#wow this took five hundred hours

[enwoso]

CASUAL — leah williamson

wow, it’s a long one. this has admittedly taken me so long to write. i had the idea of this fic at the start of october but for some reason its just took so long to actually finish lol, but anyways as always hope you enjoy🤍

warning: implied smut, mdni 18+

masterlist

"girl where did you end up last night?" your best friend and also flatmate, amelie asked as you sat in your local cafe debriefing from last nights' night out events over a 'morning' coffee — it was more late afternoon — the two of you having very different endings to the night.

you sat swirling the dregs of your coffee around as you tried to find the way to explain, not so much how you didn't end up back at the flat cause you know she's knows that after catching you walking through the front door at nine am this morning in last nights clothes your head hanging from both the severe amount of alcohol you'd consumed last night but also in slight shame.

it was more whose apartment you stayed at you were trying to find the words to tell her about.

"oh y/n. you didn't did you-" amelie began as you nodded as a defeated sigh left your lips. that being all the clarification your best friend needed. ok, it may not be your proudest moment but who are you to deny a sexy, goddess of a women. but you knew this was heading in the direction of your getting another ear full.

"y/n.. what have i told you, you need to cut all ties with leah. you deserve someone who's going to treat you so much better-" amelie reached out grabbing your hands as you were still looking down at your coffee cup, you looked up a little.

you knew she was right, but you couldn't admit that to yourself. there was something about leah she was addicting and no matter how many times you ended up in between her sheets telling yourself it was the last time, it always happened again.

"yeah but-" you began but amelie gave you a stern look as her eyebrows raised as you rolled your eyes, "ok i get the message, i'll put it on my to-do list — cut leah williamson off." you dryly said, knowing it would be easier said than actually done.

"seriously you need too, your acting like a loser-" amelie continued as you opened your mouth to say something about the small insult she'd thrown your way but you were unable to. "you are though, your better than the rumours that people are spitting-"

"how do you-"

"people talk y/n!"

you'd heard the rumours going around the locals plus there'd been some article posted on an instagram post noticing you in leah's car after a match — you being labelled as 'mysterious girl'.

you weren't known to the media, thank god, you were lucky if you had over two hundred followers as if you had anymore than that fans would have an absolute field day with the news.

instead you were just a normal, twenty six year old girl who'd grown up in north london and had the usual nine to five corporate job as well as having a casual relationship with the leah williamson but you kept that under wraps as after all it was just something which was casual.

you'd met through a mutual friend of yours who also happened to be one of leah's teammates. lotte, who you went to school together and you'd stayed somewhat in contact. it always being a pleasant surprise to see her whenever your paths crossed.

you had bumped into her in a coffee shop near hours before you were being pressed up against a club wall by a blonde defender, having had one too many. the two of you had spent the night being overly touchy and flirting, her lips being felt all around your body leaving your skin feeling hot and your head all fuzzy.

"mine or yours?" leah whispered against your ear, as her teeth grazed your earlobe, you having to refrain yourself from whimpering. leah's hands gripping your hips as your were tangled in the ends of her hair.

"yours" you managed to get out, although it was quiet leah hear every letter. her hands reaching up to grab your hand as she dragged you through the club and towards the exit without as much of a bat of an eyelid towards her friends who she was leaving behind.

to both your luck there was a black cab waiting on the side of the road, both of you taking the chance to get in as leah immediately told the driver her address.

leah's hand stayed on your thigh the entire time as her thumb drew little circles absentmindedly, the busy streets of london making it feel like it's taken hours just to get a few minutes up the road.

as you watched out the window there was a cloud of regret you knew you'd feel in the morning but right now that wasn't what you mind wanted. you right now wanted leah.

so as soon as you cross the threshold of her apartment, you were pinned against the wall. the coldness sending a sharp shiver down your spine. "your so gorgeous" leah whispered as her eyes darkened, the sweet innocence of her blue eyes long gone.

inching closer so that your faces were impossibly close, taking one of her hands as it lands on the back of your neck and kisses you. slow but deep.

letting yourself get lost in her lips as it becomes more passionate and searching but then leah leans back a little, realising that you were in the middle of her hallway.

"come with me, baby" she whispers, her accent thick as the pet name rolls off her tongue but laced with love making your head spin even more as she extends her hand for you to grab as she leads you towards her bedroom, pushing the door open with her foot as her other hand laces itself back around you waist pulling you back to being impossibly close to her.

giving her a teasing look as she kisses you again this one more needy and fervent. feeling her hands all around your body nipping and pulling at your skin as you feel the back of you legs on the edge of her bed. a slight push and you back met with softness of her white sheets.

a small moan leaving leah's lips into the kiss as she felt your hands gently squeeze her ass, feeling her smile against your lips knowing that you were having the same affect on her as she was on you. you were both driving each other crazy.

as the kiss grow more sloppy as whines were being strung from both of your lips, your hips mindlessly starting to slowly grind against her. leah moving to kiss your neck leaving small kisses and sucking on your neck that elicited small moans from your lips as your breathing hitches.

leah's kisses to your neck becoming more intense you could feel yourself getting wetter and wetter by the second as you hips carried on to move against her. your hands lingering on her back as your nails dug that little deeper, more than likely leaving scratch marks.

"please le-" you moan out softly, needing more.

-

that wasn't the last time you saw the blonde defender, nor the last time you ended up with your limbs tangled between each other.

whenever the other had, had a drink or just when you needed company leah seemed to always be there. you felt like you craved her at all hours of the day. you found your mind sometimes wondering what she may be doing when you weren't by her side.

but you weren't together, it was just a casual thing. is what you found you were telling yourself.

but with each weekend that passed you found yourself spending them with leah more and more often. which is exactly what had happened this weekend.

leah had called you, she never calls you only ever texts. strange is what you thought when you saw her caller id on the screen a small smile slipping onto your lips as you pressed accept.

"hello?" you said as leah was yet to speak, you thought maybe she had called the wrong number. maybe she hadn't meant to call you .

"hi y/n-" she finally spoke but she lacked her usual confident tone, this time it had been replaced with a nervous shake of her accent. like she had something in her head that she needed to get out.

"did you need something le?" you ask as there is a deafening silence on the other end, a few rustling sounds before leah clears her throat.

"um are you doing anything this afternoon-" leah paused as you think to your plans for the afternoon, "more specifically are you doing anything at two?" leah continued as she waited your response as you hummed.

"no i should be free, why?" you asked wondering what this was going to lead to, what did she have planned.

"fabulous!" a breath of relief was let out from leah as she had a big grin on her face on the other line which if you could have saw would have made you smile, "since you aren't doing anything, do you wanna come to my match?"

you felt as though her words had just fell on deaf ears, you couldn't believe what you were actually hearing. ever since you and leah had- well whatever your relationship was it had always been in the darkness of everyone else, behind peoples back and away from prying eyes.

this felt like a step, you didn't know what direction but it felt like it meant something good.

as you tried to contain your happiness you nodded forgetting she wasn't actually in the room with you, "i- um i would love to le"

"great! i'll erm get your tickets sorted and send them over" leah explained as you hummed along before she quickly had to say her goodbyes claiming that she needed to get her pre match routine started.

since having to re-organise your afternoon, you were now going around rushing trying to find an outfit. not knowing if it was too cliche you going in an arsenal jersey of leah's or whether a subtle hint of red in your outfit would be a better idea.

deciding on just the subtle hint of red, finding a red cap which just so happen to also be leah’s which she’d left at yours after one night.

once you got the match you were amazed at the amount of people who had turned up, yourself not being as clued in of how big a scale women’s football was as admittedly you didn’t exactly have a big interest in football or in sport in general.

but for leah, you’d sit and watch football match after match if you knew it would make her happy.

once you found your seat in the stand you quickly sent the blonde a message not expecting her to even reply but she did.

Y/N:) - i’m here! good luck, i’ll be cheering you on☺️

LE<3 - i seen you! i’ve been looking for that hat. but i think it’s found a better home now;)

LE<3 - meet me near the dugout at the end!

finding yourself smiling at her messages as she sent another telling you what to say to the security so they would let you in to where leah wanted you to be, before slipping your phone back into your pocket ready to watch a game of football.

the ninety minutes felt as if they flew by, and at first you must admit you didn’t exactly understand what you were watching so you just cheered when everyone else around you did, but at the first half and definitely into the second half you managed to get a few rules down — with the help of a google search..

watching as leah walked around clapping and waving to fans looking so effortlessly good in her kit and with the fact she’d just run around for a good ninety minutes it never managed to fail to surprise you how easy she made it look.

despite the team only coming out with a draw which you knew leah would be slightly huffed about especially since they were by far the better team, you still were incredibly proud of her.

walking down and reciting the exact words that leah had messaged you to the security you made it to where she had told you to meet her, but that’s when a certain someone recognised you. a wide smile and arms wide open for you.

"oh y/n it's lovely to see you" amanda engulfed you in a hug, a warm fuzzy but also bittersweet feeling filling your chest. you'd met her mum totally by accident one of the first times that you and leah slept together. she'd been dropping of groceries for her daughter. leah trying to rush you out the door before things got to awkward.

but instead amanda being the polite women she is asked her daughter to introduce you to her. it ending up you stayed an extra two hours longer than you'd planned much to leah's discomfort, but in a way that made it all the more that enjoyable.

"what you doing after here?" amanda asked as she pulled you out the hug, leah lingering just behind you chewing the inside of her lip. "just if your not busy you can always join us for a few drinks" amanda smiled so sincerely as you thought over the invitiation briefly, would it be awkward - maybe? but friends can go out for drinks too!

“yeah, i’d love too” you grinned as a small cheer left amanda’s lips, you seeing the slight falter of a look on leah’s face before it turned back to her signature tight lipped frown.

or maybe you did it just to spite the blonde defender who stood so nervous next to you.

"brilliant! leah we'll wait out at the cars for you" amanda directed towards her daughter as she nodded a small sigh leaving her lips as she plastered on a fake smile, you knew there was a part of her that didnt want you there but that just added fuel to your fire.

amanda looping her arm with yours as the two of you walked towards where the cars would be at the back of the emirates stadium to take you and the williamson family for a few drinks to celebrate the win.

"so how have you been?" amanda asks as she walks beside you, a genuine interest in her tone, as you hum catching her up with your life which hadn't been all that exciting, most days merging into one.

"leah tells me you've been helping her with some business project? how's it going?" amanda asks and you swear your throat started to close up, your words getting stuck in between your lips as your eyes goes wide.

"oh- um yeah it's coming together-" quite literally. you stutter out a response hoping it doesn't raise to much suspicion and praying that the topic is over with just as quick as it came.

"leah won't give me a clue what it's about" amanda complains as she continues to tell you about the countless times she tried to get it out of her daughter as you hummed along more in your head as to why leah would say you were just business partners? why not just say your friends, cause after all you were?

"mhm well i won't be one to spoil the surprise then" you nervously chuckled as you saw the cars in the distance knowing you were close to the end of the conversation. amanda letting out a groan as she hoped she'd be able to get the big surprise out of you but that would be pretty hard considering there was no big surprise.

you were going to have to talk with leah, which would be a little odd as when the two of you were alone, not much talking would be done well not the converse action.

amanda letting go of your arm as she got into the other side of the cab, leah coming out the exit of the back of the stadium as she jogged quickly getting into the people carrier. sitting herself in the seat next to you as she shot you a soft smile.

-

the night was actually going smoothly, leah seemed to get out of whatever strop she was in when you were stood with her family in the emirates and was actually talking to you now. well more flirting with you. her hand getting dangerously high up on your thigh as she spoke.

"have i told you how pretty you look-" she blurted out as you took a small sip of your drink, a small smile appearing on your face as you lifted the glass from your lips and back to the table.

"you may have mentioned a few times" you whispered as this time it was leah's time to smile as her hand drifted a little further up your thigh as you shot her look as she squeezed your thigh making you jump in your seat a little.

"le-" you harhsly said inbetween your teeth as she looked at you so innocently as if she had not clue what she was doing to you but you know she knew. leah knew what her touch was doing to you and how it was affecting you.

leah had you right where she wanted you and honestly, you were going to let her - you'd face the consequences later on. right now, you wanted her, in more ways than one.

standing up with a loud scrape of your chair, all eyes turning to land on you, "m'sorry just- i'll be back-" you stutter out, your cheeks all flushed as you made a beeline straight for the toilets.

amanda looking worryingly over her shoulder at you before turning to leah, who just simply shrugged that making her mum's eyebrows furrow even more.

"i better go and check on her" leah stood up excusing herself as she followed suit pushing the door on the pub toilet door seeing you touching up your lip gloss as you regained your composure from the feeling on her hands on your body.

leah locking the door behind her, a rye smile on her lips as she stepped just that little bit closer to you, feeling your heart beat just that little bit faster.

was it nerves, probably but maybe it was more the uncertainty as you never knew what you were going to get with the blonde.

"are you sure?" leah whispered as she placed a quick kiss to your cheek before resting her hands to your hips as a smug smile came from you before you nodded.

"do you think you can keep up?" leah teased as your shot her a shocked look as she pulled you into deeper into the bathroom, your back now pushed flush against the sink.

"i'm sure i can.. business partner-" you whisper as you inch closer to her, making your eyes switch between her eyes and lips a flash of shock appearing on her face.

but just as leah opened her mouth to say another teasing comment, you wrap your hand behind her neck and slam your lips against hers. the kiss quickly turning heated when leah's tongue enters your mouth as a familiar warmth floods your body in seconds,

her hands gripping at your waist as she tugs you closer to her without breaking the kiss. the sound of your lips together was enough to leave an uncomfortable throbbing inbetween your legs.

leah pulls back for a moment searching for anything in your eyes that may say that you don't want this but there was nothing but lust, a small whine leaving your lips at the loss of contact in your lips before leah's diving right back in.

the sound that had been blasting through the pub had now quieten to a mere hum as your focus was solely now on the girl in front of you.

her hands placed on the small on your back slightly pushing in to make your back arch as your chest pushed into her. as leah's hands soon made their way slowly to slide down you your ass as your tongues graze against each other.

"so pretty for me, my love" your heart jumps at her loving tone as you feel the blood rush to your cheeks, leah's words always having some sort of effect on you and always leaving you feeling flustered.

leah's eyes roam your figure as her hand traces absentmindedly, as if she planning her next attack on your body. the blonde noticing the way your breath hitched when her fingers sit on your pulse point on your neck.

leah rotating her hand so her fingers lie gently against it awaiting your reaction as she smirks watching as you squeeze your eyes shut, as your hands grip against the rim of the sink.

a small chuckle leaves leah's lips as she leans down to press her lips to your neck sucking harshly on your sweet spot. a string of little whimpers leave your pretty little lips as you tilt your head more to the side allowing leah to have more access.

"le, please do something" you beg, feeling her hand roam underneath your hoodie, grazing across your breasts.

"don't be impatient baby girl" she rasps against your ear, tugging down on it with her teeth as you feel your self squeeze your thighs together. hoping it will help you relieve some tension between her legs.

leah finally lifting your hoodie over your head as she throws to the ground of the pub bathroom. usually you would have felt embarrassed as you would feel your whole body want to cower aways but with leah, it felt different. it felt good, it felt right.

-

it was a typical saturday night, leah had her home match at the emirates on the sunday so she was taking advantage of her the small out of rest time she had. a small hum of the tv playing in the background as you watched it, but really all your mind could focus on was the fact leah’s fingers were combing through the ends of your hair.

you were lying wrapped in leah's arms on her couch as the tv played, leah focused on some insta reel on her phone. you head tucked on her chest as it heaved up and down, the wholesome of the interaction. it felt like it was meant to be — it felt real.

"le?" you whispered your head turning to look up at the blonde as a small hum left her lips, her phone lowering a little.

"where do you see yourself in a year?" you asked, it was something that played on your mind a lot, cause would you still be in some casual relationship with leah or would you have your own apartment and she’d show you off to her friends as something more.

you were more hoping for the second option, since the months had passed since you both promised out of breathe that there wouldn’t be any strings attached.

and boy oh boy had that changed, especially since your favourite bra lived in her dresser. it was pretty hard to be casual.

“cause maybe we’d be more and going on cute little dates in a cafe before you’d go off to training” you began as you sat up, you rambling on as your hands flew around with some enthusiasm making you miss the way leah’s face changed.

“and then when you come home i’d be there waiting, your dinner on the table-“ you paused as you looked down to see leah’s face, puzzled but also her eyes they told you a different emotion, not the same energy you had but it was sadness — more a sense of guilt.

“i- sorry i got ahead of myself” you mumbled as your back sunk into the back of her couch, the further side from her.

leah shook her head, and you were half expecting her to wrap you in a hug and kiss your cheek and tell you it was okay and that maybe she felt the same way.

but she didn’t.

"y/n, remember, we're not together-" leah cut straight to the point, her tone blunt as you felt your heart drop and your brows furrowing and a quickly developing pout spreading across your lips.

you let out a shaky breath as you nodded slowly, you understood. she had kept her side of the promise of no strings attached. “i- just thought maybe?” you said so quietly it only came out as a whisper as you fidgeted with your fingers.

looking up to see leah’s face it told you everything you needed to know. you’d only known the blonde for a several amount of months but you knew her well enough to know what her face was telling you without actually having to say the actual words.

“oh i get it” you scoffed slightly, choking back on the tears which pricked at your eyes. all it ever was going to be was casual.

leah’s opened her mouth but nothing came out as she sat herself up on the couch but before she could even attempt to reach out to you, you were up from the couch. slipping your shoes on your feet. you didn’t want to be in the same room as her.

“y/n- don’t” leah finally managed to get out as she followed your actions following you into her hallway which was littered with her football memorabilia from her glittering career. but you shook your head, her voice to painful to hear as you stopped with your back to her just before the front door.

"do you know what's actually quite funny-" you paused to let out a little chuckle as you stood mere metres from the door, as you looked up from your shoes spinning slightly so you faced her. leah stood her shoulders sunken as she tried to plead with you not to leave.

"i actually thought i meant something to you- but i guess that's just how little i actually meant to you" you sighed as tried to steady your breath, tears prickling at your eyes ready to fall at any moment.

"i- i was ready-" you paused as your words got stuck in your throat, leah reaching out for you as you took a step back. "i was ready to give you my everything" you admitted it coming out just a little louder than a whisper.

