#what I need from a sock is for it to be at least a centimetre longer than my boots to prevent chafing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pastaaa-bird · 4 years ago

Text

Day 4:historical

@aphrarepairweek2021

Sorryforbeingadaylate

Oh warning for very minor swearing(only happens three times) but other then that there is nothing inappropriate and also there is implied period typical homophobia in this

Summary: An 80s human AU where a stressed out Chiara (nyo Romano) is saved from going crazy by a hero(Amelia aka nyo America)

Basically this is just fluff, fluff and more fluff

Chiara Vargas was a second a way from flipping her desk and raging down the halls, or at least she would be if she had not possessed just enough self control to hold back on the urge.

“Fuck fuck fuck….” Chiara muttered, the sound coming out muffled from her face being squished against her desk in failure.

“OH, CHIARA” came a high pitch voice down stairs.

Reluctantly she lifted her head to the sound.

“WHAT?I'M BUSY”,she yelled back, mentally cursing her brother for disturbing her sulking.

“A CERTAIN SOMEONE IS HERE FOR YOU",

“WHO IS IT?”,

“YOU'LL HAVE TO COME DOWN AND SEE",

After managing to hold back a bitter protest she stood up then stormed down stairs.

“This better be worth my time, Feli or l swear to Dio l’ll-",

Chiara came to a halt once she saw the girl beside Feliciano.

“Hey!” a cheerful voice as usual from the smiling blonde with pink sunglasses in her hair, dressed in her demine shorts, red t-shirt and long white socks with a pair of roughed up old sneakers.

“Amelia- uh hi there" She replied while awkwardly fidgeted with the sleeves of her jacket, embarrassed at the realisation that she had heard her yelling.

“Nice to see you calm down, anyway l’ll you two ladies to it”, he winked at Chiara who rolled her eyes at the look, not sure whether to love or hate that it felt the exact same to when her grandfather would make comments about her bringing a boyfriend home.

He disappeared into the sitting room to join Valentino on the couch.

“I was wondering if you would want to hang out, we haven't done that for ages”,

“Oh right, ugh l don't think l can”,

“Sure you can! You're not busy are you?”,

“l am, study”,

Amelia raised an eyebrow at that.

“Study? Our exams aren't till two weeks" ,

“I know, l know but l'm sick of revising everything on the night before the exam, besides l need as much of time as possible to understand this crap",

“Ah fair enough- how about l help ya with it? math l'm guessing?”,

Sighing at the memory of her many failed attempts at completing and understanding equations and formulas she nodded.

“Yeah, but are you sure?”,

“Definitely!”, stated Amelia with both hands on her hips and standing tall to her eagerness for the task.

“Alright then...",

A while later Chiara found her self back at her desk with Amelia standing beside her reading over her practice questions, nervously waiting for the results.

It felt like an eternity before Amelia finally looked up and spoke.

“And…that's like sixty five percent right!”,

“Sixty five?! Where did l go wrong this time?!”,

They had been at this for quite some time now. Despite Chiara’s frustration she stayed relativity calm for the most part thanks to Amelia’s encouragement and little jokes that made her either outright laugh or complain due to what she claimed was annoyance even if though she did find it humorous.

“Symbols, you forgot them again, there's supposed to be a measurement symbol at the end of this to say whether it's centimetres squared or cubed or meters squared- eh you get the point...", she paused then continued.

Miss Kirkland is your math teacher, right? She's real strict when it comes to small stuff like that so she takes off a lot of marks”, explained Amelia while doodling with the pen in the corner of the practice sheet of paper Chiara had used.

Miss Kirkland, certified smartass- even if it is technically her job to be one. Now, Chiara didn’t exactly hate her but she was far from a favourite in terms of teachers she was forced to put up with.

She hated how Miss Kirkland loved to call on those who she knew where not paying attention, there was a sense of snobbishness when it came to the way Miss Kirkland would proudly correct the unsuspecting student with a smile that more closely resembled a smirk.

“l hate this, I'm so close to getting this right but l keep screwing it up”,

“Come on it's fine! You've made awesome progress since when we started! It's only been like what….an hour? Give yourself some credit",

“…l guess you're right. But I'm also stuck for other things- like history and geography suck",

“ Wanna head to the library? They got good resources for both”, questioned Amelia now looking up from her doodling.

“Nah, I've had enough school for today. Let's do something else, anything in mind?”,

“Ooh! A few things-“,

Understandably Chiara was not surprised when they had arrived at the arcade on their bikes.

“Is this becoming an addiction for you?”,

“Ha-ha very funny, you have your obsessions and l have mine”,

“You even call it obsession, keep all this up and l'll be hosting an intervention for you",

This time Amelia genuinely laughed in response, Chiara savoured every second of the sound.

They were stuck there for a while, when it came to Amelia's great interest and Chiara’s competitive attitude it was easy to guess that there would obviously be competitions to see who could score the highest.

To Chiara’s dislike Amelia ended up winning proportionally more then she did followed by listening to the victory taunts from Amelia.

And it seemed that as quickly as they arrived they where off again.

“No, no, no, nah, no, nope, no”,

“Oh come on! l thought you weren't a quitter”,

“I have my exceptions, this is one of them",

Roller skating, she wanted Chiara to roller skate. Clearly Amelia wasn't aware of the fact that Chiara would likely crawl into the ground out of embarrassment if she would likely- no when, when she would end up falling flat on the floor.

“l'll help ya along! You'll be fine", urged Amelia tilting her head to the side with pleading eyes.

Upon arrival to the centre she instantly felt her heart sink knowing what would be expected her. After much convincing from Amelia and equally as much rants about what could go wrong from Chiara- she ended up agreeing to at least attempting to skate.

Chiara felt her chest tighten and face heat up once she suddenly felt the hand of Amelia intertwine with her own, guiding her into the skating area after they got their roller blades.

It was fascinated to see how effortlessly Amelia could move, practically gliding with ease although at a much slower pace due to guiding Chiara along. For this moment anyway, Chiara forgot how to feel anxious.

The last destination for the day was the local diner.

“Two milkshakes please, a double chocolate for myself and a strawberry and banana mix for her”,

“Coming right up, dear", replied the waitress.

“Oh and don't worry l'm paying, l owe ya for last time with the ice-creams” reassured Amelia after she placed their order.

It was the small things that Chiara adored about Amelia the most, how she remembered her favourite foods was one of them. Along with her passing small notes with funny faces on them to her whenever they shared a class and she had noticed that Chiara was dying of boredom.

They sat on the high chairs in front of the counter top as they awaited her drinks, Amelia flapped her hands with giddy excitement once they were received, Chiara couldn't help smile at the sight.

She thought about sharing the milkshake together, putting the straw in her drink like those shitty romantic movies Amelia loves so much. It would be cute wouldn't it? Cuter to see Amelia's reaction to the gesture! She smiled to herself at the idea.

Then her face dropped.

No, no they couldn't, not here, although her smile was brought back again by looking towards her girlfriend who had all her attention on blowing bubbles into her drink.

“Should you really be playing with your food like that?”, she questioned placing the straw into her own drink.

“Might as well make the most of it when my folks aren't here to tell me off ", Amelia shrugged in response.

Chiara found her self agreeing with that mentality and joined in with the childish behaviour.

They cycled back to the house, it was getting dark already.

Amelia was invited in and the two walked past the living room seeing Feliciano and Valentino with their eyes still glued to their precious TV.

At peace now they were sat together on the back porch. There was a small garden behind the Vargas' house, it was closed off by the tall fence( put there mostly so the neighbour's cat couldn't hope over and ruin the vegetable patches or flowers).

The air was humid all day and was beginning to cool down with the sun getting lower and the clouds moving in.

For what could have been anywhere from a minute to a thousand years the two spoke about anything and everything, the topics seemed to flow so easily, naturally changing with ease.

Finally the two sat in comfortable silence, looking towards the sky who’s colours had turned into oranges, yellows and pinks.

This is what Chiara so deeply enjoyed, how they could just sit together and feel so secure.

Routinely this what would be done for one another if the other was upset and asked for so, this time was often spent with their hand held or being hugged by the other.

There would be times where Chiara in particular would wish to be alone, in cases like this Amelia would go prepare or buy a snack for whenever Chiara is feeling okay again, it gave her something to look forward to when she needed to be alone with her own depressing thoughts.

Sometimes when Amelia would be upset she would just want to vent and vent with no words of “it will be okay" or “look on the bright side of things", Chiara was there to listen and agree with the difficulty of whatever situation she found herself in.

Chiara's head was rested on Amelia’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around her in response to it.

Now it was getting cold, thankfully she still wore her jacket…but maybe…

“Amy?”,

“Yeah?”,she quietly answered back to the nickname.

“It's getting a bit…chilly don't you think? Would you, would you like my jacket?”,

“Oh...Uh sure.If you wouldn't mind that is”, a blush covered Amelia’s cheeks, she was rarely flustered or at least visibly.

The jacket was a gift to Chiara for Christmas from one of her relatives, it was given oversized to her but she kept it since it seemed more comfortable like this. On Amelia the jacket finally looked normal, it fit her well and looked quiet lovely.

They went back to silence until Chiara broke it again.

“Thanks by the way. I really needed today- to get my mind off of all this stupid fucking stress l've been trapped in lately",

“Of course. We all need a break now and then",

“You could say that again…l love you" Chiara looked up, her chin now on Amelia's shoulder.

Amelia glanced down at her and grinned.

“The feeling is mutual, sweetheart"

The end

Okay now for me rambling

Uhhhhh l read through this and l don't think l made any mistakes? I'll edit this if there are and sorry if you saw any, idk l'm bad at checking for mistakes and l don't have someone to proof read for me

Oh and Valentino is human Seborga and alsooo not sure if l made it clear but Feliciano does know about their relationship and also Chiara is Bi and happy to feel valid in her relationship with Amelia as if it were the exact same as when she is with a guy and not something taboo in this time period

ALSO damn, sorry this isn't that particular to the 80s- l did leave out things l was originally going to add in though! Like l was going to have Felicianio and Valentino have a movie marton but according to Wikipedia they werent common around then and the ones that did happen were anime soooo y e p

Also thought about adding in a house cord phone but eh idk it felt nicer to have Amelia visit instead of having Chiara call her or if l tried writting it as Amelia calling and then showing up it just felt forced and weirdly put in any way l tried to write it in

AH l am so worried that this is boring or cringy, like l honestly can't tell if it is or is this fine-ehh l guess l've written worse um yeah if you've read this far thanks :)

(I'm editing this for mistakes and wtf 90 is so high why would she be shocked- damn l think l know why l originally wrote that, l was thinking Amelia said ONE of the questions is 90% right but before it l said she was correcting multiple questions so it reads as multiple questions being 90% right all together ANYWAY l corrected it so it's fine again okay bye -AND it turns out l missed some mistakes yet again-editing this for the 3rd time rip)

#hetalia #hetalia 2021 #hetalia america #nyotalia #nyo america #nyo romano #hws america #hws romano #romerica #hws americano #hws romerica #hetalia fanfiction

22 notes · View notes

emiewritesthings · 5 years ago

Text

locked down with you (1)- jay halstead

jay halstead x fem!reader

summary: a series of scenarios between y/n and jay whilst they quarantine together

requested?: nope but requests are open :)

warnings: language but basically just fluff

a/n: still being in lockdown has made me think about what it would be like to be living with jay during these times. the following is just a strange combinations of scenarios i have thought about. not sure i how i feel about them :/

masterlist

day 1 of lockdown

“is that the last box?” jay called out as he reappeared from his room with a sweaty brow and a large smile on his face. he wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to seeing your clothes hung up beside his own in his wardrobe, or your shows lined up beside his by the door. it was strange, but it felt... natural.

“i think so, wow is it sad that my whole life can be packed up into 5 boxes?” y/n asked, collapsing onto the sofa breathing out heavily. jay let out a small chuckle, before he joined her, melting into the cushions that supported their bodies.

“well that’s not true, that was just your clothes, you still have an entire apartment of things waiting for you back home.” he corrected, with a smug smile pointed. the pad of it flicking her nose, making a childish giggle escape her parted lips. “but who knows by the end of this thing you might need to bring those over too.” jay hummed, leaning closer to her with lustful eyes. in a matter of seconds, his lips pressed lazy kisses against her neck, the sensation taking y/n’s body to a new level of euphoria

“just give it a week, halstead. you will be so sick of me you will have to kick me out.” she challenged, watching as he pulled his lips away from her skin for a moment. allowing their foreheads to rest against one another, eyes both equalling challenging the other to make the next mood. in a moment of weakness, it had been y/n to lean forward, igniting the warmth in their chest.

“if anything, i don’t think i will be able to let you go.” his breaths were rugged, only parting to say the last few words before he reconnected their lips. his hands respectfully running over her body, admiring the way it curved and held its unique shape.

he sure could get used to this.

day 3 of lockdown

“jay!” y/n whined impatiently as she threw her head back to demonstrate just how tired she was becoming. a strange ache running up her spine from the position she was currently sat in. her back arched as she rested against the arm of the sofa. her fingers pinching a pencil as she looked between her sketchpad and the angelic man sat a few centimetres away. “i thought i told you not to move.”

jay’s eyes narrowed in confusion, as he looked up from the pile of paperwork he had to complete by the end of the day. seeing his girlfriend sat in a large hoodie that she had stolen from their wardrobe and a pair of shorts, a look of boredom and frustration etched on her features, he had to question what the hell was going on.

“what are you talking about?” jay asked, in all honesty, he had been so focused on his work that he had tuned the woman out. from the look of art supplies spread over the floor, he could only assume she was occupying her day off with fulfilling her craving to be artistic.

“you know what, it doesn’t even matter anymore,” she sighed, closing up the book in her hands. “it was stupid anyway.” she muffled into the sleeve of her sweater, attempting to walk out of the living room towards the kitchen, a place she had labelled her ‘happy place’ from the moment she stepped into the apartment. slight guilt seeped into jay’s mind as he pushed himself away from the sofa cushions and wrapped her up in his bulky, warm arms.

“i’m sorry.” he apologised, arms trapping her in what only could be described as a bear hug. from her small frame, jay managed to rest his chin on the top of her head, until he brought his face down to kiss her cheek softly. “i’m sorry. i’m sorry. i’m sorry.” he repeated between each.

y/n felt her mood slightly, reminding herself of the effect the man had on her. she felt like mush in his hands that he was able to sculpt in whatever way he wanted and she had no objections.

“now what do we have here?” he spoke more to himself as he took the sketchpad from her hands, his fingers playing with the edge of the pages until he stopped on a page with a rather large sketch. the pencil lines were faint, but it didn’t take jay a moment to recognise the large image illustrated on the page. “holy shit, y/n.”

feeling her cheeks heat up, she tried to hide her face with her sleeves. she didn’t like to share her work with anyone, with fear that she would be laughed out of the room. but listening to jay’s taken aback tone made the butterflies in her stomach jump without any consideration for y/n’s wellbeing.

“i know it’s not the best, but-.” she attempted to denounce her clear display of talent by breaking out the embrace, but jay only held onto her tighter. using what control he had to turn her around to face him. he had placed the sketch on the coffee table, so he could focus fully on the beautiful woman standing in front of him.

“it’s amazing,” jay assured, his gaze diving deep into the soul present behind the beautiful colours of y/n’s eyes. “you are amazing, i’m sorry i’m so busy.” y/n didn’t need an apology. she knew that jay’s job was much more demanding than her own. it just seemed being forced to do nothing didn’t feel as good as when she chose to do nothing before any of this quarantine business was mentioned.

“do you want some help?” she offered, not wanting to intrude. her teeth brought in her bottom lip to bite in anticipation worried she had crossed the line. jay’s hand reached up to rest on the side of her face, his thumb resting on her chin as he brought it down to rescue her lip.

“you are the best, you know that?”

“ugh, come on, romeo.”

day 9 of lockdown

“okay-.” y/n began as she entered the bedroom, her body wrapped in a towel and her hair leaving water droplets behind her. it was sometime in the late afternoon and jay was laying on their bed. his attention had been caught by a book y/n had brought, but it had been stolen when she had entered the room.

“i don’t know what you’re about to say but i know it’s going to be a bad idea.” jay discouraged, he knew her. he knew her more than anyone else in this world. the way her voice had raised slightly at the end and she was currently avoiding eye contact with the detective, telling him that she was about to make to offer a foolish plan.

“no fair, you have to at least hear me out!” she whined like a child, searching around for her bras that were normally flung in different directions, thanks to a little too happy detective. jay watched her with a loving grin, she made him feel so alive.

“okay, proceed.” he gestured as though he was king of the castle ordering his servants around. flicking her middle finger up at the man, disappearing into the bathroom once again, but her voice could still be made out.

“i want to dye my hair!” jay couldn’t see her face, but he could imagine the little hop she had done in excitement at telling him about her idea. “or maybe shave my head, you know, since lockdown could go on for the rest of the year, it’s not like anyone will see it.”

letting out a deep chuckle, he waited until she reappeared to respond. her body, cladded in sweats (for once ones that belonged to her), collapsed down beside him. curling into the side of his body. she stared up at him dazedly, trying to read the thoughts behind his eyes.

“it’s your body, your choice,” he shrugged, his right hand coming to his side so he could grab ahold of her own. when interlocking their fingers, he made sure to run his thumb over her knuckles comforting. “i don’t care if you shaved off all your hair and your eyebrows whilst wearing a potato sack, you will always be beautiful to me.”

“i love you.” she hummed, leaning up to kiss his lips.

“i love you too.”

day 16 of lockdown

“y/n hurry up it’s on!” y/n heard as she grabbed a few beers from the fridge. as she reached the living room, she grinned at the sight of kevin, kim, adam, will, natalie on the computer screen.

“hey guys!” she squealed, giving jay a beer before putting the rest on the coffee table that the computer currently rested on.

“oh shit, now i owe kevin 10 bucks.” adam whined, his image slightly pixelated from his poor connection. frowning, y/n looked towards jay that was equally as confused. they then turned their gaze towards kevin, who wore a large smug smirk.

“ruzek here betted me 10 bucks that you two would have killed one another by day 14.” y/n let out a snort of laughter, throwing her head back in amusement. of course, kevin had bet in their corner, had it not been for him, jay and y/n wouldn’t have been together in the first place.

“honestly i wouldn’t have blamed you, y/n,” will spoke up, “it takes a saint to deal with jay’s slobbiness. i think i have only ever seen jay clean his room twice, mom always took pity on him.” will chuckled, making jay cower in embarrassment. y/n had seen first-hand jay’s ability to create a mess in a matter of minutes. a stray sock here, an empty pizza box there. before she knew it, they were eligible for Hoarders USA.

“shut up, will, are we starting this quiz or what?” jay changed the subject, trying to get over the embarrassment of being laughed at by their closest friends. in an attempt to cool him down, y/n hooked her pinky around his. offering him a soft smile when he looked up in her direction.

“hope you guys are ready to lose.” she teased, turning back to face the screen. jay watched the way she acted so freely, a kind smile never slipping from her face, her touch soothing his soul. at that moment he couldn’t help but think ‘this will be the woman i marry’

day 34 of lockdown

“-alright, alright i think he’s on his way. i’ll see you later.” y/n rushed out as she jumped off her position sat on the edge of the bed. her heartbeat was thumping against her chest as she shoved her phone back into her pocket, aware the sound of water had fallen silent.

it was jay’s birthday and y/n had been planning it for the past two weeks. unfortunately, it was well known that y/n y/l/n was awful keeping secrets. it was as though when she knew something, good or bad, she felt an immense amount of pressure, which ended in her exploding and spilling all to the one person she normally wasn’t meant to. but she was determined that this would be like the other times. she had gone the extra mile in avoiding conversation with jay, knowing one slip and her whole plan was ruined.

“hey, baby!” jay yelled, y/n’s body jumped in shock. his footsteps growing nearer until he appeared in front of him. his muscled torso on show as his bottom half was hidden away by a large grey towel. jay noticed y/n’s jumpy behaviour immediately, his eyes drawing nearer as he examined her face. “what’s wrong?”

“wrong? with me? pfft, nothing’s wrong with me. absolutely nothing. w-what’s wrong with you?” she rushed out, leaning her weight against the dressing table until her hand slipped and she quickly caught herself before hitting her head on the wood. jay shook his head in amusement, he had been worried for the past few days that he had upset the woman. she was unusually quiet, which normally indicated that something was wrong, considering she hated silence.

“doesn’t matter.”

seeing jay withdraw from her made her want to reach out, but her mind already ticked over to something else. running into the guest room, she reappeared with a shoe-like box. not knowing what to say, she shoved the box in his direction innocently. jay pecked her lips lightly, taking the box and taking a seat as he ripped the sparkly paper she had found in a random drawer.

removing the box lid, he peered into the box with curiosity. in a matter of seconds the teasing look fell from his face, replaced with a loss of words. in the box resided memories that up until that moment had been in the back of jay’s mind. letters that the pair had sent back and forth all those years ago when he had been enlisted in afghanistan. photos from jay’s police academy graduation, dates, christmases anything that held a sentimental feeling y/n wished to recreate.

“y-you kept all this stuff?” he asked, his fingers grabbing a small blue teddy bear that’s fur was slightly matted from the dust that had tainted its texture and colour. the very bear y/n had brought jay the time he had broke his arm back when they were kids, she had forced her mother to buy the bear from the giftshop knowing that it would cheer the boy up. she was right, of course she was right.

“of course i did,” she whispered, resting her chin on his shoulder, watching him study each individual object. “throwing away any of this stuff made me feel like i was throwing a bit of us, you know?” y/n felt stupid, but only the slight blush on her cheeks gave it away to anyone that looked close enough.

“thank you, thank you for everything.” snaking his arms around her, he brought his chest close to his chest. sometimes he felt like they were still the kids that would climb through each other’s windows just so they could hold one another and remind the other they weren’t alone. “i love you so much, i’m so happy i have you in my life.”

the tears brimming in y/n’s eyes were not missed by the detective, he didn’t miss anything she did. she was like art to him, something beautiful, at times a little misunderstood, but beautiful nevertheless. lifting his head to connect their lips, the two took their time, slowly allowing the lust to push its way through. before it could progress any further a loud blare made them jump apart.

“what the-.” jay began, watching as y/n pushed her way off the seat and running out the door. hesitantly he followed, leading his way out of the house until he found y/n grinning childishly.

“happy birthday, man!” pulling his eyes away from his girl, he found the familiar cars driving slowly down the road. the lights on the large black cars blaring as kevin leaned out the front car, whilst adam and kim leaned out the second. with the confusion seeping into the feeling of surprise, he felt y/n leave his side before reappearing. this time, her arms held out a large cake that had clearly been homemade considering the way the lettering that spelt out ‘happy birthday, jay’ slowly got smaller towards the end.

“you did all this for me?” he asked astounded, despite y/n being the most affectionate and loving person he knew.

“of course i did,” she responded as if it was the most ridiculous questions she had ever heard. “i meant what i said jay, i love you. this is the least i could do considering all you do for me.” the heart to heart was rudely interrupted by the blaring of a car horn.

“you guys can do your thing later, just blow out the candles!” adam complained, earning a thwack over the arm by kim. “i mean, totally up to you, buddy. happy birthday!”

jay chuckled, as he took in a deep breath and blew out the many candles that sprinkled over the sweet treat. before he ignored the cheers of his friends and kissed y/n passionately.

“this might just be the best birthday ever.” he grinned.

“happy birthday, baby.”

421 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 5 years ago

Text

Everything Has Changed (Crystal x Gigi) - Ashley

A/N: Crystal has spent years watching her ex-best friend and next door neighbour, Gigi, rise to the top of their High School food chain, never even uttering a word to her as she waits for the bus each morning. What will happen when Crystal’s house floods and she is finds herself sleeping on Gigi’s floor for a week?

Hello again! I finally jumped on the s12 girls band wagon - hope you guys like. This plot really gave me 2013 Wattpad vibes but I decided to embrace and roll with it. Thanks sooooo much to Meggie for beta-ing! Concrit welcome. Xoxo Ashley

The day began as generic as any other for Crystal.

A spurt of optimism filled her as she slurped down the last of her cereal and made her way outside - failing to notice the big splodge of milk that would be visible on her shirt until the fourth period. The sun was waving down on her, the slight hum of insects and the sight of her neighbour with a pair of shears at hand reminding her that spring was now in full bloom.

“Morning Crystal,” the familiar voice called over the fence.

“Morning!” She waved back at the woman who she would have once called a second mother, the auntie she had never had.

“When’s your mom back?” Maria asked as Crystal neared the end of the driveway. “I’m due a coffee date!”

“A week on Friday.” Crystal smiled back at her, remembering the days when she and Gigi used to join them on their mothers’ meetings, sipping lemonade and pretending to be sophisticated on the opposite side of the cafe. Remembering how Gigi would always make her laugh and she’d end off spitting her soda out anyway and ruining their facade.

Pulling her headphones out of her bag as she said goodbye, she looked up at the girl whose laugh was currently leaping around inside her head like a carousel, whose grinning face was a portrait in Crystal’s brain as clear as the lakes they used to play in.

Only now she wasn’t grinning quite the same.

Taking her usual seat at the bench, she glanced across at Gigi: her dark hair coiffed to perfection, her lips lined just at the right spot, her jet black beauty mark contrasting against her Snow White complexion. She was the type of girl who needed to be painted.

Their eyes met briefly, as they often did on mornings like this, Crystal darting hers away quickly in a chaotic manner and looking at her phone instead: seven twenty-seven. Her bus would be here in six minutes. Nicky would be here in three.

For a split second, she thought she felt Gigi’s eyes looking back on her but she didn’t dare look.

Instead, she tried to think of ways that she could stop herself from reading the freckles on her old friend’s arm as if they were the dictionary definition of perfection. She thought about how Gig’s mascara may have been left on from the night before, of how she’d seen the straight-A student climb out of her window and down her drainpipe like Catwoman herself to steal away into the night. Of how the Gigi she knew in reality was anything but the flawless girl that was adored around the halls.

Seven-thirty. The familiar horn rang before Gigi went to sit shotgun in her best friend’s car. Crystal let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding along with a sigh of relief that the girl was out of sight and out of mind for the day.

Or at least until they had Chemistry together in the third period.

