#this is one of the old haunts one shots in the works with chrissy and eddie dealing with their insecurities | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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Catch Me If You Can (10/?)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

A/N: Happy Day, you guys! I’m giving you a quick update here! I hope you enjoy!

Thank you to @resident-of-storybrooke for being a really awesome beta❤️

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @royalswan @shey-starsfury @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @emmas-storybook @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @galaxyzxstark @qualitycoffeethings @thejollyroger-writer

-/-

Emma: Do you know if we’re getting food on this flight?

Killian:It’s seven thirty in the morning.

Emma: And your point? That’s breakfast time.

Emma: I usually stock up on snacks because I am a bottomless pit, but I didn’t have time to this morning. Do you have anything?

Killian: I have an apple. I can very clearly see that Rob has a box of Wheat Thins in his backpack though. You want me to smuggle some for you?

Emma: How would that even work?

Killian: Easy. I steal the box from Rob and then chunk it three rows up to you.

Emma: That won’t be obvious at all.

Killian: I’m very stealthy, love.

“It’s not even eight in the morning,” Robin groans, reaching for the lever on his seat to recline back in the very little space that they’re given. “Who in the world are you texting that much?”

“Liam,” he lies, heat rising to his cheeks. He has texted Liam this morning, but he’s most definitely not texting his brother right now. It’s a half-truth, really. “He’s trying to nail me down for some dinner plans once we get back home. I haven’t gotten to see them much lately, and he and Elsa always get antsy whenever that happens.”

“You’re pretty much their third child.”

“I feel like I’m their third child but also your second.”

“No,” Robin huffs, reaching down into his bag to grab his crackers, “that’s most definitely Will.”

“I can hear you,” Will mumbles from the seat in front of them as he stretches out and snuggles further into his pillow. Will could sleep on any plane at any time. It’s damn impressive. “And I’m not a child just because you all feel the need to baby me, Professor Jones.”

“So not a child but a baby then?” he teases.

Will sticks his middle finger up in between the seats, not even bothering to open his eyes as he murmurs, “fuck off.”

“I love you too, man.”

“Don’t worry,” Robin placates, a smirk on his face, “he’s only mean to you because he likes you.”

“That’s a load of bullshit.”

“For me, yeah, because I say things when I feel them.” Will pops his head in between the seats, his eyes widened but sleep heavy now. “But I think Emma is so pissy toward you because she does actually think you’re hot.”

Woah. Where did that even come from?

“Is that what she said?” he questions like he’s a fifteen-year-old boy worried about Chrissy Stephens liking him back and not like a grown man who knows that the woman he fancies is also interested in him.

What a world that he lives in that Emma Swan is interested in him.

That or she’s been very good at faking it for the last two weeks. God, he hopes that she hasn’t been faking it, but that seems like a hell of a lot of effort when they’ve talked nearly every day. Sometimes it’s just a few texts, a passing word in the hallway, an interview or a press conference question. Other times it’s a phone call late at night or Emma dropping by his place for an hour to eat dinner. He can tell that she’s still terrified by the whole thing, nervous energy practically radiating off of her when she first starts talking to him, but once they get into the groove of things, he believes that she feels comfortable.

Her wanting this and being willing to try is beyond his wildest dreams, and a part of him still thinks he’s going to be hit in the head with a baseball and wake up from whatever kind of concussion-induced dream that he’s under.

So much shit has gone down in his life, things from years past still haunting him, and he’s clinging to this good thing even if it’s far too early for any of that. He hasn’t done this relationship thing in a long time, and he’s still not entirely sure that’s what it is. They haven’t talked about it, and he imagines Emma is not going to be the person to bring it up first.

If ever.

They could be getting married, and she still might not want to discuss things.

Woah, woah, woah. That is thinking too far ahead for about a million different reasons. He is not going there.

Will’s eyes narrow at him, thick brows pushing together all the while Killian can practically feel Robin’s stare covering every inch of him. “Why do you care?”

He shrugs, his fingers fidgeting with the window shade to let some light in before immediately shutting that away. “I like to know what’s being said about me.”

“She’s sitting right up there. Why don’t you ask her, Professor Jones?”

“Because that sounds like a dumbass idea that will get me in all kinds of trouble.”

“It’s true,” Robin sighs. “You should not be talking to Emma Swan about anything other than baseball.”

His heart drops into his right calf at that. He didn’t know that was possible, but it is. Why would Robin think something like that?

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want to piss her off anymore. She could flip the narrative on you so quickly that you’d get whiplash and all the sudden you’d be back to who you were four years ago.”

His defenses rise, words on the tip of his tongue at the ready to defend Emma. He doesn’t like that Robin thinks she would do that. They’ve all spent time around Emma. They know that even if she can be a little guarded, she’s got their best interests at heart. Even when they’ve screwed up, him especially, she’s never done anything to wrong them.

“That wouldn’t happen. She’s a professional. You know that. She’s not going to pull shit like that,” he says quietly, wondering how in the world he can change this conversation to something else so as not to show all of the metaphorical cards in his hands. “Can I have some of those crackers, Rob?”

Robin eyes him for a moment before handing him the box. Killian doesn’t even really want these, but he’s thankful for them as the conversation dies down and Will goes back to sleeping after under two minutes of trying and Robin keeps watching his movie, typing a long text to Carol for something having to do with Roland. He doesn’t want to pry, so he tries not to look, reluctantly eating the Wheat Thins before snapping a picture of them and sending it to Emma.

Killian: I can throw these across the plane if you’re ready to catch them.

Emma: Hit me with your best shot.

Emma: Not really.

Emma: Please don’t throw food on the plane. I saw that there are snacks in the back, and I’m going to pilfer them.

Before he knows it, he sees Emma’s blonde head rise up as she gets out of her seat and walks down the aisle past him. She doesn’t look at him, her eyes staring straight ahead, but that doesn’t keep him from looking as she sweetly asks a flight attendant for a packet of cookies. It looks like she’s learned since the last time they flew.

When she comes back toward him, he turns in his seat and goes back to flipping through the movies, pretending like he wasn’t just staring her down. Hopefully she didn’t notice that. She may like him, but everyone has their limits.

Emma: The red-headed flight attendant thinks you’re hot.

Killian: I’ve been reliably told that you think the same thing, and I care much more about that.

Emma: Who told you that?

Killian: You’re not the only one who can have sources.

Emma: At least mine are reliable.

Killian: So you don’t think I’m hot?

Emma: I didn’t say that.

Killian: I knew you thought I was sexy, Swan. You flatter a man.

Emma: Shut up and eat your Wheat Thins.

-/-

Fuck.

Fucking hell.

Small pinpricks of pain are spreading down his arm while his shoulder stings. Someone might as well be out here stabbing him with a knife. It would likely be less painful than this.

Not again.

Not tonight.

He’s been doing so well, his shoulder not bothering him, all of his physical therapy working to keep his muscles strengthening and his body in check, and then shit like this happens. There’s no way he can make it past the inning, and even if he wasn’t about to call it, he knows that Al is going to pull him off the mound in no less than three minutes with how many runs he’s giving up.

It’s…not good. They’re down 2-8 in the bottom of the fourth, and he might as well be dying out here under the Florida sunshine and the humidity that has his bones weighing twice their normal weight. Spring Training never prepares him for this when it’s this muggy outside.

He might as well be in a damn swamp. Tropicana field sounds so cheery, so pleasant, but he’s dying inside. Why the hell do teams agree to name their fields things like Tropicana and Minute Maid? How much exactly are they getting paid to suffer like that?

How much is he getting paid to suffer like this?

Taking a deep breath, he tries to focus on what’s in front of him. That’s all he can do when his body is failing him like this, and with a quick windup, he releases the ball from his grip and watches it fly right into Will’s glove.

Strike three. Byrd’s out.

Immediately, he jogs to the dugout, opening the small gate and going straight for the water cooler, gulping down a cup before pouring himself another one and covering his head to try to cool himself down. He’s so damn mad at himself for playing like this, for having a body that’s failing him when his body has always been his livelihood and the thing he maintained with precision and dedication, and all he wants is to punch every single member of the Rays even though none of them have ever actually wronged him.

Anger takes its way out in strange places.

“You’re done, Jones,” Al tells him, his voice clipped.

“Good.”

He tosses his cup to the ground in annoyance and turns to make his way to the bench, figuring he’ll suffer out here for a little while longer, only to see Emma standing with her bottom lip tugged between her teeth and her phone in her hand.

Right.

She’s sitting in the dugout with them tonight recording videos and doing fun little segments for her Instagram and Twitter, and he’s probably looked like an ass in all of them.

Because he is an ass.

“You okay?” she mouths.