"y/n-"

“no leah, you’d made it clear how you feel” you spat out as you spun on your heal, leaving leah calling out your name but your ignored her, reaching for the door and hearing how it clicked shut behind you.

part of you was hoping she was going to rip her front door open and call after you and not stop until you were back in the warmth of her arms but the corridor in her apartment block was silent.

the other part of you hated yourself how long you had let it drag out for, but now you were free. she can go to hell.

stumbling through the street as your tears fell down your cheeks, tapping away at your phone until you found the contact you wanted, the dial drilling through your ear a few times before it got to voicemail.

you sighed as you heard the beep, "i cut her off, amelie."

[roosterforme]

Okay, but how about the first time Jake and Darling have a fight? How would that go?

I really like your stories bc while it is fiction, I feel like you show every aspect of a relationship, not only the good parts.

🩷

OMG, nonny. I'm swooning. I try to make my stories realistic (as much as they can be for fanfic). Nobody is happy and confident all the time. Everyone is stressed about something. Relationships are hard work, and dealing with someone else is sometimes weird and annoying. So thank you, I appreciate that so much.

Jake and Darlin' argue all the time about all the small things in life. They have different opinions on a lot of things, but it's never usually anything they remember by the next day. I think their first big fight would happen shortly after she moves in with him, just after she graduates from school and starts her new job. (angsty below).

"I had the longest day at work," you muttered, shoveling the last bite of the dinner Jake made into your mouth. You set your fork down and stretched as you stood. This whole week was dragging. You realized you were probably complaining more than usual, but you were just over it. "Let's go take a bath and just go to bed. I'll clean up tomorrow morning."

Jake looked at you, his lips pressed into a firm line. "Go ahead. I'll clean it up."

You reached for his hand, but he was already stacking the plates. "You cooked. I don't want you to clean up. I'll do it later," you reiterated.

"Just go get in the bath," he snapped, carrying everything back to the kitchen.

"I don't want to take a bath without you!"

Jake dumped everything into the sink and spun around. "You're not the only one who's working full-time, but you're certainly acting like it."

With narrowed eyes, you asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jake took a deep, practiced breath and let it out slowly. "I know you're tired, but it would be nice for you to acknowledge that I work longer hours than you do. So just go relax in the bath by yourself while I clean up."

"Well, now I don't want to!" You were suddenly so angry, you couldn't see straight, and you also wanted to cry. "You're treating me like a child!"

"You're acting like one."

His words hurt you more than a slap across your cheek would have, and your jaw dropped open. But then his next sentence made it even worse.

"In my house no less."

"Wow," you gasped, turning and running toward the bedroom as you started crying. It wasn't like you weren't paying to be here. You knew it wasn't much, but you had been insistant about giving Jake five hundred dollars per month. And for what? So he could act like you were an unwanted guest?

You ran into the bathroom and slammed the door behind you before you curled up on the tub mat on the floor and sobbed. Work wasn't like school. Trying to figure out how you fit in with your coworkers was exhausting, and you were still learning all the ropes. You drove back here every day mentally drained, and up until tonight, Jake was always the one who seemed willing to listen. You should have just cleaned up the kitchen, because now you felt like you didn't belong anywhere.

"Darlin'." Jake's voice was as sharp as his knock on the door. You tried to dry your tears, but it wasn't working, and maybe you really were a child compared to your boyfriend. "Darlin'!"

"It's not even locked!" you shouted, but it came out as weak as you felt. Jake opened the door, and in an instant, he was curled up on the floor with you, pulling you into his arms.

"Fuck. I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry I acted like an asshole." You tried to wriggle away from him, but he wouldn't let you. "I think I'm more exhausted this week than I'd like to admit, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

In spite of the fact that you were on the floor crying, you mustered up the courage to whisper, "I'm not a child."

"You're an adult," he said firmly. "An adult who just started a very impressive job. You're holding it together better than I did when I was in flight school." He kissed your forehead. "And you're absolutely right. We should have just climbed in our bathtub and then gone right to our bed. The fucking dishes do not matter right now. They can sit in our kitchen sink until whenever the fuck we feel like cleaning up."

Jake rubbed slow, soothing circles against your lower back until you were all cried out. If you thought you were tired before, it was nothing compared to how wrung out you felt now. You wanted to put forth a peace offering and just get up and clean the kitchen, but his lips were on your damp cheek and his voice was in your ear. "I love you, Darlin'. It has been a long week for both of us. I would like nothing more than to climb in a hot bath with you, relax until the water gets cold, and then get in our bed and go to sleep."

You nodded and started the water while he got two towels ready, and then both of you undressed. Jake kissed your bare shoulder and held you while the tub filled. "You belong here," he whispered. "I don't want you anywhere other than our house."

[alexanderwales]

Castle Solutions was the only time travel company in the world. They had a giant corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago, which was the only place in the entire world with a time machine, at least as far as anyone knew. They were worth hundreds of billions, and the only reason they weren't worth more seemed to be that they didn't care all that much about money. The time machines were used for everything: reporting, media, market corrections, the surveillance state, and industry. Castle Solutions was the lynchpin of the modern world.

Daniel had thought the waiting room would be nicer.

He sat in a blue-gray chair that would have been at home in any waiting room anywhere else in Chicago. Slightly tinny music played over speakers from the ceiling. A fake potted plant sat in one corner, failing to look lively. There were no windows, because the waiting room was deep in the heart of the building, close to the machine itself.

Daniel was the only one in the waiting room. He'd come half an hour early, lugging all his gear, and now the only thing left was for the clock to run down. A bored-looking woman had come in to tell him that it might be awhile, that they were running behind schedule — the time travel company, running behind schedule. So there had been more waiting than expected.

A man in a charcoal gray suit with a simple blue backpack came in. He slung the backpack down onto the ground with a sigh and rubbed his face. He had stubble there, but an artful amount of it, like he'd spent some time in the mirror making sure that it was the right amount of scruff to offset his expensive suit.

Daniel looked straight ahead, trying not to look, keeping his face blank, like he was passing by a homeless person who might ask him for money he didn't have.

"Wow, you've got a lot of stuff," said the man. "Is that a sword?"

"It's a katana," said Daniel. He didn't match the eye contact the man was giving him.

"Oh, cool," said the man. "You're going to ... katana times?"

"Edo Japan, yeah," said Daniel.

Daniel was trying his best not to engage, to get this conversation over as quickly as possible. He wasn't making eye contact.

The man picked up his backpack and moved across the waiting room to be closer to Daniel.

"You speak Japanese?" the man asked.

"Hai, watashi wa nihongo o hanashimasu," replied Daniel. He wished that he were more fluent, that the words had come out less rote.

"Cool," said the man. He had apparently also come closer to get a look at all of Daniel's stuff. His eyes moved over the duffel bags. There wasn't much to see, everything had been carefully packed away. "Wow, you sure are prepared, huh?"

"It's a different time and place," said Daniel with a shrug. It represented five years of planning, five years of training, learning, honing himself.

"Personally, I'm going to 1946," said the man, though Daniel hadn't asked. He held out his hand. "Archie Vedder."

Daniel reluctantly took the hand. "Daniel Strom." He had never really gotten the hang of shaking hands. He worried that his hands were too clammy, a worry that proved founded when Archie wiped his hand on that expensive charcoal suit.

"I went with the kit," said Archie, pointing to his backpack. "I've got papers, I've got a computer with a backup, I've got a projector, a media library, a science library, the whole works, plus some forged bonds and a stack of cash. I got a sweet deal on it, they're overstocked now."

Retreating into the past had seen its heyday. Now most of the people who had been most enthusiastic were gone, and there were only the dissenters left. Everyone agreed with using the machine for the mundane stuff, but simply leaving, never to return, rubbed people the wrong way.

"I guess they don't sell kits for Edo," Archie ventured.

"They do," said Daniel. "They're trash."

"Ah," said Archie.

"This is all custom," said Daniel. "Higher quality, field tested, everything I'll need to set myself up there." Only some of it was stock. He had two computers, three smartphones, chargers and plugs, solar panels, replacement batteries, and redundant media libraries and science libraries.

Archie raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean, field tested? Because people don't come back. You're there for good, right?"

What it actually meant was that Daniel had gone out into a field and tested it, made sure that it worked under various conditions, set himself up like he might be explaining all this to a carefully chosen daimyo. There was only so much that camping in the woods and taking dry run vacations could tell him though.

"Some of it is theory," said Daniel. "Research."

"Yeah, see, that's why I went with 1946," said Archie. "It's really well-trod. You know, I was reading an article the other day that maybe the Baby Boom was a little overstated? Like, we're obviously living in the wake of time travelers, but that's the prime time to come back, anywhere from 1946 to 1960. The economy is doing well, tech is advancing, it's familiar enough. The culture is so close you can sell some stuff from a media library, it's brilliant. You're five steps away from becoming a multimillionaire in a time when that meant something."

"Sure," said Daniel.

"Any reason you're doing hard mode?" asked Archie. "I mean, samurai and ninjas are cool, sure, but —"

"It's not about that," said Daniel.

"Alright, sure," shrugged Archie.

Daniel looked over at the waiting room's lone clock. You would think that a waiting room for a time travel company would have better clocks, but it was a cheap utilitarian design, thin plastic and wobbly hands.

"What's it about then?" asked Archie.

"I was going to go with a friend," said Daniel. "We had practiced together, trained together. Then he got cancer."

"Ah, shit," said Archie.

"He lived," said Daniel. "He's fine. But he's on medications now, and will be for the rest of his life, and he can't go anymore."

"Huh," said Archie. "So there's a friend who you're leaving behind?"

"No," said Daniel. "I mean ... this was what we did together. We talked about it a lot. We read history books and practiced crafts and skills. At the start, I didn't really take it that seriously, it was just a hobby, but I got invested, and I guess I kept seeing it as — I don't know."

"I mean for me, it's a way out," said Archie. "Most people feel that way, yeah? My wife filed for divorce, I got fired from my job, so hey, time to start over in 1946, pretend I'm part of the Greatest Generation, ride the waves I know are coming. Exploit it."

Daniel grimaced. The Vietnam War, segregation, the Red Scare? People had a rosy view of that time. He'd never felt particularly aligned with people like Archie who were just looking to make a quick buck.

"Oh come on," said Archie. "You think you're better than me? You're a, you know, what's the word. Colonizer."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "No."

"What, just 'no', it's not, you know, what we did to the Native Americans?" asked Archie. "The whole 'conquer the past' thing?"

"I'm a single person," said Daniel. "I'm bringing back things that will change their culture forever, but I'm not an agent of my country, and even if I were, I think those people who want to be a god king are morons. And sorry, I'm not spending my last minutes in the present on badly rehashing a debate I've had a thousand times already."

"Why not?" asked Archie. "See, I think having arguments right before you go is great. You can leave on a high note. I've spent the last few days saying whatever the hell I wanted to people. It's great. I went to my dad and said 'hey, you were a terrible father, I never liked you, and it's sad that you thought I needed your approval'. And then you know what's hilarious? I get to just walk away and never be seen again. How's that for a power move? How's that for a mic drop?"

"Seems immature," said Daniel.

"Well, see, I'm actually fine being immature," said Archie with a little laugh. "And when this conversation is done, one or both of us is going into the past, never to be seen nor heard from again, and isn't that great? You don't like me, I don't like you, and then we're strangers again."

Daniel had been looking straight ahead, but he turned to Archie after that. "You don't like me?" he asked. "You don't know me."

"I know your type," said Archie. He leaned back. "You spent what, three years cooking up a plan, making this trip back in time your entire personality, and now you think you're better than me, better than everyone, like you've got it all figured out. You talked yourself into throwing away everything you've got going on here. You got dreams of a future in the past. It's quitter talk, is what it is."

"Fuck off," said Daniel. In his normal life he'd have never said it, but he was on the precipice.

"You think going into the past is going to transform you?" asked Archie. "That another world, a second chance, you'll somehow become the man you think you were supposed to be? Well let me tell you, if you were a loser here, you'll be a loser there."

Daniel stood up and drew his sword. He'd practiced the draw a thousand times. The sword gleamed, even under the ugly fluorescent lighting of the waiting room. "Fuck off, or you'll be going back to the 50s missing a hand."

"Bah," said Archie. "Fine." He stood up and took a seat further away, the same one he'd taken when he first came in. He was bouncing his leg and reading something on his phone.

Daniel was putting his sword back in its sheath when the receptionist came into the room.

"Daniel?" she asked, glancing only briefly at the sword. "They're ready for you."

"Finally," Daniel thought but didn't say, because even though he wasn't going to be around anymore, he believed in basic politeness.

