#what's on my list today? let's see...wake up early for no reason and spend six hours thinking about cribbage. check.

[coquelicoq]

possible cribbage hand scores

my father is the type of unreliable narrator who does not realize how unreliable he is. this is mainly a problem because as a child i naturally believed the things he said to me, and now as an adult i can't trust any of the information i acquired about the world in childhood. one of the less essential things i learned from him was cribbage. whenever one of us had a hand with zero points, he would say "nineteen!" because, according to him, it's impossible to score exactly 19 points in a hand. is this true? or is it another fiction that he simply believes to be true? i could look it up, but i recently started thinking about it on a two-hour walk when i didn't feel like getting my phone out of my pocket, so let's continue in that vein as far as we can, shall we?

cribbage is played with a standard 52-card deck. hand scoring uses the four cards of your hand proper plus one cut card. (so this is not counting cribs or pegging. turning up a jack in the cut when you are the dealer (heels) is pegging imo and so does not count in the scoring of your hand.) these are the things that count for points:

right jack/nobs=1 point. right jack is a jack in your hand that is the same suit as the cut card.

one pair (two of a kind)=2 points

one fifteen=2 points. a fifteen is any combination of (two to five) cards adding up to 15 (face cards are 10, ace is 1, 2-10 are 2-10).

run of three=3 points. runs are not suit-sensitive, so a five of diamonds, six of hearts, and seven of spades would be a run.

run of four=4 points

4-card flush=4 points. a 4-card flush means all four of the cards in your hand proper are the same suit.

run of five=5 points

5-card flush=5 points. a 5-card flush includes the cut card.

named combinations:

three of a kind (pair royal) is three pair, so 3x2=6 points. (for example if you have the 8s of hearts, diamonds, and spades, the possible pairs would be 8H/8S, 8H/8D, 8S/8D.)

double run is 2 runs of three plus a pair, so (3x2)+2=8 points. (you can get 2 runs of three even though you only have five cards available by reusing cards. so for instance a J, a Q, and two Ks is considered 2 runs of three: the J, Q, and one of the Ks is one run, and the J, Q, and the other K is the second run.)

double long run is 2 runs of four plus a pair, so (4x2)+2=10 points

four of a kind (double pair royal) is six pair, so 6x2=12 points. (let's say you have all the 8s. your possible pairs are 8H/8S, 8H/8D, 8H/8C, 8S/8D, 8S/8C, 8D/8C.)

triple run is 3 runs of three plus three of a kind, so (3x3)+(3x2)=15 points

double double run is 4 runs of three plus two pair, so (3x4)+(2x2)=16 points. (for example, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8 would be a double double run. there are 4 ways to get the three-card run 6, 7, 8 out of these five cards: 6, 7A, 8A; 6, 7A, 8B; 6, 7B, 8A; 6, 7B, 8B.)

it looks like there would be lots of ways to get to a score of 19. for instance, a triple run (15 points) and two fifteens (4 points). but what cards would those be? a triple run is essentially a run of three with one of the cards tripled, so for instance one J, one Q, and three Ks. it would be pretty easy to get three fifteens (because one card is repeated three times), or one fifteen (e.g., if the two cards that aren't repeated add up to fifteen), but two? is it possible to get exactly two fifteens this way?

any combination of ace, 2, and 3 totals less than fifteen (closest is one ace, one 2, and three 3s, which gets to 12), so zero fifteens.

2, 3, 4: three 2s, one 3, and one 4 only adds up to 13 using all cards. no fifteens. one 2, three 3s, and one 4 has one fifteen (using all five cards, 2+3+3+3+4=15). 1-2, 1-3, 3-4 has one fifteen (3+4+4+4).

3, 4, 5: 3-3, 1-4, 1-5 has three fifteens (the 4 and the 5 plus two of the threes, three different ways (three of a kind=three pair)). 1-3, 3-4, 1-5 has one fifteen (the 3 and the 4s). 1-3, 1-4, 3-5 has one fifteen (the 5s).

4, 5, 6: 3-4, 1-5, 1-6 has three fifteens (4+5+6, and there are three options for the 4). 1-4, 3-5, 1-6 has four fifteens (5+5+5, and then three versions of 4+5+6). 1-4, 1-5, 3-6 has three fifteens (4+5+6, with three options for the 6).

5, 6, 7: 3-5, 1-6, 1-7 has one fifteen (5+5+5). 1-5, 3-6, 1-7 has no fifteens. (starting from this point, where the tripled card is higher than a 5, it will no longer be possible to make a fifteen with more than 2 cards; they will add up too high. so we can ignore all but 2-card combinations.) 1-5, 1-6, 3-7 has no fifteens.

6, 7, 8: 3-6, 1-7, 1-8 has one fifteen (7+8). 1-6, 3-7, 1-8 has three fifteens (the 8 with each of the 7s). same with 1-6, 1-7, 3-8.

7, 8, 9: same as previous bullet: if the tripled card is 7 or 8, three fifteens; otherwise, one fifteen.

8, 9, 10 and above: no fifteens possible because even two cards together add up to more than fifteen.

so, no. if you have a triple run your fifteen options are zero, one, three, or four, but never two!

i'm sure there exist standardized cribbage notation systems but i am going to make my own. P=pair, R=run (R3=three-card run, etc.; RR=double run; RR4=double long run; RRR=triple run), F=flush (F4=4-card flush; F5=5-card flush). one P/15=either one pair or one fifteen. n P/15=any combination of pairs and fifteens scoring 2n, keeping in mind that the highest number of pairs possible in a hand of five cards is two (because three pair would require six cards...unless of course you include three or four of a kind, but i am considering those separate phenomena). so for instance 6 P/15 would functionally mean either two pair and four fifteens, one pair and five fifteens, or six fifteens.

okay let's score some hands.

score of 1: right jack.

score of 2: 1 P/15.

score of 3: right jack and 1 P/15. R3.

score of 4: 2 P/15. R4. F4. R3 plus right jack.

score of 5: right jack plus either 2 P/15 or R4. R5. F5.

score of 6: three of a kind. 3 P/15. right jack plus either R5 or F5. R4 or F4 plus 1 P/15. R3, right jack, and 1 P/15.

score of 7: right jack plus either: three of a kind; 3 P/15; R4 or F4 and 1 P/15. R5 or F5 plus 1 P/15. F4 and R3. R3 and 2 P/15.

score of 8: RR. 4 P/15. R4 plus 2 P/15. F4 plus either 2 P/15, or R3 and right jack. three of a kind and 1 P/15. R3, 2 P/15, and right jack.

score of 9: right jack and either: RR; 4 P/15; F5 and R3; R4 and 2 P/15; or three of a kind and 1 P/15. F5 and R4, or R5 and F4. F5 or R5 plus 2 P/15. F5, R3, and 1 P/15. R3 and 3 P/15.

at this point there are so many options for some scores that i will just list a few for each. my goal ultimately is to identify any impossible scores, so just one example is sufficient.

score of 10: RR4 (example: 10, 10, J, Q, K). RR and one 15. three of a kind and two 15s (example: 5, 5, 5, 7, 8). F5 and R5.

score of 11: right jack and either: RR4; RR and one 15; F5 and R5. F5 plus three 15s.

score of 12: four of a kind. RR and two 15s (example: 6, 7, 7, 8, 10). RR4 and one 15 (example: 5, 6, 6, 7, 8).

score of 13: four of a kind plus right jack (either you have all four jacks in your hand, or you have a jack of one suit plus three of some other card in the three other suits, and then the fourth of that card is cut). RR, two 15s, and right jack (example: JS, 9, 8, 8, and 7S is cut).

score of 14: four of a kind plus one 15 (only possibility is 2, 2, 2, 2, 7). RR and three 15s (example: 9, 10, 10, J, 5). RR4 and two 15s (example: 7, 7, 8, 9, 10). three of a kind plus four 15s (example: 5, 5, 5, 7, Q).

score of 15: RRR. RR, three 15s, and right jack (example: 9, 10, 10, JD, and 5D is cut). three of a kind, four 15s, and right jack (example: 5, 5, 5, JD, 9D cut).

score of 16: double double run (example: 10, 10, J, J, Q). RRR plus right jack. RR and four 15s (example: 5, J, J, Q, K). RR4 plus three 15s (example: 6, 7, 7, 8, 9).

score of 17: RRR and one 15 (examples given in detail above). RR, four 15s, and right jack (example: 5, JH, Q, Q, KH cut). double double run and right jack (example: 10, 10, JS, Q, QS cut).

score of 18: three of a kind, five 15s, and a pair (example: 3, 3, 3, 6, 6).

score of 19: i can't think of any!!!

score of 20: four of a kind and four 15s (example: 3, 4, 4, 4, 4). RR, F4, and four 15s (2, 6, 7, 8 of the same suit, and another 7 is cut).

score of 21: RRR plus three 15s (examples given in detail above).

score of 22: three of a kind, seven 15s, and a pair (5, 5, 5, 10, 10).

score of 23: RRR plus four 15s (only possibility is 4, 5, 5, 5, 6). three of a kind (of 5s), seven 15s, a pair (of jacks), and right jack (example: 5, 5, JS, JH, 5S is cut).

score of 24: double double run and four 15s (example: 6, 7, 7, 8, 8). four of a kind and six 15s (example: 4, 4, 4, 4, 7).

score of 25, 26, 27: none?

score of 28: four of a kind plus eight 15s (only possible if you have all four 5s, plus any ten-counter other than right jack; that would get you four 15s using the ten-counter with each 5, and then four 15s out of the four possible combinations of three 5s (5H/5S/5D, 5H/5S/5C, 5H/5D/5C, 5S/5D/5C)).

score of 29: same as above except the ten-counter must be right jack. so you hold in your hand one jack plus three 5s, none of which are in the same suit as the jack, and then the cut card is the remaining 5.

i looked this up just now to confirm and it is true, there is no way to score 19, 25, 26, 27, or more than 29 points in a single hand not counting the crib or pegging. so 19 is the lowest impossible score! chalk one up for my dad in the "true" column.

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 23

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

It doesn’t feel real until she sees the flutter on the ultrasound, the grey and white pixels flashing erratically confirming a healthy ten-week pregnancy. The doctor gives them a due date of September 17th, and she explains to Mulder repeatedly that the due date is only an estimate, that the baby will most likely arrive sometime in the two weeks before or after that day. Nonetheless, he prints little numbers in the corner of each date on the calendar, counting down.

She is lucky to experience very little nausea, but the time saved clinging to the toilet is instead allocated to bursting into tears at every tiny inconvenience. Mulder comforts her with a confused expression when she cries because she can’t find a Tupperware lid that fits, or her latte has too much foam, or she realizes she can no longer see her toes. She cries because she’s crying, because she feels out of touch with her own body and thrown off by her own emotions. They marvel at the growth of her belly as well as her breasts, which are even more sensitive than they were before. Her libido kicks into overdrive at the same time that she becomes incredibly self conscious about her protruding belly, her fuller face, her swelling feet. This leads to more tears as she grapples with both wanting desperately to be touched and not wanting him to look at her.

He tells her each day how beautiful she is, her hair growing longer and thicker, her skin glowing, her rounding belly housing the perfect little life that they created together. When he’s home, he rubs her feet every night, fetches her countless glasses of water and then helps tow her out of the bed so she can pee ten times in the night. When he’s on the road with Monica, he calls three times a day, asks Missy and her mother to go by and check on her, calls in dinner to be delivered so she doesn't have to cook. As her due date nears, he stops going on out-of-town cases, needing to be close enough to be by her side immediately when she goes into labor. He will not risk missing the birth of his child.

The apartment becomes cramped with a bassinet, changing table, pack n play, and various other baby gadgets. They consider moving, but the idea is too overwhelming for Scully so they decide to stay put until the baby becomes mobile and they really need more space. Mulder breaks the lease on his apartment and moves his fish tank into the living room, putting the rest of his furniture in storage until they buy a house. Priscilla breaks in all the baby gear, sleeping in the car seat and jumping into the swing, covering the tiny onesies with her black fur and making Scully cry yet again. Mulder refuses to let her scoop the litter box, even though she insists it’s safe if she wears gloves and washes her hands afterward. Other tasks she’s forbidden to complete include cleaning the toilet, carrying in the groceries and hauling laundry to the washing machine. When he’s on the road, she misses him as much as she is relieved to be able to be independent, not much caring for being treated as though she’s made of glass.

For the majority of her pregnancy, Scully insists that she doesn’t want to know the sex of the baby, that she wants to be surprised. Mulder respects her decision, even though he would personally like to know, and they create two lists of potential baby names, Scully crossing off “Lisa Marie'' each time Mulder tries to add it to the “girl” column. When she reaches 39 weeks, her pelvis widening as the baby drops into the birth canal, she is so miserable that she has a change of heart, needing to feel connected to this thing that is destroying her body and stealing her sleep. They call the doctor together on a Thursday afternoon as Scully sits on the couch in tears, having woken that morning to find angry red stretch marks marring her previously lily-white belly. When Mulder relays the doctor’s message that the baby is a girl, she sobs harder, and he’s not sure whether it’s because she’s happy or disappointed.

She wakes him at 3:00 am on September 21st, the irregular Braxton-Hicks contractions she’s been feeling for weeks having taken up a predictable cadence, now ten minutes apart almost on the dot. He starts rushing around, scrambling for her hospital bag and his shoes, and now it is her turn to provide comfort, to let him know there’s plenty of time. She doesn’t want to go to the hospital until the contractions are five minutes apart, and so they wait. The progression to nine minutes, then eight, then seven is alarmingly fast, and by the time she agrees that they should head to the hospital she’s starting to feel pressure low in her pelvis. Mulder drives too fast, the streets thankfully still quiet in the early morning, and she is wheeled into labor and delivery with not enough time for an epidural, much to her lament.

Molly Katherine Mulder has blue eyes and a dark shock of nearly-black hair. She barely cries at her entrance to the world, instead searching the room with a curious gaze, squeezing her daddy’s finger with an impressively strong grip and latching like a pro. They are able to go home the following day, Scully wincing as she moves gingerly from the bed to the couch, rinsing her tender stitches with a bottle of warm water and bleeding through entire packages of overnight maxi pads in a day.

Mulder takes off work for two weeks and they spend blissful days curled up in bed with the baby nestled between them as Priscilla curiously sniffs around her, licking her hair with a rough tongue and making them laugh. Each time Scully wakes at night to nurse, Mulder insists she go back to sleep while he changes the baby and walks her around the quiet apartment until she is asleep, singing softly and lulling them both.

When Mulder returns to work, Scully insists that he get a full night's sleep and let her wake up with Molly, reasoning that she can take naps during the day. She does not, of course, take naps during the day. Instead she tries to keep the apartment clean, the clothes washed, the diapers taken out to the dumpster, the litter box scooped. She does too much, and he sees it each day as she grows more and more weary, more and more defeated, the bags under her eyes deepening in color and her mouth rarely hosting a smile. He begs her to let him do more, to ask less of herself, but she is stubborn and strong-willed, the very things he loves about her now keeping her from properly taking care of herself.

They struggle through sleep-deprived arguments over who left the breast milk out on the counter all night, why it matters if he changes the baby on the floor instead of the changing table, why Scully doesn’t want to supplement with formula so he can take some of the night feedings. Her doctor releases her as medically clear to have sex after six weeks and she cries as she tells him that she doesn’t feel ready, that she can’t imagine anything worse than sex right now, and he holds her as he tells her that he doesn’t care, that she should take as much time as she needs, that he can wait.

They struggle, and they thrive. Moments of absolute unadulterated joy are punctuated by intense despair and overwhelm. The gain of a family against the loss of a life where you could pick up and go, stay out until 2:00 am and make love in the middle of the day. They are happy, and they are stressed, and they face it together.

On a Saturday in December, Mulder wakes early and takes care of every conceivable task in the house; the laundry, the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, scooping the litter, buying the groceries. He checks every item off Scully’s to-do list and then takes Molly for a long drive, leaving Scully alone with nothing to do in hopes that she will rest for once. When they return from their excursion, he creeps into the quiet apartment with a sleeping baby in his arms and sets her in the bassinet by the couch. At first he thinks maybe Scully has gone out, but he finds her in bed asleep with soaking wet hair, Priscilla curled up behind her knees. He watches her for a bit, affection clutching at his chest, then changes into sweats and kicks Priscilla out so he can snuggle up behind Scully. It feels so infrequent that they just lay like this anymore; one of them is always about to get up with the baby, about to get ready for work, or doesn’t want to be touched after a tiny person has clung to them all day. He pulls in a deep breath, smelling her lavender bubble bath and feeling the rise and fall of her ribs against his chest. He doesn’t want to disturb her, but he can’t resist pressing a tiny kiss to the side of her neck.

“Mmmm,” she hums in response, twisting her body around so they are face to face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers.

“It’s okay. Where’s Molly?”

“She’s asleep in the living room.”

She sighs and snuggles closer to him, pressing her forehead into his chest and pushing one of her legs between his.

“This feels nice,” she says contentedly, and he brushes his hand softly up and down her back.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Tired. Frumpy. Like I haven’t put on real clothes or a stitch of makeup in three months,” she laments.

“Well, I’ll give you tired,” he says softly, “but I can’t agree on frumpy. I think you look very beautiful.”

She scoffs against his chest.

“You don’t have to placate me, Mulder. I know I’m a mess.”

“Maybe so, but you’re my mess,” he retorts, pushing his fingers into her hair to gently scratch her scalp.

She tilts her head up to look at him, appraising his face with a skeptical eye.

“Is this what you thought it was going to be like?” she asks, her tone open and vulnerable.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, “I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”

She sighs. “I just wish I knew when I might start to feel like myself again,” she says sadly. “I can’t help but feel like you’re not getting what you signed up for.”

“What do you mean?” he asks with a concerned frown.

He sees her eyes growing glassy, dampening with impending tears. “I mean the woman you asked out in the autopsy bay isn’t the one you’re with now,” she whispers, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

“That’s not even a little bit true,” he implores, cradling the back of her head with his hand. “You are everything you were then, and more. I’m amazed by you every day.”

She closes her eyes, a tear rolling across the bridge of her nose. He feels his chest ache; the need to make her understand is overwhelming.

“Hey,” he says, pulling the blankets back, “come here.”

He pulls her into a sitting position and slides off the bed, towing her along with him to sit on the edge of the mattress. He kneels on the floor between her knees, his hands on her hips.

“If you think for one second that I want to be with anyone but you, you’re fucking insane. I don’t care if you wear giant milk-stained T-shirts and have spit up in your hair for the rest of our lives, Scully. You’re it for me, okay?”

She pulls in a shuddering breath and wipes at her eyes, but won’t look at him.

“Stay here,” he commands, and disappears into the bathroom for a moment. When he comes back, he returns to his post kneeling at her feet.

“We knew this was going to be hard,” he says tenderly, holding one of her hands in his. “You said it yourself before Molly was born, that it would be the hardest time in our lives, and that we’d be at our worst. And I’m telling you that if this is your worst, sign me up, okay? It hasn’t changed how I feel about you.”

He holds up his other hand, a diamond ring perched between his thumb and forefinger.

“If you’re not ready to say yes yet, that’s okay, but I need you to know that I still want to marry you, Scully. I’ll wait forever if that’s what you need, but there hasn’t been a single day since I asked that I haven’t still meant it.”

Her tears have stopped, though her eyes are still wet and the tip of her nose is red. She looks from him to the ring and back, her eyebrows stitched in contemplation.

“I didn’t hear you ask me a question,” she says quietly, and he picks up on the slightest lilt of playfulness in her voice, which makes him break out into a smile.

“Dana Katherine Scully, love of my life, mother of my child, will you marry me?”

She smiles then, and he thinks his heart may burst right out of his chest.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she answers, and he takes her left hand, slipping the ring on her finger.

She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him repeatedly, soft pecks devolving into lingering smooches as he shifts up slightly, pushing her back gently to recline on the bed. He moves over her, kissing along her jaw and down her neck, not going any further, not wanting to rush her.

She brings her hands to his hips, letting the tips of her fingers slip under the waist of his sweatpants, and his cock stirs. It’s been so, so, long, and he wants her desperately, but not until she’s ready. She pushes her hand down the front of his pants, gripping him as he grows hard under her touch. It’s overwhelming in the best way; he feels like a teenager being touched for the first time.

“I wanna have sex,” she breathes into his ear, the words rushing out quickly as though she’s afraid she might change her mind if she waits too long to say them.

He pulls back to look at her. “Are you sure?” he asks, and she nods, bringing her palm to his cheek before glancing at the ring on her finger and smiling.

They move slowly, though still with a sense of urgency that a baby sleeping in the next room brings. He pushes her shirt up and she lets him take it off, then slips the yoga pants off her hips, leaving her in basic black cotton briefs. He sees the hesitancy in her eyes as he looks at her body, now softer than it was before Molly, curvy in different places, purple streaks running from below her belly button to disappear under her panties.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, kissing her chest, her breasts, her belly, running his tongue along the grooves of her stretch marks. He loops his thumbs under the waist of her panties and tugs them down slowly, quickly undressing before he rejoins her in the bed.

“Tell me if anything hurts, okay?” he asks with a serious expression, and she nods, letting her legs fall open as he settles between them. He lines himself up with her entrance and pushes in achingly slowly, watching her face raptly. Her mouth opens slightly, and she takes in a sharp little breath. He’s about to ask her if it hurts when she closes her eyes and her mouth drops open further as she breathes out “oh,” in a way that he knows means pleasure, not pain. When he’s all the way in, their hip bones pressed together tightly, he stills and kisses her for a while, feeling like he could melt into a puddle for how good everything feels. His heart, his mind, his body, he is all wrapped up in her and it’s exactly where he wants to be.

He begins to move, and she responds with an arch of her back and a little gasp, her hands clutching at his shoulders. Little by little, he increases his pace until he knows he won’t last much longer.

“What do you need?” he asks, and she brings her hand to her breast.

He dips his head, flicking at the hardened bud of her nipple, and feels her clench around him. He plays with the level of pressure, licking and sucking, pleasantly surprised that she is enjoying it even as her breasts have taken on a purely functional role these last few months.

She pulls in a huge breath, arching her back and pressing her head into the mattress and he groans as he feels her tighten around him. She emits a single piercing cry when she comes, stifling it with an arm slung across her mouth. He pours into her, burying his face in her neck, clinging to her like a life raft. She is, in fact, all he needs to survive.

Resting half his weight on the mattress beside her, he stays inside as they both come down, panting and smiling, brushing hands over each other’s skin, reconnecting.

“Ah!” Molly yells from the living room, and Mulder laughs.

“You’re being summoned,” Scully says with a tender smile.

He withdraws from her, handing her his T-shirt to clean up while he slips on his sweatpants and retrieves Molly from her bassinet.

“Guess what, Goose?” he says, using his special nickname for her, “Mommy and Daddy are getting married.”

“AH!” She squeals, flapping her arms.

[woah-were-halfway-there]

The Sweetest of Them All

A/N: just another little bonus part of the AFTR universe that I came up with out of nowhere. Also, I left this as third person instead of second. Enjoy!

Word Count: 3.2k

Y/N has never been a big fan of Valentine's Day.

To her, it was overrated and expensive. But, she'd be lying if she said she didn't love the fact that it gave an extra reason to love on Auston a ridiculous amount. Sure, she did that every day, but to be fair, she loved how the title of Valentine's Day added a bit more fun and excitement to something she'd normally do any other day. It felt different for some reason, so even though she didn't love the so-called holiday, she still tried to plan something special for it every year.

Admittedly, she and Auston almost got competitive about it with trying to one-up the other with affection. They didn't care about gifts. They cared about the time they spent together and the thoughtfulness behind it.

Usually, it was Y/N that came up with something ridiculously sweet for Valentine's Day to do for Auston. However, this year, he had her beat.

For some odd reason, Y/N woke up very early that day. Maybe it was the baby waking her, or perhaps it was her internal clock saying sleep was no longer necessary. But, regardless, she was awake much earlier than usual. She also knew Mia wasn't awake or else she would've heard her, so she took that time to lie back in bed and relax for a few minutes on her own.

The bed felt incredibly empty, given that Auston was with the Leafs in Washington and wasn't expected to be back in Toronto until late that night. Frank was a good cuddle buddy alternative, but sometimes the Goldendoodle just wasn't enough when Y/N was missing her man. Of course, this was one of the days when she missed him a lot, so she took that as an excuse to text Auston and at least get this so-called holiday kicked off.

Y/N Happy Valentine's Day, Aus 🥰 can't wait to see you tonight

She wasn't expecting him to message back right away, seeing as it was only 7:30 in the morning, but much to her surprise, he did.

Auston Happy Valentine's Day, babe 💕 Can't wait to see you either. Did the flowers for Mia get delivered?

Y/N Yes, they got here last night. They're beautiful. I set them on the kitchen counter, so once she's awake and we go downstairs, she'll see her little V-Day gift from you

Auston Perfect. I got part of your Valentine's thing with me right now too. Ready for it?

Y/N Is it going to make me cry?

Auston Probably

Y/N Great. Hit me with your best shot

She stared at her phone screen for a moment, expecting it to light up with the notification of an incoming FaceTime call from her husband or a picture, but instead, he sent her a link. But not just any link, it was the link to the video recording of a new Spittin' Chiclets podcast episode that was over an hour-long called 'Love Day: Part One.'

Confused, but also insanely curious, Y/N then leaned over to grab her laptop from the bedside table and got into the most comfortable position her growing baby bump would allow so she could watch the video like that. As soon as she was about to press play, her phone buzzed with another text.

Auston This was filmed a couple of weeks ago when the Chiclets guys were in Toronto. They interviewed at least 10 different guys in the league at different times, and they're kind of long, which is why there's more than one part. Just watch the intro, then I'm the first interview. Mitch is on part 2 if you want to watch that as well, but yeah... call me when you're done 💕

Still unsure of how to process what was going on, Y/N just shook her head and followed the link.

The video started with Biz, Whit and Rear sat all-around a table, each wearing a different red, white or pink shirt with heart-shaped balloons positioned behind them. Empty bottles of Pink Whitney sat on the table, acting as vases for bouquets of roses, making Y/N roll her eyes and chuckle at how far these guys would go for good product placement. But, she kept watching, and unsurprisingly, Biz was the first to speak.

Biz: "For Valentines Day this year, we wanted to do something different. Something more soft. So, we're going to tell, well, I guess, show some love stories."

Whit: "Bet you all didn't know that some of the greatest love stories to ever be told have happened to some of the guys that play in the NHL. Don't believe me? Guess you'll have to listen to find out what they are."

Rear: "We asked some players to come in and talk to us about their relationship stories and give as many details as they were willing to give. And let me tell you, they were great. To start us off, we have Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs telling us his fairytale romance."

The video then clipped to a shot of Biz sitting next to Auston in what Y/N assumed was the hotel downtown that the Chiclets guys were staying at. Auston wasn't dressed extravagantly or anything, just wore a grey hoodie, black pants, and his signature Raiders snapback.

Y/N immediately recognized his outfit. She remembered Auston coming home in those same clothes early one afternoon after he did some running around downtown with Mia, and started thinking of how not once did he mention doing anything for the podcast. He kept this very on the down low, and Y/N was excited to see how it would all play out.

Biz: "Alright, with us today, we have none other than the Leafs number 34, Auston Matthews. Welcome back to the show, Auston. How ya doin?"

Auston: "I'm great. Thanks for having me. How are you guys?"

Whit and Rear: "Good."

Biz: "Great, real good. Now, Auston, you know what you're here to talk about, right?"

Auston: (chuckling) "You're acting like you didn't spend the last week blowing up my phone until I agreed to do this."

Biz: "Amazing! You do know. So, here's how it's all going to go down. We've got a list of questions about your relationship with your significant other. Your obvious better half. And are going to take turns asking them so the people listening at home can get a bit of insight on your, and I quote, iconic love story. Why don't you give us a little summary of your relationship before we dive in?"