He doesn’t respond with more than a shake of his head no before he’s turning away and heading toward the tunnels that will take him back to the locker room so he can get this damn shoulder massaged and have Archie yell at him once again for trying to keep all of this under wraps.

-/-

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Killian sighs into his phone as he runs the towel over his waist, drying his body as much as he can before knotting it over his hip. His brother doesn’t seem to understand that people are busy and life is busy and maybe he wants to shower for fifteen minutes simply so everyone will leave him alone.

It’s been three hours since he left the field after the game, and it’s still not enough time to let him simmer in his thoughts.

“Are you sure because you kept grimacing and – ”

“I know what happened, Liam. God, I…” He runs his hands through his damp hair, water droplets falling over his face and tracing the lines where the beginnings of a sunburn are forming. “My shoulder hurt today. You know it, and I know it. There’s no point in denying it. I just don’t want to talk about it anymore when I already got my ass handed to me by Archie and Al.”

“I’m worried about you,” Liam laments, the sound of his television in the background. The girls should be asleep by now, so it must be Elsa sitting quietly listening in to their conversation while she pretends that she isn’t. He doesn’t know why she does that when she and Liam don’t keep anything to themselves when it comes to him, their honorary third child. “You have been nothing but healthy you’re entire life, and then I convinced you to go sailing with me and – ”

“Please do not blame yourself for that accident anymore.”

“Why not? I’m the one who insisted we go on the weekend trip. I’m the one who – ”

“For fuck’s sake, Liam, it’s not your fault. The drunks who ran into us are the only people who have any kind of fault. We probably should have died that day, and we didn’t. I just got a fucked-up arm. I’ll take that over anything else. You don’t have to act like you’re my father taking responsibility for all of my actions.”

The moment he says the words, he regrets them.

How could he not?

Comparing Liam to their father is the absolute last thing that he wants to do. Liam, even with his faults and his judgmental ways, is nothing like Brennan. Brennan Jones never cared unless it benefitted himself, and Liam cares because it’s what good family does. It’s what people who love each other do.

His brother is the greatest man that he knows, and yet here he is taking all of his anger out on him because he can’t always play the sport that he loves like he used to.

“Our father never took any responsibility for our actions.”

“God,” he groans, running his hands through his hair again and yanking at the strands, “I don’t know why I said that. I just – ”

“You’re angry right now.” The way Liam says the words calmly, like they’re talking about the weather or a lunch up on the rooftop of his building, weirdly calms him down and makes his heart beat a little less erratically. “I would be angry too if the accident had kept me from doing something I love the way I had done it before. You got hurt, and I got a small scar on my knee. It’s not fair, and you can be angry. Just…don’t let that anger ruin your relationship with others.”

“I hate that you’re so wise sometimes.”

“It’s only some of the time,” Elsa pipes in, confirming his thought that she was in there simply listening in. “He’s an idiot most of the time, actually, and it drives me insane that the girls think he is the smartest man alive.”

“Hi, Els,” he laughs, opening the door to the bathroom to let some of the steam out and walking back into his hotel room. “You should really announce yourself before you start listening in on a conversation. I know you’re there.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you to think I’m too nosy.”

Killian barks out a laugh at that because there’s no other word he could describe Elsa as other than nosy at this moment. Compassionate and kind also come to mind, but right now she’s nosy.

Shuffling through the room, he sits down at the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping down underneath his weight, and picks up the remote to turn the television if only because he wants some background noise, so he doesn’t get too lost in his own thoughts.

“You and my brother are a packaged deal, darling,” he sighs, “and Addy and Lucy. I know that you are all far too much into my business.”

“It’s only because we care, little brother.”

“Younger, you asshole.”

“Language,” Elsa scolds.

“I’m twenty-eight years old and sitting in a hotel room by myself. I think I can say the word asshole.”

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“You’re such a mom,” he groans, falling back against the mattress, his towel coming undone the slightest bit.

“I did not push those two children out of my vagina to go by any other name.”

“Oh my God, stop. I don’t like to think about how those two were created.”

“Killian, childbirth is natural.”

“I’m talking about the creating, not the delivering.”

Liam and Elsa both start coughing before their coughs turn into laughter, the two of them sputtering and bickering back and forth with each other, and he sits up on the bed and starts mindlessly flipping through the channels until he finds a Dodgers game. Why is he watching baseball when he’s trying to get away from it all?

Because it is his life.

“You know, little brother,” Liam chokes out, emphasizing the little because he is, indeed, an asshole, “if you had a girlfriend, you would probably feel more comfortable talking about sex.”

“I am perfectly comfortable talking about sex. Just not yours.”

“I know but – ”

There’s a knock at the door, and he feels like he’s saved by the bell (or the knuckles) at the sound, not really wanting to have this conversation with Liam even if he goaded them into it and if it’s more pleasant than talking about his shoulder.

“Hey, guys,” he starts, already getting up and tying his towel a little tighter around his waist, “there’s someone at my door. I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Let us know if you need to talk,” Elsa sighs, quietly echoed by Liam. “We love you.”

“Love you guys too.”

He hangs up the phone and places it on his dresser before crossing the room and looking through the peephole to see who is knocking on his door.

It’s Emma.

She’s standing just outside his door in an oversized white sweater and a pair of leggings, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, and he can tell by the way that she’s unable to stand still that she’s anxious. Immediately, he twists all of the locks and swings open the door, catching it before it slams into the wall.

“Swan,” he smiles, already reaching forward and tugging her inside, looking from side to side in the hallway to make sure no one is around.

“Hey, so I – ”

He stops her before she can finish her sentence, closing the door behind them and quickly dipping his head down to slide his lips over hers, just the barest hint of a touch in greeting but enough to make all of his body begin to stand at attention.

“Hi,” he whispers when he pulls back.

Emma’s lashes flutter as she looks up at him, a little redness of her cheeks. “Hi. I’m guessing you don’t mind that I dropped by then.”

“Truthfully, I’m very upset about it.”

“You’re a liar,” she laughs, adjusting the bag that she’s holding. Wow, he didn’t even notice the bag. His mind is all over the place tonight. “You’re also not wearing any clothes. Why are you not wearing any clothes?”

A shiver runs down his spine as Emma’s eyes glance over him, very obviously cataloging his body in the same way that he’s done to hers in the past. The room is more heated, the steam from the bathroom permeating into the bedroom, and he knows that it would be so damn easy to step a little bit more into Emma’s space and capture her mouth with his as his hands explored her body the way that her eyes are exploring him. It would be so damn easy to forget about the difficulties of this day, to forget about the ache in his shoulder, and let his body do all of the talking that it couldn’t do today.

He could prove that his body still works, that he can still do good with it, that he can still bring himself pleasure, bring Emma pleasure.

…but he can’t do that. Not yet.

It’s not the right time when he’s riddled in self-doubt and frustration, and even if Emma was ready, he wants to do this right. He doesn’t want to use her and his affections for her to make him forget everything for a night.

They need more time to get to know each other.

When the hell was the last time he wanted to get to know a woman well before he slept with her?

Why would he even ask himself that question when he knows the answer?

“Well, darling,” he finally sighs, backing up from her to give himself room to breathe all the while he makes sure to flash her a grin, “I did this thing called showering, and I don’t often do it with clothes.” “That’s smart. It’d probably get a little messy like that.”

“Most definitely. What’s in the bag?”

“Oh,” she gasps, her shoulders shrugging up the slightest bit as her eyes light up, the darkness turning back to light green. “So, I didn’t mean to be presumptuous or whatever by coming here, but you didn’t seem to have the best day, and I figured I would bring you, like, a snack or whatever to help you out. Then I thought maybe I could stay for a bit, but if you want to tell me to fuck off, I can be back in my room in a minute.”

How in the world does he find everything she does so charming? He was in a piss-poor mood, still is, and even though he wasn’t exceptionally friendly to her when she was doing interviews in the locker room, she’s being more than kind to him.

“Love, the absolute last thing I would do is tell you to fuck off. I’m glad you decided to come see me even if I don’t know how you know my room number.”

She winks before turning around and placing the paper bag down. “You’re not the only one who knows how to charm people to get information.”

“Apparently not. What kind of spoils have you brought me?”

“Totally ignoring the fact that you said spoils,” she laughs, pulling out a bag of salt and vinegar chips and then several snack cakes. And then one banana which doesn’t seem to fit at all. “But I raided a vending machine and also the hotel front desk for the banana, and figured maybe we could pig out a bit since I know for a fact both of us are going running tomorrow.”

“Do you have strawberry short cakes in that pile?”

He steps closer to her, and she holds up a package of Pop-Tarts, strawberry flavored. “Is this close enough?”