He gathered his things and left the waiting room, ready to leave.

~~~~

Archie sat outside Castle Solutions, in their little courtyard, vaping.

It wasn't long before the receptionist, Lydia, came to sit next to him.

"It didn't really seem like you wanted to convince that one," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry."

She shrugged and pulled out a vape pen of her own. "Sometimes you just want to yell at someone. I get that. But you're risking us getting caught. And if we get caught in the future, we probably get caught in the present."

"Yup," he said. "Won't happen again."

"Give it a few days before you come back," she said. "Three, let's say. He didn't file a complaint, so there's nothing in the system."

"Mmm," said Archie. He made a long, slow drag of the pen. They sat there vaping together for a while. It had often occurred to him that vaping was impossibly lame, but it felt less lame when done with someone else. He watched as the vapor left her mouth in a thin, concentrated stream. "You wanna go out sometime?"

"On a date?" she asked. She gave the tip of her vape pen a casual look. "No, not really."

"Alright," said Archie.

"I don't really know what your deal is," she said. "Why this is important to you. Why you want to talk people back from the brink, or yell at them."

"Mmm," said Archie. "You want to tragic backstory?"

"Meh," Lydia replied. "I'm not going on a date with someone who has a tragic backstory. That's all. Sorry. I've got my own tragic backstory, thanks very much."

"Fair," said Archie. "It was my kid brother, that's the short version. He up and left one day, left us a note that read like ... well, you know." He drew a finger across his neck.

"Where'd he go?" asked Lydia.

"England, 16th century," said Archie. "He thought he was going to take Shakespeare's place." He shook his head. "Only eighteen, you know? Unconscionable that they let kids that young through. He had his whole life ahead of him and he just ... disappeared."

Lydia sighed. "Yeah."

She turned off her vape pen, then mimed stubbing it out on the bench like a cigarette before slipping it into her purse. He felt a surge of attraction for her.

"Alright, I'll go on the date," said Lydia. "But if we're going to be dating, you've gotta stop this."

"Vaping?" asked Archie.

"You know what I mean," said Lydia. "You going in there trying to convince them to back out, that's one thing. It's noble, almost. But if it's going to be fighting, if it's you trying to work through some shit, then I'm not sticking my neck out for you. Doubly so if you want to get together. You process your trauma some other way, or repress it like the rest of us, alright?"

Archie thought about that for a moment. "Alright. Sure."

"I've got to get back to work," said Lydia as she rose from the bench. "You have my number."

Archie nodded, and after she had left, he stayed, looking out at the courtyard.

He wondered how Daniel was doing out there, in that other timeline, but he supposed that he would never know.

[b0amagination]

Tastes of Whumptober: Day 2

I wrote five hundred words!!!! Why did I do that!!!!! Anyway this might get a continuation later on this month owo

Amusement Park

This had been years in the making.

From a violent assault, to the hospital, to intensive therapy, to recovery, to reintegration, to… normalcy. Being in such a crowded public place would’ve thrown them into a panic attack only a year prior, but now they worked there. Eight hours a day, five days a week, they interacted with thousands of different people without the fear that any of them would pull a knife and force them to-

Exactly, they didn’t fear that anymore and it didn’t come up. It wasn’t perfect, of course. Little kids didn’t understand why they had to force a laugh when asked about their scar. Many people looked like their attacker, but they’d stopped flinching when they heard a similar voice, saw a familiar face, or spotted a pair of those boots. 

All their hard work let them stand up tall in the sun and stop parents from sneaking their kids on to roller coasters by strapping them into platform sneakers. 

It wasn’t glamorous, but it was work. There was something beautiful about just being a normal person. 

Ugh, behind this family was a near-duplicate of their assaulter. They’d hate to know who they looked just like. The attendant smiled pleasantly and averted their eyes. Okay, so maybe they weren’t having the best day. Not every day was.

“Wow, that’s gnarly! Did you fight a bear?”

Time and place, man. They even had the same voice. 

“Ahaha, it’s a long story,” they forced a smile and quickly moved to greet the next guest. 

The hour left until the end of their shift gnawed at them. But then it was over and they were clocking out in the breakroom with their favorite coworker. 

“Wanna join me on the walk?” A simple question with deeper implications.

“Bad day?”

“Something like that. What are the chances, again?” 

“Genetically identical? With the same parents? Something like one in eight million.”

“Jesus.”

They took their hand as they crossed the employee parking lot. Their coworker didn’t drive, but on bad days they were always happy to take a later train. When they reached the car, they embraced and sighed. It was nice to work the first shift so it wouldn’t be so dark on the drive home.

“Sure you don’t want a ride?”

“Nah. I left my bike at the station anyway.” 

“See you tomorrow then.”

“See you! Drive safe!”

They sighed and slumped against the car, taking a moment to finally calm down. A warm bath was waiting at home.

Still, they clicked the lock on instinct the moment their car door shut, secured their seatbelt, threw their purse in the passenger seat, and shoved the key in the ignition.

“What’s got you in such a hurry?”

A hand in their hair, a knife to their throat. 

Not again-

Just like-

“You didn’t recognize me earlier. I’m hurt.”

“How did you-”

The blade pressed so tight. One move, one shout, and they’d bleed out. They knew what they were capable of.

“Drive.”

[sopiao]

HAI!! I LUV ALL OF UR WORK THEY GOT ME GIGGLIN AND SHIT 🤭🤭

can i request a young teen reader (like 15-16) being watched over and taken care of by their body guards, the 141. like. they’re sick and is part of a dangerous chain, they get hired to take care of you and just overall body guard you???

pls ignore this if this is too much or if you don’t feel like it! be safe!

EHYDHEHSHEHS TY TY TY!!!

this idea is actually so cute. i struggled trying to think for this 🤐

Tossing and turning in your hospital bed, you already read every book that was gifted to you and brought from your home. Already watched every show on the TV. Already made like a couple hundred paper cranes out of boredom. Hell, you’ve been here so long the flowers you got, when you were first admitted, has already wilted and died due to lack of sunlight. That’s how you felt

A soft knock on the door made you sit up immediately. You saw your doctor, your mom, and four strange men. Your mom never explained what she did, expect that you could never get involved in it, and never know what she did. All you knew is that it was dangerous, but she made lots of money from it so she could give you a comfortable life.

As always, she gave you a short and subtle explanation, as always. She introduced the men, but you took little to no interest in this. All you know was that you weren’t safe in a public hospital and had to stay somewhere more private and secluded.

Something like “Mommy got caught up with some people and you need to take a trip” You hated every time she baby explained something to you. You aren’t 5.

—

The car ride there was quite, Ghost having to hold his arm up the entire ride to keep your IV running. You already knew that you’d never be alone from that point on, always being monitored and with someone.

“We already prepared a room for you” Price explained, only earning a hum from you as a response. They didn’t find your silence and lack in response or communication rude or ignorant, just understood that some people like to talk and some don’t. Your room was right in the middle of the hallway, in between everyone else’s, assuming it was for your safety in case anyone found you.

Price let you open the door to see your reaction. The room was.. cozy. In a way. You can tell they tried. There were soft white fairy lights across the lining of the ceiling. It was a quilted comforter with many different patterns. Books laid out in the bed side table for you, ones you never read before. Soft rugs, and a huge and a plushy bean bag.

But what caught your attention the most was the overwhelming amount of stuffed animals that littered the bed. You wanted to laugh but only let out a little chuckle, the only other sound from you the entire time you were with them, aside from the occasional hum response.

They all watched cautiously as you slowly entered the room, looking around and inspecting each little trinket of the room they added, Ghost having to follow behind to keep your IV bag dripping.

“Is it okay for you?” Soap is the first to speak up, all watching how you just sit at the foot of the bed and just look around, noticing something new each second. Wow, they even got you the white princess canopy you wanted when you were like five. Even the skele-animals plushie you wanted six years ago. Most likely your mom told them about this. A for effort.

“Yeah, its… good” You softly nod, Soap and Gaz smile to each other.

“Told ya” you heard subtly from Gaz who stuck his tongue out at Ghost who just rolls his eyes and turn away, who starts to attach your IV bag to the metal pole. They’re hesitant to leave you by yourself, but you insist that you’ll just take a nap for a little bit.

—

A couple hours later, lunch, Price reminds Ghost to go in and ask you what you’d like for lunch. They can eat whenever they want, their more concerned for you. When he hears silence after knocking four separate times, not wanting to intrude on you. He just assumes that you’re still sleeping.

His heart drops to his stomach once he sees the bed empty, and you’re IV pole gone. He rushes into the house’s living room, alerting his teammates. First they do a scan of the house, maybe you wanted to use the bathroom, or check out the other rooms. When the rooms are empty they start to check out the outside, spreading out.

Price finds you in the backyard. Sighing as he relaxes and un-tense his body, slowly making his way towards you. You’re crouched in the ground, back facing him, with your IV pole standing beside you. His shadow looms over you, signaling you that there’s someone behind you, though you don’t say or do anything, just continuing watching the ants climb in and out of the small ant hill.

His shadow looks over you, signaling you that there’s someone behind you, but it doesn’t alarm you. You just continue staring how the ants follow in one singular line.

“Gave us a scare there, kid” Price grunts as he crouches down next to you, wondering what’s so interesting about them, earning the usual hum in response, the only time you’ve acknowledged his presence.

“What’re ya’ lookin’ at?” Price turns to look at you, hugging your knees and chin resting atop of them. He watches you use a twig to push a stray ant back in line.

“Y’know if you wanna go out, you should come and tell us, bring us along” He says in a tone that tries to convince you that they wanna spend time, but is really so you won’t be alone.

“Mhm”

—

Day 2. And you’re still stuck in this hospital gown. You try to look through the dresser and drawers for any clothes, or at least fresh underwear, or clean socks. But when you find the wooden drawers empty you escort yourself and the metal pole, you’re growing used to, to the living room where they’re all playing card games.

They don’t notice your presence yet, focusing on whether the other has the card they need or not. So, you just stand and stare at them, for a good 4 minutes until Gaz catches you in the corner of his eye. Jumping and dropping all his cards face up on the table.

They all laugh then turn once they realize that Gaz is staring at the hallway. Soap clears his throat and asks what you need while Price puts out his cigar to keep you from inhaling the fumes.

“I need clothes” Is all you said. The same expression plastered on their faces, just remembering that they forgot something.

“That’s what it was” Soap mutters.

“Told you we were missing something, idiot” Ghost scolds him, seems like a usual occurrence.

They end up having to drive to the nearest Goodwill to buy you some clothes. They knew that if your mother found out she’d be displeased, but you insisted that it’s where you wanted. You couldn’t leave and go around public in your hospital gown since it’ll raise suspicion.

Which caused you to have to borrow some of their clothes for the time being. Had to borrow Gaz’s pants since he’s the shortest from all of them, thought by only an inch, it was the closest size to you. It draped over you and covered your shoes. Soap offered his shirt which reached your thighs. Had a tear in the bottom.

Ghost decided to stay and stick with you while you picked up clothes, watching intently in what you picked out and what you looked at, holding up your IV, but not too high to make it that noticeable. Noting what you took interest in, processing your style.

“Didn’t know these still existed” Price came up to the two of you with Soap behind him, holding up a cassette player in his hand. Soap had an old digital camera, looking through the photos.

“You should get it, Cap’” Soap suggests, getting bored with the camera. You’re still looking through clothes, but still listening to them talk.

“What the hell would I even do with this?” He chuckles, inspecting the inside and each button to see if it’s functional— and not laced with crack.

“Mm-mm Just to have it?” Soap shrugs, taking the clothes out from your arm to hold for you, and to look at.

“That’s stupid”.

“They have cassettes at the front” You speak up, making them all look at you, since you never speak unless absolutely needed. They’re happy that you’re slowly getting comfortable to speak but don’t want to say anything to jinx it. Price just makes his way towards the front to look for them, you can tell by the little rushed way he walks that he’s enjoying himself.

You find a Dio shirt in the racks, their band dates and locations on the back, like something you’d by from a concert.

“Do people still listen to them?” Ghost whispers, mostly to himself, you can tell his interested. Never would’ve thought that he’d be into that band. You add it into your stash, laying it on your arm. When you get back to the house you end up giving it to him since ‘It doesn’t fit. Too big’ by what you said.

—

Gaz couldn’t sleep at all, it was way too hot. He walked out of his room, using the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face. He entered the kitchen to grab a glass of water but almost screams when he sees you by the counter, sitting on the edge with a sandwich in your hand.

“If you were hungry you should’ve woken one of us up” He sighed, hand on his chest to calm himself down, worried when he saw the knife next to you covered in nutella.

“No. Too much work. Didn’t wanna bother” You shook your head, already half way through your sandwich. He chuckled, looking through the fridge for the water pitcher.

“What did ya’ make?” Gaz asked, leaning against the counter next to you, taking a long gulp from his glass.

“Nutella and Cheerio’s” You take another big bite from your sandwich. He cringes at how sweet it must be but laughs at how often he’s tried it late at night too.

You two sit together in silence, occasional crunch from you eating your sandwich and a watery sip from Gaz. After you finish he asks if your full, shaking your head he offers to make you something. Looking up at him then nodding while muttering a thanks.

He makes you go sit in the living room and watch TV while he prepares something. There wasn’t much in the house but he made do with what he had in the house. After an episode and a half of The Amazing World of Gumball he came to the couch with two BLT sandwiches and two cans of soda.

“Didn’t even know we had bacon” You mutter to yourself as Gaz already starts eating, a muffled response you couldn’t really make out. You both just sit in silence once again, less awkward and more comfortable this time, as you both ate the food he prepped.

It was nice. Just eating sandwiches while watching cartoons at 2:14 in the morning.

—

You felt weak today, more than usual. Deciding to take a quick 20 minute nap, you wake up to loud talking, occasionally arguing accompanied by laughing, which made you a little irritated but you felt more energized.

Taking your IV pole with you, at this point you considered it a friend that followed you, you make your way to the living room, they’re all circled around the coffee table, either on the couch or on the floor.

You take a minute to watch before speaking up. Making them all jump when they notice your presence.

“What’re you doing?” You take a couple steps forward to look over their shoulders and see a Monopoly board and Monopoly money spread across the table.

“Wanna play?” Soap cocks his head to the side, scooting over to make room for you.

“I’ll watch” You take the empty spot next to him as they begin playing, less profanity and vulgar language this time, but still the same energy. Slowly you started to grow used to them. Laughed at how Gaz made Ghost pay up every time he hit his property, how Soap would take at least a minute to calculate his money for a deal, how Soap always got the short end of the straw, how they’d always fuck him over.

After a round they played again, but this time you were the banker. Handing out loans and taxes while you sipped on your juice box.

[phychohex]

I Met a Vampire Down in Santa Carla. Chapter Five

(A/N. I just want to say sorry for taking so long for this chapter. I had writer's block for a long time and was busy with life. I will try to put the next chapter out in a day or so.)

I rummage through the box that I brought with me to work. I have to restock the snacks and drinks, which has become quite popular. "what are you doing?" I glance over to see Tyler leaning against my doorway. Things with him haven't been great. From the moment I walked through that door he has treated me as a lesser being. He had an ego to him one that I loved crushing. It'd be one thing if he was just confident in his work, was proud of something, and showed me that's normal. If I show him, he nitpicks it, boasting how he could've done much better. It pissed me off to no end. 

"Restocking" I mutter trying not to give him the time of day he craved.

"You're wasting your money" He scuffs I roll my eyes.

"No, I use my tip money" There is a silence I grab the now empty box and brush past him.

"You get tips" his surprise made it clear he didn't I nodded with a big grin on my face. "Wow," His voice was quiet as if pondering the idea. "How do you get that"

"By doing a good job" I shrug "It isn't that big of a deal they usually just round up the total. Like if the tattoo ends up being seventy-five they give a hundred. It helps pay for the snacks and other things I need at home. It's fun money."

"Damn, you know when you started I didn't like the idea of working with you," He admits.

"Yeah, you made that very clear" I turn to him.

"Sorry," he scratches the back of his neck, "You think we could start over? I've grown to respect you and your work. I've met plenty of by-the-hour artists who tattoo for like twenty minutes and then use the rest of the hour for a break charging people an arm and a leg. You don't do that I barely see you take any breaks you have an outstanding work ethic. Hell you are making more than I am" 

"Really?" That was a shock. "How do I get paid less than you" I was only doing twenty-five an hour he was thirty. He had been tattooing longer than I have. 

"Tips, and you take more customers even the ones who have a short budget and can't pay hourly" That was true he never took in people who could only pay like twenty bucks but just wanted something extremely simple that took like thirty minutes. I also get more booked customers. "Hell, you've brought in more customers. The day shift gets people asking for you it's insane." He laughs obviously jealous. "I just, I've been an ass and I'm sorry" 

"You're forgiven"

"Fresh start" I nod smiling.

"Fresh start." We head back inside getting ready to close shop for the day. 

"So what plans do you have?" He asks 

"After work, I'm meeting up with a friend" 

"No, like in the future do you plan on working here forever or"

"Oh yeah um. I don't know yet I would like to open my own shop one day but there are so many here. There are three right on the boardwalk. I guess I would run mine differently but that isn't going to happen anytime soon." 

"Why, you'd make good money I bet if you saved you could do it" He was right.

"Yeah but I kinda want to go to a community college and get a business degree so I'm better prepared ya know" I start getting my stuff together. I am meeting up with David again. We have been doing that a lot lately. It's been only a few days yet we have been either staying up texting or we've been hanging out. We usually just hang out at the bookstore where we first meet. Tonight was going to be a bit different. He wanted me to meet his 'brothers'. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. I never enjoyed meeting new people, especially a group of guys. It isn't safe to do I don't know these guys. I trust David though he hasn't given me much reason not to. 

I head to our meet-up spot going through our texts as I wait. We usually talk about random shit like a movie that we want to see that's coming out or events that are going on at the boardwalk. In person is different though, we always seem to talk about deeper stuff. Stuff that I don't usually open up about honestly. He knows so much and always find myself confused. Why do I tell him any of it? He knows about my son, who I had miscarried at six months due to the abuse. He knows that I have trauma which I never go deep into. Whenever I say something that brings me back he seems to know and changes the topic. We were at the bookstore one night and I was looking for a specific book that had just come out. It was a horror novel. I did find it and had been talking about it for days. 

"Well, what's it called?" He was able to look at the higher shelves.

"The dying flower" I look down the aisle in search "The lady at the front said they got it yesterday but wasn't sure where they put it" My eyes dart to the words of the title. "Got it!" I grab it to read the back and fliping to the first page. It had a trigger page and was loosely based on a true story. As I go down the list I realize this book sounded great but was too real. I close it and put it back a bit shaken by the triggers. 

