as she walked, not looking up, clutching her binders and folders close to her chest.

Seeing her sent a sharp pang of guilt lancing through Katherine.

She had desperately tried to forget about Joan Seymour over the weekend, partially succeeding in that task, even when her father confronted her about it. But seeing the pathetic girl again sent all her shame come barreling back into her at full force. She could now see that she and her friends had ruined this class, once a place of serenity and peace, for Joan. Joan seemed...scared to even be attending.

“Well, if it isn’t Prayin’ Joan!” Anne exclaimed. She jumped up and blocked Joan’s path, causing the younger and much scrawnier girl to reel back in fright. “I wonder who’s taking her to prom? Her mother?”

Katherine tried to laugh along with Maggie, Maria, and Bessie, but the sound raked her throat fiercely like talons of fire. She glanced to the side and saw that Anna had her jaw set firmly and a grim look in her eyes.

“Leave her alone, Anne.” Anna said.

Joan tried to dodge around Anne to get to her table, but Anne stepped right back in front of her and she reared away again like she thought she would be burned if they were to make contact.

“Come on, church girl!” Anne spread her arms in a grand gesture, smirking widely. Everyone in the class, even people out in the hallway, were watching, now. “Dance with me! I will make you see God!”

And then, out of the blue, Anne yelped out in fright as she suddenly crumpled to the floor. Katherine blinked in shock, watching the way her cousin had shifted her weight on her feet and slipped on her Heelys’s wheels--but that didn’t seem right. Anne hadn’t been leaning on her heels at all. It looked more like something had swept under her legs and made her fall--but what? There had been nothing there, nothing to trip her. She shuddered, and her skin began to crawl with goosebumps.

“How’s your pussy, princess?” A boy at the Sci-Fi table asked over the laughter that had filled the room.

Anne shot up to her feet instantly, her face inflamed with rage. She glared at the boy, and her stared was filled with enough hate to make him snap his mouth shut immediately.

“What are you laughing at?” She snarled. Her head whipped around to Joan. “The goddamn BITCH TRIPPED ME!!”

Is that what happened? Did Joan trip or push Anne? Had she finally snapped like that kid from Anna’s story on Friday night? But Joan hadn’t moved her arms or legs at all when Anne fell…

Katherine jerked out of her speculations when she saw that Anne was advancing on Joan with a murderous look in her eyes. Joan flinched away, as if she was expecting to be struck, and then there was suddenly the clattering of a chair to Katherine’s left; Anna was standing in between Anne and Joan.

“What are you doing?” Anne demanded.

“You’re being stupid, Anne.” Anna said calmly. “If you hit her, you’re definitely going to be thrown out of prom. Just sit down.”

Anne growled, but prom seemed to be more important to her than revenge, so she cast one like dark glare at Joan, and then let her anger snuff itself out for now. She returned to her chair like nothing happened. Anna turned to Joan, who was staring up at her with wide eyes as if she were Jesus Christ himself.

“Are you alright?” Anna asked. She reached out to set a hand on Joan’s shoulder, but respectfully pulled it back when Joan flinched away. “Don’t listen to that gremlin. She’s just messing around.” And then she flashed Joan a dazzling smile that made Joan get an expression on her face that said she’s never been smiled at like that before.

“Th-th-thank you…” Joan choked out, and then skittered past her to the Horror table, which she shared all alone (“Of course that crazy bitch would choose horror” was something Maggie had muttered the first day of class when Joan had chosen that genre).

Anna righted her chair and sat back down, looking like a true savior.

“Well, aren’t you just a knight in shining armor.” Anne said bitterly, and Anna grinned at her.

“What can I say?” She said with a shrug. “I can never pass up the chance to be the hero to a poor damsel in distress.”

The bell rang a moment later and everyone who wasn’t already sitting down bustled over to their specific table. First period was the smallest class, with Katherine and her five friends obviously at Fantasy, three kids at Sci-Fi, two girls at Romance, three more at Adventure, no one at Historical, and then Joan all alone at Horror. Writing utensils and notebooks filled to the brim with stories and projects are brought out as Mr. Stephens entered from the hall.

“Good morning, children!” He chimed happily. He was a slightly plump man with olive skin and dark brown hair he always had up in a man bun. The aquamarine flannel shirt he was wearing today made his green eyes pop brightly. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

After the initial opening for class, the lesson quickly curved into the topic of an assignment the students had been given last Friday, probably the only okay thing that happened on that day (aside from Katherine’s time with Anna in her car, of course).

“As you know,” Mr. Stephens said, “last Friday I gave you all the task to write your own poem after selecting a word from my hat.” He held up the bedazzled top hat for reference. “Now we are going to read them! So…” He scanned the class, bypassing the people who usually always read first, like Bessie and Katherine and the boy with glasses in Adventure, for now. A smile broke out on his face. “Joan Seymour!”

Joan’s head whipped up so fast Katherine was surprised her neck didn’t break. She had been listlessly twirling a strand of her strangely natural white-blonde hair and writing in her small notebook with a black pen, which she accidentally sent flying across the room behind her when she was called on.

“Present,” She sputtered.

“It’s not roll call, Joan,” Mr. Stephens said gently.

“Idiot,” Maggie muttered, rolling her eyes, and Mr. Stephens shot a glare at her and some of the other giggling students. He was one of few teachers who actually made an effort to stop the constant bullying Joan got in class.

“Did you write a poem?” Mr. Stephens asked. His voice was so patient and kind, his gaze merciful and lacking any irritation or scorn, despite the fact that Joan was floundering like a useless cow in a cattle chute. He never yelled at Joan or even got the slightest bit annoyed with her, even when she was being completely incompetent and probably deserved a good rapping on the knuckles with a ruler to get her head back on straight.

“Oh-- Y-yes, sir.” Joan nodded.

“Why don’t you come up and read it to us?”

That seemed to be a death sentence for Joan, who became very rigid and pale. She opened and closed her mouth like a weird-eyed fish out of water, then finally choked out, “D-do I have to?”