“Only because we’re in a pinch.” Killian takes it out of her hand, and tosses it over to the bed before picking up his bag of clothes and sliding it into the bathroom. “I’m just going to put on some pants and then we’ll – ”

There’s another knock on his door, and this time he’s not saved by the bell. He doesn’t want this conversation to end. Emma stops what she’s doing, dropping the chips she’s holding back onto the desk, and she turns to look at him with wide eyes and parted lips, panic written across all of her features.

“What do we do?” she whispers, her voice probably echoing from here all the way back up to the east coast.

“I’m just going to ignore it,” he says quietly, stepping back over to the door to look to see who it is. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Emma whispers, stepping closer only for him to hold out his arm in front of her.

There’s another knock, this time really more of a pounding, and then Ariel’s voice comes through the wood. “I know you’re in your room, Killian. Open the door.”

Emma’s eyes widen even more, and if he wasn’t currently freaking out over what to do, he’d laugh at the comic relief over the whole thing. “Get in the bathroom, love.”

She nods her head, quickly picking up the food she brought in and scrambling into the bathroom, closing the door behind her at the same time that he opens his hotel door, his hand furiously scratching at his ear.

“What, A?”

“Well, that’s a way to greet me.” She immediately moves past him and into the room, never one for understanding personal space. “Why do you have a package of Pop-Tarts on your bed?”

“I got it from the vending machine,” he lies, closing his door behind her and walking back over to his bed. “I was hungry but didn’t feel like ordering anything in. Why are you here? Where’s Eric?”

Ariel rolls her eyes and stretches out onto his bed, picking up the remote and immediately changing the TV from the game he was watching. “Believe it or not, I am capable of being in a separate space than my husband.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

She simply waves him away. “Whatever. I just wanted to check on you. I know you get all moody after losses, and you didn’t come join everyone for dinner. Also, can you put some clothes on while we have this conversation? I love you, but I don’t need to see every bit of you.”

“You’re the one who came barging into my room,” he groans as his mind runs through about fifteen scenarios on how to get Ariel out of his room, “but fine. I’ll go change.”

Killian steps away from his bed and walks the few steps to the bathroom door, quietly opening it up and immediately shutting it behind him in case Ariel for some reason decided to move behind him.

This is by far the weirdest thing that has happened to him this year. He’s hiding his girlfri – he’s hiding Emma in his hotel bathroom.

And she’s sitting on the countertop with her legs crossed over each other eating the bag of chips like that’s not the loudest food she could have chosen.

“What are you doing?” she hisses. Putting the chips down.

“Ariel has requested I put on some clothes.”

“But there’s no place for me to move in here so you can do that.”

Killian rolls his eyes at her flustered movements and far too loud hushed voice. It’s what has him turning on the sink before he leans forward and presses a kiss to Emma’s cheek. “I can slip my sweatpants on under my towel. I promise I’m not going to scar you.”

“You wouldn’t scar me. I just – ”

He reaches down to his bag, grabbing a pair of pants and pulling them on underneath his towel, his mind fighting with him to think of every delicious and dirty thought about having Emma in the shower, and tugs them up before dropping his towel to the ground and finding a t-shirt to wear. How is his bag so disorganized?

“What was that now, love?”

“Nothing,” she hisses, blushing. “How long am I supposed to stay in here? I’m kind of freaking out.”

“You’ve got food, water, and a bathroom. I think you’ll be good for a week or two.”

“Asshole.”

“I try.” He flashes her a grin before leaning forward and quickly gliding his lips over hers and tasting the salt and vinegar of her kiss. Damn does he love that he can do that. “I’ll try to get her to leave as soon as possible, okay? Be quiet on your chip eating.”

Emma scrunches up her nose before sticking her tongue out at him and grabbing another chip with one hand while the other turns the faucet off. He sighs, amused and exasperated all at once, before opening the bathroom door and stepping out only to find Ariel eating the Pop-Tarts.

He kind of wanted those even if there are a million better ways to consume five hundred calories.

“Why’d you turn your water on?”

“Didn’t want you to hear me pee.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugs her shoulders and pats the spot on his bed next to her. He takes the small desk chair instead. “Tell me why you’re in such a bad mood.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not a liar.”

(He is a liar.)

“Okay,” Ariel murmurs as she takes another bite, “so if you’re not in a bad mood, would you at least like to explain why you didn’t come to dinner?”

He swivels in the chair a bit, his legs antsy to tap and stay moving, but that’ll make him seem anxious to Ariel. That’s the last thing that he wants when he is, indeed, anxious for her to get out of the room.

“I – I felt like I let everyone down today,” he admits, leaving out his own self-loathing about his injury. Half-truths. He’s always speaking in half-truths. “I played a shitty game. I was in a bad mood. I was awful company and didn’t want anything to do with anyone. So, I kind of figured I’d come back here and work that out on my own instead of making everyone else miserable.”

“Killian Jones, you know for a fact that we are not miserable around you. At least Eric and I aren’t. Neither are Robin or Will or even August. The only person who would take issue with you being all pissy is Arthur and that’s because he’s got his own set of issues.”

He scoffs and closes his eyes as he stretches his legs out. She’s right. He knows that she is because she’s always right. She’s basically another version of Elsa in that aspect.

“I know. I’m…you know how I get, A. I’ll be fine. Tomorrow, I’ll come to whatever team-mandated meal you arrange.”

“That’s all I ask.” She rises from the bed, picking up the Pop-Tart she hasn’t eaten, and walks over to him to briefly press her lips against his temple. “I’m going to let you wallow, okay? But tomorrow after you’ve finished your practice, we have to talk about your calendar for the rest of May and June. I’ve got some charity stuff lined up for you.”

“I will be at your beck and call.”

“As you should be. Text me if you need anything, okay?”

“Will do.”

Ariel nods her head and smiles before walking out the door, letting it slam shut behind her. Letting out a sigh of relief, he places his face in his hands and simply takes a moment to breathe and let his mind stop racing about how horrible of a human being he is for lying to everyone.

He’s the worst, isn’t he? He has to be.

When he’s finished with his little pity party, he sits up and raises his fist to the wall, banging on it to let Emma know that she can come out of the bathroom.

The door clicks, and she emerges, flipping the locks on his door and then walking toward him, stepping into his space until he’s pulling her in by the hips to stand in the open space between his legs, his head resting against her stomach.

Maybe he’s not quite finished with his pity party.

“So,” Emma hums, her feet moving into his line of vision as her hands scratch at that back of his head, which may very well be the best fucking feeling in the world, “apparently everyone in the world knows you’re in a bad mood, and you don’t want to talk to any of us about it.”

“Do you want to talk every time you’re in a bad mood?”

“Hell no.”

“Exactly.” He leans back in the chair, the loss of her touch immediate. “I think I just…you want to watch a movie with me or something?”

“Can I pick it out?”

“Yeah, Swan, you can.”

They settle down onto the mattress, pulling the thin sheet that’s at the bottom of the bed over them instead of settling under the covers, and Emma tucks herself into his side so that her head rests on his collarbone and her hand is covering his stomach, a leg tucked between his. In all of the time they’ve spent together in the past two weeks, he thinks this is the most comfortable she’s ever been around him.

He likes it.

It’s…refreshing. He keeps thinking that, thinking about how this is so different than how he’s been the past few years. If he was with a woman, it was to sleep with her, to scratch an itch. It was not to settle down and watch Men in Black because despite insisting that she wanted to pick the movie, Emma refused to let him pay for them to rent a newer movie.

And obviously he wants to sleep with Emma, his mind racing with thoughts of what exactly that would be like to do to her, but he’s good just like this.

This is by far the best part of his day, and Florida isn’t seeming like such a hell hole anymore as his fingers play with the wisps of her hair that have fallen out of her bun and her hands toy with his mom’s ring that’s fallen outside of his t-shirt. He doesn’t even think she realizes that she’s doing it.

“The ring was my mom’s.”

Emma stops her movements, her fingers stilling, before looking up at him, her face only lightened by the glow of the television now that the sun has set, and everything is covered in darkness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mess with it.”

“Swan, it’s fine,” he promises, reaching down to take her hand and place it back against his chest and against the ring. He smiles a little, the left side of his lips curving up, to try to reassure her of the fact that it is fine. He doesn’t mind. “I simply figured you wanted to know why I wear a ring around my neck. Wouldn’t want you to think I’m secretly married.”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking that until right about now.”

Later. He’ll tell her about Milah later. He can already tell that he’s about to tell her too much about his family tonight. She doesn’t need to know about his ex-girlfriend too.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know.” She pats his chest and readjusts herself so that she can look at him a little better. How are her eyes so green? “So, tell me about your mom. If you want to.”