"Thought you wanted it" He picks it up flipping to the page I just read. "Holy shit" He was taken aback by what he was reading. "Why did you want this anyway?"

"It sounded good, I didn't realize it was that bad though." He looks at me our eyes meeting. I look down trying not to go to that place.

"Well we aren't going empty-handed" He puts the book back and goes down the craft aisle. I follow curious. He looks through the adult coloring books finding a pinup coloring book. We ended up sitting down and coloring for hours. 

I look at the time it is close to our agreed time to meet and as if on cue I hear the engines of motorbikes coming my way. David parks close to my car getting off his bike, flashing a bright smile. "Didn't keep you waiting did I?" He asks. I shake my head standing up straight having just been leaning on my car. 

"Nice car" One of the other blondes comes over. He walks around the car taking a good look at it before coming over to me and doing the same. I felt self-conscious suddenly being checked out was a bit shocking. I instantly knew this was Paul. He smirks at me. "Driven by a very sexy driver at that" I look over at David nervously. He was watching very closely. 

"Ignore him" The shorter blonde comes over moving Paul out of the way and holding out his hand. "I'm Marko that's Paul he is a whore so just ignore him" He smiles. I chuckle shaking his hand. That leaves Dwayne who comes over to check out the car. 

" Rory it's nice to finally meet you guys. David has told me a lot about you" I smile. 

"Same he won't fucking shut up" Paul is shot a glare that could cut through stone. "Can't say I blame him though" He smirks giving me another once over this guy was a hoe. Dwayne, Marko, and David start laughing as Paul rolls his eyes. It was as if they heard my little note to self. I was confused but didn't focus on it. David wraps an arm around my shoulders as we walk the boardwalk's fair area. When me and David came it was just for the Farris wheel and nothing else. We walked around looking at all that it had to offer which was a lot. We get some tickets enough for a few rides and start looking around. 

We eventually made it to a fun house. I feel someone grab my arm dragging me. It was Marko jumping around like a kid who just ate a whole birthday cake. He leads the way as we go through the mirror maze first. I hold my hands out so I don't run into the walls. I was the leader for some reason. I decide to follow this dad and his toddler. I turn to see David right behind me and the boys following. As we head forward the kid runs full speed into one of the mirrors. I turn fully trying not to laugh. That ends up not being possible as Marko loses his shit.  

We ended up making it through the maze after watching the kid run into more walls. It was to the point that I started getting genuinely worried. We had to go through trick floors and stairs which proved to be harder than it looked. After we made it through the fun house we all followed Marko's lead to a bigger ride. It was a pirate ship that swung back and forth at a fast pace. I watch as people scream. I shake my head, "Sorry no" 

"Oh come on it's not that bad" Paul smirks "Don't be chicken you'll be fine" 

I follow their lead as the ride stops and people get on. Before I realize it I'm on the ride waiting for everyone to sit down. I end up in the middle between David and Marko. The ride starts very slow to build up the height. I grip the bar tight, so tight that my knuckles go white. "You okay" Marko laughs. I nod lying this was not okay. The ride picks up pace going higher and higher. We went to the highest being at the end of the boat. I close my eyes tight screaming. I lean into David grabbing onto him for dear life. All I could hear was the other riders screaming but the boys were laughing their asses off. I feel David wrap his arm around me as if he was guarding me from the fear. I could feel my heart race as it went up and down. As the ride died down and we got off I felt the excitement and adrenaline course threw my veins. I was ready to chase my next high looking around for the next thrill-seeking ride. My eyes are drawn to the Himalayans. I point and pat Marko who seemed to be into this the most. "Can we do this one next?" I smile he smiles back and we run to the short line. 

As the night kept on we went on more rides. Marko and I ran around like kids in the candy store. Hell, I felt like a kid again. I haven't felt this type of excitement and joy in years. I forgot what this felt like and I couldn't help but be grateful for David convincing me to come along. We went on the Tilt-A-Whirl, Round-Up, The Zipper, Starship, and the Bumper Cars. Before I knew it hours had gone by and we were leaving. As we are walking I hear one of the carnies yell at us. "Come on try and win a prize before we close" He yells to us. I glance over and see a huge pink bunny. The guys didn't seem to notice me as I was drawn in to play. I paid not asking how many points I needed for my goal. The game was shoot the cans the more cans you knock over the more you win. It was five bucks for ten bb's. I try aiming having not shot a real gun before. 

"what are you doin'?" I hear a deeper voice from behind me. I look to see Dwayne watching and the boys coming over to watch. I motion for him to lean down which he does seemingly amused. 

"I want the pink bunny but I can't let him know" he nods chuckling. He motions David over and whispers in his ear. A smirk makes its way across his face and he comes over.

"Let me see that," I hand him the gun and as if he had been a gunslinger he shoots ten cans with ease. My eyes widened in awe I could tell the carnie was shocked as well. "So what do I get?"

"Any of the prizes" The poor guy seemed a little shaken up. I point to the Bunny which I had my eyes on. He grabs it handing it to me. We make our way back to the bike and car. 

"How did you do that," I boast. "That was insane I thought those things were rigged" 

"Most are." He shrugs walking me to my car "Did you have fun?" 

"yeah, I did. Thank you." 

"For?"

"Showing me I'm not a total buzzkill. That I can still have fun" I hold the bunny close. "I haven't had this much fun in years."

"Well, I can tell you, I don't think you're a buzzkill." He reassures. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"I have a DND session with my friends at the shack." I shrug "But we can hang out on Thursday." I offer.

"The Shack" 

"Yeah, it's this little cabin out in the middle of nowhere. It's like a clubhouse that we've been going to since we were kids." I turn to him "Thank you again I mean it." I hug him it takes him a minute to register. I wave to them as they drive off before going home myself. As I walk through the door I couldn't hide the huge smile on my face. 

"What are you so cheery about?" Mom walks over smiling.

"Nothing I just had fun tonight, and made some new friends," I admit

"New friends?" 

"Yeah I met this guy and we've been talking," I admit putting the bunny down on the table as I grab a drink from the fridge. 

"Is that where the bunny came from?" She smiles I turn opening the ice-cold water bottle. 

"Yeah, we went to the fairgrounds at the boardwalk." I take a long sip. "Thank you. I haven't had the chance to tell you that. I know it was a lot to let me come back, especially with what I said before I left. I'm sorry I did I should've taken you with me. I didn't realize how bad things had gotten" She shakes her head coming over and pulls me into a warm embrace.

"Hush that nonsense. You did what you had to do I don't blame you. I just want you to be happy." she admits. I hear the heavy footsteps going down the stairs. I take it as my cue to get the fuck out. It was too late though. 

"Oh good you're home, we need to talk." I nod sitting down at the table and waiting for him to get on with whatever he needs. "I don't like you being out all night," 

"Why?" 

"Well, you have moved back into my home, which means you are a part of the family again and you need to act like it." He starts "I also need more from you, money wise." 

"Okay, well how much do you need" I shrug. 

"It would be for this month only, about three thousand," My eyes widen.

"O-okay but why?" 

"Well the company I work for is under repairs this month and we won't be able to go back for a month with that being said no one will be paid." He looks down in shame. Mom comes over shocked. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" 

"Because I thought I could take care of things but I can't" he snaps. I was shocked, and I hate to say a bit happy. I had the money saved up. I have a lot of money saved up. I get out my wallet and write him a check. His eyes widen in shock. "Just like that?" He scuffs. 

"Yeah I have some saved up it's no big deal," I grab the bunny off the table. "And as for the whole act like I'm in this family, I'm pretty busy but if you want a certain day for a family dinner then I can work with that but I'm exhausted and just want some sleep," I admit before leaving. He follows.

"Just like that?" 

"Like what?" I call down. 

"Were you telling the truth?" I give him a puzzled look. "You really do make twenty-five an hour?" I nod. "Well, I'm sorry I didn't believe you," I was shocked not once had he apologized. "If you don't mind paying more though." 

"I do." I knew I was trending the boundaries. "But I can buy my own groceries to make up for it." He nods.

"Okay fair," He turns walking away "Thank you for the money," I look in awe Mom looking at me just as shocked.

"Night" I mutter she waves back at me. I go to my room still in shock. Did I finally get a win?

[metamorphosisff]

|Chapter 13| Goodnight Gotham

(Authors Note: For an amplified reading experience, listen to the songs mentioned here. Enjoy 🧡)

“Oh we about to turn it.”

Standing in front of me is Jazz alongside another one of her other honorary daughters who went by Chanel. Together these two had made Mari and I seem like we had always been a part of the House of Illusion. There were seven of us in total dressed impeccably waiting for our turn to enter the raucous ballroom down the hallway, live with colorful commentary, and beat pumping music. Tonight the theme the houses were competing over was intergalactic odyssey. We had been made up to look like sirens from outer space, with our glittery makeup, and tight aquamarine spandex outfits that left very little to the imagination.The reflective sequins sewed on gave off the effects of us having gills. On our skin were tribal markings similar to those from the movie Avatar. Chanel was a trained makeup artist who worked on movie sets all over the city. It took her less than an hour to get us ready. The look while far fetched and last minute were stunning on us both. Though I promised Mari a spectators view, I can tell she was excited to be pulled into the chaos of Jazz’s world, and so was I even though I was scared shitless. 

This was not what Jazz had initially told me to expect. I should have known something was up when Jazz told me to leave my hair in braids because she had an idea. Currently my braids were intertwined with a mix of blue and green tinsel, styled in a crown that glimmered underneath the lights from every angle, adorned with gold cuffs and pearls. Mari’s curly mane had been wrangled into a fishtail braid using the same materials. The style showcased her cat like eyes and siren lips in a way normally hidden by her hair. 

“Wow,” I breathed out, not believing the reflection I was looking at was my own. “You made me look so beautiful, thank you Chanel.”

“No honey, that was God. All I did was embellish here and there,” Chanel said with a wink. 

“I’d pay you to embellish me everyday if I could. I look good enough to eat,” Mari cracked, phone already in hand, snapping a million pictures. 

Neither of us got to have much fun, Mari even less than me, and watching her get excited helped my nerves some. 

“I know that’s right. Keep that attitude when we hit that floor. Ma’ I’ma go check on the boys,” Chanel said, grabbing her kit to go to the room next door.

“Thank you boo, We’re meeting in that hall in five minutes. Don’t want to hear nothing from Lionell about us being late,” Jazz said, as she brushed at imaginary flyaways with her hands. 

Jazz looked otherworldly in the silver sequined bodysuit that had flounce sleeves that were cut in the style the seventies were known for. A forty inch platinum blonde wig waved down her back, the tips dyed in the same sea green color as the tinsel weaved in our hair. Her makeup was flawless, eyes bejeweled by hundreds of rhinestones while her cheeks were carved out of metallic silver. Pointy stiletto nails dipped in the same metallic shade could poke an eye out but she wielded them carefully and strategically as she delegated tasks to get us floor ready.There were also the pair of jewel encrusted six inch heel less platform boots that went mid thigh she had to put on. She was a vision, an all knowing force, and carried herself as such. 

“How do you do this all of the time?” I asked in awe.

“When I was younger, the answer to that question would have been drugs,” Jazz cracked, as she turned away from the vanity mirror to look at me. “But now, it’s love. I love ballroom, the culture, the people, and my family. These kids come from all walks of life abandoned and found fellowship under my roof. It keeps me going.”

That’s exactly who we were. Abandoned kids forced into adulthood before we were ready. Being around Jazz’s house felt like what a home should be: warm and inviting. 

Leaning forward, I grab her hand, and give it a squeeze. “Thank you for being you to me even when I didn’t deserve it. You mean the world to me and I’m honored to be considered one of your daughters. I’ve missed having a mom.”

Jazz lips tremble as she tries to offer a watery smile. “Chile, don’t get me to crying this close to showtime. Damn you Birdie.”

I chuckle softly before saying, “I love you too Jazz.”

“Aww, now I’m crying. Que linda,” Mari sniffles, snapping pictures of Jazz and I.

Jazz gives my hand one last squeeze before slipping her hand away in order to clap two times. “There will be none of that. Chanel will kick all of our asses if these beats get undone by water works and if you think I’m scary, you have seen nothing yet.”

“Yes ma’am,” Mari says, quickly reaching for a napkin to pat against her face.

“Now, we only have a few minutes. Let’s practice your walks.”

And like that, we are back into the whirlwind of the ball. In literally three minutes, Jazz choreographs a walk for each of us respectively. Whispering in both of our ears what our motivations should be and loudly declaring to keep it to ourselves until after we handle business lest we get confused. 

Worthy. You are worthy, Birdie. To be in this building, to be in that room, to be in this world. Show them bitches the respect you demand with that crown. 

I let Jazz’s voice play in my head on a loop as we lined up in the hallway. As we pumped our way through the crowd that parted like the red sea at the sight of Jazz leading us. A mix of Beyoncé’s Alien Superstar played at deafening levels as we reached the center of the room. As soon as the first verse dropped we each hit our individual marks. The boys: Danté and Kevion began tumbling, landing into dips before launching into new school voguing choreography in tandem with Chanel and Ruby. Jazz was serving face in the center of the floor, commanding attention while Mari and I weaved through what Jazz had called an alien invasion. The lyrics pulsed through me as I swayed my hips, letting my hands rove over my body making sure to highlight my waist like Jazz said I should. We met on either side of Jazz right on time for the last dips of the piece. While the dancers hit the ground, Mari and I dropped low, holding onto Jazz’s legs dramatically, an act of deference to the house mother.

When I came back to myself it was to see that we have garnered three 10’s  and one 9 as scores from the judges. I am so amazed that Mari has to tug me back into action as we walk off of the floor so the remaining houses could walk. I remain in this daze when we go up for second prize, collecting a trophy that would be added to the House of Illusions trove for the night. Chanel wins first place in Femme Queen, Jazz wins first in Femme Queen Face ,Ruby wins first in Female Figure, Kevion wins second in Old Way versus New Way, and Danté wins second in Male Sex Siren. There is cause to celebrate which we do as the ball turns into a full fledged party once the categories wrap up.

I’ve never felt as free as I do amongst my friends, old and new. I am happy I get to call them family and hope that with time I earn the right to do so without Jazz’s influence. In the interim, I imbibe drinks, and dance with them like it’s something we have all done hundreds of times before. The magic of ballroom is the community because it builds you up in a way where you can stand alone but you don’t have to. The House of Illusion has instilled in me the confidence to go after everything I want. To reach out and grab anything I claim as mine because the world is for the taking.  A power that might slip away with the first highlights of dawn. I have to capitalize on it while it lingers in my bones. Pulling out my phone I sent a quick text: I want to see you.

It vibrates with a response instantaneously. 

I want to see you more. Your place or mine?

From the moment I walked through the door, Xavier encircled his arms around me, bringing me close. He smells like a hint of smoke, alcohol, and cologne as he’s just come in not too long before me after hanging with his friends. I want to nuzzle my face into his neck but refrain due to my makeup and all of the glitter I am doused in. Instead, I place my hands on top of his and sink further into his embrace. 

“Think I need you to save this lil outfit for when I take you and Papi to Comic Con,” he said, pressing a kiss onto my neck.

I giggled as I turned in his arms to face him. “I’m not even a real character. This is Jazz’s creation.”

“Don’t matter,” he said, pressing another kiss to my lips. “Remind me to thank her, you look good as hell.”

“Thank you. Help me get out of it?” I ask, smiling up at him.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, before hoisting me into his arms. I squeal as he playfully tosses me over his shoulder and leads the way to the bathroom. He hits the lights and turns on the shower before setting me on the counter. “You are shining.”

“I know,” I groan. “They covered me from head to toe with something called Diamond Bomb by Rihanna.”

“Nah, I’m not talking about that. Your eyes, your smile, hell your energy is transcendent,” he says, causing my cheeks to heat up.

“You're always saying things to me that I have no idea how to respond to,” I say softly, meeting his gaze.

Always affirming.

Always recognizing.

Always present.

Stepping closer, he invades the space between my legs as leans down so that his nose can tease mine. “Is that a bad thing?” he asks.

“No,” I answer quickly, leaning forward when he places his hands on my hips. The warmth from his palms radiating outward. 

“Sometimes it’s okay to just say thank you babe,” he says, lips hovering over mine. “Or smile at me the way you do that makes your eyes disappear.”

I laugh and he absorbs the sound with a kiss. My hands fly to his torso as our kiss goes from innocent to urgent. In a flash my fingers are under his shirt and helping to lift it from his shoulders. Next to go is the bralette I’m wearing. We undress each other with a franticness that can only belong to new lovers. His touch is gentle and appreciative when I’m fully bare before him. 

“Look at me,” he says, pulling back from our kiss. 

My eyes flutter open at the command and meet his heady stare. Gone is the Xavier who bides his time. This version of him knows the best use of the seconds that drag by. In his eyes I see his desire for me unravel and marvel in it. All the while he trails his thumb over my bottom lip, swiping side to side, until he slips it into my mouth. Instinctively I suckled it causing him to groan before pulling me into another searing kiss. 

I widen my legs further as I scoot to the edge of the counter. “I need you,” I breathe against his lips. My hands are roving against the sides of his torso, ghosting over hard, well defined planes of muscles.

“Okay,” he says, pulling my bottom lip into his mouth to nibble on. “Okay.”

Reaching down, I watch as he fishes his wallet out of his pocket and grabs a condom. He smirks as he catches my eye. I motion for him to come fill the space between my thighs once more which he doesn’t hesitate to do. He licks into a kiss the same time his fingers push inside of me. My lips tear away but that doesn’t stop him from covering me in equally as hungry kisses starting down the column of my throat as my head tilts back. He kisses me on the hum of my pulse, biting down gently as his thumb finds my clit.

My nails are digging into his biceps but he doesn’t let that deter him from working me into a fast orgasm. One that preps me for him pushing himself in so deeply that my breath is caught in my chest. Instinctively, my hips roll forward meeting his thrust. 

“Shit,” I curse, releasing his biceps so that I can slam my hands against the counter. 

“Talk to me, this shit feeling good to you? Huh?” he questions, yanking on braids so that my eyes pop open. 

“So good Xay, please, just like this,” I moan, as he steadily strokes me to what I’m sure will be the best orgasm of my life. 

He dips his head so that he can capture a nipple in his mouth. His teeth graze the sensitive flesh and I arch into it and the oncoming stroke in a way that makes us both groan out. A hand holds the back of his head close, lovingly, as he laps at my other nipple. All while feeding me steady strokes that don’t ease up in pressure or frequency. Thanks to the gym Xavier’s stamina is out of this world. Our bodies move in a tandem dance, working with each other to bring us both pleasure. Regardless of the steam filling the air, I’m warm all over because of him.

It’s the way he folds against me, whispering things that would make a nun blush in my ear while holding my legs straight up. The position leaves me unable to do anything but moan and succumb to the promise of his desire. With both of my ankles in one hand, he uses the fingers on the other to rub figure eights onto my clit.

“Xayyy please,” I said, hands reaching to grab onto something because the counter no longer feels like enough. I settle onto the forearm of his left hand, the one that’s supplying sweet torture.

My gaze lifts to meet his, which is unsurprisingly locked onto my face. His bottom lip is wedged under his top row of teeth, arms bulging from how tightly he holds onto me, and the view makes squeeze onto him.

“Fuck,” he curses, hips slowing momentarily. “Do it again.”