***

“Oh my god,” Crystal spoke aloud, her body frozen for a second as she absorbed the scene in front of her.

Like something from a disaster movie, she watched as water sprayed from the enormous hole in her living room ceiling, her socks already damp through her trainers.

Her flight or fight reflexes kicking in, Crystal did the first thing her brain told her to do which was to run next door and ring their bell as many times as she could, managing to slip on her lawn and stain the knees of her jeans whilst doing so.

“Hi?” Gigi looked Crystal up and down, her nose wrinkling with curiosity as she took in the other girl’s dishevelled state, her greeting more of a question than a welcome.

“Hi.” Crystal paused, trying to think of how she could explain to Gigi that she’d simply walked through her front door after school into a foot of brown water, a smell that matched that description almost exactly, and a giant hole in the ceiling that was firing said brown water at her like an army missile.

“Can I speak to your mom?”

***

Crystal felt her body relax slightly as she took a sip of the lemonade that was placed in front of her, a twinge of a feeling she couldn’t quite name gnawing at her when she realised that Gigi hadn’t asked what she wanted to drink, simply bringing her what had always brought comfort as a child.

She felt simultaneously overwhelmed and comforted by the sight around her, Gigi sitting in her usual seat as her hands toyed with the couch cushions. Only now an elephant sat between the pair of them, an awkward silence taking over every last air molecule in the room.

Memories flooded back to her as she let her eyes wander: the mantlepiece she had chipped her tooth on, the doors they would prance through as they pretended to be contestants on America’s Next Top Model once everyone was asleep.

Crystal felt her hands starting to sweat, rubbing them against her jeans rather frantically. She’d always managed to cope on a morning or in school - sure, sometimes the sight of Gigi sent her into a spiral of self-doubt and questions, but it was never something completely out of her control, never something that bothered her to such a great extent.

Maybe it was that she’d lost the privilege of her headphones to distract her from her past.

Maybe it was how familiar her surroundings were.

Maybe it was how natural it had first felt as she sat in Gigi’s living room.

Just as she heard the other girl start to speak, attempting to cut the tension that wrapped around the pair of them like thick green vines, they were saved by Maria entering the room again, phone in hand.

“So, your hot water tank has burst!” She looked at Crystal and let out a frustrated laugh. “The plumbers are starting to clear up now but they think it’s going to take a full week. I’m sorry sweetie. I’ve called your Mom and she’s happy for you to stay here with us and is going to try to leave her conference early.”

Maria went on to talk about getting essentials after the day’s work was finished and the logistics of their insurance but it soon became a gust of wind that swept right over Crystal’s head.

“I don’t need to say here, don’t worry!” Crystal smiled at Maria, grateful for her generosity but feeling the prick of tears at the back of her eyes daring to fall. Her eyes looked absolutely anywhere but at Gigi. “I can always go visit my family in Missouri for a week, I haven’t seen them for a while.”

“I dunno how your mom would feel about you missing a week of school, this is senior year now.” Maria placed a tentative hand on Crystal’s, clearly sensing the anxiety that was shooting out of her like flaming arrows. “Don’t stress! Think of it as one long week-long sleepover. Just like old times!”

Crystal couldn’t tell if she was trapped in heaven or hell but she knew one thing for sure, it wouldn’t be like old times.

***

Crystal found it strange how Gigi’s bedroom was so similar to how it was when they were younger, yet simultaneously different in certain, striking ways.

The antithesis to Crystal’s walls of clutter, Gigi’s room had always been pristine and that hadn’t changed. Placed on her dressing table were framed photos of her and her friends, one of her and Nicky catching Crystal’s eye.

She’d never grown close to Nicky. Even though a part of Crystal disliked her for the shit music she blasted from her sports car and for stealing away her best friend - the other, more loving side of her told her that Nicky didn’t really seem to have a bad bone in her body and that she must be fun if Gigi was so fond of her.

Crystal always found herself trusting Gigi’s judgement even though they were no longer friends, even though that judgment was cast badly upon herself.

Her eyes made their way to the other side of the room, a warm, fuzzy feeling taking over her body as she looked at Gigi’s huge world map that hung in front of her.

Pink pins for where she’d been and blue pins for where she wanted to go. Missouri caught her eye, bright pink straight away, Crystal remembering how excited Gigi had been to change its colour after she had joined one of her visits home in the holidays, how interested she was in exploring the lakes that raised Crystal. She knew Gigi would always be an explorer, it was just a shame that she was no longer the trusty navigator that bounced by her side.

Before she knew it, her hands were running across the books on Gigi’s shelves, stopping on her worn-out copy of Emma.

She never hated Gigi for the fact they were not friends anymore. She knew it happened to loads of pairs like themselves, that it’s natural to drift apart at high school and find different interests. Crystal often prided herself on being mature and understanding, knowing that sometimes there were deeper things in other people’s minds that she just had to accept. Yet at that moment, she couldn’t deny that the sight of the last birthday present she had bought for Gigi sitting front and centre, it’s pages worn and dog-eared, happened to sting that tiny bit.

“It’s not a museum,” Gigi snapped at her from across the room, only for her own face to fall a little when she saw Crystal’s - the slap of instant regret bright red on her cheeks.

“Sorry.” She moved over to the bookshelf, pulling the copy out and holding it in her manicured hands as though it were made of papier-mache. “Can you remember I used to take it out at the library so much? You gave it to me and told me it was so I never had to hide it to stop anyone else borrowing it anymore.”

Crystal’s heart dipped a whole centimetre in her chest.

Of course she remembered.

Silence enveloped the pair yet again as Crystal’s makeshift bed was constructed on the floor, a look on Gigi’s face that Crystal couldn’t quite piece together.

Trying to fight the awkwardness, Crystal pulled out her phone and began to scroll down her Instagram feed aimlessly, no one she could message even springing to her mind.

“Oh my god, we cannot do this all week,” Gigi blurted out what she’d been trying to contain all in one breath, causing Crystal to laugh at the girl’s inability to remain silent for any given period of time. And before she knew it Gigi was laughing too, the pair almost automatically falling back into that lull that once fell so naturally. Chatting more and more naturally as the drama of Top Model made up their background music.

There, underneath the plastic demeanour, was Crystal’s old best friend.

***

At first, Crystal didn’t know where she was when she woke up, her body feeling awkward in her jeans. But her confusion slid away at the sight of Gigi at her dressing table, applying the daintiest amount of blush to her pale cheeks.

Looking down she realised she was in Gigi’s bed rather than the one made up for her on the floor, assuming that she must have drifted off whilst watching their show.

“Good morning, camper.” Gigi raised an eyebrow in her mirror and grinned, never fully turning around to look at Crystal.

“Morning.” She stretched her arms in the air, the fact that Gigi must have tucked a blanket around her whilst she slept hitting her like a tonne of bricks. “What time is it?”

“Quarter past seven.”

“Oh. That’s no good!” Crystal jumped out of the bed and began rummaging through her case quite rapidly, Gigi chuckling under her breath at the way Crystal worked as a poster girl for the chaotic good character, clearly seeing some form of adorable in the other girl’s frustration.

Pulling a leopard print shirt out of her bag, Crystal quickly removed yesterday’s jumper and spruced herself up for the day ahead, finding some blue jeans to match and throwing them on whilst Gigi carried on with her makeup in the mirror, her eyes flickering back and forth.

“I think my Mom made some breakfast if you have time. Nicky’s coming for me soon…” She trailed off almost in a defensive way, her eyes glossing back down to the palette in front of her.

“Yeah,” Crystal responded, not sure on what she was agreeing with, before starting to pack her bag for the day. “I don’t want to miss the bus, I guess I’ll see you later.”

Maybe things hadn’t changed as much as she’d thought.

***

“Ugh.” Crystal found herself longing to throw her pencil across the room in a fit of rage as she failed the seventh time to do the chemical equation in front of her.

“You know, I’m currently sitting at an A in Chemistry.” Gigi waved her hands in the air at the girl from her bed, dog-earing the corner of her book and casting it aside.

“I don’t need you to do my work for me!” Crystal squealed as she moved the paper away from Gigi’s peeping eyes, determined to finish the question.

This was now her third night in the Goode household and she was starting to scare herself at how easily she fell back into place with Gigi when no one else was around. They had spent the past few days catching each other up on their lives, watching crap TV and just being together.

It was safe to say that Crystal was starting to see the beams of a happier Gigi shine through the cracks, a Gigi who wasn’t afraid to be rough around the edges.

But her hopes were kept low each morning when they parted their usual ways at the social jungle of their high school.

“I’m not saying I’ll do it for you, I’ll just help.” Gigi moved closer and Crystal could feel the warmth of her body on her own. The tiniest contact sending her brain in circles.“Besides, I did this three days ago; I don’t know why you’re hiding the questions.”

“Okay, but only if we do something fun after.”

“Actually.” Gigi paused and gave Crystal the grin of an excited puppy. “I have the perfect game to make up some lost time.”

***

“I’ll start.” An idea popped into Crystal’s head as she turned to face Gigi with excitement. “Number one: where do you go when you sneak off in the middle of the night?”

“Do you spy on me?” Gigi opened her jaw wide, causing Crystal to go into panic mode before releasing she was simply playing. “Sometimes it’s to meet people by the quarry and have a drink. Sometimes I just like to go get some fresh air alone.”

Crystal could sense she wasn’t getting a full answer but didn’t want to pry, preparing herself for what she’d be asked.

“Hmm.” Gigi giggled to herself as she gave Crystal a once over. Crystal could almost see the lightbulb pop out of her pretty little head when she thought of a question. “Number two: do you think Mr. Charles has a crush on you?”

Taking Crystal by surprise, it took her a minute to gain her composure. “What sort of question is that?”

“A genuine one!” Gigi tried to pull a straight face. “I see the way he’s always staring at you, putting his hand in your hair when he checks your work.”

“Oh my god, you’re disgusting.” Crystal smacked the other girl with a pillow resulting in the biggest scene of dramatics she’d witnessed since their school’s production of Les Mis.

The questions began to roll one after the other, starting off as fun and light-hearted.

“Where do you even sit at lunch?”

…

“Pasta or pizza?”

….

“When did you lose your virginity?”

….

“Was Poland as good as you thought it would be?”

…

“Do you remember our time capsule?”

…

But as the sky outside started to darken, their subject matter deepened. It has reached that time of night where boundaries dilapidated and unbreached territory began to be uncrossed.

“Number 10.” Crystal paused, building up the courage to finally breach the topic the pair has shied away from all week. “Was it because everyone called me a dyke? Is that why we’re not friends?”

Crystal watched as her friend winced - wishing so much that she could just pretend that period had never occurred and never to speak about it, but knowing that it was a bridge both she and Gigi needed to cross and it would be much better if they could cross it together, stopping each other from falling between the jagged planks.

“Partly, yeah.” Gigi nodded and looked Crystal in the eyes.

Really, really looked into her eyes.

“I don’t think I thought that at the time, I told myself we just had different interests. But I think that sometimes I just get so caught up in what people think about me, I get lost in what’s right and wrong. I’ve just always wanted to be ‘perfect.’ I lost sight of what that even meant. But I never, ever cared what you thought about me. Not in that way, at least…” She trailed off and Crystal placed a comforting hand over hers, letting her know that she was loved. “I’m so sorry.” A single tear fell down her face. The first time Crystal had seen her cry since they were seven. “Do you hate me?”

“No.” Crystal squeezed her hand tighter.

It was the truth. Even though sometimes she wanted to, she couldn’t have ever hated Gigi even if she tried.

She knew that her actions were wrong, she knew that she couldn’t make excuses for not being there, for not trying to stop it. She knew that things wouldn’t magically click back to how they used to. But she also knew that Gigi was sorry.

Scars took time to heal.

And they’d still be visible even once they had.

But people say they only make someone stronger.

“If I was you, I think I’d hate me. Feel free to slap me if you want.”

“Do you really want me to slap you?” Crystal raised an eyebrow to the girl.

“No.” Gigi sighed. “And you just wasted your question.”

“Fuck sake.” Crystal found herself blushing for no apparent reason. She guessed that Gigi just brought out the nervous side of her sometimes.

“Number thirteen: what does your tattoo say?”

Crystal was a deer in the headlights.

Her tattoo - the most genius yet idiotic idea she’d ever had in her life.

Aged 16, still reeling in that high you get from a gig with a fake ID at the ready.

Somewhere nice and hidden where hardly anyone would see, figuring she’d never have to explain it to anyone she wasn’t intimate with, always having the open option to lie about it’s meaning to save embarrassment.

But Gigi had seen it.

She thought of the past few days when they’d both been getting ready for school.

Never really processing it herself, she had peaked at Gigi’s body - slight glances at the way her ribs and clavicle jutted out through her skin.

She didn’t realise Gigi had been looking back.

“One Direction,” she responded after what was probably a longer than socially-acceptable pause.

“One Direction?” Gigi exclaimed back, wrinkling her nose and opening her mouth wide at the girl.

“Yes.” Crystal replied seriously, trying to stop the laugh from slipping through her lips. “One Direction.”

“That is weird on so many levels, Crystal.” Gigi shook her head and started to laugh. “You mean to tell me that when you sit on the bench with that unapproachable look on your face wearing black eyeliner thicker than your wrists, you’re blasting Truly, Madly, Deeply from your headphones?”

“Yep,” she simply stated. Strangely it had never occurred to her before that as she made hidden glances at Gigi each morning, Gigi was taking them back just the same.

“Crystal Elizabeth Methyd, you never fail to surprise me.”

***

“You don’t need to feel bad about leaving me, I’ve got stuff to do,” Crystal pleaded as Gigi scavenged through her closet like an excited child with their first-ever Barbie doll.

It was Thursday night and the end of Crystal’s impromptu vacation in the Goode household. Her typical night consisted of homework, pizza, and reading old fan-fiction until four AM.

Gigi had different ideas.

“How many parties have you been to in high school?”

“None,” Crystal answered, not even attempting to slip out a lie.

“Exactly,” Gigi replied before settling on a pink latex dress and throwing it in Crystal’s direction.

“You don’t have to feel guilty about me missing out, I’ve never wanted to and we have school tomorrow!” Crystal examined the dress, her eyes widening at the thought of how much skin it would show.

“Maybe I just want you there.” Gigi stopped as she settled on her own dress. “Maybe I just enjoy your company.”

Crystal didn’t need to be told twice.

“Fine.” She responded, resulting in some excited squealing and hand-clapping from the other side of the room. “But I just can’t wear this.”

“Sure you can, just undo the zipper, step into it, put your arms through the sleeves and do it back up again. It’s not that hard. I can help if you’d like?”

Crystal tried hard not to give her the satisfaction of a laugh but once again failed. “You know what I meant.”

“At least try! I spent good money on that and it hangs off my body. You’ve got the curves to fill it at least.”

Trying her hardest not to blush, Crystal gave in and tried the dress on, surprising herself at how good it actually looked.

“See!” Gigi motioned her hands up and down at Crystal’s body. “I know these things.”

It was safe to say that Crystal was waiting for the day she’d win one of her verbal battles with Gigi Goode. Yet she was never really that annoyed when she lost them.

***

Although a small part of her wished she was curled up in bed with a bag of M&Ms watching a movie, Crystal was enjoying herself.

Yes, she had spent the majority of the night by Gigi’s side, dancing like idiots and watching people hook up, but she still found herself branching out in smaller ways, taking as many steps as her size fives could - partly because she wanted to and partly because of the smile she saw on Gigi’s face as she conversed with Nicky and the other girls. Although still sceptical around them, Crystal was happy finding common ground with Gigi’s friends, even seeing a goofy side of Nicky that she didn’t even know was there.

Distracted by her thoughts, she hadn’t even realised there was someone next to her at the punch bowl until he spoke.

“Have we met?” He looked Crystal up and down with a smile.

Yes, she thought to herself. We have around 10 hours of class together each week. But being polite and trying her hardest to make friends she didn’t dare say that aloud. “I think I’ve seen you around, I’m Crystal.”

“Josh.” He took her hand and shook it, holding on for maybe a second longer than normal. “Bit less exciting than Crystal.”

“My mom was really into Pokemon during her pregnancy,” she responded. However, before her joke could be processed she felt the red punch from the boy’s hand splash across her front.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” He looked at Crystal apologetically before rushing to grab a dishtowel. “I hope I’ve not stained your dress.”

“It’s Gigi’s so I think you’d be feeling her wrath rather than mine.” Crystal went to reach for the towel only for the boy to start wiping away at her front.

“Oh, I can do that.” She went to swat his hand away when they were interrupted by a familiar cough.

“God, Gigi, you ought to keep that one on a leash.” One of her friends muttered under their breath, just loud enough for Crystal to hear and take a step backwards.

She watched her friend’s face turn at the sight, watched her mouth open and close twice before she spoke. “Do you mind moving away from my friend?”

“Gigi, it’s fine,” Crystal responded as the boy she was talking to leapt away from her and raised his hands in the air. “I can handle myself.”

“Nicky will drop you off home.” She ignored Crystal’s words before turning to leave the room. “I think I’m gonna walk.”

“Wait.” Crystal shouted after her as she made her exit, just the two of them standing in the large foyer, Gigi haphazardly raking around for her snakeskin jacket. “I was just being friendly, I don’t see the problem.”

“That’s because you’re naive. You let people take advantage of you.” Gigi turned to face Crystal, finally finding her jacket and slinging it over her thin frame.

“Or maybe you’re just a jealous bitch who can’t deal with the attention being on someone else for a second.” Crystal spat back at her, shocking herself with her words.

It was a word that had floated around a lot since Gigi became popular but it had never quite reached the surface. She knew Gigi wasn’t a bitch - remembering the time she spent seven hours making her a friendship bracelet in all her favourite colours, the time they went to the theme park and they rode all the scary rides even though Gigi was terrified of them, just so her friend would be happy. She knew her intentions were good in scaring the boy away, a part of her just wished that Gigi would stop looking at her like the lost puppy she was in freshman year. But that’s what came out of her mouth, and she couldn’t take it back now.

She watched Gigi stop in her tracks. Bending down and resting her body on the shoe rack below her.

“I’m sorry.” Crystal went to join her side. “I didn’t mean that. I know you mean the best, I just don’t need you to defend me.”

“You’re right,” she spoke, clear frustration seeping from somewhere deeper than their current argument, a small crack in her voice. Once again Crystal had hit the wall in Gigi that she was yet to break down. “I just want you to understand.”

“Then help me to.” Crystal reached a hand out to her, squeezing, once, twice.

At first, she remained still, but Crystal then saw the switch flip. Gigi squeezed back.

“I need to steal a shovel.”

***

The sky around the pair was still dark, their two phone torches shining down on the route that their feet had danced across so many times.

Although Crystal knew that they should probably wait till morning and that Maria would probably realise they were gone, she didn’t want to sacrifice Gigi opening up to her, her heart beating faster and faster as they walked through the meadow.

“I’m pretty sure there’s still another six years till we’re supposed to dig this up.” Crystal shivered, the side effects of the punch she drank starting to wear off. “I can’t believe Gigi Goode is voluntarily breaking rules!”

“Shut up.” She gave Crystal a friendly punch before taking off her coat and wrapping it around her friend’s shoulders, Crystal still feeling a pang of guilt for the way she spoke to Gigi at the party, knowing that she had been nothing but kind to her the past week they had lived together.

“Here.” Crystal stopped, pointing at the signpost marking their spot, remembering the day they buried their time capsule as if it were yesterday.

***

“Is this a report card?” Crystal laughed as she shone her torch at the paper in front of her.

“Oh my god, yes!” Gigi took the paper in her hands. “I didn’t want my Mom to find out I got a C in music class.”

“Classic Gigi.” Crystal sighed.

Pulling out the friendship bracelet she had made years before, Gigi gasped before grabbing Crystal’s arm and sliding it on. “As if it still fits.”

As the girls waded their way through cinema tickets and keyrings, they found themselves falling back into their old selves more and more - getting lost in conversation as the night faded away and the sun started to rise.

“I don’t remember this being in here.” Crystal pulled out a photograph of the pair of them in Missouri, aged fourteen, grinning like idiots on Crystal’s grandma’s porch.

Flipping it over, she recognised Gigi’s sophisticated scrawl on the back::

This week I finally got to go with Crystal when she visited home. It was so amazing because I hate it so much when she isn’t here, nothing is fun. When I’m with Crystal I don’t have to be perfect - I wish we could grow old together, just the two of us in our own land away from everyone else, everything would be so, so much easier.

There was more but Crystal stopped, looking up to her best friend’s nervous face to realise it was blurry. She hadn’t even realised she was crying.

“Crystal.” Gigi wiped her tears away with her thumb, only leaving her hands on her friend’s cheeks once she was done.

They were freezing yet it made Crystal’s whole body burst up in flames.

Crystal thought of all the sleepless nights and daydreams where she’d pictured this moment.

Somehow it was better than all of them combined.

Their lips touched, soft at first, gentle, afraid to hurt each other. Then their kiss grew deeper, it was hungry, passionate, it had been locked in a cage for years and years only finally to be released.

Crystal didn’t know how long they’d been kissing for when Gigi pulled away, but she wouldn’t have minded if it had been forever.

“I was scared. A scared girl who pushed you away instead of accepting who I was. It’s more, Crystal, you know it’s more. It’s always been more.”

Crystal nodded, placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders as she carried on her choked sentences.

“This past week, as corny as it sounds I didn’t just find you again, I found the old me.”

“Well, we’re both here to stay,” Crystal whispered before pulling the girl into another embrace which somehow dared to be better than their last. “Come on, you’re shivering, let’s get you home.”

***

Crystal woke with the sun beaming through the window, her body perfectly entwined with Gigi’s.

At first, she thought she had dreamt it: their kiss at the meadow, the way she went to sleep on the floor and felt Gigi’s arm drop down from her bed, her breasts soft as silk and her moans sending Crystal insane.

But the way Gigi’s head nestled into her collarbone told her she hadn’t.

She wanted to freeze the moment in a frame and relive it forever - the fear hitting her that Gigi would act cool like it was no big deal.

She lay a kiss on her head before making her way for a shower - the first time all week that she hadn’t woken up to Gigi perfecting her makeup or already dressed- the perfect girl’s routine thrown out the window as she lay in bed.

After returning from the shower, she noticed Gigi was awake, rushing to get ready.

“C’mon.” She looked Crystal up and down. “We’ll be late.”

***

Crystal’s palms became heavy with sweat as she sat next to Gigi on the bench.

Maybe she regretted it. Maybe it was some sort of sick joke. Why hadn’t she spoken about it? Was she being off with her, or was she just tired?

Crystal felt sick, checking her phone for the time: seven twenty-five.

She couldn’t wait till Nicky got here, the sight of Gigi’s face next to her sending her brain into spirals of existentialism.

She thought about this time on Monday. How much had changed in a week? Or in reality how much it had gone back to the way it was before.

Whatever would happen next she just thanked God/the man who fitted her water heater that at least it happened - the love bite on her neck marking that no one could take this away from her.

Maybe Gigi would go further in denial - Crystal watched her as she tapped her foot on the ground.

“Are you not gonna give me a headphone?” Gigi smiled at her, snapping Crystal’s mind of doubt back to reality, feeling Gigi’s hand fall onto her thigh. “I fancy some One Direction.”

Pulling her phone out in excitement, Crystal’s mood quickly dipped back as she read the time: seven twenty-nine.

“Nicky will be here for you in a minute.” She gave a disheartened smile and put her phone back in her pocket.

“Oh.” Gigi moved her hand over the top of Crystal’s and grinned. “I told her not to come, figured I ought to get the bus today.”

#rpdr fanfiction #crystal methyd #gigi goode #angst #lesbian au #high school au #everything has changed #ashley #tw unconsented contact #concrit welcome #submission #crygi #s12

253 notes · View notes

mellifluoushood · 5 years ago

Text

Today, I Saw The Whole World, And It Was Right In Front Of Me - C.H.

Inspired by @ammwritings custom moodboard

A/N: So, I was inspired by Anne’s moodboard that she made for me about getting stoned with Calum and listening to records, so I thought I would write a fic about it. As always, let me know what you think and send requests if you have any! I’ll be finishing ships tonight. xx Genre: angst / fluff / smut Type: blurb / imagine / series Warning: heavy mentions of drug use (smoking weed), some sexual content (not sex, but very close) Word Count: 6k (I got so unbelievably carried away. I wish I could say I was sorry. But I’m not.) Taglist: @gigglyirwin @loveroflrh @ammwritings @calumscalm Playlist: Weed Music

Red eyes watch as she throws her head back, laughing at some meaningless joke thrown around the room. Her laugh echoes with others, bouncing off the painted white walls surrounding them. Her head swims back around when someone elbows her gently and hands her the joint. She smiles, bringing it to her lips and inhaling hard. She feels the toke sit in her mouth before filling her lungs with another breath. She holds it, gently opening her mouth and allowing the smoke to spill out of her mouth. She sits, shivering slightly, focusing on the joint and sparing a glance around the room.

Her friends sit, smiling amongst their newly formed conversations. She watches languidly, lazily repeating her motions a few more times before passing it to the person on her right. She feels her body begin to melt into the sofa underneath her, slowly relaxing. She can feel the way her muscles welcome the plush couch, the black, soft fabric brushing against her bare thighs and warming up her body even farther. Her mind eases into its far corner, letting the high slowly crawl its way into her system.

She hears the end of a conversation before starting a new one with Crystal, sitting to her left. She smiles and asks about her day, listening to the accent drip around her slowly. She watches as her friend talks with her hands, her thick American accent capturing her attention. She listens to the pronunciations and lilts in her tone. She sits and listens and listens.

The anxiety that had made a home in her shoulders slowly rests, her neck tilting to the right and letting out a satisfying crack. She repeats thoughtlessly with the other side, feeling the way that her body is responding to her high. Her toes begin to tingle lightly whilst the warmth bubbling in her chest spreads through her bloodstream, occupying the tips of her fingers and her lower tummy. She still concentrates on her friend, responding only when needed.

She hears the start of a song, another one of her friends, Ashton, connecting his phone to her Bluetooth speaker that had fallen silent a few moments before, letting the song play out. Her focus turns to the music when her friend receives another joint and stops talking. She can feel her head tilting back against the cushion behind her head, resting as her blood pumps at its own pace. She soaks it in.