Auston: (hesitantly) "Sure, okay. So, my wife Y/N and I have been married for almost two years now. Our anniversary is at the end of July. She accidentally forgot it last year, which I haven't let her live down. Y/N, babe, this is your six month in advance warning that our anniversary is indeed coming up again this year… She's going to hate that I mentioned that. We, uh, we've been together since my first season in Toronto, so for a pretty long time now, and it's been amazing. We have a daughter, Amelia, but everyone just calls her Mia unless she's in trouble. She just turned two on January 25th, and we have our second baby on the way. They're due to be making their grand appearance in late June. We also have our firstborn, Frank, the Goldendoodle. Can't forget about him. But, yeah, that's my little family."

Whit: (nodding along with Biz and Rear) "Fair enough. Now, how and when did you and Y/N meet exactly?"

Auston: "We met on the night of my first NHL game back in 2016. She was at that game."

Biz: "Oh, yeah? Was she there for a reason?"

Auston gave him an unimpressed look.

Biz: "What?"

Auston: "You know why she was there!"

Biz: (shrugging) "Our listeners don't. C'mon, refresh my memory. Was she there to cheer someone else on?"

Auston: (shaking his head) "Yeah. She, uh, she's a cousin of one of my teammates, so she was there with their family to watch him during our first game."

Biz: (grinning widely) "What teammate?"

Auston: "The one out in the hallway keeping my daughter occupied while you keep being annoying and asking me questions you already know the answer to."

Everyone laughed at that, including Y/N, as she shifted onto her side, being mindful of her growing bump that seemingly became more noticeable each day, and got comfortable as she braced herself for what the rest of this interview would entail.

Biz: (still laughing): "Just to clarify for everyone who still doesn't know, he's talking about Mitch Marner."

Auston: "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up."

Rear: "I take it that Mitch and Mia get along really well? I haven't heard a peep from her since you came in here."

Auston: "Oh, she loves him. Yeah, that's her Mitchy, alright. Him and Steph, who you will hear all about once Mitch comes in here, are Mia's godparents and some of her favourite people."

Whit: "That's awesome. And how was that at first, though, being romantically involved with one of your teammates' family members? Sounds like grounds for some chaos, if I'm honest."

Auston: "It sure made meeting the family a bit more nerve-wracking. I'm just kidding. No, it was fine. It was definitely a little awkward at first trying to figure out how I was going to tell Mitch that I wanted to date his cousin. Like, he and Y/N are very close. Always have been. And the last thing both me and Y/N wanted was for Mitch to be uncomfortable. He did handle it really well, though. It's because of him I was even able to get to know her in the first place, which I'll never be able to thank him enough for."

Rear: "Now, you're a pretty private guy. You post the odd picture of your little family from time to time. Y/N is rather private, as well. So, really, no one knows your guys' story other than those who have lived it with you or watched it unfold. I'm sure many people will jump right on the chance to listen to this, seeing as you and Y/N are one of the most beloved couples in the NHL. But, what exactly made you want to come on here, give a bit of insight into your private life, and talk about it all?"

Auston: "Well, for one, Biz would not stop asking me to do it. Literally kept calling and texting me for days until I finally agreed."

Whit: "Shocker."

Biz: "Hey, now."

Auston: (chuckling) "That and also I figured, why not. I love my wife, and I love our little story. It's nice to think back on everything that's happened and see how it all got us to where we are now. With all the ups and the downs, its uh, it's been an amazing ride for sure, and I wouldn't change it for a thing. Also, it's for Valentine's Day. I haven't told her I'm doing this, so when you guys drop the episode, I'm just going to send it to her without much context."

Whit: "Do you think she'll cry?"

Auston: "Absolutely. I know this kind of thing would make her tear up regularly, but those pregnancy hormones have got her bad. Without a doubt, she's going to call me crying once she's done watching this."

Y/N scoffed as he said that and grabbed some tissues to wipe away the waterworks she already felt coming on.

Biz: "I've met Y/N many times now. The first time being back in what, 2018?"

The screen then showed an old picture of Biz sitting in a restaurant with his arm wrapped around Y/N's shoulders, both smiling widely as they held up their drinks, with Auston seemingly moping off to the side a little bit. Y/N chuckled at the image, instantly thinking back to the day she first met Paul Bissonnette and how wild it was before the photo faded away and showed the guys again.

Biz: "Yeah, it was when she was in Scottsdale visiting you during the summer. Great girl, completely out of Auston's league."

Auston: "Hey!"

Biz: "I'll never forget you sassing her when she commented on how hot Arizona was, with her being Canadian and all, but damn she was fast putting you in your place by calling you a, what was it?"

Auston: (grumbling) "Desert Boy."

Everyone burst out laughing again, except Auston, who just rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.

Auston: "Whatever. She sasses me all the time when I complain about the snow, but the one time I do it back, I get called a Desert Boy and can never live it down."

Biz: (still laughing) "Ugh, amazing. Okay, moving on because we don't have much time and can probably fit in like two more questions. So, Auston, tell us how you knew that Y/N was the end game for you. How did you know that she was the one?"

Auston: "Oh, man. I don't even know how to explain it. Growing up, you see all these movies and shows, or read books where people always find someone who is their soulmate. Their perfect match. And I never knew what the feeling of finding that person was because I had never experienced it. My mom would tell me that when I did find that person, I'd know. That it'll be such an intense feeling, and to be honest, I didn't believe her. Until I met Y/N, I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. The first time I met her, something drew me in, and I knew I wanted to get to know her better right away. Mitch spoke so highly of her, so did the other guys on the team that had already met her and over the first couple of months of us knowing each other, I saw what they meant. She quickly became one of my best friends ever. When we started dating, I saw more of how good a person she is, which attracted me even more. She is so selfless and caring for everyone around her; it truly blows my mind. I had never seen my family welcome a girl I introduced them to as quickly as they did her, and I trust their judgment the most. But even if they didn't do that, I know they would have accepted her regardless because, honestly, I probably seemed like a lovesick idiot. I still do. Y/N became this significant light in my life that I knew I wanted to be there forever. I began thinking about what it'd be like spending the rest of my life with her. Then it became something that I knew I needed. I can't imagine my life without her, and I never want to. She makes me so happy and has given me more than I could ever thank her for. I'll never understand how I, of all people, was the one to capture her massive heart, but I do know how lucky I am."

As he spoke, the screen showed a little picture slideshow of Y/N and Auston over the years of their relationship. It started with one that Ema took the first time Y/N had ever gone to Scottsdale. Y/N was sitting on the edge of a pool, and her legs dipped into the water. Auston stood between them as he wrapped his arms around her middle and leaned against her while looking over at where Ema stood taking the picture. The next one was from a Christmas party where the two were under a mistletoe as Auston leaned Y/N back and was kissing her cheek as she laughed and held onto him for dear life. There was a picture of them with Auston's family, one of them with Mitch and Steph, and another of Auston with his arms around Nate and Mya, Y/N's younger brother and sister, as the three smiled at the camera and Y/N was in the background looking confused.

The last few pictures were a bit more recent. They showed Y/N holding Frank as a puppy, a maternity photo of her and Auston posing when she was pregnant with Mia, and one of them on their wedding day with Mia and the rest of the gang. Then, the slideshow concluded with a very recent picture of them taken just a couple of weeks prior at Mia's birthday party, where Auston has his arms wrapped around Y/N from the back, showcasing her growing belly. At the same time, she leaned against him and glanced over her shoulder at him lovingly. The photos then went away and showed the guys again as Auston finished speaking.

Auston was right. Y/N was full-on bawling by that point.

All the guys were smiling as Auston finished saying his thing, but were soon interrupted by a knocking noise followed by a door opening.

Mitch: (offscreen) "Wait, no! Don't let her in!"

Mia: (also offscreen) "Daddy!"

Mia then came into the frame as she ran towards Auston, not caring about what was going on or who was there. Auston was quick reacting as he smiled widely and scooped Mia right up into his arms, making sure to place multiple kisses on her cheek as she giggled and squirmed in his hold, while Mitch became visible too and shrugged.

Auston: "Hi, mini. I missed you. Did you have fun with Mitchy?"

Mia: "Yeah! Where's mommy, daddy?"

Auston: "She's at home, baby girl. I'm almost done, then we can go get a Timbit while we wait for Mitch to be done. Sounds good?"

Mia: (knuckling at her eyes, tiredly) "Mhmm."

Rear: "This is adorable."

Biz: "Hi, Mia."

Mia: (shyly while hiding against Auston's chest a bit) "Hi, Biz."

Whit: (laughing) "Okay, I think we've kept you long enough now, Auston. Is there anything else you and Mia would like to say to Y/N?"

Auston: "Yes. Happy Valentine's Day, babe. I love you so much, and I'm sorry I'm not there right now. You're going to hear a lot more from me on actual Valentine's Day, but for right now, I think that's just about it. Mia, can you blow a kiss to the camera so mommy can see it and say 'happy Love Day!'"

Mia: (blows the kiss) "Happy Love Day, mommy!"

Auston: "Can you tell her that you love her?"

Mia: "Love you!"

Auston and Mia then waved to the camera and said bye as the clip faded out, and a new interview of another NHLer began playing.

Y/N's heart felt so full. She couldn't stop crying over how much she loved her family and how badly she needed to hear something like that. Life had been particularly hard on her as of late and seemed to keep throwing her curveballs, but this, this was exactly what she needed. To be reminded of how loved she is and that she genuinely is never alone.

She then grabbed her phone to call Auston and remind him of how much she loved him, that day and every day. The two talked for a few minutes before Y/N was pretty sure she could hear Mia waking up. After saying their goodbyes, Y/N found herself thinking about how, regardless of how she feels about the actual day, this was a Valentine's Day she will never forget.

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

professional pest

summary: Matthew Tkachuk and a relaxing night don’t belong in the same sentence. Or, in other words, your boyfriend is a nuisance and he knows it.

warnings: mentions of sex

word count: 1.6k

“I’m pretty sure I genuinely hate you.” 

There was absolutely no malice behind your words, and your boyfriend knew that, so that’s why he deemed it safe to laugh loudly. You turned to glare at him, but he lunged forward and pressed his lips to yours in a kiss so sweet you almost forgot why you had been so annoyed at him in the first place. Key word being almost.

You had come over to Matthew’s apartment to cook dinner and spend some well-earned time with your boyfriend, but you seemed to forget one crucial detail that could throw your whole plan out the window. 

Matt was a professional pest, on and off the ice. 

Cut to you standing in his kitchen, trying to get him to keep his hands to himself. It was almost like he couldn’t help it, he saw you minding your own business, cooking the spaghetti dinner for you both and he just had to annoy you. 

Instead of doing the typical romantic boyfriend thing, like wrapping his arms around you from behind and resting his chin on your head as you worked, he decided to be twelve years old again and give you jumper cables. 

“Matthew, I swear to god, if you don’t knock it off—” You threatened, pointing your spoon in his direction as he giggled manically. 

“You’ll what?” He called your bluff with a self-satisfied grin that had you pouting in annoyance. Sometimes, you just wished that he wasn’t as good at being a shit-disturber as he was if only for the selfish reason that you wanted to win one of your typical back and forth teasing fits. “You love me too much to do anything.” 

“I’ll call your mom.” You turned back to the stove, stirring the noodles in and attempt to hide the grin that was quickly forming on your face. 

“And what, get me grounded?” He laughed loudly, slipping the spoon out of your hand and spinning you to face him. His smile was softer now, it was the one reserved for when he wanted you to know that despite all his teasing, he adored you. “Besides, if I’m grounded that means I’m not allowed to hang out with you.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” You played along, acting as if you were even contemplating telling his mom how much of a nuisance her son was. No doubt she knew, she had been subjected to having Matthew and Brady under the same roof for years. And even now, both boys grown adults you could still spot her growing a headache when the boys were together and started to bicker.

Matt grinned down at you, wrapping his arms around you kissing you soundly. You felt the love down to your toes, and everything around you seemed to melt away. You were so content pressed up against him the way you were that you didn't even realize he was smirking devilishly into the kiss, that his hands went from tugging you close to him to resting loosely on your hips. 

But you did feel him pinch your sides, fingers once more digging into the flesh there.

“Matthew!”

Hours later, you found yourself sitting on the couch with your feet propped up on Matt’s coffee table and his head in your lap. Your fingers had been threaded in his curls since the moment you both had settled into your spots, neither one of you all too eager to move. 

“Would you still love me if I shaved my head?” 

The question caught you off guard, you had been too engrossed in the movie he had picked. Plus, what kind of question was that? The hand that had been tangled in his curls froze, and you looked down at him with a goofy grin. He, however, looked serious, which made your brows tug together in confusion.

“Matty, please tell me you're not thinking about shaving your head.” You pleaded, tugging on his hair for added effect. His expression turned devious and you were rolling your eyes before he even spoke. 

“Nah, I won't cut it off. What else are you supposed to hold onto when I'm doing down on you?”

“Matthew.” You whined, shoving at his shoulder as he laughed. You never could understand why he found so much joy in annoying you, though what was even more confusing was how he managed to be endearing at the same time. “You’re such a perv.”

“You love it though.” He giggled, snagging your hand and pressing a kiss to your palm. You rolled your eyes once more, but were smiling nonetheless. “Come on, let’s go to bed. You’ve been yawning for the past ten minutes.” 

“Aw, he can be nice.” You teased, grinning as he took the chirp with a chuckle while he sat up. Once he was standing, he turned to you with the same devilish smirk you had been the victim of for the entirety of the night—actually, more like your whole relationship. Before you could even begin to tell him to not even think about whatever it was he so clearly wanted to do, you were upside down over his shoulder. “Matt! Put me down.”

“Can’t have people thinking I’m nice, now can we?”

If you thought that Matt would stop being such a pest while he slept, you would be wrong. Even when he was knocked out cold, if you tried to move away from his grip he would tighten his arms around you and pull you deeper into his chest. 

You’d learned to deal with it, but sometimes it got annoying and inconvenient when you had to wake him up in the morning so you could use the bathroom. On the days when he had to be up early for any reason, he'd pester you until you were awake too and sitting up against the headboard, just to be able to talk to you as his bounced across the room getting ready, occasionally stealing kisses and tickling your sides if he felt you were falling back asleep. 

But today you were the one that had to leave at a specified time, and that wasn't something Matt was all too thrilled with. Which was exactly why you, a grown adult, were standing with your hands on your hips scolding your boyfriend, who also was a grown adult. 

“Matt, where did you put them?” You questioned, looking down at your loving boyfriend who had been watching you search through his apartment for the past ten minutes for your lost items. 

“Why do you think I had something to do with it?” He threw his hands up, trying to play the part of an innocent bystander. He knew his acting skills weren't up to par and that you caught his fib just by the way you raised a pointed brow at him. It reminded him of how his mother used to scold him when he was a kid, but there was no way he was going to compare you to his mom when you were already annoyed as is. He may have liked to push your buttons, but even he wasn't stupid enough to draw attention to the comparison. 

“Well, for starters, sneakers don't just move on their own.” You huffed, continuing a futile search of his living room. Behind the couch, under the chairs, and you even looked under the throw pillows you had made Matt get for his apartment. And if you happened to toss it at his head while he was too busy laughing at you to defend himself, no one could truly blame you. “Seriously, Matthew, where are they? I’m supposed to meet everyone for brunch in fifteen minutes.”

“Fine.” He conceded, knowing you were reaching the point between amusingly annoyed and flat out upset for making you late. You cheered in silent victory as he stood to his feet, only faltering when you recognized that damn smirk on his face. “It's on top of the fridge.”

“Matthew.” You whined, slipping into the kitchen, his chuckling figure following behind you. You cursed him under your breath, craning your neck to look up on top of the appliance that supposedly held your shoes. “I can’t even seen on top of there, let alone reach.”

“Oh, wow, if only you had this really amazing six-foot three boyfriend who could get it for you? I’m sure he’d totally help if you asked.” He teased, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning backwards against the island counter. You rolled your eyes, checking the time on your phone to see if you had any time to fight him on this. 

“Okay, okay, before you start listing your scoring stats.” You joked, fighting off a smile to keep up your veil of annoyance. Matt didn't even try to hide his amusement, his barking laugh loud in the quiet kitchen. “Can you please get my sneakers down? Despite the fact that you put them up there in the first place?”

“Eh, we’ll take that for now.” He was grinning, but before he reached the fridge to get your sneakers down he stopped and pressed a quick kiss to your pout. Now, you really couldn’t fight the bright smile that grew on your face. 

“I don’t understand why you insist on annoying me all the time.” You huffed, no real malice to your tone, as Matt chuckled at your words. He handed you your shoes, having gotten them down with minimal effort on his part. His grin was wide and teasing, the very same one you had fallen in love with the day you met him.

“What can I say, I’m a professional pest.”

[topsytervy]

Mob Boss Rafe

Blurb: Mob Rafe celebrating your birthday

Warnings: mentions of drinking, a couple of sexual innuendos very little though, probably misspellings what else is new.

If you would like to be added to the tag list for Mob Rafw, just let me know with a comment :)

Enjoy:)

Rafe doesn’t celebrate your birthday on just your birthday

he celebrates it throughout the week because he’s so in love with you

when you go to bed, he grabs your phone and looks through all the apps you have that are shopping related and he goes through your wish list

he knows your sizes when it comes to clothes but he knows how much you don’t trust online shopping

so he does the most logical thing in his mind which is read the reviews and then pick the two sizes that seem most likely to fit

he gets excited and shocked when he see’s lingerie on your wishlist and you know damn well he added it to cart with a smirk on his face

he’d order the things online six months in advance cause he’d be scared they wouldn’t show up

and if something got lost in the mail, he’d be pissed

you’d ask why he seemed so grumpy and he’d lie because he didn’t want you to know he ordered your presents six months early

throughout the week, he takes you on little dates or to your favorite places

like one day, you might be out on the water the entire day, the next you might be at your favorite restaurant. Ya know, cute shit like that

there’s always a spa day for you though in the middle of the week

we’re talking massages, facials, manicures, pedicure, the whole nine yards

“Rafe, you don’t have to. Seriously. I don’t need all this fuss. I just need you and the dog. Thats it.”

“I know you don’t need it babydoll but you fucking deserve it.”

the actual day of your birthday, you’d wake up to Rafe peppering your face with kisses and your favorite flowers on your night stand 

he’d sing happy birthday to you very quietly as he laid next to you.

“Can we just spend my birthday in bed?”

“But then all my planning would go down the drain. Besides, I think you’ll like what’s gonna happen after the party.”

“I swear to God Rafe if it’s like last year and you make me go at least three rounds with you-”

“It’s not, I promise.”

You had to work on your birthday but it was just a noon shift so it was fine and that gave Rafe and everyone plenty of time to set up

When it came down to it, he was a perfectionist

making everyone move one thing to five different places before having them return it to the first place it was at, getting 8 different colored napkins to see which one went best with the theme before sending someone to go pick up more of that color

 the bar had to have alcohol you wouldn’t like that much because he didn’t want you plastered that night

he even made sure everyone knew you were allowed 3 drinks that night

boring we know but he had a reason

When he got home, you were already there, trying to figure out what to wear

“Do we have to go?”

“It’s only a two hour party, for you might I add, and then we come back here. It’s not even going to go on that late. 8-10.”

Rafe would then walk over and slide everything to one side of the closet to reveal the dress he bought you for today’s occasion

oh and the heels

you’d grab it and look for the price tag but Rafe took it off and burned the receipt cause he knew you’d yell at him for spending so much money on you

A quick kiss and a 'you didnt have to' later, you were in the bathroom getting changed

The minute you came out, Rafes jaw hit the floor

"I know what you're thinking Rafe and no. No quickie before or during the party. "

Rafe would cross his arms and pout, causing you to boop his nose

"Come on party boy, since you're so insistent on going."

When you actually got to the party and into the club he rented out, you would just shoot him the DIRTIEST look

"You need to learn how to manage your money," "I do not." "I can't wait for your bank statement to come in the mail so I can beat your ass after I read it." "Wow. Napkins and streamers. So expensive. "

When you went to send him a glare for the sarcasm, he kissed your nose, causing you to laugh

"Cant be mad now. Thats the rules."

Youd just look at him and respond with "Bet," before walking away, weaving through people to try and lose him in the crowd, laughing as you did

Rafe would be right behind you though because he's got long legs and people part like Moses parting the Red Sea when they see him

Next thing you'd know, you were hiding behind Zeke turning him to put him between you and your boyfriend

"Zeke, move."

"I'd love to boss, i really would, but her grip is solid."

Rafe would finally win, pulling you towards him to dance to In Da Club by 50 Cent

Halfway through the party, the cake would come out and you swore at your boyfriend at the size of the cake

"What? Really? Pissed about me ordering a cake big enough to feed everyone?"

You just rolled your eyes as everyone started singing Happy Birthday

While everyone was eating cake, Rafe walked up to Zeke and nudged him, nodding towards the door.

"Can't I finish the cake first, boss?"

"You have 5 minutes to finish that slice."

"You underestimate me boss. It'll be gone in 2 minutes tops."

It actually took Zeke a minute and a half.

You'd see Zeke and Rafe leaving and you'd make your way through the crowd because you'll be damned if you gotta be at a party that you didn't even want in the first place without Rafe

"Where are you going?" "We got business babydoll." "Business?" "Yeah. I'll be back. I promise."

You looked at Zeke and he just shot you a look that said 'leave me out of this'

After the party ended, Rafe was not back and you had to call an Uber.

You'd walk into the house ready to rip him a new one

"You better have a real good excuse for pulling this shit, Cameron!" You'd yell from the entrance way as you kicked off your heels.

You'd peek into the living room to see a fort set up and you bit back a smile as you approached it

You'd look in to see all your favorite snacks and drinks and your presents with YouTube cued up

"So...good excuse or am I still in trouble?" He'd say from behind you

"I mean, i guess it's good." Youd smile as you turned towards him

"Wanna watch people shit themselves as they play horror games?" He'd throw your pajamas his shirt to you as you nodded

"So this is why you and Zeke left."