And because I’m such a great listener I do. 

I do it again and again as he places sloppy kisses behind my knees that are my undoing. If I were to pass away in this very moment then it would be worth it having been experienced by this man. The reverent cry that escapes my lips is proof of that sentiment. There is banging on the opposite side of the wall but we don’t care. Nothing matters in this moment but he and I, the shared breaths we take, the trembles we place in one another’s spines. We don’t stop until we’re both utterly spent.

Somehow we end up in the living room, sprawled out on top of one another while Sade’s Stronger Than Pride vinyl spins on the record player. It took another round in the shower and then a thirty minute joint effort of trying to rid my skin of makeup before we left the bathroom. I’m dressed in a Thor t-shirt that barely grazes my thighs as they drape over his legs. My phone is in his hands as he goes through all of the pictures I managed to take tonight as well as the ones that have been sent to me sporadically from my new friends. I watch as he stops on one of Mari and me, mid laughter, drinks in hand. For once we actually look our age.

“Y’all look so much alike that you could be sisters. How did y’all meet? I want to know the origin story,” he says.

“We have lived next door to each other our whole lives. I don’t know a day where she’s not in it in some kind of way,” I said, strumming my fingers on top of his chest to the beat of the current song.

“Our brothers were super close too before Lonso moved away. After he left, Mari’s brothers got pulled toward the streets. The summer of our junior year they robbed this drug dealer in our neighborhood. That man was known for being vicious and as soon as word got back that it was them it was all downhill. Her second oldest brother Ramon was killed outside of his highschool and a few weeks later Martin, the eldest got locked up for killing that same drug dealer in retaliation. He’s serving life upstate and her parents went back to DR right after we graduated. During this time I was almost evicted three times and was struggling to survive.”

Xavier’s hold on my waist tightens as I go through memories in my mind. They play vividly as I try to sum up the hardest time in my life. “And through it all, we looked out for one another. I did her homework on the days she spent at court translating for her parents and she always made sure I had something warm to eat. We have gone through so much in that building. More than we should have had to honestly but we remained constant. We’re sisters in all of the ways it counts.”

“I’m glad that you two have each other. That y’all were never alone even when it felt like you were,” he said. 

“So am I,” I said, watching as he locks my phone and sets it aside. “How did you and your friends meet?”

At that he smiles as he shakes his head. “Aiden and I met in first grade. He asked me to be his lookout on a cookie caper. Rah we met in middle school during 7th grade gym class and once the three of us got together, we’ve been at the hip ever since.”

“Cookie caper is hilarious. I like Aiden, he seems like a good time and Rah seems like the opposite of both of you,” I said.

I had gotten the chance to speak to both of them via Facetime not too long ago. Aiden ended up stealing the phone from Xavier and locking himself in the bathroom. For twenty minutes we talked about why rap girls are dominating and the best place for wings in the city. It was Rah who jimmied the bathroom door open with a belt buckle and proceeded to put Aiden in a headlock all while apologizing for his friends foolishness as Xavier retook possession of the phone. I laughed so hard that my stomach ached afterwards.

“That’s a pretty accurate observation except Rah is like the balance of us both. He just talks way less,” he replied, playing with the fingers I had laid on my chest.

“When I was…doing the most our senior year they never gave up on me. They would call me out for being on bullshit and even tried to help me find other ways to get out from underneath my father’s thumb. I had been so adamant about having to be loud with my actions so I wasn’t listening for real. I was desperately trying to be heard.”

I watched as his face lost some of the playfulness that had been there only moments before. His expression grew more grave as thoughts from the past came flooding forward.

“Is that how…,” I trailed off, knowing he would fill in the blank.

“Yeah. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Guys I knew would help me on the mission to piss my father off. One night, they decided that we should steal cars and we did. I got caught because I crashed into a pole. It was a stick shift and I never drove one of those before. Due to my father’s connections those three months were the only ones I served  but I was on probation for five years. When I got out, they helped me enroll in school and find a job because at that point my parents were done with me. I was living with my grandparents which is why I feel like I owe them so much. They took a chance on me when no one else would,” he said.

It angers me that Xavier has often felt like there wasn’t anyone in his corner. Coming from a family of his size I assumed the opposite would be the case. I’m grateful he had his grandparents and friends to lean back on when his parents gave up. For some reason I wish that he didn’t have the uglier experiences of life. He is too much like light to hold onto such darkness.  

“I love them for that. Your friends too. Parents…they forget what it’s like to be young. To be scared. To be discounted. Or hell, sometimes they remember and they hold on too tight instead of pushing away,” I say.

“In either scenario they only see themselves and that is the problem but it’s their problem. Not mine, not yours,” he said, using the arm wrapped around my waist to hoist me on top of him fully. I caress his face in my hand, tracing over the slopes of his high cheekbones with the pads of my fingers, willing the tension to ease from them.

We both carry the weight of burdens that don’t belong to us. They merely have been passed on from generation to generation with the expectancy that there will always be someone to shoulder the load. We are tired from problems that aren’t our own. In our respective ways, we have been trying to unload the weight, and find ourselves in the freedom that is being able to move freely. 

“I agree,” I said, settling my legs around his waist. He reaches up to play with the ends of my braids. The cloudiness is clearing from his expression and I use the opportunity to pivot. “It’s crazy that it’s almost four in the morning but I could stay up and talk to you for hours.”

A smitten grin spreads across his lips as he says, “I know what you mean. I talk to scores of people every day but no conversation holds a candle to yours.”

“Xay,” I say softly.

“I’m for real. You’re the best part of my day. Even when we don’t have time to talk for real just knowing you’ll answer the phone whenever I call is enough to temper the worst of days and highlight the best of them,” he said, adoration in the forefront of his gaze.

 I don’t have to second guess any of his words. It’s more than evident that he means each one with the way my heart wants to escape my chest. His vulnerability inspires my own.

“You brought the sun back into my world Xay. The least I can do is answer the phone,” I said, fingers settling on the sides of his neck. His hands move to cover mine, fingers threading between. He brings our joined hands up to his lips and kisses the back of my hand repeatedly. 

“You are my world Mila.”

I almost tuck my chin as the blush takes over my face but I’m reminded of words from earlier when he squeezes my fingers. Worthy. This is another sign from the universe that anything I want is at my fingertips and I want Xavier more than I thought I had the capability to. Between him and Jazz, I am an unstoppable force. This in mind, I meet his eyes as a smile takes over my face which he returns with his own. We stare at each other until the space between us closes. Until his lips are on mine. Until I’m sinking on him. Until the sun rises over our shoulders.

[billconrad]

Numbers

    Our society cannot get enough numbers. They quantify and distinguish with infinite precision. “Bob tried to start the car three times.” Why not four, two, or one-half? Number three precisely describes Bob’s tenacity and the status of the car. Yet, only readers who use cars can appreciate this number. Fifty car starting attempts are too much.

    Many concepts can only be described with numbers, such as the time. “Fred needed fourteen minutes to complete his task.” The reader can now precisely comprehend Fred’s frustration, time management, and time investment level.

    Humans love to round numbers. “How many nails do you have? About a hundred.” Why not, “Exactly 98.” “Over 112.” Sometimes, we round to even, tens, or fives. “That took over 20 minutes.” “The speed is 55 miles per hour.” “It’s 50 kilometers to Chicago.” “We need twelve eggs.” Has anybody ever needed eleven or thirteen eggs?

     We also need to correlate our numbers. Fifteen minutes is not enough time to walk to school. $100 is too high. Wow, 310 pounds is too heavy. Numbers allow us to have descriptions with great precision and quickly show flaws. For example, Bob cannot start his car 3.5 times but can weigh 99.123 pounds.

    Humans cling to strange numerical beliefs. Seven is a lucky number. Thirteen is unlucky. Cats have nine lives. We even have a numerical religion/belief called Numerology, meaning believers must have their weddings on a specific day. Houses may not be purchased with a street number containing a nine. Being born on the first day of a month is a bad sign.

    As a writer, I think a lot about numbers. What is a good number of attempts for Bob to start his car? How would my character react to spending $120? How long does a task take? Sally finished her minimum wage job and paid $500 for a burger. It is a perfectly valid sentence, yet readers easily spot the error. Thus, a writer must choose an appropriate number to fit the situation.

    Numerical errors are easily identified; a less-than-perfect number will annoy readers. Yet, numbers represent power. A writer may define characters with extreme precision. Bob tried to start the car over 100 times. What a fighter!

    Yet, there is an unresolved problem with writing sentences that contain numbers. The rules are not ironclad. For example, these two sentences are valid: “Fifty-five is too much.” “55 is too much.” And so are these: “The fifties was a fun time.” “The ‘50s was a fun time.” “The 1950s was a fun time.”

    I have learned that the most critical aspect of writing numbers is to be consistent. Here are my general rules: Never start a sentence with a numerical number. “55 is too much.” Spell out numbers under twenty and use numerals for the rest. “The total is fifteen.” “The total is 55.” Use dashes between words. “Fifty-five”

   However, there are rules that I am not sure about. Use 5%. Use five-percent. Use #5. Use number five. It is ~5. It is approximately five. The temperature is 5ºC. The temperature is five degrees Celsius. The tolerance is ±5. The tolerance is +/-5.

   Fortunately, one thing is clear. The ending of this article required one sentence.

    You’re the best -Bill

    October 05, 2024

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[hiimgin]

It's just, uh. Something's born in the middle of the night.

It was Wednesday. A normal Wednesday for fall. Gray, rainy, and cold. Outside the window, except for the clouds and the bare branches of the trees, there was nothing to be seen, and even the leaves on the ground had turned a vague color. Everywhere smelled of damp rot. The doors of the Academy were open, so that anyone could go outside. But the weather was not conducive to walking, and the students occupied the rooms, the corridor, and the libraries. The Academy was mostly quiet. The kind that happens in the fall. Only in the fall.

Cold stone walls, ancient shelves with equally old books in sometimes strange dialects. The library on the third floor was not much in demand. It was always cold and dark here. Only a barely discernible light brightened this great realm of books. Sometimes the candles that stood on the tables swayed in the breeze, casting bizarre shadows on the walls. The breeze came after the pages were turned. It was quiet in here. Quieter than the rest of the Academy. Only the rustling of pages and the crackling of wicks disturbed the dead peace.

The tables were beautiful. Mahogany, carved legs and patterns in the corners... They were sturdy. Very strong.

On one of them stood a considerable mountain of books. Suffering and simply ancient literature, which for many caused only boredom and the desire to sleep. Many, but not all. This same mountain belonged to the one they called "the prince".

Vionel flipped the page. Surprisingly, the book on forbidden transformations had managed to captivate him. He had no intention of ever resorting to the spells that were in there, but knowing them he thought was important. "At the very least," he thought, "This way you can learn a little more about the past and why those spells became forbidden... And that's quite interesting. Plus, you never know what you'll need in the future." It was the first page of five hundred. The young man rubbed his temples, covering his eyes for a moment, and then broke away from the book. The imposing stack of books to his right was needed for the ones he had already read. The smaller stack on his left was for the ones he was going to read some more.

A quiet sigh blew through the library with the wind. The young man laid down a page and closed the book. Yes, it was fine to read, but he needed to take a break once in a while. How long had he been sitting there, behind those various texts? According to his preliminary calculations in the neighborhood of three hours, but the clock on the wall said a much higher figure. All five of them. "Wow," it ran through his head. - Sometimes it's so easy to lose track of time...". It was rather late. It was worth leaving reading and moving on to more mundane things. Sleep, for example.

The young man adjusted his left stack. The book with the bookmark he'd left lying right there. The books that had been read, on the other hand, were put back in their places. It took some time, but, as Vionel thought, time could be neglected for the sake of order.

It was not until the tenth hour that he left the library. The day had gone gloriously well, and nothing boded ill. Even a few slanted glances and a few barbed remarks to himself could not mar the end of the day. It seemed as if everything should end wonderfully, but the day was not over yet, and so... Anything could happen.

I may be writing strangely... I apologize for that

[mllelaurel]

Starlight Enclave - first five chapters

Wow, Salvatore has VASTLY improved on female characters through the years. Already there are more than four named ones (guess how many Shard had?), none of them are described in terms of how fuckable they, they are allowed to be competent and successful instead of refrigerator bait/cannon fodder, and they have internality. This better hold, or I shall be most disappointed. 

I like Dab’nay in particular. She seems cool. 

Okay, I probably should go back to spoiler cuts at this point, as this is an actual recent book. 

-

‘“She was half elf and half drow,” Gromph dryly replied. “That is sin enough.” 

Kimmuriel shrugged and let it go.”

Man, Kimmy’s mellowed out over the years. Back in Shard, he would have been high-fiving Gromph on that statement. In a lineface way. 

(Oh, hey, I can copy-paste from Hoopla. Hurrah!)

-

Fucking Gromph. Why is your name like that??!!! Also apparently he’s real creepy about Catti-Brie. And despite what I’m about to say about her below, I would not wish that on her in any way shape or form. 

-

‘Racist because my goddess said so and that is a hill I will die on’ was nnnnot a great intro to Catti-Brie. ( can only assume she’ll grow as a person. Ideally within this book. But as of this point, the amount of microagression Drizzt puts up with from her is. Um. Not low. 

-

Speaking of Drizzt. Ya boy seems depressed. Like ‘I took a wonderful and refreshing eight hour nap starting at 5:00 PM and why do I feel like shit? I think I’ll go back to sleep’ depressed. 

-

I really want to know how the fuck Entreri went from too pissed at Jarlaxle (for valid reasons) to be in the same room with him, to them being besties again. Bob better give us the flashback of them working shit out. Or a short story. Or something. 

Okay, I suspect what happened was Jarlaxle got enough words in edgewise to tell Entreri that he did not betray him of his own free will. And got emotionally naked enough to not only admit he’d left himself unguarded enough for Kimmuriel to alter his memories, but to convince Entreri there was no way he was lying. 

How he got Entreri to not kill Kimmuriel after that is another question. Possibly by making sure they’re never in the same room again for the next hundred years. 

Whatever is going on with Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel is a whole ‘nother question. Questions. I have many.  

With any of these, I can assume lots of things. But what I want is text answers. On the page. With alphabet. 

-

I do kind of love that Entreri and Zak are getting along like a house on fire. Not only because it makes me happy, but it says good things about their mental states. Given how similar they are, the fact that they are responding positively and empathetically to this other person who reminds them of themselves is very, very good. 

And Jarlaxle is watching them, rubbing his hands in glee. “Respect was important between those two...” indeed. Boy, you just want a threesome. Or at least to not commit Geek Social Fallacy #4, but you want it real bad! 

...Shit, now I want that threesome. Ffffffffff. 

-

“[Jarlaxle] used his favorite wand, gluing the crafts together with a glob of viscous goo...” Okay, I know how that wand works, I’ve seen it in Servant of the Shard. But also, we allllll know what that sounded like. 

-

Okay, I just really like this line: “They, we two, Bregan D’aerthe, Luskan itself—we are all Jarlaxle’s treasure. He’s like a dragon, but he hoards people and power instead of gold and gems.”

Also namechecking the dragon sisters! I’m kind of hoping they return and I haven’t even ‘met’ them properly yet. 

[biglisbonnews]

Capturing the Mysterious Antarctic Whale Gathering on Film Secret Obsessions is Atlas Obscura's new column where we ask wondrous people to take us down a rabbit hole. This edition features award-winning wildlife filmmaker and television host Bertie Gregory, as told to Associate Editor Sarah Durn. Antarctica is some 9,000 miles from my home in England, and I had been trying to get there for more than a decade to film one of the biggest animal gatherings on Earth. Hundreds of fin whales come there to feast on krill, a tiny, translucent crustacean, but the gatherings are little studied, rarely seen, and have never been properly captured on camera. For a wildlife filmmaker like me, capturing these legendary gatherings became the holy grail. Wanting to go to some remote corner of the globe to film an animal is a familiar feeling for me. It started young. Growing up, everyone at my school thought I was a complete freak because any moment of spare time, during sports practice or whatever, I would slip away to go sneak up on animals. I realized that if I took pictures of the animals I was seeing, it was a great way to get other people excited about what I was excited about—and also explain where I’d been sneaking off to. Before university, I wanted to see and photograph bears, so I emailed a bunch of wildlife tour guides on the west coast of Canada, and said, “Can I come hang out?” I ended up living in the basement of one guide for two summers, helping out on a bear- and whale-watching boat. I was there to see bears, but it was the whales that really captured my imagination. One day I went out with a tour group. Normally, you'd see maybe four or five whales, mainly either grey whales or humpback whales. For whatever reason, there was this freak event, where all of the humpback whales’ prey had come into shore. You couldn't drive the boat more than a hundred yards without having to go around a whale. There were humpback whales everywhere. That was the first time I saw wildlife en masse. A light switch went off in my head: “Wow, this is special.” Years later, in 2018, I had my first tantalizing glimpse of what the Antarctic has to offer. I was there filming for the BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet, and the fin whale gatherings were on the long list of animals we wanted to film. One day we saw a gathering of about 150 whales. It was spectacular, but very brief. I think we ended up watching them for only an hour. The German research ship we were on had a tight schedule, and we couldn’t stay. As soon as I had seen that, I was like, “I need to film this.” And I wanted to get it from all angles: in the air with drones, at water level with gyro-stabilized cameras, and diving underwater with a camera. And the only way of doing that, really, is with a sailboat, so you're super-maneuverable. When this series, Epic Adventures, was commissioned, I knew I wanted to try it. It was our most ambitious, most expensive episode. There was no budget for a reshoot. We had to get it. After two years of planning, we gathered an amazing team and set sail on a 75-foot sailboat across the infamous Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica. We could only stay 28 days. The whale gatherings are thought to happen right at the end of the season when it’s possible to visit the southern continent. So we were there as late as we possibly could be before the weather would get really bad. Near the start we saw this small gathering, but it was too rough to film. We knew it was happening, but the days just started ticking by. I felt awful. I’m in Antarctica, surrounded by cool people, looking for whales, it doesn't get better than that. But so many people were counting on us to get this. The idea of not being able to pull it off was really hard to take. Three quarters of the way through the shoot, I remember lying in my bunk, and my friend Dan Beecham, the other underwater cameraperson, was in the bunk above me. There were pieces of icebergs grinding on the hull, and you could hear the anchor dragging because the winds were so strong. And I remember looking up in the dark. “Dan, was this a bad idea? Like, do you think we can actually do this?” He was very calm and very wise, and said, “We can do this. We've done all the right things.” He was kind