Her eyes switch between the people in front of her, observing mannerisms in the way they sit and express themselves that she was always aware of when sober, but particularly aware of as she sits high.

“You okay over there?” Ashton asks her and she chuckles at his question.

“I’m fine,” her voice is smooth, low and raspy from the smoke that had been brushing her airways a few moments before then. The friend on her left passes her the joint and she smiles at her with thanks, “Do you guys know how much I smoke?”

Ashton shakes his head and she looks over at Calum, “Have you not told them?”

“No,” Calum shrugs from her right side, “Didn’t want to air your dirty laundry.”

“Dirty laundry, my arse,” she chuckles again. Her motions are languid as she brings the roach to her mouth, over and over, sucking down the smoke with ease, “I’m not ashamed. I mean, c’mon, I wear marijuana socks and post pictures and videos to my private story.”

“Guess we’re not on your private story then,” Michael jokes and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Didn’t think you wanted to see what a pothead I am,” she comments before passing her joint to Calum. She slowly stands up from her spot on the couch, stretching slightly, her long sleeve shirt riding up, exposing her belly button piercing and tattoo on her left hip. She leisures over to her purse sitting on the dining room table in the other room, rustling through to find her bag, tobacco, grinder and papers. She returns to her spot on the couch, opening her bag and lifting it to her nose. She inhales, noting the strong hints of pineapple and she smiles,

“God, I love my dealer,” she shakes her head, taking another puff before picking out a few nuggets and placing them in the grinder. The boys and their girlfriends watch with intrigue, surprised at her mannerisms.

“I feel like I’m really getting to know you right now,” Ashton mutters, looking at a girl he didn’t expect to be such an avid smoker, rolling a joint like a professional. She looks up at him and shakes her head with a small smile, grinding the weed down to small pieces. She puts the grinder on the living room table before taking a paper out of its packet and a piece of cardboard from the same packet, rolling the cardboard to form a roach. She places it in the paper on the far left side. She opens the pack of tobacco sitting in her lap and begins to sprinkle strands along the paper.

“You use tobacco?” Luke asks.

“Yeah. It helps it burn better and slower. It also makes the high go straight to your brain. You Americans don’t know how to smoke,” she chuckles, “Blunts without tobacco or a roach. A disgrace,” she criticises and Ashton’s eyebrows raise, realising that she’s much more experienced than any of them would have guessed. Calum sits to her right, watching her hands move for the grinder and fill the paper with the weed. She sprinkles a fair amount before beginning to smooth it down by rubbing the ends of the paper together. He watches as she tucks the edge into the joint, rolling the paper over itself until it formed a cylindrical cone. He swallows slightly, the own high seeping through every centimetre of his brain when her tongue pokes past her lips licking the adhesive of the paper and secures the glue against the joint. She smooths it out, running her fingers up and down, making Calum look away before a tent formed in his sweats at the thought of her fingers elsewhere.

She taps the bottom of the joint against the hardwood surface of the table before taking the base of a pen and packing the weed firmly. She sticks the joint in her mouth and lights it up when she’s finished. She sparks the paper and it burns quickly, the emptiness allowing the flame to consume it before it hits the packed weed and tobacco. She inhales then, taking three tokes straight off the bat. She lets the smoke linger out of her mouth before she sucks it in through her nose, exhaling again after.

“Also, you don’t puff-puff pass. You take your time, you enjoy yourself. You end up with the same amount of weed in your system, but you’re not in a rush and you enjoy smoking,” she comments, smiling around the roach in her mouth, pinching the spliff in between her thumb and forefinger. She takes a strong toke, letting it sit her lungs for a few moments, taking the joint from her lips and admiring her handiwork, “God, this is some good green. Pineapple express. It tastes so good,” she brings the joint back to her lips.

“How often do you smoke?” Luke asks the question on everyone’s mind. She thinks to herself, sitting back against the couch again after grabbing the ashtray off the table and resting it on her knees that she’s resting against her chest.

“I smoke every day. I have at least one joint... bare minimum. But, usually, I smoke about 2 or 3... if I meet up with my other group of friends,” she inhales again, “I can smoke upwards of 5 or 6.”

“Jesus Christ,” Michael mutters as she takes her last toke and hands it over to Calum.

“Don’t rush, enjoy it. Feel the music, feel the buzz,” she comments. Calum takes her advice, reclining just like she was and balances the joint in between his forefinger and middle finger like a cigarette. He inhales, admiring the taste of the green she had gotten from her dealer. He exhales, tasting the fruity, light aftertaste that lingers along his tongue and on his inner cheeks. He likes the heaviness of tobacco in the joint.

He throws his free arm around the girl to his left, pulling her to him. She rolls her eyes playfully, the high staining the whites of her eyes a deep red, her irises glassy. Calum’s own reflect similarly. When he looks down at her, she notices he’s a bit more stoned than her, his tolerance not quite as high. His pupils have dilated slightly and his body feels especially warm. She tucks her shoulder underneath his and leans her head on his chest. The people around the circle watch with a knowing smile at their affections. Not quite a couple, but not quite just good friends.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” Calum asks, exhaling the second toke he had taken. She shrugs,

“My dealer usually has a couple of different strains to choose from. If I bat my eyelashes at him, he usually will give me the best of the three and for less than what he charges other people.” Calum chuckles at her antics, ignoring the small twinge of jealousy that bubbles in the bottom of his stomach. He doesn’t want to picture the girl cuddled up to his chest fluttering her eyelashes at another man, a coy smile playing on her lips as she charms her way into good quality weed. He reasons with himself that he’d probably do the same if he was a girl.

“How often do you pick up?” Luke asks, watching Calum take his slow drags before passing it to him. Luke nods in gratitude before taking a drag himself and rolls the smoke around in his mouth before inhaling further and holding it. He exhales out of his nose, jutting out his bottom lip and raising his eyebrows, looking at the joint in his fingers, “This is some good shit.”

“Right?” She chuckles before paying attention to the question he had asked before, “Once or twice a week. Depends who I’m with that week and how much I charm him when I pick up.” Her eyes are hazy, looking around the circle at the boys and their girlfriends. Sierra’s legs are resting over Luke’s lap as she sits in between him and Ashton, Ashton’s back is pressed against the television stand and Michael and Crystal are cuddled up to his left. She notes Ashton didn’t bring his girl around and she makes a mental note to ask him about it later. He doesn’t seem to mind the couples around him, as the conversations tend to be open to everyone.

The joint gets passed around to everyone, reaching the owner. She takes another few drags before putting it out and rolling another one with the green left in the grinder. Conversations around her have bubbled up, gently humming over the distant lull of music in the background. She feels how relaxed the muscles in her cheeks are and the heaviness of her eyelids, but she basks in the relaxation and sensation the THC gives her.

Calum watches every single move she makes with hazy eyes and a small smirk on his face. His arm rests on the back of the sofa as he reclines into the cushions, spreading his legs covered in grey sweatpants. He kicks his feet up onto the living room table, his black socks matching the black tabletop. He pulls his hood up, over his platinum blond hair, the black hoodie blending in with the black cushions of the sofa. His eyes linger along the smooth skin of her bare arms, her breasts peeking out from the top of her tank top. Her legs are covered at the very top with shorts, black with white lining. Her socks have marijuana leaves on them as the hems tickle her upper calves. She looks relaxed. Her hair is down, cascading along her back and over her left shoulder.

He wants to push the admiration out of his mind, afraid of the rejection he was sure he would receive. He had heard her complain about a boy earlier to Sierra when she and Luke had arrived. He had peered around the corner of the kitchen entryway, her elbow against the kitchen counter and her face buried in her palm as she complained at his mixed signals and inability to not flirt with her, even after being rejected. He remembers the words she ended the conversation with: If only he would actually do something. He assumes there was a second guy involved, as she had explained to Sierra that she didn’t want to be with the mixed-signals guy. Sierra just chuckled and ran her hands through her hair to comfort her, who just sighed, I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon. He watched as she rolled her eyes, shaking her head, As fucking if. He remembers the feeling of his chest burning at her admission of having her eyes on a guy that wasn’t him. But, he pushed it away, focusing on the fact her right thigh was pressed tightly against his left.

When she finishes rolling her joint, she returns to her spot underneath Calum’s arm, relaxing against the couch and sparking the other joint. She bobs her head to the music in the background, closing her eyes and inhaling again and again and again. He’s addicted to watching her. He doesn’t try and hide the fact that he’s admiring every piece of her and every way she moves. When he looks away, he makes eye contact with Sierra, who had been watching the scene in front of her. Sierra sends him a nod, encouraging him. He shakes his head before turning his attention back to the woman underneath his arm.

Crystal and Michael strike up a conversation with Ashton when he sees Sierra lean over to whisper in Luke’s ear out of the corner of his eye. She says something to him and nods over to her. Luke’s eyes seem to make a connection with what she was talking about before he stands up and grabs his girlfriend’s hand,

“I think Sierra and I are gonna head up to bed,” he motions to the stairs that lead up to the guest rooms upstairs.

“Alright,” she smiles, “Night, babes,” she calls Sierra, her nickname for Sierra and her only. Sierra manoeuvres around the table to hug the girl on the couch. When Sierra leans down for a hug, admiring the blissed expression on her friend’s face, Calum watches as her lips move against her ear, unable to hear what she was saying to the woman under his arm. Calum turns his attention to Luke, who has a smirk resting on his lips as he quirks his eyebrows at him. Luke’s eyes are hazy, blurred with glassiness from the several joints passed around by numerous people. Calum slowly rolls his eyes and turns back to look at the woman next to him. Her attention is already on him as she hands him the second joint she had rolled, her own eyes complete glazed over as she looks at him. He smiles down at her, shaking his head and blowing air out of his nose as his way of laughing.

He listens as Sierra and Luke’s feet pad up the stairs and into the guest room they frequently stay in. Crystal follows Sierra’s actions from earlier, whispering something to both Ashton and Michael who don’t even question her. They repeat Luke and Sierra’s motions, sending Calum a look suggesting that he really should just make a fucking move. He has to resist the temptation of audibly telling them to ‘fuck off’, but he knows it would attract unnecessary attention from the girl next to him.

Once they’re alone after the last three have said their goodnights, Calum passes the joint back to the woman next to him. She hasn’t moved from her spot underneath his arm and he enjoys her proximity. He can smell the weed on her lips and the mix of her lavender shampoo. Her skin is tinted with a woodsy, pine smile, a musky perfume lingering on her pulse points as she rests her head even more on his chest. He smiles to himself, leaning his head against the back of the sofa and listening to the music on the speaker before Ashton cuts it off.

“Ah, fuck,” she mutters, sitting up, removing the warmth of her skin from his. Part of her is relieved she’s no longer touching Calum, but she feels the way his thigh burns against hers. Her heart feels like it’s about to beat out her chest, the small tingles he shoots up her spine sending her chest into an electric shock. She bites at her lip, her eyesight slightly blurry as she fumbles for her phone on the table. She switches on her own, smooth playlist and leaves the volume low enough that they can talk, but loud enough for it to not be awkward if they don’t.

She leans back again, not as close to Calum, afraid her heart might burst at the same proximity again, but Calum doesn’t seem to appreciate it. He pulls her to him again, murmuring, “Trying to run away from me, honey?”

Her breath wants to hitch, but she doesn’t let it. She simply rolls her neck from side to side, letting out a satisfying crack and settling into his frame. She inhales from her joint, just so she can exhale the nerves crawling up her neck and into her dry mouth, “No, just trying to be comfortable,” she hums. He can hear the teasing in her voice and he bites the inside of his lip, trying to keep himself in check because he’s not sure he can handle not saying anything or the rejection he’s positive will come after.

“Oh, am I not comfortable?” He teases in return and she turns her head up to look at him. Her lips are parted as she takes drag after drag from her joint, absentmindedly letting the smoke spill from the gap. He watches the trail of smoke fall from her cheeks and the way her eyes scan his face. She mentally memorises the place of his three birthmarks on his cheeks. She traces the five o’clock shadow along his jaw with her eyes and admires the slope of his nose. She notices the way his skin glows in the low light of the living room lamp. His platinum hair peeks out from underneath the hood of his jumper and her eyes trail down to his neck.

“You’re too comfortable,” she admits breathlessly, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. She quickly takes another drag off her joint, trying to cover up the tone of her voice. Calum doesn’t miss it, but he wonders if he imagines it when she passes the joint to him to finish. He takes it from her,

“Thank you, gorgeous.” He swallows once he finishes his sentence, bringing the joint to his lips, annoyed his filter failed him. He knows his guard falls when he’s stoned, but he didn’t expect it to fall around her. He hopes silently she won’t bring it up. But, he wasn’t that lucky,

“Gorgeous, huh?” She chuckles, looking up at him. He looks down at her, the plumpness of her cheeks and the glaze in her eyes. He traces the slope of her nose and curvature of her lips thoughtlessly, his pupils dilating at what they’re admiring. The weed lowers his inhibitions and he decides to just bite the bullet. If it goes badly, he can blame it on the green.

“You heard me,” he raises his eyebrows.

“I did?” She smiles lazily, sitting up a bit, turning to look at him. She’s scanning his body language, a languid movement of her eyes to see if she’s reading him right. If he wants what she wants. If he wants to pull her into his lap and have his way with her. He nods, taking the few last tokes in one go before leaning forward and putting the joint out in the ashtray. He surprises himself by grabbing the curves of her hips and pulling her into his lap. She rests her ass against his thighs, hers capturing his sides in between them. She bites at her lip and quirks her eyebrows,

“Whatcha doing there?” She teases, moving her hands up his chest and to the back of his neck, using the back of her hands to push the hood off his head. She exposes his platinum, glistening blond hair to the glow of the living room lamp. Her eyes admire the sides of his hair growing out, his roots a deep brown colour, contrasting against the bleached tips.

“Getting a better look,” he says thoughtlessly. Any inhibitions he had disappeared, the weed burying them deep in a part of his brain he can’t access in his high. He’s admiring the way she fits against his body. He runs his hands up and down the dip of her waist and the plumpness of her thighs.

“Didn’t think it was as good as a view as mine,” she responds, leaning forward slightly. Her hands began to brush along the back of his neck, her bare skin against his making Calum shiver.

“Oh, honey,” he chuckles, “Today, I saw the whole world. And it was right in front of me.”

She bites at her bottom lip to keep from her smile widening, but he watches as the corner of her lips. It causes Calum’s lips to quirk into a smile as well. Her eyes are stained red, just like his. She uses the tip of her fingers to run up and down his spine before he sits up a little more. His hands find themselves resting on her upper thighs, his fingertips digging just slightly into the flesh.

She has no response and he knows she wants him to make the first move. He removes one hand from her thighs, using it to brush her hair behind her ear,

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, licking his bottom lip and looking down at her lips. She repeats his actions before he hears a small, breathless, ‘Yes’ escape her lips. He leans forward, his lips just brushing hers, barely pressed. She pushes hers against him, harder. His lips are hot against hers and her mouth tastes like weed and tobacco to him. There’s an underlying sweetness to her skin and he loves it. He uses his hand to grip the side of her face, pulling her even closer to him. He runs the hand on her thigh up to her lower back, pushing her even further into his chest.

Their lips pull apart for a moment before slotting against each other again, her hands running from his neck to his hair, threading their way through his strands. Her heart is pounding out of her chest and her limbs feel like they’re vibrating. Calum’s heart is soaring as high as he is, his hands desperate to hold her as close to him as possible, not willing to ever let her go. She leans further into him, pressing her lips against his over and over, her movements becoming more forceful as he exhales every piece of his consciousness into her. Her chest burns with happiness and Calum’s lips can’t help but smile against hers.

With their heads swimming, they press closer and closer, lips slotting over and over, Calum’s grip on her never letting up. He’s the first to lick his tongue along her bottom lip. She parts them, welcoming the heat of his tongue into her mouth. She presses her tongue along his, their lips meeting time and time again. Their breathing starts to become laboured, desperate for the air the other is releasing, their bodies pressed together. They feel so warm against the other, their feelings bubbling to the surface at finally having their release of emotion.

Her hands move from his hair to the bottom of his jumper, tugging at the hem. His hands move to hold hers for a moment before breaking apart, just a second, to tug the jumper over his head and throw it onto the couch next to them. They’re panting and she grabs his face in between her hands, desperate to have her lips touch his again. They slot their lips over and over, tongues lingering within each kiss, familiarising with the taste of the other. Calum uses his hands to run up the soft skin of her stomach underneath her shirt. She shivers at the gentleness of his touch, memorising the way her ribs heave with each desperate breath she takes against her lips. He grabs at the hem of her shirt, tugging the way she had. She breaks apart from him, allowing him to pull the tank top over her shoulders. When the shirt is discarded, Calum leans back slightly, admiring the way her breasts are pushed up by her royal blue bra.

His lips meet hers, once, and then twice, before moving down to her jaw, running his lips along the bone. She tilts her head back, feeling the way his hands have imprinted themselves into her lower back, her hair tickling the back of his hands. His large hands take up so much surface on her back, feeling his warm skin against hers. Her hands grip at Calum’s neck, her nails dig into his shoulders as his lips move lower and lower, along the expanse of her goosebump ridden neck. She sighs, his plush, swollen lips leaving small wet, open-mouthed kisses. She rolls her lips between her teeth, moving her head to the side, her red eyes opening to look at the man who’s gently kissing down her neck.

“Cal,” she sighs and she feels the way his lips curl up into a cheshire grin. At the base of her throat, he wraps his lips around her skin, gently pulling and sucking, licking over the area. She rolls her hips against his without thinking and a deep groan rumbles underneath his chest. She rolls her hips again, satisfying the burning erupting between her legs as she feels how firm he is. He groans again, sucking harder against her neck and her throat rasps out a whimper. Every single movement is heightened, intensified as her high lingers in her veins, alighting her nerves, allowing Calum’s touch to cause explosions in her blood.

His hands run up from their space along her back, over her ribs and to cup her breasts through her bra. She lets out a small moan as he gently applies pressure, testing just how far she wants him to go. After suckling against her neck, he removes his lips, moves them a little higher along her neck and suckling, nipping and licking again. He wants to see the way the blood raises to the surface, bruising and marking up her pretty neck. He’s never seen that before and god, he thinks she’ll look beautiful with his marks all over her. Calum’s heart and stomach flutter at her touch, her fingertips pressing into him, the way that her body responds to his touches. He’s doing this to her. He’s pleasing her.

“Oh,” she moans quietly when he suckles particularly hardly and Calum applies more pressure to her chest. His hands move from the cups of her bra to just underneath the band of it, to ask if he can.

“Please take it off, Calum,” she asks breathlessly. He complies, hands wandering to her back to unclasp the bra. The straps loosen on her shoulders and shrugs it off. Calum removes his lips from her neck and leans back, staring at the perkiness of her breasts. He runs his hands along the underside, watching the way they move with the movement of his hands.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, admiring their shape. Her nipples are hard, poking against his palms as he runs the full expanse of his hand over her breasts. She takes his distraction as a chance to plant her lips to his neck. He sighs through his nose as she traces her tongue, gently, from the base of his neck to the space where his jaw and neck meet. She traces his pulse point with the tip of her tongue before sinking her teeth gently into the flesh. A groan rumbles from between his lips and he can’t help but knead the tender flesh with his hands, trying to focus on the way her body reacts to his touch. She suckles along his pulse point, feeling the way his body radiates heat against her face. She leaves mark after mark, scattering them along the expanse of her neck as Calum leans back and lets her have her way with him.

When she pulls away, their chests are heaving, bare and glowing in the light of the living room. The music in the background switches and Calum’s lips find hers again. Their lips are tender, swollen and red with friction, slotting over and over again. Calum uses his hands to press her to him as close as possible, their bare chests touching. Her hands wander along his shoulders, up to his neck and his hair, down again and repeating her motions, slowly as their tongues brush again and again.

Their highs are pushed to the back of their minds as they bask in the feeling of their kisses, their touches, their movements. She rolls her hips against his again, his cock straining against his grey sweatpants. The firmness sends tingles up her spine as she rolls her hips over and over again. Calum’s hands move from her back and to her lips, guiding her against him as his eyebrows furrow together. Warmth spreads in his stomach at the friction and she breaks away from him, letting out sigh after sigh with each roll of her hips against him.

“Cal-” she whines quietly, pressing her forehead against his, bare chest heaving with each laboured breath, her eyes pressed shut. He watches her with butterflies in his stomach, violently fluttering and fanning the flames in his lower tummy. She looks so beautiful, her eyebrows furrowed as her mouth drops open, feeling the way the friction of their hips moving both satisfying and aggravating the bubbling of lust in her belly. She opens her eyes, meeting Calum’s, who’s focused eyes and parted lips are hung on his face. He looks incredible with his glazed brown irises, plush limps plumped even more, red with blood linger at the surface. She leans forward and captures his bottom lip between her teeth without breaking eye contact and he lets out a small moan.

“I’m going to,” he sighs, guiding her hips faster and harder against his. She encourages him, smiling down with hooded eyes and her lips parted,

“C’mon, baby,” she sighs. Calum’s eyebrows furrow as the heat in his stomach intensifies tenfold, the friction sending sparks and fireworks off in his lower tummy. Her words, her voice, her sighs send him over the edge, his toes curling and throwing his head back. His orgasm is prolonged by the weed in his system, his brain swimming with nothing and everything. His limbs vibrate, tingles rolling up his spine as he releases in his briefs. He’s clutching her hips so hard as she continues to move with purpose. His eyes flutter open, the aftershocks of her movements tweaking every nerve in his body.

Her lips are rolled between her teeth as she bites down. She looks down at him with determination and he starts moving his hands again, guiding her over and over against his still hard cock.

“You going to come for me, doll?” Her eyebrows furrow as she nods, resting her chin against her chest as she feels the beginning of her climax rolling in waves between her legs. He presses a kiss to her lips, gently coaxing the orgasm that was so obviously ready to tip her over the edge, “I know you want to, doll. Cum for me the way I came for you.”

His words make her insides twist and release, dropping her orgasm on her like a bomb, “Oh, shit, Calum.”

Her jaw drops as he gently rocks her against himself, letting her bask in every single electric spark in her nerves like he did. Her shoulders tense and relax, her stomach muscles flexing against his torso as she finishes, her body spasming with each movement of her hips.

She presses her hands to Calum’s chest when she’s finished, feeling his pounding heartbeat under her palm. She looks at him in the eyes, blurry from her high and her orgasm. Adoration is woven in her pupils as they adjust to the light of him in front of her.

“Hi,” he sighs and she lets out a blissed-out giggle.

“Hi,” she repeats, resting her head on his bare shoulder. She curls up against his chest. Calum’s hands find their way up to her back, stroking the skin and rubbing her back as she evens out her breathing. He’s sitting there, in disbelief of what happened, with no complaints at all.

“I enjoyed that,” she mutters, sitting upright again, looking Calum in the eyes.

“I too enjoyed that,” his voice is raspy and he grasps her face in his hands, “I want that again. And again, and again, and again...” he trails off and she smiles down at him.

“How about a date first?”

“Deal.”

#5sos #5sos blurb #5sos fic #5sos fluff #5sos imagine #5sos smut #CH #calum hood #calum hood blurb #calum hood fic #calum hood fluff #calum hood imagine #calum hood smut #smutified #imagined #isabella writes

275 notes · View notes

grapefruitsketches · 4 years ago

Text

Keep Me Warm

Rated T, 1,800 Words. Songxiao, Modern AU, Just Fluff, First Kisses, and mentioned Wei Wuxian, gremlin nephew extraordinaire

My 5th and final fill for @touchmycoat‘s Songxiao Reverse Itty Bitty Bang 2020

Inspired by aftersector‘s art on twitter at aftersector/status/1305312610389233665 (link in reblogs/notes)

Also for fytheuntamed’s Untamed Fall Fest Day 16: Bundle (I haven’t forgotten about Days 8-12 and Day 15 - they’re coming! Just had to get this one in before event end :) )

(AO3 link also in notes/reblog)

Song Lan could see that Xingchen was trying. Really trying. But eventually, the pursed lips, the shuddering chest couldn’t contain his laughter anymore.

Xingchen snorted, “I’m sorry, Zichen, really, I am but…” Xingchen looked his friend up and down, now trying to cover his giggles with a fist, “I just… where did you even get all of this stuff? I only saw you bring one backpack.”

Song Lan tried to answer, but the scarf muffled the words completely. He reached to unwind it, but the layers he wore left his limbs stiff, awkward. Then, when he finally got his arms oriented the right way, all he could manage was to scrabble at the edges of the scarf with his mittens until finally Xingchen took mercy and pulled it loose for him, “And how did you even get all of this on?” Xingchen asked, incredulous.

Song Lan didn’t immediately answer. He had been momentarily distracted by the way Xingchen’s mouth did that thing, that lopsided smile that made Song Lan’s heart quicken, made him grateful that his reddening face could be credited to the clothing he was wrapped tight in, to the overheating. Not… anything else.

“Zichen?” Xingchen prompted again, tilting his head, wrapping the loosened ends of the scarf around his own arm for safekeeping.

“Where do you think?” Zichen said, voice gruff, but unable to keep anything but a smile on his face in front of this man.

Xingchen threw his head back and let out another burst of laughter before sighing, “My nephew. Of course.”

Song Lan nodded, chuckling himself at his own gullibility.

He had never been to Xingchen’s family home before, tucked away as it was in the mountains. But when Xingchen had heard that Song Lan’s family wouldn’t be home this year, and that he was otherwise planning to stay in the city, studying all winter break, Xingchen had invited him to the massive family get together Xingchen’s mothers threw each year. Song Lan had heard so many hilarious, even if now horrifying, stories about it. Even so, he had accepted the invitation immediately.

So this morning, he had asked Wei Wuxian for help. Wuxian, despite being Xingchen’s nephew, was far closer to their age than Xingchen’s sister was. And too late he had realized his mistake, already two coats deep and in enough layers of pants that he had lost count.

“He told me I needed to be careful of frostbite,” Song Lan shrugged, “And then next thing I knew, well...” He looked down to the snow pants, ski jacket, and heavy waterproof mittens Wei Wuxian had insisted on. And this was only what Xingchen could see, Song Lan able to feel the weight of the several layers underneath, the layers which made Song Lan’s usually well-fitting jacket strain at the zipper.