Mr. Stephens tilted his head at her, sympathy in his gaze. “No,” He said. “But I would love to hear what you wrote.”

Joan perked up slightly, a new light flickering ever so slightly in her eyes. “You would?” She squeaked.

“Yes, Joan,” Mr. Stephens smiled, and Katherine saw that he was telling the truth. He was genuinely interested in what Joan had written.

Joan thought for a second, then grabbed her notebook, stood up, and said, “Okay.”

Shyly, with her head angled to the floor, Joan shuffled up to the short stage-like platform at the front of the class used for reading out loud. Mr. Stephens motioned for her to sit in the big black leather computer chair he would let students use when presenting, but she shook her head, clearly too tense and nervous to sit down. Mr. Stephens respected her choice and didn’t push her.

“What was the word you selected, Joan?” Mr. Stephens asked.

“Umm-- Stone.” Joan answered. Now that she was up and centered, Katherine noticed violet and indigo bruises along her jawline and a split in her lip that definitely hadn’t been there on Friday.

“And what is the name of your poem?”

Joan fumbled. “E-Evening Prayers.”

“Oh my god.” Anne said loudly. Mr. Stephens shot her a sharp look, and she shut her mouth instantly.

“Go ahead, Joan. Whenever you’re ready.” Mr. Stephens said kindly.

It took a moment and a few deep breaths for Joan to find her voice, but she eventually gathered all her courage and began to read:

“Jesus watches from the wall,

But his face is cold as stone.

If he loves me,

As she tells me,

Why do I feel so all alone?”

A few giggles and snickers and mocking whispers whisked through the class, but Mr. Stephens shut them down quickly. Joan looked at him fearfully, and he gave her an encouraging nod to go on.

“Baby savior, meek and mild,

What do you do with my prayers?

If you hear me,

Why do I feel that no one cares?”

Joan lost some of the tension in her shoulders, easing them back down into a more relaxed position. A strange flicker lit up in her eyes, like the first silvery wisps of a fresh flame.

“Mama sees inside my soul,

But her face is cold as stone.

If she loves me

Why do I feel so all alone?”

Was that...hate in Joan’s voice? Katherine tilted her head at the girl, suddenly filled with so many questions. Had she always been this interesting?

“There's a movement in my head

Satan? Angels? What can it be?

It's growing!

It's stirring!

It's churning, shifting!

Bending!”

Joan released a shaky breath and raised her glowing grey-blue eyes.

Silence.

Mr. Stephens would have said anything, but he still seemed to be too enamored to speak, in awe at his timid student’s raw poem.

Then, Maggie raised one of her hands and spoke without waiting to be called on, “Shouldn’t people like that be home schooled?”

Mr. Stephens blinked at her, his eyebrows furrowing together. “People like what, Maggie?” He asked cautiously, falling right into Maggie’s trap.

“Creepy religious people,” Maggie said blithely.

Joan flinched back as if she had been struck and hunched her shoulders around her neck. Her fingers grip tightly around the edges of her notebook, staring at her poem with a sudden expression of shame and hatred and disgust.

“Yeah, aren’t we, like, not supposed to talk about religion in school unless it’s in history class?” Bessie piped up.

Mr. Stephens glared at all of them. “Does anyone have anything to say about the poem?” He said, steering the lesson back on track without giving Maggie or Bessie any attention.

“It was disturbing,” Anne offered. “I think that’s the most little Joey has said in class all year!”

Laughter erupted in the classroom, far too much for Mr. Stephens to wrangle. Joan shrunk back, like she was hoping she could disappear right into the wall, and Katherine thought she could see tears shining in her eyes.

“Got anything else to share with us, sweetheart?” Anne asked in a sickly sweet voice. “Or are you done scaring us?”

“Asshole…”

The laughter stopped abruptly. Joan’s head jerked up sharply. All eyes turned to look at Anna, who was leaning back in her chair and pressing her tongue against the inside of her lip.

“Anna?” Mr. Stephens said. “Did you say something?”

“Yes,” Anne said, her words sliding slowly from her mouth like slithering snakes. “What did you say?”

“I said awesome.” Anna said, sitting up. “I just thought that Joan’s poem was awesome.” She looked at Anne. “Didn’t you, Annie?”

Anne glowers at her, growling lowly. Joan, on the other hand, had the exact opposite reaction. Her eyes were wide and lit up, like that had been the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her, and a bright pink blush dusted her cheeks.

“Yes!” Mr. Stephens nodded his head enthusiastically. “Awesome! That is a great way to describe Joan’s wonderful poem.” He smiled at Anna, then at Joan. “Thank you for reading, Joan. You did very good.”

Joan dipped her head in thanks and hurried back to her table. When she sat back down, she immediately glanced at Anna, a wistful look of adoration in her eyes. Katherine noticed it, and things began to click together in her brain.

“Anna,” Mr. Stephens said, “since you spoke up, would you like to go next?”

Anna shrugged coolly. “Sure.” She stood up, grabbing her red spiral journal, and walked to the platform at the front of the class. She, like Joan, decided not to sit in the computer chair, opting to stand up tall before her peers.

“GO ANNA!!” Her friends cheered from the Fantasy table and she rolled her eyes in a good natured way.

“The word I got was ‘eagle,’” She said, then looked down at the page she was opened up to in her journal. “Dreamer In Disguise. By Anna von Cleves.” She cleared her throat, and then began reading smoothly:

“An eagle's just another bird

Until he can spread his wings.”

Maggie suddenly leapt onto her chair, flapping her arms and letting out a bird-like screech. The class all giggled, except Joan, who looked startled, and Anna, who looked used to these kinds of antics.

“Guys!” Mr. Stephens barked. “Quiet!”

The class settled. Mr. Stephens looked at Maggie.

“Maggie--that was a pretty good bird, but hush up.” He said.