"Yeah, the dude can make one hell of a fort."

~~~~~~~

Taglist: @prejudic3 @oleariaux @outerbanx96 @popcrone818

[ahgastae]

worst chefs in seoul (outline) – kim seokjin x gn!reader

➥ word count: 3.9k | reality/cooking show au | crack | fluff

➥ m.list

➥ a/n: we’re back at it again with another wip i never finished lol. this one is the outline for what was intended to be a social media au (as evidenced by some of the notes i left for myself), though it’s likely that’s not how it actually would’ve come out. i’d love to hear some of your thoughts/reactions, and i hope you enjoy ♡

day ???

start w y/n and yoongi goofing off on twitter

the whole y/n eating a moldy grape thinking it’s a kiwi thing

and yoongi panicking bc of it

could transition into them talking about the finale episode of their favorite show: worst chefs in seoul

they’re both huge fans, and equally complete disasters when it comes to culinary skill

yoongi likes the show bc he likes the competition aspect and tbh he got addicted after y/n forced him to watch the first season w them

y/n also likes it for that reason, but the main reason they watch it is bc of a certain kim seokjin

anyway, they talk about the finale, and then yoongi says something about the next season’s ‘nominations’ coming up soon

y/n jokingly says they’re going to nominate yoongi bc of that one time he made tacos with dog food

and yoongi fires back w the time they managed to light the microwave on fire making cup o’ noodles

they agree to let each other live

…..for now

sike!

the two actually do end up nominating each other w/o the other knowing

y/n honestly just thought it would be funny if yoongi got picked and yoongi was like “fuck it why not”

little did they know…..

while the nomination guidelines assure that the selection process is completely random, this is a reality show

meaning for anyone w a brain that’s obviously not the case

contestants are actually chosen by the show’s assistant producers and approved by the chefs themselves and then the higher ups

but who are those assistant producers??

none other than park jimin and kim taehyung

neither of them keep their involvement with the show a secret, and one takes it a teensy bit more seriously than the other

anyway, they’re usually told to find a batch of contestants (that they feel) would conjure up the most drama for the show

it is tv, after all, and they have to keep people watching

and that part is crucial

to their credit, they do (somewhat) succeed for the most part

jimin selects yoongi and namjoon from the nomination pool bc he thinks joon’s clumsiness w yoongi’s nonchalant nature will work for max chaos

and taehyung chooses y/n and jungkook bc while their competitive drives are similar, y/n’s subdued nature has a big chance for conflict w jk’s out-there attitude

(how do they know all this? they’re experts at what they do leave me alone)

day ??? 2.0

y/n (and yoongi, secretly) is ecstatic when they get the emails/DM/whatever that they’ve been “chosen for the next hot season of worst chefs in seoul!”

but then yoongi asks if it’s allowed for them to know each other and accept the nomination

like they’re best friends. is that going to present some kinda problem that’ll get them both kicked off??

should only one of them accept it?

(he’s immediately ready to sacrifice his own nomination bc he knows how much y/n cares about this stupid show)

y/n says they’re not going to let him do that bc they were both chosen, meaning they both should get to go

but—

“it’s fine!! we can just pretend we don’t know each other when we’re on set!”

and so they’re off

to some undisclosed location in seoul

day 0

jimin and taehyung are the first to greet everyone, collecting all four contestants together for a tour of the dorms

and y/n starts texting yoongi in a panic bc both of their dumbasses forgot that the contestants are separated into teams as soon as they arrive

yoongi prolly says smth like i’m two feet away from you why are you texting me

(y/n reminds him they can’t make it seem like they know each other)

yoongi acts like it’s not that big of a deal

prolly says there’s a good chance they’ll end up on the same team

and if they don’t they can just hang out in the dorms when the cameras are off and away

which is when jimin loudly announces that this season, each team is getting their own dormitory

and that contestants will be required to stay in their dorm while filming the season, except for approved ‘outings’ for the show

he moves on before anyone can ask what that means

they’ll be allowed to pick whichever dorm they want to stay in for the first night, since they want to get the contestants’ reactions on camera when they reveal the teams

but after they’re revealed tomorrow, it’s your dorm and your dorm only

y/n and yoongi automatically gravitate towards each other

they end up together in the ‘new’ dorm, which yoongi grumpily notes is practically bigger than their whole apartment

y/n wonders if they ended up in seokjin’s dorm, and gets excited at the thought of this being a ‘test’ to see which chef’s team they’ll be on

to which yoongi asks what makes this dorm his?

“idk i just...feel his aura in here”

“.......okay, weirdo. i’m gonna go ‘feel his aura’ in the bathroom and take a—”

“yoongi!!”

y/n can either ask what yoongi thinks of the other contestants or they can both pretty much blow them off entirely for the time being

idk which yet

day 1

next morning, the contestants are woken up bright and early by none other than our favorite assistant producers

the wake up call comes in the form of a new group chat between the six of them

along with a link to ‘download’ the calendar for the shooting schedule

(which is really an app/virus that disables certain functions on their phones)

((such as most social media and texting numbers outside their ‘parameters’))

after that’s all hashed out, jm & t explain that this group chat is for any and all notifications and updates about the show, as well as any questions and/or concerns the contestants might have

like

“can i just vote to eliminate myself now and go home?” and

“how do i get this fucking thing off my phone” and

“when do we find out what team we’re on??”

the answers to which are

no

you’ll find out when filming is finished

and right now!

they tell the contestants to get up and get dressed as their first day on set officially starts now

y/n and kook immediately jump into action and leave the gc

joon lags behind a little confused but follows the flow

yoongi, ever the people person, gets aggressive when they don’t answer his questions about their goddamn malware

“is this even legal?? are you even fucking allowed to just disable our devices like this?”

“what if there’s an emergency??”

“looks like you’ll just have to find out, huh?”

yoongi’s phone then crashes and won’t let him unlock it until the first block of filming is finished

jm: “oops ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ”

day 1 recap

we find out through our superfan what happens during the first episode

(maybe do something like this person is some kinda press/‘news’ account dedicated entirely to w.c.i.s. and the two chefs)

((mayhaps they leak the contestant list before it goes public??))

((jimin and tae could have some kinda unspoken rivalry w them lol))

anyway the story is told through them in a series of twitter threads

(plus a few messages from y/n to yoongi freaking out about the teams they get put on)

first event of the day is: the team announcements

yoongi and joon end up on team kim seokjin and y/n is on team jyp w kook

being split up puts a bit of a damper on their plans, and with this stupid cell block they don’t know if they’ll even be allowed to talk to each other

none of them get much time to react, though, as they’re then shuffled off to their respective kitchens

where they finally meet their respective chefs

and, lo and behold, y/n is goddamn terrified

jinyoung is even scarier in person than he is on tv

“don’t laugh at me yoongi!! this is the guy who made a girl sob on live television!”

“and now ur gonna be the next person what’s the problem lmao”

while y/n tries to get past their fear, they’re given their first official task: work together with their new partner to create a meal of their choice

the catch is that they aren’t allowed any help from their chef yet

and since the teams were just announced literally like 10 minutes ago, none of them have had much of a chance to get to know each other

(the network knows this, and does this on purpose since most of the seasons’ first episodes are spent either arguing or being completely lost)

things go about as well (read: badly) as expected

y/n and kook soon discover their very conflicting personalities and spend the majority of the round bickering back and forth about what to make/how to do it

meanwhile yoongi slaps a piece of sliced cheese directly on the stove while joon runs around like a chicken w its head cut off

in the end, team jyp somehow manages to come out victorious

they cobble together some (semi) edible banana milkshakes to present to the judges

(‘together’ meaning y/n wanted to make plain vanilla milkshakes and kook switched it for banana milk when they weren’t looking)

yoongi and joon tried (keyword being tried) to make grilled cheese

but between yoongi’s cheese-to-stove method and joon dropping their two pieces of burnt toast right before the timer rang

they didn’t get many points

as their reward, team jyp has the honor of picking what they’ll be making tomorrow

they’re given the rest of the day to think and talk it over while team ksj is told to reflect on what went wrong in today’s trial

back at the dorms (now in their separate teams), y/n finds that yoongi finally graces them w a response

(and that they were right about which one was ‘seokjin’s’ dorm)

yoongi tells them about ‘that little shit’ locking him out of his phone and that he honestly just wants to get tf out of there contract or not

y/n convinces him to stay and stick it out, if not for them then for the prize money at the end

yoongi then asks what dish they’re going to pick for tomorrow, and asks if they can pick something he at least has an idea how to make

cue y/n saying that they were thinking of suggesting one of seokjin’s signature dishes but not knowing if kook would go along w the idea

“he kept trying to switch out our ingredients for banana milk and i don’t know how to tell him to knock that shit off”

“honestly you know i’m not one to take charge but he wasn’t even listening to me!! what’s to say he’s actually going to listen to the PROFESSIONAL chef here to help us??”

“aNd SPeAkINg oF THaT”

cue y/n whining about how they wanted to be on jin’s team and it’s not fair that they both got stuck w jinyoung AND a bratty kid on their team

yoongi sympathizes since he was looking forward to them being on the same team, but makes y/n agree that if he has to give the competition a chance then they have to give kook one too

“i mean yeah he seems like a bit of a dumbass but isn’t that why we’re all here? bc we have no fuckin clue what to do in the kitchen?”

hmm...fine they’ll give him a chance

but they still think he’s a lil shit and don’t really wanna talk to him at all, let alone reach some kinda compromise on what to make

they don’t get much or a choice, though, as they both receive a mysterious message from...jungkook? in another group chat?

the contestants find that they have all been manually added to another gc

except this one is missing the two assistant producers who love to breathe down their necks

everyone but jk is immediately suspicious

is this some of trick to get them to screw up?

to break some kinda hidden clause in the contract none of them actually read?

wasn’t that thing they downloaded supposed to block incoming messages like this?

“but wait, yoongi, then how were we able to…?”

but as of right now, they don’t get any answers

and they’re all too afraid to ask anyone but each other

“well we’re all here so...we might as well get to know each other right?? :D”

this is where we get our first in-depth look at the four people stuck on this show together, who in their lives nominated them and why

(y/n and yoongi’s lying skills are put to a bit of a test as they each rush to pull stories right out of their asses)

kook talks about bambam and says his nomination said smth about “adding banana milk to everything f*ckin thing he makes”

he doesn’t really get why that was enough to land him a spot on the show but he thought it would be pretty cool to be on tv and just went along with it

namjoon talks about hobi and emphasizes that he’s not that bad of a cook

he just gets nervous and confused when it comes to recipes and cooking which expresses itself in the form of his unabashed clumsiness

joon then asks if they’ll really be prevented from having any outside communication until filming is finished

he, like yoongi, questions the legality of deceitfully installing the block on their phones

y/n says there probably was some kind of hidden clause that allowed them to do that, as they “can’t imagine seokjin would take part in a competition that abuses its contestants”

to which joon replies that they don’t actually know seokjin so they can’t really ‘imagine’ anything about how he will or won’t act

right as yoongi is about to jump in and tell him to back off, jungkook decides that that’s way too much legal talk for him

he forces changes the subject back to the gc as a whole and says that even if they’re prevented from talking to their friends he’s happy they’ll “at least have each other :D”

y/n feels like part of that is directed at them and feels bad for how they thought he was ‘just a dumb kid’ before

namjoon, however, is still hesitant

he’s not sure if this chat could get them in trouble in regards to the show and their contract and what not and says that they all should probably delete it just to be safe

but that is unanimously vetoed by y/n and kook (and yoongi, reluctantly) and they decide that if the block allowed it to pass through then it must be allowed

before joon can argue anymore, they all receive a message from tae in the ‘official’ gc

he briefly explains the lights out policy of the dorms and tells them that they’re probably going to want a good night's sleep for their ‘big day’ tomorrow

yoongi then says smth like “well...guess that’s lights out then” and jk responds excited as ever w “night guys!! see you all in the morning! :)”

and y/n can feel their soul leaving their body for even thinking anything ill about him

day 2

contestants are woken up bright and early by alarms they didn’t set

(“oh great, so they just hijacked every app on our fucking phones then”

jimin tells them all to hurry up, get dressed, and meet the chauffeur outside bc they can’t afford to be late

(“literally! every second you waste is money docked from the network’s wallet! so get your asses in gear, guppies!”)

y/n and kook get outside first, but yoongi and joon are nowhere to be seen

y/n decides to text the q & a gc to get the dirt on seokjin

they kinda start sucking up to jimin and tae to see if they’ll reveal any info, particularly about what the chef is like and if it’s possible for him to talk to the ‘other’ team’s contestants

and while the producers are pleasantly surprised that one of the contestants actually want to use that gc for something other than yelling at them

they unfortunately can’t give much info besides what most people already know

and confirm that one of the chefs talking to the other’s students was probably not allowed, but that it’s also never really happened before so they’re not really sure lmao

(“taehyung!!” “what? was i not supposed to say that?”)

jimin cuts the conversation short there as yoongi and joon arrive and they all get on the shuttle for the set

taehyung does say one last thing tho

“good luck!! hopefully they don’t tear u up too bad!”

but first

our superfan gives us the downlow on the competition and how it works

after being split into teams, the contestants will rotate between ‘training’ w their chef and competing against each other in timed trial rounds

prizes can be won for both events, but the ones for the trial rounds are generally more competition based while the ones for the training rounds are more about luxury/quality of life while filming

each trial round win counts as a point towards the team’s score in the competition

only trial rounds affect this score

once a certain number of points has been reached (5), that team moves into the next phase of the competition

instead of working as a team, they are split up and now have to work against each other to win the favor of their chef

and in the finale, after one last big cookout competition, an individual winner is chosen and crowned a ‘former’ worst chef in seoul

once the contestants arrive on set, the chefs reiterate that today is just a training round

(they all let out a collective sigh of relief)

and it’s a good thing everyone woke up so early bc they’re just in time to learn how to make breakfast!!

“it’s not like we had much of a choice-oof.”

“anyway! team jyp, since you won the pretrial round yesterday, you get to decide what both teams will be learning how to make today. so, y/n, jungkook. think carefully. what do you want for breakfast?”

y/n is about to suggest seokjin’s signature strawberry and cream crepes when jungkook, who is still half asleep, blurts out “omelette”

(also i’ve decided that jackson is the host of the show now and i’m not changing my mind)

and it’s decided. they’re makin’ omelettes

(y/n is only a little bit peeved)

shuffled off to their separate kitchens, y/n is reminded of just how terrified they are of jinyoung

sure, they thought he was scary yesterday when they realized they were on his team, but now he has to actually teach them and they can’t help but think he’s going to make them into an idiot sandwich by the end of the day

as such, they try to keep half-asleep kook in between them and jinyoung at all costs, even if it meant running around the kitchen like a lost puppy

jinyoung, fully aware of how the show portrays him and how fans view him, notices this almost instantaneously

but he unfortunately doesn’t get to pull y/n aside to address it before jungkook starts digging through the fridge for banana milk and almost throws the entire carton of eggs on the floor

professional chef jyp mode: on

and they’re off

it’s a little difficult with y/n dancing around the kitchen anxiously and jungkook’s absolute aversion to being told what to do (as y/n predicted), but jinyoung manages to whip them into shape long enough to (barely) make a ham, cheese, and “green onion? wtf is that?” omelette

team seokjin, however, does not favor as well

yoongi apparently doesn’t know what tf a green onion is either and just throws in whatever green vegetable he can find while jin is struggling to keep namjoon from setting himself on fire

….and it turned out to be celery

that, plus joon somehow managing to burn the omelette to a crisp, costs them the training round

y/n and kook start to celebrate their victory and actually working as a team when jackson informs them that their ‘prize’ is they get to eat what they cooked while the other team gets whatever is left over on the catering table

“i hope you listened to your chef!”

“...jungkook, please tell me you used actual milk in this”

“um…”

back at the dorms, the contestants share their thoughts on their first day of training, as well as their first official day w their chefs

(also include y/n saying something about their banana milk omelettes actually not being half bad)

y/n immediately recalls how much they were terrified of jinyoung, almost cutting their finger off when he glanced over their shoulder when they were slicing the green onions

jk agrees, adding smth about how he didn’t think a scowl could ever be so intimidating

“it reminded me of my mom’s face when she found out i tried to pierce my own ears in the bathroom in middle school!! i was too afraid to push the needle all the way through and walked around with it in my ear all day until one of my teachers finally noticed and sent me to the office!”

...ok jungkook

during all of this, yoongi and joon are both like...wtf

“seokjin was literally nothing but nice to us. even when namjoon almost set his sleeve on fire lmao”

“hyung how did u manage that” “doesn’t matter”

jungkook thinks the difference in the chefs is hilarious, but y/n is only upsetti spaghetti

they go on a bit of a rant about how badly they wanted to be on jin’s team

saying something about how jinyoung is scary and mean and they’re almost positive he can sense their fear or something and probably use it against them while jin’s team would be so much better on the sole fact that they wouldn’t feel like he would turn them into an omelette for getting something wrong

cue jk being all babey asking “you...don’t wanna be on a team with me? :((“

and y/n immediately PANICS and tries to explain that NO, it’s not HIM but yoongi saves their ass by saying that seokjin is just their favorite and that’s all

jungkook feels better, but then namjoon is like “hol up. we all just met. how could you possibly know that?”

insert more y/n fumbling and jk confusion

yoongi (once again) covers w some bullshit story that he was able to just guess that based on what y/n’s said in the gc so far

joon wants to question it further, but jungkook informs them that the lights out call just came in before he can

another yoony/n sigh of relief

in private, y/n freaks out to yoongi for almost blowing their cover to the others

prompting a short conversation over whether they think they can trust them or not

y/n admits that they’re warming up to kook, but is a little suspicious if namjoon will keep their secret yet

convo ends with yoongi saying something like “well, the kid’s right about one thing. at least we know we have each other”

end.

[thejolexgroupchat]

the one where they met in med school - part seven

Jo’s first day at Seattle Grace

Be sure to check out our Master List for parts 1-6

You guys really have no idea how much Nat, @iamtrebleclefstories​ and @doc-pickles​ love writing this story.

(July 2007)

"You ready?" Alex asked as he looked at Jo in the passenger seat and Lexie in the back. They were sitting in the hospital parking lot, Jo and Lexie taking in the fact that today was the first day of their intern year. "You don't want to be late on your first day. Trust me, you want to hear Webber's speech. And I don't want to be late to meet my interns."

"Do you guys already know who you have?" Lexie asked. She wasn't originally supposed to come to Seattle. She had a top tier surgical residency waiting for her at Mass Gen, but when her mom died about a month ago, she got rematched at Seattle Grace to be closer to her father. On top of that, Lexie had just found out that she had an older sister who was working in this very hospital.

"No, we find out when you do," Alex shared. "Are you sure you don't want me to talk to Meredith? She's a good person. A bit emotionally stunted, but she's a good friend."

"No, Alex it's fine," Lexie shook her head. "I think she should hear it from me."

"Okay. I'm going to go inside. I'll see you guys later. Maybe if you're lucky you'll be on my service," he leaned over to the passenger seat and gave Jo a peck on the lips before getting out of the car. "Don't forget to lock the door."

About an hour later, Jo and Lexie were in the locker room, waiting for Webber to share which resident they would be working under. He went through the list of residents and called out interns.

“Alright everyone listen up. I am going to assign you to a resident. When I call your name, you will go find your resident in the hallway and await instructions. Trimble, Franklin, Morales, and Bozniack you’re with Stevens. Harrison, Allen, O’Malley, Johnson, and Phillips with Grey. Lawrence, Crowley, Vega, Brown, and Grey you’re with Yang. Last but not least, Hernandez, Jenkins, Davis, and Wilson, you’re with Karev.”

Jo and Lexie exchanged a glance. Jo knew that being on Alex’s service was always a possibility, however, she never thought it would actually happen. That would make things much more difficult than she’d anticipated. Prior to starting, Jo and Alex had agreed to keep their relationship private. Aside from Lexie, no one would know that the two of them were together, so that if Jo got to scrub in on a surgery or was handed a case, it was because she was good and not because she was dating a resident. But what was once a possibility, quickly became a reality, and they were going to have to learn how to deal with this situation if they wanted to keep their relationship private.

Soon after Webber assigned the interns to their residents, they all left the room, leaving only Jo and the other three residents there.

Jo was organizing her locker when she heard the others gossiping about Alex.

“Ughh, what was I even expecting from this? I have the worst luck ever. Of course I was going to end up with the douchiest resident. You guys heard about him, right?” Jenkins complained, Jo’s eyes glued to the objects in front of her.

“Yeah. His reputation around this place is not the best. I heard he is really good, though. Not everything is lost yet. Let’s wait and see,” Hernandez tried to be positive.

“I heard that too. Looks like he is really talented and hardworking, but I heard that if you’re not one of them, he will treat you like trash no matter what. One of the residents in his class, that is,” Davis added, making Jo’s heart sink a little.

If only they knew a bit more about him, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. She knew that her boyfriend wasn’t the easiest person to deal with and he still had a lot of growing and learning to do, but he had the biggest heart. Hearing the other residents talk about him made Jo sigh.

“What about you, Wilson? Things aren’t looking good for him already. Dude is already late. First thing he does is make us wait for him. Ever heard anything about the guy?” Jenkins asked Jo, forcing her to pull her head out of the locker and interact with them.

“Not really, to be honest. Maybe he’s not that bad. I’m not the biggest fan of judging people before actually knowing them. Maybe the three of you can give it a shot? Soothes the soul a bit,” Jo gave them a sarcastic smile after closing the locker aggressively. She knew she shouldn’t be doing that. Getting into arguments with the people she was going to spend the next five years of her life glued to. Especially not that early into the thing, but she wasn’t about to let them say bad things about her boyfriend without giving him a chance. And she wasn’t wrong. They really shouldn’t judge him before knowing nothing but his name.

“You find him hot, don’t you?” Hernandez smiled at her. "You saw him earlier when Webber was giving us the tour and you thought he was hot."

Jo didn’t want to blatantly lie to them, so she was more than thankful for the moment Alex interrupted and entered the room.

“Hernandez, Wilson, Jenkins and Davis, come,” he ushered them to get ready.

Alex guided the four interns to the hall before glancing at his girlfriend, who was supporting a poker face like he had never seen before. Still, he could see through it with ease. His face twitched into a crooked half-smile, causing Jo to roll her eyes ever so slightly.

Although he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t excited about having her closer to him, he was worried that their original plan was going to be even harder than they had thought it would be. Knowing that she was going to be so close in proximity to him after a year of being an entire country apart, was going to severely push his restraint.

“So, I’m Dr. Alex Karev and I’ll be your resident. I have five rules, and you’ll have to use your underdeveloped brains to memorize them,” he started walking after noticing Jo was trying hard not to laugh at the things he was saying, but still keeping a straight face.

“Rule number one: don’t even think about kissing my ass. It won’t work. I already hate you, and that’s not gonna change. Rule number two: run! Trauma protocol, phone list, pagers, nurses will page you. You will answer every single page at a run. Your first shift starts now. I have no idea how long it will last. It’s not my problem. You should know that. You’re interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work until you drop and don’t complain. I am not going to raise whiny babies,” he stopped in front of a door and eyed the four people in front of him before opening it and walking inside the room. “On call rooms. Attendings hog them to sleep or do other things. You will sleep when you can, where you can, and I don’t want to have to

find any of you doing the nasty anywhere, understand? Rule number three: if I’m sleeping, do not wake me, unless the patient is dying. Four: the dying patient better not be dead when I get there.”

Jo’s eyes shined teasingly as she raised her hand, “You said five rules. That was only four.”

Alex tried not to smirk as his pager went off, “Rule number five: when I move, you move. Let’s go.”

***

Jo’s first shift ended after thirty-six hours. She was completely and utterly exhausted, every muscle in her body protesting as she walked the two blocks from the hospital to her apartment. When she finally made it in the house, Alex was waiting for her with a beer and pizza in hand. He guided her to the couch and helped her sit down.

Jo groaned as her body sank down into the cushions, “I feel like I want to just curl up into a ball on this couch and sleep forever.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Alex chuckled. “I know you’re exhausted, but I need you to eat before you pass out, so take the pizza and beer.”

“I thought you said you hate your interns and that’s not gonna change,” Jo raised her eyebrows. “You’re being awfully nice to me, Dr. Karev. I hope you don’t think that this means I’ll sleep with you. Because even if I wanted to, I think I’m too tired to do anything.”

“Shut up,” Alex rolled his eyes. He looked at her suggestively. “And, you know I don’t mind doing all the work. It might be good for you, ya know? Like a stress reliever. All it will cost you is making sure you get some food in your system.”

“Are you offering to service me?” Jo laughed. This was reason one hundred fifty-seven of why she loved this man. “Is this something you do for all your interns, Dr. Karev?”

“Only the ones I’m in love with,” Alex leaned across the couch for a kiss. “Trust me when I say, I am very eager to please you.”

“You’re so dirty!” Jo giggled and pushed his shoulder lightly. “But, I may have to take you up on that offer.”

The pair talked and laughed while they shared their meal. It was nice being able to spend time together again and finally be on the same page. Agreeing to finish their food, they sat there in silence for a while before Jo spoke up again, “Are you sure this isn’t a conflict of interest? Me being your intern?”

“It might be,” Alex sighed. “I have a hard time telling you no, or when to stop because I respect you and I love you. But I also know that going easy on you would only be a disservice to your career, so I’m going to do my best to let you know when you’re in need of improvement.”

“Thank you,” Jo brought her hand up to his face. “I’m really happy that I’m here.”

“So am I,” Alex grinned. “So, what do you say we go to the room and I’ll… help you relax.”

“Three and a half years in and you still have a one track mind,” Jo shook her head, an amused look on her face.

“What can I say?” Alex shrugged. “I have a super hot girlfriend and can’t get enough of her.”

[moon-caramel]

Never been lucky

❣ Request by @trishavolution21 

I would love to request a Jooheon angst that turns into romance with Gangster themes. He and his GF are a happy and sweet couple in the morning and at night they fight against each other with a different identity not knowing it. When their identities exposed they kiss each other passionately in the end ❤ (No NSFW)

→ Pairing: Jooheon x reader ♀

→ Summary: no matter how much you love your man finding out his true job would make you fall badly

→ Gendre: Gangster au. // Angst ⚔

→ Warnings: Mafia topic, use of alcohol, broken heart 

→ Word count: 1,6 k

→ a/n:  I owed this a long time to trishavolution21 sorry it took this long 😭

The soft sunlight from your window was enough to wake you, but the warm from the light was not bigger than the body next to yours. You smile unconsciously, he’s always here when you wake up, turning your body around to face the man you love, Lee Jooheon, he’s wrapping you in his arms, no intention to let you go.You’ve never being lucky, ever since your birth when your mother couldn't handle the birth labor, at the age of six you saw your first bullet, one that was one that was aimed to your head, and could have hit you if that  body guard wouldn't have been fast enough, at eight you were sent to boarding school, far from your family and friends, and thrown to strangers for your safety.

But one day without planning you run into Jooheon, a sweet guy you're still thankful he's always here when you wake up.

“Wake up honey” you whisper softly. 

He mumbles like a child five more minutes, and hides his face in the space between your shoulder and neck.“Come on, you told me to wake you up early, that you had something important in the morning” You can understand his mumbling this time, the vibrations of his words in your skin make you giggle “how about I make you pancakes”Usually you would make him stay in bed, not letting him go, but you had important things to do as well, a few seconds of Jooheon processing your delicious pancakes his head pops out, by the look in his face he could be still sleeping.“mm.. okay, I want pancakes” he slowly leaves your bed and goes to the bathroom. You leave a second after to go to the kitchen, and prepare the best (and only) breakfast you know, you are sure they’re not that good but if Jooheon saids they are you’ll take his words. ● Almost nine in the morning, you still have time to kill, but Jooheon already leave half and hour ago, and your apartment feels so empty without him, you start getting ready, like always before you go, you're stop to think if you should carry the gun your father gave you, he was always a busy man, the day he spend teaching you how to use it was the longest time he spend with you. A compact revolver, comfortable for your hand but still powerful if you had a good shot (which you have). The meeting is about the family business, you better take it for this time. You send a text to your brother letting him know you’re on your way.

8:46 am - Y/N: on my way, 10 min. at least.

8:47 am - Kihyun: Use the bakery entry, rats in the front

Your family has a small building, using it to have meetings and planifications, the base of the operations, is located in the center of the city and one of the risk is having people prowling, cops, special agents or adversary.

That why your brother made different entrance around the block, a bakery, bookstore and a gallery. A good idea given that leaves the seekers confuse. 

Using the bakery as your entrance was no problem, the problem was try to fight the tempting smell of the fresh cinnamon rolls.

●

“We have a problem,” Kihyun said casually, directly, he hated this type of meeting, reviewing plans or catching up on topics that never changed, except this time.

“Apparently our adversary has found a way to steal our products and walk off like nothing..” You could see the wrath in your brother, clenching his fists leaving white knuckles, and he was right “Obviosly someone is not doing his job keeping the competition away, I don’t understand how beiung this susch a easy fucking job” 

His eyes roam in everyone present, looking for someone to take responsibility, no one's gonna take it, no one wants to deal with Kihyun discipline

“We need to plan a way to get rid of those idiots” You speak breaking the silent, but that didn’t free you from the eyes of your brother you better explain why you are interrupting me, “we don't have time to look for the responsible, we can do that after eliminate our competition, something else is a waste of time.”

It takes time, you all agree the best way to get rid of whoever steals your products is set them up, the new products coming tomorrow night in the port, it's a risk but is the only way to keep them away, kill them if possible.

After a lot of arguing Kihyun let you be in charge of the job, despite being the miserable boss he was your brother and he wants you safe, but you are just as stubborn

●

A new day, the same light waking you up, and the body of your boyfriend next to you, he manages to look cute even with his eyebrows knitted, you feel so good looking at the man you love you can forget what was going to happen today. 

You wish you could tell him the truth, tell him how nervous you are, he would calm you and tell you there's no reason, because you're gonna to do great.  One day you might be, but for now you just want to enjoy this time, the honeymoon phase, you’re also scared of his reaction, what if he can’t accept this part of you. He’s too good for you, you think, he’s so sweet, so gentle. Can he love your dark side? ● “Hyungwon, eyes in the shipment. Shownu, if you see someone unknown let it know” “copied” Shownu answers you from the radio. “Yes boss” Hyungwon's voice comes tiring, but you can still sense the mockery tone in it, even if you laugh you’ll make sure to nag him about it. It’s time, this night is a special reception for your weapon, whoever is stealing the load, might do it tonight, and you are ready from a high space, you can see your men clearly, some being themself and others covered as working men. It’s all quiet, you can hear the conversation from the radio, Hyungwon talking to the supplier, checking if everything is in order, you can’t focus on that, you look around still finding nothing, are they not coming to you? the only way this would work out is let them fall in your trap. Before you can feel anxious about it shownu voice come in the radio “____, The men in the truck!, Is them! ● As soon as you step inside your apartment your tears fall out, you need a drink, something strong, there’s no time for a glass. How did this happen? When you remember shownu’s voice coming from the radio, some men in a truck drove to hyungwon and the group, pointing their guns at them, while they were stealing the bags of fire guns shownu start shooting from behind, shownu on their back hyungwon in the front, it started easy, it was going good until you see their backup team jumping out from other truck. Two men, you can take them easy, until one notices your presence, and your face, your body freezes as soon you see his, her round cheeks and deep eyes. “joo.. Jooheon?” your voice is tearing, as your eyes. But there’s no time for that, you are in the middle of a shooting, and the sound of the bullets remind you of that. “Get it together” you speak to yourself, if what you saw is real it changes nothing, this is your mission, your family, you have to make a choice. And so it happens, once those men leave, carrying their wounded on their arms, you see him again, he looks back for the same reason you look, it was really you, all this time you both have been fighting each other while sleeping in the same bed. Did he know? Was he sleeping with you to get information? no it can’t be. It can’t be, right? Your mind torments to think about this, you want to convince yourself this was his plan, you should hate him, right? he's the enemy. But you love him, there’s no doubt about it, your heart would hurt this bad if you didn’t, does he love you too? is his heart in pain like yours? You don’t know how long you’ve been thinking about it until the knock on the door stops you. Is it?.. “____?” Is him, but you can’t answer. Is he here to kill you? “____, please” No, his voice is so weak, and hurt, it hurts you, a part of you don’t want him to suffer. As you get closer to the door he can see the shadow in the bottom of it. “I didn’t know, ____, I don't want to hurt you” “Jo..Jooheon, this..” you both communicate through the door “I know, this, this makes it difficult” “I’m sorry” you cry, the door is not that thick, he can clearly hear your weeping, breaking his heart. “I love you ____, I’ll always love you” I love you too, you want to say , not because he’s your enemy, because this could be the end of your story, somehow it is more painful than a bullet. Your hand moves, opening the door, he didn’t expect you to do that, he was sure this would be his end, but your eyes begged him to stay. You were expecting him to set you up, pointing a gun at you, not his eyes tearing for you. None second left, and with no words needed your lips meet his, this will kill you both, this is the death you were expecting from each other, because you both rather die from your love than live without each other, and because you’ve never been lucky anyways. 