“Just like his mother,” Xingchen shook his head, broad grin on his face, “We’re just going for a walk, Zichen. I live in the mountains, sure, but not the Arctic.”

“I see the error of my ways now,” Song Lan replied wryly, “But could you… ah…” he wiggled his arms helplessly, silently hoping Wei Wuxian was proud of himself, to have brought him down to such a humiliating state.

Xingchen nodded, still obviously amused, but got to work, “You know,” he said, pulling off the three toques stuffed within each other, tossing them to floor, presumably to pull back apart later, “If you didn’t know what to wear you could’ve… always asked me?” Song Lan almost thought he heard a note of shyness to Xingchen’s tone, his averted gaze.

“I would’ve… I just,” Song Lan shrugged, ignoring the feeling of Xingchen’s warm breath on his cheek as the other man carefully unzipped the jacket, avoided thinking too hard about the accidental brush of their hands as Xingchen helped Song Lan pull the jacket off of Song Lan’s well-padded arms. Song Lan sighed, “Didn’t want to bother you?”

That wasn’t quite it. Song Lan had agonized over what to wear on this walk around Xingchen’s family home, fussed over having too many, then too few, options. He didn’t want to seem not under, or over, prepared. So he had finally caved and gone to Wuxian, knowing at least then, whatever happened wasn’t technically his fault.

“Oh, Zichen,” Xingchen shook his head, voice far more earnest than a light-hearted conversation like this necessarily required. It made Song Lan’s head buzz pleasantly, as Xingchen told him, “You can always come to me. It would never be a bother.”

“N-noted,” Song Lan internally flinched at the stutter. He was sure it would let Xingchen read just how much those words flustered him.

“There,” Xingchen said, ignoring the stutter even if had noticed, casting the last of the too-tight jackets aside, “That should be loose enough that you should, ah, be able to take the rest off yourself,” Xingchen was smiling, but he was also definitely averting his eyes.

“Hmm? Oh!” Song Lan flushed realizing, “I’ll, uh… yeah, I can do this bit.”

He debated internally a few long moments whether he should go all the way back up to the guest room to change, or if he should just remove the extra layers of shirts, of pants, right here in the foyer. There were layers below everything he wanted to remove, but the action felt… odd in front of Xingchen. He didn’t want to seem so modest as to trudge all the way upstairs, but the atmosphere had grown oddly tense as Song Lan paused, neither moving away nor moving to pull the excess clothing off. He ended up compromising by shuffling over to the edge of the room and ducking halfway behind a doorway. For the next few minutes, he pulled layer after layer off, neatly folding the excess garments and coming back out to Xingchen in just a simple pair of jeans, socks, and a cable knit sweater.

“There you are,” Xingchen said in what was almost a whisper. Song Lan nodded back, the mood suddenly much quieter. For some reason, it just felt natural to let Xingchen help him back into the jacket that the man was still holding. Song Lan caught his friend’s eye as he zipped up the front, gaze lingering maybe a moment or two longer than strictly necessary.

Then Xingchen pulled away, smile wavering just a little, blinking a little faster than usual, “Your boots?” he said, his voice even lower now.

Song Lan nodded silently and pulled them on, joining Xingchen at the front door as they pushed out into the winter air, cold air greeting them, feathery snowflakes drifting lazily downwards. The wind was thankfully much calmer this morning than when they had arrived the night before.

“This is my favourite weather,” Xingchen remarked, looking around him, at the snow-capped trees, as they trudged slowly through the half foot of snow already accumulated on the path it had been shoveled he night before.

“Mm,” Song Lan said, though he felt his eyes again drift not towards his surroundings but towards his companion, “It’s perfect.”

Xingchen nodded serenely, then glanced down at his arm.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “Sorry, Zichen, I forgot I had it,” he turned and they caught one another’s eyes again. Xingchen continued, more quietly now, “Your scarf?” He slowly unraveled the knit garment from where it was still wrapped around his arm, somehow having been woven around Xingchen’s arm even more while Song Lan hadn’t been looking. Xingchen held it out taut, head tilted, looking for permission.

Song Lan nodded in answer and ducked his head, letting Xingchen reach over his head, drape the scarf over his neck. And Xingchen was close now. Very close. Song Lan realized it, and Xingchen seemed to as well. But despite their proximity, neither seemed to want to pull away. Xingchen’s hands still gripped the ends of the scarf in some vague attempt at plausible deniability, as though it only made sense to keep holding onto the ends of your friend’s scarf, long after gravity would do the work of keeping it on their shoulders.

Song Lan felt his cheeks light up with heat again, the scarf, shifting ever so slightly in Xingchen’s unsteady touch, registering as an extension of Xingchen’s fingers.

“Zichen?” Xingchen asked, under his breath.

“Mnm?” Zichen replied, gently, trying not to break whatever delicate bubble they were now caught in.

“I’m… I’m really glad you’re here.”

“I’m really glad you’re here too,” Song Lan whispered back without pause, every fibre of his body electric at the closeness of their breath, visible, merging, in the cold morning air. He almost shuddered at the almost, but not quite touch between them. He smirked, the tension getting to be just a bit too much, “But do you know what I’m even happier about?”

“What?” Xingchen furrowed his brow, confused.

Song Lan bent just a bit closer to Xingchen’s level, the gap between them shortening. He whispered in his best deadpan, “I’m really glad I’m not bundled up like a marshmallow anymore.”

Xingchen burst out into laughter again, the sound even more beautiful this close. Song Lan beamed.

“You,” Xingchen, hands still on Song Lan’s scarf, pulled. It was gentle, wouldn’t have moved Song Lan if he hadn’t let it. Now he and Song Lan were mere centimetres apart, eye to eye, “Are ridiculous,” Xingchen concluded.

And then, quickly, easily, any chill filtering through Song Lan’s system from the winter air was expelled as the rest of the space between them closed. Xingchen’s lips soft, gentle, were pressed to Song Lan’s forehead. There was only the briefest moment of surprise. Of shock. Song Lan’s eyes were wide. They darted up, and Song Lan would be able to count every freckle dotted across Xingchen’s cheek. He had to catch himself, stop himself from falling over completely, leaning a hand to Xingchen’s chest. Xingchen’s hand, was meanwhile struggling to find purchase in the slippery fabric of Song Lan’s winter coat as though to pull him even closer.

Song Lan melted into the touch completely and closed his eyes. His own hand moved instinctively from Xingchen’s chest to his back, and Xingchen’s lips broke away, flashing Song Lan a momentary smile, before letting Song Lan’s hand pull them closer, Xingchen wrapping his own arm around Song Lan.

The snow swirled around, lighting gently in their hair, on their lashes as they held each other close. And gradually, so gradually, yet so inevitably, they turned, were now looking eye to eye again, their noses all but touching. All that would be needed was a slight tilt and…

Their lips met, found each other as though it was always meant to be this way. The two of them, pressed close together in the wind, in the snow.

And Song Lan had never felt warmer.

#untamed fall fest #sxreverseibb #songxiao #xiao xingchen #song lan #cql #the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #my writing

43 notes · View notes

just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi · 4 years ago

Note

You don't have to do this, but what if you wrote the scene where Brody was Dylan's stress reliever? >:) Like I said, just a suggestion.

[Why, of course, Anon! I am nothing if not a sucker for following prompts sent to me. No editing - we die as MEN. Also: i’m using this as my first BTHB fill! - lifted by neck @badthingshappenbingo]

CW: violent beating, violent/angry whumper, pet whump, collar mention, blood mention, injury, swearing, ....Dylan...

[Masterlist]

Brody heard keys jingling the door and he rounded the corner excitedly. Samuel had gotten home early! He had finished his tasks hours ago, and he had just been sitting in the laundry room. He didn’t have anything to do in there, but it was as good a place to sit and wait as anywhere else.

And the fabric softener smelled nice.

His face was bright and hopeful, but it fell quickly. Very quickly.

Dylan was here, furious and striding towards him.

“O-oh, hello. Do, do you want a-“ Dylan grabbed Brody’s hair, yanking his head down into his knee as he raised it. He felt something deep inside his face crack before he felt the flood of pain, before he registered the sound he heard as coming from himself. Dylan grabbed the back of his shirt and threw him against the wall, knocking a picture frame off the wall. He knocked into it with a cry and crumpled to the ground, disoriented and head throbbing in pain.

“Fucking shitbag Chase, acting like he owns the place,” Dylan shouted as he dug kick after kick into Brody’s ribs with his heavy work boots. He tried to curl up, to protect himself, but the blows didn’t stop. They knocked the breath out of his lungs, and he nearly choked on blood as he tried to gasp for breath.

“You know I’ve been with the company longer than you have, right?! Just because you were hot stuff at your old placement doesn’t mean that you can come in here and boss me around!” He gave one last kick, and Brody felt another snap inside him. He cried out, voice grating.

It was the wrong move.

“Oh, you don’t like that?” Dylan growled, crouching over. If a flash of pure adrenaline, Brody scrambled back and away, down the hall towards the kitchen. Dylan’s face twisted with rage, overcoming the boy in just a few steps.

“Oh no you don’t. You know better than to run away from me. Or least, if you didn’t before, you’ll know now.”

Brody cowered away, raising his hands to try and defend his already bleeding and bruised face. Dylan picked up his foot and stomped it into the middle of Brody’s chest. Brody’s body curled up around it from the force, knocking the newly found breath out of his lungs again and squeezing a weak cry from him.

Dylan lifted his foot only to reach down and grab Brody by his shirt collar. He was so disoriented, so overwhelmed with pain, that he couldn’t even keep his head up. It lulled back, bell on his collar making a small tinkling sound.

The noise enraged Dylan even further.

“God, I hate that stupid fucking bell. Sam probably bought it just to mess with me,” he growled shoving Brody back down with a thud.

“P-ple-ase,” Brody whimpered, unable to think of what he was even pleading for anymore. For it to stop? For Dylan to knock him unconscious? For Samuel to come home?

Wordlessly, Dylan unbuckled Brody’s collar. One hand grabbed Brody’s jaw, the other twisted back into the boy’s hair. With one furious motion, he wrenched Brody’s jaw open and shoved the bell so far into the boy’s mouth he gagged on it.

“Shut. Up! Sam loves to go on and on about how he got a pet that was ‘pre-trained’ for him, but I think you’re fucking shit at it,” he spit at he buckled the leather collar around his head like a gag.

None of the words that been hurled at him hurt so far, but those sunk deep. He was trying. He was trying his hardest. Tears already ran down his face, but Brody could feel a strange sense of shame burn underneath them. Not shame at being someone else’s stress relief toy, not the shame of having his own collar used as a gag, but shame in that he wasn’t a very good pet.

Dylan’s hand wrapped around his throat and pulled, lifting him up in the air. His hands few to Dylan’s wrist, instinct and panic taking over. His socked feet scrambled to find the tile of the kitchen, but it was centimetres away.

Centimetres too far.

He scratched and dug at Dylan’s hands as the corners of his vision started to go dark. Dylan squeezed, cutting off his airflow even further. He didn’t hold him for long, however, slamming his back into the wall again. He raised Brody a little higher just to drop him.

“You know you’re a spoiled brat, right? God, he’s so soft on you and you really don’t deserve it. If you were mine, I don’t think you could make it twenty minutes between punishments. People wouldn’t even know what you looked like you’d be so black and blue.”

Brody lay in a pile of limbs on the floor. The world around him was spinning, and he couldn’t tell if he was too. The pain in his head was sharp and throbbing in unison with the pain in his chest and neck. He could feel a stab in his lungs when he breathed, and his entire torso felt like it was bruised. He didn’t even realize that Dylan had walked away until he came back.

He had grabbed the first thing that he could find; an extension cord from Samuel’s office. He snapped it across Brody’s face once like a whip, leaving a thin welt across his cheek and splitting his lip. Brody tried to raise a hand to deflect another lash, but he could barely move his arms, let alone defend himself.

Dylan grabbed his wrist and then the other, yanking him up into a sitting position. He wrapped the cord around tightly, Brody’s fingers already feeling hot and swollen. Brody had had his wrists tied before, cuffs, rope, zip-ties, and even one of his old Master’s ties once, but the cord was the tightest out of all of them.

A high-pitched ringing drowned out everything else after Dylan slammed his head back down into the floor. His eyes felt so, so heavy and his vision was blurry. He turned his head as if he was underwater, just in time to see the boot coming towards his face.

He passed out, but Dylan didn’t care.

He didn’t need the pet to be awake to be stress relief.

@poisonedbymagic @sola-whumping @haro-whumps @deluxewhump @whumpzone @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @simplygrimly @whumpsy-daisies @whumptywhumpdump @crystals-whump-sideblog @welcome-to-the-whumpfest @pineapple-heartache @whumpiestofthemall @whump-story-prompts @whump-it @leavemeinpeaceplz @much-ado-about-whumping @throughthedoomdays @ohmywhump @liliability @newbornwhumperfly @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @lave-e @thatsthewhump

[pls let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist, or would prefer to only be tagged in official chapters]

Eye = Hilton Sun Glasses = Mark Davies Paw print = Brody

Let me know if there is anything you want to see with any character! (link to other full cast of ocs)

#pet whump #violent whumper #brody #whump #beating tw #swearing tw #bthb #dylan has a lot of issues #thanks anon!#brody says thanks too #but I think he's being sarcastic #hard to tell

84 notes · View notes

redrebecca · 6 years ago

Text

His Muse

After years of keeping it to himself, he finally confesses who his muse, ‘Mystery Girl’, is.

A/N: A friend to lovers trope because why not? I’ve fully accepted the days when i would write a fic in an afternoon are over because this took agessss. Anyway, feedback is always appreciated, have a great day!

Words: 5.6k

“What’s next?” You asked, opening the notes app in your phone.

“Where were you in the morning.” He replied, his voice suddenly muffled by a cushion as he hid his face. You giggled.

“You embarrassed Mendes?” You teased. He pushed the cushion off his face and scowled at you.

“Okay, okay,” You held up your hands in surrender knowing that Shawn really didn’t like being mocked about his failed one night stand – he got enough teasing off his crew, he didn’t need you to start as well. A satisfied smirk remained on your face as you read what you had written on the flight to Toronto.

“It has to be Rosie” You said confidently.

“Rosie?” He raised his head to look at you, supporting his weight on his elbows. You forced yourself to keep your eyes trained on his face and not the tight shirt he was wearing that just got impossibly tighter.

“You know, the brunette with the blue streaks in her hair?” Shawn raised his eyebrows.

“I think she had an eyebrow piercing?”

“Oh!” A look of realization crossed his face before his eyebrows pinched together once more. “Wait, wasn’t she called Rosa?” There was a moment of silence as you both thought back to whenever you had met her before shrugging your shoulders simultaneously.

“So it wasn’t about Rosie.” You muttered, deleting her name from the list you had under the song title.

“I’m sure she was a Rosa.” You barely heard his mumble from the other end of the couch.

You were currently on Shawn’s couch, the two of you lying head to toe – well, your toes didn’t quite reach Shawn’s head but chest to toe wasn’t as catchy.

It had been a tradition since Shawn wrote his very first song that you would guess who they were about. At the start Shawn had been hesitant about telling you – his music was open to the public but the muse had always been something that was very private to him. But gradually, as the two of you became closer and bonded over the stress of your high school physics class, the more honest he was and more inclined he became to discussing his music and letting you into his thoughts.

It was when you saw the tweets that SM3 was a year old that you realized that you hadn’t had your customary album sleepover – your uni classes and his festival run made finding free time almost impossible. It only took a quick facetime call to Shawn, a few clicks on an airline’s website and you stuffing a backpack with anything you considered to be an essential and you were on your way to the airport.

“I give up.” You sighed, flopping back on the couch and nudging his ribs with your foot. “Who was it?”

“D’you remember that girl at the bar in Toronto? The one in the red dress?” You were silent for a second, racking your brain for any memory you had of someone in a bar.

“It was on Brian’s birthday.” He added, trying his best to help you remember.

You sat up abruptly. “The hot blonde?” You said, disbelief weaved into your tone. He nodded with a smirk on his face.

“What can I say, I’ve got game.” He winked at you, no doubt causing your cheeks to flush as you desperately shoved the tingly feeling to the back of your consciousness. After all, you’d been denying your feelings for more than two years now and there was no way you were going to let one wink crack your resistance. So instead of blurting out your feelings, you rolled your eyes.

“Well, clearly not enough to make her stay.” You grinned cheekily as his eyes snapped from the ceiling back to you. He huffed, cutting you a glare.

“I am this close,” He held up his thumb and index finger, “To kicking you off my couch.”

“Do it.” You challenged. “And when you wake up with no chest hair, we’ll see who’s laughing.” He swallowed, his Adams apple rising and falling.

“And last but not least, the next song is?” He said, not even bothering to hide the blatant change in subject. You snorted but looked at your notes nonetheless.

“When you’re ready.” You smiled, it was your favourite from the album and something Shawn was very aware of.

“Who do you think?” Shawn said softly, but you were too busy scrolling through the long list of possibilities to notice the way he was looking at you. He took a moment to appreciate your look of focus as you narrowed down the list, stopping himself from chuckling as he knew you would never be able to guess who it was about.

He watched intently as you nibbled your lip, your front teeth sinking into your bottom lip did things to him he knew it shouldn’t. But at the same time he was so mesmerised, completely captivated by even the smallest things that you did, that he couldn’t bring himself to care about the teasing comments Brian gave him whenever he caught Shawn’s lingering gazes as you laughed at a cheesy joke Zubin told, or how Manny would send him knowing smirks when Shawn had to dash to the toilet after seeing you in a figure hugging dress.

He brushed them off and eventually stopped trying to deny it, because why should he? He had spent years trying to fight his feelings, but to no avail. So he stopped trying because he realized that it wasn’t just a teenage hormone fuelled phase - he was hopelessly falling head over heels for you and although it was scary, it was equally exhilarating and exciting (and it had been creating some damn good lyrics).

“You there?” He was broken out of his thoughts by your voice and a soft kick to his side.

“Sorry, just thinking.” He said, clearing his throat before giving you his full attention. “What did you say?”

“I said I don’t know. Who is it?” You clicked your phone off and left it in the gap between Shawn’s calves and reached to tug the blanket a bit closer to your chest.

“Guess.” He quipped whilst grabbing onto the blanket and pulling it back down to your waist and up to his chin.

“But I don’t know.” You groaned, continuing the small game of tug of war the two of you started as you yanked the soft throw from out of his grasp. However, instead of retaliating once again, Shawn stuck his foot in your face.

“S-Shawn” You spluttered as you pushed at his foot, which only caused the fabric of his sock to rub against your cheek.

“What?” Despite his best efforts, you could easily hear the mischievous lilt to his voice. It was the tone you had become very familiar with. Whenever he tried to appear unaware of something he was obviously doing or when he couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice, his tone rose. You always loved the cheeky and stress free side of Shawn, but not when his foot was pressed onto your face.

“Get your sweaty foot away from me!” You let out a scream as he began to inch his other foot closer to you, which quickly halted his attack on your sense of smell as he bolted upright and stared at you wide eyed.

“Shhh!” He urged, frantically glancing to his watch, “It’s 3am, you can’t start screaming.” He quietly scolded, his eyes darting anxiously towards his front door, as if his entire apartment complex would be knocking it down at any second.

“3am my backside! You had your stinky socks in my face, what was I supposed to do?” You sat up as well, shoving his leg off your torso. You hoped you looked as intimidating as you wanted to, but had to remind yourself that in your fluffy sheep print pyjama bottoms (the ones Shawn himself had bought you as a joke for your birthday) and an old harry potter t-shirt you had claimed from the bottom of Shawn’s drawer, you probably weren’t achieving the ‘I’m a bad bitch, try me’ look that you were going for.

“I don’t know! Maybe not scream when my neighbours are asleep down the corridor?” He whisper-shouted back, flinging one of his long arms towards the door.

“I couldn’t breathe!” You argued. You both glared at each other, his hazel eyes staring right back at you. As the seconds passed, the wrinkles became more apparent by the corners of his eyes and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to subdue a grin from breaking onto your face. Mere moments later, Shawn spluttered, unable to remain stoic and you both burst out laughing, the stupidity of your situation eventually catching up to the two of you.

A pathetic “Shh.” left Shawn’s lips but it only was drowned out by even louder laughter as you clutched at your stomach while Shawn gasped for breath only a few centimetres away. Neither of you were sure whether it was the early hour delusion or the fact that you had been deprived of each other’s company for much longer than was considered to be acceptable by either of your standards. That said, neither of you particularly cared, especially not when the jarring sound of a snort briefly filled the room which only sent you deeper into hysterical laughter as Shawn rushed to cover his nose and mouth with his hands.

You started to tip back and if Shawn hadn’t have grabbed your wrist at the last moment you would’ve landed on the hardwood floor. He pulled you into his chest, securing you a safe distance from the edge of the couch as his body shook with silent laughter. The giggles slowly faded but the smiles never faltered, the only noticeable difference was the red flush of your cheeks as you finally registered your position. Your legs were over his lap and you were basically sitting on him. Usually he would let you go after a minute or two but when you felt his arms tighten around you, there was nothing you could do to stop the even brighter smile as you wrapped your arms around him.

“Kayleigh?” You breathed. Shawn’s chin left the top of your head to peer down at you.

“Huh?” He replied.

“When you’re ready.” You twisted to see his face. “You told me to guess.” You could see the realization in his eyes as it clicked. You also saw the smug smile as he shook his head.

“Nope.” He said, purposefully popping the p. “Guess again.” You huffed slightly, but still did your best to try and remember the list on your phone – your lack of photographic memory really not helping you out. You quickly scanned the couch.

“I need my phone.” You said. As Shawn began to shift underneath you, you sighed, cursing yourself for ending the precious moment you had with his strong arms looped around you. However, his arms never moved. Instead he looked at you with a slight grimace.

“I think I’m sitting on it.” He shuffled again and looked at you sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m definitely sitting on it.” You giggled.

“You know what, I don’t want it anymore.” You teased causing him to tilt his head back and laugh softly. You had to tear your gaze away from his exposed neck and remind yourself that you didn’t want your phone because it was currently under his ass – not because you wanted to stay in his arms for a little longer.

“Jessica?”

“Na-uh.”

“The barista you were talking to?”

“Gold digger.”

“Morgan?”

“N-” He paused and pulled his head off the back of the couch to look at you, an amused chuckle leaving his lips. “I don’t even know a Morgan.” You shrugged and leaned into his shoulder.

“Was worth a try.” You murmured against the cotton of his t-shirt. Your close proximity meant you felt every vibration as his chuckle reverberated through his chest. “So,” You started, but the words didn’t come.

“So…” Shawn repeated, drawing out the word.

“Please just tell me.” You whined. He looked, no – he gazed at you before he let a soft breath pass through his slightly parted lips.

“Mystery girl.” He murmured. You pulled back, eyes wide in disbelief and you desperately tried to ignore the tinge of jealousy you felt in the pit of your stomach.

“Again?” He nodded bashfully, his cheeks flushing as blood rushed to his face. Noticing the unusual shyness in his expression you stopped yourself - you didn’t want him to start building his walls back up, not after so much time and effort had been put into getting him to freely open up to you. Nudging his shoulder you finally brought his attention away from his hands and towards your face. “So she’s got 20 songs dedicated to her by Shawn Mendes himself.”

He squeezed your knee gratefully and sent you a warm smile. “Yeah, something like that.” He said quietly. “That’s only the released ones.” He said impossibly quieter.

This time you made more of an effort to hide your shock. “There’s more?” You knew you were on thin ice, you made sure to tread lightly knowing that one poorly judged action could send you into ice cold water. He squirmed, an obvious sign that he was getting uncomfortable. To your surprise, instead of brushing off the comment, he took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

“I have journals and stacks of paper that are filled with words all the way through to completed songs.” Stunned, you remained quiet. You had known he liked her but damn he was in deep if he had pages and pages dedicated to her. But Shawn took no notice of your sudden silence. “She doesn’t know though.” You opened your mouth, but always one step ahead, Shawn had already anticipated your reply. “She can’t either.”

“Why not? I mean, if she has such a big effect on you she must be perfect, so why not go for it?” He shook his head and focused on his feather ring instead of your questioning gaze. “Shawn.” You said softly. His hazel eyes hesitantly returned to yours. “Do you love her?” You hated the words that left your lips for you already knew the answer. Every word he sung and every lyric he wrote held so much passion and emotion that you didn’t need his confirmation at all.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I think,” He paused, processing his thoughts into words. You could do nothing but watch as he ran his hand through his curls and tugged in frustration. For a man who had an amazing talent with words, his feelings for this mystery girl had rendered him speechless. “I think it’s too early for that,” he sent you a look, imploring you to understand, you nodded reassuringly at him. He paused for a moment but not once did he take his eyes off you until he spoke again. “But I think I’m in love with the idea of loving her.”

At that moment, as much as you wanted to scream, shout and yell about how unfair and cruel life was, you couldn’t help the happiness you felt for him. After all, you had always wanted him to find his person and although you were having to accept the unwanted reality that it wasn’t you - one look at his love-struck expression as he gazed out of the window at the skyline made you push away all the bubbles of jealousy. He was happy and there was no way you’d let yourself stand in the way of that.

Suddenly it felt wrong to have your legs across his lap and your arm wrapped behind his back. You swung your legs back to your side and moved to pull out of his arms but gave up rather quickly when Shawn kept his hold tight with no intentions of letting you go.

“What are you doing?” He asked, a tinge of hurt seeped into his tone.

“My legs were going numb.” It wasn’t exactly a lie but it was a terrible excuse. Whether Shawn believed it or not, he made no attempt to press you further.

“I just don’t know what to do.” You felt an ache in your chest at his words. He sounded so defeated and tired.

“You have to talk to her.” He stayed quiet so you continued to talk. “What would you do if another boy asked her out and she said yes because she thought no one else was interested?” He opened and closed his mouth several times but you didn’t stop. “This could be your only chance Shawn,” You nudged his shoulder. “Stop playing it safe you big baby.” He sent you a light hearted glare and mock huffed, crossing his arms over his chest as best as he could considering he had you tucked under one of them.

“Maybe I’m scared.” He wondered aloud. You pushed back from his side as far as you could in his embrace.