Maggie bowed and then plopped back into her seat. Mr. Stephens turned to Anna, nodding at her to go on.

“A river is just a sheet of ice

'til winter turns to spring.

And though the clouds may block the sun

Don't mean that it's left the sky.

Just when you think you've seen it all

There's more that meets the eye.

Like things I dream and things I feel

There's more to me than I reveal.

And 'cause I shine in quiet ways

I'm someone you don't recognize.

I'm a diamond in the rough

A dreamer in disguise.

An eagle's just another bird

Until he can spread his wings.”

Applause filled the classroom. Anna smirked proudly, bowing her head.

“Very good, Anna!” Mr. Stephens said. “Class,” He turned to the others. “Any comments?”

“Beautiful.”

The marveled comment came before anyone else could say anything, spoken before Mr. Stephens had barely even finished his sentence. Joan had a thoughtful look in her shimmering eyes. A small smile was tugged at the corners of her pale lips.

“Beautiful, yes!” Mr. Stephens said. “Excellent, Joan!”

“Yeah, nice one, period girl.” Anne tittered.

Like that, the light in Joan’s eyes is gone. She looked away, suddenly ashamed. Anna seemed to notice this on the platform and glared viciously at Anne.

“Shut up, Anne.” She snarled lowly.

“Go on, Joan,” Mr. Stephens said to his shy student. “Tell us how the poem spoke to you.”

Joan looked back up, fidgeting, and then stuttered out, “I-I just think it said that just because something or someone seems one way, doesn’t mean they have to be that way.”

Mr. Stephens beamed. Anne gave Katherine a “what is wrong with this girl?” sort of look, while Anna looked vaguely rapt. She smiled at Joan, and Joan blushed madly.

“Very good observation, Joan!” Mr. Stephens said.

“Yeah,” Anna agreed. “I think you have the poem more thought out that I do, and I’m the one who wrote it!”

Joan ducked her head with a shy smile. “Thanks,” She whispered, and all the pieces fell into place in Katherine’s head.

Did Joan like Anna?

Katherine spent the rest of first period pondering this- Joan was hopelessly shy, but it could very well be possible. The way she looked at Anna… There was some form of longing in her eyes. Like she wanted Anna to like her--not even in a romantic way, just to--like her. As a person.

The bell startled Katherine out of her thoughts and she shook her head. Anna had to run off quickly to get to her next class that was all the way on the other side of the school, and Bessie and Maggie left in a hurry, too. Katherine was about to head out with Maria to the next class they shared together when she noticed Joan still gathering her things.

“I’ll meet you there, okay?” Katherine said to Maria.

Maria shrugged and nodded. “Okay!”

Katherine walked over to Joan, catching the attention of her cousin, who was still in the class and now watching them with interest.

“Hey, Joan,” Katherine said.

Joan jumped and looked at Katherine, then over her shoulder, as if thinking she were talking to someone else. She blinked up at the older girl with big grey-blue eyes, and Katherine could see so much painful anxiety in them.

“Earlier--that was nice.” Katherine said. “That was really nice, what you said about Anna’s poem. I thought it was beautiful, too.”

Joan continued to stare at her, frozen like a deer in headlights.

“Look-- Umm-- About the other day… I don’t know, things just sort of got out of hand and--”

“Haven’t you had enough?!”

This time, it was Katherine’s turn to flinch, and she stepped back as if she had just been shot. She looked down at Joan and was shocked to see pure rage blazing in her eyes, which flickered like lit embers. Her teeth were bared, mouth pulled back in a snarl, and her fists were clenched into shaking fists.

“Do you think you can just go on tricking me forever?!” Joan cried.

“Oh no, Joan, no--”

Katherine reached for her, but the girl clawed her hand away. She ducked under her arm and ran out of the classroom, leaving Katherine behind in shock.

“My, my,” Anne said, sauntering over with a chuckle. “Little mousey’s got a temper!”

“I--” Katherine’s words hitched for a moment. “I’ve never seen her angry before…”

Anne rolled her eyes and slung an arm around Katherine’s shoulder. She began guiding her out of the classroom.

“Oh, who cares?” She said. “Just forget about it!”

But Katherine couldn’t forget.

Especially when they stepped out of the class and saw Joan, among many others, staring at the graffiti scrawled across the nearby lockers.

“JOAN SEYMOUR EATS SHIT”

Joan turned to Katherine with tears in her eyes, bared her teeth like a wounded fox, and then took off running down the hallway crying.

Guilt roared through Katherine and, this time, she knew it would be staying for good.

------

All the girls in the fourth period gym class got dressed in silence.

The minute they had walked through the locker room door, conversations died away, giggling dissolved, and horseplay seized. There were no catcalls, no playful wrestling, no pinching or nudging or tickling. They just changed out into their gym clothes without speaking a word, already knowing what was coming.

Some teachers forgot.

Miss Aragon was not one of them.

It was no surprise when the locker room door slammed open with force after the bell rang and Miss Aragon came striding in. Her silver whistle bounced against her chest with every step she took, and a large, bulky black duffel bag was slung over one shoulder. She looked more like a wasp than usual, and not just because her outfit was a bright shade of lemon yellow with bands of black lacing over the fabric. She simply looked like she wanted to prick each and every girl in the locker room with something sharp and pointy until she had them squealing for mercy, just like they had Joan Seymour squealing in the stall just a few yards away. Resentment and disgust twisted her features as she scanned the class with brown eyes so dark they looked black.

None of her students dared to look at her.

“Well, aren’t you all just the bunch to send off to graduation,” Miss Aragon said after five minutes of just watching the teenagers fumble with their gym uniforms. She had seen Bessie try to stick her head through an arm hole three times and Katherine apparently forgot how bra clasps worked, and she decided that it was more pathetic than anything they’ve ever said Joan had done. “When is it? A month?”

Nobody answered. Miss Aragon sneered.