→ a/n: Again I’m really sorry for this request to take this long, I hope it’s up to your expectation. Let me know what do think of the cover for this story

↳ MONSTA X master list 

Ⓒ mooncaramel 2020 , Do not copy/translate/repost , Thank you for the support ♡! 

please leave comments to fill my heart ☃

[written-rebellion]

Perfect Distractions

A/N: Hi there, I told you I wouldn’t abandon this little slice of fluff completely! Slow updates yes, but never forgotten <3 I also figured, after today’s episode (no spoilers of course!!), and the overall quarantine situation, you all probably need a bit of brightening up, and now with so much more free time, I’m happy to oblige! 

And because I don’t say it enough, thank you so much for reading, and putting up with these now sporadic little updates. Writing time is coming in either waves or drips, but I so so appreciate the encouragement, and the warm welcome the fandom always brings! As much as I haven’t forgotten this story, it’s always nice to know the fandom hasn’t forgotten me completely either haha ^_^”

Jamie’s being dramatic, Claire has too many thoughts, and as always, the facts of this fanfic are contrived specifically to make fluffy university/modern-day au scenarios. Please let me know what you think!

Part One: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] | Part Two: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Three: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Four: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Five: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Six: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Seven: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eight: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Nine: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Ten: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eleven: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twelve: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [ Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Thirteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Fourteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] Part Fifteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Sixteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Seventeen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eighteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Nineteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Twenty: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twenty-One: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twenty-Two: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Twenty-Three: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5]

Part Twenty-Four: Burdens | Chapter 1

Thursdays, Jamie had decided, were the best.

Well, no, second only to the weekends perhaps but certainly high-ranking for sure. Thursdays he had only one class in the afternoon, and that afforded him more than ample time to snuggle into Claire in bed and see where the morning took them.

Not that they didn’t always end up in the same place – limbs and hearts entangled – but he wasn’t complaining.

Except for this Thursday, he realized as he blindly groped for Claire beside him and came up empty handed.

With a grunt, he begrudgingly floated up to full consciousness and sat up, blearily scanning the room to no avail. Squinting at the backlight of his phone – and the perfectly framed lock screen of a candid Claire adorably sleeping atop a textbook at the dining table – he frowned at the time.

7:15 a.m.?

7:15 was entirely unacceptable for lazy Thursday mornings with Claire.

He was about to call out her name when he caught the scent of something frying. Not burnt, he noted right away as he fished around the floor for his shorts and slipped them on. There was a faint sizzling noise coming from downstairs and, with no real sense of urgency but intent all the same, he half-consciously padded out of the room.

“Sassenach?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he followed her absent humming into the kitchen.

She hadn’t heard him, and he took a moment to lean against the doorframe and watch her. Her back was facing him as – he assumed by the smell and the wee apron tied haphazardly around her waist – she fried eggs on the stovetop, and maybe it was the sheer domesticity or his barely waking state, but he felt his heart clench at the sight. His need from earlier burning into something much deeper than base desire.

Within seconds and with very little thought, he crossed the room and pulled her tight against him, arms snaking around her waist with a soft rumble in his chest that ended on a chuckle as she gasped.

“Ye’re makin’ breakfast?” he mumbled, dropping his head into her neck like he could fall asleep right then and there.

“I was,” she said, wriggling her arms free in an attempt to get back at it. “Good morning to you too, love.” She placed a quick kiss on his crown, and he smiled, returning it against her neck.

“Why’re ye dressed?”

“Joe and I are touring campuses today and tomorrow, remember?”

“Och ayyye,” he drew out with a needlessly heavy sigh. “Ye’re leaving me.”

“You can tone down the dramatics, darling,” she laughed, and he didn’t need to look up at her to know she was rolling her eyes at him. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

Her tone did little to assuage his dramatics. In fact, in his half-waking state he suddenly and brilliantly decided that he wasn’t being dramatic enough, as evidenced by him leaning more of his weight onto her like it might compel her to stay and take root in the kitchen tiles. Or better yet, their bed upstairs.

“Ye’re sure there isna anything I can do to convince ye to stay?”

“Mm, I do believe you tried your very best last night.”

He huffed, soberly. “I can do better, always do like the challenge.”

She made a noise equal parts grunting and giggling as she wriggled around in his arms to face him, poking him indignantly in the cheek.

“Go sit down. I’ll bring your breakfast over.”

He inhaled, slow and deep as he stared her down and she, as resolute as ever, stared right back.

He deflated—

“Fine.”

—then kissed her quickly before retreating to the stools on the other side of the kitchen island.

------

24 things, including train and bus schedules, meeting places, and pertinent questions to ask, completely blurred and dissipated as Jamie’s large arms enveloped her.

His clinginess was to be expected, she thought with a smile as she plated the eggs and turned the stove off. She had hoped the food would distract him first, but in a wager she happily lost, was proven wrong.

The plates had barely touched the island when she found herself swept up and seated astride his lap, a sleep-tousled but thoroughly smug face waiting for her before descending with purpose into her neck.

“You’re—mmph—supposed to be eating the eggs, Jamie!” She squirmed with little conviction, protests dotted with giggles.

“It’s on my to-do list,” he murmured as he nipped his way towards her collarbone.

She shivered as his teeth sunk into her, but tugged at his ear to stop him.

“If I have to spend the whole day hiding a hickey from my future professors and Joe – goddamn – Abernathy—” She held his face by both ears now. “—You will be in so much trouble.”

“Och, aye?” he said with a quirked eyebrow.

She sighed and conceded to kissing him back, because at least that kept his lips from her neck; the prospect of being in trouble with her had never proven to be an effective threat anyway.

“When are ye supposed to meet Abernathy?”

“Mm, an 20 minutes or so?”

Close as they were, she could feel both the corner of his mouth lift upwards and pleased Scottish-sounding noise rumble in his chest.

“Like I said, always do like the challen—”

They both froze at the sound of the doorbell ringing. Two pairs of eyebrows immediately furrowed.

“Is Joe meeting ye here?”

“No…”

Sliding off Jamie’s lap, Claire quickly straightened her outfit and headed to the front foyer, Jamie padding just behind her but far enough behind that he didn’t know who was at the door until he saw a small set of arms wrap around Claire’s waist, knocking her back a step.

“Fergus! W-what the hell are you doing here?” She pulled him from her, and looked over his head, half-expecting to see Jenny and Ian around the corner.

“How’d ye get here, lad?” Jamie said, thinking much the same thing.

“I do know how to take a bus,” the boy said proudly. “And I saw your address written down on a paper on the fridge.”

Claire and Jamie both blinked, gaping at him for just a moment before Claire recovered first.

“Well that doesn’t answer my question,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “Don’t you have school?”

His smile faltered only slightly at that.

“Ah oui¸ but—But I do not need to go, it’s alright!”

Claire and Jamie shared a look but, before Jamie could take a stab at reasoning with him, Claire’s phone alarm chimed.

“Shit, I’ve got to go. I—”

Her eyes fell squarely on their new charge and paused. While he likely wouldn’t cause much trouble during the tours, there was the hotel rooms she and Joe booked. But she could potentially set up some pillows on a couch for him if she needed to—

Jamie ran a hand down her arm, as if divining her thoughts.

“It’s alright lass, I’ll take him to campus.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aye.” He raised an eyebrow at Fergus, who’s bright-eyed smile remained relatively unfazed. “He may not want to go to school, but I have to.”

Now with much more than 24 different thoughts swirling around her head, Claire shrugged. It’d have to do.

“Well alright, call me if you need anything,” she said before grabbing her coat and the bag she had packed by the stairs.

“We’ll be fine, a nighean,” Jamie said, squeezing her hand. “I’d say dinna worry about us, but I ken ye’re going to anyway.”

“I’ll try not to, I guess.” His hand came up to cup her cheek and she leaned into it. “See you tomorrow.”

Keenly aware of one young boy’s eyes on them, Jamie kissed her forehead quickly. Not their typical goodbye, but Claire supposed Jamie’s early morning clinginess was a blessing after all.

Stepping out of his arms to rub Fergus’ mop of curls, she walked past them toward the front door.

“Behave yourself!”

“Are you talking to me, or M’sieur?” Fergus laughed.

“Both!”

Chapter 2 Coming Soon!

[starrynite7114]

distraction: nine

A/N: Good afternoon! So happy to finally be back with an update for ‘Distraction’! This is one of my favorite stories, but I just got caught up with so many other things, but I’m back with it now! Hopefully I still have some readers for this story! Enjoy the update! I’ll try to be good about this! Love you all!

Previous parts: distraction

Wish me luck on my exam! <3 Organic chemistry is insane!

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tagged list: @justahopelessssromantic​ : @trulysuccubus​ : @ifoundmyhappythought​ : @iambabyharry​ : @everyhowlmarksthedead​ : @chibsytelford​ : @sadeyesgf​ : @jadert15​ : @marvelmaree​ : @woahitslucyylu​ : @gemini0410​ : @enamoured-x​ : @briana-mishell24​ : @briannab1234​ : @whyisgmora​ : @thegirlwhowritesfics​​ : @summertimesadnesswithadashofsass : @carlaangel86​ : @agirllovespasta​

If you want to be added to the tag list, please let me know! I’ve never actually had one for this story. But I will gladly add you!

Credit to original GIF maker!

“Angel, just please leave me alone.” Emerson pleaded, walking away from her boyfriend and towards their room.

“Why was he here Emerson?” Angel insisted on talking since he wasn’t happy to find Elijah in their living room after a long day with club business. The last thing he wanted to see was how cozy Elijah looked with Emerson in their home.

“He was just passing by and wanted to catch up.” Emerson sat down on her side of the bed, turning the television on. “You’re blowing things out of proportion.”

“Am I? You know how I feel about him.” Angel took off his kutte, placing it on the chair. 

“And you know how I feel about him.” She wasn’t trying to dismiss his feelings about the situation, but she wasn’t in the mood for an argument they’ve had numerous times before. “I’m not going to pretend I understand how you feel, but you should trust me enough to know I wouldn’t fuck him.”

“Did I say that?” Angel stripped down to his boxer briefs and tank top. He sat beside Emerson, the annoyance he felt when he saw Elijah still present.

“You don’t have to,” Emerson was aimlessly changing the channel. “I don’t understand why you hate him so much, he’s always cordial to you and he never disrespects you.”

Angel chuckled. “Baby, I don’t give a shit how cordial he is to me, anyone who was close enough to marrying you is not on my good side.” He knew he was being irrational, but he knew what a man of Elijah’s stature can do. If Elijah wanted to, he could make Angel disappear, he wasn’t obtuse to his relationship with Galindo, but Elijah seemed to respect whatever relationship he had with Emerson. He was thankful for that however, Elijah was Elijah. 

“I feel nothing for Elijah, he’s just a good friend.” Emerson reasoned. It was always the same argument. She was getting tired of it. Even though she understood his reasoning, it was unwarranted. “Are you trying to say I can’t have friends?”

“Did I say that?” Angel ran his fingers through his hair, wanting to pull his hair out due to Emerson’s frustrating ways. “I just wished you would see how it was for me when it came to Elijah.”

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time, Elijah is my oldest friend.” Emerson sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to do Angel, if you trust me, then you shouldn’t be worried.” 

“It’s not about that,” Angel shook his head. “Forget it, I don’t want to argue with you about this stupid mother fucker again.” 

“I love you,” Emerson intertwined their hands, giving it a soft squeeze. “I don’t want to argue either, especially about Elijah, he isn’t worth it.”

Angel wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer to him. He placed a kiss on the top of her head, squeezing her hand. “You’re my world Teddy, I can’t lose you.” At times, Angel feared that she would wake up one day and realize that this type of life was not what she wanted. The more she spent time with Elijah, the greater Angel’s fear grew. It only came whenever Elijah was in town. He hated it, but he was human and he couldn’t help it. 

Emerson jolted awake, immediately looking around. Memories have been part of her dreams much more often lately and while she welcomed it, it further confused her. She wasn’t sure if what she was feeling for Angel was our attraction due to their interactions now or due to the past she was slowly remembering. A part of her loves Angel and she could feel it every time she looked at him, interacted with him and thought about him. But there was a part of her that was skeptical. She’s been gone for so long and even though he says that he’d wait for her, how much more could he wait? The little things Angel would do for her, it made her heart flutter. 

He was incredibly charming, funny, could be an asshole, but he was kind, and it didn’t hurt he was good looking as heck. 

Slipping out of bed, Emerson stretched her limbs, ready for the coming day. Christmas was almost here and the orders were piling up. She was going to be open on Christmas till noon to hand over deliveries, but it didn’t matter to her, that would have been the most eventful thing during Christmas. She’s used to spending it alone.

Opening the door, she was startled when she saw Letty exiting the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Letty withheld a giggle from escaping her mouth, knowing how easily Emerson became frightened. “It honestly wasn’t on purpose.”

Emerson playfully glared at Letty, pinching her sides. “Yeah yeah, I know you and Angel always try to get me.”

Letty has to laugh at that. It’s been a thing between her and Angel, competing on who could scare Emerson the most. Angel was currently in the lead, but Letty was catching up.

“Speaking of which, Angel is here.”

“What?” Emerson backed into her room and checked her hair, ruffling it a bit for a sexy look? She paused for a moment, what the hell was she doing? She then saw the smirk on Letty’s face. “Don’t even think about Leticia.” 

“I think it’s cute that you’re trying to look good for Angel.” Letty teased her. “It’s just fucking Angel though, no one special.”

“Yeah, fuck you too Coco Jr.” Angel ruffled her hair. “Morning mi dulce, I brought breakfast.”

“Hey,” Emerson greeted Angel. “You’re here early.”

“I’m off today, decided to start off the day with you. Why is Coco Jr. here?” Angel nodded his head towards Letty. As far as he knew, Coco didn’t bring anyone home last night, to top it off Celia was six feet under, it’s not like the kid was in danger. 

“I have more of a reason to be here than you, asshole.”

“Okay, okay, too early for you two to banter.” Emerson cut in before Angel and Letty attempted to out talk the other. 

Letty knew of Angel and Emerson’s past. Watching them now, it was like a whole different Angel in front of her. Sure, his arrogance and prick ways were still ever present, but the way he looked at Emerson, took care of her, it was different and honestly, it was nice to see. It made Angel more of a human to her than the asshole Coco was best friend’s with.

“I brought breakfast, Coco Jr. is lucky I brought extra.” Angel walked in the room while Letty walked out, giving them some privacy. “How you doing querida?”

“Good, I just woke up, so maybe after a cup of coffee I’ll be doing amazing.” Emerson tied her hair up in a ponytail slipping on her glasses. Angel just watched her do her morning routine and it amazed him how it never changed. She always stretched when she first got up, tied her hair up and then brushed her teeth. He thought that was unconventional since she eats right after brushing her teeth, but she always reasoned she did it for him. She didn’t want to kiss him with stinky breath.

It was cute.

And it was little things like that he missed the most.

He was no saint, he shared his bed with a few people, needs were needs and he technically wasn’t with Emerson. So many times he wanted to come after her, apologize for his stupidity, but she didn’t remember him. Countless nights he drank himself to sleep just to dull the pain. Even though this was technically what he wanted, for Emerson to stay away for the club would remain safe, but for her to not remember him at all, that fucking killed him.

“Angel?” Emerson shook him one more time. She’s been calling him and he was just staring at the wall.

“Sorry,” he offered her a smile. “Ready to eat?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

================

Angel looked over at Emerson as she baked. He was off from the scrapyard today and had no plans with the rebels. He wanted to spend as much time with Emerson as possible. After the poetry competition three weeks ago, Emerson has been more open to him, walls that she used to have up were not as high anymore. She would make jokes with him, be very affectionate and it just felt things were back to normal. 

But then there were times when she did put her walls up. 

It was frustrating, but he was getting better at tearing those walls. It was a process, but Angel had patience, for Emerson he did at least.

“You want to be useful or are you just going to be a model the whole afternoon?” Emerson teased Angel as she finished decorating the second layer of the cake.

“Teddy, you literally never let me touch a cake because of an incident a few years back.” Angel wanted to help Emerson bake a cake for Felipe’s birthday that they were going to bring over together. Make a long story short, the cake ended up on the floor and Emerson had to begrudgingly buy cake from a bakery since Angel couldn’t keep his hands off of her. 

“Yeah? What happened? Did you mix up salt and sugar?” Emerson teased. When he saw the sheepish look on his face, she busted out in laughter. “Oh my god, that’s amazing. You have to make me a cake now.”

“What? No fucking way, you’re like some cake elitist.” Angel shook his head, staying at his seat on the counters beside the oven. 

“I am not.” Emerson frowned. “I promise, I’ll be nice.”

“You’ve said that to me before and you berated a cake I made for you for your birthday.”

“Well you mixed the salt and sugar, what was I supposed to do?”

Emerson froze as the memory returned, placing the piping bag down. Angel was immediately by her side. 

“Fuck you Angel, you’re so fucking unbelievable.” Emerson grabbed her clothes, shoving them in a duffel bag as Angel followed her, grabbing the bag.

“You’re not fucking leaving. It’s pouring out there. You're pissed, I get it, I’ll leave.” 

“Pissed? That’s an understatement.” Emerson shoved Angel, and he took it, letting her let out all of her frustration. 

“Of all the people, why her? And of all days, my birthday?”

“Baby, hey, Emerson, come back to me.” Angel cupped her face, soothingly rubbing his thumb against her cheek. 

“Sorry,” she moved away from his touch, not liking the memory she remembered. Her chest felt tight. She closed her eyes, trying to breath deeply in and out, something her therapist had taught her. “Um, can you give me a moment?”

“Teddy, don’t close me off, let’s talk about it.”

“Did you cheat on me?” 

Angel was caught off guard. He felt like the walls were closing in. What should he say? Yes? But that would ruin all of his progress. He wanted to be honest with Emerson but this would halt their progress. It was selfish, but he didn’t give a fuck. He couldn’t tell her that he intentionally slept with her sister on her birthday so that she could catch them and she would leave him. Well, he didn’t actually. He just set up the scene to make it appear that he did. He could never actually sleep with Sophia. He couldn’t do that to Emerson. 

So he had to pretend.

This was all of her father’s fault. He wasn’t going to take the fall all on his own.

“No, I didn’t.” And that wasn’t a lie. He didn’t even kiss Sophia, she literally caught them in a compromising position and he just went with it. 

It was his biggest regret.

Emerson had her accident that night and he lost her.

Before she could even register what she was doing, Emerson wrapped her arms around Angel. His arms immediately went around her. He felt like an idiot for how much just a simple hug gave him such comfort. He missed having her in his arms. Maybe he was a coward, but the MC was the only thing he had. Maybe it was a mistake to give up Emerson for that, but she would have understood, hell, she would have made the decision for him. 

“I want it all to come back, I don’t know what to do to make it come back.” Emerson cried out, her cheek pressed against Angel’s chest. 

His heart broke. 

He didn’t know how to help her. He spoke to her often about things they used to do together, things she loved to do, but she would give him a blank look, like that part of her life never occurred. From what he understood, his Emerson was different from the Emerson that Elijah had all those years ago. Eighteen year old Emerson was a bitch, materialistic, looked down on people, it was how she was raised. That she was above everyone, the typical rich bitch that Angel fucking hated. His Emerson, sure, she was a bitch, but she was different. She never looked down at them, she loved the small dingy apartment they shared together. She didn’t give a fuck what he did for a living. They lived simply, but she was happy, he definitely was. But insecurities always came with Angel. He knew that her family would never approve of him and her father was never shy about making that known. 

He should have never let her father come between them, but he was young, presented with an option to keep the MC safe. He ran it by Bishop and Taza and they advised him to break it off with Emerson. 

“It’ll come back, you have to give it time.” Angel kissed the top of her head, his own tears falling from his eyes. He should be truthful with her, full disclosure. Maybe it would help her. But every time he found the courage to do so, she would smile at him and he remembered all the years he missed, his selfishness making its way out. He was a bastard, but if Emerson never remembered his past indiscretions, he wouldn’t mind. 

They could start anew. 

Some part of Emerson still loves him, he could see it in her eyes and he was going to have that part come out. He was confident that he could have her fall for him all over again. 

He always thought they were a fluke, but now he knew they weren’t. Fate brought them back together, no one enticed Emerson to come back to Santo Padre, she did on her own. 

This was her home. 

No matter what her fucking father thought. 

“Are you busy tonight?” Angel broke the silence between them. He wasn’t sure how long they were standing there holding one another, but Angel didn’t want this moment to end. 

“With what? My life literally revolves around you, Letty and the other Mayans.” Emerson chuckled, pulling away from Angel. “I’m sorry, I wet your shirt.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Angel brushed her off. “Look, you know I’m not his biggest fan, but maybe you should speak to Elijah, he can tell you a few things about what occurred in your life.” That pained Angel to say, but he knew Elijah knew some things he didn’t, for example, the details of her accident. 

“I’m not speaking to him.” Emerson went over to the bathroom to grab some toilet paper to wipe her eyes. Coming back out, she found Angel back at his previous seat on the counter. “You don’t like Elijah.” 

“I don’t, but if it helps you, I don’t mind.”

He forgot how unforgiving Emerson could be. He didn’t care that she basically closed Elijah off, but he wasn’t going to pretend that he couldn’t help her. 

“He hasn’t been truthful with me, why would he start now?” Emerson knew Elijah approached her with caution, not wanting to overwhelm her. He always took care of her in his own special way and knew that he was hiding something from her. Every time she tried to approach the subject of her accident or her life prior to that accident, Elijah gave her vague details. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was no longer a part of her life or he was proceeding with caution. “Was he even a part of our lives?”

“Unfortunately.” Angel rolled his eyes. “He’s your oldest friend, I’m sure he means well.” Angel didn’t believe that, but he knew he had to speak highly of Elijah to get Emerson to consider talking to him.

“No.” 

Angel sighed. “Alright baby, whatever you want. How about I come over later and we can play twenty questions again?” 

It was something they’ve been doing together. Emerson would ask him twenty questions about their life together and it has been helping her some, which made Angel happy. They were usually happy memories, simple questions. But he knew that she would eventually start asking about the day of the accident, the months before the accident. He wasn’t proud how he acted around Emerson, knowing how much it hurt her, but he had to push her away. 

“Sure, that sounds like fun. Do I have to cook or are you going to be a good boyfriend and bring me food?” Emerson froze and the smirk on Angel’s face said it all. “Not as in boyfriend, you know, like, you’re a boy and you’re my friend.”

“Not for long, I’m going to be your boyfriend soon enough.”

Emerson rolled her eyes. “The confidence you have is just, amazing.” 

“Come on Teddy, it’s only a matter of time. I won’t push you, but I’ll win you back.”

“Angel Ignacio Reyes, ever so charming.” The voice made Angel froze, Emerson looking up, surprised by the sudden intrusion. 

“Hey Sophia, what are you doing here?” Emerson placed the piping bag down once again, wiping her eyes on her apron. 

Angel remained mum, not liking Sophia’s presence. She looked the same, a little more mature and the way she held herself was different. She was no longer as smug as she was, she seemed, to be more humble. Angel didn’t know how to describe it, but Sophia seemed different.

“I brought your dress for my wedding.” Sophia’s eyes remained on Angel, waiting for him to acknowledge her. She always found Angel attractive, but he was far too below her class to even be looked at. What she did with him was something she would always regret. Things were different now, she was no longer a naive, stupid child who held a petty grudge against her older sister. She just hoped Emerson saw it that way as well. 

“Wow, someone finally took one for the team and decided to marry you.” Angel applauded the sucker who decided to marry Sophia Andres. 

“Oh go fuck yourself Reyes.” Their banters were always hostile, but they got along well enough since Angel truly did love her sister. 

Angel laughed nervously, not wanting to be in Sophia’s presence any longer. “I’m gonna check on Coco Jr., you good here?”

“You don’t trust me around my own sister?” The smirk on Sophia’s face made the hair on the back of Angel’s neck raise. How terrible would it be if he killed her? The thought had crossed his mind, but she was Emerson’s baby sister.

“Well, you are a bitch so no.” 

Emerson and Sophia watched Angel walk out of the kitchen. 

“See you too are becoming chummy.” Sophia teased her older sister. “How are things?”

“Sophia, we speak to one another every day, nothing has changed from yesterday.” Emerson smiled, picking up her piping bag again. “I thought we agreed to meet in San Diego on Sunday. It’s only Wednesday.” 

“I was free, and decided to fly in early. Maybe we can spend some time together, I miss you Emerson.” Sophia truly did miss her sister. She was thankful that Emerson has been speaking to her more often and even agreed to come to her wedding. But she knew that she would have to arrange a meeting between Emerson and her father before her wedding. The last thing she needed was for them to argue. “Figured I can treat you to a spa day for Christmas? Mother came along.” 

Emerson sighed. “Sophia, I really don’t want to see mom.” 

“Come on Emmy, we’re trying here. We miss you. Life is so short, we shouldn’t waste things on petty disagreements that can be easily mended.” Sophia realized her mistake when she saw the change of expression on Emerson’s face. She cussed and scream in her head, kicking herself for being an idiot. 

“Well, you weren’t the one who was disowned so I don’t expect you to understand my petty feelings.” Emerson spat out venomously. 

Sophia sighed, pursing her lips, knowing she fucked up. “Emerson, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disregard your feelings.”

“Well, you also didn’t mean to disregard my feelings all those years ago.” Emerson sighed as well, placing her piping bag again, which was beginning to irritate her. “I don’t know what you all have planned, but I’m done. I was disowned. Let’s all just greet one another during holidays and birthdays, let’s not try to repair something that’s irreparable.” 

“Emerson, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I actually do Sophia. How can you even rectify all the actions that have occurred these last few years? You all watched him as he kicked me out. And nothing, you all did nothing. Now, you want to make amends with me? Why? Is grandfather threatening the inheritance again unless we’re a complete family?” She saw how Sophia’s face changed and she scoffed. “Oh, did you think I was not aware of the clause he has implemented? Grandfather told me that he would take out our whole family from the inheritance if I wasn't welcomed back.” 

“I,” Sophia paused. “Emerson, that’s not why we’re here. Father has his own money, he doesn’t need grandfather’s inheritance.” Sophia knew of that stipulation, but that wasn’t why she was trying to make amends with Emerson.

“Please leave, let’s just go back to text messages.”

“Emerson.”

“She asked you to leave.” 

Sophia turned around and found Letty Cruz at the door of the kitchen. She was outnumbered and she would rather not air out grievances in front of a stranger. 

“I’ll come back, Emmy. Please believe me, that’s not why I’m here.” 

“Goodbye Sophia, congratulations on your marriage.” Emerson’s tone was clipped, Sophia knew Emerson was closing her off again.

Sophia looked at Letty as she walked out, frowning at how things turned out with Emerson. “It was nice to see you Leticia Cruz.”

“Can’t say the same about you Sophia Andres.”

As soon as Sophia walked past her, she heard the kitchen door close. Angel was standing outside smoking. She made her way to him, slipping on her sunglasses. The Mercedes that her father provided for her was parked right in front of Emerson’s bakery. 

“Emerson has closed me off again.” She informed him. “Angel, I really do want to repair my relationship with my sister. I’m not proud of my past actions and I regret them immensely. I know she listens to you, if you could just put a good word in for me, for my family.”

“You want me to put a good word in for your family who disowned her twice? You’re not her family. We are. She came back to us.” Angel hated the Andres family. Sure, Emerson’s mother and brother weren’t terrible at all, but Eduardo and Sophia? God, they were cut from the same cloth.

“Convenient that you haven’t spoken of your past grievances towards Emerson. I wonder what she would do if she discovered how you set her up to find us together? You think Emerson would be so forgiving towards you then?” There was the Sophia that Angel remembered and knew. A cheetah could never change its spots. “You’re not innocent Angel. A slip of tongue will ruin everything you’ve built with Emerson.”

“And you think her finding out that you helped me ruin our relationship with the convincing of your father is going to repair your relationship?” Angel threw his cigarette to the ground, stepping on it. “You’re out of your fucking mind. I’m not afraid of you or your father. You both can go fuck yourselves.” 

Sophia nodded her head. “Think wisely Angel, Emerson’s memories will eventually come back and when they do, you’ll be nothing but a memory to her, she’ll never come back to you.”

Angel watched as Sophia got in the car, the driver opening it for her. He knew Sophia was right, he should be honest with Emerson, and he will be, just not right now.

================

Emerson walked out of the kitchen in her bakery and found Miguel by the counter. Angel had to go to the club due to some business so it was just her and Letty. She raised an eyebrow at her cousin and shook her head. Nestor was right beside Leticia, once again, helping her with some trigonometry homework.

“Elijah can fight his own battles, Miguel.” Emerson immediately told him which made Miguel laugh.

“I come in peace, prima.” He held his hands up. Her immediate reaction to his presence was warranted, but he truly did come in peace. “But put him out of his misery, he truly meant well.”

“He hid valuable information about my life that could have helped me for his own gain.” Emerson placed the cake inside the display, closing it right after. She crossed her arm, narrowing her eyes at Miguel. 

“Give him a break Emmy, you know how much he loves you.” Miguel reasoned. 

“He loves me because it benefits him, what happens when I no longer do?” Emerson wasn’t an idiot. She knew that Elijah valued her due to his parents' fondness of her. If she became his wife, they would hand him the keys to the kingdom as he would show them that he was stable. No more messing around with women that had no future. But she always reasoned with him that Sophia would provide the same kind of stableness for him. 

“You know that’s not true.” Miguel always found the idea of arranged marriages to be distasteful. He believed that they were much more civilized than that and they didn’t need their parents picking their spouse. But for Elijah and Emerson’s family, it seemed to work well. Though, the last arranged marriage they had was Emerson’s parents, but that's neither here nor there. “He misses you.”

“Miguel, stop fighting his battles for him.” 

“I’m simply playing the middle man since Elijah is far too afraid to approach you.” Miguel looked around Emerson’s bakery, liking the personal style that Emerson added around. “You’ve always had a hold on Elijah, yet you’ve never tried to sway it in your favor.”

“I’ve manipulated Elijah before, I’m not proud of it, but it’s happened.” Emerson placed a cake in a box, preparing it for Miguel so he could give it to Emily. “Elijah has been in my life for as long as I can remember, but I never saw myself marrying him due to the devastation that would cause to my relationship with my sister.”

“Sophia is marrying another, surely, nothing is standing in your way now.” 

“Angel is,” Emerson wasn’t sure why she said that, but Miguel seemed taken back by her reply. 

“Angel Reyes?” The Reyes men were starting to become a headache for him. They were still useful to him, so he had no plans to do anything to them, but he was surprised Emerson said what she said. As far as he knew, she didn’t remember Angel. “So you remember him?”

“Convenient, you’ve left that out as well.” Emerson placed the box in front of Miguel. “I’m sure you all have your reasons, but I wish you were all much more truthful with me, maybe I could have had my memories by now.”

“You didn’t want to be pushed, Emmy.” 

“Again, you all didn’t want to push it unless it benefited you.” Emerson placed a slice of Dulce de leche that she knew Dita loved. “I’ll see you around, primo.”

“Don’t close me off, I wasn’t doing anything to harm you.” Miguel was close to Emerson, the younger sister he never had. The last thing he wanted was to upset her. He didn’t want to be in the position Elijah was in. “You know I’m looking out for your best interest. Angel Reyes was never good for you.”

“And who are you to decide that?”

“Someone who loves and cares for you, Angel is not innocent. Have you not thought about how your relationship ended?”

Emerson has thought of how their relationship ended, she thought of it often, but it was a can of worms she wasn’t willing to open. She forgot this man and he was still holding out hope for something that may never occur. 

“It doesn’t matter, I’m not trying to dwell in the past. I just want to remember and move on, just move on all together really.”

Miguel frowned. “Maybe you should Emmy, understanding what happened in your past can trigger your memories. You should ask your sister too, her and Angel were quite close near the end of your relationship.”

“Angel told me we were still engaged.”

“Guess that’s one narrative.”

================

Emerson looked at the screen before her, hesitating to click on the file that Miguel had sent her. After he left the bakery, she received an email from Miguel with files that apparently held pictures and videos that would help with her progress. The bakery was uneventful today and she mostly spent the time helping Letty with her homework. She advanced in the poetry competition and was going to compete statewide next month. Emerson was excited for Letty since she knew how rough Letty’s life had been. If she could help it, she would make sure Letty would never go through that again. 

Before she could even open it, there was a knock on her door. She looked at the time and remembered that Angel was supposed to come over. Checking her hair, she took a deep breath and pushed the butterflies in her stomach.

It was just Angel.

She opened the door and her smile faltered.

It wasn’t Angel.

“Hey, mom.”

[snusbandxknifewife]

Have a field trip fic I finished at 6am I’m sorry y’all lol