of the voice of reason in all the doubt. And the next day, the winds were calm. The sea was flat. The sun was out. For the first time, there were no clouds. And just as we were pulling the anchor up, I lifted up my binoculars to the horizon, and that was when I saw what looked like cannons going off in an old sea battle. It was all these whale blows backlit by the rising sun. As we motored towards the whales, the blows getting closer and closer, I couldn’t decide what lens to put on the drone. It's something I’ve done a thousand times, but I knew this could be the only flight. Finally, I was like, “Okay I just need to pick a lens and go.” Then I flew the drone up above the gathering. I have never seen anything so epic on a monitor screen, all these blows going off in front of snowy mountains. There were some 300 feasting whales. But to really appreciate how big these animals are, we needed to get in the water. The biggest danger of the whole shoot was getting lost while diving. It’s very easy to lose divers in the open ocean. We were all kind of on edge when we dropped in. All we could see is blue. The water's below freezing, so immediately you get this brain freeze. And then you wait. For permitting and disturbance reasons, the whales have to come to you. We could feel the whales before we could see them. Fin whales make a really deep noise you can’t hear. But you can feel your guts vibrate. Then a big group of chinstrap penguins came whizzing past us. And then out of the gloom, I see this weird shape. All of a sudden this giant fin whale mouth comes out of the blue and cruises right past me. It was so close we could look each other in the eye. There are no words to describe that feeling—to see an animal that big, that close. I followed its eye with the camera, and the body kept coming and coming. Eventually, the tail came past and I was like, “I’m not going to get shot like that in while.” But soon enough, another whale came along, then two more. All of a sudden there were whales coming from all directions. After we got out and the sun started to dip, whale blows were still going off everywhere. I remember Martha Kane, the medic, turning to me and saying, “You need to take a look at this with your eyeballs. Stop trying to film it and just look at it.” So often with this job, you're so focused on filming that you spend the entire time with your head in a monitor. I remember going up to the bow of the boat and looking out at the whales. It was like looking at a scene of what the planet was before humans messed it up. I'm very lucky that I get to go all over the world and see amazing animals, but literally everywhere we go, a guide or scientist tells us, “You should’ve seen what it was like 10, 20 years ago.” Wildlife populations are nosediving all over the world, but it’s possible to bring some of them back. Fin whales almost went extinct during the commercial whaling era. Now, thanks to protections and good governance, they’ve come back from the edge. And to see this truly wild place, with whales and penguins and the snowy mountains behind them, it was really emotional. This is what happens when you give nature an opening. It'll do the hard work, it will come back. We just need to give it the chance. ​​Bertie Gregory is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker and the host of the new Disney+ show Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory. He is a National Geographic Explorer and has hosted six projects for National Geographic (Leopards at the Door, Jaguar Vs Croc, Wild_Life, Resurrection Island, and The Big Freeze). Resurrection Island won the Best Television Host award at the Jackson Wild Awards in 2019. Bertie also films for the BBC David Attenborough series Seven Worlds, One Planet, and is one of BAFTA’s youngest-ever cinematography winners.

[joellesolo]

Oh, yay, another freak out!

I am having a really hard time getting myself to eat 350 calories at dinner for the latuda to take full effect (and it's only day three 😭) and tonight it was just like, fuck it, let's order pizza and garlic twists, I like that, it's easy, it's been so shitty these last few weeks and we literally have to do NOTHING except tap a few buttons to order it?!

So, I eat a garlic twist (and, FUCK, instant regret, because they are hard as HELL and my mouth is in SO MUCH PAIN from the jaw-clenching for over two weeks straight, so I just gently chewed while crying and it took like, five minutes), and then moved on to my feta and chicken pizza, which is normally my favorite kind of pizza, and took one bite, and... nearly threw it back up instantly. It was instant repulsion. I have NO idea why, if the cheese was bad or if it's just me, but... yeah, I instantly started crying again and panicking, because ALL I needed to do was eat a piece of pizza and a garlic twist and I would've been set for the latuda, and then I JUST COULDN'T FUCKING DO IT, AGAIN 😫

And Michael's attempting to comfort me, "oh just do your best, it's okay if you can't eat all of it," and I'm just like, UH NO IT'S FUCKING NOT, THE MEDICATION LITERALLY WON'T WORK, WHY ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS?! (because we've been going over this over and over again for the last three days straight) and it's just soo goddamn frustrating, like, FUCK, no one is fucking LISTENING TO THE WORDS I AM SAYING!!!!! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! 🤯 (I should add, it's not just him; it's literally EVERYONE IN MY LIFE, my parents, the girls, majority of my friends, like, it's just fucking baffling at this point??! No one will listen to me because I'm a "crazy person," apparently?!?)

So I'm sobbing, and now grossed out because of the disgusting fucking pizza, and I just grab another stupid garlic twist (which is even somehow HARDER at this point because it's cold by now, RIP my sensitive mouth 😭), and chew super slowly on it, getting more nauseated with every bite. And I finish, and I'm like, okay, how many calories was that?!, and he's like, that's probably about 250, that's good, don't worry about it, and I'm just like, 😒 NO IT IS NOT!, so he gets me some pink lemonade and is like, okay this is probably another hundred? and hands me the lithium and latuda and I chug it and take the meds.

Okay, so, this is where the post actually starts. That was the backstory, wow, fuck me 😭

I head upstairs to do my 'evening routine,' which is just the only time of day I get alone time, and consists of: flossing, computer time (ie, checking tumblr for like, not even seven minutes), and then journaling (which used to be silk & sonder but fuck them and their money hungry founder) and is now more like plannering I guess? (Anyway, guess which step I'm still stuck on 😳 it's been an HOUR since I came upstairs and I'm still on the computer, for the following reason...)

But I'm sooo nauseous at this point, and it takes me forever to floss because I have to keep pausing to breathe and close my eyes, and then I text Michael to ask, "hey, do you think I can take some zofran" (which I have been prescribed for years) "or would that not even help because this nausea is from overeating?? can't google because staring at the phone is making it so much worse 😭" and, typically, he didn't reply.

(Okay, so, in his defense, I've been... well, insane lately, so, he's fed up with me... but, in my defense, I feel like this constitutes an emergency, and it would've been nice had he at least checked his phone and could've given me a response, at least, or even come upstairs?! Whatever...)

So I just keep breathing, and make my way to my bed slowly, and pull out my computer and open tumblr, and before I start catching up on the dash, I'm like, okay fuck it, I'm going to puke, let me see if zofran helps when you overeat or not?!

... and, google was not helpful. And I'm at the point where it's like... what do I have to lose, right? I can take it, and it'll help, or I take it, and it WON'T help, but... it's not like it'll make everything worse, at least? I SPECIFICALLY asked my psych about if I was about to take BOTH new meds, with zofran because it's one of my as needed meds on an occasional basis, and he said, oh yeah that's fine, there's no interaction.

But, you know, I'm a worrier! That's what I do! So, you know, I figure may as double check, right?! And, well, it's a good thing I did, because:

...

LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! A RARE BUT POTENTIALLY LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION?!

Then maybe don't tell me it's okay to take with lithium?!?!?!

And, anyway, so I freaked out about that, that he fucking said it was a-okay to take, and DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING CHECK!!! and now I'm like, what else is interacting with all my different meds?!?!? and I immediately opened a text post to vent and scream into the void because no one in my life will put up with me anymore and... fuck. It's literally been FORTY FIVE MINUTES since I started, and I am SO far behind in my routine now 😭

Goddamn. Shit just keeps getting worse and worse. Can I get a fucking break yet?!

Oh, also, yes, I am STILL super nauseated. And, I can't even do anything about it. But, at least I haven't thrown up all over my computer, so, silver linings, I guess?? 😭

[soir-rouges-esprit]

xxxi.c: Coke, Blood & Handguns, the pain was so … real? … … … I sit in bed looking at my hands, flexing them in and out; in complete awe of the feeling and experience, I had just gone through … and for it all to be … just a nightmare? … I get up, get myself dressed, and walk out into the living room and try and forget it all, M had made bacon & eggs with French Toast. “Wanna plate dipshit?” she said with a fork in her mouth and a slight mumble. She had her hair in a bun … wearing a large loose white Third Eye Blind T-shirt, and light blue panties, with a lighter blue little knife pattern in-printed on them. Duh, I fucking love breakfast so uh … give me give me. She let out a little giggle followed by a grin “Here” She gave me a large plate stacked like The City Center. “Your phone rang while you were asleep, it was Mrs.Van … I let it ring” Shit … ok. I demolished my plate of food, downed a cup of medium roast, took my phone and went into the bedroom to call ... The Viper … … … The phone rang and rang, then *Click* “Rouge?” Yeah yeah … it's fuckin me. You called? “Yes, we have a contract … a drug deal of sorts” Ok … what does that have to do with catching the fuck head? I TOLD YO- “STOP Stop … yes yes I know, you wanted no side gigs, but this is important, we need this deal to fund our whole murder parade … you cannot simply kill a gangster such as he with no cash behind it. Plus this contact is a key figure in protecting our turf against those corporate fucks at K” your turf, not mine … *Sigh* ok so … what do they want? How much and where exactly? And who's the contact? Hard to believe anyone outside of the feds who are capable of fucking with K-Industries. “They want Coke from our top shelf supply … they also want … ALL, of it … ” We both sat on the phone in silence for a second. Fucking … all of … wow, that's, that has to be- “A Cartel Quarter … yes” I sit down on the bed … in shock. Holy shit. A Cartel Quarter was a massive amount of drugs … twenty-five kilos to be exact … it was called the “Cartel” Quarter for maybe obvious reasons, but also primarily because it was something only the Cartel typically was capable of selling/smuggling; so for a client to request such an order … was either a setup … or a heavenly angel disguised as a dressed up, deep-pocketed coke addict. No way! That's reaks of deceit, no one demands that much upfront, It has to be a setup! It Has To Be!! “CALM Yourself child … yes yes … I agree it is indeed a lot, and typically … suspicious … however … this contact isn't one to work within the Fed nor bluff on his … Habitual Needs … they've been vetted by my people … I promise your bond it's safe.” … *sigh* shit … How much are we promised here? And you haven't answered my question on Who it is yet either? “... *sigh* It's a Man … by the name of Mr.F, he is a beneficiary of Argent Energy … he's a Billionaire … as he Loves to tote about whilst drunk. He has promised us seven-hundred and fifty-thousand just for the product … with an extra two-hundred and fifty-thousands for transport, hazard pay, and finally extra to fill all of our pockets. Twenty-five-Thousand for each individual involved” … … … twenty-five … thousand. Just for me? “yes Salem … just for you. The rest of the one million will be used as our operating cash, aka the money we shall use to skewer Alzon” … … … ok … ok … how exactly is this taking place? Am I driving a truck or escorting one? Hundreds of back and forth small deliveries with couriers? What's the plan here? “You and … the other driver … will be one of two box trucks, disguised as furniture movers, you will take half of the product, the other truck the other half, you and the other driver will be in the same truck, swapping driving duties when/if necessary, you will both leave tomorrow night at eleven pm … and shall drive for roughly fifteen hours through Denver all the way to Salt Lake City” ... [To Be Continued]

[harringtonswriting]

okay this took me way longer than i wanted to like, fully read and digest but oH MY GOODNESS JADE 🥺💕

this is absolutely so breathtaking, so wonderfully delightful, adorable, sweet, beautiful... i could go on for hours about how much i LOVE the tangled!au and how well you wrote this

im gonna put more thoughts under the cut so i dont clog the dash but pls know i am in LOVE with this au

Flowers made up of a thousand colours, petals dripping with dew, their anthers heavy with pollen. A field of every flower he's ever seen and a hundred others he's not familiar with. He has really, truly, never seen anything like it. Not even the spectacle of the Palace could hold a candle to what he sees before him. No books he'd read growing up had ever conjured an image as sharply magical as this.

your imagery? your descriptions? breathtaking. like i can see this and how gorgeous it must look in the sunlight and wowowow steve's girl is SO talented

A rainbow of light arcs through the air and caresses your cheek, and the wind chime hanging in the window tinkles softly with a warm summer breeze. The tower echoes with your huffing breath. The pan is too heavy for you to hold any longer and you let it drop with a wrist-tugging defeat. 

i love this description so much, like? i can close my eyes and see what steve sees and it's beautiful, like probably more beautiful than tangled itself, i love this version, your version SO much 💕

The hair on his head and tucked behind his ears is comely as corn silk but much darker. It shines in the descending sunlight now flooding the room. There's a golden tinge to everything at this time that leaves no inch of his person unscathed; his eyes glow with it, his irises a melting brown that reminds you of rare, thick honey. 

god i am SO in love with your steve and the way you describe him; he's glowing and he's a treasure himself like who cares about the tiara when we have tangled!steve?

He tries to intimidate you. Steve is not very intimidating. He frowns and he looks unhappy rather than angry, the worst he dips into is a pestered annoyance. His stomach gurgles in the ensuing silence.

the commentary about steve i'm 🥺 even though this is an au and you have total free reign, which is wonderful, you still manage to capture the steve-ness of steve harrington

You look like one of the women from his storybook. A water nymph. A siren. The room is warm with steam, and his cheeks, hot to begin with, emanate enough heat to warm your tub again as he makes the comparison. Your looks alone might draw him to drowning. 

WOW STEVE IS IN LOVE HUH? good for him!! admire his gorgeous girl!! i love that steve has a storybook and he's seeing this magical girl, and just the consistency of the water imagery and concepts? yes please? i am falling even more in love

Eddie takes a step forward, his shoes like a thunderclap across the wooden floor.

AHHHHH EDDIE i am in love with him now too and we've had him for like fives minutes. he's gonna stir stuff up i think and i am ready for it, i love him and i love this au SO much 💕💕💕

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧

You want to see the floating lights. Steve wants his satchel back. You come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial… sorta. tangled!au

10k words, reader insert, fem!reader, medieval times (ish!), begrudging allies, fake dating/marriage, lots of changes from tangled movie but it’s got the spirit, I tried to be inclusive of all hair types but it is magical and floor length nonetheless, magical realism, TW for abusive mother + narcissism, mother is awful, steve is gonna show her the world is a good place!! allies to friends to lovers, pining

˗ˋˏ ☆ ˎˊ˗

Steve's hands are bleeding by the time he works his way into the tower, raw from the rough grit of old hewn stone. He hisses with every handhold he finds, adrenaline staving off the worst of the pain as his eyes scrabble for the next ledge. 

Five feet, three. His hand slaps into the dark wood of a window ledge and he heaves himself up, the joints of his arms screaming in protest. Were it not for the rumbling of horse hooves like an earthquake outside of the grotto he might've given up, hoped for a soft landing. 

The threat of being caught propels him forward. 

He lands on the tiled flooring of the main atrium of the tower with an audible plop of fabric, his satchel clunking hard by his hip. 

"Stars," he says. He breathes hard, trying and failing to slow his heart now he's found sanctuary. 

He lifts his cheek from the mosaic beneath and peers around the room. He gawps. 

It's mostly dark, and still he can make out the intricate, masterful artwork decorating the curved wall. Flowers made up of a thousand colours, petals dripping with dew, their anthers heavy with pollen. A field of every flower he's ever seen and a hundred others he's not familiar with. He has really, truly, never seen anything like it. Not even the spectacle of the Palace could hold a candle to what he sees before him. No books he'd read growing up had ever conjured an image as sharply magical as this.

He pushes up onto his elbows. Sunlight drips into the room from the wooden shutters he’d crawled through, illuminating the feet of each cabinet, a washing basin, and the brick oven under a staircase that ascends into the tower. He sniffs and finds the stick of coal dust heavy in the air; somebody lives here. 

Steve's quickly proven right when you swing from behind an alcove near the kitchenette. 

He startles backward and away from you as you advance, a cast iron pan held aloft in delicate hands and wielded with an intimidating confidence. 

"Holy- Wait! Wait, please," he cries, holding his hands palm out in surrender. 

Steve doesn't suppose you'd been expecting such a feeble intruder. He'd feel a strike against his dignity if it hadn't worked — you slow in the centre of the room, your breath coming in quick pants as the iron pan in your grip shakes. 

You're scared.

You're beautiful. 

"What do you want?" you ask, a pleading sort of twist to your question. "I don't have anything. I don't have anything worth taking." 

"Please," he says loudly. "I don't want anything. Sanctuary for the night, nothing else." 

Your chest rises. Steve feels smarmy, but he finds his eyes drawn to the valley of your chest, the bodice of your dress. A soft and buttery orange sewn with the palest pink and lilac embroidery. It's a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship, lovely enough that he wonders briefly if you're of royal descent, but the dress itself is a peasant's gown. 

His eyes rise back to your unhappy face. Your brows are pulled up at the starts, a delicate display that betrays your fear. 

You glare at him. 

"You can't stay here," you assert.

"One night." Steve pulls his satchel into his lap to procure a small coin purse. He'd love to say it was his coin purse. He cannot. "I have silvers. I can pay you." 

He will not be paying you anything. He won't rob you, though. He's not a total miscreant. 

"You can't stay," you say again, raising your iron pan higher above your shoulder. He sees a flash of something at your hip. "My mother–" 

"Holy stars, is that your hair?" 

You seize up, making an almost inaudible sound of dejection. "No." 

"Are you sure? It looks very much like hair."

Steve anchors his hand to the floor and leans downward to get a better look. You turn with him, attempting to shield your long hair from view and only helping him along. It sways with your movements, the ends near long enough to dance over the floor. 

"You have to leave. Leave!" 

Steve bites the inside of his lip. A rainbow of light arcs through the air and caresses your cheek, and the wind chime hanging in the window tinkles softly with a warm summer breeze. The tower echoes with your huffing breath. The pan is too heavy for you to hold any longer and you let it drop with a wrist-tugging defeat. 

"I'm not trying to scare you. But I really can't leave. I won't harm a hair on your head," he adds with a smile, eyebrows slightly raised in wait of your laughter. 

You don't laugh, nor do you smile. 

"My mother, she'll come home any minute now," you say unconvincingly. 

He tips his head to one side. "Then I'll speak with your mother and get her permission to stay." 

"She won't give it." 

You're really too handsome to be frowning as you are. Steve wants to do as he does with all pretty people and make you smile, but the task feels insurmountable. You want him to leave. He can't. 

"If I leave, I'll be killed," he says. While it's not a lie in its entirety, neither is it a truth.

Your grip tightens around the handle of your pan. "What?" you ask worriedly. 

He feels guilty for garnering your concern though it's exactly what he'd been aiming for, nodding his head gravely. 

"I'm being pursued by ruffians. For days now. I only need to hide here for the night while they clear the forest. They'll look for me elsewhere, after." 

His storytelling voice is clear. Admittedly much too dramatic and yet you eat it up like a child devours spun sugar. Your hands press to your chest, frying pan held in your palm like the pommel of a sword. 

"Ruffians?" you repeat.

He swoops in. "Not to worry. They didn't see me scale the tower, or even enter the valley." He gives you a commending smile. "You're very well hidden."

"Not well enough, clearly." 

"I got lucky."

You back away from him. You don't turn your back to him, smart girl, only widen the gap between your two bodies with a fluttering unease. 

"I wish I could help you," you whisper urgently, "I wish I could. But my mother, if she finds you here, I- I'm not sure what she'll do." 

Steve blinks dazedly. "She would kill me?" 