“Don’t you get all wimpy on me Mendes.” You chided, playfully pointing your finger at him. “I will not hesitate to recite Life of the Party.” He chuckled.

“And I will not hesitate to push you off the couch.”

“We’ve already had this discussion so you should remember the consequences.” You reached forward and pulled a chest hair that was peeking out from under the neckline of his shirt. He yelped and swatted your hand away before scowling at you which only caused you to giggle.

“I’ll figure something out.” He murmured.

“You better do it quickly because there’s no way I’m letting you avoid telling her the truth.” He chuckled softly at your words, knowing you well enough to know that it wasn’t an empty threat. Shawn was certain if you really wanted to that you would march him to Mystery Girl’s front door and make him proclaim his feelings to her. If only she knew, he thought.

“I’ll try.”

“Good, ‘cause we don’t have the time to be sorry.” He whipped his head back to you, raising an eyebrow daring you to push him a bit further.

You held his challenging stare. “So baby be the life of the party, I’m telling you t-” The next lyrics were cut off by your own muffled squeal as Shawn shoved you towards the edge of the couch, he kept his arms around you to ensure that you wouldn’t fall – he had fallen over on that floor too many times to know that it hurt like a bitch.

“You’re gonna get it Mendes.” You threatened as you heaved yourself back up. Once again, your threatening glare had no effect on him as he enveloped you in his arms.

“Just go to sleep.” He murmured. Instead of fighting him and your exhaustion you shuffled closer to him and threw the blanket over the two of you.

“Night Shawn.” You said whilst yawning. Shawn chuckled quietly.

“Goodnight honey.” He replied softly. It didn’t take long for your breaths to become slower and deeper as the early hours and the warmth of Shawn made it impossible not to fall asleep. Shawn tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear and smiled at your sleeping form – completely passed out in a few minutes.

He didn’t get any sleep that night. He blamed it on his self-diagnosed insomnia and how he needed to be prepared in case you followed through with your chest hair threat. It certainly wasn’t because he was too busy admiring you.

“Hey, are you nearly here?” Your teeth chattered as you alternated the hand which was holding your phone with the one that you had tucked under your armpit.

“I’ll be two or three minutes honey, go and wait inside I’ll text you when I get there.” You didn’t have to be told twice and hurried into the warmth of the foyer, thanking him before you hung up and stuffed your phone into your clutch.

“Y/n?” You looked up to see your best friend walk over to you. “I thought you had gone home, do you not have a lift?”

“Shawn’s picking me up, he’s just a little bit late.” Natalie smiled at you before leaning in a bit closer.

“So… Shawn.” You rolled your eyes and nudged her shoulder.

“Stop it, we’re just-”

“-Friends. Yeah, yeah you’ve said it before. But do you know what it reminds me of?”

“Bring up the sit-com and I swear I will walk out.” You warned, not wanting to hear her painfully long explanation about a character’s development or what happened in one particular episode.

“No, just shh.” Natalie pressed a perfectly manicured fingernail to her lips. “It was the exact same thing I used to say about me and Jacob,” She motioned to the man who was chatting to his friends behind her. “And look where we are now.” Natalie grinned triumphantly, knowing she had made a great point. But were you going to accept that? Nope.

“You’ve still got your dress on?” She rolled her eyes but humoured you nonetheless, brushing her hands down the front of her white gown.

“Sweetie, you were there at the fitting. It cost so much that I’m not gonna take it off for the whole honeymoon.” You both broke out into laughter, however Natalie quietened down first, her eyes moving to something over your shoulder. Before you had a chance to question what she was looking at, you felt a hand on your waist. Your first instinct was to move away but your body instantly relaxed when you smelt the familiar scent of Shawn’s cologne. Shawn smiled a bit wider as he greeted Natalie, he too had noticed the shift in your posture and it made him happier than it probably should have.

“I was calling you but you didn’t reply.” He said, turning his attention to you and answering your question before it even left your lips.

“My phone was in my purse, I must’ve missed it.” You opened up your bag and sure enough there was a copious number of notifications of missed calls and texts. He nodded and wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Right, let’s get you home. Congrats Nat!” He sent her one last wave as he turned to go, his arm around you making it very difficult to not go with him. You looked over your shoulder to where Natalie was still standing, a large smirk adorned her face as she winked. You exaggeratedly rolled your eyes and stuck your tongue out at her before wrapping your arm around Shawn.

The air was cold against your bare arms. You huddled closer to Shawn’s side in an attempt to try and stop yourself from shivering. It didn’t work but it was worth a try. And it meant you were closer to Shawn, so you weren’t exactly complaining “Nearly at the car.” He murmured into your hair as you made your way through the carpark. Just as Shawn had said, his car was only a few meters away, much to your delight. He unlocked it and you hastily clambered into the passenger seat before Shawn even had a chance to politely open the car door for you. He chuckled and made his way around to the driver’s seat. Once he was in, he was quick to start the engine. “Do you want the heated seats on?” He asked as he glanced at your shivering form. You had lost count of how many times you had teased him for having heated seats in his new car, after all that’s where the nickname ‘Sweaty Bum Shawn’ originated – it was also where you realised Shawn’s defensiveness towards being called that nickname. Trying your best not to think about how Shawn will never let you live this down, you begrudgingly nod. His smirk is the only indication you need to know that he is never going to let you forget this.

“How was the wedding?” He said, turning down the radio to hear you better.

You sighed. “The cake was really nice.”

“Did you bring me any?” He asked, you weren’t entirely sure if he was being serious – he probably was because nothing came in between that boy and chocolate cake. You shook your head and he was quick to switch off your heated seats.

“What are you doing?” You exclaimed whilst reaching over the centre console to turn it back on. However Shawn caught your wrist before it reached anywhere remotely near the button and placed your hand back on your lap.

“If I die of hunger I’m blaming you.” He accused, a slow and sarcastic tutting sound coming from his mouth as he looked over his shoulder to change lanes.

“Well if I die of hypothermia it’s all on you. I can’t imagine that being great publicity, y’know the death of your best friend on your conscience. But I reckon E! News would have a field day with that story.” Despite himself, he couldn’t help but laugh and flick the heated seats back on. You instantly sunk back into the car seat.

“So apart from the food, did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yeah I did, I mean its Nat’s wedding and wherever she’s involved there’s always one hell of a party.” Shawn chuckled beside you. He didn’t know her as well as you did, but he had met her enough times to know that she was a… lively character.

“But I-” You paused and shook your head, playing with the silver bracelet on your wrist.

Shawn quirked an eyebrow at you, his voice softening as he sensed the tinge of unhappiness in your voice. “What is it honey?”

“It’s just that.” You stopped again and swallowed. Shawn’s hand came to rest on your knee, his thumb rubbing smooth circles against the material of your dress. The action threw you off slightly and you took a second longer than necessary before you spoke. “Natalie is the last one of my friends to get married.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure there’ll be more weddings to go to. I’ve still got a few single cousins.” Shawn reassured you, completely misunderstanding the way you were heading.

“No it’s not that. I- I think I’m jealous.” His thumb stopped moving, his whole body froze.

“What do you mean?” He breathed.

“They always talk about how great love is. That they always have that constant person who they can talk to and get advice from or how they can trust them with their life and how they can’t wait to wake up to the same person for the rest of their lives. I just want that – I just want someone to love me.” You weren’t sure when the tears had started or when Shawn had pulled the car over. He wiped the tears off your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs.

You offered him a watery smile and he pulled you into him. His hand trailed up and down your arm as you sniffled into his shirt. You finally pulled back and willed the tears to keep at bay.

“You are loved.” You shook your head, the tears once again threatening to spill.

“Stop it.” You whispered. You didn’t want to be fed spoonfuls of false hope, not now, especially not in your emotional state.

“No, you stop it. You are loved, so, so much.” You snorted and pushed his chest. It was what you did best, pushing people away if they came too close – literally and metaphorically.

“By who Shawn? Go on, enlighten me – who is the guy lucky enough to love me?” Your words dripped with self-disdain and sarcasm and Shawn visibly faltered at them.

“Me. I love you.” His voice was hoarse and frail but it still managed to hold the weight of the meaning behind his words. The words you had waited so long to hear – so long that it didn’t seem real, it couldn’t be.

“As a friend, Shawn.” You repeated the words you had told yourself so many times. You couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eyes - you were scared of what you would see. Pity? Frustration? Love?

The sound of his chuckle was jarring and you couldn’t help but look at him, your face a picture of confusion. “I think we both know this is a bit more than just friends, it always has been.” His stare was so intense and yet you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. He was right as well. You had grown up with Shawn and Brian as your best friends but you and Shawn had always had something more. He took notice of your silence and the mix of emotions in your eyes. “Don’t make me sing Life of the Party.” A small breath of laughter passed through your lips. He took this as a good sign and moved his hand to gently cup your cheek.

It took a moment to fully register his reference to the night when you talked about his album, his stinky socks and mystery girl. Mystery girl. You froze and Shawn realised, his eyes became concerned and his movements were hesitant and cautious.

You shook your head and his hand dropped to your side. “You don’t mean that. What about your Mystery girl? Or is she irrelevant now?” Your words sounded more like a sneer than you intended them to. To your surprise Shawn didn’t reel back at your tone. Instead, a second later he chuckled quietly.

“You really don’t know?” His eyes rove across your face, taking in every last detail of your features. If you weren’t so confused you would’ve been hiding your face in your hands self-consciously. You dreaded to know what you looked like, the black smudge on Shawn’s thumb was enough indication to know that your tear tracks were stained with mascara. Brilliant.

“What?” You sounded exhausted, tired of always playing a guessing game with him, because even when he wasn’t aware of it he always left you questioning what you had.

“It’s you, sweetheart. Mystery Girl is you.”

Your breath hitched in your throat.

This wasn’t real, this wasn’t happening - this was a joke. But the look in Shawn’s eye had no trace of mischief, he was serious, and it was you. The girl you had envied so passionately for so long, the girl who had Shawn desperately falling for her without knowing, was you.

“Honey breathe.” He shook your shoulders and emphasized his own breathing, just like you did with him when he had his panic attacks. You mirrored his inhales and exhales, your shallow breaths becoming more even and steady. He didn’t speak, he simply waited for you to find your voice again.

“Me?” Even you cursed yourself for your stupid reply. Shawn smiled a bit and trailed his hand up and down your arm.

“Yeah. Who else would it be?” His question stumped you. You guessed you never really questioned it – the less you knew, the less pain you would feel whenever you heard about her. You, you reminded yourself, not her, you.

“I don’t know, I didn’t really want to either.” You weren’t sure if he had heard your whisper. His hands stilled around your arm and squeezed – he heard every word.

“So, you like me too?” His eyes desperately searched yours, looking for the answer he had been secretly wanting for way too long. You shut your eyes, and your mouth, not wanting to let a rushed decision ruin the moment. You knew how you felt about him, it was impossible to ignore it, but you were trying so hard to stop yourself from saying the words. Shawn remained quiet. Patiently waiting and letting you take your time like the gentleman he is. Always a gentleman, always kind and caring, always supportive, funny and you can’t remember a time when you had needed him and he hadn’t tried his best to help.

You opened your eyes and met the hazel ones in front of you. You had come too far to back out now simply for the fear of being too forward.

“Shawn, I think I love you.” His eyebrows shot upwards, almost disappearing into his hairline. He didn’t give you time to misinterpret his shock – his lips were on yours before you even had the chance to open your mouth. He smiled into the kiss, his lips pressing against yours perfectly as his tongue traced the line where your top and bottom lip met. The sensation was overpowering – you were kissing Shawn and he was kissing you. That thought alone was enough to make you grin against his lips. Is this what you had been missing out on?

All too soon, Shawn pulled back for breath. You weren’t even sure how you were still breathing, everything seemed surreal, almost too perfect.

“Are you sure you want this?” You want me? Shawn read you like a book, your unspoken words were written as clearly as day across your pages.

“Of course I do. I want you, I need you. I always have.” For the first time, you let yourself fully believe in his words because when had he ever lied to you?

“You could have said something earlier.” You playfully pushed his shoulder. He laughed, dipping his head so his face was dangerously near to your chest.

“Anddd, she’s back.” His laughter eased whatever tension you had left from earlier. You giggled too, surprised by the feelings that coursed through you, it was almost as though you had returned back to your blushing teenage years.

“You are loved, I promise you. I love you and you better remember that.” His light-hearted voice did little to hide the serious tone and meaning to his words. You knew better than to tease him about this.

“I will, I promise.” He pecked your lips and pulled away leaving the two of you supporting large, beaming smiles.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

#shawn mendes #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes x reader #shawn mendes x you #shawn x reader #shawn x you

2K notes · View notes

ajokeformur-ray · 4 years ago

Text

Let me play forevermore // Arthur x Rose // domestic fluff.

This is a personalised piece for @honking4joker; just something small to show my appreciation for you! 💚 I hope that you like it! <3 if there’s anything you want changed, then please let me know and I’ll do that asap. You’re amazing and I love you! <3

Summary: I know it's super mundane but I love domesticated Arthur, like doing the dishes with him, watching him sweep the floors whilst you dust and he's just grooving with the pole, humming and pulling silly faces over at you ahhh 🥺💖

Word count: 1, 217.

Today was a surprise for the both of you; Arthur was supposed to be working, but the storms which had ripped open the sky last night had flooded the streets and it was simply too cold, too dark and too dangerous for Arthur to be out there twirling signs and dancing. As such, Hoyt had phoned Arthur up an hour before his shift was due to start (and Arthur had been almost out of the door; so fine had Hoyt cut his notice to the employee he loathed entirely) and informed him that though he would be paid for his time today, for he had been contracted to those hours, there were no gigs which Arthur would attend. Though it was made to sound as a personal favour, Hoyt was only complying with government guidelines to stay under the radar of the government. He was, first and foremost, a capitalist, and their intentions towards their workers were never good.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth had Arthur been ecstatic to get to spend the day with his Rose. Most often did Arthur come home from work, exhausted right down to his very core, and it was rare that he had the energy to spend the evening with you as he always wanted to. But today... oh, today was a rare treat which the both of you desperately wanted. You had been needing a day like this together, even though the evenings were always yours. You had been asleep when he had been getting ready to leave for work and to say that you were surprised to wake up with Arthur centimetres away from your nose when finally did you awaken was an understatement. Green oceans were the first thing you saw as your eyes fluttered open as finally did you greet the day and you instinctively pulled your head back on the pillow in surprise before you nuzzled back in, the tip of your nose lightly pressing against the soft crease of Arthur’s cheek. “Morning’,” Your voice was thick with sleep and Arthur made a soft ‘hmm’ noise as his hand, cool to the touch, danced across the minute space between your bodies as he pulled you ever closer to him. He was gentle, reverent, in the way that he touched you.

“Hi, my pretty Rose,” Arthur tipped his head and he pressed a kiss to your forehead. The touch was both gentle and bruising, a walking contradiction was your clown, and you could feel the outline of his teeth through his pursed lips, so desperate was his need to reassure not only himself of your existence, but also his need to tell you that he loved you, that he loved you. He always had and he always would and Arthur spent his every waking moment loving on you as hard as he could, for you deserved nothing less than the best of everything and Arthur was so determined to give you all of those things. It was what you did for him, too, just by being yourself, so for Arthur did he consider it the very least that he could do for you. He saw the question in your eyes, so sharp was he and so well did he know you, and he sought to answer it before you even were fully aware of the words forming on the tip of your tongue, “S’stormy, Hoyt gave me the day off. I get paid for it.” Arthur somehow managed to shrug while laying down on his side, a small smile on his face. “I’m all yours for the day.”

Though you wanted to ask Arthur what his plans were, you already knew.

He was going to tidy up and clean around the apartment and you, even still with all of your plans, duties and responsibilities, were going to do what you could to help Arthur with everything. He worked so hard and he did so much and it was the least that you could do for him. But more than that, though, oh, more than that, you wanted to help Arthur around the apartment, to do all those things that he previously had to do all alone. Arthur still had to work hard, he was still daily tried and tired and tested and wasted, but he was no longer alone because of you, his beautiful Rose. If there was one thing you so dearly loved about your Arthur, it was the way he could turn the most mundane, mind numbing chores into something which was fun. Arthur had music in his veins, long since had you suspected this, and it was only confirmed for you when later that day did you walk into the tiled kitchen to find Arthur twirling around the tiny space with a broom, the look on his face mimicking those old fashioned gentlemen in the films his mum liked to watch.

Arthur was leading in the dance, his dark curls swaying along the tops of his shoulders, and though you knew not how he was dancing, it seemed that there was a six step sequence. Arthur was humming the tune to himself, off key, quiet and soft in his raspy voice, and there was a small, serene smile on his face as he moved about the kitchen. The way he lightly dragged his feet across the floor in those cute little white socks which pooled at his ankles did more sweeping than the broom was able to do, with the way Arthur was dancing with it, and you knew that he would be frowning later at the thought of having to get any dirt out of his socks. As Arthur spun around, sweeping the broom in a circle around his feet, he caught you standing there in the doorway, and his smile only widened. “Hi,” his voice was soft, raspy and kind and you could only return his smile with one of your own as you grabbed a feather duster from underneath the sink.

“Hey, Arthur,” You jokingly reached out and booped Arthur on the nose with the end of the very clean feather duster and he giggled and pretended to sneeze.

This motion caused him to then actually sneeze and you laughed. His green eyes were alight with mirth, forever your clown was he, and Arthur reached into one of his sleeves to withdraw a bright green square cloth... which was attached to a red one, and Arthur gasped and feigned surprise as the material kept coming. It ended up pooled at his ankles and Arthur sighed as he held the last link in the chain. “I only wanted one handkerchief,” Arthur almost sounded sad but your eyes met across the small space in the kitchen and it triggered your amusement for the first, but not the final, time that day. Your laughter rang out together and it bounced off the water stained walls, creating a symphony which sung of the unconditional love which you shared. “Come here, Rose.” With a voice thick with laughter did Arthur hold his hand out to you with a flourish worthy of the music which flowed through his veins, and you reached out and took his hand. Arthur’s fingers interlocked with yours and you stepped forward into the rest of your life.

AF/J @impulsiveclown @astheworlddturns @fluffedstar @jokersqueenofchaos @germansarechill @tsukiakarinobara @lynnesm @sagyunaro @docsportello @flowerglitterwoman @ben-solos-writing-avenger @jokers-doll @jokershyena @arthurjokersgirl @antonija89 @lilliryth @hotpacino @obsessedandthirsty @call-me-harley-quinn @anais-angel

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck imagine #joker #joker imagine #joker 2019 #joker 2019 imagine

13 notes · View notes

consavanarola · 4 years ago

Text

Beauty and the bigfoot

Across the north American continent span the great majestic Canadian Rocky mountains. A primordial structure that came from deep within our planet’s body. Imperial and proud yet largely untouched these mountains have been here from our planet’s beginning. It is precisely there that Stephanie chose to escape to for a two year break from life.

This life of: year in, year out, work work work, summer in – summer out, annual performance review, meetings, stress for bank accounts and an endless line of people she would – out of respect for the human race – prefer to not categorize. “Well paid plebs” is what she would call them. Day in – day out they followed orders from their manager-master and then go home to drink wine while once a week they had the chance to watch a bloody spectacle on the Colosseum Version 2019, known also as Netflix. The entire process subsidised by one of the central banks.

This life was not for her and rebellion needed to be much more than simply hunching a hoody and running around a park listening to rap music. Which of course she would never do as Stephanie was above all a well fashioned elegant life-perfectionist.

University had been a great time for Stephanie as it was then that she discovered music and her love for nature but that next step into the so called “corporate world” led her straight to the development of intellectual disgust for modern living. Her reaction was so natural that to her this was part of her thought structure. It started from her inability to adequately answer simple questions like “what is this all about?” or “why is this person on this planet?”

She wanted more. But the instructions manual didn’t have a section on “more”. It surely had 20 pages about “more wine” and 50 about “more work” but nothing about “more life”. Love, or at least what the terms & conditions of app called love, popped in every now and then but she never loved the person love proposed. She loved “love” as a verb and human activity and did believe truly in its greater purpose but the person, the man was never what she loved. Most men seemed to be the packaging of love and no matter how many layers she hurriedly unwrap, no matter how many weekends in Barcelona she’d spend with a man … she never found love. Stephanie was wholeheartedly in great need to both escape from this world and also to find greatness, two distinct needs with overlapping purpose.

An eye-catching Lufthansa magazine article during one of her business trips to Frankfurt, laced with German pragmatism, explained it all to her. The title was “Banff – escape inside the natural you” ‘their translation department needs some help’ she told herself. Capital of Alberta Canada, according to the article Banff was a paradise nested within the Canadian Rockies, a place of beauty, nature and free spirit. Before the air-waiters could serve those chemically grown jam filled plum cakes, Stephanie was already well into her feasibility analysis. ‘It’s either this or getting a large dog and naming it Lucifer, so it’s this, so Yes my dearest you can do this, do it’ she negotiated internally. Three months and a resignation letter later there she was in Banff Alberta Canada modern living’s latest self-exile.

She had a great set-up for this new life of hers. Work four days a week at the local Hilton as a restaurant connoisseur cause per local standards she knew everything about European wines and then for three days she was free to go on trekking trips. An endlessness of green and imposing natural structures all there for her mind and body to indulge in. She believed that, as for people, so also for trees there exists a sense of uniqueness. As if each tree somehow knows that it is one and different to the others, it was this concept that drove her at times to simply stand next to a tree and observe its every detail in search of what makes it different to the others. She spent full minutes standing next to trees comparing their dimensions versus her own body, moving in strange ways to better gauge the trunk’s diameter or form. She would whisper “spectacular” to herself at least three times a week and truly meaning it.

I was June, the greatest of all months for women and something inside Stephanie knew this. Was it Juno’s hand reaching down from Olympus or simply the army of wild flowers all cheerful to see her as chance would take her path by them? When close to nature many random events at a microbial level all accumulate and trigger the various biologies of our inner workings. Stephanie was unknowingly June’s hostage and one Friday, her yes day, she set off for her trek. Local fashion implied jean shorts, white knee socks, strong trekking boots and a red Abercrombie $15 t-shirt. She decided to leave the town from the side where the river passes nearest and where the caves are. Off she went.

At some point after one of her tree merging sessions she walked onto a wild flowered knoll with no shade where she heard a whistle. There a tuned whistle with detailed sonority stopped her. Startled she stood to observe and grasp what was happening ‘just another trekker’ she reassured herself but her answered did not suffice. ‘right here, right now? To me in these mountains? What are the odds that I hear such a strange tune?’ … she stood for 30 seconds and heard the tune take distance. ‘I came here for the mountains and the trees, not some whistle’ she shrugged this disruption away and disregard this intrusion. She was here for herself and for nature … no distractions. Her trek went on as planned.

Monday soon came and it was dinner time at the hotel restaurant where nothing out of the ordinary was happening until from the lobby came that whistle once again. This was her work place so Stephanie’s personal standards could take second stage, ‘disruption at work is a job issue’ she told herself and raced to see what had tickled her ear three days ago on that flowery hill. Through the disdain hotel lobby ornaments she safaried and pushed aside the Drömsk Ikea floor lamb to uncover the last thing she would ever expect to see in the Canadian mountains, a pirate. Not a real pirate on a ship in the Caribbean but a man who at first glanced could not be called anything but a pirate. His hair was scruffy brown and so was his skin which, beyond being mildly done by the sun, also had that veneer of adventurous dryness that prolonged exposure to the sun and sea salt leaves behind. Above all his eyes had a deep middle-eastern look with carbon powdered eyes. She kept her hand on the Drömsk and told herself to turn away as he was beginning to turn his head in her direction and a man was not this evening’s menu.

That was something unexpected she said to herself as she marched back to her post at the restaurant where customers sat expecting her to treat them with that safe and reliable Trustpilot verified Hilton love they paid $200 a night for. Stephanie naturally made people smile, it was part of her instinctive blueprint. She had short brown hair which defused any fear of aggression or over sexuality and this made everyone want to be her friend immediately. After 19 responsibly sourced rump steaks with farm grown fries things started to die down as it was nearly one hour to midnight. Suddenly the pirate came inside and went straight to the bar. Dark jeans and a light red turtle neck he walked slowly but with firm steps. ‘who wears a turtle neck in June?’ she perplexed.

“Hey Tom, could you go do a turn in the cellar for me, I’ll take over here” she told the bartender who with a half-smile and look went off. Manning the bar herself she was there standing face to face with this … cold mountain pirate. He was jittery and started fidgeting with the menu while examining the bottles behind Stephanie. One of his eyes was also looking at her body, mid height between the bottles and she was asking herself why? ‘I’m not on the menu mate’ she confirmed to herself. She took a glass and in pure bartender fashion started polishing it with a white cotton hand towel, to which he reacted by jumping five centimetres up and glimpsing at the bottles with overstatement then sat back down and sunk his nose back into the menu. She was formulating a plan to say something but before she could enact he spoke.

“you’re the bartender aren’t you? You’re here right?” he said with a fidgety tone.

“I am certainly here” she smiled back while inside she said ‘I know this man, he is lost, he came here to escape the world where he was successful but couldn’t find something truly worthwhile, now he is here at the edge of the world seeking refuge, yes, I know this man perfectly’

He looked at her directly, stopped moving about and smiled. He held the smile for a full three seconds then leaned deeply into the bar towards her saying “Are you a good bartender?”

“what?” she choked

“well you say you’re here and … well so am I but should we be here? I mean I know I’m a great customer but are you a good bartender?” he asked with a slow confident tone that she found basically inappropriate.

After two seconds of cold silence and a dry stare in his face she said, “What’ll it be partner?” trying to establish some ground rules and place this whole scenario where it belonged the standard saloon of a frontier outpost town where she was the boss.

He had failed at something, this was clear to her but she would never find out what. He stopped looking at her and went back into the menu, “I think every drink is perfect for the right occasion and I’m trying to figure out what this occasion is … I … I … I guess I’m kinda lost” …

Inside herself was triumph ‘I knew it, I know this man, he IS lost, weird, a bit too weird but weird with great eyes is actually great and … well either way I knew he was lost, I rock’ she declared.

… “What would you recommend?” he asked her.

“I’d say you’re a whiskey man, we’ve got some great Canadians, aged of course” She proudly sold.