“And then there’s the prom!” Miss Aragon began again. “Katherine, you’ll be going with Anna von Cleves. Maria, William Willoughby.” She turned to Anne, one eyebrow raised. “What about you, Anne? I imagine you can take your pick. Who’s the lucky guy or girl?”

“Catherine Parr,” Anne said. “You don’t know her, she doesn’t go to this scho--”

“Who?”

Anne ground her teeth when she was interrupted.

“I’m sorry, Anne, I can’t hear you.”

“Catherine Parr.”

“Well, isn’t she the lucky one?” Said Miss Aragon. “Are you going to get her a corsage? Or are you just going to tie a bloody tampon around her wrist?”

Anne’s face went red and she growled like a wild animal. Miss Aragon was anything but intimidated, easily towering over Anne and beating her in terms of fierceness and muscle.

“Hey, I have an idea!” Miss Aragon said. “Why don’t we skip the sport we were going to be doing today and make boutonnieres and corsages for your prom dates instead!”

The girls exchanged confused looks, finding this awfully suspicious.

“Yeah? Sounds fun, right?” Miss Aragon said. “We can make them out of these!”

As fast as lightning, she ripped open the duffel bag and began throwing its contents all over her class.

Tampons.

Their teacher was throwing tampons at them.

The sanitary items flew like a raging blizzard of white plastic and cotton. Bessie got hit in the eye by one and reeled back into Katherine, who nearly toppled over in shock. Another got caught in Maria’s curly hair and she clawed to get it out. Maggie let out a piercing alarmed screech. Miss Aragon smirked at their hysteria, then threw the bag down at her feet, fuming both in rage and pride.

“I’m leaving.” Anne said, storming past the coach.

Something flashed in Miss Aragon’s eyes.

Fury. Boiling hot fury.

Miss Aragon hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Joan Seymour at all over the weekend. Every time she closed her eyes she would see that poor child crying out to her for help. Her dreams were tainted by visions of Joan bleeding to death or killing herself because of all the harsh bullying she faced. She kept hearing her scream “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” over and over and over again. She couldn’t keep her wrath tamed any longer, and unleashed the full firestorm on her class.

Miss Aragon reached out, moving as quick as a cracking bullwhip, grabbed Anne by the arm, and slammed her into one of the rows of lockers. The sound of the student’s back smashing against the metal rattled loudly throughout the room, only beat by Anne’s cry of shock. Her eyes went wide in disbelief.

“You can’t hit us!” She yelled.

“I barely touched you.” Miss Aragon said, as if she were talking to a whining younger sibling she had just punched in the face. She pinned Anne against the locker in a position that looked to be very uncomfortable on Anne’s shoulder.

“You’ll get canned for this.” Anne growled, tears of pain springing to her eyes. “See if you don’t, you bitch!”

“I don’t really care, Boleyn.” Miss Aragon said. “If you--or any of you--think I’m wearing my teacher hat right now, you are sadly mistaken.”

She backed up so she could glare at all the other girls, but Anne didn’t dare move from her spot against the locker. Her eyes darted to Katherine in a sort of plight for help, Katherine looked away uneasily. Her gaze landed on the shower area, where this all began, and she jerked it away to look at something else. Anything else.

“I hope you all know what you did on Friday was a really shitty thing.” Miss Aragon said. To her left, Maggie snickered and she glared at her so fiercely it was a wonder Maggie didn’t drop dead. “Do any of you ever stop to think that Joan Seymour has feelings?”

She looked around. Her rage only continued to build when she got no answer.

“Do any of you ever stop to think?” She narrowed her brown-black eyes dangerously. “Katherine? Maria? Bessie? Maggie?”

Another pause. Miss Aragon seemed to be swelling up like a King Cobra.

“Oh,” She said as if she had just read their minds. “You think she’s ugly, don’t you?”

Maggie snorted and made a “well obviously” face. Miss Aragon rounded on her, eyes flashing.

“Well, you’re ugly.”

The stupid, shit-eating grin Maggie had been wearing was wiped clean from her face instantly.

“I saw just how ugly all of you were on Friday.” Miss Aragon said.

Anne suddenly reared up, shaking her head.

“You can’t talk to us like that!” She snapped. “My dad’s a lawyer! He’ll sue your ass!”

“SHUT UP!” Aragon roared. She got in Anne’s face, smoke practically billowing from her ears and nostrils. “Open your mouth one more time, and I’ll plug you up.” She jabbed a finger into Anne’s nose, cracking her head back against the locker. “Want to find out if I’m telling the truth? There’s plenty of tampons here to see.”

Anne said nothing, but that didn’t stop her from glaring mutely at her coach. Miss Aragon backed away from her, smirking briefly. The rest of her girls were exchanging frantic, nervous looks, wondering if they were about to be murdered or beaten to death or something horrible like that. Personally, Katherine thought they all deserved such a fate.

“Now,” Miss Aragon said, lowering her voice to a slightly calmer tone, “my punishment for this little charade you pulled was a three day suspension and refusal of your prom tickets.”

An immediate uproar of unhappy gasps and murmurs eddied through the locker room. Katherine found herself sighing with them, but did agree that that would be a good way to get back at all of them.

“That would hit you where it hurts, wouldn’t it? And you would deserve it, too.” Miss Aragon said. “Unfortunately, this administration is staffed entirely by men. I don’t think they have the slightest idea how utterly nasty what you did was.” A sneer tugged on the angered grooves in her face. “So you’ll get a week’s detention.”

Instant relief.

“But it’s MY detention.” Miss Aragon went on. “Fifty minutes. In the field. Every day. And I’m going to run you ragged!”

They all could already feel their legs burning from exertion and throat aching from dry heaving so intensely.

“I won’t come,” Anne said, shrugging.

“That’s up to you, Anne.” Miss Aragon said. “That’s up to all of you. But I just want you to know that the punishment for skipping detention is a three day suspension and refusal of your prom tickets.”

There was that wave of unhappiness again, sweeping powerfully through the locker room, and it was music to Miss Aragon’s ears. She smirked wickedly.