“Her name was Amelia,” he starts out, scooting down a little further so that he and Emma are nearly eye to eye, “and she was just…she was amazing. I have a terrible memory, so I don’t remember much, but I remember that she had this red hair that would make Ariel jealous and this big belly laugh that kind of reminds me of Liam. I don’t – I guess I never thought about it before, but she was really into baking, which is probably why I eventually came around to it. That’s likely the only thing I got from her other than the red in my beard.”

He knows that it’s not true, that he is more like her than he’s willing to admit, but it’s not what he usually thinks about. It’s not what Liam talks about either even though he was seventeen when she died.

“How did she – ”

“Cancer,” he murmurs, tracing Emma’s pointer finger until he lifts their hands and treads his fingers through hers, squeezing their hands together. “It was very sudden, not a lot of time to say goodbye, you know?”

Emma presses forward and brushes a kiss to his knuckles. He’s sure it’s because no one ever knows what to say that, and Emma is likely no exception. “She would be so proud of you, I think. I know that’s probably overstepping my boundaries to say that, but I don’t see how anyone could not be proud of you for working so hard to achieve your dreams and for being so good to your family.”

Maybe she’s the exception then.

He’s not sure that his mom would be proud of him, not lately.

“Thank you, darling. I’m not sure if that’s true, but thank you.”

Emma’s brows pinch, her lips pursing. “How could that not be true, twenty-nine?”

Because he’s a self-loathing bastard who can never seem to bury his demons even when he needs to.

“Do you want to know part of the reason why I was in such a shitty mood today?”

He can’t tell her the full truth, but the half truth seems okay today.

“Only if you want to tell me.”

He gulps, nodding his head and inching further down to bed to tangle his legs with Emma’s and nearly brush his nose against hers. He’s twenty-eight, but there’s something akin to a childlike belief running through him that nothing can invade the quietness of this hotel room right now.

“I haven’t spoken to my father since I was nineteen years old,” he admits, bringing their hands up to rest between their chests. “That seems like a shitty thing to do when I was only down to one parent, but my dad is an asshole, you know? He was the one who signed me up to play little league ball, and every single day I was outside running or practicing my batting or pitching once I changed to that track. He pushed me so damn hard, which I always thought was a good thing, until I’d lose a game or be a minute slow on my run and he’d make me do everything all over again. I was eleven, and the man had me on a meal plan to make sure I was developing with the sole purpose of playing ball.”

He takes a breath, blinking away the tears that aren’t there but might as well be.

“He became obsessed. Completely and totally obsessed. And since Liam was long gone from the house, he was my only influence. I did what he said when he said it and played it off as it all being part of the game that I loved. But he pushed and pushed and pushed until I hated waking up every day. He screamed at me, calling me a pathetic fucker, told me that I was ruining his life by not being good enough. It was just this constant stream of hatred spewing out of his mouth, and when I got to Vandy, he started betting on my games, started taking bribes and offers and so many things that could have taken the game away from me forever. He’s a piss poor excuse for a dad, and it took me nineteen years to realize that I didn’t have to be subjected to his shit. So, I just…I cut him off. Liam and I both did. And today I – I was mad about how I played, and I took it out on Liam by saying he was not my father and some other stuff. That always kind of spirals us, and that’s why I was so annoyed when you first got here.”

That was too much.

That was far too much.

Killian should have kept his mouth shut, should have never let all of that out even if it’s skimming the surface. Emma likely already thinks he’s insane, that he’s got enough issues, and he just revealed so many more.

Good things in his life do not stay, and Emma is most definitely a good thing.

And he’s not even telling her about his arm.

“Your dad is a fucking asshole,” she spits, untangling their hands and running her palms up over the skin at his neck until she’s softly gliding her thumb underneath his eye. “I can’t imagine how much that has to mess you up in your mind. He took something you loved and twisted it. He was not what a parent should be, and you have every right to be upset about that. I’ve never met Liam, but I know that he loves you and that he understands how you tick. I’m sure he’s not mad at you for being upset with him when he understands your anger was coming from something else.”

Tell her, tell her, tell her.

His mind is screaming at him, but he can under no circumstances tell her everything. Not about Milah, not about his arm, not about all of his thoughts and feelings.

In time.

He’ll tell her in time.

They’re so early in this thing that they’re doing, and even if it’s been awhile for him, he knows that two weeks in is not the time to dumb every bit of baggage that he’s carrying.

“Thank you, love,” he sighs, closing his eyes and pressing forward to slowly guide his lips over hers, another silent thank you for simply being here. It’s nice to have someone on the road with him. Honestly and truly. “I’m sure this is not how you imagined this night going.”

“What?” Emma laughs, a tentative smile curling on her lips. “You think I didn’t come in here expecting you to tell me about your shitty dad as we watch Will Smith kill some aliens? I feel like that’s a pretty normal night.” “So this is normal for you then?”

“Staying in bed as much as possible?”

“Absolutely.”

He hums, inching closer and closer to her so that their foreheads brush together and his nose is pressing into her cheek as he speaks. “I think I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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kierongillen · 5 years ago

Text

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 43

Spoilers, obv.

Issue 44 comes out tomorrow at the time of writing. As I’m on the west coast of the USA, it will be just after midnight GMT by the time they’re online. So abstractly, this is the first time ever which we come out when the next issue is out. Abstractly. I’d say the day counts as where I am, and doesn’t Comixology come out a little later? We’ll see.

It’s also been so long that I almost wrote notes for issue 44. This is a weird goodbye, this period.

Anyway – Issue 43, wherein we finish explaining all the big stuff we’re going to explain.

I mean, there’s more in issue 44 and 45, but it’s all details, with the denouncement really being based around the characters’ response to this issue. They know the truth. Now what are they going to do about it?

That was the main note I gave in the script to the team – if there’s any really big questions you are confused about, now is the time to say, as this is the best clarification it’ll get. As such, we worked on it a lot to nail what we wanted to say – and what we didn’t. Sometimes this meant actually simplifying a little to avoid repeating huge amounts of stuff and leaving people even more confused. More often it involves sliding in a little nod to something someone would be thinking about.

It’s an interesting issue, I think. It’s where we show a lot of our hand.

It also involved a lot of crunching.

Jamie/Matt Cover

Cassandra finally gets her head cover. Normally a cover relates to a key beat, which isn’t true here – except in the widest possible sense that it’s where Cassandra gets to say I Told You So to everyone, including herself.

Jason Latour Cover One of the fun things about commissioning these covers is getting to see a creator’s process close up. Jason’s process on this was amazingly never-ending – he was always tweaking, and trying things and moving in a different direction. Where he ended was stunning – very him, and very WicDiv too. I remember us and the Jasons semi-jokingly about swapping books for an issue – they do WicDiv for an issue and we do Southern Bastards. This cover absolutely makes me wonder how amazing that hypothetical issue would have looked.

(Our story would have been about a Taylor-Swift-esque-singer/songwriter-before-she-got-big in the town. And probably murder, as it’s Southern Bastards, right?)

IFC

That “Life goes on” still creeps me out.

1-2

Opening vignette that lets us establish what Minerva’s plan is now, as well as re-establish Beth and her crew, and actually let us define their current position, and even give their codenames, which have existed in the Bible document since issue 1, I believe.

(Oddly, calling people “Boss” is one of my verbal ticks. It seemed fun to give it to Beth here.)

As such, Minerva immediately HiveMinding them when they’ve just stated their agency is plain harsh. Jamie’s large panel on page 2 sells it incredibly well – the statues, Minerva walking away from us – it’s all so casual.

It’s also the running theme of the issue – what Mini has been doing all these years. This is just a particularly direct example of it.

Three panels on second page to try and stress the seriousness of what this is (Space = Meaning, remember). Of course, as the issue shows, this isn’t the real part of the issue – but you have to at least believe this is a real gambit. And it is – I mean, it’d be awful if Mini pulled it off. But in people’s guts they’d realise this isn’t how WicDiv goes, right?

Minor glorious Matt Wilson note – the crackle of green in panel 3 is wonderful. Give that guy another Eisner. He deserves a hat trick.

Show time in the showbiz and the “time to show you everything” sense.

Establishing the stakes and situation for the heroes. There’s a draft of the issue I wrote which is a couple more pages long, which would have pulled this out a little more. In the end, we decided it worked better shorter – I’ll tell you why when I get there, and we could use the space elsewhere.

Key thing is showing some response to Cam’s actions at the end of last issue – it’s important to know that they haven’t just walked away, right?

In the first panel, the “identify who is speaking” is a tricky one. The “say the character’s name” is a little brutal move, and I avoid it. We’re not that book. Dio is easy – and Lucifer, bless her, is immediately identifiable by her idiom. Her line also reminds people of what she’s like, which sets up the last page.