~~~~~~~

Field trip fic 1–York’s Wild Kingdom

“ Vivi, no!” I hiss, setting down the itinerary my sister kept insisting on handing me. “I can’t just leave Faerie to go on some zoo trip, just because you feel like laying in bed!”

“Oh come on,” she turns and points to Heather in exasperation. “I won’t just be laying in bed. She’s got the flu, and I can’t chaperone this trip without her!”

“But you expect me to go alone?” I’m incredulous, the list of my duties back in Faerie flitting through my head at lightning speed.

Heather opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again and sinks back into the couch with exhaustion written in every line of her body. Vivi’s eyes shoot to her girlfriend, obviously concerned, but I don’t let it sidetrack me.

“You expect me to watch a gaggle of children—“

“Oak’s friends.” Vivi interrupts.

“—alone? Vivi I have a thousand different things I need to do, none of which involve wrangling a hundred little demons. Why not tell Madoc to go?”

She fixes me with a tired look and I have to admit that maybe suggesting Madoc, of all people, wasn’t my smartest move. Honestly, I don’t think I can picture any scenario involving Madoc and a field trip that doesn’t end with at least one person in the emergency room.

I sigh and bury my face in my hands, my elbows resting on the breakfast bar in Vivi’s kitchen. Out in the living room, some reality show blares and Chinese food containers are stacked miles high. With Heather sick, all she’s wanted was takeout food and sleep. Vivi looks at her wits end, clearly far more worried about her girlfriend than the field trip that she’s assured me Oak has been looking forward to for weeks.

“I glamoured Oak’s teacher already. She thinks you and Cardan were the chaperones all along.” 

My eyes go wide and I shoot to my feet, ready to wring my sister’s neck. “You want me to bring Cardan? Vivi you expect both the King and Queen of Faerie to just leave for some stupid—“

“It’ll only be for the day, which is night for Faerie.” She sounds exasperated. “Nobody will even have to know you’re gone and you’ll be back by eight, long enough to get some shut eye for the next day.”

And because she’s right, we would be gone in the middle of the night, I don’t really have anymore reason to argue with her; especially given how Heather chooses that exact moment to make a run for the toilet in the hall bathroom.

I sigh and admit defeat, grabbing the itinerary for Mrs. Walker’s third grade class field trip to York’s Wild Kingdom Zoo and Amusement Park. Scowling down at the times and picking up Heather and Vivi’s chaperone t-shirts, I walk out of the apartment and make my way back to where I parked my ragwort steed.

Two days later, I’m standing between my little brother and my husband, both bouncing with excitement in Mrs. Walker’s classroom as we wait for the call to line up to go to the busses.

Cardan and I match, mostly because we’re both wearing pairs of his dark canvas breeches and identical chaperone shirts, dyed the world’s most neon shade of orange to attract attention. His ears and tail are glamoured away, only visible to myself and Oak. He passed well for a mortal man, though his pale skin and ethereal beauty have already earned at least one open-mouthed stare from Mrs. Devins, a housewife who also happens to be chaperoning.

“Mrs. Greenbriar, can I go to the bathroom?” Emily, a little girl in our group, asks for the second time this morning.

I leave Cardan and Oak looking over a map of the park and walk Emily down the hall to the third grade bathroom, waiting for her to finish and walking her back without a word. By the time we return, both boys are sitting in little desks with their heads all but pressed together, Cardan’s legs stretched out in front of him because they’re far too long for him to sit properly.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the itinerary, on which I have written a list of all the kids we’re responsible for today.

Oak

Emily

Derrick

Thomas

Annabelle

Kelly

The entirety of the third grade is going on this trip, so we’ve gotten off easy only having to watch six kids, especially since we were allowed to chaperone together. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d had to turn Cardan loose in the mortal world with a gaggle of children.

We’re here at six o’clock in the morning, two hours before school starts, because it’ll be a long drive to the zoo. We’re set to arrive at about nine o’clock and we will depart at five to be back by eight. Cardan and I don’t typically wake up until ten at night, so we’ll do well if we sleep on the bus ride back.

“Jude! What’s a wallaby?” Cardan asks, wonder glimmering in his tar black eyes.

“I think it’s Australian.” I announce, sitting down beside him as Mrs. Walker starts to call groups to head to the busses.

“What’s an Australian?”

I’m saved from answering that glorious question when Mrs. Walker tells us to head to bus 560. I stand again, counting the kids in our group and grabbing our bag before waving them out the door and down the hall.

When we get on the bus, I set about grabbing a seat for Cardan and myself at the front of the bus, because I remember every field trip in the mortal world involving kids sitting behind the chaperones. Oak and his friends confirm my memories by running as far back in the bus as they can, already getting loud and rowdy despite how early it is.

I sit Cardan by the window, knowing he’ll want to look out as we drive. His eyes are already wide, his nose wrinkling at the overpowering scent of gasoline. He still holds the map in his hands, focusing intently as I go through the bag to double check that were given an epi-pen because Emily is allergic to bees.

“Did you inform The Bomb about our whereabouts?” I ask him, whispering so we aren’t heard over the sound of the bus. “Is everything all taken care of?”

“Faerie won’t burn down because we leave for one night, wife.” He rolls his eyes at me, pressing a kiss to my temple. “And, yes, I told Bomb we were going on a field trip.”

His mouth curls around the words, almost like he isn’t sure he’s saying them right. Still, I don’t miss the teasing, so I glare in his direction before turning once more to the itinerary, which I already memorized two days ago.

Our bus driver, an elderly man named Ian, climbs on and greets us. The whole bus is full of third graders, more than just Mrs. Walker’s class, and it’s already nearly deafening. Within thirty seconds, some teacher I’m not familiar with is yelling at the kids to quiet down.

Cardan folds up the map and puts it in our bag as the bus drives away, absentmindedly grabbing my hand and watching out the window.

The bus ride passes quickly, likely because I, against all odds, fell asleep sometime before sunrise. When I’m awoken by Cardan’s fingers running through my hair and his delicate whispers of my name, I reach for my knife in a panic.

“You weren’t allowed weaponry today, my darling villain.” He laughs in my ear and I finally process my surroundings, remembering that we’re chaperoning for Oak’s field trip and I have no reason to pull a knife on a bunch of third graders.

At least, not yet.

“Are we there yet?” I groan, sleep thickening my voice as I rub my eyes hard enough to see stars.

Cardan smiles at me, telling me that Mrs. Walker said we were about ten minutes out. “I figured you’d like to go over your schedule once more, for good measure.”

I can’t tell if he’s being genuine or if he’s making fun of me, but I do look at our papers one more time to be safe. The last thing I want to do is lose a kid or go somewhere at the wrong time.

“I’m not sure who this Wendy lady is, but she seems to have an affinity for eateries.” Cardan announces as we pass a Wendy’s, likely for the bazillionth time this trip. I smile and ignore him, triple checking out epi-pen and reorganizing our bottles of water before closing the bag once more.

Behind us, another chaperone asks how long we’ve been married. When Cardan tells her it’s been more than a year and she visibly blanches, I remember that mortals don’t tend to marry as young as we did. It’s strange, being surrounded by humans who all show their ages so obviously.

To them, we’re barely adults. They likely think we’re going to college or working small jobs. I suppose I can’t blame them for being surprised, out of our normal clothing, you’d never suspect Cardan and I rule over a kingdom. We don’t really look the part of a King and Queen when we’re forced to wear traffic cone orange shirts and sit in a smelly old school bus.

Ian pulls up to the front of the zoo and I have to hold Cardan down to keep him in his chair as other groups file off. Our kids are in the very back, singing along to some repetitive song about baby sharks, clearly just as impatient as my husband.

When I finally get everyone off the bus and their wrist bands around their arms, I do another headcount and roll call. Cardan slings our bag onto his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking around as fast as he can, trying to take in all the bright colors and loud noises.

I go over our schedule with the kids, telling them how we’ll be spending the morning at the zoo and the afternoon at the amusement park. The hour in between is reserved for eating and any shopping that they might want to get done, as well as our scheduled trip to the butterfly pavilion.

“No, Derrick, you can’t pet the tigers.” I sigh as the little blond boy raised his hand, mischief in his eyes. He’s asked me this question at least six times since I met him. If his tiger printed shirt and matching tiger baseball cap are anything to go by, I’d assume he has a favorite animal.

I wrangle the kids and allow them to walk in front of us, one eye glued to Oak and the other watching everyone else as they run ahead.

“Ok, but can I pet the tigers?” Cardan whispers in my ear as we snake through the rides, heading back towards the zoo.

“Cardan, if you so much as look at a tiger I will kick your ass.” I hiss back, my heart rate spiking as my mind plays images of Cardan getting mauled by tigers.

Quickly, the visions morph into him standing naked, surrounded by the gore of a slaughtered snake. My throat threatens to close and tears almost prick at my eyes. “And we aren’t looking at any reptiles, either.”

“There aren’t any, I checked the map.” He’s so caught up in the park around us that he thankfully doesn’t notice my change in tone, allowing me a few seconds to compose myself again. “But there are lions, I want to see whose tail looks nicer.”

I can’t help the snort I let out. “More like whose mouth is bigger.”

“Oh my nemesis, how you wound me.”

We make it to the zoo entrance and all the kids are instantly fighting over where they want to go first.

“I want to see the camels!”

“Ducks are cooler!”

“You can see ducks anywhere!”

“Give me tigers or give me death!”

“Derrick get off the picnic table!” I yell, upon seeing that the little boy has climbed up on an extremely rickety table. “Cardan, please go get the tiger enthusiast.”

“Mrs. Greenbriar, I need to go to the bathroom.” Emily pulls at the hem of my shirt.

Cardan, now with Derrick on his back and a tiger baseball cap covering his eyes, returns to my side. “I believe a trip to the bathroom is wisest, then we’ll circle around the park.”

Oak grabs my hand and Emily stays attached to my shirt hem as we walk to the bathrooms. Ten minutes later, we’re all looking at the tigers and I think Derrick may be having an aneurism.

“Jude, is that what I sound like when I wax poetic about my wine?” Cardan stage whispers in my ear as Derrick begins his third long-winded speech about the majesty of the tiger.

“Your speeches are far more pleasing to the ear, my king.” I smirk as Derrick slips up, mispronouncing a word and deciding that the mistake warrants starting all over.

Below us, a few tigers jump around their enclosure, one playing with a pumpkin full of ground beef. Thomas is goading Derrick into a fourth speech and Oak is pointing excitedly, Annabelle and Emily hanging off every word he says.

I smile, wrapping my arm around my husbands waist and leaning into his side as another tiger attacks the one with the pumpkin, rolling into the side of the enclosure with teeth snapping.

I wish I’d taken a moment longer to revel in the calm, because three hours later, I am at my wit’s end.

Cardan is pouting because he severely misunderstood what a sea lion was, Kelly is crying because she dropped her iPhone—what kind of a third grader even has a smart phone—Oak is on my shoulders, Derrick is pissed that we won’t go back to the tigers, Emily has been to the bathroom four times, Thomas won’t stop trying to do handstands, and Annabelle is whining that she’s starving.

On top of all of that, my husband’s face is turning the color of roses because he is entirely too pale to be walking around without sunblock on.

“Just watch them!” I yell at Cardan as I pull the wallet out of our bag and go stomping in the direction of the closest souvenir shop. I hear Kelly’s crying switch from complaining about her phone to complaining about not being able to shop, but I’m a woman on a mission right now.

A little bell rings as I duck into the shop, taking Oak off my shoulders and giving him the order to only look for what we’re here for. It takes a few minutes and I know my husband won’t be happy with the final outcome, but Oak grabs the perfect hat, glamouring a handful of leaves into dollar bills so I can buy it and leave.

I find the group back by the camels, the kids sticking their fingers through the fencing in the hopes of getting licked by one of the large animals.

“Jude, what are you holding?” Cardan’s voice rouses me from my thoughts, thankfully distracting me as Kelly screeches about getting spit on by a camel.

“A hat. For you.” I hold it out. He takes a step back, his face contorting in horror.

“Jude, my wife, that article of clothing may be the worst I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he announces with a quiet, nearly tear-filled voice. “The very pits of fashion, certainly not suitable for my current outfit!”

“Nothing is suitable for a shirt that orange, certainly not cheeks as red as yours have gone,” I snort in response, throwing the monstrosity atop his head and stepping back to examine my work.

It’s a large floppy hat, similar to the fabric ones you’d see on the beach, but it’s printed with terrible drawings of all types of zoo animals as well as having the park’s name and logo emblazoned across the front. It covers Cardan’s whole face, the shadows showing just how badly he’s already been burned.

He reaches up to take it off, obviously seconds from flinging it away in disgust.

“Cardan you have a terrible sunburn and I won’t have you bitching about peeling skin tomorrow. You’ll wear the hat or you’ll regret it,” I warn, enough fire in my eyes to make him put the hat back on with a pout.

“I think it’s,” Oak starts confidently, aiming for a compliment but faltering in the middle, “a hat.”

Cardan laughs, his rosy cheeks squishing up with his grin as he picks up his nephew. “Oak, my friend, you’re far too old to twist your words so poorly,” he smiles. “I’ll have to teach you better ways to flatter insincerely before your first court appearance.”

I roll my eyes and turn back to the other kids, having to drag Thomas down from where he’s begun to climb the camel enclosure. He whines, as do the rest of the kids when I tell them it’s time to leave the zoo, but they all perk up again when I say it’s also time for lunch.

Cardan fishes out the envelope full of meal vouchers as I take orders. A chicken strip meal for that one, two burgers for them, a grilled cheese for her, a hot dog for him, and nachos for Oak. Cardan wisely takes my advice and settles for a burger, openly fascinated by the very concept of mortal cuisine.

I personally take chicken strips and french fries with ketchup, a delicacy from my youth that I so sorely miss in a land where salt is toxic to its inhabitants. Cardan pouts when I don’t let him steal a fry—the last thing I need is to have him puking on fair rides this afternoon—but greatly enjoys the bite of chicken I offer.

He is yet again far too tall for the table and his fingers are laughably large for the burger he holds, but the kids all seem to be enjoying the “act” that Mr. Greenbriar puts on where he pretends not to understand basic things around him. They absolutely have a riot when he asks me what ketchup is.

Then it’s cleanup time and off to the butterfly enclosure. Something I, for one, am actually looking forward to. Cardan wraps his arm around my waist once more, his stupid hat shielding me from the sun too, and watches with me as the kids clamber inside the first door.

An attendant warns us to be delicate with the butterflies because their wings can get hurt easily and then she lets us inside. All my stress from earlier melts away for a moment as the room opens up to a rainforest utopia, butterflies of all shapes and sizes and colors fluttering about our group.

Thankfully the kids are quiet and well-behaved in here, too busy being awestruck by the butterflies to start doing stupid things like climbing walls. All but Oak, who walks back towards us with a small frown on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my fingers brushing through his hair and over his horns.

His shoulders slump but he doesn’t say anything.

“Your queen commanded you to speak, it is your duty to obey her,” Cardan lightly reprimands, his fingers going under Oak’s chin to force him to lift his head.

A monarch floats by on a lazy breeze, crossing right between us and drawing all of our attention for a moment.

“Sometimes I miss home,” he finally admits, his eyes hollow in a way I haven’t seen in him before, a way I know I used to sport often in my youth. “The mortal world has things that Elfhame doesn’t, but when I watch everyone else get excited over pretty gardens or animals, I remember that home is far prettier.”

Cardan lets go of my waist, grabbing Oak and putting him on his hip before walking deeper into the garden.

I can’t hear what they say, I can only watch as my husband calls butterflies, first to his open palm, then to my brothers. I feel my heart clench as he whispers something in Oak’s ear that makes my little brother smile again. My eyes follow him as Cardan sets him down once more, allowing him to run back to his friends.

“What did you say?” I ask, reaching a hand out to my husband as he returns.

“Merely that beauty isn’t inherent in a place or thing,” he smiles, reaching out his hand in turn and allowing a little blue butterfly to hop into my palm. “That it is what we cultivate, and he has more than enough magic to make some here.”

I blink back sudden tears at the way he looks at me, the open and pure adoration in his eyes. He pulls me into a kiss as a few more butterflies settle on his hat and in my hair.

Then Emily asks about the god forsaken bathroom and the moment is ruined.

“I swear that child has a urinary tract problem,” I hiss, turning back to the kids as Cardan laughs at me.

We leave the butterfly room behind and head to the bathrooms. Again.

The kids are running circles around Cardan when I return, leaving him openly concerned and visibly longing for a wine goblet. Oak is studiously sat at his Uncle’s side, looking every bit the little prince that he is but wasn’t raised to be.

“My mommy gave me forty dollars!” Kelly yells at Derrick, the two seemingly in the midst of a fight about buying stuff at the gift shop.

“Kelly, some of that is for dinner,” I warn her. “We have to eat on the way back so you need to save your money.”

“My mom said I can buy two tigers!” My warnings go out the window as Derrick distracts Kelly once more, the two descending into a fight about which is better, tigers or cheetahs.

My eye twitches as I grab a water bottle from our bag, leaning into Cardan’s ear and whispering, “oh my husband my darling, do save me before I challenge a child to a duel.”

He laughs at me, standing up and grabbing Oak’s hand. He then assures me that it can’t be too bad, we already survived Annabelle trying to jump into the sea lion pool, surely we can handle shopping with a few children.

At least Oak had my back in that shop, because gods know my husband lost his mind the second he got inside.

I don’t honestly remember what happened, I think I blacked out about the time Thomas took a running leap at a stuffed animal display and I had to catch him mid air.

“I don’t think it was too bad,” Oak says as he holds his brand new assortment of little stuffed butterflies. “You didn’t draw any blood when Kelly tried to buy a four hundred dollar necklace.”

“You checked the map, does this place have bumper cars?” I grind my teeth, watching Cardan stuff an insanely large plastic bag into our little black bag. He keeps refusing to show me what’s inside, insisting it’s a surprise.

“It does,” my brother confirms.

“Good,” I nod, herding him out of the store last. “Because I’m going to put some of these kids into a wall.”

And put them into a wall I do. By the time we make it off the bumper cars and to the Ferris wheel, Mrs. Jude Greenbriar is well on her way to being a legend in Mrs. Walker’s class, purely for her ruthless approach to bumper cars. Cardan, who insisted on standing aside since Emily didn’t want to ride—something about it making her need to pee—looked increasingly more horrified every time I spun around and sent another kid’s cart flying away from mine.

At least it calmed the nerves a little bit.

“My villain, my gorgeous, bloodthirsty little god,” he whispers in the shell of my ear, sending a shiver down my spine as our Ferris wheel cart rises up into the sky. “I expected a modicum of mercy for the mortal children.”

“Cardan if I ever have to take another child to a bathroom it will be too soon,” I snap, the sudden motion of me turning to face him causing our cart to rock dangerously.

He grins at me.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Good thing our children won’t need bathroom breaks,” he finally supplies. “I wouldn’t want you putting them into a wall.”

My eyes widen in shock. It’s not like we haven’t discussed children before—we’ll need to produce an heir to the throne at some point—and it’s not like I haven’t thought about having kids with him—we do share a bed every night—but to hear him so casually mention it is a rare thing indeed.