“Get the picture?”

Nobody said anything.

“Good. Now change out. And think about what I said.”

With that, she turned and surged out of the locker room like a triumphant killer wasp. The tension of her presence quickly lifted, but only slightly. The girls were still mumbling and whispering, not daring to raise their voice in fear their coach may come back in and just take their prom tickets now.

Anne must not have gotten the memo.

“She can’t get away with this!” She snarled.

“Anne…” Katherine sighed.

Anne yanked her gym shoes out of her locker and hurled them across the room, as if she were hoping for Miss Aragon to materialize inside and get hit.

“This isn’t over!” She screeched. “It’s not even in the same area code as over!!”

And she was right.

------

Meanwhile, skipping gym class like she was told, Joan was in the library.

For most of her life, books had been her only friends.

Books accepted you the way you were and shared all their secrets with you.

Books never told you that you were creepy or called you a monster or a freak or a pig or any other mean names. Books never said, “Joan Seymour eats shit.”

Joan had hid out in the bathroom after she saw the writing on the walls, rocking back and forth in one of the back stalls and crying to herself until her throat ached and she felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore.

She remembered the bathroom door opening and somebody walking in. She had tried to keep quiet as the girl was reapplying her makeup in the mirror, but her lungs began to burn and she let out a choked sob that seemed to echo throughout the room.

Silence.

“Hello?” Called a voice Joan didn’t know or recognize. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m f-f-fine.” Joan choked out.

“You don’t sound fine.” The girl observed. “Is this your stuff on the ground?”

Right. She had just thrown her belongings on the floor in her panic to get away from prying eyes to cry alone.

“U-umm--” Joan sniffled.

Outside the stall, she heard the shuffling of feet and the rustling of papers. Her binders and folders were slid underneath the door a moment later.

“There.” Said the stranger. “Just so nobody will take it if anyone else comes in.” She paused for a moment. “Are you alright?”

Joan tried to answer, to lie, even if God would strike her down for it, but all that came out of her mouth was a sob. She curled up tighter in the stall, burying her face in her knees. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks like streams of molten lava.

The girl outside made a sympathetic noise. “You poor thing.” She said. “Crying in the bathroom at school. I know that feeling.”

Joan’s crying halted for a moment. She sniffled and looked up slightly.

“Y-you do?” She stammered.

The girl laughed. “Oh yeah.” She sat down on the other side of the stall, her back pressed against the door. “I got dumped in Geometry in Year 11.”

“Oh no…”

“Oh yes,” The girl laughed again. “I wanted to hide in the bathroom forever, but I eventually went back to class. Trust me, crying in here is completely normal. I’ve seen tons of girls do it.”

“Did you talk to them, too?” Joan asked quietly.

The girl thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

“...Then why are you talking to me?”

“I had this feeling.” The girl said. “That you just--needed someone. More than those girls did. You know?”

She didn’t, but she still said, “Uh huh.”

The girl outside shifted slightly. Joan wished she could see her face.

“So...what was it?”

“Huh?”

“What brought you in here to cry?” The girl specified. “If I may ask… You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, though.”

She was giving Joan an option, Joan realized dizzily. She wasn’t forcing her to answer.

Sniffling, Joan said, “I-it’s, umm--kinda silly…”

“Nonsense,” Said the girl. “Was it a breakup?”

“Umm-- N-no.” Joan said shyly. “I don’t date…”

“Good for you.” The girl chuckled. “We love a strong, independent woman.”

Joan felt a flurry of butterflies flap wildly in her stomach and she bit her lip to keep from grinning like a giddy idiot. She was always flattered way too easily.

“School problems?” The girl guessed again.

“Kinda, yeah…”

“I feel you, girlfriend,” The girl said. “They expect so much from us, you know? It’s like, do this research project in a week, but I’m only giving you one day to work on it in class so you’ll have to try not to procrastinate when you do the rest on your own and do this math assignment I barely taught you at all, oh and also, find the cure for cancer!”

Joan couldn’t help but giggle. She thought the girl outside the stall may be smiling.

“It sucks, but you’ll get through it,” The girl said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Joan nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

The girl got up. “No problem.” She said. “I gotta run. My teacher is probably going to tear me a new one for taking so long.” She laughed. “I hope you feel better soon!”

“Thank you,” Joan whispered again. “Bye…”

And then, her savior was gone. Joan hadn’t even known her name. She wondered if the girl would have treated her any differently if she knew who she was…

Joan had managed to make it to third period after finally coming out of the bathroom, and then got to retreat to the one place in the school where she felt at peace.

The library.

Nobody was ever mean to her in the library. They were always too busy to pick on her, and that was one of the reasons why she liked it so much. People didn’t care about her in there, instead hunched over tables with research spread out over the surface, clicking furiously on computers, scribbling in notepads in the windowsill nooks, and reading, reading, reading.

A kind of peace settled over her as she stepped inside, breathing in the crisp smell of books. She felt like she belonged here, with all the oddities of literature, even if she didn’t belong anywhere else. In here there were answers and information and thousands of stories waiting for her to read...right behind Mama’s back.

Mama didn’t like her reading a lot of things, especially young adult novels. But what Mama didn’t know was that she was already ankle-deep in a franchise about wild cats who were in clans and several other standalone books. When she was at school, the Bible was not Her Holy Book.

Shelves radiated out from every direction like a burst of sun, and more aisles with more books filled the overhead balcony ring. Yes, her school technically had a two-story library. A DOUBLE-DECKER library! You had to take a narrow wooden staircase to get up to the top ledge, which wrapped around the upper perimeter of the room and had a few private rooms to study or read in. The guard rail was laced in white fairy lights, causing the ceiling to glow beautifully.

Another thing Joan loved was the statue at the front, poised below the two entrance ramps and short staircase. It was of a long, serpent-like dragon made of white marble, coiled up on a mound of books with its snout dug in a thick, bulky novel. Its name was Haze, and it looked as though it might glance up at any moment, see Joan, and say, “Oh my gosh, have you read this one? It’s amazing!”