"No! Of course not." 

"Then whatever it is will be a kinder fate." 

That shatters the very last of your resolve. You visually err on what to do next, how to handle his being here. Steve’s head races with thoughts of the palace guards, of Thomas and Carol, and of you — your skin lit by the sun, and your long, long hair. 

"Do you want some water?" you ask quietly. 

The relief he conjures is as authentic as it comes. "Yes. More than anything." 

—

Your mysterious stranger sits at one end of the table in Mother's seat while you sit across from him, a small clay drinking cup encapsulated by his large hand. You're making no effort to hide how closely you're watching him, though if he's under the impression it's for safety's sake then that's best. 

He's very, very fine. 

You haven't seen a man in person before, and if they all look like this you might wish you'd ventured out of the tower sooner. He wears a worn brown tunic that shows evidence of numerous careful darnings, its top button popped open to reveal a tiniest hint of curled hair disappearing downward. 

The hair on his head and tucked behind his ears is comely as corn silk but much darker. It shines in the descending sunlight now flooding the room. There's a golden tinge to everything at this time that leaves no inch of his person unscathed; his eyes glow with it, his irises a melting brown that reminds you of rare, thick honey. 

"The flowers," he says after an aching pause. "Are they painted? They must have been a huge expense." 

You follow his gaze, surprised at his question in two ways. That he would ask, and that he would think somebody else did them. 

"They're how I spend my summers." 

"Looking at them?" 

You laugh from the pure joy of the complement he's implying, unused to his awed reaction. Mother usually nods or hums at a new unveiling, and one time you'd earned a, "That's wonderful, darling." 

You're not sure she'd actually been looking at the time. 

"I painted them myself." 

The stranger's jaw drops. "A little thing like you?" he asks. 

"I'm hardly little," you deny, neither of stature nor burden. 

"You're young, aren't you? You can't be more than twenty summers."

"What a funny way of speaking," you murmur, more to yourself than him. "I'm twenty. I'll be one and twenty, in a few days." 

His eyes narrow. "Well, what's wrong with you?" 

"What's wrong with me?" 

"You aren't married?" 

You try not to be offended and fail spectacularly. "Most don't get married until they're nearing five and twenty!" 

"Most," he agrees. "But a girl as pretty as you? Who can paint like this? Don't tell me you've been hiding from every man in the kingdom."

You turn your face from him in case he can tell how flustered you are. Two complements in one day is unprecedented. Your heart bump-bump-bumps. 

"Are you married?" you ask swiftly, hoping to redirect this line of conversation away from something as treacherous as your own isolation. Any answer would expose you.

"I am, actually. She has the most gorgeous shine to her face, and her laugh is melodic and sweet as anything, a tinkling sound. She's bronze-skinned, a slight thing, but she's worth her weight in gold." 

He grins. You can't help but smile in response, infected by his endearing affection.

"What's her name?" you ask, voice near a coo. 

"Argento." 

You stare at him. His smile gets so big it looks like it could bruise his cheeks. 

"You're talking about money." 

"She's a brilliant bedfellow, isn't she? She keeps me warm and fed every night. She's a good girl." He sighs and crosses his arms behind his head. His attempt at nonchalance is ruined when he cringes in pain and drops them gracelessly back into his lap.

You cover your mouth and laugh. He's funny. Mother doesn't make half as many jokes. 

Mother. As if the mere thought of her is enough to summon her presence, a shrill call echoes from the bottom of the tower. 

"Y/N, darling, throw down the rope for your mother!" 

You jump to your feet, slippers sliding against the mosaic floor in a hurried scratch. "You have to hide," you whisper harshly.

The stranger pouts at you. "Seriously, let me talk to her, I–" 

You shake your head voraciously at his loud volume and press your finger to your lips, eyes begging with him to be quiet. 

"Please," you whisper, "hide. I'll hide you 'til tomorrow, when she leaves in the morning." 

He doesn't move. 

"Y/N? I don't have all day!" The irritation in her voice is obvious. 

"Please," you whisper again. 

He gets up with a mild eye roll. You rush to the window and look down at your mother where she stands at the bottom, looking impossibly small. 

"There you are! What are you waiting for? I'm not very happy with you, darling." 

You lick your lips. "Sorry!" you call, turning to the rope spooled to the right of the window. You throw the rope over the hook at the top of the frame, pausing when you see the stranger lingering in your peripheral vision at the top of the stairs. 

"What are you doing? Go!" you whisper. 

He nods toward your hands. "Couldn't have thrown that down to me, could you?" 

You shoo him away, his easy laughter doing nothing to assuage your racing heart as you drop the length of looped rope down to your mother. You wait until she's secured her foot in the loop before you start to walk backwards, lifting her weight. 

It doesn't get any less laborious as you grow up. By the time she's reached the top of the tower you can hardly breathe. You cough so hard you feel nauseous. 

"Holy stars, you sound ghastly. And it's completely unbecoming to cough like that without covering your mouth. You know that." 

"Sorry, mother." 

She hums. You can't decipher what it means, but it likely isn't something forgiving. 

"I hope you had some time to think about our argument." 

You hold your clasped hands behind your back, hair tickling your knuckles. "I did… I'm sorry, mother." 

She stares at you for a moment from under dark eyebrows before her face lifts, the wrinkles in her soft forehead appearing more prominently as she says, "Darling, why do you do this? Why do you insist on making me angry?" She raises her hands to your neck, long fingernails weaving seamlessly into the mass of hair she finds there. "You know I'm only trying to protect you." 

"I know," you say, tears burning hot behind your eyes. You will them away. Crying will make it worse, it always does. 

She toys with your hair, eyes on your shoulder. You have the peculiar feeling that though she's looking at you she isn't truly looking at you, but through you. Her eyes are distant, unfocused. 

Her finger wraps into your hair, twisting a strand behind your ear over, and over, and over. You shift uncomfortably at the tugging feeling at the back of your scalp but don't protest to her touches — any touch at all feels like a gift. Mother isn't generous with her affections. 

"Maybe I've been too hard on you," she murmurs. 

You loose a pained breath as she takes her hand from your hair and brings it to your face instead. She draws a line from the corner of your eye outwards, a kind, soft petting that gives you goosebumps. 

"No, mother. I'm grateful for everything I have. I was being unreasonable, I don't need anything else. I… shouldn't have asked about the stars." 

"No, you shouldn't have." 

She moves from you to hang her robe up on the hanger. You tamp down your frowning because mother hates when you make her feel guilty and try to decide how it is you're going to escape to your bedroom for the night. You have lots of questions you want to ask the stranger. 

You spot something out of the corner of your eye as your mother flits to the kitchen. There, on the table, sits two clay cups half empty and at opposite ends. You side eye your mother and find she's distracted herself with putting a wooden log into the oven's belly, grumbling about how you've neglected your afternoon chores. 

You throw yourself in front of the table with a thud. 

"What are you doing?" Mother asks, disgruntled. 

"Nothing! I mean, I'm cleaning up. I forgot to empty these cups of paint after I finished." 

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" 

The thing about mother is that most of the things she says are neutral. Anybody else might think she was being light-hearted or blasé. She phrases everything so meticulously. 

But she is not kind. 

You laugh breathily and turn to the cups. Your heart leaps into your throat when you find the cup isn't the worst of what might give you away. Hooked over the back of the chair is the stranger's leather satchel, a ratty old thing sagging with the weight of its contents. 

You take it. The zipper snags and the cause of the weight reveals itself in a clinking upheaval, a flash of light across the floor. You throw yourself over the chair to grab for it, a mindless scrambling, silver and gems cool and sharp under your hand. You shove it back in the satchel, no clue what it is. You've never seen anything like it. 

"What are you doing?" Mother asks, her voice occluded by the soft bubbling of the cooking pot. 

"It's dusty down here!" you call. 

"Yes, well… it's to be expected when all you do is paint all day, darling." 

"You're right," you say quietly. "Of course you are, mother." 

-

Steve hadn't suspected your room would look as plain as it does. You've a simple bed with a modest quilt and one tired looking pillow, though it's been made with neat folded corners. A stuffed rabbit sits at the bottom, lavender velveteen with a pink button nose. He doesn't touch it, though he'd like to. He's not sure he's ever touched a stuffed animal before. 

He can hear you talking to your mother, or rather your mother talking at you. He must say, she doesn't sound like the easiest woman to get along with. But Steve's never had a mother, so maybe that's just what they're like. 

You have a small table to one corner covered in small trinkets. Shells, stones, papers loose and bound. He flips open the soft cover of a book and finds it filled with pencil sketches, corner to corner of every page. 

You've drawn the most mundane things in remarkable colour and detail. The cooking pot over the stove top, the washing basin, the wooden table. Your slippers, your hair brush. Ordinary things in extraordinary detail, and extraordinary colour. 

He pauses at a loose leaf of brown paper tucked toward the end of the book. It's a bird on the window ledge, a fruit dove. The face and beak are in great detail, white feathers made corporeal by the smudge of hard pastel. The wings are rough, white and pale pinks and greens unrendered. 

Footsteps sound up the stairs. 

Shit, Steve thinks. They're a hurried sound. He's been sussed. He turns on his heel to find a place to hide. 

"Shit," he says, climbing the circular platform that holds your bed and collapsing to the floor, wriggling on his back until he's hidden underneath the bed and sheets completely. 

He holds his breath as the door creaks open. 

"Um… mister… uh, stranger man?" 

He waves his hand from under the bed. 

"Oh, right. Move over," you say, and then you're getting under the bed to join him. 

Steve moves over and suddenly you're there beside him, the two of you pressed arm to arm under your bed. Your smell is impossible to ignore, the fruity fragrance of jasmine and milk-soap. He stares at your face as you settle, your eyelashes fluttering, your subtle smile. 

You turn your head to his. The two of you flinch in tandem, eyes flying away from each other to the underside of the bed. 

Oh, Steve thinks. Holy stars. 

You've painted lanterns on every slat. Purple paper lanterns that glow orange and yellow in their centres, tens of them in different sizes. It's as breathtaking as your field of flowers downstairs despite the major decrease in scale.

"Wow," he says, on impulse, "these are amazing." 

You inhale happily. "Thank you. The floating lights are my favourite thing. They always come out-" You cut yourself off with a cough. "Well. I love them." 

"'Floating lights,'" he quotes. You're strange. 

"I wanted to go see them, but…"

"But mother said no?" 

"No," you murmur weakly. He takes it for yes. "She doesn't believe they're not stars." 

He can hear each individual breath you take this close and suspects that you can hear his own. It's a funny thing to be this close to you when he doesn't know you beyond your painting and your too-long hair. He can see a lot more of your details, your tiny bumps and fine hairs.

"What's your name?" he asks quietly. 

"I'm Y/N." You lay your ear against the wooden floor to look at him. "What's your name?" 

"Steven. Steve will do just fine."

"Steve," you say, like you're testing it out. "Steve, you lied to me." 

His eyes widen. 

"Did I?" he asks, trying to disarm you with a smile and failing yet again. 

"You lied," you whisper. "What's in the satchel, Steve?" 

"It's not what you think." 

"I think it's exactly what I think." 

You're giving him a hard stare. He smiles and smiles and smiles, his facade cracking the longer you look at him. His breath all falls out in a rush, blowing the hair from his eyes as he sighs. "Alright, fine. I lied about the ruffians. In my defence, there isn't a big difference between those fools from the palace and true ruffians." 

You sit up and wack your head on the bed slats above. Steve reaches out to help though there's nothing to do. 

You push his hand away. "Palace guards?" you ask in an urgent whisper, hand held to the top of your head. 

"Obviously. They don't just let you walk out of there without a fight… Wait, why are you surprised?" He measures your sheepish face. "You conniving, deceitful gir!" 

"I might not know what it is, but I can tell it's not the kind of thing someone like you would have on his person," you say, grumbling at his insults. 

His injustice at having been tricked drops away. "You don't know what it is? You've never seen a tiara?”

Your embarrassment is adorable. You change the subject deftly. “You lied to me, let’s not forget. You’re in danger because of the consequences of your own actions. Can’t believe I fell for your sob story. I should tell my mother exactly what kind of man I have hiding under my bed.”

“Who you’re hiding under your bed with.”

You climb out from under the bed with an irritated harrumph. Steve untangles a length of your hair that’s gotten wrapped around one of the beds feet before you can yank your own head back and follows you out. 

“Don’t be mad,” he says.

“You’re a criminal,” you say angrily. 

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Your furious whispers pause when your mother starts to sing downstairs. Steve can see the debate on your face. Yes, he’s a liar, yes, he’s a criminal, and yes, you should churn him back out into the valley. Send his untrustworthy self on his sorry way and wipe your hands of him entirely. 

To do so would mean admitting to your mother that he’s here. 

“Just… don’t talk to me. And don’t steal anything.”

He grins. “As you wish, my lady.”

—

“Y/N?” a voice asks in the dark. 

It’s impossible to relax with him here. You’re worried he’s going to slit your throat while you sleep. You’re doubly worried he’ll see your unattractive resting face. Warped priorities aside, you can’t make yourself sleep. 

“Yeah?” you whisper. 

“The floating lights?”

Your eyes fly open. You get the disorienting feeling of blindness and blink in the dark until you can make out the faintest glow of moonlight under the door. “Yeah?”

“Those are called lanterns.”

You swallow a rough breath. “Lanterns.”

“Mm-hm. They’re made of paper. You light them and send them up with the breeze. The ones you’ve been seeing, they’re probably for the lost princess.”

“The lost princess?”

“Yeah. The entire kingdom floods into the town and each person lights a lantern for her. It’s more of a festival these days, but… They're supposed to help her find her way home. If she’s really lost, that is.”

You hum something, an attempt to reply, but you're too distracted to say anything else. Floating paper. A lost princess. You close your eyes and clouds of purple, pink and orange burn against your eyelids. 

— 

"You want me to what?" 

"I want you to take me to see the lanterns." 

Steve's back aches from sleeping flat on the floor all night long, and his shoulders scream every time he moves from climbing, and his hands are gross and sore with scabs, and he truthfully doesn't have the patience for this conversation. 

"No." 

"Fine. Don't take me, and I will keep the tiara as an innkeeper's fee." 

"There's usually breakfast at an inn," he says. 

You slap a steaming hot bowl of porridge in front of him. You've drizzled the surface with honey and placed red berries over the top to form a smiling face. The heat of the porridge has melted the berries into blobs that break from their skin when he pokes them with a spoon. 

"Oh," he says. Nice.

He looks up to find you dressed in a different gown than yesterday, this one made up of a green bodice with white sleeves and a white skirt. The bottom hem is sewn with dainty yellow flowers, the bodice with vines in a darker shade of green. It's a very sweet dress on an otherwise sweet looking girl, if you ignore the formidable twist of your brow. 

Fine, he'll bite. Your frown is sweet too. 

"I'm not taking you anywhere," he says, about to scoop up a bite of porridge. He's starving. 

You pull the bowl away from him, his spoon diving straight into the gnarled wooden table. 

"You'll take me, or I'll tell the first palacemen that I find who you are and where you were." 

"This isn't how you negotiate." 

"Good thing I'm not negotiating." 

He tries to intimidate you. Steve is not very intimidating. He frowns and he looks unhappy rather than angry, the worst he dips into is a pestered annoyance. His stomach gurgles in the ensuing silence. 

"Why do you need someone to take you? Your mother left just this morning by herself."

You raise your eyebrows. 

Steve sighs. "And if I did take you… then what? I suppose you'll want safe passage home, as well?" 

You slide his porridge a little bit closer to his outstretched hand.

"You'll be coming back this way anyhow." 

Well, yeah. He didn't know you knew that. Steve sighs, the most pained and inconvenienced groan he can muster because everything is awful and he's hurting in six different places. You don’t budge. 

"Fine. Fine! I'll take you into the city to see the lanterns, and I'll bring you home. And you will give me back my satchel and my- uh, findings." 

You push the porridge toward him. "That was easier than I expected."

Steve wishes he could pretend your smugness wasn't sweet, either. Because he isn't going to make this easy for you, not one bit. 

He watches you pack your bag from the table and feels very, very sorry for you. For starters, you don't really have a bag, only a sack for potatoes now emptied. You take two clean dresses down from the clothesline they'd been hanging on and fold them before putting them at the bottom of the sack carefully, and then you're clueless. 

"It'll be five or six days," he says, "now I've lost my horse." 

Lost isn't the right word. His stolen horse had sprinted off into the forest and left him stranded. Another ailment to add to his list — thrown bodily off of a stallion. 

"Do you have any better shoes?" 

You look down at your pretty slippers and grimace. "No." 

"You don't get out much, do you?" 

You ignore him and pull a case of things out from under the small counter in the alcove of your kitchen. You drop a roll of linen bandages into the sack and shove the case back under the counter with your foot as you bring out a block of cheese and a box of matches. 

Poor girl, he thinks. 

"Don't worry too much about it." 

"I'm not worried," you say, topping your provisions off with a punnet of fruit and the last of your fresh flatbread covered in a beeswax wrapping. "This will be fun." 

—

You're scared enough to feel tears welling in your eyes. 

Steve walks ahead of you, shoes hidden by lush green grass as he makes his way toward the valley's exit. You're not sure he's realised you're not behind him, or maybe he has and he refuses to wait. You've finished bricking the secondary entrance to the tower closed again, and while it seems obviously disturbed you have no choice but to hope mother doesn't steer around the back anytime soon. 

Your adrenaline has been pumping ever since you jimmied the tile and unlocked the trap door. Your chest physically aches with anxiety, and your breath has begun to feel short and shallow. 

"Are you coming?" Steve calls. 

You heave the potato sack over your shoulder and take a step forward. 

The earth is soft and hard underfoot, an impossible sensation. You rock your heel back and forth and test the uneven ground for purchase. The temptation to reach down and touch it for the first time is high but Steve's still watching you, so you hurry toward him and try not to fall over. You take a huge, calming breath. 

It smells gorgeous out here. Despite keeping the window cracked and the tower clean, there's a lived-in smell that can't be escaped. Out here, you can practically taste the earth. The crisp air burns your nose. 

Steve keeps a fast pace and neither of you talk. Your companion isn't happy about his predicament and you can't blame him, you've practically taken him hostage. He isn't a poor sport either, and he hasn't been cruel. Quiet, he parts the ivy covering the valley exit and lets you pass. 

The world is even bigger from there. 

"Stay close, okay? I don't know what kind of vagrants we'll come across this far from town." 

You swallow a lump in your throat. "Uh-huh." 

You stay likely too close, your arm gracing his own every now and then. Each time you pull away and each time you end up drifting back toward him. The quiet is impenetrable. You don't know what to say to a man. To anybody. Mother's usually the guiding force of every conversation, and her insistence has left you poorly equipped. 

Steve seems content to languish in silence. 

You walk. You watch the sun move, heat burning your skin by midday. You're not used to walking such long distances or being so exposed to the elements, and by evening you hurt everywhere. Your face shines with perspiration and your shoes chafe your ankles raw, each step a barb. 

As if things couldn't get worse, guilt grabs and holds you. Guilt and fear. What will mother think if she finds out you've left? What would she say? How ridiculously naive, darling. I told you, you aren't to leave the tower. Do you seriously think you know better than I do? Do you think I'm stupid? I'm hurt. I'm hurting that you'd think so low of me. 

You try to shake the thoughts away. A shiver rushes down your spine. 

Steve holds a hand over his eyes, turning his head to the West where the sun approaches the horizon. 

"It'll be dark in a few hours,” he says. 

You nibble the inside of your cheek, voice hoarse and throat dry from your lack of conversation. "Will we camp for the night?" 