He looks concerned, opening his mouth, likely to apologize for upsetting me, when his words really register in my head and I collapse back against the seat with a joyous little sigh

~~~~~

Tag list: @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @hizqueen4life @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @thewickedkings @aelin-queen-of-terrasen

[the-ghost-and-the-writer]

The Dinozzo Charm pt 2-Ziva David X Female Reader

After the case, you take Ziva up on her dinner offer as a way to grow closer to your brother’s workmates. It couldn’t possibly be a date, could it? (AKA, the one where two wlw try to build up the courage to ask each other out on a date over the course of several dates)

I realise that I kinda changed the request a little bit, since they don’t have a proper date in this, but in my defence I forgot. And I love the idea of them dating without realising. It’s my level of dumb lesbianism, I thrive on it.

Requested

(Part 2 of 4) (Part 1)

Fandom: NCIS

Ship: Female Reader/Ziva David

Characters: Ziva David. Female Reader (Dinozzo). Anthony Dinozzo. Abby Sciuto Minor Characters: Jethro Gibbs. Timothy McGee

Word Count: 7869

Warnings: Swears,  dumb wlw being dumb

You woke up to a blanket being draped over your shoulders. It was dark outside, only a small lamp near the door shining any light around the room. There was enough light to let you see your brother standing over you, smoothing the blanket out over you properly with his tie and jacket removed and his top button undone "Hey." You muttered and Tony looked to your face suddenly with a tired smile. "Hey peanut. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up. Didn't want you getting cold." His hand stroked across your hair. "Did you just get in?" He nodded "Time's it?" With a deep sigh, your brother straightened up and groaned. "Really early." You sighed and nodded your understanding as you turned on the couch. "Okay, sorry. You go to bed." Tony pressed his lips to your temple when you closed your eyes again, keeping them there for a few seconds before he moved back with a soft exhale. "Night." "Ni'." You grumbled and tugged the blanket further up, curling it around your hand. In seconds, before you even heard Tony's bedroom door close, you were asleep again.

You woke up before Tony did, evidently, only a few hours later. With a grumble, you sat up and stretched yourself out from the curled up position you'd had to deal with for the couch. When you felt able to stand without falling over, you went over to the kitchen to see what you could make for breakfast. There was pretty much nothing in the fridge, in the cabinets, anywhere in Tony's kitchen, and you sighed softly. Then again, you guessed it was only to be expected since he spent most of his time at work and had little free to have a proper meal at home. This time, at least for a day or two, he had you though. So you went to your bags and dug out a simple outfit that would do, checking that Tony was fast asleep before you left to get something for the both of you so he could have breakfast at home

You found this cute little place not too far away. It was quiet, for the time being, and you were greeted with a smile as you walked in. Looking over all the options, you pouted and wondered if any of it was really Tony's style; after all, he either ate more pizza and burgers than a hungover frat boy or he downed coffee and hoped for the best. You decided to get two breakfast wraps, a few bagels, and two coffees, ordering them with a smile that was more awake than you really felt. A chime from your phone distracted you soon after, a text from one of your teammates back at New Haven. A simple 'miss you already, your desk looks so weird empty' that made you smile. Of course you'd miss your team in these months, but it wouldn't be forever and it was worth a bit of homesickness if it meant you got to spend time with your brother. You shot off a message that simultaneously teased him with an accusation that he was sweet on you while also returning the sentiment, only just managing to get the right wording and sending it off when your breakfast was ready. You took it with a smile and a sweet thank you that actually made the kid that served you light up as you paid (with a bit extra). You weren't too sure if Tony would be awake when you got back so you hurried over in order to make it a surprise that didn't start with him worrying over where you were.

He was still out cold when you came back, but it seemed that the smell of coffee and hot food made him stir out of it and you heard him grumble as you took your wrap and one of the six bagels from the bag "Food?" He called out and a laugh was pushed from you. "Yea, I got breakfast. Come get it while it's still warm." A minute or two later, Tony came out in a pair of boxers and a plain t-shirt, rubbing his eyes and trying to tame his bedhead. "Whatcha get?" You set him off towards the bag in the kitchen, where he instantly picked out the coffee and took an obnoxiously loud sip and groaned. "Wrap, bagels, coffee." "Oh, peanut, you're an angel." You smiled pointedly at him as he walked over to sit beside you with his wrap in one hand and the coffee in the other, falling sleepily against your shoulder "I'm glad you decided to come over." He sighed, a frown twitching at his lips "I've missed you." "Missed you too, Junior." You patted his head softly and then turned to kiss the top of his head "Sorry it was in the middle of a case though." Tony shrugged. "Hey, you helped. Gibbs appreciated it, definitely, and you made me look better." "Did you get any further with it?" He nodded slightly as he took a large bite from the wrap, not even bothering to cover his mouth with his hand when he spoke. "Only a bit. After Abs found the, uh, Pero..." You sighed and shook your head. "Paroxetine." He snapped his fingers and pointed to you. "That one. After she found it, we tried to find who gave him the prescription for it. Tricky shit, really, there’s a lot of smooth talking our way through things. We think we've got that guy, so we're going to talk to him today." "Who's 'we'? You and McGee?" He shook his head and washed the food down with a mouthful of coffee that was too much and spilled a few drops from the sides of his mouth like a child. "No, me and Ziva." You straightened up a bit and nodded as casually as you could. It really didn't end up being so casual at all. "Oh. Cool." That made Tony look at you with a confused frown and you ignored him "Are you close to her? In general?" "I guess." He said slowly, closely inspecting your profile as you ducked your head and traced your finger around the rim of the cup in your hand "Why?" "No reason. Just asking." You took a quick swig of the coffee, followed by a small bite of your almost-finished wrap.

Silence set over you as Tony seemed to try and read your mind with his intense gaze, until you sighed "You know, she's actually not that bad." "What do you mean?" He sat up then, properly, and stretched slightly . "Well, you made her out to be really cold. But she's actually nice." His eyes narrowed at you for a second and then he shrugged as he gave up on trying to gauge you. "She probably trusts you already then. I mean, it makes sense, since you are my sister." You nodded softly and finished up the wrap by jamming the rest of it into your mouth, crumpling the paper wrapping up and throwing it towards the small waste bin across the room. It fell in perfectly and you laughed in triumph as Tony nodded once, an impressed pout on his face “Yep, definitely my sister.” He said, almost smug about it. You grinned at him and then sat back heavily, tipping your head back to the ceiling.

It had been far too long since you'd seen your brother, and it was such a relief to be sat beside him and hear him eat his food even though it grossed you out slightly. Not that you were going to complain about it just yet though. You heard a sigh come from Tony but didn't look to the side until you felt the couch dip more as he sat back. You turned your head and looked at him, your smile falling at how sad he looked all of a sudden "I'm sorry I didn't talk to you for a while. And didn't mention you to the team." "It's fine, Junior. I understand." You moved closer and hugged him gently. He rested his head against your shoulder and wrapped his arm around your middle, like a child, his frown still deep, and the two of you stayed like that for a few seconds until you clapped him on the shoulder and sighed "Okay. Up you get. You need to get to work. Killers to catch." He groaned and slid down the couch before nodding and getting up properly. "Fine." He groaned again and put his coffee on the table in front of the two of you "Don't you be bringing anyone back here when I'm out." He called back before he went into his room to dress. "Yea, because I pull that quickly." You laughed with a roll of your eyes. You had stuff to do, which you were sure he'd prefer you'd do other than try to get some. First on your list was looking for somewhere to stay that wasn't Tony's couch, though you were sure he'd appreciate it if you kept buying him breakfast he could eat before setting off to work. You were told to sit tight for a day or two, so you could get yourself sorted, before you were able to meet your temporary team and properly get back to work. So you went to your bags and shifted through a few of them to find your laptop.

After an hour or two of searching, dotted with answering texts from your team about how the day was already going so slowly and how they all missed you, you decided to go out and get some actual food in for Tony. There wasn't much else you could think to do, since you had already arranged one viewing of an apartment and were waiting on a response from the other, and you didn't want to live off what Tony usually did for the few days you were staying with him.

Despite your jokes about his diet, the same ones you'd been recycling since he was in college but with the occasional "you eat like a frat boy" thrown in there, you knew he actually had good taste in food. Given the chance, he'd eat right. It was just his job and how borderline obsessed he was with it, the hours he'd put in and the days he'd spend without sleep because of it; he'd eat rarely and when he did it was high-fat stuff to make up for skipped meals. You were determined to make sure he'd have a decent meal today, even if he did have to microwave it if he got in late, so you decided on something simple but that you knew would make him happy. Along with his favourite tooth-rotting dessert that you would indulge in as well and a few things for the next day, you lugged the bags back to Tony’s place. It didn’t take too long to put everything away, there was plenty of room, and then you went back to your laptop to carry on the search

As it turned out, Tony was able to leave work at a reasonable time so you could actually sit and have a hot meal together on his couch, since he evidently didn’t have a dining table. He spoke a lot about nothing, like how good you were at cooking and how he almost didn’t want you to leave if you kept this up, but you could tell there was something up. He is your brother, after all “Bad day?” You asked during a lull in his babbling. He sighed and bowed his head. “Yea.” “Wanna talk about it?” “I met Kirk’s sister. One of the foster ones.” His voice was low, almost inaudible “She’s seven months pregnant, father’s nowhere to be seen. Kirk’s been helping her, with everything. And now he’s gone as well.” “It happens, all the time. Do you usually get so upset over this stuff?” “No. I…I shouldn’t. But she’s so young, and so far along.” You looked over him and shook your head softly. “There’s something else.” “I don’t think he did it. With everything she said, I don’t think he could.” “What does the evidence say?” “It doesn’t say definitely that he did it.” “But it doesn’t say definitely that he didn’t. And you’ve got to find him to prove either.”

You’d moved to a new place two days later, were introduced to your temporary new team, and managed to have enough time to unpack everything and try to make the place cozy. There had been barely enough time to spend with Tony those few days but you at least spoke to him whenever you could, never really speaking about the work either of you were doing other than it was difficult and draining.

The first you heard that the case had ended was when you got a text from Ziva maybe a week and a half after moving from Tony’s place. A simple ’This is Ziva, I was wondering if you’re still interested in meeting for dinner’ that you weren’t expecting. You thought it through for a second or two before you typed up a message that you then deleted and rewrote another three times before settling on a (hopefully chirpy) reply. Hi, Ziva. I didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon. Of course I’m still interested. I’m free this weekend if that’s okay. It still wasn’t 100% but you couldn’t think of anything else to send. The almost ten minutes that it took for her to reply almost had you picking at your nails. It was stupid to deny, to yourself at least, that you were attracted to Ziva; after everything you’d heard about her and how surprisingly nice she’d been when you met her, and how beautiful she was, there was a –slight- draw towards her. The chime of your phone almost made you jump and you had to take a breath to make sure that you didn’t instantly open the message and seem too eager. Saturday then? Is there anywhere you’d prefer to meet? Saturday is perfect. I don’t really know many places around here, so it’s your choice. It would be nice to get more accustomed to the area, as well as get closer to Tony’s friends; you’d meet up with Abby for drinks, and probably see Tim as well if you got the chance. Ziva was a good start, at least.

She’d told you where to meet, a little coffee shop not too far from your place that made you wonder how far she lived from you, and said it’d be best to meet at 5:30 since it wouldn’t be as busy. She must have gone a few times, to be so sure of the flow of people through it

You showed up early, almost fifteen minutes early in fact, and got yourself a drink as you waited. You read through emails, using the free wifi of course, and replied to a couple through sips of your drink and looking up each time the door chimed. Ziva had been right, the place wasn’t so crowded and people were arriving and leaving at closely similar rates so you weren’t worried about missing her when she came in. You’d only just finished your drink when the door again opened and Ziva walked in. She looked somehow more beautiful than when you’d last seen her and you had the urge to stand up the second you saw her, like the world was Pride and Prejudice. Despite the urge, evidently, you stayed sat and just waved when she met your gaze. She smiled as she came over and you almost cursed yourself for the flip that your heart did. For God’s sake, you thought, you hardly even knew her.

You both ordered a drink each, which didn’t take so long to arrive, and sat in silence until Ziva spoke up “I’m glad you agreed to come here.” She smiled and you let your own smile out. “Of course I agreed.” You sighed with a shrug. Ziva's smile changed, only very slightly, but it seemed to change the entire meaning of it. Slowly, you felt your cheeks start to heat and, as soon as you realised, ducked your head to your cup "I mean, I've heard a lot of great things about the team, I just want to find out how much is true." "To prove it, I'll have to know what Tony's told you." "Even forgetting the cases that you do, that you all work so much for. I mean-" You sighed again and tried to think back. He had tried to catch you up on a lot of stuff in six months, and the two years before that hadn't exactly been quiet either "-there's been a lot. He tells me about almost everything." As you looked up, Ziva looked almost worried so you quickly corrected yourself "Nothing too personal, of course. Just about when you hang out, and some of what you've talked about. There's still quite a bit I'd like to know about you." There was a beat of silence where you just looked at her, and she looked back just as unblinking, before you realised what that sentence could imply "All of you sound really cool." "Well, I'd like to know more about you as well. Like I said, I only wish Tony had told us about you sooner." "Plenty of time to make up for it." You muttered before taking a drink.

"So how was the case?" You asked, resting your elbows on the table and leaning forwards a little "I'm guessing that you got him. Kirk, I mean." "We found him, yes. But he didn't do it. He was there, where we found his blood, but he didn't do anything." Your soft confused pout and head tilt made her pause before she carried on "It was one of his friends, from training, and the Staff Sergeant tried to stop him but ended up injured. He was worried after that and went into hiding. He helped us, a lot." After a second, where you were silent and thinking it through, Ziva spoke again "Didn't Tony tell you ?" "No, he's probably taking a break while he can. I'll try to drop in soon." "You look after Tony a lot, don't you?" She asked with a smile that could almost seem fond. "I try to. He's, pretty much, the only family I have." "I thought Tony was okay with your father now." "Tony is."  You nodded, your mood souring slightly "But it's okay. Just what happens." A fake smile was thrown onto your face and you sat up straighter "Anyway, none of that. We're meant to be getting to know each other." You laughed softly, shaking your head "Daddy issues come in later." It was obvious that Ziva wanted to talk more about it, but regardless she let it drop and instead nodded.

When that moment passed, you actually ended up having a regular conversation. You spoke about your team back home, and how strange it was to not be working with them for a little while, and she spoke about the MCRT and how close everyone was, the basic things you’d need to know about them all. She promised to somehow introduce you to Ducky and Palmer without taking you to the morgue, despite your assurances that dead bodies didn't gross you out that much due to your line of work, and when you mentioned maybe having drinks with Abby, she had hesitantly asked if you wouldn’t mind her tagging along. You learnt a few of her likes and hobbies, and how extensive her skillset was, and you told her yours similarly. All in all, you spoke until it was almost closing time and the two of you were pretty much the only ones left.  You only noticed after a text came through and you caught a glimpse of the time.

After the two of you laughed softly at yourself for so easily losing the time, you personally left quite a tip as an apology as well as went to the woman behind the counter to apologise for staying so long. She had a strange smile on her face as she assured you it was okay and you were both welcome back any time. As you left, Ziva turned to you with an almost bashful smile “I hope I didn’t bring you too far from where you’re staying.” “No, not really. It’s closer than I thought. Walking distance, actually.” “Oh. Well, maybe I could walk you home then.” In your slight shock, you almost choked on air but managed to cover it up b clearing your throat as you nodded gently. “If it’s not too out of the way.” “It isn’t. And I’d…Like to keep talking to you.” “Um.” You said with a slightly nervous laugh, ducking your gaze away as the irrational gay side of you went a little too far “I’d like that too. Um, let’s go.”

You didn’t so much walk back as you did stroll, taking your time to find out more about her. Similarly to yourself, as you soon realised, she wasn’t very  open to talking about her own father to much. “We haven’t spoken in a while.” Was all she said with a forlorn look that was so slight you almost didn’t catch it. “I’m sorry to hear that.” “It’s better that we don’t.” She explained with a shake of her had before looking to you “I thought Tony would have told you.” “He doesn’t tell me personal stuff about you. I don’t ask and, even if I did, h wouldn’t tell me because he knows it’s not his place.” “How much has Ton actually told you?” “About you?” She nodded and you took a deep breath, trying to recall some of the things as though you hadn’t paid extra attention. “He told me that you are, now ex, Mossad, and that you have more talents and abilities than he could imagine. You’re funny and kind and you actually remember a lot of the little things even if you pretend you don’t sometimes.” The almost bashful look she had made you smile “And you’re an amazing cook. “He said that?” She asked with a smile. “Yea. Apparently, everyone thinks so.” You couldn’t seem to help yourself before you said “Maybe I’ll be able to see just how true that is, before I leave.” Looking over at her almost hopefully, you found that she was already looking at you. You anxiously pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, which drew her gaze downwards for a second before she looked away suddenly. “I, uh, I suppose so. If you want to.” “Well, of course. I want to know what Tony’s been bragging about for you.” Ziva chuckled softly and nodded. “Then I hope we’ll have the time.”

She carried on walking with you, all the way to your door, and you felt almost nervous as you turned to her “I’ve not given you too far a trip, have I?” “Not at all. I’ve enjoyed today.” “So have I. You’re very good company.” Ziva’s smile to you made your heart flip and your cheeks warm, but she seemed to catch up to herself and cleared her throat almost awkwardly. “I should probably go, leave you to the rest of your day.” You wanted to say that you had nothing planned, and invite her in, but instead you just nodded. “Yea, sure. I’ll see you later then.” “I look forward to it.” When she was out of view, that’s when you went into your apartment

You got your phone out to actually answer the text from earlier. It was from a friend back home, Robin, asking how your ‘date’ had gone. With a sigh, you replied. It wasn’t a date. And it was nice, I just got back. The reply was almost instantaneous, though they should have been working. Like hell it wasn’t a date. You’ve been way too excited for today for it not to be a date. Well it wasn’t. Are you meeting up again? Probably, yea. You didn’t voice your ‘hopefully’, because that would only reinforce Robin’s idea that it was a date. And, if part of that hope was for some form of date with Ziva, you definitely weren’t going to mention it.

Your hope seemed to be rewarded, at least a bit, since not only did Ziva ask you to dinner again but she’d even accepted the two of you meeting up before work for coffee. Both of them in the following week, and both went pretty well. Neither of you spoke much about your past, though when you said the little that you did of your biological family and vaguely why you ended up adopted by the Dinozzo’s, she opened up a little about her own family; Primarily her sister and  the tragic event that occurred. Rather than dwelling on either of those subjects, you both filled the silence with basic catching up as though you were old friends, or told each other tales about your respective teams or what you could of cases and occasionally ones specific to Tony.

The messages you got from Robin were highly similar; “Wow, you got a second date, good on you”  “Third date and no kiss? You’re playing hard to get”. You knew they were meant well and that Robin was just playing off the highly obvious crush you had. Tony, meanwhile, was as oblivious as he always had been about your affections and rather decided to joke that you couldn’t be bothered making friends so were trying to steal his. You just make it worse, on purpose of course, by asking him to pass your number on to Abby in case she wanted to actually meet up for drinks. That got a paper ball thrown at your head but a text from Abby the next day showed that he didn’t really mind at all.

Not even two weeks later, after making plans with Abby a few times that always fell through due to work on both sides, you had a late start so decided to make a trip up to Tony with breakfast that you knew he probably had skipped. While you were waiting, you decided to get at least a coffee for everyone else just to be kind. So you set off to NCIS with five cups of coffee, a big cup of Caff-pow, and a little bag of croissants that were on sale, as well as Tony’s breakfast. Luckily for you, everyone (but Abby) was in the pen as you popped up in the lift “Peanut!” Tony exclaimed happily at seeing you, his smile widening even more at the sight of the coffee “Oh, please tell me that one of those is for me.” He groaned. “More than just that.” You trilled as you handed him his coffee, marked with a T, and his breakfast muffin. He again groaned his appreciation and blew you a kiss as you went to Ziva’s desk and put her coffee on the desk with a little smile. She mirrored it as she thanked you and took the offered croissant. Then Gibbs, you’d guessed he preferred black coffee and, judging by the small nod he gave you as you handed McGee his, you guessed right. McGee took a croissant as well, but Gibbs needed a bit more coaxing. “Look at you. The breakfast fairy.” Tony teased, which earned him a childish reply of you sticking your tongue out at him “What do you want?” “Can I not just visit when I have time, Junior?” Sighing, you leaned against Ziva’s desk since it was the closest, and crossed your arms “I wanted to just say Hey again. I mean, I know you’re probably busy but...” You shrugged softly, almost getting anxious before Ziva spoke up. “Not just yet.” You turned to see her, fiddling slightly with a pen as she looked up at you “The Director told us to ‘hang tight’, for something.” “Oh. Guess I’m lucky then.” “I’d say we’re luckier.” The way that she smiled up at you made you start to blush so you quickly turned your gaze away and ducked your head as you turned your empty cup in your hand. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Abby’s Caf-Pow poking out slightly from your bag and you sighed. “Would it be okay to go down and see Abby? I got her something as well.” You got a nod of confirmation from Gibbs so thanked him softly and stood “Won’t be that long.” You promised and set off to the elevator. “I’ll come with you.” Ziva said quickly, standing just as suddenly while taking up her jacket and taking a shirt from her bag “I need to give this back to her, before I forget.”

Though you’d been closer to her, such as when you were walking with her, you hadn’t been in such a confined space with her other than your car that first time but you were unconscious for most of that, so you were almost nervous as the doors closed in front of you. Thankfully, Ziva spoke up first “It was very nice of you, to bring us coffee.” “Well, I was going to bring Tony some things anyway.” You duck your head to hide your cheeks just in case they started to grow red “And I thought I’d get in everyone’s good books.” “You’re already firmly in mine.”  She teases, nudging you with a soft chuckle that you echo almost nervously. “There’s no harm in making sure.” Before she can say much else, though you’re sure that she wants to with how she looks at you, the doors open and you both step out to enter Abby’s lab.

Just as the first time, Abby was listening to her music and was bopping around but this time she saw you almost instantly and perked up instantly. Turning the music down, she grinned a shining smile at you “Hi again.” She trilled and hugged you softly “What’s brought you here?” “Bringing you this.” You brandished the Caf-Pow from the bag and Abby looked at it like it was all she needed to live before taking it. “Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I needed this today.” She took a deep gulp instantly and groaned “I barely slept last night. You won’t want to know why.” But of course, her saying that made you more eager to know. You barely had any chance to talk before she again perked up “Oh, I was going to text you tonight; I can definitely make it for Friday night, if you can.” “I, uh…” You paused and thought it through then nodded “Yea, I should be able to.” “Finally!” Abby grinned and sighed with a shake of her head “Only took a few weeks.” “What’s on Friday night?” Ziva asked, evidently confused with her frown. “We were planning to go for some drinks.” Abby shrugged casually, and you took a second before turning to Ziva. “You could come, if you want.” Then you looked back to Abby “If that’s okay.” “Oh, of course. More the merrier, it’ll be fun.” “It could be nice, yes.” Ziva nodded just slightly “I’d like that.” “Great.” You smiled widely, almost forgetting to hide how actually excited you were to be able to spend more time with Ziva, and she gave you a soft smile herself that made your heart flutter. You almost forgot Abby was there until she broke you out of your reverie by asking Ziva why she was visiting her little lair.

Friday night came far sooner than you thought it would and, before you even realised it, you were stood in front of your bathroom mirror and doing your makeup as neatly as you could. Your hair was already on point, and your outfit was purposefully picked to be quite flattering to your form, and you were very happy with how you looked to the point that you didn’t even think of changing anything. The muttered confident words of encouragement that you gave yourself were just between you and the mirror as you checked yourself out until you had to go to the bar. You walked it there, not too far really, and you could easily get an uber or a cab back if you had to. Abby and Ziva were already waiting for you as you got there and the second that she saw you, Abby let out a ‘whoo!’ and clapped “You look amazing. I mean, you look amazing anyway but wow.” “Thank you.” You laughed nervously before looking over the two of them, turning you breathless with how they looked “You two are absolutely gorgeous.” “Charmer.” Abby teased and then forcefully looped her arm in yours to lead you into the bar with Ziva at her other side “Now, let’s have some fun, we deserve it.”

The first round was on Abby, she got to choose as well which was an experience. While you were waiting for her, you again looked over Ziva. Of course, she was beautiful, how could she ever be anything less? Her dress had only thin straps, didn’t dip any lower than to show just a slight amount of cleavage, and stopped at her knee though almost clung to her hips. And, of all things you could go goo-goo over, it was her shoulders that really got to you; her shoulders and her neck were causing you to already get flustered, thoughts of kissing her and taking your time to nuzzle against her neck and just… Evidently, she caught you staring and smiled a little, confused “Are you okay?” “Hmm?” You asked, perking up and looking at her. “Are you okay? You were…staring.” “Oh. I’m…I’m fine, I was just thinking, I didn’t even realise.” Lies. You realised, you were just too lost in your own mind to really do anything about it. But your smile seemed to sate her and she just nodded with a smile of her own "I'm glad we could do this today." "So am I. Me and Abby make plans quite a lot but we haven't had the chance to actually go out until today." "Well, for the sake of my ego I'll say I'm the reason for that." You teased, and she laughed. "I can't say you're not the reason." She muttered softly, almost inaudible under the music but you caught it and that set you off blushing again. Thankfully, in some ways, it was a hot bar so you could use that as an excuse. When Abby came back with the drinks, not even twenty seconds later, she looked between the two of you and smiled slyly as she placed the drinks down "Here we go, let's see how you deal with these." "We said nothing too crazy, Abs." "I know, and it's not. It's just...got a special something."

That special something was quite a kick of sour lemon that made you and Ziva start coughing as Abby laughed in pure glee. Certainly an icebreaker, at least, as you instantly got into a conversation about how that should not be allowed which lead to your own personal tastes, which, eventually and somehow, lead to your personal life. You mentioned your boarding school days, a few things about Tony that Ziva already knew but that she and Abby could probably tease him about in the right way, and got to know the girls a little better as well.

"How long have you been in the FBI?" Abby asked and you sighed as you thought about it. "Quite a few years now. Not as many as Tony in NCIS but...still." "What military branch were you in?" Ziva's eyes widened. "You were military?" She asked suddenly, before you could answer, and you nodded once. "Mhm. I forgot to tell you that, didn't I?" The nod that Ziva gave was almost like she was insulted "To be fair, I didn't think it was that important. Tony loves to brag about it, for some reason, but I just...it doesn't come up and I don't go out of my way to make it." A worried frown crossed your face as you looked over to Ziva "That doesn't change anything, right?" "Oh, no, of course not." The way she looked at you, however, seemed like it had changed a little "It does help explain how you're so observant though." "I had to be." You shrugged "It's a habit by now, to notice things." Abby scoffed a little, suddenly, and you looked over "What?" "Nothing, nothing. I just...remembered something that McGee said yesterday, that's all." Bullshit. You didn't mention it, just pulled a face at her that showed just how much you believed that, before going back to try another sip of the drink. Thankfully it was only small, and you did adapt to the sour taste quite quickly. When you all were finished with that round, the conversation lasted a few more minutes before Abby seemed to realise that there were no drinks so piped up that it was someone else's turn. Instinctively, you held your fist and palm out to Ziva. Of course with her being around Tony she recognised the gesture so repeated it and you did a best-of-three go of rock-paper-scissors that ended with you losing so you went to get drinks. Despite asking what they wanted, Abby insisted on 'Surprise us' as an option above all. So surprise them you did; you got a drink that you had only heard of in movies and had no idea what it really was so you'd all have an experience with it.

What you didn't expect to come back to was a whispering Ziva and Abby, who hushed the second Ziva saw you coming back with the mystery drinks. It didn't cause you that much of an anxiety, as though they were talking shit about you, and you just smiled as you placed the drinks down "We're all going to be surprised with this one, I have no idea what I got." Ziva thanked you with a laugh, but before you could even sit down Abby looked over to you with a curious pout. "Are you gay?" Luckily you hadn't started to drink, otherwise you were sure it'd be shocked out of you and through your nose. Much like it had with Ziva, who coughed out a 'fuck' as she tried to get rid of the apparently fruity liquid from her nose. "Abby." She scolded softly but you just nodded, with a pretty heavy blush. "Uh, yes. I, I am. Is it obvious?" "Not too much. I had a feeling so I thought I'd ask." "Your gaydar was pretty on point there." You joked and Abby laughed as she took a drink, suddenly humming in surprised pleasure as she got her first taste of it. "These are actually pretty good, good choice." You couldn't help but agree when you tried it yourself and, though Ziva did look a little sheepish, the conversation carried on.

After that was Ziva's turn to get the drinks, and Abby just quizzed you a little more to get to know you as much as she could. Then the cycle went once more, and about an hour and a half later it was Ziva's turn again. Abby had an almost sinister smile on her face, from the time you came back with the last round, so you were quite worried when she turned straight to you the minute that Ziva was out of earshot "So." She said. "Yea?" "You have a crush on Ziva." "What?" You asked, wide eyed instantly and heart flipping almost in fear actually. When people used to figure out your crushes, it didn't usually go that well. "It's okay, you can tell me. I mean, it's a little obvious." "Oh my god, does she know?" "Oh, no, she's clueless. She's as clueless as you." She dismissed that with a wave of her hand "You should tell her." "I...I don't know. Isn't she straight?" "Not...totally. I think. I think it's worth a shot." She said, sing-songy, and you scrunched your face up in thought. "I don't-" "-Hey, I know what I'm talking about. Just...trust me?" How could you refuse. For one, you had all of Tony's stories of her, and what you knew of her from tonight, and for two you had just enough drinks in you that you were a little more open to it than you usually would be, so you nodded. "Okay. I don't know when I could." "Tonight, silly." She elbowed you just on the right side of too hard with a smile "The sooner you do it, the sooner you can get to it." She wiggled her eyebrows and you groaned out a laugh. "Jeez, Abby." "What?" Ziva asked, smiling a little, with the drinks in hand. "Abby's just being crude." "I was nothing of the sort." She exclaimed, but her smile on her face said otherwise. Ziva seemed to understand so just nodded. "And she spends time with nuns." "Wow." You laughed, but the side-eye that Abby gave you made you hide your red cheeks around your glass.