Laura’s captions here again, doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

It says so much about this issue that the last two panels are only a half page total. These are big rock and roll images, presented in a tiny space. Jamie’s composition makes it land really well, selling the drama.

Page 5

It says even more that we did all this in a page.

Tara’s move in the original version was basically a page, but looking at it structurally it actually left it even more underwhelmed – a fight kicked off, and then heroes were losing, and then Tara does this cool thing, and they’re winning, before immediately the hive mind kicks in and they’re losing again. This does not sell the joy of Giant Woman.

This works better, not least for sheer audaciousness. I used to have a thing about tableau based storytelling – the idea that you can create a large image which people can explore and juxtapose it with a few captions to create a larger conceptual space. This is very much that.

“People treating people like meat” reminds me for the second time when re-reading this issue of the line from Pratchett: “Sin is treating people like things.” The first time was the puppets bit. I’d agree with Pratchett, clearly.

In the original draft of the script I had a line “You want more? Go re-read Rising Action” which is a bit too cute, so I lost it. It’s not really the sort of thing WicDiv does, anyway.

Yes, Giant Woman is a Steven Universe nod. Putting aside that image of Giant Tara kicking ass which has been in my head forever, there’s so much to love in the image – to pick a small part, how about the Norns blasting in triplicate? We rarely see them act like this.

You can also trace via the colouring which of Beth’s crew have duplicated which God’s powers.

Page 6

There’s been a lot about people copying people’s powers in WicDiv, and trying to find out what someone can and can’t do, and then using it against them. This switches it up. The thing about being creative instead of a straight plagiarist that creative people make up new shit. That’s kind of the point of them.

Once more, Matt showing the dance of the colouring between the Woden green (haunting the series like a ghost now) and the joy of Dio is (er) a joy.

Page 7

Another Matt moment – we step out of the club, and we drop to greys, before building the energy up.

I’m not quite sure how long Robin has wanted to punch Beth for. Or how long I planned to do it, even. I can imagine Robin thinking of this a lot though – she’s the one who takes a long time to snap.

There’s a dual structure here too – there’s two main compare-and-contrast bands in WicDiv. Beth’s and Cass’…

Page 8

And this is a very different kind of band break up.

The problem here is different – I want to give much more space. First draft it seemed that they got talked into it really easily. But it’s all the space we had so what to do? Once more, captions. Silent panel with captions can be timeless, and gives room for our minds to populate it. It’s been so long I can no longer remember if the fact the two almost-silent characters are shouting, but we’re not allowed to hear, because it’s private seems relevant.

Page 9-10

Hard cut made easier with the caption. Captions are great. Trust captions.

The shot of Mini at the edge, just looking back with space either side is great. Just the isolation of it.

The “try to sing” on the page turn seems a meaningful reveal. Can she?

No she can’t. This is another very old beat in the founding documents – it’s hinted at on page 9. Mini says that she gave it up – and she said the same in issue 9. I’m not sure I believe her. When planning it I realised that some people would take it as a comment on Work for hire – don’t get stuck keeping a story alive forever, as it will eventually atrophy your talent. It wasn’t planned, but I’d be fine with it as a reading. When Chrissy read it, she took it as “Don’t get stuck in art management.” which works too. Readings are fun.

Anyway – a performance. That the big thing in the issue is a performance rather than a fight is very much WicDiv turning towards its core concept as we head towards the final straight. Of course we’d do this.

Yeah, Matt and Jamie, killing it on the final panel of the second page – the Persephone-esque tentacles made something else, because she is something else now. The numinous expression of Minerva. Amazing.

Page 11

The borders in this sequence harking back to the Persephone performance in issue 18.

I may actually try to tweak this sequence in the trade and have a different execution of “When I was 14” and all the rest, to work a little more like a LOC CAP rather than a speech. We couldn’t make it work given the time before deadline. That’s the odd thing about our extended issues – just because it’s taking longer doesn’t mean we have more time to do tasks, right? Some things are only possible when the whole thing is together. It works, I think, but part of me wants to push it harder.

Anyway – these two. I loved writing them though. I said it back in the other flashbacks, but how the two of them dance is a delight. Hell, doing them across a lifetime is a delight.

Okay – I’m going to give you a name for Ananke’s sister. It’s the one I used in my notes. It’s no more her name than “Ananke” is really Ananke’s.

It’s Demeter. Ask me about it another time.

Page 12

The “god” in panel 2 is a Proto Norn.

This primal gathering brings to mind issue 9 as well.

Demeter’s expression in the penultimate panel? Love it.

Page 13

The captions are Laura’s style, but changed colouring. That Laura is helping Minerva performs means it comes across in her voice, was our thinking.

Captions are once more useful though – trying to get something that is evocative, but also clear was the battle.

(The Colours here!)

She-in-Thirds is a name-behind-the-name. The Maiden/Mother/Child archetype – the one which Ananke subverted in a few pages time.

Page 14

I find myself thinking whether the return to a close-to-eight panel for much of this is meaningful. This is kind of Bronze Age Phonogram.

Reading this I wish I had capitalised The Rebel – it’s another archetype. Proto-Lucifer. I’ll tweak for the trade.

I forget when the metaphor for a song for the “godhood” in WicDiv came to me, but it feels like the right one. It’s how songs often feel to me.

Page 15

If you go back to issue 34, you’ll see some of the details of this plan are different to the plan that Ananke has put into play there. In fact, the deal that she strikes in issue 34 is akin to what she wants here. It’s mainly for clarity – the reader needs to be reminded of what’s actually going on, as they won’t necessarily remember the details from way back then. I figure this is the plan she wanted to do, then found something else when Demeter wasn’t into it, before swooping around to something closer.

Page 16

“After all my friends were dead” gives a little flex in the timeline.

I do like Ananke’s hat.

“The Great River” being the Nile, and the pantheon we saw back in issue 36.

In terms of lists of things in this issue I was looking forward to write, the first meeting between Ananke and Minerva was certainly one of them. I tried to get something of the oddness here. Jamie and Matt manage to get the mood of issue 34 again too – I really do like this bronze-age western vibe. There’s a project I keep on thinking about doing, and it has some of that too it. Hmm.

Yes, page width panel of character delivering a line remains a key WicDiv tool. There’s so much I love here – the touch from Ananke, whose PoV we’re in. Minerva speaking to herself, speaking to us, etc.

That the knife is just sentimental is a minor beat I’m very fond of.

Page 17

Once more, Captions, as Laura makes sure we all Get It.

One of the debates in WicDiv fandom has always been whether the gods are picked by Ananke (i.e. Anyone could be a god) or whether they’re actually people with a gifts. Of course, the answer is that it’s both.

The thing I least like about WicDiv’s mythology is that the 12 people are people with this gift, for obvious “Ugh Chosen Ones” reasons. There’s some things that mitigate that a little, I hope, and not least that it’s clearly transferable to wherever you are in life. The core of it is “if you find yourself with a gift, be careful with it and use it responsibly.” It’s a book about the power, privilege, dangers and seductions of being an artist and all that. It’s only when writing that sentence do I realise how tired I am. This has been a busy week. Excuse me if the writing is looser than usual.

Anyway, I’m probably over-worrying. If X-men is fine, we probably are too.

So – end of the page is a download of some of the explanations of stuff folk will inevitably be going “Wait – what?”

And then Tara steps up.

When you’re writing a large group scene, with limited space, there’s choices you make of who speaks and who doesn’t. Who’s going to have the strongest counter-argument to something? Who’s going to have the biggest reaction? Them. They’re the one who carries the scene.

Which is Tara. Perhaps you could make an argument for Baal, but Baal is reeling through all these issues – plus if you choose one or the other, you tie-breaker would be who hasn’t had spotlight.

Page 18-21

And the counter is equally inevitably Cassandra (who is also in the process of beating herself up). Being Cass, she puts it harshly. Clearly, this is going to get a response from Tara.. and Cass opens up herself and makes herself vulnerable. Which is a hell of a thing for her, right?

I’ll stop this – I’m just walking through the emotional flow, but I love these two women here.

Which segues into the last formalist style thing of the issue. Once again, we have a space = meaning problem. This is clearly the most important sequence of the issue, but we have so few pages. We turn to one of the core WicDiv moves of black panels in a six panel grid, and loading them up with text. Suddenly we have a sense of ritual, a lot of dialogue produced in a stylistic way and most of all a whole extra page (hence an extra page of weight).

It’s also a complete showcase for Matt. The last godly panel of them is them at their most Godly, this final little iconic burst. A confession, and it’s gone.

I cried when I got the colours for this. I forget which one it was – there’s just some wonderful Jamie expressions in there as well.