“makes you fat” he snapped back.

‘he cares about his weight, I can’t tell what his body is like while he is sitting down but this is a good sign’ she debated internally as she smiled in agreement with his comment and found his eyes asking her to look a bit deeper. She wanted to of course and then nearly roused on herself with ‘wake up Stephanie, leave the eyes cause you are not falling for this guy. You came to Banff for you not some fidgety arrogant pirate’. She had to reply fast or else he’d notice something was going on and plus an answer would help her better manage the temptation to look at her eyes. What should she say? She opted for all-out attack, the only good defence:

“Hey, there’s a great wine bar two blocks down the road with a great collection of Bordeaux” she said firmly and with a simile of victory.

He looked at her and smiled, then looked out the window.

‘this guy’s good’ she thought.

He replied with “It’s never nice to drink far from home when you’re drinking alone, so I’ll stay here and … do what you tell me to” launching a deeper than manageable stare into her eyes.

Emotionally perilous music now sounded in her brain which was packing up and getting ready to check out for the evening. Yes, that’s what brains do, they leave you along just before midnight in outpost towns just after you meet a pirate with deep brown eyes. Juno wasn’t helping either as every time the lobby door opened the early summer night breeze sent aromas to her nose.

‘do your job’ she slapped herself and asked him “Whiskey it is then, on the rocks?”

“I thought you said it was good whiskey”,

“The best”,

“Then why would I dilute it with water? You see water is a universal constant of sorts, it turns everything back into the original essence of life, I want some whiskey, if it’s good then bring it to me straight up” he explained

‘a brain too’ she told herself feeling now that this was actually becoming a thing. ‘If he smiles to me one more time I’m leaving with Brain’ she promised herself as she prepared his drink. His New York accent was reassuring and added only to what she was finding great about this guy, eyes above all and now a brain. Yet still this man uncalled for in this exotic mountain paradise Stephanie had chosen to escape to. She was trying to condemn this act of piracy into her world but wanted more and more to keep the sails full canvased. She poured his 24 years old Canadian whiskey and tried to tell him she was not available with a simple and firm “Enjoy” as she looked away.

“Oh I’m enjoying it already, listen since we’re going to be friends you might as well tell me your name. I’m David, I’m from New Jersey. What’s your name?” he said with happiness and accomplishment in his voice.

‘to be a woman or not to be’ she asked herself and thus decided ‘ok, let’s see where these eyes will take me. Brain has left so there won’t be any witnesses tonight’.

“I’m Stephanie, I’m from London, here on a … kind of a gap year, pleased to meet you” she curtsied.

He sipped the whiskey with savour and went on “Gap year? That sounds great, so what? you work all day and then go mountain hiking or bear hunting or something?” laughing mildly to continue this connection.

Stephanie regrouped inside herself for an emergency all directors meeting: how can he know so much? Am I that obvious? Perhaps I am just that but then he is the lost one who needs my guidance not the other way around, didn’t this man get the e-mail?. Am I just here for his eyes and smart cracks? Oh my god I need to tell this guy to “f” off cause this is my place and out here I am not only the queen I’m the king, the bishop, the aristocracy and three witches hiding in the swamp. There are no more openings. Sure I will one day fall in love with my dream man but I haven’t started this project yet. I need to shut him up once and for all.

So she opted to change the topic from them to something neutral, and said “I guess you could say that but … Banff is very beautiful, and the weather this time is great, have you done any trekking?”

He showed irritation to her manoeuvre and she loved that. This stranger here in front of her at a bar was actually dictating terms on her emotions. On top of all that he was beautiful and in a way that only an ocean and the sun could be. With brain checked out she feared that soon her heartbeat would be out of her control. ‘this is supposed to be just another Monday’ she screamed to herself.

He sipped more of the whiskey and … suddenly Tom came back from the cellar, it felt to her like he had gone a month ago. Tom, who knew Stephanie well, looked at her. She looked back with a straight square and intent face and he smiled back and left. She did think for an eternity whether to send him off or have him take over at the bar thus allowing an escape from this captive pirate. An eternity for Stephanie lasts precisely one tenth of a second. ‘Leave us Tom, it’s late and well … David needs to drink some whiskey, I won’t tell you anything about it in the morning’ she told herself.

“Actually, I have a confession to make”, Davide replied and her heart winked upwards to where brain should have been, “I have been doing some trekking but not for the beauty of the mountains …”

“Oh?”

“… yeah well, and here comes the confession, I believe in bigfoot and well I’m here to see if I can find one, there now you think I’m crazy” ending with a small nod and smile as he looked sideward then stared right at her.

Stephanie sends out a square smile that initially wanted to pop and said “That’s … that’s the cutest thing I’ve heard anybody say in months” she said with positivity.

“You don’t think that sounds crazy? I mean too crazy?” David said like a six year-old.

“No!” she said with a triple o “I mean it, that’s super cute, I wish more people would follow their dreams and do what they really want every now and then. This is exactly what the world needs”

“You know I couldn’t agree more, the world is filled with people who are boring and that’s not the problem but the result, the problem is that they want to be boring. It’s over for 99% of them, just going from one step to the next, just like their parent said they would …”

“Yeah ... “ concurred Stephanie

“… I mean I get that there are some standard things we human beings simply must do like sell something to make money, eat, sleep although even sleeping isn’t as necessary as people think … but anyway … I mean in the end once every six months you need to go do something totally unexpected, something that only your heart would ever think of doing” David concluded.

They looked at each other with two smiles and two prolonged nods between them. “Yeah” said Stephanie to break the silence which wasn’t a problem but she just wanted to reaffirm her consent to his thesis one more time.

“I’m gonna –pause– get another whiskey here” said David. She paused too and looked at him on purpose for the 100th time in the last hour, now she looked at herself and asked: is this person in front of me part the wild and natural landscape I escaped to? Am I in control or not of what is going on here? Why is this man with these deep brown eyes confessing to me, why is he feeling like a schoolboy and showing it? What card have I picked up from the board game?

She had so many questions in her mind all of which could wait for this one mega question - “how long will he be staying in Banff?” A question of pivotal importance and probably the most difficult question ever but not because it’s hard to answer rather … because it’s impossible to ask.

She snapped out of it and ask him “Another whiskey? Sure. Where? Here you said? Of course sure, ha ha where else?”

David crossed his eyebrows as if he was thinking but all she could see was a new version of his dark smuggling eyes. This man was doing something to her no one had ever done before, he was creating questions about existence and self-nature for her to answer rather than overflow her with tangible constructions about the world she so easily left behind. She wanted some whiskey too but couldn’t drink there as she was on duty. She wanted to know this guy, she wanted to meet him, she wanted. It was worthwhile and this was her escape year. This could be one small step for her but one giant leap for her womanhood so she did it. She proposed to him.

“Hey I should be getting off here about now, it’s midnight and we’re actually closed, we could go to that wine bar down I told you about and get a last drink”

Wow, she has been upfront with men before but never when the man was so sober. This was it, her river card, her final bet, her last fig leaf. After tonight it would be a triumph and a series on Netflix about how cool she is or Stephanie would become the first person to escape to the mountains to then get so embarrassed that she needed to escape even further.

“Stephanie I’m just gonna say one thing: I like how you tick and I certainly like how you think. I’ll let you wrap up here and meet you there, alright?” He pronounced with a smile.

Wow again she thought to herself, he not only didn’t over indulge and invite me to his room he actually gave me some space and time to put some make up on. This guy is either good or he is god and only one “o” is going to make that difference. “Sure thing, see you there” she replied and started closing up the bar as he went off.

It was past midnight now and Banff was well asleep, even the wind was slumbering. Her plan was simple, close the bar, lock up the fridges then go to the hotel employee bathroom where, she had been told by one the female staff that the girls kept a “just in case” kit which should have everything a girl needs in an emergency like this. Stephanie was confident that she would find Gucci mascara, Dior eyeliners, a set of Victoria’s Secret lingerie – not too forthcoming but enough to make a bang – and of course the essential Channel Number 5. She opened it like the pit of a nuclear test site and was confronted by a “no means yes” red lipstick, an eyeliner gifted in some magazine and a six year old of pack of ribbed condoms. Hesitation didn’t stand a chance as the eyeliner was drier than death and the condoms had both expired a year ago and well, using ribbed in her mind was basically like saying “I’m gonna need all the help I can get” which was, luckily, the farthest from where she was. So she muttered “fcuk” then “great” and then picked up the lipstick as her contribution to one stand history. All this for this man she’d just met.

The longest walk ensued to the wine bar during which Stephanie successfully figured out everything about her life. Yes, it was all so simple, you see up until now everything was just a test to see if she could survive and endure it all, now was when real life actually starts. Now when she was destined to meet Davide. A man who like her was subconsciously seeking her out, sure she wasn’t bigfoot but she was definitely worthy of being called a mythical creature, so that is that. From now on everything was going to be about accomplishment, kids, a house and a summer house.

She arrived in 15 minutes and found him standing outside with a bottle in one hand two wine glasses in the other and his back leaning against the dark windows of the wine bar.

Only one thought was allowed into her mind as she saw him for the first time fully standing ‘now that is a body’.

He leaned forward after his eyes did and said “Great to see you”

“yeah, thanks, it’s closed” she replied.

“yeah when I got here a guy called Mario was locking up, said it was Monday and this is Banff” said David

“sounds about right” smiled Stephanie who was wondering if aliens could right about now come and abduct them both to their planet where they would subdue the two of them through some mating regime until they could breed the perfect human.

Davide jumped in “I tried to bribe him to stay open for another hour but no luck, I told him I met you and really wanted to get to know you better and … well I told him about you, in the end I thought I’d take a chance and buy a bottle … ”

They both smiled for 2 seconds, David continued “… and I got two great wine glasses cause good wine in the wrong glass is … unacceptable … anyway I thought I’d take the change to ask you to continue our evening somewhere … anywhere your place, my room …”

They both smiled again for 2 seconds, she looked upwards to the stars “… or even the hills out here, somewhere you know. I thought … if she says no at least I end up with a great bottle of red”

Stephanie knew she had to say something but she couldn’t stop feeling good about the fact that he had already spoken about her to other people, ‘he is already talking about me to people’ she kept telling herself. But what was to come next? Her house was out of the question cause a woman’s house is like the bat cave to Batman, Transylvania to Dracula and the Library of congress all rolled into one – there is only one way to get in and that’s with a one way ticket.

She walked closely to him, well in range of a kiss and paused. He didn’t, so she did the next best thing – while maintaining pornographic eye contact she slowly extended her hand to his waist and in her hands firmly grasped … the bottle to examine it.

“Chateau Gazin Pomerol 2011?” she whispered to this pirate who in the mountain night and summer breeze was nearly trembling in awe and emotion from her movements, “wow, this is a great wine you know?, way too great to let a whiskey man enjoy alone. – pause – ok David … let’s go to your room”

He laughed just to get out of the risk of a too early kiss or even worse some surprise erection and followed her lead as she smiled and turned away to walk back to the hotel.

‘why did he not take this chance to kiss me’ Stephanie pleaded to herself. ‘I was there, he was there, I had just told him I’d go to his room, I mean what does this guy need? An email from his boss? Com’on David, lips speak louder than eyes’

But for now that was fine as she knew that in reality so much progress had been made for the cause of love and in such little time. Stephanie knew she already deserved a medal or at least an honorary mention in the next romantic comedy to hit the screen. Now she had much bigger things to worry about like this high-risk long walk back to the room not to mention the imminent moment of truth to come – her denudation. That moment where every woman puts everything at risk, lights a fire in her hand, detonates the nuclear weapon in her brain and as Juno would say – transforms her physical body into a temple for fanatical and unpredictable religious practices.

‘Get your ass to his room before worrying about how it will get to Mars’ she boldly told herself and turned to follow Davide.

If sex is a crucifixion, and it is for the messiah inside all of us, then getting to the bedroom is the procession to Calvary. The short yet endless path through the holy city to where flesh is to be thrashed, sins forgiven and gods created. For Stephanie this was going to be here, through downtown Banff in the middle of the summer night.

Stephanie always believed that the way a man walks next to a woman is the most telling sign of his true feelings for her. All she could remember from “When Harry met Sally” was the walk scenes she would see and re-see over and over again, observing and interrupting each motion to see what it tells or tries to hide. Here she was walking with a man to a room.

She ensured that Davide was at least one metre ahead so she could look at his body from safety and while it seemed to work at first, slowly she noticed that he was not maintaining a stable speed. Perhaps he too wanted to check her out, as they say. They were competing for the view of each other.

‘Our first fight’ she smiled to herself, ‘game on, I’ll beat a pirate on a mountain any day’

“So tell me about bigfoot, I mean …” she started a fresh new conversation while discovering her competitive side and engaging in a prancing game. For ten seconds she would increase her speed and then miss a step in alternation. While keeping one eye and half a smile on him and other on his body when he was comfortably in front of her.

Davide laughed mechanically “it’s a thing, it’s a real thing. I mean I guess this has to do with who I am deep down, you see I don’t believe in anything except that believing in things is good. So I don’t believe in god but I want there to be a bigfoot … and a giant squid … and vampires too. Tell me when I’ve freaked you out enough”

“No no, please go on” – she was loving this so much. In her mind prancing in the Canadian Rockies whilst listening to a pirate she was planning to sleep with was talk about bigfoot was the epitome of her existence on this planet so far.

“you’re not making fun of me?” he asked

“Do you think I would make fun of a man holding a bottle of wine that was leading me to his hotel room?” she replied with indulging irony.

David didn’t know what she was doing but it was working like a witchcraft. The motility in her feet was driving him crazy and he want to it stop like an itch but couldn’t due to the fact that he was holding the wine and of course was still in the oat zone. Stephanie had defined oat zone as Only Accidentally Touching which she invented in a meeting once when a colleague of hers was trying to touch her using accidental trips and imaginary obstacles that would push his body briefly onto hers.

He went on “Well that it surely a logical explanation, but the fact that you’re still here is proof enough for me”

Feeling on top of everything she provoked with “maybe I’m just here for the wine”

“you’re not here for the wine” he said with a dry tone of conviction.

“I’m not? How do you know?”

“cause if you were you’d know enough about wine to know that this wine will need at least 5 hours to breath” he replied proudly.

“Whoa ! you know about wine now? I thought you were a whiskey man.” She had to snap back

“Do you wanna find out about bigfoot or do you want to talk about the wine we’re going to drink” he replied with calm.

She stopped herself and him, turned to him and put her hands on the sides of his shoulders. She looked at him straight and said “I want to hear so much about bigfoot that I’m seriously thinking of adopting one” and laughed. She did this for two main reasons firstly to steer clear from any confrontation but mainly to declare that touching is now officially an option.

‘when will he realise that we’ve left the oat zone?’ was now her question.

He laughed through retracting lips and said “I try to avoid absolute affirmations but can say something here to you?” he stopped and looked at her. She paused and gasped “sss- yeah”

“You are a special human being Stephanie from London … in several ways”

She wasn’t officially in love but the e-mail confirmation was by now surely in the server’s outbox. Should be in her inbox in a minute. She needed to hide this as much as possible but she couldn’t so instead she thought to transform it into something official. She looked at him again and simply said “That’s so nice, I really appreciate it.”

Smile from David.

Smile back and “Now tell me about bigfoot, com’on you’ve got less than 5 minutes, the hotel is on the next block”

He continues “well like I was saying I want to believe in things so I chose the things to believe in and I do it, I believe in them, bigfoot is one of my choices, that’s basically it”

Stephanie – “So you’ve never seen one or something it’s just a choice?”

“Yeah, I mean there is some science behind bigfoots that they are some primate that evolved on its own in high altitude environments around the world. It’s a highly plausible possibility, it’s not like unicorns or ..”

“Keep unicorns out this ok” she said with a childish seriousness

He laughed strongly “That’s so cute”

“No really I love unicorns and I won’t mess with your bigfoots if you don’t touch my unicorns” maintaining her tone to that of a concerned three year old girl at the zoo.

“ok ok hey that sounds fair to me” he went on “So that I mean I don’t so much about actually finding one cause if I did I may even contribute to their extinction, I don’t think society is capable of finding any hidden treasure and keeping it as such, we’d find it cage it and make an Instagram account for it. But the idea that it is there or … here in these mountains … is important to me, I need this idea I enjoy it, it makes me feel better” continued David.

Stephanie needed to touch him again so in her prance she skimmed her arm against his ‘wow, skin’ she thought to herself cautious only to not make him drop the wine. He glanced with surprise to her and their two smiles met once more. They were close to the hotel now and she knew it was time to start thinking about what was coming next. She put accidental touching aside for a moment to talk again.

“I like how you think David, I mean people generally should follow more of the dreams and beliefs, that’s why I came to Banff”

He joked in “to find bigfoot?” with a laugh.

“No I would never dream of steeling your glory” she joked back and went on “… I came to find … I don’t know what i came to find but I knew that it was missing and I knew that I would find it here”

“that’s deep” acclaimed David as they went through the side door of the lobby. The main revolving doors were switched off as it was one a.m. “That sounds like a bottle-of-wine conversation to me”

“Well that’s exactly what we have here isn’t it, what’s your floor?” she asked in front of the elevators. “6” he sparked and in they went … into that room called an elevator but for two people in their state leads straight down into the depths of hell.

Alone, a man with pirate eyes and a girl that escaped from London, in a confined room, with a bottle of French wine, both feeling the subtle upward thrust of the elevator which after the fourth floor can provoke a tingle in certain body parts and all around them … mirrors. They both fell into that devilish elevator trap of looking up in search of help to battle awkwardness instead they got … a ceiling mirror. The scripture was on their faces, blushing near their timid lips, they both knew that this was a love-test for them. Will they reach the sixth floor before they gasp out laughing and thus making a sexual confession unavoidable or not?

Ding, saved by the bell, they had made it.

David had taken a small room, not a suite, which Stephanie did notice. Of all the aspects of life Stephanie did not rank the concept of “enough money” as being number one in importance but she did firmly place it at number two, just after “more money”.

‘fine, he didn’t get the suite, so what? More money for all the gifts he is going to buy for me’ she told herself to shut up. But she did walk into the room to the tune of Material World sung by Madonna, original version of course cause well … it’s Madonna. She wanted to speed things up a bit it was already 1:30 and they hadn’t even kissed yet. They needed to kiss as soon as possible and with Victorian elegance.

David walked in and put the wine and glasses on the small coffee table. “Well here we are, there is a bathroom if you need there and a bed here … not if you need it I mean it’s just here as you can see … I better open the wine make yourself at home” he said clumsily.

‘He is funny’ she laughed inside and couldn’t restrain from saying “If I need the bed i can use it?” while laughing.

Davide laughed back and for now didn’t want to give too much breathing room to that chain of joking.

Stephanie placed her hand bag on the bed, this was her levee in case things flooded too soon. A woman in a hotel room with a man is better than a well-trained Mossad agent. She’ll put the condoms in the right place, order them as per favourite flavour, cork screw the wine, hide the man’s underwear, ensure he doesn’t steal hers and do the bed all in 10 minutes flat while the man hasn’t even found out how to unclip her bra.

She sat down and wanted some silence. It was time for him to go through his year 6 med-school advanced brain surgery exam … with no time to study. Easy, for the man that Stephanie was going to fall in love with. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table while watching him open the bottle and hopefully … set the perfect scene. David was walking around the room with the bottle.

“wow, this is luck!” proclaimed David with a whisper.

“what?”

“there is a cork screw in the room, they don’t always put them in the minibars”

‘A - Ha’ said Stephanie to herself ‘so, Mr pirate eyes, trying to find a corkscrew in hotel rooms is a common problem for you is it now? What am I, number 87? You just lost 10 points here brother and you haven’t even poured the wine ‘ she decreed.

“you do this often?” she bit while finishing her sentence in her mind with ‘if he doesn’t answer in 5 nanoseconds it means I caught him and then me, my cheap lipstick together with my bag and jogging underwear are out of here’

Luckily it was a false alarm as David did reply with sincerity and rapidly “well I travel a lot and I generally like good wine plus I like to work from my hotel room so I’ll often order dinner to my room, the common hotel room service guy will simply forget to bring the opener and I’ll have to call them back, in good hotels they remember or they have a corkscrew in the room”.

‘phew! you are back in the game, I really want you to win this, now I’m ready for you to score a touchdown on my 5 yard line’ She wanted to get physical.

Davide poured the wine and brought the glasses to the table, he set them down and began to sit but stopped half way. He bounced back up and looked around.

“What’s wrong” she said, ‘will you get with the program boy? Let’s get the wine on’ she thought.

He crossed his arms and scraped his chin while turning left and right observantly.

“the lighting is terrible in this room” pausing to think while turn eighteen times.

‘he’s thinking about how to make my working-girl body look like a Canova statue, I love this man’ thought Stephanie.

“Let me … prefect – verb if you allow – as much as I can” said David and set to the task of lighting. He tried multiple combinations of the infinite room light options. After five minutes of the cheapest lighting show in the history of light Stephanie was about to start biting her lips. “Hey, I think it’s ok David let’s try this wine” she commanded.

Blackout. Suddenly it was pitch dark as David had hit the master switch turning all the lights off.

‘What’s this?’ she squeaked inside when the bathroom light turned on giving the room the aura of a cloudy summer night with the last effect of dusk fighting to hold on. ‘perfect’ she thought as David emerged and finally sat down.

‘I made it through the wilderness, Somehow I made it through

Didn’t know how lost I was, until I found you’

Stephanie was now listening to “Like a Virgin”

He lifted his glass, closed his eyes and pushed his nose deep inside with fragile care taking a deep nose breathe.

“ahhhh this does smell great, it will be perfect in 6 to 7 hours but it’s great even now” said the pirate to his wine glass and his eyes came back into play. It was too dark outside while they were walking to see their full effect but now, here, in silence and under this perfect light it was open season on his eyes for Stephanie. She simply stopped controlling where she looked.

“Cheers” he said and lifted his glass to her.

“Cheers” she replied.

Crystals struck and their lips were wet at last. He took a second sip, swirled the glass and falling back into his chair smiling to her, he said “I’m going to ask your permission to give you a compliment right now, I have to, I need to, please let me tell you something that right now … I really need to say”

“I didn’t stop your bigfoot discourse how could I say no to this?” she said in the most bashful way. She did not want to stop him but at the same time didn’t what to give him full control at least not until they were horizontal.

“Well here goes, I … I think you’re beautiful”

Stephanie smiled with a “humph”

“no no … let me put it into perspective here for you” … takes another sip … Stephanie takes two … “This may sound strange but I have to tell all about it, hear me out, I was walking across the most majestic mountain range in the world the other day looking for my mythical being. I had shut the whole smoggy and high speed world out for the whole day. It was going to be about me and this dream, this myth, this thing I consciously choose to believe in. I was out there. Fully immersed and totally dedicated, nothing else was with me. At last I had achieved a life goal – to start a journey of discovery of something I believe in with all my heart. So there I was” … two sips for him and three for Stephanie who realised this wasn’t going to be another simple pick-up line … “So I’m going through a small forest patch and then I cross a river, and walk some more. I was loving every minute of this. So, I go on some more and then from atop a hill covered with wild flowers and the aroma of honey from a primordial habitat I saw not far away the outline of something standing” … he paused and looked at Stephanie. She was to overtaken by his nonstop narrative and his eyes that alternated focal point from glass to her and to her hair at times. Dazzled, she simply wanted to hear more. He paused for five seconds then said “… we need a wine break, our glasses are already empty, let me pour some more”

Stephanie showed relief with a shrugging shoulder movement and a deep smile “ha yeah I was so taken by your story I mean I can’t wait to hear about your bigfoot experience” she jokingly recessed from the captivating tension of the moment. David poured another third of the bottle into their wide slim necked glasses, took two sips and continued.

“so where was i? ah the first encounter. This figure I saw standing was drenched in the shadow of these ancient trembling aspens and was clearly a humanoid in my view. Even at that distance in the darkness of the forest shade I could tell it was no plant. I didn’t want to risk going closer at this point cause I was sure it hadn’t seen me while I had seen it, so I decided to stop and observe any intellectual should”

“and …?” asked Stephanie between three sips of the Pomerol which was choking much faster than it could breathe. Davide too was drinking.

“So I’m looking at what my heart was calling the being I’ve dreamt of finding all my life and what was it doing?”

“… what?” whispered Stephanie over the same uttering from Davide “what ? hehe there … you too ask what, I’ll tell you what, standing near a tree, standing and looking at the tree as if to see what the tree looked like … it … you were doing something with the tree … I can only guess you were comparing it to your body dimensions, at least that’s what I think” David said.

‘I’m going to cry’

Stephanie looked ready to cry

“don’t say anything yet at least, let me finish. What I saw you do, and I didn’t know who you are, was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen a person do on this planet so far in my life time”

Her eyes were ready to shed the first tear in her life that had this a mild temperature, neither cold from a tear of pain nor warm as tears from sorrow have. But she also wanted to laugh from joy as the cynical Stephanie knew that such a sight could be classified as simply silly.

David went on “I watched you for 10 full minutes Stephanie and I didn’t want to disturb the meditating state you were clearly in with nature, at some point you turned in my direction and I panicked. I started whistling in the other direction. I didn’t want you to think I was some mad man stalking women in the forest. So I left”

‘kill me now but only after making pure love to me please’ she begged inside but outside she had to find a practical solution to this emotional traffic jam.

She constructed a mild umfy laugh with lots of “he he” and said “wow, you saw me there? What a coincidence, I must have looked ridiculous”

“no … you looked and are … a myth” he whispered with full eye contact.

‘gulp’

“shhhh” he hushed.

David knew any hint or attempt at courtship in the conventional sense was now an option long gone for them. Their Titanic had made contact with the iceberg and there were no lifeboats for the last passengers. He proposed a toast again to her where crystals kissed this time and finished his wine as did she, he stood up and lowered his hands to her.

“give me your hands” he asked, she did and he pulled her up. Face to face he lifted their arms to the sky, Stephanie knew a kiss would be perfect right about now and David did deliver.

The lips had more to say than the eyes and what mattered most was also the more surprising, that this man knew the concept of acceleration. Taking every step with the right speed, not too slow to stop the flooding nor to fast to drown the princess.