Maybe you shouldn't have been so surprised that, after finishing that drink, Abby made her excuses to leave you and Ziva there. She also insisted that you two stay and hang out for as long as you wanted, and that she'd be fine getting home. The look she shot to you after it showed you that this was your opportunity and that she would Judge You if you didn't take it. As said before, you were probably tipsy enough to actually take it. That wasn't to mean that you wouldn't have another drink or two before that, however "Want another?" You asked. After a second, she nodded once and smiled. "I don't see why not." "Be right back." You winked before hurrying off to the bar. As you waited for the drinks, you took that time to think back; Was there a chance that Ziva liked you?

Sure she smiled a lot around you, she would bump into you as she laughed, and she'd pretty much memorised your usual coffee order as you had hers, but there wasn't anything definitive. She had shifted plans around for you and woken up early on her last day off so she could have coffee with you before you went to work, sometimes she'd fall asleep messaging you and you'd wake up to an apologetic message that she hadn't meant to just pass out on you like that. You'd gone to dinner with her more times than you expected to and each time she asked you had some sort of undertone that made your heart flip but your consciousness scold you for being way too quick to jump to conclusions. The more you thought about it, the wider your eyes got as you realised that there might be something there, that maybe the dinners were dates

You plastered on a smile as you walked back to the table, not faltering in a step despite how much time you still needed to figure your tactic out. Ziva seemed quite uncomfortable, almost conflicted, herself and your smile melted into a comforting one as you sat a little closer to her than before "You okay?" "Yes, yes, I was just thinking." "Don't hurt yourself." You chuckled with a soft nudge to her side. She smiled widely in return and then sighed, taking a mouthful of her drink as you just fiddled a little with your own glass "Ziva, I, uh, can I tell you something?" Her eyes widened in almost a fear that you instantly saw and hurried to calm down "Nothing bad. Nothing bad, I promise." Your reassuring smile made her take a breath and nod. "Sure, what is it?" "I...like you. Not like a friend, sort of in...the gay way." God, maybe you should have taken another few seconds to think this through, to be a little less '13 year old with their first crush' and more of an actual grown-up. You buried your head in your hands and groaned "Fuck, that wasn't...how I wanted to say it, can I try again?" "I like you too. The gay way." "Really?" You asked with a hopeful little laugh, eyes bright suddenly "Even after I completely ruined that?" "Even after that." She giggled, reaching out to touch your hand in comfort. The contact, however innocent, made you blush and duck your head. "Okay. Um. Good." Nodding, you stared at the table and your untouched drink in silence for a second or two before looking back up to her with a sentence in mind. When you saw her already looking at you, however, all words left your mind yet she seemed to have it covered. "I've been trying to...Ask you on a date for a while." "Oh." You chuckled, having had the same thoughts as well. Then you paused and frowned just slightly "Were...any of the dinners we had meant to be dates?" From the look on her face, almost a little enlightened, you guessed that she hadn't thought about that. "Maybe a couple." "Does that mean I can kiss you?" Ziva was quiet for a second, just looking over your face and lingering her gaze at your lips, before she breathed out her reply. "Please." Though hesitating a little, you did shift closer slightly and lean forwards to kiss her gently.

While it was quite chaste and almost as innocent as the first kiss you'd had, the way that her hand came up to the side of your neck made your heart flutter in a way that she just seemed to love doing without realising it. You didn't open your eyes for a good three seconds as you moved away, when she chuckled and tapped your jaw with her thumb. Your eyes locked with hers, glistening with her smile, and you quickly ducked your gaze away from her. Without a word, she stroked her hand under your chin and tipped your head back up to guide you into a second kiss that was a little more. "I think-" She said softly as you pulled away the little that you did "-that we should go on a proper date. Tomorrow?" "I'd love to." You smiled, bordering on a grin, as you hesitantly sat back and took up your drink.

When you woke up the next morning, not as hungover as you could have been, it took you a second to really catch yourself up mentally on what had happened with Ziva and the second that you did there was a surge of joy that scrunched your whole face up with a smile. You squealed, like an anime schoolgirl, and kicked about happily on your bed before suddenly stopping and splaying out while staring at the ceiling with a deep sigh.

[harley-sunday]

Things We Lost in the Fire [02]

Summary During a bank robbery you’re surprised when the criminals seem to recognize you and retreat in fear. Only after do you learn that your high school sweetheart now runs a nationwide crime syndicate and has you placed on a “no harm” list. You decide to pay him a visit after all these years. 

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader (F)

Warnings: Language. Mentions of a miscarriage. 

Word count: 3399

AN: Time for part two :) Would love to hear what you think, so don’t be shy about leaving a comment! Enjoy ♥

Masterlist

The drive from his mother’s house to yours is short, with only a quick stop for dinner at the Italian place you’re pretty much a regular at. You like it there because they know not to bother you with any small-talk and they always let you eat in peace. It’s also where he took you on your first date, so...

The first thing you do when you get home is text Bert, giving him some lame excuse about how this is all much tougher than you thought and how you need more time to recover. You ask for two weeks off, because that seems reasonable, and of course he agrees. Tells you to look after yourself and makes you promise you’ll let him know how you are doing sometime next week. It feels bad lying to Bert, but it appears your morals left you at the same moment those robbers left the bank. 

Next, upstairs in your bedroom, you grab a chair to pull out an old battered cardboard box from somewhere deep in your closet and set out looking for your senior yearbook. You find it easily enough, even though you’re not sure why you think you need it.

It sits in your lap now, the fingers of your left hand absentmindedly tracing the embossed letters on the cover. Your right hand is holding a glass of Scotch, because that seems to have become your go-to drink every since this started. You swirl the ice cubes around in your glass, letting out a sigh, finally opening the yearbook. 

You find the page that has pictures of the senior prom quick enough and you feel a sad smile forming on your lips when you see the picture of Sebastian and you as the homecoming king and queen. God, you were so happy then. You remember being giddy all night but especially after you two were crowned, because never in a million years would you have thought you’d be elected king and queen. To this day you still wonder if Josh had anything to do with it. He must have. There was some shady shit going on during the election that you know the principal tried to get to the bottom of but couldn’t and so he had no choice but to validate the outcome. 

Sebastian and Josh were thick as thieves and best friends for as long as you could remember, their families living next to each other long before both boys were born. They were troublemakers, but never in a bad way, not really anyway. They got really into graffiti at some point, but nothing more than that. Or at least, that’s what you thought. 

It wasn’t until a few years later that you found out Josh was into some pretty shady shit during senior year.

Your fingers caress the picture gently and there’s a quiet, “Oh, Seb,” escaping you because what the hell ever happened to you two? It’s then you remember the envelope his mother gave you and you reach for your purse that’s sitting on the ground next to the couch. You take out the envelope and spot his handwriting on the back immediately, a hastily scribbled Lubirea Mea in the center. 

My Love

There’s something wet dripping down your cheeks and it takes you a moment to realize you’re crying. Weird. Must be the Scotch. Or the trip down memory lane you’ve embarked on today. Or the fact that even now you still you remember the few Romanian words he’s taught you and how he’s still calling you this after all these years. 

You became friends in sophomore year, when Mrs Ellis sat you next to each other in art class and you admired the drawings he had decorated his binder with. Then, in senior year, he asked you to be his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve. He had taken you on a few dates in the weeks before that, but nothing compared to the big party Josh hosted at his parents’ beach house that evening. 

Just going there and being seen together made it official to the outside world. 

Sebastian waited until it was almost midnight to confess he had a crush on you and kissed you passionately for the first time just as the clock struck twelve and fireworks erupted all around you. It was romantic as hell and would set the standard for your relationship the next three and a half years. Because if anything, he was a hopeless romantic. The envelope you’re holding now telling you he probably still is.

When you went away to Columbus State University after high school and he stayed in Savannah you still found ways to make it work. After your second year you found a cheap apartment close to campus so he could stay with you without a roommate to worry about. The first couple of months of that school year were everything you wanted it to be because he came to visit you almost every weekend and you could see a future together slowly starting to form. He told you he’d been saving money, even though he wouldn’t really tell you how, just that he was working together with Josh on a couple of projects. It didn’t matter to you. All you wanted was to follow him into this dream of buying a house on the coast somewhere and raising a family together. 

You trusted him to do what was best for you two. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Because  everything changed on your three-year anniversary. 

Josh hosted another one of his infamous parties at the beach house, which was now his after his parents decided to spend their retirement in the Bahamas, and, like every year, he invited you even though you hadn’t seen Josh since you left for university and weren’t as close to him as you once were. You knew by then Josh had a reputation in Savannah, his parties often raided by the police because they suspected drugs were being dealt and used. They never caught anyone and sometimes it almost felt like Josh was taunting them. 

You were hesitant to go to the party but Sebastian took you out to dinner first anyway, a fancy restaurant on the other side of town that was way too expensive as far as you were concerned but that he deemed fitting for your anniversary. Dinner was nice and not for the first time during your relationship you felt like everything was as it should be. And so when you finally gathered enough courage you told him the big news. 

You were ten weeks pregnant.

You’ve never seen him that happy before and you’ve never seen him that happy again since, because when you eventually made it to the beach house you were met with an awful sight. The house was completely engulfed in flames, police and firemen swarming the area, ambulances taking away the injured to nearby hospitals. You heard him curse quietly as he drove up to the house and it was then you saw Josh being wheeled out on a stretcher, unconscious, his body badly burned. Without saying a word you followed the ambulance to the hospital, waiting there for what felt like days even though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours until the doctors informed you of his condition. 

Josh suffered third degrees burns on his face, chest, stomach, arms and legs, and the doctors could already confirm he’d lost eyesight in at least one eye, the second one being dangerously close to following. He would have a long road ahead of him, they warned you, if he even would make it out alive. You stayed in the hospital until his parents arrived the next day, but even then Sebastian never left Josh’ side.  

No matter how hard you tried, he wouldn’t meet you, wouldn’t leave the hospital in case Josh would wake up, and so you had to go to there to say goodbye to him when you went back to Columbus after the winter break was over. He seemed distracted, but you figured he was still in shock from everything that happened and sort of admired his loyalty to Josh. 

You talked on the phone a couple of times after that, but you never saw him after that last goodbye. Not when you told him you were stressed out about your upcoming exams. Not when you told him you missed him. Not when you begged him to please come see you.

Not even when you told him you’d lost the baby somewhere in the early stages of the second trimester. 

He was slipping away from you and there was nothing you could do. 

Eventually the findings of the police made it clear that the fire was drug-related and even believed to be an attack on Josh’ life. By then you had learned that Josh had woken up from his coma and that crime still raged in Savannah, some sort of retaliation of what happened that night. There were a lot of gang-related incidents and people were getting beaten up and left for dead almost daily. 

You called Sebastian some time in April of that year, fed up with everything, and ended things. You told him you were done. Well, you told his voicemail, because he never answered his phone anymore, and he sure as hell never called back.

You saw him only once after you broke up, in the local CVS of all places on one of your rare trips back to Savannah. You tried to avoid him, tried to make it outside without having to talk to him, but like always he found you easily enough. He tried to apologize for everything that happened, but all you could focus on was how terrible he looked, his face sunken in, his knuckles scraped and bruised, and you couldn’t help but wonder just how much he was involved in all of this. The crimes and the beatings and maybe even the drugs.

You dropped out of university shortly after, needing time to make sense of everything that happened in the last six months, promising the student counselor you’d keep in touch about finishing your last year. You never did. You moved to Atlanta to get away from everything, but mostly to get away from him and the memories of him. Atlanta was a nice distraction, at least the first couple of years.

It took you three years to not think about him every single day. Five years to pretty much forget about him and be sort of happy again. You made it to ten years before you started longing for Savannah again. Made it to twelve before you finally decided to move back. 

And now here you are, back in Savannah and back to thinking about him again. You wonder why he still has such a hold over you, because you are sure every normal, sane, person would just turn him in. But not you.

No.

You are sitting here, ten minutes after midnight, on your third glass of Scotch, still turning that fucking envelope over and over in your hands, the melancholy of it all settled somewhere deep in your chest. You put the glass down on the coffee table and sit back, taking a deep breath and then you open the envelope, carefully taking out the piece of paper that’s inside. 

You’re not sure what you expected, but not this.

Vă rog.

Please.

You don’t make the drive to Pawleys Island right away. Not in the least because well, you’re definitely over the limit, but also because after reading his plea you suddenly feel so, so tired. You barely make it to bed, stumbling over your shoes that are lying on the floor somewhere and taking your sweet time trying to conquer the stairs while the world is spinning all around you. You vow right then and there never to drink again. Not that much, anyway. 

You sleep for at least twelve hours, waking up somewhere in the middle of Wednesday, the afternoon sun shining through your window way too brightly for your liking. By then it’s too late to make the drive, and so you decide to clean your house. It’s your go-to method of dealing with things when you’re upset and it’s quite useful to be honest. Once that’s done you find your trusted duffel bag and pack some clothes. You tell yourself it’s just in case, but somehow you know you won’t be back here for at least a couple of days. 

Once that’s done you order a pizza and decide to call Detective Johansson to let him know you’re leaving for at least a week, just to get him off your back. He doesn’t seem very interested and you wonder if you should have even bothered.

You’re up early, nerves keeping you from falling back asleep and so you’re on the road before eight, hitting a little bit of traffic on your way out of town, but things immediately quiet down once you cross into South Carolina. The sun is out and from experience you know it should take you about three hours to get to Pawleys Island, a beautiful drive, the memories of those endless summers coming back as you make your way down the 17, getting closer to the coast after Charleston. 

You stop for a coffee and something to eat in Georgetown because you doubt he’ll take you out to lunch once you get there. Panic hits then, because what if he isn’t even there? He doesn’t know you’re coming. It’s not like you made an appointment to go see him. Jesus, what if this was all for nothing? You try to calm yourself by reasoning that his mother must have let him know that you’ve come to see her and that he probably figured out you would come out some time this week. 

Wanting to get it over with you ask for a to-go cup at the counter and pour your coffee over, leaving your half-eaten sandwich on the table as you rush back to your car. It’s only about twenty minutes from here, but traffic is slow and so you quietly curse everyone on the road with you. 

A wave of nausea hits you when you pull up in front of the beach house. It’s been completely demolished after the fire and the house that stands there now doesn’t have any resemblance to the old house if not for blue window panes. Well, what once were blue window panes anyway. The exterior of the house is in decay, paint is chipping pretty much everywhere and the shrubs have grown so high they’re now covering the porch. It’s weird to think the last time you were here was over sixteen years ago. 

You sit in your car for a while, gathering up the courage you need for this. You wonder if he knows you’re here, if he’s already seen you from somewhere behind a window. How free does he feel here? Is this just where he hides out after a robbery or does he live here? Do the neighbors know him? Is Josh with him? God, you don’t even know if Josh is still alive. You shake your head to get rid off all the questions that are now going through your mind in a never ending loop and take a deep breath. You grab your purse from the passenger’s seat, finding the key his mother gave you in the side pocket, and get out of your car. 

Looking straight ahead you walk up to the house, a small path cleared in between the shrubs wide enough for you to pass through. You hesitate for a moment when you get to the door, but then you mutter a quiet, “Fuck it,” and open it using the key in your hand. It’s light inside, far from the dark drug den you were expecting, and it throws you off a bit. Closing the door behind you, you take it all in. It’s weird how normal it looks inside compared to faded exterior. It’s completely furnished and almost homely and it’s then you wonder if this is where he lives. You half expect a kid or a dog to come running at you from somewhere then because it’s been pretty bold of you to assume he’d still be single. God, there’s a lot you don’t know about him, you realize, and you wonder what version of him you’ll find here.

“Hello?” you call out, but there’s no reply. Curiosity drives you forward, passing the kitchen on your right, to the living room in front of you. Strangely enough the layout of the house is the same as before and so you find your way effortlessly. The far wall of the living room, on the other end of the house, is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows, with a sliding door on the left side. 

The door is open and leads to a deck outside and it’s there you see him, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs. He looks relaxed, a cup of coffee in his hand,  today’s newspaper on the table next to him. You tap on the glass of the door, not wanting to startle him even though you know you really should care less about his general well-being. But you want answers and those are hard to come by if you scare him to death, you reason. 

He looks up and over his shoulder, a smile creeping onto his lips when he sees it’s you. 

“Fuck,” you mutter quietly, because honestly, he looks as good as ever and your knees, your fucking knees, actually go weak. Using the door frame for support you step outside and see him stand up.

“Dragă,” he says, his voice smooth as butter. 

“Don’t call me that,” you bite back, because does he really think he can still call you ‘babe’ after all these years. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, actually dropping his head and you feel yourself getting angry because what is he, an actor now? No way does he actually feel sorry. It’s all part of this act of his, you’re sure. His way to get redemption.

But is it? 

Because when he looks up at you again there’s this sincerity in his eyes that you’ve seen before. You’ve seen it every time he told you he loved you. Dammit. You decide you need some distance and so you walk back until you bump into the railing, leaning against it you cross your arms defensively, letting him know you’re not here for his bullshit. You take him in, all of him, and are surprised to see he hasn’t changed much. His eyes are still the same. A few wrinkles around them, sure, but still that same striking blue that you could get lost in for hours. His hair’s a little shorter than it was back in high school and there’s a little grey around his temples and in his beard but it suits him. 

He still has a lean physique but he’s much more muscular now, and you wonder how many hours a week he spends at the gym. He’s wearing a simple white and blue striped t shirt, his biceps stretching the fabric just enough so that you can tell he’s flexing. The jeans he’s wearing are dark blue, his sneakers so white you wonder if they’re new. He looks nothing like the hardened criminal you made him out to be, and much more like a happily married father of three that you hope he isn’t. 

God, what if he isn’t involved? What if he’s just like, their accountant or something? You shake your head you know he’s not. 

“Coffee?” he asks, interrupting your thoughts. He’s standing up, but keeping his distance as he walks to the door.

It sounds like a normal question but this whole situation is absurd and so it takes you a while to reply. “That depends,” you finally say, one eyebrow raised, “am I just here for some small-talk or are you actually going to tell me everything?”

“Dragă, please,” he says, but realizes his mistake and quickly adds, “You’re here because I need-” he looks at you, “I need you to know everything.” 

“Then I’m going to need something stronger than coffee.” And, because you’re still angry, a sneer, “Babe.”

[sincerelyreidburke]

ooh also 4 for Bri and Reid because I love them

Friends! Romans! Countrymen! ARE YOU READY for some good shit?!?! I say this because this is my very first time writing Reid/Bri! I mean, they’ve been in the background a few times in drama club stuff, but I’ve never actually gotten to focus on them. Toby enables me, because xe loves me.

“Who’s Bri?” Reid’s girlfriend!

In today’s episode of prompts, you will get a glimpse into Reid’s post-graduation life! If you want to read more about what’s in store for him after Kiersey, you can check out this post. And even this one, too, if you’d like.

Here, you’ll see a Reid two years removed from graduation and a little down on his luck. You also finally get to see inside his brain. *Slaps hood of Reid Burke* This bad boy can fit so much mental illness in him.

From this list of sappy prompts, which I am still accepting and filling as we speak!

4. “Shut up and kiss me.”

two years after (reid's) graduation | may

 Reid considers himself spectacularly efficient when it comes to fucking things up.

He knows this. Has always known it. He figures it’s a good thing to be self-aware, at least. He’s probably one of the more self-aware human beings to ever have a conscience, come to think of it, given the amount of time he spends policing his own every action. But still. There has to be some benefit in being so well aware of your own flaws that you can constantly predict your fuck-ups before they even happen. It’s like damage control when the damage hasn’t even set in.

Anyway. Reid knows he’s good at fucking up. But if there’s one thing he would really prefer not to fuck up, it’s Bri’s birthday.

Easier said than done.

When midnight strikes on the day she’s turning 24, he’s not even home, which is the first reason he feels guilty and useless. He’s at work, apron around his waist, tie done up too tight, sneaking glances at the clock across the room in between customers and refills. He wishes he had his phone on him, as the minute hand lines up with the second hand at the 12. He could at least text her. He could make up for the fact that he’s not there in person, to ring in the first moments of the day. But his phone is in the back, in his locker, because this is the best-paying place he works at, and he doesn’t want to risk his employment by getting caught with a phone by his manager. Or worse, a nosy customer, who will subsequently rat him out to his manager, and, well— yeah. Not to mention the fact that it’s usually so fast-paced in the bar that there’s no time to check your phone anyway.

The point is. He wishes he could text Bri. But he can’t. It’s probably for the best. She’s probably not even awake. It would actually be bad if she were awake. A healthy sleep schedule is something she deserves.

Actually, she deserves a lot. The entire world. A lot more than Reid has ever been able to give her, and there isn’t a day that goes by when his brain fails to remind him of that particular fuckup in his life thus far. But tonight, he shouldn’t think in huge terms. Tonight, he should just worry about her birthday.

Man, he wishes he were home in bed.

The strike of midnight, although it provides something to focus on, isn’t even the sign of his shift nearing an end, because the bar doesn’t close until 2:30, and the latter two and a half hours of work wind up passing by even more slowly than the beginning of his shift did. When he finally sees his last customer out, after last call, and he’s the only lonely, lingering person in the place— then, the end is in sight. He has closing chores ahead of him, but at least he doesn’t have to wait around to go home anymore.

It’s nothing that out of the ordinary, really, to be working this late. Between three jobs and sneaking in open mic nights between them any chance he can, he can’t remember the last time he had a night entirely off. Or a day, honestly, and tomorrow— or today, since it’s past midnight— isn’t any exception. He has the lunch shift at the street diner he works at, and the jury’s still out as to whether he’s going to bag his shift at the second bar he works at tomorrow night.

All of this is to say: he’s working a lot. Which is fine. Work means money, which means staying alive, especially with the New York cost of living he’s gotten used to since they moved here after graduation. It’s a necessary part of life. He just wishes life could stop, for one day, so he could do this right. So he could at least give her something, to make up for all the areas in life where he’s lacking. Where he’s an extremely underwhelming excuse for a future husband.

And, look— he did actually get her a present, so that’s not the issue here. It’s more the lack of time. It’s more the overwhelming sense that, despite her stability, despite the fact that she’s stuck with him for six years, he doesn’t deserve this patience, and that one day she might finally come to her senses and decide that she doesn’t feel like waiting around while he slums it in New York and tries to make it big, that she wants, like, a normal life, with a partner who makes a salary and a house or at least an apartment with more than one room and, like, basic predictability and success—

Ugh.

For now, for this very early morning, he won’t think about all of that, no matter how much it rings in his ears as he cleans up and closes the bar. For now, he just wants to make sure Bri has the most perfect morning possible. And to do that, he has a checklist.

Step one: finish work. He considers that done as he locks the front door of the bar, and steps out onto the street. It’s kind of breezy but not exactly cold out, since Bri’s birthday marks the last day of May, and summer is pretty much here. It’s not really busy outside on the street, but he’s not the only one out, either. Rule number one of New York City: you are literally never the only person out and about, no matter what time of day it is.

Step two: the bodega. It’s on his walk, open twenty-four hours, and he stops there so often at weird hours of the night after work shifts that he’s established a rapport with the cashier who works the red-eye shift. “Eyyyyyy,” he sings, as he swings through the door into the small, artificially lit space. “What’s up, Charlie? You working hard, or hardly working?”

Actually, it’s not so much a rapport. It’s more that he’s constantly the loudest customer who graces this place between the hours of midnight and four in the morning, and Charlie probably hates him, but still tolerates his presence. So.

He needs flour, half a dozen eggs, a tied-up bunch of yellow and white flowers, and rainbow sprinkles. He also slides three Red Bull onto Charlie’s till, and then grins across the counter to remark, “The necessities.”

Charlie grunts or maybe chuckles, and scans his stuff. “Right.”

Step three: get home and get to work.

It’s, like, six minutes on foot from work to the bodega, and then four more to the subway stop, and then the subway is a whole host of issues that land him back at the apartment building around 3:30 in the morning. Bri’s alarm goes off at 6:30 for work, and he figures he can intercept her for a proper birthday breakfast before she goes to the gallery. Given that he kills one of the Red Bull from the bodega while he’s in transit to get home, he is at least ninety percent confident that there’s no point in not pulling an all-nighter.

It’s fine. He’s not even tired. He has stuff to do, anyway.

The apartment is dark when he gets in, and he tries to make the smallest amount of noise, which, when you think about it, is kind of pointless because it’s only one room and any noise he makes could count as a disturbance, but— but— Bri isn’t a light enough sleeper to wake up at that kind of stuff. A fact he is grateful for. So he puts the bag of groceries down, gently, on the counter, and turns the light on over the sink while he loosens his tie. Or more like yanks it off. The uniform at that job is seriously not his style, but you take what you can get.

Across the room, where their bed is tucked up into the corner, Bri is asleep. Thank Christ. He would be concerned if she weren’t. While he gets out of his work clothes, he looks at her in bed— she’s peaceful, and looks comfortable, and he kind of wants for a second to just crawl into bed with her, but if he does that, he’ll never get anything done in time, and she’ll wake up to a normal old morning. With nothing special. On her birthday.

She doesn’t deserve that.

When he’s finished changing, it’s 3:41 Apple time. The morning is young. He sneaks a kiss to the top of her head and pulls the covers a little higher over her shoulders, then slides across the room in his socks, back to the kitchen side of the apartment.

Sure, he’s great at fuck-ups. But he’s not going to let this one be a bust.

*

It’s a quick three hours.

He blames executive dysfunction. Time passes too quickly when he’s on a crunch, literally every time. He starts with her card, which he bought a few days ago— writes it out, seals it into its envelope, and weighs it down with the corner of one of her vases, which he fills with water and puts the flowers in. It’s glass-blown, psychedelic colors; she made it in the glass studio junior year at Kiersey, and it followed them to New York.

With that done, he gets all his ingredients out for breakfast. He can’t start cooking at 4 in the morning, but he can get ready— a bowl out on the counter, their one good frying pan on the griddle, dry ingredients for pancakes measured out. He’s not the most versatile cook in the world, but he makes a mean Kraft Dinner, and this, too, he can do— birthday cake pancakes. With sprinkles. It’s Bri’s favorite breakfast.

He doesn’t know how it winds up being 6:30. He loses time, doing all of this and also nothing at all. He’s two and a half Red Bull deep, mixing up the actual pancake batter, when Bri’s alarm tone across the room pulls him out of his haze.

“Shit,” he hisses, and nearly knocks over his frying pan. It’s 6:30 already? The kitchen is a mess, and he’s been stuck in the distractible part of his brain for the better half of the past two hours, and now he looks like he’s made a huge mess, and—

The alarm stops going off, and he hears the mattress shift. He’s rinsing off the questionable spatula he’s been using to mix the batter in the sink when he hears her voice. “Babe?”

“Hey— hey, good morning.” He turns, and puts his back to the counter, like it’ll hide the actual disaster he’s created. “Happy birthday,” he adds. “Did you sleep okay?”

Bri is sitting up halfway in bed, and she doesn’t answer his question. “What are—” She yawns, and holds a hand to her mouth, which is really fucking cute, the way her eyes get all wrinkled up like this, and he just— loves her, and wishes he weren’t so useless, wishes he could give her the world. When she finishes her sentence, her voice is raspy. That’s cute, too. “What’re you doing over there?”

“I’m, uh.” And busted. He might as well own up to the mess. “Well, I realize now that it looks like a bomb went off in here, but don’t worry; I’ll fix it. I was just— well, breakfast. I’m making breakfast. But it’s not ready yet. It will be. Promise.” He lets all his breath out at once, then tries a grin. “But did you? Sleep okay?”

Again, she doesn’t answer the question. Instead, she swings her legs off the side of the bed, and gets up to walk across the room. He meets her halfway, as she’s combing back her hair, a blonde, wavy, bedhead-y and beautiful mess. She’s in pajama shorts and a tank top, and he may be sleep-deprived and totally useless, but he is the luckiest guy on this planet. “How long’ve you been up?” she asks.

He rests his hands, gently, on her waist, and looks down to meet her eyes, which are hazy with sleep but always so fucking pretty. “I… don’t know if you would love the answer to that question,” he replies, because she’d see right through him even if he wanted to lie about it.

She smiles, but it’s a sympathetic expression, like she can see the Red Bull coursing through his veins or some shit like that. “Answer anyway.”