Choosing the confessions was definitely tricky. We have space, but too much is too much. Some of them I kept simple, and others needed a little space to explain. The ordering was also one of those processes where you feel out the character, and think how they’d speak. Dio would clearly jump in, then Inanna, then Mimir trying to just piece it together, and all leading to Baal.

I did try and write a Baal caption, but any words were just too small.

And then, of course…

Page 22

You’ve probably seen me talking about year 4 as Solving The Equation. Yes, we knew lots of the key things, but there’s lots of elements of the execution were worked, and rethought and discovered. I may be able to talk a little more about this in the last issue’s notes.

This was a big one. I was chewing over the synopsis and thinking… a battle against Ananke/Minerva is a little underwhelming after everything, right? At this point in the story, Minerva is a busted flush. In reality, Laura (and Demeter) won the intellectual battle against Minerva in Mothering Invention. She’s already beat her. It nagged at me. There was something else.

Then there was the other thing – I knew that Lucifer was going to get her body back, but I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d do when she had it.

The two came together: of course, the final confrontation isn’t between Laura and Minerva. It’s with Lucifer, the person who brought Laura into the world, the person who brought us all into the world. The girl who wanted to be on stage, no matter the cost. That’s the final battle.

And best of all, I had no idea what would happen.

Well – not quite, but suddenly a whole lot of things was up in the air.

Page 23

Song reference, obv. Always connected to something in my head in my early career. If I do writer notes for the playlist, I may actually tell you.

Oh – some people wondered whether all the skulls meant everyone was dead. No – it’s just there’s no god in the slot. I’m not that kind of shithead.

Anyway – issue is out tomorrow. Or maybe today, depending on where you are. It ends the story, with 45 being an epilogue with a somewhat different tone. Clearly, it’s a huge issue, so be a little careful with your tweeting. The last cover is especially a big spoiler.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #jason latour #writer notes

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allonsysilvertongue · 7 years ago

Note

For the prompt thingie. 4 for Jopper?

Hawkins: The Upside - ReminiscingThe Past

4. “I should have told you a long time ago.”

Once in a while, Hopper made it a point to drop by the Byers’house to check on them. He knew that ever since they got Will out of the UpsideDown, Joyce had been overly protective of her boy. He didn’t blame her. Infact, since he had begun to shelter El, he understood it completely.

It was one of those nights and they were sitting on the porchswing smoking cigarettes and for him, drinking the occasional can of beer. Hisshift just ended and he had already called the cabin to let El know that hewould be coming home soon.

He had never told Joyce before but he looked forward tonights like this. The two weeks he had stayed away after their argument hadbeen difficult but Joyce called him out on it and then he was back here again,like normal.

“Come on,” he chuckled. “I was a teenager. You can’t holdthat over my head.”

“You were eager,”Joyce pointed out, flicking the ashes from her cigarette. “What – What is thatword… Finesse? You had none of it.”

He snorted on his beer. It was true. The first time he hadsex with Joyce in the back of his car, he had gone straight for it.

“I’m surprised you remember it,” he commented.

“I remember a lot of things about you, Hop.”

Her laughter had tapered off. She took on a faraway look andsince they had been reminiscing their younger days together, Hopper figured shehad gotten to the sour part of their relationship.

“I’m sorry about how things turned out,” she said quietly,surprising him.

Hopper took a drag, taking his time to reply.

“Yeah, me too,” he exhaled. “We didn’t handle things well.”

“What happened?” She turned to look at him, curious andsearching for answers. “It’s been more than two decades. We can talk about itright?”

The right thing to do would be to let it remain where it was– in the past. But it was plain to see that this was something that had hauntedher for years. Something had happened to make him turn his back on her soabruptly when just months before their graduation, they had been happy. Theyhad been invincible, as if they could take on the world with each other bytheir side.

“I was scared,” he admitted. “Look, Joyce, I was just aseventeen year old kid. Everyone’s talking about applying for college and doingthings they dreamt about for years, and I did too. I couldn’t imagine stayinghere in Hawkins for the rest of my life. I couldn’t see a future here. You knowthat.”

“Yeah, I do. It was the reason I left you, you know.”

He didn’t know. He just assumed that he did something or saidsomething wrong somewhere, and that with graduation looming it was just naturalthat they each went their separate ways.

“You were restless as graduation approached and you justwouldn’t stop talking about leaving. You didn’t mention me at all in any ofyour plans, Hop. When you talked about applying to college in New York orChicago, and moving there for good to get away from here… I was never part ofyour plan. You didn’t stop to ask if I’d want to apply to a college near you sowe could be together. I wasn’t sure if you even wanted me there wherever youplanned to be. I thought – I thought you wanted to leave anything andeverything related to Hawkins behind, me included. I loved you but I couldn’tsee myself with someone who didn’t want me to be part of his life and so Ileft. I was heartbroken and Lonnie was there to pick up the pieces.”

He remembered the shouting match they had after he came backfrom visiting one of the colleges with his father… He didn’t understand why shecouldn’t be excited for him back then.

“God, we were so stupid,” he chuckled bitterly. “We were shitat talking.”

“Yes,” she laughed loudly. “We just assumed. Made an ass outof each other.”

“Seeing you withLonnie at prom… It sealed the deal. Then there was a call for enlistment and itwas the perfect opportunity to leave, even if it was to ‘Nam to serve. You knowthe rest… I should have told you a long time ago, Joyce. I was fucking stupid.”

“Told me what, Hop? What were you scared about?”

He let out a shaky breath. But, like she pointed out earlier,it had been years. There was nothing to lose.

“I had these feelingsfor you and it scared me – I’ve never felt that way for anyone. I didn’t knowhow to deal with it.”

“Not even with Chrissy Carpenter?” she teased.

“She was hot but you were… You’re Joyce, you know what Imean? You were badass and great, and I just l liked you a lot. Sounds stupidand juvenile now that I’m saying it out loud,” he snickered.

He opened the second can of beer.

“Do you think it would have been different for us?”

Hopper considered the question for a moment.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You wouldn’t have Jonathan, then youwouldn’t have decided to marry Lonnie. You wouldn’t have Will after. Thingshappen for a reason, Joyce, but whatever it is, it’s brought us here again. Youand me.”

She sniffed, crushing the cigarette under her boots. “You’reright. My boys… They’re the best things to ever happen to me.”

He nodded, giving her a smile. Sara was the best thing tohappen to him, too.

“So,” he leaned back in his seat, watching her. “You and Bob,huh? Saw you two together at the diner.”

She blushed. “He’s sweet.”

“Glad it’s working out,” he squeezed her knees and stood up.He picked up his jacket. “Aren’t you glad you took my advise?”

InTemporary Fix, after their argument, Hopper told Joyce to call Bob. So this isa call back to that one shot.

#Jopper #Joyce Byers #Jim Hopper #asks #anon #filed under: hawkins the upside

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mavencree · 7 years ago

Text

Feels Like Hope

“Paddy! ��Help!”

Paddy Kirk jumped and dropped the tray of gauze he’d been holding as the last person he’d expect to see came charging into his vet surgery.

Robert Sugden, recently reunited with his Aaron, was holding his hand against his chest as though cradling something inside of his leather jacket.

“W-What do you want?”

Robert unzipped his jacket and for a terrible moment, Paddy thought he was going to pull out a gun.

Instead he pulled out a tiny ball of fur which fit completely in his large hand.

“You’re a vet aren’t you?” Robert said. “Can you help him… her?”

Paddy snapped out of his fear and jumped into professional mode. He took the tiny kitten from Robert.

“Her,” he confirmed, placing her on the exam table. “Where did you find her?”

“I was parked in a layby making a phone call,” Robert told him. There was this plastic bag on the grass up ahead and it was moving. Thought it was the wind at first but none of the leaves were bothered so I went to check.”

Paddy shook his head. “Was she alone?”

“No. There were three others. Hard as rocks. This little one though,” Robert stroked the top of her tiny head with one of his fingers. There was a patch of dark fur covering the top of her head to just below her eye line. The rest of her fur was various shades of browns and oranges. “Stuck her head out and started gnawing at my finger right away.”

“Well she’s well hungry. But you’ve kept her warm. Was she in your coat the whole time?”

“Yeah. Surprised I’m not all carved up with those little knives at the end of her feet.”

“Too weak for that at the moment. Give her a few days.”

“So you can help her?”

Paddy put a stethoscope in his ears. “Lungs are clear. Heart’s strong…” He took the device off. “I think once we get some food and vitamins in her, she’ll be fine. In a few days.”

He was surprised at the look of relief on Robert’s face.

“Are you keeping her?” Paddy asked.

Robert shrugged one shoulder. “S’pose I could.”