Their union of lips lit chain fires and her bag went flying as he moved her body for her. His hair filled her fingers as his body filled her arms, both were playing the part they’d rehearsed for so many years. Now on centre stage. He was proving with heart, soul and above all his hands the existence of the mythical being he’d been seeking and known to be our Stephanie while she finally permitted full and total loss of control.

Who was this man? A pirate who has known me longer than I know him, a believer and a shy adventurer with taste for wine. Definitely not in the article she had read on that Lufthansa flight but … so very worth a book.

#banff #banffalberta #canada #mountains #love #short story #love story #romance #romance story #escape #pirate #creative #creative writing

1 note · View note

alphawave-writes · 6 years ago

Text

Play me a memory--A sigma fic

Summary: Sigma hopes to transcribe the universe's melody, in hopes of awakening his true powers, but gets more than he bargains for when the government facility he has escaped from has found him once again.

Read it here, or find it on AO3

Sigma sits in front of a piano. Not the Bechstein studio grand piano that used to sit in his apartment in The Hague but a cheap, upright Yamaha instead. He knows it is old just from the touch, the damp thud of the keys and the slow responsiveness of the pedals. Most aggravating of all is the tuning, the way the notes sound off to his ears. He does not have perfect pitch, and he never will, but if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel the shape of a note. Middle C is a yellow circle, and if he rises it up to a D, it transforms into an orange triangle. He hypothesizes that his abilities over gravity have given him a sensitivity to the electromagnetic waves that make up sound, but he cannot test this without rigorous testing. The beauty of these powers is that there are so many potential experiments and possibilities.

It’s been a long time since he’s played. Or at least, he thinks it’s been a long time. The last time he had touched a piano was one week before he went up to the international space station that caused his accident, but time is no longer linear and memories no longer make sense and he cannot say how many years have already passed since then. Has it been three years or longer? He cannot say.

He very much prefers listening to music rather than playing it, but he does not have that luxury. Talon is many things but it is not a musically inclined organization. His previous request for an parabolic microphone must have fallen upon flat ears for the next day he gets a regular microphone, the kind used for karaoke parties. It didn’t even have the batteries in it. So it is a miracle of sorts that his request for a piano got through. It was probably salvaged from a nearby dump, but it is still in working order, and he is grateful for whatever gifts Talon bestow upon him.

His body suddenly stiffens as he feels a shift in the air. He turns his head slowly, eyes wide as he finds himself staring back into his face. Only it’s not his face but another version of him, decked out in the orange jumpsuit that government facility crafted specifically for him. His copy smirks sinisterly.

“Gravity is like sanity. All you need is a little push.”

“W-w-what?”

“They called the geniuses of old insane back in their times.”

He is frozen in fear, staring into a face that is his but not his. The other approaches him and places his hands on his shoulders. He can feel the energy being sapped away from his body, his twisted mirror image growing larger, impossibly larger than him. As the energy leaves his body, he can feel his mind clearing. As his mind clears, he can see this twisted alter ego for what it truly is. It is sin, the devil in disguise. And behind that disguise is the black hole that destroyed his career and his mind. And it laughs. It laughs so viciously.

He feels his body suddenly being rattled back and forth, and his mind is clouded once more. The cloned image of him is gone, replaced by an annoyed woman with chocolate skin and purple lips. Her hair is parted to one side, showcasing the cybernetic implants glowing on her skull.

“Are you OK, old man?” She huffs.

Sigma is about to say “no” but he shakes his head and clears himself of the hallucination. It is easier to keep the fractured pieces of his mind together when he has a familiar face by his side. “Y-yes, I’m OK. Sorry if I scared you, Miss Olivia.”

“Ay, don’t call me that. Call me ‘Sombra’ like everybody else.”

“Sorry. I’ll…try and remember for next time.”

“I give myself a cool name and no one takes it seriously anymore,” she mutters to herself. Her eyes fall on the piano. “We have a piano? When’d we get one?”

Sigma smiles, relieved for the change of subject. “I asked Talon to provide it for me. I told them it was necessary for my experiments.” He raises his eyebrows. “I guess you could say this is an instrument in more ways than one.”

Sombra makes a face that is a cross between a cringe and a wince. A lot of people make that face when he tells jokes. So many years later and people still do not appreciate a good pun.

“A-anyway, I had a breakthrough last night,” he continues. “I have harnessed the harness that is gravity, but I have yet to maintain it in whatever shape and form I desire. I was at a roadblock. Then, it hit me! I’ve been thinking about it all wrong, you see. I’ve been trying to use my equations and quantum instruments to further my research, but I’ve yet to use the most important tool at my disposal.” He smiles in excitement. “I’ve got the universe’s melody in my head, playing on repeat. I’ve heard it so many times before, so I must be able to play it in the real world. If my theories are correct, it is as simple as transcribing a piece of music by ear.” He plays a chord and frowns. “Unfortunately, it seems music appreciation does not equate to music composition.”

“Wait wait, so you’re telling me that playing the piano,” she gestures wildly at the object, “is going to help you create a black hole again?”

His eyes brighten. “Yes. That’s precisely it! I knew you would understand.”

Sombra raises her eyebrows in disbelief. Out of all the Talon operatives that Sigma has encountered, she is the least judgmental—or rather, she is the least likely to dismiss his ramblings completely. She can be rather judgmental when she wants to be, often when it comes to Reaper and Widowmaker, but she makes no remarks about him. Perhaps she thinks it is bad taste to make fun of a man crippled psychologically like he is. Or maybe she doesn’t care enough to say anything about it.

He turns back to the piano and starts playing discordant notes. It has been years since he played but he remembers how to lie his hands, where the keys were, how to make his fingers glide over the faux ivory. He’s almost startled by the ease in which he remembers, because he knows he cannot account this for mere muscle memory alone. There are some things people do not forget, he knows that, but it’s unnatural how comfortable he feels in front of the piano.

It’s almost as if he is supposed to be here. Like the universe is calling to him from within the hidden strings. His fingers fly across as if in a trance. He hears the whispering in the air, but he’s not sure if it’s the benevolent universe or the demonic other or some other creature outside the confines of time and space that have decided to play their games with him. He listens and copies their words. A dark expanse of his own creation surrounds him as his eyes turn cloudy.

He hears someone snap their fingers impatiently in his ears, and turns to find Sombra next to him. She looks annoyed but there’s a familiar shimmer of pity in her eyes. It betrays her, just like his mind betrays him.

“Earth to Sigma.”

He winces. “My apologies.”

“I don’t know what goes on inside your head. You have the thingy on. The pedal. You’re pressing on it.”

He glances down at his feet, which are currently covered in pink wooly socks. They are expensive, and currently his only frivolous purchase since joining Talon. He does not remember putting them on, or when he bought them, or why he chose pink of all colours. On closer inspection, he sees that his foot is firmly pressing down on the right pedal.

“Oh,” he says, surprised himself. “So I have.”

Sombra groans loudly. “I don’t know why they tell me to watch you. I just wanna go back to my computer and watch some videos. Play some games. Hack some dudes or something.”

Sigma frowns. “You do not have to supervise me if you don’t want to, Miss Oli—I mean, Sombra.”

“Nah, the boss will kill me if I do that. I gotta make sure you don’t get yourself into danger.” She walks over to the side and leans dramatically over the top of the piano. “C’mon, piano man. Play a song.”

“This piano is for research. It is certainly not to be played with.”

“But I’m so booored.” She rests her head on her arms. “You must know some song, right? Play me one.”

“I shouldn’t…” he begins to say, but his mind is already buzzing with the songs of his past. One sticks with him, imprinted in his soul. A song from his past that spoke of simpler times.

He looks up into her eyes and falls victim for her doe eyes. He takes a deep breath, composes himself as best as he can, and begins to play Erik Satie’s Gnossienne 1.

It’s not long before he gets lost in the melody. Music is a language as easy to speak as English and Dutch. Sentences flow from his fingertips, time condensed into notes and sounds. Dark magic threads and twists from his wrist as gravity lifts up and away from his body. His mind drifts away to become one with the song, splinters of his childhood resurfacing. Images of his piano instructor in his majestic home, stern and imposing. His father falls asleep for the last time in his study, the sky outside the window going from day to night, the stars twinkling in rhythm to the invisible song.

Objects float and fly above him. Particles transform into one-dimensional strings that ascend into higher dimensions. The piano rises with him. There’s a yelp of surprise. “Let me down, let me down!”

His eyes widen as he finally notices Sombra, flailing her arms as she floats helplessly in the air. In that instant the spell is broken and the world returns to clarity. Gravity returns with a shuddering thud as the two of them crash back down into orbit. He is able to land gently. Sombra does not have the same luck.

“D-Dios mio, you’re going to kill me!” She hisses, rubbing her backside painfully. He doesn’t want to tell her how lucky she was. A few centimetres to the right and she would have been trapped under the piano. On one or more occasion, he has commended Talon for having the mindfulness of nailing everything in his lab down. It has prevented more than a few accidents due to his ever shifting powers.

She looks at him sternly, fire in her eyes. He shrinks a little.

“I’ve theorized for a while that my abilities are linked to my mental and emotional state. It seems music is able to amplify my abilities.” Sigma puts his hand on his chin and frowns. “Perhaps later I can determine the source of this ‘amplification’ and utilize it myself. Right now, however, it is an unfortunate complication to my experiments.”

“I’ll say. You’re going to hurt yourself at this rate.”

“I realise that, but I am close, I can feel it.” His hands glide over the dusty top of the piano. “If I can just find the correct song, I might be able to harness the fullest potential of my abilities.”

“Then maybe put the piano in a different room? So you don’t destroy everything in this room if you do find it?” She suggests.

“No, I…it’s better that I am here, where I cannot hurt anyone.”

Death has unfortunately become the new norm in his life. As payment, Talon tasks him with going on missions with their officers, and that often leads to a battle to the death. No one expects an old man like him to fight, and they definitely do not expect to be flung around like paper ragdolls in the wind. It’s frightening how the guilt washes away easier the more blood he must spill. During one such mission, he almost found himself enjoying the violence.

He places his fingers back on the keys. Sombra takes her place in the far corner of the room and watches warily, away from danger. There are no more fluctuations in gravity that day.

He plays and he plays, morning day and night, but he is no closer to his goal. He has continued his normal experiments, with the piano experiments continuing during his break. He eats and drinks and sleeps, but it is at a bare minimum. Why is it now, when he seeks out the song does it decide to run away? Why is this silence louder than noise, overwhelming him with nothingness? Why is it when his mind has never been clearer does a part of him yearn for the spark of insanity?

There is madness in his actions, but it is controlled and tempered. His equations are correct, as they always have been. He has ripped out a bit of paper to write sheet music on and has done his best to interpret the song. He can only work through sound. If only he knows an expert in music composition, or sound engineering. His understanding of sound is limited to his extensive knowledge of electromagnetic waves. Tonality, timbre, chord structure, they are patterns he hears but does not understand.

It’s late at night but he presses onward. He’s close, so very close, and he must work now while his mind is still whole. The pieces never hold together for this long, and sooner or later it will fracture, but he must press onward while he still has control. He wants to feel normal, and to feel normal is to surround himself in his research, pushing forward to new limits and new heights. The stars call out for his name. First he must understand and master his abilities. Then he can continue his original dream to see the stars outside their humble galaxy and walk on the surface of planets that are not his home.

He doesn’t hear the thudding footsteps approaching in the dead of night. He doesn’t notice the red light on the security camera suddenly go dark or the crack of his lab door breaking open. It’s only when he hears the unmistakable sound of a gun’s safety being taken off that he finally notices that he’s no longer alone. Three men stand before him, each training their guns on him. The sigil of the government facility he escaped from is displayed fully on their uniforms. It taunts him in a way that a gun to the head cannot. His heart leaps out from his chest.

“Subject Sigma,” one of them barks. “Come with us quietly, or we will shoot.”

Despite every instinct in his body, he cannot move. He is frozen in place in front of the piano, trapped, as if he is still tied down to that accursed bed, like his freedom and everything since is a dream he has conjured. He can imagine their hands forcing him into horribly itchy orange jumpsuit, the unprofessional way they injected their sedatives into him, the way they talk about him like he’s beneath humanity, a hideous creature without thought or intelligence.

“Didn’t you hear what he said?” A second soldier growls. “Get a move on!”

His eyes glance around, desperate for a way to escape, but there is none. The exits are watched by more soldiers. The very safety features within this room, designed to minimize the harm he can cause with his powers, are now the portents of his doom. In this section of Talon’s HQ, no one will hear him if he screams, and even if someone does, he will have less than a second before he’s shot dead. He might be able to block or absorb most of the bullets, but it will be futile. It will buy him seconds, maybe a minute. It’s not enough.

Even the voice that screams for violence in his ear is unnaturally quiet. It knows that taking the offensive will not help them survive in this situation. They’re trapped.

The third man steps forward, a curious smile spreading across their face. He orders the other men to stand down. As Sigma watches, he sees that this man is not dressed like the others. He wore glasses over his eyes instead of the tactical masks everyone else did, and his uniform has the markings of a combat medic rather than a soldier.

“It’s good to see you again, Siebren.”

The realization floods him with a feeling of terror but he hides it behind his gritting teeth. This is the doctor that was in charge of him back then. This was his torturer above torturers, Satan amongst the demons. “Dubrovnik,” Sigma spat.

“You’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you? A nice fancy lab, some powerful friends on your side,” His eyes glance down. “Loving the socks. Really sells the old man look.”

“What do you want?”

“To finish my job, and that is to keep you contained,” Dubrovnik said.

“You cannot stop progress.”

“You are a threat to humanity.”

“I am in control.”

“Until when?!”

Sigma stiffens. Dubrovnik puts his gun away and approaches slowly, the hunter coming to collect his prize. Sigma doesn’t react when Dubrovnik tugs his chin forward, jerking his head up to look into those cold, black eyes. Dubrovnik is significantly shorter than him, but in his seated position, their heights are roughly equal. It’s a frighteningly familiar feeling, being manhandled like this, like he is just a piece of trash on the ground.

He wants to choke him, make him suffer, make him hurt in all the ways he has been hurt, but he can’t and Dubrovnik knows this. Dubrovnik relishes in it. He was, and still is, a sadist.

“Out of the oven and into the fire, right, Siebren?”

“What are you talking about?” He rasped.

“You don’t know what Talon is?”

“They saved me!”

“You never thought why?” Dubrovnik’s lips curl. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because they want a weapon. They want Excalbur, and you happen to be the one who pulled it out of the stone. They want war, Siebren, they don’t care about you. As soon as they can wield Excalibur for themselves, they will throw you away like trash. And when they have Excalibur, no one will be able to stop them. They are terrorists. You know this.”

He wants to tell Dubrovnik that he’s wrong, that Talon is an organization of intelligent men and women who want to help humanity take the next big step, but he sees the heat in Dubrovnik’s eyes and he cannot help but take pause. Dubrovnik truly believes this. But why? He is needed, he is important. They will not go through the trouble of saving one man unless he’s important. They have been so kind to him, provided so much for him. They will not abandon him…right?

Dubrovnik takes a step back, Sigma rubbing his neck self-consciously. He’s not sure he imagines it but there’s a flicker in Dubrovnik’s eyes, almost like he pities him.

“If you come with us, we will help you subdue these powers. No one will hurt you or use you. I promise.”

“How can you promise that, you Croatian hypocrite?” Sigma snarls.

“Because no one should wield the powers you wield. Not you. Not Talon. No one.”

Dubrovnik puts his hand out and Sigma is left dazed. He glances around at the guards, emotionlessly watching the exchange. As far as Sigma can tell, Dubrovnik is sincere. And that terrifies him, because Dubrovnik knows something he doesn’t. About Talon, probably.

Sigma realizes in that moment how little he knows about Talon. All he knows is that they support cutting edge research, and have a private military to protect themselves. What is Talon’s goal? Why did they bother with an old man like him?

He almost reaches for that hand, but Dubrovnik’s form swirls and shifts and suddenly his mirror image is standing there, orange jumpsuit and bitter smile and all.

“Will you really submit yourself to him again?”

“What else can I do?”

“You know what to do.”

The mirror image gestures behind Sigma, pointing at the piano. His skin pales.

“I-I can’t. I need to hold it together.”

“A little push,” they say as Dubrovnik appears once again from the smoke. The mirror image is no more.

“If you’re done with your muttering, would you kindly come with me, Siebren?”

Sigma turns back to the piano, his eyes wide. He can hear the melody again. The universe is speaking for him again. It asks him to play its song. It shows him the chords. It tells him the price it will wreak upon his mind.

It’s a price he is willing to pay this time. He turns around and opens the lid for the piano.

“What are you doing?” Dubrovnik asks.

“Let me play one more song before I go,” he says. “It’s my final request.”

He sees the blank faces looking at him in the reflection of the lacquered wood. In the darkness he finds his place on the faux ivory easily. He presses his foot lightly down on the pedal, spreads his fingers on the keys, and pushes his fractured mind off the cliffside. With perfect precision he plays a song of his own creation, a tribute to the song the universe sings.

Memories of his past resurface. The bitter judgment of his academic rivals, the callous disregard of his piano instructor, the stars in the sky, the sorrow of losing his home, the rage of knowing no one cared enough to find him. Dark emotions coalesce into space as gravity releases itself from its chains, sending everyone in the lab flying. There’s screams and shouts as guns are ripped from people’s grasps. Dubrovnik is saying something to him. A plea, a beg, something along those lines, but all Sigma can see is the cosmos expanding, with him at the epicenter. He’s no longer playing the piano; gravity is doing the work for him. He flies above everyone else, his hand outstretched. With every bit of himself he loses, he gains control. The dark voice in his brain laughs in murderous glee.

“D-d-don’t do this, Siebren, please! You’re better than this! You’re not a murderer!”

Alarms are going off above his head, painting the room a bright red. People are holding onto each other, trying to hold on. They know what is coming before he does. Despite the chaos and turmoil before him, he is strangely at peace. The universe sings its lullaby to him from the piano. There is no time signature, no bars, no rhyme or reason. It should not work, but it does.

A placid smile escapes his lips as he brings everyone crashing down. The crunch of broken bones is followed shortly by the bellows of pain. The dark voice takes over, grabbing one of the guns, still hovering up in the air. He shoots—not accurately, but he shoots. There is silence, save for the klaxon above his head and the whimper of one more person.

Dubrovnik crawls towards the door, broken. His left shin bone is sticking out from his pants, trailing blood. Sigma calmly floats forward, the dark voice in control as he pushes the might of gravity upon Dubrovnik’s head. There’s a gasp of air, and then the crunch of bone, and finally a squish. Red liquid oozes out of every hole of Dubrovnik’s head.

It’s not long before Talon realizes the reason for the breach in their HQ. Reaper and Widowmaker are the first ones there, guns at the ready. They round the corner to Sigma’s office down, ready to fight, only to discover the aftermath of a bloodbath. The entire lab is splattered in crimson, dead bodies lying in crooked angles and twisted postures. A pile of guns are stacked in one corner, all crushed and broken. By the door, a man's head looks to have been squeezed together.

Sigma sits alone on the piano stool in front of the cheap, upright Yamaha piano. He is perfectly clean, as is the piano. As they tiptoe over the bodies, careful to not step on the blood, Sigma turns to them with a stern but relaxed expression.

“You’re late,” he says, before waving dismissively. “It’s fine, though. I handled it. I think I even learned a new trick or two.”

If Reaper is not wearing his mask, they would see his mouth open and shut. He’s speechless.

“Since you’re here, how about a song?” Sigma cracks his knuckles and places his fingers on the keys. “How about ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel? An old classic.”

No one says anything. Reaper and Widowmaker stand there while Sigma plays and sings along from memory. They do not move. Their eyes are concentrated on the swirling dark energy hovering over the piano, bopping in tune to the beat of the song.

#Overwatch #Sigma #Sigma overwatch #Siebren de kuiper #alphawave-writes #I've already written 3 fics on this character #and I haven't even PLAYED HIM YET #I will when he comes to PS4 but that's like WEEKS AWAY #UGH!#Anyway if you like this story you can help me out by reblogging #or by giving a comment on the AO3 link #I wanna hear what you guys think #even if you're just screaming into the void #Which is understandable

76 notes · View notes

iamnotbrianmay · 6 years ago

Text

The A Experience

Okay before any of you say anything... I'm sorry for taking so long!

This story has just been my baby for so long and I was so scared to mess it up in the last few chapter so I'm sorry sorry sorry! Also I have such a big audience with so many people that are enjoying this story that I don't want to disappoint ANY of you!

So sorry for being a chicken and not posting this earlier <3

Also! I'm sorry if I haven't been answering your comments but the response to this thing has been phenomenal and right now I have about 441 notifs on my inbox so yeah that might take a while to come back to you! However, know that I love and appreciate every single one of you and your comments, some of them have even made me cry!

The taglist goes as follows: : @seven-seas-of-why, @twotitsjohndeacon, @dancindeaky, @gee-uloser, @mozzarellamazzello, @mozzie-s, @deracine-dogma-deux, @shutupanddontjudge, @warping-reality, @demianhill , @zodiacal-dust-and-curls, @hersked

❤︎

By the time night falls, the house is full of people. Brian realises that half of Roger’s family looks a lot like the blonde, which means that he is now the only brunette in a house of seemingly perfect blue-eyed, blonde, angels. The only one other person who is not blonde is little Anthony, who is currently gurgling in Brian’s lap while munching a cookie his mother had given him.

He wished he could give the kid much more attention than what he was getting at the moment. However, Roger’s family was very interested in the guitarist at the moment, leaving him unable to play with the toddler.

“So you placed an ad? In Tinder?” Oliver, Roger’s twenty-something-year-old cousin asked, and Brian scrunched his nose up.

“It was hardly an ad,” Roger interrupted, “that would imply that Brian offered to pay me anything.”

The whole family laughed, and the blush Brian was sporting spread from his face to his neck, “Not something I’m proud about now that time has passed.”

Winniefred wiped the corners of her eyes and smiled at Brian, “Don’t be ashamed, darling. It has to be the cutest story I’ve ever heard.”

Most of the family members agreed, and as Roger sat down beside him, the conversation focus changed from Brian to the stories of the rest of the family members. His boyfriend snuggled up to Brian’s side, “I think they like you a lot.”

Brian smiled, “Good, that’s good. I was scared shitless that they would think I was annoying or something similar.”

“I don’t think anyone could find you annoying.”

“You say that now,” Brian mumbled, placing a kiss of Roger’s hairline, “wait until we get back to the studio.”

The blonde laughed and agreed with Brian almost immediately. The guitarist let the conversation of the rest of the family wash over their silence. He admired the way that they had made Brian feel more than included in the few hours that they had spent together. From the moment that Roger’s cousin Charlie and his wife Rose had arrived. To the moment that Roger’s grandparents had smiled at Brian and enveloped him in a warm hug.

He hadn’t told Roger yet, but he had been scared that his family wouldn’t welcome him in, not because of his personality, but because he was a man. He knew that his own family wouldn’t be as accepting as Roger’s. That his grandparents would refuse to meet the blonde and that his parents would be rather adamant that this was only a fling. That Roger should enjoy Brian while he found a suitable wife and fell in love, really in love.

“What are you thinking about, Brimi?”

Brian turned towards Roger and found that the blonde was looking at him with wide and inquisitive eyes and his usual pout. He wanted to kiss the blonde senseless, but held himself back for the time being, “Thank you for bringing me to meet your family.”

“Of course,” Roger said, “I think it was time, I’m not planning on letting you go for a while.”

Brian blushed again, “Really?”

Roger didn’t answer, but instead looked around his family and met his mother’s eyes.

“I’m going to take Brian to my spot.” Several wolf whistles rang around the room, and Roger rolled his eyes, “Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. I want to show him the stars.”

It was only after several lewd comments and a few minutes of laughter that he finally managed to follow the blonde out of the house. The English countryside was breathtaking at night.

The air smelled of sweet Night-Blooming Jasmine, the breeze was soft, ruffling both of their hairs gently, and the chill that set all across the countryside seeped into their bones. Fireflies buzzed all around them, making the ground seem like an extension of the night sky.

The Taylor property seemed to extend for miles. Hills of green grass and tall trees which seemed to blend into the darkness of the night littered the place, making it look like something out of a movie rather than real life.

Roger grabbed his hand so that the taller man wouldn’t get lost in the darkness. The blonde seemed to know the terrain so well that he didn’t need the light of the sun to guide his way, “My cousins and I used to play every night out in the open. I don’t know how none of us ended up with a broken bone.”

Brian chuckled, “A miracle.”

“Now I can walk through this place without tripping, but there used to be a time in which my knees were always scrapped.”

The taller man looked around once again, taking in the view, “It’s quite beautiful.”

“You haven’t seen anything,” Roger said, “just wait until we get to the seaside.”

As Roger promised, the seaside was breathtaking, to say the least. The coast extended as far as the eye could see, bringing in the salty air and the soft rumbling of breaking waves. The sand was thick, sticking to the side of Brian’s shoes and even managing to get inside his socks.

Roger dragged him to a place on the beach where they could see everything from the old farmhouse to the farthest point in the coastline and made them sit down. But most definitely, the most beautiful part of the whole ordeal was the stars.

They were scattered across the night sky, lighting up the place and making the most beautiful sight Brian had ever seen. He had never seen as many stars as he saw now, and the mere thought of how many more he could see if he were farther away from the city left him breathless.

He could see everything from Orion to Aquila, even bits of the Milky Way if he strained his eyes hard enough. He wanted to thank the younger man, but he couldn’t find the voice to do so. It was… well, Brian didn’t have the words to describe how he felt as he watched the night sky.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Roger’s voice sounded quiet in the vastness of the night.

“I haven’t seen anything like it,” Brian whispered back, “Ever. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”

The blonde chuckled, “I knew you’d appreciate it. Not many like the place as much as I do.”

Brian frowned, looking down at the younger man and trying to make out his features in the dark, “Who wouldn’t like this?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

Silence washed over them, the wordless spaces being filled by the soft sound of the breaking waves and the faint whistling of the air. At some point his best friend curled around him, tucking his head into the crook of the guitarist’s neck and nuzzling into his soft hair.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding.”

Brian turned to look at the mass of blonde hair, “About what.”