“Um.” Okay, busted. For real this time. While she hooks her arms around his neck, he tries to gather an explanation. “Okay, so I may not have slept, but hear me out, okay? I wanted to make sure I had stuff in a row so that when you woke up, it’d all be good for you, since I know we kinda have, like, a limited window here, and I didn’t want you to just have to eat, like, peanut butter toast on your birthday, right? Like, that would suck, and also, I was already up because of work, and I had stuff to do anyway, so basically, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t sleep at all, but on the bright side, there is pancake batter ready for you, and I promise I’m gonna clean up all the cooking shit ASAP because I know it looks like a war zone in this kitchen right now—”

“Reid.”

He stops. Her voice is gentle, and she’s smiling— it’s not the pity smile anymore, but just a regular smile. She threads her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he breathes, almost instinctively. “Sorry. That was so much. You just woke up. Hi. I love you. Happy birthday. You look really hot right now.”

Bri laughs, and leans up, on tiptoe, until her forehead is right on his. “Reid,” she repeats, even more gently, and he lets out all his breath again, closes his eyes. “Take a deep breath.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” He tries to do as she says. It’s really not hard to breathe; he just forgets that’s a necessary bodily task from time to time. No big whoop. “I promise I’ll clean it up. And I’ll make the pancakes, and— wait, shit!” The realization hits him all at once, and his stomach sinks. “Shit. Fuck. I don’t think we have whipped cream.”

“Whipped cream?” Bri asks, and she sort of laughs, like she’s confused, but this is very bad, because that’s a necessary part of any balanced pancake breakfast, right?

“Fuck,” he repeats, and then groans, bumping his forehead against hers lightly. “Fuck, babe; I’m so sorry. I knew I was forgetting something. I can go out, though. Maybe while you shower? I can get it on the corner—”

“Babe,” Bri says, and it occurs to him that he has once again forgotten to breathe. But when he meets her eyes again, she’s smiling, kind of laughing, and she shakes her head. “Shut up.”

“What?” He blinks. His glasses fog up a little, with how close their faces are, and he squints through them toward her. “I really will go out and get it. What are birthday pancakes without whipped—”

Bri slides her hands up to either side of his face, and she shakes her head again. “Just shut up and kiss me, okay?”

The pit leaves his stomach, and he stops in his tracks. “Oh,” he says, and then laughs, too. “Okay. I can do that.”

It’s a kiss that stops the racing in his brain, which it really always does; she just knows how to do that by existing. It becomes two, and then three, and when they pull apart, Reid can breathe normally again.

“You didn’t have to stay up all night because of me,” she tells him, voice still gentle, eyes still on him.

“I’m sorry,” he groans. “I didn’t really— I mean, I really didn’t want you to have a lame morning.”

“Well, that was very sweet of you,” she replies. Her eyes are catching the sunrise light that edges in through the window. He could get distracted by that. By her body. By every freckle on her face. He is, after all, easily distractible. “But,” Bri adds, “as long as my morning has you in it, I promise you, there’s nothing lame about it.”

He laughs, and kind of feels sheepish, like he might be blushing. “Okay.” He doesn’t deserve her, but he’ll take her at her word.

“C’mere.” She pulls him down for another kiss, and, yeah, this he can do. The apartment is way too small, and he is a human disaster, but she loves him anyway, for some reason he still can’t figure out, and he’ll never stop being grateful for that.

“Thank you,” she says, when they pause to breathe again. “I’m excited for pancakes.”

“I’ll make them good,” he assures her, and she laughs.

“I know you will,” she replies, and then smiles with half her mouth, so her one dimple shows, and that is fucking adorable. Holy Christ. He might be sleep-deprived, but if looks could kill… “But,” she adds, with that smirk still lingering, “not yet.”

“Not yet?” he echoes, and blames the sleep deprivation for how slow the realization is. “Right, yeah. Because you should shower, right? Get ready for work?”

“I think I have a distinct amount of time before I actually have to be ready for work,” she replies, and ohhhh. Oh. Okay.

This, too, he can do.

“I think I understand you,” he tries.

Bri winks. “You definitely understand me,” she says, and then grabs him by the hand and pulls him back toward their bed. “And plus, it’s my birthday.”

He almost makes a birthday suit joke, and then decides that puns are not an effective method of seduction today. Not that Bri really needs seducing. Right this second, anyway.

“I’m so honored,” he says, instead, and grins when she pushes him down to sit on the edge of the mattress. He holds her by the waist and waits, still smirking. “You mean to say you want me to be your present?”

“Something like that,” she replies, with a shrug, and then pushes him so he falls backwards, and he gets exactly three seconds to laugh at the ceiling before she’s kissing him and he gets to move on to something much, much better than rambling about his failures as a boyfriend in the middle of the kitchen.

Breakfast can wait.

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Broken arm

A/N: This was requested by anon, I hope you enjoy! please let me know what you think! Also this is like my worst fear, like that sounds dumb but breaking something sounds absolutely disgusting to me. In movies if they do like sound effects of bones breaking and I know it’s coming, I mute the sound. 

summary:  i was wondering if you could write a reddie x daughter where the losers club all go out and the daughter gets hurt (maybe breaks an arm) so they all freak out and take her to the hospital, and it’s just rlly cute at the end. i just feel like i could image richie and eddie just freaking out abt what to do and not actually doing anything so the rest of the losers have to step in

warnings: mentions of a broken arm and surgories (not graphic), mentions of throwing up (but also not graphic) and some curse words and your mom joke

At least once a month, all the losers have a reunion that usually either takes place in Ben and Bev’s lake house, or in their boat. The reason it does, is because Ben and Bev combined have enough money to restore any damages that may or may not occur during these times, more often than not Richie fault.

This time however, by some unlucky draw of the hat, everyone agrees to meet up in Richie and Eddie’s home, because their daughter Alexa isn’t feeling too great, and Richie not Eddie felt comfortable relocating with her for a few days.

She had nothing major, just a stomach bug that causes her to throw up from time to time, but Both Eddie and Richie were more than ready to postponed the losers’ meeting. Alexa insisted that all the plans continued on as normal despite her feeling unwell, since she loved spending time with her uncles and aunt any time she could, and when she showed signs of her health improving, nobody cancelled anything.

With the first knock on the door, Alexa jumps up, rushing to welcome whoever has made it to their house first, ignoring how her stomach was protesting the flash movement, and she’s greeted by the sight of her best-loved aunt, which happened to be Aunty Bev. Six months into the pregnancy made Bev look bloated and tired, but her eyes lit up as soon as Alexa opened the door, bending down as best as she could to hug her back twice as hard. She’s alone, Ben had had a meeting over in Portland, and agreed to meet Bev here.

‘How’s my favorite girl doing?’ Bev asks with a huge smile on her face, her hand resting on the top of her belly softly rubbing up and down.

‘I’m okay’, Alexa insists, even though her face still looks a little pale. Eddie, who had joined the two of them at the front door, rolled his eyes begrudgingly. Insisting that she’s fine even though she isn’t must be a trait she picked up from Richie.

Staying silent however, he brings Bev into an embrace, an; ‘hey Bev’ falling from his lips in the process.

‘Richie’s out back, come in, I’ll go get him.’ Before Eddie has the chance, the next guests arrive, in the form of Patty and Stan. Stan was holding a stuffed animal, a bunny in his hands, smirking as if he already knew that he was going to be the ‘chosen’ one today.

Eddie laughs out loud, watching as his daughter’s eyes grow bigger and wide, and she excitedly begins the bounce up and down, seemingly forgetting about the sickness for a little while. In his mind, Eddie is already praising Stan, for the few moments of rest this allows his daughter to have. Sleep is nothing something that has come in large doses to her in the last two days, every single waking minute of the day being consumed with sitting next to a toilet bowl, and brushing her teeth afterwards.

Eddie also praises Stan for basically knocking down the competition before the rest of them even have a chance.

At two years old, Alexa figured out how to play her family like the harp she later maintained she wanted to practice, giving up after only two lessons. She used to go around the room and beg her uncles and aunt to play a game with her, any kind, and when they relented, the first person who did would be her go to person for the rest of the evening.

Endearing everyone’s heart, but also resulting in a rivalry, where many presents were tossed around, and Alexa was in danger of becoming a bit spoiled. Now at twelve, she’s stopped crowning anyone as her winner, yet the losers still  arranges bets on her, as if their daughter is something to bet on.

It’s all in good fun of course, and Richie himself joins in on the gamble from time to time, but for whatever reason he never guesses correctly, but Eddie has a burning suspicion it has something to do with manipulating Stan to lose. Not that his schemes work, Stan is much too smart for that.

In rapid succession, Ben follows Stan and Patty, and after him Mike emerges, and finally Bill and Audra appear from the end of the streets. A loud and ugly snort forces its way out of Eddie, when he sees the exact some bear clutched to Bill’s chests, the annoying, cocky smirk on his face he mirrored from Stan, the same one that vanishes as soon as he steps through the door, and lays his eyes upon Alexa, clasping Stan’s gift.

Richie, who had since joined the rest of the group, could not contain his laughter, finding in Bill the perfect victim to tease throughout the entire night.

Rice and chicken were on the menu tonight, a light meal that was decided in light of Alexa, but nobody complained. Despite popular belief, Richie was a very good cook, and when he prepared any meal, it was guaranteed that it would taste delicious.

Alexa ate a bit, more than she had eaten in the last few days, and Eddie sighed a breath of relief.  Years of conditioning that any sickness was going to get him killed did not disappear off the bat, so he was immensely glad his daughter was starting to feel better, even if he knew her ailment was not that serious to begin with.

After dinner, the group resides to the living room, watching a movie that Alexa had her mind set on viewing, and secretive adult talk concealed in a child appropriate package so she wouldn’t notice, making a way across each other. A normal reunion like any other.

At nine pm, unsurprisingly, Alexa got up from her seat. ‘I’m going to bed dad,’ she explains, her hand stroking Bev’s baby bump one last time, and then waving at everyone. The spot next to Beverly, the one that Alexa had claimed, so she could discuss her new best friend as she lovingly called the new baby that was yet to be burn, remains achingly open. A weird feeling creeps up the back of Eddie’s neck, ridiculously.

The losers club just doesn’t seem complete without her, even if she has only been there for twelve years. Her bedtime was around eight, but when they go on a trip, she is allowed to stay up as long she want, the fact that she turns in for the night so early, is a testimony to how bad she suffers.  

Richie started to make his way up from the sofa too, ready to tuck her in, as he did every night, but she shook her head. ‘I can go to bed alone, Pops, don’t worry.’

She gave him a kiss on his cheek, and then scampered off to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Bill chocked on his drink in laughter when he saw the fallen look on Richie’s face, disappointment coating his expressions in a grey attire.

When he dejectedly resumed his place next to Eddie, the latter patted him on the arm in sympathy. ‘It’s just because there are others here Rich. You know how ashamed she gets of you.’ The smirk cannot be contained when the words leave his mouth, even though he means nothing but lies with them.

‘And they say my jokes suck? Spaghetti, come up with new and innovated humor, like mine. Thank god she’s got some of my qualities-‘

‘she’s adopted.’

‘- don’t interrupt me Eds that’s just bad manners. I’m so sorry your mom was to busy teaching me the way around her body to teach you how to be polite but-‘

‘Beep beep asshole.’ A murmur of agreement rose up from the group, Richie flipping them the bird.

‘Whatever, you losers have no taste at all.’

Deciding to check up on her after about fifteen minutes, Eddie settles back in his seat, joining in on the conversation to his right, where Ben and Stan discuss the different plants they have in their garden, listing a bunch of flowers Eddie will never know the meaning off.  

The movie clutters on in the background, almost like a lullaby, and Eddie yawns significantly. Richie’s hand presses in the small of his back, a grounding warm signal that he was safe, even though he doesn’t mean too, he zones out, not asleep, but also not as awake as he should be.

That happens to be a mistake when he hears something slam on the floor above them, the sound of the toilet being flushed a second after. He makes eye contact with Richie, both of them realizing that that is probably the result of Alexa throwing up again.

‘Dad, Pops’, and then a loud bang, proceeded by a few thuds that can be relocated to their stairs, and a pained yell.

Richie and Eddie scramble up faster than they have ever done before, even more hurried than when Pennywise was chasing them in Neibolt. Stan, Bill and Bev scurry alongside them, to the place of the accident, every single one of them in a panicked haze.

It only takes a second to get there, in their haste, and no other sounds emerge anymore, until They run into the hallway.

Alexa is spread out across the bottom of the stairs, her arm bend in a weird position, her legs propped up as she looks around the space dazedly, as if she’s not sure what just happened.

Her faces goes through a couple of emotions, intensifying when she takes a look at her arm, but not yet crying.

Eddie is the first to reach her, and when she sees him, her lips open slightly and a wail falls out. It proves to him that she is in real, and agonizing pain. Back when she learned how to ride her bike for the first time, she had fallen many times, as kids do, but if she cried, Eddie refused to indulge her. He wouldn’t let leave or abandon her, but he would tell her that everything was fine, and that it only stung a little, and there was no need to cry.

He mostly did this to stop himself from becoming like his mother, and to allow Alexa to discover her own boundaries and which one hurt enough to actually ask help for. He never shamed her for crying either, he just tried to teach her the difference between actual pain, and being shocked from a fall.  Ever since, is she saw Eddie walk towards her, her tears stopped if it barely stung, or begin to cry if help was needed.

Now she sobs, heavy and with snot, hiccuping to catch her breaths. It only takes a look to tell Eddie everything he needs to know, she is suffering from an open fracture. The bone is not stuck outside the skin, but the bump is visible from the outside, in the same way that his bone was when he broke his arm.

All previous training flies out the window when it’s his daughter that is the one who is harmed, nothing of the medical terms he surrounded himself with in his childhood sticking, like liquid dropping from his head.

He stands there, blankly as he gazes upon his daughters still laying form, until he gets pushed back by Bill. Richie too stands frozen, trembling from head to toe, but Bev and Stan launch into action, dropping down next to Alexa, each on opposites sides.

‘What do we do, what do we do?’ Richie inquires frantically, pushing against Bills hands, to get to her, trusting Eddie for guidement. Eddie subconsciously reaches for his inhaler, and curses once he remembers that he threw his placebo away.

‘Fuck, fuck, Eddie should we snap the bone back in? It worked last time right?’ Richie reflects Eddie’s frantic, ignoring Bill’s pleas to calm down, the cries of Alexa deafening their ears, and making their heartstrings cave in.

‘What? What the fuck asshole no. That was a terrible thing to do, and you were lucky that my arm got back to normal, are you fucking kidding me you absolute moron?’

He doesn’t mean to snap at his husband the way he does, but the mantra of; this is your fault, she’s going to die, get her to a hospital now, more careful, you should force her to be more safe, in a voice that sounds an awful lot likes his mother hisses in his mind. The panic is very nearly all consuming.

‘What the fuck was I supposed to do then huh Eds? I was fucking twelve.’ Their panic-stricken words grow louder and louder, until even Alexa’s cries of agony sound quieter than theirs, they’re so consumed with worry, being oblivious to notice what Beverly and Stan are so desperately trying to convey.

‘I don’t know, not that. And you’re 43 years old, by now you should now better dickwad.’

‘Stop it’, Bill yells in the same determined leader voice that lured them into the house on Neibolt street, effectively silencing them and focusing their attention on him.

‘Your daughter needs you right now, so shut up, and do what we ask you too okay. Richie get her cloths, Eddie retrieve anything she has that helps calm her down. Alright? Okay go.’

Richie hurries to get the car as fast he can, but Eddie hesitates when he gapes at Alexa. He doesn’t want to leave her without her parents. ‘Hey’, Bill places on of his hands on Eddie shoulder, ‘we’ll take care of her for a minute okay?’

Her cries have turned into loud whimpers, her face hidden behind Stan’s body, which stops her from seeing Eddie anyway. Bev is calmly shushing her, on the phone with what must be the hospital, carefully checking her arm. Stan is trying to distract her, his cardigan being discarded towards Bev, who uses is to carefully cover the injured arm.

It looks painful, and Eddie can’t stand to think of her in pain, so he too complies with Bill’s demands, searching for the plush toy she got as a gift, and her soft blanket that she sleeps with during the winter.

When he comes back, he hears the blaring sirens of the ambulance stop outside their door, and his stomach falls when he realizes that a few hours ago, Alexa was standing in that exact spot, excited for the night.

Audra and Patty lead the paramedics into the home, apparently they had been waiting outside to help, Patty grabbing Eddie’s arm to steady herself, and maybe even Eddie, who is swaying dangerously from side to side.

He’s been through all of this before, in a way, but that seemed somehow less scary than it is now. Back then, Eddie had been glad none of his friends got hurt, so it didn’t matter that he did. Now, it’s different, but if he could somehow switch places with Alexa, he would do so in a heartbeat.

They insert an IV line and administer pain relief, Eddie assumes, since his ears seem like they’ve been stuffed full of cotton. He vaguely registers Richie’s hand in his own, all his attention pointed to watching Alexa’s face for any discomfort.

She’s placed upon a trauma board, Stan and Ben aiding to help her jolts as minimal as possible, before they carry her to the ambulance as fast as humanly possible. Eddie hopes to god, something he hasn’t believed in since he started dating Richie, that the medicine she has received knock her out, just so she’s painless the rest of the ride.

‘Dad, pops’, she wails, extending her uninjured arm to reach for the both of them. Next to him, Richie cries too.

Eddie speed walks to be by her side, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to it. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine.’ He can’t help the way his voice cracks as he tries to keep his own tears at bay.

Richie also hast himself to get to her, brushing away her tears as best he can, but new ones continue to leave wet rivers on her cheeks.

After consideration, Eddie says to Richie; ‘You need to go with her,’ his words lacking any really conviction.

Richie gazes up to him in surprise. ‘Eddie?’

‘I can’t be in there, in a hospital or ambulance, but I would feel so much better if you were with her.’ The trauma lingers around Eddie like a bad stench, and he hates himself for the fact that he can’t be with his daughter. He knows Richie will keep her safe though, so if he were to go with her, maybe the grip guilt has on him will loosen.

Richie says nothing and stares for just a split second, before one of the EMT’s says they need to hurry. Then he nods, climbing on board with Alexa, but pressing his lips against Eddie’s quickly before his does.

He’s trying to convey Eddie into believing everything will be okay, but Richie isn’t sure if he believes it himself.

They have to leave then, and Eddie stares as the ambulance disappears into the distance. When he can’t see it no longer, he allows himself five seconds, and he uses those five seconds to cry upon Mike’s sturdy statues the waterfalls flowing from his eyes like they’re a rives. He can sense the others coming closer, each laying a hand on a part of his body, their silent way of telling him they’re here for them.

He feels bad for making Richie having to be the one to hold it all together, since he can’t break down in front of Alexa, but Eddie honestly didn’t have any resolution left to sit in an ambulance.

When his five seconds are up, he begs someone to drive him to the hospital, ignoring his next door neighbor who comes to check up on the commotion that was happening.

He ends up driving with Stan and Patty, in the middle backseat, where he can feel their worried gazes on him. In his mind, he is trying to recall any information about what he had to go through with his arm, but all he really remembers is that he had to have surgery.

As predicted, that is the first thing Richie tells Eddie when he finally gets to the emergency room, Richie waiting near the entrance, his hands trembling when he reaches forward to pull Eddie against him in a tight hug.

‘She needs to have surgery Eds, you have to come quick. They’re about to put her under.’ Richie informs him when he pulls back, this time reaching for his hands and pulling him in the direction of the room Alexa is in. Eddie wants to say something to his friends, but he’s already whisked away, and he just figures he’ll tell them later.

Upon entering the room, Eddie can smell the disinfected in the room, the whole room is drenched in it, but he refuses to let it deter him, so he pulls through, pulling a chair to the side of the hospital bed, resting his hand on Alexa’s shoulder. Richie goes for her hand on her good arm, his thumb sweeping the back of her hand back and forth.

‘hey, honey, how are you?’

Alexa lets her head fall sideways, her eyes dropped with exhaustion, she hasn’t received any anesthetic, so Eddie assumes that it’s the adrenaline that has worked off.

‘I’m scared dad,’ she tells him truthfully, squeezing Richie’s hand tight while not looking him in the eyes.

‘It’s okay to be scared baby,’ Eddie soothes her, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. ‘I had to same thing happen to me when I was little.’

Her lips tug upwards in a faint smile. ‘I know, pops told me.’

‘It wasn’t that scary anymore. Not when getting into the hospital. I just fell right asleep, and when I woke up, the pain was dulled.’

‘I’m not in so much pain right now though, can I not avoid the surgery?’ Eddie’s heart breaks once again, and he wishes so bad he could heed his daughter from this, but it has to happen, there’s no other option.

‘That’s cause you’re on a lot op pain medication kiddo, but as soon as they’re worn off, you’ll feel it again.’  Richie heavily admits, the lines on his face have turned more prominent, the night taking ten years of their lives away from them.

‘Like I said, you’ll just go to sleep, and when you wake up, we’ll be here.’ Eddie tries to convince her one last time, and with a heaved sigh, she relents.

Just in time, for the nurse sticks her head through the door, her smile apologetic.

‘Alexa Tozier-Kaspbrak? I’m sorry, but we really have to get her upstairs now.

‘You’ll be fine bucko, We won’t be fare okay?’

‘And remember we love you okay?’

‘I know dad, Pops, I love you too.’

When they wheel Alexa away in her hospital bag, the other losers wave at her from behind the glass door, sticking their thumbs up in good luck, while Alexa waves at them as best she can.

‘She’ll be okay’, Richie insists as he pulls Eddie close to him by the waist, pressing his nose in his hair to comfort himself.

‘I really hope so Rich, I’m scared.’

‘Don’t be Eds, she’s your kid, she’s so strong, this is just a minor setback. I love okay, we’ll get through this together.’

‘I love you too.’

Later, when Alexa is back in her room, falling asleep on her own this time, and Eddie watches Richie’s lanky from twist in half to rest his head on the bed, the rest of his body in an uncomfortable hospital chair just to be close to their daughter, he thanks whoever is listening that he got this family; He would never trade them for anything in the world.

He’s mumbling to the both of them, a stupid story about Richie and his childhood, because Alexa had once told him she slept best with some background noise. Twirling the same piece of hair over and over again, he presses another kiss to her head, thankful that’s okay. 

He nearly thinks of his mother, and how much he would have loved to see her face if she ever saw him like this. Gay, married, with a child and in a hospital. But then he banishes her to the back of his mind. She is not worth any ounce of his thoughts. 

 Alexa shifts in her sleep, relaxing into the movements, and Eddie can’t do anything but mumble out in pure adoration; ‘I promise, I’ll never be like my mom, I love you and your pops too much for that.’ 

[jeserai]

burnt sugar (1/8)

Adora frowns down at her phone and skims through the proposition again: someone is willing to pay whatever amount to take a girl to a family dinner. The price is negotiable, and it starts out at $1,000. There’s a phone number listed, too, but that’s the only way to contact...whoever it is. 

or, catra needs a date and adora needs money

Adora blinks the sleep from her eyes as the customer in front of her finally finishes paying and leaves; she shuffles up to the register and haphazardly drops her miniature mountain of ramen and soda onto the counter. It’s definitely not the healthiest meal she’s ever had, and she knows she’ll have to go to the gym extra early before classes tomorrow to make up for it, but it’s already later than late and she’s exhausted. Today seemed extra long even if it was just the same as usual: first her morning exercise, then classes, fencing practice, and an evening shift at Bright Moon—it’d all left her feeling more drained than usual, and she hasn’t even touched her homework yet.

The cashier looks just as out of it as Adora feels, scanning all of her items and barely containing a huge yawn as she does so. “Swipe or insert your card when you’re ready,” she says, and Adora pulls her card out from her phone case, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she swipes it. She’s pretty sure she has enough money, but she doesn’t get paid until Friday, and—

The machine beeps a harsh decline, and Adora feels the back of her neck begin to heat up as she swipes her card again. She’s hoping to god that it was just the machine, that it’s just a dumb mistake, but her card is declined again and god, she’s never been more embarrassed in her life. Luckily, when she takes a quick glance behind her, no one is in line, and Adora gives the cashier her most winning smile as she says, “Can I just—I have to add money to my card, it’ll take just a minute.”

The cashier—Mermista, her name tag reads—shrugs and pulls her phone from her pocket. “Sure, whatever, I’m stuck here until midnight anyway,” she grumbles, and Adora gives her another apologetic smile before pulling out her phone and texting her group chat.

Ado-ra (22:08): can someone send me $$$ real quick i mat the store and my card got declined :(

B♥w (22:08): D: of course and don’t worry about paying back !!

Glim! (22:09): tell us if you need more !!

Almost immediately, Adora’s phone lights up with two notifications—Bow and Glimmer have both sent her money, and before she can just about melt into a little puddle of embarrassment, she loads the money onto her card and slides it into the machine again. This time, the transaction goes through.

Ado-ra (22:13): thank u sm :(((( i love u guys

B♥w (22:14): awww we love u too!!

“Ugh, how do you get someone to stop trying to ask you out?” Mermista groans suddenly; she’s scowling at her phone, and as Adora watches, she huffs and puts it facedown on the counter. “He won’t stop texting me.”

“Maybe just tell him you’re not interested?”

Mermista looks away, still frowning, but this time, it seems forced, like she’s trying to bite back a softer expression. “I can’t do that, he’s…”

Ah. What would Glimmer and Bow say here? “I don’t really have much experience with relationships, but can you try to just talk to him about it? If he really likes you, he should understand if you need more time, or a smaller gesture, or whatever else you need. And if he doesn’t understand that, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

Mermista glances up, startled, a soft little smile melting the stoniness of her face. “That’s so sweet, thank you. Here, let me—” she cuts herself off to bag Adora’s things, slipping in a chocolate bar despite Adora’s weak protests.

Glim! (22:23): what time are you coming home?

Ado-ra (22:23): leaving the store now :) im just talking to the casheir, shes really nice

B♥w (22:23): hurry home we miss u

"Thank you again," Mermista says as Adora grabs her bags, "really. I'm going to try talking to him tomorrow."

"You don't have to thank me—I really do hope it goes well with him!" Adora's phone buzzes in her pocket, but she ignores it in favor of giving Mermista another big smile again. "Tell me how it goes if I see you again, okay?"

"Sure, I guess, yeah." But she's still smiling, and she even waves when Adora heads out the door.

Ado-ra (22:25): omw now :)

The walk from the convenience store to her apartment is blessedly short; one of the perks of living so close to campus is that everything is in such close proximity—a double blessing since Bow is the only one with a car. If she’s being honest with herself, Adora doesn’t really mind the walk, tells herself it’s extra training, and really, it is. It also gives her time to think, time to be alone—because as much as she loves Bow and Glimmer, she needs time by herself, time to be quiet and reflect and just be. Tonight’s going to be another long night, though. Adora sighs and pockets her phone, hefts her bag up, and begins to walk home.

When she gets home, Bow is lying curled up on the couch, headphones in as he focuses on his laptop, typing something—probably the paper he’s been procrastinating. He flashes Adora a bright smile when he sees her, but otherwise doesn’t say anything, and Adora waves and leaves him be, heading straight to her room and dumping her stuff at the end of her bed. She’s tempted to go straight to sleep, but Adora forces herself to go shower, to heat up her ramen, to sit at their tiny table with her textbooks and laptop. She forces herself to work until Glimmer gently shakes her awake, sleep in her eyes and softness on her lips. The clock on the other side of the room glares out 3:06am and Adora lets herself be tugged and pushed into her bed with not even a single protest.

When she wakes up, it’s six minutes before her alarm is supposed to go off, and Adora spends them staring at the ceiling, mentally going through her day. She’ll walk to the gym, breakfast—a granola bar and a smoothie—in hand, and once at the gym, she’ll do a mile warmup run, work her legs for half an hour, and her core for another half hour, then do a mile cooldown run. Bow will pick her up at around 8 for classes, then she’ll go to practice, and since it’s Friday, she doesn't have work, so she’ll only go to the gym again for another hour. Maybe she’ll head to the library afterwards and do her work there so she won’t fall asleep, or—

Adora’s phone interrupts her thoughts, and with a heavy sigh, she sits up and gets ready to start the day, moving quietly because she knows that Glimmer and Bow are still sleeping. Right before she heads out, she grabs the lunch Bow had made her yesterday and starts the coffee machine for Glimmer, then grabs her stuff and heads to the gym. 

The best thing about being at the gym so early—6:15am, an ungodly hour, according to her roommates—is that no one else is there, and Adora works out in peace, losing herself in her ragged breaths and the sweat dripping down her forehead, the pounding of her heartbeat and the familiar burn of her muscles being pushed further, further. She’s always enjoyed working out: the discipline it takes, the soreness the day after, seeing the slow and steady progress—but the gym has become something of her own private space. Glimmer practically breaks out into hives when Adora even thinks about working out, and while Bow enjoys exercise, just half of a session with Adora had him ready to quit. So the gym is hers, now.

When Adora finally takes a break for water, she grabs her phone as well to see a few messages from the group chat.

B♥w (6:49): sooo

B♥w (6:50): guess what I found!

Ado-ra (7:03): what?

B♥w (7:04): [link shared]

B♥w (7:04): read it!!!

Ado-ra (7:05): will after i finish up here :)

B♥w (7:06): :(((

B♥w (7:07): fine…..

Adora allows herself one more moment to rest, then goes back to work, and this time, she doesn’t stop until Bow calls out her name from the doorway of the gym. From there, it’s their usual routine: while Adora takes a quick shower and changes into her school clothes, he puts away all of the equipment she’d used, then talks to the girl at the desk until Adora comes out, ready to go. Then they both say goodbye to Perfuma and head out to Glimmer’s car.

“So,” Bow drags out the word, “did you read it?”

“Oh!” Adora digs her phone out of her pocket and finds the link again, glancing over to see Bow glancing back at her in quick bursts as he drives. “I’ll read it now.”

That earns her a satisfied smile, and as Bow fiddles with the radio, Adora reads the article he’s sent her. And it’s—”What, is this a joke?”

“I don’t think so, and even if it is, what’s the worst that can happen? You meet them someplace public and say no. Me and Glimmer can even go too, just in case.”

Adora frowns down at her phone and skims through the proposition again: someone is willing to pay whatever amount to take a girl to a family dinner. The price is negotiable, and it starts out at $1,000. There’s a phone number listed, too, but that’s the only way to contact...whoever it is. “This has to be fake. And besides, I can’t just...take money from a stranger like this.”

“You’re not doing it for nothing,” Bow reasons, “you have to go to the dinner to get the money anyway.”

“The base price is $1,000, Bow! That much money for one dinner? Whoever this is, they have to be crazy!”

“Maybe they’re just rich—” Bow cuts himself off as he pulls into the parking lot, and Adora lets him concentrate as he parks before he finishes with, “Rich people do things like that, don’t they?”

Adora frowns and shakes her head, uses the moments spent getting out of the car to think. “I don’t know, Bow…” and to placate him, she promises, “I’ll think about it, though.”

“You don’t have to do it, I’m not trying to pressure you or anything! I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least tell you about it, y’know?”

And yeah, Adora knows. “I promise I’ll think about it.”

And think about it she does, all through her classes, all through fencing practice. She thinks about the ludocrity of the situation, thinks about how much money they’re offering. Thinks about Bow’s offer to go along with her to the meeting, thinks about how it’s just one dinner. Thinks about her card being declined, and having to ask her roommates for money. And she decides.

Adora manages to wait until she’s halfway to the gym to text the number.

(next)