Joan gently brushed one of the claws as she passed by. There weren’t many kids in the library, rather in class, but there were a few Year 13’s in there for a free period. None of them even glanced up at Joan.

“Mrs. Johansen?” Joan called meekly as she walked up to the librarian’s desk.

Mrs. Johansen was the blatant stereotype of a librarian- big, wide-rimmed glasses, older, warm amber eyes, curly brown hair. She looked up from the book she was reading to smile at Joan.

“Yes, dear?” She said.

“C-can you show me how to do a search?” Joan asked. She felt painfully awkward asking that, especially to an older woman, who apparently supposed to know nothing about technology, but Mrs. Johansen smiled kindly and nodded.

“Of course,” She said. “Come on.”

It took a good five minutes, but Joan was eventually adept enough in computers to search things up. The first thing she did was look up ‘miracles’ and began to scroll through the search results, hoping to find some answers to the strange sensation she had been feeling in her veins ever since Friday.

mir·a·cle

/ˈmirək(ə)l/

noun

a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

Joan blinked, tilting her head at the definition as if she thought the words may start explaining their meaning to her even further if she stared hard enough.

Surprising? And welcome? She looked down at one of her hands, flexing her fingers. Mama didn’t seem to think her...issue...was either of those things. She clicked down to keep searching.

Miracles of the Renaissance

Jesus - Man of Miracles

Apparitions and Eucharistic Miracles

Miracles on the internet!

Pray for a miracle

Herbal Miracles

Miracles and Modern Scientific Thoughts

Miracles: HIDDEN POWERS OF THE MIND

Joan paused. That last one seemed interesting. She clicked on it and was opened up to a page using big, fancy words she couldn’t really wrap her head around. But there was one in particular that caught her attention-- /telekinesis/. She had no idea what it meant, but something inside of her seemed to latch onto it and tug her interest towards the word until she searched it up in the search bar.

Psychokinesis (from Greek ψυχή "soul" and κίνησις "movement"), or telekinesis (from τηλε- "far off" and κίνηση "movement"), is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction.

Joan’s eyes go wide with interest. Isn’t that what she did to that annoying neighborhood boy? And to Anne Boleyn? She moved them with her mind?

She looked down at her hands again, but didn’t see anything special about them. They just looked like normal hands, just more bony and scarred than usual. Suddenly self conscious, she rubbed the old burn over her knuckles while clicking on a video about telekinesis.

And it was like watching a dream come true. Joan’s eyes widened even further as she watched as a man simply held out his hand and began to move the pages of a book without even touching them. Just like she did with Anne and the biker boy! He must have the same powers as her! Oh how she wished she could reach into the screen and pull this man out and ask him all the questions now running through her mind. Like, how are you doing that? And when did you know you could do it? And are there others like us? And will you teach me how to do that, too?

She was so enthralled with the video that she didn’t even realize someone was creeping up behind her…

“Sorry! Sorry.” The brown haired boy with a camera around his neck said when she flinched around to look at him. “I just-- You can make it full screen, you know? Watch.”

He reached over Joan and clicked the ‘f’ key and the video filled the entire computer screen. Joan’s eyes glimmered in awe.

“Thank you,” She whispered.

“No problem!” The boy said with a cheeky grin. He quickly hurried off to an empty table, leaving Joan alone.

He...wasn’t mean to her.

How strange...

------

Katherine quickly realized she had a lot less stamina than she thought she did. She has always been a perfect, well-behaved girl, always slipping out of punishment during the few times she wasn’t, so there wasn’t ever a need to have tough endurance for running because she never thought she would piss off a gym coach of all people.

But here she was, running Suicides in the field after school, fighting the urge to dry heave every few seconds.

The sun seemed to be unnaturally, blisteringly hot that evening, like it, too, was punishing her and her classmates for what they had done on Friday. Katherine doesn’t think she’s ever been so hot before. Her skin felt like it was baking, her hair was tassels of golden fire, and her back was a plateau of roaring flames. Gleaming yellow sunlight made her eyes prickly and sore, and if she squinted through the haze of exhaustion, she swore she thought she could see a big black buzzard circling overhead that seemed to be just waiting for one of them to drop dead.

“Come on, ladies!” Miss Aragon shouted from the side of the field, looking absolutely delightful. “Lift those legs up! Faster! Faster!”

��She--she can’t do this to us,” Anne wheezed as she careened up next to Katherine. She was absolutely dripping with sweat and red in the face, but Katherine couldn’t tell if that was from the sun, the exertion of the Suicides, or the fury from both.

“Just--let it go, Anne. We’re almost done.” Katherine said through her teeth. It took a great effort to speak; she could feel bile curling in the back of her throat like bubbling acid.

“And then every day this week?” Anne spat. “All because of Joan Seymour?”

“Anne.” Katherine hissed. She picked up her pace to get away from her cousin, but when she turned to run back to the starting line, her foot slipped in the slick turf of the football field and she was sent sprawling on her stomach. The impact jarred her heavily and she dry heaved painfully until her lunch finally came rushing out of her mouth. A few girls winced, but mostly everyone kept running--not that she blamed them. Anne, however, darted over to her side, and she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that or not.

“Are you okay?” Anne asked. Her concerned Big Cousin voice was slipping into her words and Katherine couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile at that. This was the side of Anne she liked, not the evil, cruel one who liked to pick on kids three years younger than her.

“Y-yeah--” Katherine answered, spitting out the last of the bile in her mouth. “I’m fine.”

“Howard,” Miss Aragon called, walking over, twirling her whistle on her finger. “Are you alright?”

“Like you care…” Anne muttered. Miss Aragon gave her a dangerous glare, and Katherine set a hand on her knees to not only calm her cousin, but to also boost herself back up.