Roger turned towards him, and in their proximity, Brian could make out his features entirely, “About wanting to keep you for a long, long, time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There was a short silence in which Brian tried to map the entirety of Roger’s face in the dim light of the stars. His boyfriend looked so incredibly pretty that for a second, he missed what Roger was saying, however when his brain finally caught up, his breath was stolen from his lungs.

“I’m also not kidding when I say that I’m more than ready to start everything I have been stalling.”

Brian blinked twice, “You mean—?”

“Yes,” Roger said, “I mean Kissing, snogging, groping, even— well, everything we haven’t been doing for the past eight months.”

Brian leaned back out of Roger’s, admittedly crappy, eyesight, “Okay, not that I’m not extremely excited for this new development but, you have to remember that this will be my first kiss ever.

“Well, unless you count that one time after our date at the restaurant, which was not really a kiss since it lasted about one second, and you didn’t even fully kiss my mouth but just the corner of it. So I’m sorry if the kiss is sloppy, or too slow or—”

Roger placed a finger against the guitarist’s lips, making him stop his adorable rambling, “Can I kiss you now?”

Brian's eyes widened, then he slowly nodded, too stunned to say anything. The blonde slowly lowered his finger and looked into Brian’s eyes. Needless to say, they were both terrified.

Roger took a deep breath, willing his beating heart to stop beating so wildly while Brian tried to swallow down his rising panic. The blonde leaned forward, and the guitarist closed his eyes, waiting for what was about to come, but Roger hesitated a few centimetres away from the other man’s face.

The stars shone down from the bright night sky, the waves crashed into the seashore making a soft, rumbling, back noise, the wind whistled softly as it passed between the countless blades of grass and tree branches, and Roger pressed their lips together.

❤︎

I hope you enjoyed that! Next chapter will be picking up right where we left off!

Big thanks to my lovely beta Rose, I love you a lot darling!

Comments, Kudos, and Feedback is always appreciated.

#the a experience fic #roger taylor #Brian May #Maylor #John Deacon #freddie mercury #deacury #queen #My writing #slash

18 notes · View notes

gumnut-logic · 6 years ago

Text

Tree

Some more self indulgence and a writing warm up exercise as apparently abrupt changes in location mess with my muse - yes, I am now home again and will be returning to work today (it’s currently 12.30am) ::pouts::

Anyway, the self indulgence part has mostly to do with the location. I was on this road yesterday :D and I love me a good dirt road :D Many thanks to @i-am-chidorixblossom for answering my ‘Give me a word, any word, but give it to me now’ yell :D The word she gave me was ‘tree’.

Warm Rain, Virgil/Kayo, Timeline is a short time after A Little Distraction (my last fic) and there is actually more fic to follow A Little Distraction (it is still in my head - it would have been written last night, but I went to bed feeling awful instead ::more pouting:: It will appear at some point, I already have scenes in my head) and the unwritten content is vaguely referenced in this bit.

But anyway, less babbling and more fic - not finished, doesn’t really go anywhere yet, but wanted to share anyway.

-o-o-o-

Betty snarled, her tyres biting dust. The dirt road stretched across hills and eucalypts to the horizon, a stark white limestone track through dead and dry farmland.

It glared in the sun.

Black leather creaked as Betty thrummed between his legs. His bandana was sodden, hot and sticky, his helmet claustrophobic.

“Kay? Wanna pull over?”

She didn’t answer verbally, simply squeezing him that bit tighter.

A tree. Blessed be a tree in this stark landscape.

The eucalypts stretched for miles, but they shaded little, far too adapted to their environment to dare soak up too much sun. What he needed was a big wattle or a casuarina. He had learnt quickly the trees of this country. What gave shade and what dropped shit all over your bike if you left it under its leaves over night.

And the creepy crawlies that lived in their bark.

His one argument with this wide brown land was the creepy crawlies. They bit. They jumped out at you in the dark. They strung webs across walkways. They had your fiance in a fit of hysterical giggles when they scared the crap out of you, leaving you dancing in your underwear in the middle of the night.

But a tree. The only thing worse than the bugs was that sun.

Finally a small grove of casuarinas, the local desert conifer appeared over the hill on the left. Virgil geared down and Betty dropped an octave, her speedometer dropping to double digits. The darkness of that patch of deep shade lured him. Damn he was hot.

Kay squeezed him again as he killed their speed and dropped the bike to a crawl, sliding under the umbrella of the group of trees huddled on the side of the road. The temperature dropped almost immediately.

Shoving the kickstand down, he yanked off his helmet and took a breath. “Man, that’s warm.”

“Just a touch.” Kay brushed her fingers over his cheek as she slipped off the bike, her boots crunching gravel.

With a sigh of relief, Virgil climbed off and stretched his legs, leather creaking and groaning. His helmet was dumped on the back of the bike and he yanked off his jacket and threw it on top. Oh god, it was good to be free of its constriction. He was only wearing a black tank-top underneath and the exposed skin of his biceps immediately picked up the faint breeze, perspiration doing its job.

Another sigh and he closed his eyes for just a moment.

A hand landed gently between his shoulder blades.

“Mmmm?”

“Want to take a break here? We could throw down the rug and have something to eat.”

He looked up the road in one direction and then the other. “I can’t say that traffic will be a problem.” Heat haze wavered in the distance, the land empty except for the occasional dull eyed sheep. “And it will be good to keep out of that damn sun.” He glared at the baking blue sky and peeled off his bandana, damp hair no doubt sticking up at all angles.

She kissed his cheek, running her fingers across his long stubble. It had become a tradition for Virgil to stop shaving when they took a bike holiday. His brothers ribbed him about it, but Kay loved it, and he loved it when she brushed her fingers through his beard. She couldn’t seem to resist it.

And it separated him that extra step from International Rescue and recognition.

Since their formal announcement of their engagement, and the ruckus that followed, they had been dogged by the press. Opinion was strong in either direction as to whether they should get married. Neither of them really cared what anyone but their family thought, but they had been chased and hounded to the point that Scott had cracked and sent them off into the middle of Australia for some time away. No one but the family knew their location and Eos was making sure it stayed that way. Tracy Industries’ security team had even deployed a decoy in another part of the country.

It was only for a couple of weeks this time, but they were making the most of it.

One of the advantages of the casuarinas was, like many conifers, they shed a carpet of pine needles perfect to lay a picnic rug on. Unlike your average pine, though, the ‘needles’ were less pointy, long and jointed. Every centimetre or so along each needle there was a ‘join’ that could be bent at least once. Lying on the rug, Virgil lay back and curled a long needle, his nimble fingers playing.

“Aren’t you going to remove your chaps?”

“I might.”

Standing over him, she rolled her eyes. “Was that a hint?”

A lip curling smile. “I suppose it could be taken that way.” He chucked away the sculpted pine needle and put both his hands behind his head, grinning up at her. “What did you have in mind?”

“If you think I’m going anywhere near those sweaty boots of yours, Virgil, you are dreaming.” She dropped their cooler bag onto the rug and sat down beside him, her own smile on her lips.

He deployed the most pitiful pout he could manage, dropped lip and all, and gazed up at her.

“Put those brown eyes away. It is not working. Take your own boots off.”

He slumped. “It was worth a try.” With a sigh he sat up and shucked off his footwear and socks, and undid the buckle holding the chaps on. Though they were light, he immediately felt their absence and sighed, lying back down on the rug.

The breeze danced across their little patch of shade and it was lovely.

“Drink?” Kay offered him his canteen.

“Mmm-hmm.” A swig of cool water and the worst of the sweaty heat finally left him. Oh, it was wonderful. He let his head drop back on the rug, the slight rise of the embankment a perfect angle. “I didn’t realise it had gotten so hot.”

Kay looked out at the road. “I don’t think it really is with that breeze. Remove it, however, and we bake.”

“Tell me about it.” He shifted, getting comfortable. “I know I’m quite happy here for the moment.”

She was still sitting up and looked down at him, an oddly whimsical expression on her face.

“What?”

A smile spread across her lips. “Nothing.” A smirk. “Just you.”

He frowned. “Not sure exactly how to take that.”

She grinned at him. “With a little bit of this.” And she leant over and kissed him lightly.

His arms came up automatically and wrapped around her. She, too, had removed her jacket and all that remained between him and bare skin was her thin green high-cut t-shirt. “Mmmmm.” He muttered his approval against her lips.

He couldn’t help himself, his hands drifting to her waist where her low cut jeans bared her to his touch, His thumbs brushed across her firm belly, one purposefully seeking and finding that single jewel piercing her navel.

Oh, he so wanted to explore further, but she smiled, straightened up and he had to let go.

He deployed the pout again.

Kay rolled her eyes. Turning back to the cooler bag, she grabbed a chocolate bar and chucked it onto his chest before grabbing one for herself.

Virgil sighed. “Well, I guess that is almost as good.” A sideways grin in her direction earned him a thump on the thigh.

TBC

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #virgil tracy #thunderbirds fanfiction #kayo kyrano #virgil/kayo #warm rain #harley davidson

11 notes · View notes

heartkook · 7 years ago

Text

icy || park jimin

Park Jimin x reader

Summary: The heating in your apartment breaks in the middle of the night. The only option is to cuddle to stay warm.

Genre: fluff (roommate!au)

Words: 1888

I was inspired to write this because it’s been snowing all week here which I LOVE but it’s fucKN cold

The house was warm, in contrast to the biting cold that had been whipping over my skin only a moment earlier. The windows were steamed and I toed my damp shoes off, sinking my feet readily into the soft carpet covering the floor with a sigh.

“I hate winter.” Jimin whined from beside me, slipping his own shoes and coat off and rubbing his hands together. I admired his rosy cheeks and chuckled at his messy hair as he stepped forward to unwrap the scarf from around my neck.

“It does make you look cute though.” He tilted his head with a small grin, eyes flickering around my frozen face, and I tried to ignore the way my heart immediately sped up, my cheeks quickly growing hot despite the cold.

Jimin and I had lived together for about a year. I don’t know when I started liking him - it had happened slowly; I barely noticed it until I suddenly found myself having the overwhelming urge to press my lips against his. I wanted him to know how I felt; I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me, how much he brightened every day; I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and kiss me.

But I couldn’t be sure that would happen, so I put off telling him. I was so terrified of ruining what we already had.

“Make me food?” He pouted from his position on the couch, big eyes instantly causing my stomach to flip. I rolled my eyes and nodded, grinning as he cheered and jumped up to follow me into the kitchen.

Jimin almost fell asleep at the table and before he could face plant into his food I had dragged him to bed, giggling as he sleepily rambled to me on the way up the stairs. I watched him curl into his covers, mumbling a tired ‘thank you’ before promptly falling asleep. I returned to my own room with a smile fixed on my face, twisting into my own covers, ready for a well-needed rest.

But I didn’t get one.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the cold. I turned over, rubbing my eyes in frustration, and was surprised at how icy my fingers were against my skin. Frowning, I peered around the room. It was still dark. A shiver ran through my body, my fingers practically numb, and I groaned. It was definitely not meant to be this cold.

“Yep, the heating is broken.” Jimin returned from downstairs, hands shoved into his pockets with a pouty expression on his face, teeth visibly chattering. I whined, hugging myself and following him as he walked into his room.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, sitting on his bed and rubbing my hands together.

“We won’t be able to get it fixed until at least tomorrow.” He sighed. He started pulling blankets out of his cupboard and piling them onto his bed, and I joined him, yanking out whatever form of warmth I could find.

“We’ll just have to try and stay warm until morning.” He said, and I nodded, grabbing a couple of blankets for myself.

“I’ll just take these then.” I muttered, already dreading having to return to my freezing room, alone.

“Wait,” he stopped me as I headed to bed, making me linger by the door, “it’s freezing.” I watched as he pulled off the hoodie he was wearing and tossed it to me. I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t need it – I had plenty of my own, and he must be freezing too. But the words caught in my throat, looking down at the soft material in my hands, and clutched it to my chest, my lips curving into an automatic smile.

“Thanks.” I mumbled fondly. I almost wished he wouldn’t do things like that, it only made it harder.

The smell of the hoodie was intoxicating me. I lay in bed, letting myself imagine it was Jimin’s arms around me, his scent covering my body. His laugh and smile and stupid jokes filled my thoughts, I couldn’t get him out of my head.

After what felt like hours of just lying there, I heard the door open, and gentle footsteps tread into the room.

I lifted my head to catch the image of Jimin, wrapped in his blankets, tentatively peering into the room. His hair was sticking up out of his sweater and his socked feet were barely visible beneath the covers; he looked so small that I couldn’t help but to completely melt at the sight of him.

“Jimin?” I asked, sitting up and trying to hide the smile in my voice. He cleared his throat, shuffling closer, and I caught a better look of his face, eyes wide and lips pouty.

“It’s so cold.” He mumbled, shifting from one foot to the other. “Can I get in?”

I held my breath. I couldn’t stop my lips from curling up, warmth blossoming in my chest and my stomach doing flips.

“Well, it would conserve heat.”

He laughed, nodding, and I shuffled over to make room for him. My heart was beating so fast I was sure he could hear it, and although I told myself my numb fingers were shaking because of the cold, I couldn’t ignore the fluttering in my chest.

I lifted the covers, and he quickly wriggled in next to me, sighing in relief at the warmth. He was still a few inches away, but I could barely breathe.

We had shared a bed before; at parties or when people came to stay. It had always made my heart race, but this was different. It felt different. I shut my eyes, trying to slow my racing heart, and relishing in the feeling of lying so close to Jimin.

“Come closer.” His voice was low and quiet. My eyes flicked open and my breath caught in my throat at how he was staring at me, lying on his side and blinking up at me tiredly.

“What?” I whispered, barely audible.

“Come closer. It’s still cold.” He whined quietly, his eyes never leaving mine. After a brief moment of deliberation, I forced my muscles to move and slowly shuffled closer to him, unsure of how close I was supposed to get. I stopped a few centimetres away, lying completely still.

He groaned at how far away I still was, and I flinched as he suddenly swung his arm around my waist and tugged me closer to him. He wrapped my body tightly against his and held his cheek against my head, humming sleepily. I was frozen, my mouth still open in shock as my face was pushed into his chest, his breath tickling the hairs on my neck as he wriggled himself even closer to me.

I was sure my heart was going to fall out of my chest. I could barely move, pressed so close against him; every part of my body was touching him, and the heat radiating off his body was magnetic. I eventually breathed out, and tentatively shifted so I could put one arm over his waist, tucking my chin against his collarbone and closing my eyes.

I felt his breathing deepen and found myself relaxing against him, savouring the feeling of being completely wrapped up in him. It was like we were in a completely different reality, as if time wasn’t moving. His presence was infatuating me and I found myself wishing the moment could last forever, even with his cold feet pressed against mine, and the frozen air still biting the back of my neck.

“Hey.”

I almost jumped. I had been sure he was asleep. But shifting slightly, I could feel his hand move to rest on my waist.

“Yeah?” I whispered back, completely relaxed in his grasp with my face hot against his neck.

“I like this.” His voice was soft, and almost tentative. My heart fluttered. Neither of us moved a muscle. I knew he was going to say something else; the unsaid words hovered in the air over us, catching both of us inside the moment we had created under the covers. I held my breath as I heard him inhale deeply, his chest expanding against mine. “I like… you.”

The room was once again filled with silence. It took a moment for me to take in what he had said. It wasn’t the loud, messy, infatuated thoughts that always seemed to overtake me when I thought of Jimin, but instead, I found myself stunned into almost thinking nothing. My thoughts were so focused on him that nothing else even crossed my mind.

So, without thinking, I placed my hands on his chest and pushed myself away. I only caught a glimpse of his crestfallen face before I had taken his cheeks in my hands and kissed him.

It seemed to break the shock. He immediately kissed me back, taking my waist again to pull me closer to him, and I became aware that I was kissing Jimin. I moved myself closer to him, running my fingers up and down his cheeks and through his hair and feeling every part of him because I was kissing Jimin. I couldn’t help the laughter that tumbled out of my mouth and broke the kiss. We split apart and I met his eyes giddily.

“Did you mean that?”

He rolled his eyes, grasping the back of my neck to press his lips to mine again. I was surprised into kissing him back, the grin wiped off my face. This time it was gentle, and slow, and I drank him in, unaware of anything else. When he pulled away I was breathless, my hands still resting on his chest.

“Did that feel like I meant it?” He whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes, nodding, almost feeling like I could cry. I still wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I frowned up at him in disbelief, hovering my fingers over his hairline, and tracing down to his lips, feeling his hot breath on my fingertips, before reaching up to brush his cheek again. He flinched away, grabbing my wrist with a low laugh.

“Stop that. Your hands are freezing.” He pressed an icy kiss to my fingers. I felt like my smile would break my face.

“Warm me up then.” I giggled, letting him pull me closer again, pressing kisses to my face, wrapping me up and pulling me close. I smiled as I was again squished against his chest, and took a moment to breath him in, draping my arm over him.

The hours of sleep I was missing were finally catching up to me, and as much as I wanted to stay awake, to take in everything I could about that moment, I found myself more relaxed than ever against Jimin, my head lolling against him. He traced slow shapes across my back, through the fabric of his own hoodie, and I felt utterly his.

“I’m kind of glad the heating broke.” I mumbled sleepily against him, thinking about how much had just changed; how much I had to look forward to. He chuckled lowly, rubbing my back soothingly and dropping a firm kiss to the top of my head.

“Me too.”

masterlist

1K notes · View notes

elliotlikespuke · 6 years ago

Text

Alright, remember when I said omo was coming? It’s here. These are three drabbles I wrote about some of my favourite Newsies. (Guess which is my favourite? It’s Elmer.)

Warnings: omorashi (that means piss), violence, probably some swearing and definitely a few typos

The fight had been going too well, and Crutchie knew that. There was no way it could keep going this way, even with Jack and all the other boys fighting their best. Morris had soaked him in the stomach with his crutch, leaving him bent over and heaving. Luckily, him and Oscar had gotten soaked in turn, as the newsboys took revenge for him.

They’d beat the Delanceys, then the other thugs had shown up. Then the bulls. It had been going so well. There was a deep sense of panic in Crutchie’s gut as he watched the chaos around him. Racer was somewhere to his left, crying out in pain. Jack had run, presumably to drag someone away from Crutchie.

He wished he could join the fight better, but mostly people were avoiding him. He knew he’d never hear the end of it from Jack if he deliberately put himself in danger, but he didn’t want to stand and do nothing. It’d be worth getting chewed out if he could just help. He spun around. The fight was still going, with shouts and cries of pain from each side.

Deciding it was now or never, Crutchie looked around. There was a bull on top of Romeo, holding him to the ground. Racetrack was getting socked in the stomach. Finch was on someone’s back.

Crutchie felt pain explode in his shoulder. He was knocked to the ground. He stumbled back up, grabbing for his crutch and any purchase on the asphalt. The Delancey brothers were on him again, remorseless after being thoroughly humiliated by the other newsies. One of them grabbed his crutch, putting him off-balance. The other forced him to the ground, ready to beat him further. He felt a crack across his face, and another in his stomach. He was being hit by his crutch, the hard wood leaving what felt like gashes on his skin. He gasped, crying out in pain. The other boys had to be around him somewhere, right?

“Jack!” He cried. “Romeo! Finch!”

No one came to his aid. A deep voice sounded from his left: “It’s off to The Refuge with you, little man.”

Snyder. Crutchie’s heart dropped from his chest. He felt all the fear of the day explode in his stomach.

“Jack!” He called again. He didn’t expect Jack to come. It would be three to one with Crutchie down for the count, and even Jack wouldn’t like those odds. From far away, he heard Jack call his name.

He saw the sky spin, he was getting dragged. Whoever was doing it had grabbed his good leg roughly, nearly pulling his foot from the socket. Something in his stomach released, and he began to wet himself.

“Jack,” he whimpered to himself. He begged himself not to cry, not to call any more attention to himself. If the Delanceys or Snyder saw him pissing, they’d beat him worse. He sucked in a breath and tried to stop the sob that was coming.

He couldn’t see his pants, but he could feel the wetness growing, spreading to the seat of his pants because of how he was being dragged. He hiccupped, trying to stop the stream.

There was no use trying to stop the flow. The fear running through him made him powerless to his own body. Loudly, he gasped, trying in vain to fill his lungs before he sobbed again. The street was cutting up his side where his shirt had ridden up. The patch on his pants was now growing cold, and it was only a matter of time before someone saw it, or worse, smelled it.

“Hey,” the Delancey behind him said. “Crip’s pissed himself.”

Crutchie felt himself stop. Whoever was dragging him had halted in his tracks to inspect the damage.

“Don’t worry,” Snyder said, leaning in close to him. “You’ll sleep in it tonight.”

——

“Officer, I gotta be hittin' the road.” Racetrack sat at the desk, bouncing his leg.

“You’re not going anywhere, boy.” The officer didn’t look up at him. He was staring at his desk, filling out paperwork.

“I didn’t steal anything. I gave it back. If this is ya trynna prove somethin, I get it. Stealin is bad.”

“You got caught with stolen cigars in your pocket, fully intending on walking out with them, and as far as the store owners told me, it wasn’t the first time they’d caught you like that.” The officer finally looked at him. He was fat, with a great grey moustache sitting on his top lip like a dead cat.

Race put his head down on the desk. “Is you gonna throw me in jail for havin’ cigars in my pocket?”

The officer gave him a cutting look. “No. But we are going to keep you here all night. Maybe it’ll teach you a lesson.”

“Fat chance,” Race mumbled, too low for the officer to hear him. He scrubbed his hands over his face, lifting his head from the table and resting his head on his chin. He closed his eyes for a few moments before declaring, “I gotta hit the head.”

The officer ignored him.

“Hey,” he pressed again. “I gotta hit the head.” He was shackled at the ankle to the officer’s desk, which seemed to him like overkill. All he’d done was try to steal a few cigars.

The officer ignored him again.

Deciding to test his luck, he tried a third time. “I gotta use the can.”

The officer didn’t look at him as he responded. “You’ll be fine, kid, you’re old enough to hold it.”

Race considered this for a moment. He also considered the fact that he was going to be here all night, tethered to a chair with a fat bull and no sleep, in the world’s least comfortable stuffed chair. There was no good option, but maybe this one would get him put in a holding cell where he might conceivably be able to sleep a few hours.

He let go. His bladder wasn’t quite full, and it took a few moments of concentration to piss. In the otherwise quiet police station, the sound of hissing was audible to everyone around. He exaggerated a sigh, mostly to see the officer’s reaction. Sitting in his own wet piss wasn’t ideal, but it might be worth it just to see the officer’s reaction.

He felt it start dripping down his legs, soaking his pants all the way down. The officer looked at him, square in the eye. He was red in the face, his eyes wide in disbelief. The hissing had stopped and the wetness was growing cold at itchy on Race’s legs.

“You gonna help me clean up, officer? Might need a new pair of pants.”

——

His house was smaller than he remembered. Sure, the tenement housing was always small, but as a kid the one-bedroom had seemed bigger. The bed he shared with his brothers took up most of the floor in the living room. The walls were dark and the house felt claustrophobic. He was alone.

His mother was calling him from the bedroom. Her voice was soft, the same voice she’d used for him when he was sick, or sad, missing Poland and their dog. He walked towards the door of the bedroom, preparing himself for whatever he’d see behind it. It was just his mother, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a book the way she usually was.

“Mama,” Elmer started, closing the distance between them. He grabbed her by the shoulders, inspecting her face before pulling her into his arms. She was still bigger than him, her shoulders still broader than Elmer’s malnourished frame.

But he had grown since he'd last seen her, at least fifteen centimetres. He’d gotten broader working on the streets, having to haul around a hundred papers every day and eating bread and beans and whatever else the nuns could give them. His mother was a small woman. He should be bigger than her by now.

“You left us,” she whispered into his hair. “You left your family, Emeryk.”

“I had to,” he tried to explain against a tight throat. “You couldn’t support us all.”

He choked on a sob. He hadn’t heard his name in years, not since he left. He left. This wasn't real.

Groggily, he awoke. He was warm all over, wet with sweat from the dream. He brought his hands to his face, feeling for tears. There were tear tracks from his eyes down his cheeks, wetting the hair at the sides of his face. Albert had a hand on his ankle and was shaking his leg.

“You awake?” Albert whispered. In the dark, it took Elmer a moment to realize his bedmate wasn’t in bed with him. Elmer hummed his affirmative, his voice cracking on the single syllable. “You, uh, you wet the bed.”

Dread seeped into Elmer’s stomach. The wetness under him wasn’t sweat, he realized, but piss. Heat rose to his cheeks, and a fresh wave of tears fell from his eyes. He hiccuped between stifled sobs.

“‘m sorry,” he managed, scrambling out of bed. There was no telling how far the stain had spread in the single bed, but the seat of his pants was thoroughly soaked through, as was the patch under him. He stumbled, still wiping tears from his eyes on his way to his shelf beside the bed. He had only one other pair of drawers.

He was getting itchy. The wetness had spread to his lower back, wetting his sleep shirt and his skin. He shuddered. He couldn’t bathe this late. It was the middle of the night, and he’d get in trouble from the other boys for waking them up. He was surprised no one had yelled at him and Albert for whispering.

Albert stood beside him, grabbing a new pair of pants for himself. Elmer’s face grew hotter. Not only had he made a mess of himself, but of Albert as well. He straightened shakily, trying not to smell himself for risk of getting more upset. Albert took his upper arm and pulled him to the lavatory.

Albert pumped the pump a few times, sending a thin dribble of water into the tub underneath. He grabbed a towel from one of the baskets and dipped it. Tossing it one at Elmer, he grabbed another.

“Clean yourself up.” The near pitch-darkness was a godsend for Elmer, who still had tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t think he’d be able to undress in front of Albert, no matter how often he usually did. He quickly changed, scrubbing his skin as quickly and roughly as possible.

“Let’s go to the roof,” Albert whispered across the room.

“Jack’s on the roof,” Elmer whispered back.

“Jack ain’t gonna care. I goes up there whenever I can’t sleep, and we ain’t gonna be able to sleep on that bed tonight.”

#*with tears in my eyes* nice #omorashi #omo #newsies #crutchie #crutchie morris #racetrack #racetrack higgins #race higgins #elmer kasprzak #elmer newsies #fic

10 notes · View notes