“She’ll need a name.”

Robert smirked. He stroked the top of her head

“Furryosa.”

Paddy furrowed his brow.

“From Mad Max?”

Robert raised an eyebrow. It appeared that the two men finally had something in common.

“That’s Furiosa. She’s Furryosa. Aren’t you dear?”

The kitten looked up at Robert and gave a week little mew.

“See. She likes it.”

“Well, she’ll need a few days here. Will Victoria be okay with a new housemate?”

“Like Vic could turn away a face like this.”

“She does have a habit of taking in strays.”

“Oi!”

“Right. Shot time.”

“Paddy that needle is bigger than she is.”

“Look at you being the protective dad. …Erm… Sorry.”

Robert didn’t respond, just crouched down to Furryosa’s eye line so that she could watch him and not the metal spike Paddy was loading.

It had been just over a month past when the truth had come out. Robert wasn’t Sebastien’s father. Nor was Ross. Rebecca had thought she was pregnant… Thought it was Ross’s, but wanted it to be Robert’s. The trick being that Robert had apparently passed out before he could do the deed. When Rebecca had gone to the hospital with abdominal pains, she’d been told that she was not pregnant, just some hormonal shifting of some kind. But she still saw this as a chance to claim Robert. So under the guise of leaving the country, she’d actually gone down to London and been artificially inseminated and tried passing the child off as Robert’s. It was working until 4 month old Sebastian had developed a virus that needed blood and neither Rebecca nor Robert were a match. Rebecca had left the village after that with Chrissie; Lachlan was still banged up for killing his grandfather and attempting to kill Robert. One might think Robert would be glad to be rid of the family, but Paddy had him around the village with Seb. Whatever else Paddy might think of him, it was obvious that Robert was a doting dad. He’d had a haunted look about him since they’d gone.

“How old is she?” Robert asked.

“No more than a week.” Paddy put the needle in and Furryosa gave out a little cry.

“Done,” Paddy said, taking the needle out. “She’ll need feeding by bottle for the next while. I can do it or…”

“No, I can do it.”

Paddy set Robert up in a chair with the kitten wrapped in a towel and left him with a bottle of formula.

And if he secretly snapped a photo and sent it to Aaron...

Well… He could always claim he was just testing out his new phone.

End

��З��

#robert sugden #paddy kirk #Robron #I have no idea what this is I just felt like writing and this scenario has been in my head for a few weeks #emmerdale #emmerdale robron #furryosa #let me know what you think #be nice please

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a-strange-inkling · 2 years ago

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Would u ever consider writing a prequel to Old Haunts? Like, about Eddie and Chrissy first getting engaged/married and becoming parents? I'm curious about their early married life and all that...

Hi love,

Yes absolutely!! I’m working on a prequel presently on how they survived Vecna and got together, it will probably conclude when Chrissy moves in with him and Wayne.

After that I will totally do an in between story of when they lived together, moved to Chicago, got married, got pregnant with Olivia, etc.

It will probably be an ongoing story with snippets and one shots too. I’ll be sure to string it all together on ao3. 💖

#hellcheer #ask answered #hellcheer asks #old haunts #hellcheer fanfiction

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tabloidtoc · 4 years ago

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Globe, January 25

You can now buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: COVID patient Larry King’s nasty battle over $50 million will

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Shia LaBeouf shows off his tattooed belly on a walk, Jessica Alba matches her mask to her shoes, Simon Cowell works out as he continues to recover from breaking his back

Page 3: Amy Schumer on the beach in St. Barts, Peter Weber is a total cue ball, Jenny McCarthy hauls garbage outside her Illinois home

Page 4: David Bowie’s supermodel widow Iman confesses she gets lonely but will never tie the knot again because the singer was her true love -- she made her revelation in the January issue of a fashion magazine where at age 65 she’s still hot enough to be the cover gal -- David and Iman’s daughter Lexie asked her if she would ever marry again and she said never and that their life together was beautiful and ordinary and that David was a very funny warm gentleman

* Kindhearted Kelly Ripa is so spooked by her new gruesome true crime series about digging up murder victims’ bodies that she’s having terrifying nightmares that have driven her to a shrink for help -- Kelly and actor husband Mark Consuelos are bigwig producers behind Oxygen channel’s series Exhumed that debuted January 17 featuring unearthed corpses to solve cases -- many nights Kelly will awaken haunted by a case she and Mark reviewed and realizing the horror and heartbreak the victims and their families went through is something you don’t forget once the lights are out -- while Kelly and Mark aren’t on the show as executive producers they have to approve the episodes and become intimately involved with the devastated families who help tell their heartbreaking stories -- her immersion in the grisly material has had a chilling effect on Kelly who is an empath which is a highly sensitive gal who can often feel the pain and suffering others are going through and Kelly’s therapist encourages her to do positive meditations each night before bed and think about at least two things that made her happy that day and Kelly is doing her best to follow doctor’s orders but she is so affected by the plights of other people that somehow the nightmares still manage to find their way into her dreams

Page 5: Onetime Bond girl Tanya Roberts passed away at age 65 less than 24 hours after her prematurely announced death -- Mike Pingel who was a rep for Tanya says he told the world that she had died at L.A.’s Cedar-Sinai Hospital on January after speaking with her distraught beau Lance O’Brien -- following a goodbye visit with the ailing star mistaken Lance claimed she died in his arms but bizarrely the very next morning sobbing Lance said he was told by the hospital that Tanya was still alive in the ICU while filming a TV interview about her untimely end -- however according to Lance she finally perished hours later on January 4 after being taken off life support -- Tanya reportedly collapsed in her California home after walking her dogs and rushed to the hospital she remained on a ventilator from December 24 until her death which was not COVID related

Page 6: In Denmark a bitter feud between royal wives is tearing the ruling family apart -- Danish Crown Prince Frederik’s Australian wife Mary detests her French-born sister-in-law Marie who is wed to Frederik’s kid brother Joachim and Mary helped banish Marie and Joachim to Paris to get her sophisticated rival out of her hair -- Frederik’s wife who is the future queen desires to be treated with the deference befitting her station even by relatives while Marie is far less stuffy and very outspoken and she’s made it plain she was unhappy when her husband was ordered to become military attache at the Danish Embassy in Paris in 2019 -- shortly after his arrival in France Joachim suffered a blood clot in his brain and when Frederik showed up to visit his ailing brother Mary was nowhere in sight

Page 7: After failing to land plum roles in A-list movie blockbusters Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry inked a $40 million deal to crank out podcasts and the first installment was branded a bomb after airing late last month -- despite superstar Elton John dropping by for Archewell Audio’s first holiday special the highly hyped recording embarrassingly landed at No. 17 on the Spotify podcast list behind entries like Deep Sleep Sounds which features whale sounds -- many in the royal inner circle are gloating and smirking over the arrogant couple’s disastrous debut and even with Elton’s help Meghan is still a second banana to whale noises and no one wants to listen to the couple’s self-absorbed drivel

* Not only has royal renegade Prince Harry traded London for L.A. he’s ditched posh palace pronunciations and speaks more like an American during his public appearances -- while doing his first Archewell Audio broadcast Harry dropped the refined Received Pronunciation favored by his grandmother Queen Elizabeth and sounded like a regular American

Page 8: Anti-vaccine crusader Bobby Kennedy Jr. has been kicked in the teeth by his powerful political clan after triggering fears about immunizations and the desperately needed cure for COVID-19 -- brother Joe, sister Kathleen and niece Kerry Kennedy Meltzer who is a doctor battling the virus on the frontlines publicly accuse Bobby of putting Americans’ lives at risk by telling lies about vaccines in general and attacking injections aimed at stamping out the killer virus -- family members were always skeptical about Bobby’s slightly off-kilter anti-vax ideas but they supported him because the Kennedys stick together and hate to show a rift in the family but now they have shifted against him

Page 10: Garth Brooks’ sloppy habits during nine months of lockdown have iron-willed wife Trisha Yearwood in a tizzy and their marriage is dangling by a thread after she clobbered the slob with a strict set of house rules -- after exasperated Trisha spilled her guts to pals a friend advised she put the rules in writing and hang it where he’ll see it and she did but Trish’s demanding ways are pushing Garth to the brink and he’s ready to walk unless they can find middle ground, one that doesn’t include Trisha calling all the shots -- Trisha has given Garth a list of do’s and don’ts that include wearing deodorant at all times and stop leaving the bathroom a mess and to remove his clothes from the dryer once he’s done but on the top of Trisha’s list is a ban on Garth’s constant 24/7 whistling that has her pulling her hair out