“Yes ma’am,” Katherine said. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” Miss Aragon rumbled. “I’m glad.” She shot Anne another look for a brief moment. “Get back to it. You’re almost done.”

Katherine nodded and then took off again, shortly followed by Anne, who was muttering something about this being “child abuse”.

Ten minutes of running in the searing heat passed and Miss Aragon’s whistle finally pierced the field. A collective sigh of relief swept through the class as girls skidded to a halt and instantly doubled over or completely collapsed to the floor in moaning, groaning heaps of soreness. A few scrambled for their water bottles and began drinking like it was the end of the world. Miss Aragon walked over to them, amusement painted brightly on her face.

“Don’t drink too fast,” Their coach said to the girls guzzling down water, “or you may throw up.”

“My legs are gonna fall off,” Bessie said in a woebegone voice. She was flopped over on her back, spilling her bleached white hair all across the green grass.

“Now you know how it feels to be Joan Seymour, don’t you?” Miss Aragon said, looking down her nose at the girl.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her have to run before,” Maggie pointed out grumpily. “Even though she’s the worst at literally everything we do in class…”

Miss Aragon glowered down at Maggie for a moment, then began marching up and down the cluster of girls. They all watched her tensely, waiting for her to exact an even harsher punishment than Suicides.

“Life’s all about making choices, ladies,” Miss Aragon said. “And, last Friday, you made the wrong one. So here’s how it’s going to go.” Her eyes flashed like gleaming pieces of onyx in the sun. “You’re all going to apologize to Joan.”

There was an uproar of annoyed confusion. Miss Aragon rolled her eyes.

“You are all going to apologize to her in front of everyone.” Miss Aragon said.

“And if we don’t?” Anne challenged.

“Do you really want to find out?” Miss Aragon said scathingly. She turned and strode away from the field to go retrieve Joan Seymour from wherever she was, swathed in gleaming gold.

The minute she was out of sight, Anne let out a roar of fury.

“That goddamn pig!” She yelled, working herself up to a proper fit. “This is all her fault!!”

“Let it go, Anne.” Katherine said tiredly. She carefully eased herself to the ground, wincing when her throbbing muscles pulled and bent. Relief was short lived, because Anne came charging up to her a second later.

“Why are you taking her side?!” Anne cried.

“This isn’t about taking sides!” Katherine cried back, a new sharpness in her voice. “What did Joan Seymour ever do to you? Or to any of us?”

A few of the girls exchanged looks, seemingly only now thinking about that, while others, like Anne, looked unfazed. Katherine saw Anne’s fists clench tightly at her side, but she didn’t back down her own defense. She didn’t think Anne would strike her, but if she did, she liked to think she could take her in a fight.

“My, my,” Anne said with sickly sweet venom in her voice. “Look who’s become the little Joan of Arc around here?” Her demeanor then switched, flaming into seething resentment, and Katherine could now see that her older cousin hated Joan Seymour with every inch of her being--simply for existing. There was no rhyme or reason, she just despised the girl. “Oh yeah, remind me. Who was in there pitching with the rest of us?”

Katherine sucked in a sharp breath, but blew it out in a sigh. “I was.” She admitted.

“Yeah.” Anne sneered. Several of the other girls were packed behind her, backing her up, while a few, like Bessie and Maria, stood or sat in the middle, looking from the swarm of sweaty, angry teens to Katherine and then back to the swarm.

“But I’m sorry.” Katherine said.

Anne barked a laugh. “Sorry?” She laughed again, then turned to the girls behind her. “Hey, everyone, little Miss Perfect is sorry! She’s so sorry! Oh, Kitty’s sorry!”

“Anne!” Maria hissed, then jerked her head to the side, where the yellow figure of Miss Aragon could be seen walking back over. The group quickly dispersed and Katherine shook her head.

Miss Aragon stopped in front of them. At her side, little Joan looked absolutely horrified. Her eyes are wide and paler than the moon in the sunlight, and she kept fidgeting like she wanted to run. She was trying very hard not to look at any of the girls, but didn’t know where else to stare, so her gaze kept shifting around everywhere in a panic.

“Now, do you all have something to say to Joan?” Miss Aragon said sternly.

“Joan--” Katherine stood up, gritting her teeth through the awful wave of pain that burned through her muscles. She slowly walked up to Joan as to not frighten her, but Joan still backed up into Aragon’s side anyway. “I’m sorry.”

Joan hunched her shoulders in and looked away.

“Maria.” Miss Aragon said.

Maria hesitated for just a moment, then gave in. “Sorry.”

“Your turn, Maggie.”

Maggie pressed her tongue against the inside of her lip and spat an uncaring, “Sorry.”

“Bessie.”

Bessie squinted up at Joan through the sunlight, then said, “Oh. Sorry.”

“Alright, Anne,” Miss Aragon said. “Let’s hear it.”

“When goddamn pigs fly…” Anne muttered stubbornly. A few giggles broke out around her. Miss Aragon narrowed her eyes dangerously.

“What was that?” Their coach said. “We’re waiting, Anne. I can’t hear you.”

“Please, it’s okay,” Joan squeaked, gripping onto Miss Aragon’s sleeve. She looked up at her with the saddest, most scared eyes Katherine had ever seen before. Miss Aragon gently touched her head in a form of reassurance, then instantly glared at Anne.

“I said--” Anne growled lowly.

“You don’t have to do this!”

Joan is in front of Anne, now, hands outstretched like she wanted to grab onto her. In the sun, Katherine could see the silvery scars on her hands more clearly, whorled in strange patterns in her skin. The light made her long white-gold hair look like it was charged with glittering electricity or made of jeweled silk. Anne looked down at her, and Joan backed up, clasping her hands together against her chest nervously.

“Joan Seymour?” Anne said softly, stepping towards the girl. She stooped down to her height and spat, “Eats shit.”

Joan flinched backwards as if she were just sprayed with venom. Miss Aragon instantly got between her and Anne, acting as a protective shield of sorts.