Page 11: Dynamic diva Jennifer Lopez is bored with fat-cat fiance Alex Rodriguez and is struggling to keep their romance alive -- after postponing their marriage and saying there was no real reason to tie the knot Jennifer has kind of hit a wall with where she and Alex can really take things and she is particularly frustrated by ho-hum Alex’s lack of motivation -- those who know J.Lo want her to stick to her wheelhouse by making movies and recording music however those endeavors don’t offer retired baseball player A-Rod any position to play -- they haven’t fallen out of love exactly but they have run out of the joint projects and goals that were the rocket fuel for their relationship and they’re stuck with no obvious places to go next

* Teresa Giudice and new beau Luis “Louie” Ruelas are already shacking up together and plan to buy a pad of their own and Teresa can see herself marrying Louie and combining his kids and hers under one roof -- he stays over most weekends and some weeknights at her place in New Jersey and they cook Italian together and stay up late watching movies -- her four daughters like Louie too and see how happy he’s made her

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Maitland Ward wearing masks on her breasts (picture), Demi Lovato battled a life-threatening secret eating disorder for years but today she bravely flaunts the stretched skin she’d once considered painfully flawed by wearing glitter paint on her stretch marks to celebrate her body and all of its features whether society views them as good or bad, Paul McCartney still gabs with dead pal George Harrison whose sprightly spirit has planted itself in a tree, Ray Liotta has asked girlfriend Jacy Nittolo to marry him and she screamed yes, legendary country star Ricky Skaggs is lucky to be alive thanks to an emergency quadruple bypass that saved his ticking time bomb of a ticker

Page 13: Mel Gibson steps out in Malibu with his arm in a sling (picture), Amy Poehler loads up at a Beverly Hills market (picture), brothers and Kinks bandmates Ray Davies and Dave Davies brew up an outing in London (picture), Michael Jackson’s one-time associate billionaire biz-wiz Ron Burkle snagged the late pop star’s beloved Neverland Ranch for the bargain basement price of $22 million

Page 14: Bryan Dattilo the 47-year-old soap star who’s played Lucas Horton on Days of Our Lives since 1993 now calls himself grandpa to a bouncing baby boy thanks to his 21-year-old son Gabe and his girlfriend and he’s also becoming a granddad on TV too with Alison Sweeney who plays Sami Brady, no more boozy days or nights for Chrissy Teigen and she declares she’s on the wagon and through with imbibing embarrassments

* Fashion Verdict -- Reese Witherspoon 7/10, Greta Gerwig 1/10

Page 16: Cover -- As 87-year-old Larry King battled for his life against killer COVID in an L.A. hospital his estranged wife Shawn was making a grab for the talk star’s $50 million fortune -- the cheating blonde is raging because in the months before his hospitalization Larry filed for divorce and cut her out of his will, leaving the fortune to their boys Chance and Cannon and Larry Jr. his son from his second marriage -- it’s going to be a fight to the finish literally and Shawn is trying to make sure she’s not left out when it comes to his cash

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Anthony Anderson

* Kim Cattrall swore off motherhood because bedroom sessions with then-husband Mark Levinson didn’t fit into her Sex and the City shooting schedule -- Kim was 41 and newly wed when she decided to slam the door on pregnancy

* Bill Cosby is refusing to shower with other inmates a Pennsylvania prison to avoid contracting COVID-19 and he says he controls his stink by washing up in his cell’s sink but he doesn’t expect the situation to last forever because he’s hoping a court will toss his 2018 conviction

Page 21: LeAnn Rimes has admitted she checked into a mental ward after feeling bullied when news leaked she had cheated on her husband with married Eddie Cibrian -- she reveals she did 30 days in therapy in 2012 because she couldn’t handle the public shaming that rained down on her over her affair with future husband Eddie who was still married to Brandi Glanville and she was still wed to Dean Sheremet -- LeAnn calls her therapy the best gift she could have given herself

Page 22: True Crime -- Survivor villain Jonny Fairplay is living up to his bad boy image after cops busted TV’s evil liar accusing him of ripping off his dementia-stricken granny

Page 24: Marie Bobette Riales knows where the bodies are buried in actor Danny Masterson’s Scientology rape scandal and terrified church leaders want her silenced at all costs but Marie who dated the indicted actor and slapped the sci-fi faith with a civil suit won’t back down -- Marie’s impending testimony at Masterson’s criminal trial and in her civil case threatens to destroy the controversial church by exposing the intimidation used by ruthless Scientology bigwigs to hide the twisted secrets of its celebrity members

Page 26: Health Report

Page 30: Tom Cruise has taken on the mission to shield his movie crew from the rampaging coronavirus by building a disease-proof studio on a former top-secret army base -- Tom who is already taking heat for screaming curses at crew members who ignored virus safety measures is shelling out millions to build a secure shooting facility at the former English tank base in Longcross -- Tom is obsessed with finding ways to beat the fast-spreading virus ever since filming of Mission: Impossible 7 was shut down when the pandemic savaged Italy and when it spread to Britain

* Alec Baldwin’s yoga guru wife Hillary a.k.a. Hilaria Baldwin has been busted as a fraud after putting on foreign airs and talking with a Spanish accent -- the mom of Alec’s five young kids claimed to be from the Spanish isle of Mallorca where she was called Hilaria but her tale unraveled after a social media video showed her accent mysteriously drifting on and off and pals from Boston’s preppie Cambridge School of Weston began texting that she’s all-American with one saying her name was indeed Hillary Hayward-Thomas and she did not have a Spanish accent -- now Mrs. Baldwin is confessing she was born in Boston but spent a lot of time in Mallorca where her American parents called her Hilaria and she picked up the accent

Page 36: Angelina Jolie is panicking over her sky-high legal bills but she only has herself and her vengeful divorce war against ex Brad Pitt to blame -- she may be worth $100 million and rake in moolah from producing and directing but her high-maintenance lifestyle and refusal to finally settle her four-year divorce and custody war with Brad have left her cash-strapped and she’s starting to panic over her dwindling cash flow and every time she files a motion like her losing attempt to dismiss the judge it costs her money because these fancy lawyers can charge more than $850 an hour and it adds up -- more and more Angie’s having to dip into her savings but as much as it hurts she’s stubborn and refuses to settle and she blames Brad for everything -- on top of legal bills the luxury lifestyle she shares with her brood including a whopping $17.5 million mortgage on her L.A. mansion are a humongous cash drain and she also supports a household staff plus she’s never learned to say no when one of the kids wants an expensive high-tech toy

* Pop diva Taylor Swift’s image has been erased from a mural at Nashville’s iconic Legends Corner bar because some die-hard fans believe she turned her back on country music -- artist Tim Davis notes the saloon’s owners told him to replace Taylor with Brad Paisley -- furious Taylor fans cry that she won country’s highest honor the Pinnacle Award in 2013 but painter Davis notes Taylor has turned to pop and some inebriated bar hoppers have spit on her image specifically feeling betrayed by her venture from country

Page 40: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting unstoppable and savoring his favorite stogies just three months after major heart surgery but a medical expert warns the 73-year-old’s love for cigars could trigger a devastating health catastrophe and he should kick the habit -- however Arnold who had an aortic valve replaced in October has been feeling his oats with galpal Heather Milligan in resort Sun Valley, Idaho

* In the latest twist in Dr. Dre’s messy billion-dollar divorce the rap mogul admits he spent a night of passion with estranged wife Nicole Young after they split -- in legal documents the music tycoon claims that although Nicole moved out of their family home in mid-March the two continued to speak and socialize and see each other and he also revealed that on the couple’s May wedding anniversary Nicole invited him to dinner at her Malibu home and the two did the horizontal mambo -- Dre vehemently denies Nicole’s claim that he abused her during their 24-year marriage adding she was not and is not afraid of him and insists she’s lying to bolster her divorce claims

Page 45: Robin Williams’ wife Susan Schneider insists she’s haunted by his ghost who shows up when she needs him and she says she recently saw him in the yard

* Gilligan’s Island’s goody-goody girl Dawn Wells took a shameful regret to the grave that the perky pothead was accused of being a dope dealer -- the 82-year-old actress best known as girl-next-door Mary Ann Summers on the classic sitcom was still humiliated over her secret stoner past when she died of complications from COVID-19 -- her drug scandals dated back to 1998 when her friend and co-star Bob Denver who played Gilligan was arrested after a parcel containing half an ounce of pot was delivered to his house in Princeton in West Virginia and Denver later fingered Dawn as his connection and said she’d been selling him dope since 1995 but Dawn lawyered up and denied everything and was never charged -- she was busted for having marijuana in her car as she drove home from her 69th birthday party in 2007 and she was sentenced to five days in jail and fined and placed on probation -- her years as a pothead continued to haunt her until the end

Page 47: Bizarre But True

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