“Good news, ladies!” She announced. “Because of Anne’s comment, you will all be getting another week of detention with doubled time!”

The class simultaneously groaned, now turned against Anne. Anne clenched her fists, smoldering with rage.

“I’m not running another goddamn inch,” She snarled, “because Joan Seymour got her period and was too stupid to know what it was.”

Joan flinched again, and Katherine had the unbearable urge to run over to her and cover her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear this. Her own blood began to boil and she glared at her cousin.

“That’s it.” Miss Aragon said. “You’re suspended.”

That seemed to hit Anne like a punch to the gut. Her eyes bulged hugely out of their sockets.

“What?”

“You’re out of prom and you’re out of my class.” Miss Aragon stated firmly. “Now.”

“No!” Anne shouted.

“NO?” Miss Aragon towered over her, eyes ablaze. She looked ready to rip Anne’s throat out, and Katherine found that she wouldn’t quite mind seeing that happen.

“You can’t decide that!”

“Watch me.” Miss Aragon said. She turned her gaze to the other students, as if she were challenging them to try and speak out. “The rest of you. Another lap. Come on.”

“You can’t do this to us!” Anne squawked. “Someone could die of dehydration! Bessie, you have a heart condition, don’t you?”

Bessie apparently decided that she didn’t know who Anne was, because she was looking at everything but her.

“If we all stick together, they can’t suspend all of us!” Anne said fervently. There was a spark of craziness in her eyes as she watched her group of friends crumble around her, suddenly not backed up anymore. “We didn’t do anything wrong!”

Joan’s quiet whimper begged to differ. Miss Aragon looked at Anne in disgust.

“Come on, guys!” Anne desperately attempted to rally them together. “Haley, Allie? Maria? Heather?” She spun around for somebody, anybody, and then her eyes landed on her cousin. “Katherine!” She strode over to her and clasped their hands together. “You’re with me on this, right?”

“Katherine…” Miss Aragon warned.

Katherine’s heart ached in her chest. Anne was looking at her with so much desperation and need. There were flickers of love in her gaze, love for her little cousin, love that showed that the old Anne was still in there somewhere and ready to play harmless pranks with Katherine again. But when she looked right into her eyes, all she saw was Joan on the floor of the stall, crying and hyperventilating and surrounded by blood.

Her mind was made up.

“Come on, guys,” Katherine pulled out of Anne’s grasp and jogged over to the starting line to get the last bout of Suicides over with. The others followed, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Anne staring at her with a look of heartbreak and betrayal.

Heartbreak and betrayal that morphed into something awful and sinister.

“You fucking bitch,” Anne seethed lowly, wheeling around to glare at Joan. The poor girl was shaking like a leaf in the wind, practically cowering behind Miss Aragon. “I’ll get you for this! See if I don’t, you filthy pi-”

Anne’s words were silenced by a fierce slap across her face. She tottered backwards, and all the girls running stopped to gasp and ogle the scene with wide eyes. Miss Aragon was scowling and rubbing her hand.

“You can’t--” Anne sputtered, and then yelped loudly as her collar was grabbed. Miss Aragon shook her roughly, screaming in her face.

“ONE MORE WORD OUT OF YOU AND I’LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU NEVER SHOWED UP TO SCHOOL TODAY!!” Miss Aragon roared. She shook Anne again, then drew her in close. Her words came out barbed and wrapped in shards of glass. “Do you understand me?”

Whimpering, Anne nodded. Miss Aragon released her and Katherine watched as her cousin took off, crying. Miss Aragon looked at the rest of them and shook her head.

“You’re all dismissed,” She said. Then, she turned, gently took Joan by the hand, and guided her back inside.

Everyone else dispersed pretty quickly, not caring enough to change clothes. Katherine, however, had to trudge to the locker room because she stupidly put all her stuff in there. When she entered, she could hear voices coming from Miss Aragon’s office.

“Joan, sweetheart? I’m so sorry, if I had known it would have gone like that--”

“Oh, Miss Aragon, you just have to let Anne go to the prom! You got to!”

Those were Miss Aragon and Joan. Now Katherine had to stay and eavesdrop on their conversation. She shut the door silently so as to not alert them and crept closer to hear better.

“Joan--”

“Prom is very important to her…”

“And what’s right is important to me.” Miss Aragon said firmly.

“But prom is everything to those girls!” Joan warbled. “It’s the one night they get to dress up and be beautiful! It’s like a dream!”

“But what about you?”

Pause.

Hesitation.

“No--” Joan said, and Katherine thought she may have been shaking her head. “Oh, no, I’m not going. I’m--I’m /different/.”

Was that disgust in her voice? Why?

“Not that different.”

“Yes, I am.”

That was sadness and grief.

Joan added a moment later, solemnly and slightly envious, “They all got someone…”

“And so will you one day, things change.” Miss Aragon told her.

There’s a moment of silence. Katherine could bet a million dollars that Joan was looking at Miss Aragon in disbelief right now.

“I tell you what. Let’s pretend--”

“Miss Aragon…”

“Just for a minute! Pretend that the right someone comes up to you and says: ‘Joan, will you be my date to the prom?’ What would you say?”

A beat of silence.

“No.”

“J--”

Miss Aragon sighed heavily. Katherine struggled not to laugh.

“Joan, why not?”

“I’m not--” Joan fumbled. “I’m not--pretty.”

Miss Aragon gave a tiny gasp.

“Oh, sweetheart… Sure you are! Look--” Katherine can faintly hear her root around for something, most likely a pocket mirror. “See there? That’s a pretty girl.”

Katherine’s mind was spinning. She kept thinking “poor Joan” over and over and over again. The girl’s self esteem was so low. It was normal for people to make comments about their body, but there was a sort of deep hatred in Joan’s voice when she said that she wasn’t pretty that made Katherine think all of this ran a lot deeper than she thought.

Would there ever be a way to make things right?

28 notes · View notes