He shakes his head, the sun climbing up his neck to paint his brown hair blonde. "If memory serves, there's an inn not far from here." He smiles. "You'll like it." 

"Oh. That's good." 

"Yeah." 

You kick a small stone. "How do you know where we're going?" You'd been on a dirt path now for an hour or two, or rather two dirt paths, worn by carriage wheels. "Everything looks the same." 

"I'm an excellent navigator." 

Sure enough, he navigates the two of you toward a pretty little inn snugly hidden between a crop of towering, leafy trees, a shock of beige and brown in an overwhelmingly green landscape. 

"Le Vilain Caneton," you read off of the sign, giving him a bright smile. "That sounds nice." 

"What did I tell you? You're gonna love this." 

—

Steve doesn't feel bad, at first. 

He throws open the door. The handle slams hard enough into the wood behind it that he's surprised there isn't a cracking sound. He ushers you inside, finding that the handle hasn't broken a hole in the wall because there's already one there. 

It's sleazy, all things considered. Steve has avoided this place pretty much his entire adult life after a trade gone wrong, and while he feels his appearance has changed enough to spare him a skirmish he affects the Steven Harrington manner. Two-timing baby Stevie is nowhere to be seen. 

He's still a two-timer. Case in point. 

"Isn't it charming?" he murmurs to you, hand held aloft behind your back. Not touching but ready to if you step back. 

"Yeah," you say weakly. "Really cute." 

Adorable. 

Steve takes a step that encourages you forward into the main area of the room. The smell of cheap ale blooms and the floor is sticky with it. He regrets how it will likely ruin your pretty slippers but he isn't a coward, walking you right up to the bar where a scary looking guy stands wiping glasses with a dirty rag. 

"Are you the innkeeper?" he asks jovially. "We'd like a room." 

Scary guy squints, looks between you and Steve with apprehension. 

Steve's trying to scare you, not get caught. He throws his arm over your shoulders. You shrink under his touch. It's too late for him to pull away, guilt softening the grasp he has on your shoulder as he lays down a thick facade. 

"My wife's tired as a lamb from walking all day, could we get a hot bath drawn with that?" 

Scary guy spits into the cup with a scoff. "Judy?" he calls out gruffly. 

Steve beams. You curl into him slowly, a flower turning to the sun, hiding from the cold. You still smell of jasmine milk soap after all these hours of walking, but he doesn't miss how the lengths of your hair have grown dishevelled with sweat and wind. He wonders how long it might take you to brush free the knots and tangles. He wonders if you do it in the bath. 

You turn to him with your face shining with a trust he doesn't deserve, like you're seeking his protection. 

"Steve, I don't have any money," you whisper. 

His hand rests in the nook of your neck. "That's alright. Consider it part of your innkeeper's fee." 

"Does this come with breakfast, too?" you ask genuinely. 

Judy, a tall, lithely woman who can't be more than thirty takes her station behind the bar and smiles at you before her eyes follow Steve's arm to his body. He freezes at the calculating tilt of her head, the subtle but not invisible squint. 

"Breakfast is an additional two silvers."

"And for the room and bath?" 

"Ten for the room, five for the bath, two for breakfast." Judy grins. Her hair is like copper, shifting around sharp cheekbones. "Seventeen silvers all together." 

Steve frowns but hands over the money. 

Judy takes you up the first flight of rickety stairs to your room, and nods toward the bathing room as you pass it. She shows you where you'll be spending the night, a ramshackle room with a bed made of what Steve suspects to be more straw than padding. He's relieved at the thick quilt set and folded at the bottom. It looks clean enough. 

"I'll knock when the bath is drawn. Will that be for both of you?" 

And so. Steve had feared this, feared the bath in general, and had forgotten to explain this fear to you. 

"Both of us," he says, nodding. 

You're thankfully smart enough to keep any grievances you have at that to yourself. At least, until the door closes, and you pin him with a look that's a mixture of betrayed and furious. Your eyebrows pinch together. 

"Why did you say that?" 

"It's what's expected of us." 

"By who?" you ask, near belligerent. 

He shushes you, a frown of his own taking form. "By everybody. It's what married couples do, they share the water when travelling. And it wouldn't be proper for you to be in the bathing room by yourself, how could your husband protect your honour?" 

"You're not my husband." 

He shushes you again, this time with a severe expression that finally has you giving pause. Your eyes flash with fear and quickly clear. You take a step back. 

He holds a hand out toward you amicably. "Sorry. But it will be much safer for both of us if we can keep our ruse alive. Someone as handsome as you, it isn't right for your reputation to be travelling with me while you're still unmarried, you know? And for me…" He doesn't want to explain the horrible truth to you. If Steve refuses to leave you, to share you, to let men do what men would like to do to you, that might invite a riot.

"I don't have a reputation," you say. 

He shrugs. "It is safer for us to be married."  He hesitates, remembering why he'd brought you here in the first place. The horrible truth may be unseemly, but it could be enough to get you to bow out. "If we aren't married… Well, it doesn't bear saying." 

"What?" you ask, a curious thing. He loves it, and not only because it works to his advantage. 

"Men will take anything they find beautiful. And without care." 

Your fingers tighten around the mouth of your potato sack bag. 

"I see," you say. "Of course. I knew that, mother always says, but." 

He winces at the reminder of your cruel mother. He feels cruel himself, suddenly, for scaring you on purpose as your mother likely does, for being another member of the opposition in your life. All you want is to see the Princess' lanterns, so much so you've hidden under your bed and painted their colours painstakingly onto each slat of supporting wood. A hidden wish, and one you'd deigned to share with him. He starts to think, Maybe I should just take her. How much could it possibly cost me? 

But Steve's from nothing. He was born from nothing, he grew up with nothing. He is, in the grand scheme of the universe and its many, many stars, nothing. Another orphaned boy destined to waste his life stealing coppers from coin purses and sleeping in doorways. 

The sooner he gets that tiara, the better. No more sleeping outside. No more staring up at the wine dark sky and wondering if any of those blistering stars can hear him. 

If they can, they aren't listening. 

You put your bag down on the floor. It thunks. 

"What have you piled in there, sweetness? A mountain?" he asks, momentarily distracted. 

"Nothing!" you rush to say, standing in front of your bag like it might hide it from his view. 

The door knocks before he can question you further. "The bath!" comes Judy's solid tone. 

"Thank you," Steve says, "we'll be right out." He nods at you. "Your change of clothes?" 

You search through your bag with your shoulders to him, hunched to shield the mystery. 

"You can keep your secrets," he teases lightly. The stars know he keeps his own. 

Through the hallway to the bathing room, Judy kicks open the door, points to the bath as though he might not see it otherwise, and then the small weight by the doorway to keep the door closed. There's no steam to the water. 

"How conning," Steve mutters, closing the door after Judy's departure. 

"What?" you ask, your voice curiously strung. 

"The water’s barely hot." 

"I've never had a hot bath before." 

He looks at you through the corner of his eye. "Never?" 

"Sometimes mother would pour warm water through my hair, but no. Does it hurt, when it's too hot?" 

He can't help grinning at you. "Some of the time," he concedes. "It's a nice kind of hurting, though, do you know what I mean? You'll feel much better after." He chuckles, sticking his finger into the water. It isn't not hot, but it could be better considering its cost. "Not that this could ever hurt you." 

"A nice kind of hurting," you mumble. 

"Mm. You should try to be quick, they might want the bath for someone else soon." 

You nod, eyes darkening with your remembered predicament. You hug your clean dress to your chest. He thinks, suddenly, that your hair looks very heavy, and that it must hurt your neck. 

"I won't look," he says, voice soft with sincerity. 

Your shoulders relax. 

He sits with his legs stretched out and shoes pressed to the door to stop a potential intruder, listening, trying not to listen, as you peel out of your clothes. Your bare feet sound strange over the wooden floor, a shushing sound. Your dress and corset fall in rustling waves. 

You gasp as you step into the water. "Oh," you say, the small sound imbued with a simple, common pleasure. 

He feels the tension like fog over the kingdom waters in summer, when the heat is tangible and the nights are short. You look so soft in your clothes. Outside of them, Steve can only imagine. 

He tries very hard to push it from his mind, feeling an unwelcome heat rise anyhow. He blames it on the humidity of the room. 

You pitter for a moment, in awe of the heat. 

"How–" His voice gets caught. He clears his throat, tries a second time, "How do you wash your hair?" 

"I lather the soap in my hands and–" You seem to be victim of the same affliction as he is. "Steve, could you pass me my soap? I'm sorry, I've left it on the vanity with my dress." 

"If you want me to help you, you need only ask. I've been said to have very hard-working hands."

"I thought you were a thief?"

Steve stands up grudgingly. He usually has much better luck with the ladies, yet all his joking flirtation soars straight over your head. Not that he actually wants it to land, nor does he think he could handle your attention. 

He doesn't look at you as he grabs your bar of soap. He unwraps its beeswax covering and hands it to you, looking decidedly at the damp wall opposite. He feels your wet hand touch his. Your skin is so hot it startles him, and the bar of soap slips between your outstretched fingers, slamming and sliding somewhere unknown. 

"Shit," he says. "Alright, best cover yourself." 

He hears quick movements in the water as he turns to you, throwing his gaze to the floor, only a split flash of your naked skin to be seen. Your soap has rounded the corner of the wooden tub, lying behind your straight back. He kneels to pick it up, scowling at the scum sticking to its underside, and nearly headbutts your forehead as he stands. 

He springs back, and he stares. You have water running in rivers down your face, your wet hair framing your shining cheeks, pooling down. It covers the swell of your chest so precisely that Steve bites his tongue, forcing his eyeline back to your waiting face. You have water in your eyes like tears, their lashes turned to triangles, clinging to one another. 

You look like one of the women from his storybook. A water nymph. A siren. The room is warm with steam, and his cheeks, hot to begin with, emanate enough heat to warm your tub again as he makes the comparison. Your looks alone might draw him to drowning. 

"Steve?" you ask, holding out your hand. 

Hair shifts over your body like a dancing shadow, or a beaming light. He isn't sure. There's something about it that feels extraordinary, not just in the length of it. 

He passes you your soap. Ridiculous, he thinks. Imbecilic. Your hair is hair and nothing more. While you're achingly pretty and you have a fine hand, that is where your remarkability ends. 

"Could you turn around again?" you ask, flustered.

He turns around. 

—

"You brought your pan?" Steve asks you, bewildered. He's standing by the small, thin window, metal-wrought panes that filter the last of the sun's rays. 

You stand shivering by your potato sack and frown at him, setting the pan on the sheets. "I think we might have a more pressing issue." 

"We don't have anything." He seems to appraise your condition. "How do you usually dry your hair?" 

"You wouldn't believe me." 

"How cryptic! I'm afraid you're destined to freeze here, my heart. Or we could take you home, where you may comfortably perform whatever ritual it is that you perform and dry your hair." 

"Wasn't there a fireplace downstairs?" 

"We aren't going back down there." 

"We aren't," you say in agreement, turning his distaste of the collective pronoun back on him. "I'll go by myself." 

"That is a horrible, terrible, awful idea." 

"I'm not going home. I want to– I’m going to see the paper lanterns." 

Steve sighs. After your bath, he'd taken the smaller basin of clean water and washed up, now standing in front of you in his only change of clothes, a darker, navy tunic buttoned to the throat and simple slacks. His shoes are tightly laced even at this hour. You look down at your bare feet and feel majorly abashed by their new blisters and haphazard bandaging. You can't make yourself put your slippers back on. 

He continues his sighing as he crosses the room. He's still grumbling when he opens the door. 

"Well?" he asks, holding it open. 

You pat his arm gently as you pass. "Thank you." 

You trek down the stairs, careful with each footstep that you aren't trodding on a misplaced nail or scary splinter. Wood changes to stone flooring, tiles of a terracotta colour that are large and misshapen. You keep your eyes on them as you cross the room to its only source of heat, a blistering hearth just shy of the room's stage and piano. Somebody sits behind it on the piano bench, though they aren't playing the piano at all, but a great wooden instrument you've never seen. 

"What is that?" you ask Steve. 

He doesn't bend under your attention. He frowns ever so slightly. "What?" 

You point to the instrument as conspicuously as you can. 

Steve takes your shoulder into his hand and guides you toward the fireplace without malice. He's prompting you along, as you've stopped in the middle of the room. 

"You've never seen one of those?" he asks. 

"Not in any of my books." 

"I guess they're still new. That's a vihuela. It's a… it's a nice sound." 

You nod appreciatively, and feel much happier as Steve pulls a nearby chair as close to the hearth as he can without garnering any disgruntled looks from the other patrons. You sneak a peek at their faces. Most are naturally intimidating; there are men with weathered, unkind faces lining the walls with tankards of ale in hand; there are travellers such as yourselves, though they look hardened, sharper than you ever could, coin purses on tables as if daring you to try lifting them; there are women, sparsely, who are sharper in a different way. They remind you of a summer rose, darkly red, a gorgeous head of petals distracting from a thorny stem. 

You sit down in your chair and feel the heat of the fireplace greet your chilled skin, and your soaked back. Your dress has soaked up much of your hairs dripping, the kind of unfortunate happenstance that might spiral into your hypothermic death. Steve puts his chair beside yours and turns his entire body toward yours. You like it. It's like he's hiding you from everybody else, replacing their sneering gazes with his fed-up acceptance. You find extreme comfort in this feeling, as though Steve is the only person in the room with you. 

"Turn to me." 

"What if my hair catches?" 

"You aren't close enough for that." 

You turn to Steve completely. You look like lovers, you must, worse when he takes your slippers and holds them on top of one of his thighs. He has wide thighs, and they make you feel a feeling you don't understand. Everything you know about men has come from Mother or books. Mother claims them to be evil in their entirety. Of the few books you have, and fewer that talk of men beyond the factual, none have ever mentioned why their legs look like that, and why it will make you feel like you've swallowed something much too hot. 

"I'll make sure your hair doesn't go up in flames," he promises grandly, unnecessarily, "consider it one of my guidely duties." 

A shy, pleased smile takes your lips. "Thank you." 

"Yeah, you're welcome." He closes his eyes and tips his head back. "Stars, I'm hungry." 

"I have–" 

"We'll buy dinner. They have hunter's stew here, have you ever tried that?" 

"No." 

He laughs, crossing his arms across his chest. "Of course not. Alright, this will sound gross, but it's really old stew. Years old, maybe decades. They keep adding and adding to the pot with whatever’s in season." 

You don't know everything, or anything, really, but you know that sounds like food poisoning in a bowl. "How doesn't it kill you?" 

"They keep it really, really hot, all day long." 

You like the way he says it, even if he's maybe making fun. He almost sings each word, a melodic cadence to his pronunciation that endears you further. 

"And you've had it? What does it taste like?" 

"See, you'd think it tastes a bit muddled, right? But it's good. You'll like it." 

He makes no move to get up and get the aforementioned soup. You aren't particularly hungry, leaning back just a little so the brutal heat of the flames can warm your damp shoulder. The wetness of your dress is fading, warmed but still undeniably wet, and you wonder if the heat is hurting your hair. Mother always says to keep your hair as far from the hearth as you can at all times, and gets angry when you sit too close. 

The soot, darling. The soot will cling to your hair and ruin it. It is, in Mother's opinion, the most beautiful thing about you. 

Mother. She shouldn't be back home for days now, and still you're worrying. Mostly about being caught. But if you're caught, and she knows you left… 

You have a strange love for your mother. The kind that makes you feel sick in intensity. You want, at all times, to please her. And you know this isn't something she would approve of, Stars, she'd be so disappointed in you for taking this risk. 

You stare up at a wooden beam past Steve's head and try not to tear up. Anxiety eats at you until there's nothing left but your skin, your insides a tangled dark whorl of misery. She must know you've left home. She must know how terribly ungrateful you are for everything she's sacrificed. She must know–

"Are you okay?" 

You blink hurriedly and face Steve, hoping this will dispel the quick-welling tears clouding your vision. It doesn't work: blinking can’t erase years of pent up worry. You wipe your eyes before they can roll down your cheeks and humiliate you further. 

"I'm okay," you say. 

Steve frowns again. He's a frowny guy. 

"What's wrong?" He takes your elbow into his hand.

"Nothing. Uh…" You smile through your embarrassment. "We don't light the hearth at home, often, and uh, I think the smoke is irritating my eyes." You nod for emphasis. 

Steve does not believe you, clearly, but he squeezes your elbow and nods back. 

He looks at your face until you're uneasy. 

"I'll go get that stew,” he says, patting your arm. 

You feel strange once he’s gone. It's nice to be by yourself for a moment. You've spent the majority of your adult life alone while mother goes here, there, and everywhere. You're never allowed to go with her, too stupid for the outside world and all its challenges. 

You look around the room now and wonder if this is really the world she means. Sure, it's foreign, and it's unsettling, and without Steve by your side you might not be left alone as you have been, but you'd expected more. Where are all the insects that make you sick, and the men with cutlasses and shackles? 

Your eyes drift to the vihuela player. He's moved to sit at the opposite side of the fire. He strums lackadaisically at his instrument, his shoulders against the wall and a cup of mead at his feet. It's obvious nobody's given him any coin in a while. 

Behind him sits the piano, glimmering with the flickering firelight. You've read about them, you've even seen drawings of harpsichords, but never heard one played. You wonder what it sounds like. Any music at all is amazing to you. All you've ever heard is singing. One song. 

Steve returns with two bowls of hunter's stew. You're scared to try it but horrified that you might look like a coward in front of him. Again. Your tears had been bad enough. 

You swallow a spoonful and your eyes water unbidden. "Oh, wow." 

"Good, huh?" 

You try not to cough. "It's rich." 

"I guess you haven't had stuff like this before, huh?" He forks through his bowl and pulls out a big pale vegetable roughly cubed. "You like potato?" 

"Yeah," you say, and before you've finished he's pushing the potato against the lip of your bowl and pulling the tines of his fork free. It falls into your stew with a small splash. "Oh. Thank you." 

You try to eat as much of it as you can but start to feel sick somewhere in the middle. You set your bowl aside and Steve, bowl emptied, drops his next to it, wiping his hands together and standing. 

You look up, puzzled. 

"Come on." 

Your hair isn't quite dry, a tugging weight for your neck as Steve slides his hand over your warm shoulder. You worry it might never full dry again, not without a helping hand. 

He leads you up the small platform to the piano. 

You look to him inquisitively. 

"It's alright. I asked them if you could try it. Just try not to play too loudly and disrupt the bard." 

"How do you adjust how loud it is?" 

He pushes down on your shoulders until you're sitting on the bench. "You play softly. It's going to be a little loud no matter what. Don't smash the keys." 

"Are they fragile?" you ask worriedly, holding your tensed fingertips above the white and pitch keys. 

"No," he says, laughing without any judgement, "move over, I'll show you." 

He sits on the bench beside you. There's not a whole lot of room, and his arm presses hot to yours. He places his hand above the keys like he knows what he's doing, and presses down. He plays a line of notes, the sounds a plinking rising melody that has you gasping in awe. 

"Don't," —he presses down a huge chunk of keys, and the sound is awful— "do this." 

You look up to see if anybody's glaring. Then you burst into giggles, face pressed to his shoulder on automatic as you try to smother the sound. He laughs warmly near your ear.

You probe curiously at the keys and try to make a song. You don't know how, don't know one note from another, you can't fathom how someone might make this into anything more than the bard's lazy fingerings. 

"Do you know anything?" Steve asks. 

Do you know anything? Mother demands. Darling, I've told you a million times…

"No. Sorry," you say. 

His voice is sincerely sweet, like he's confused you'd ever be sorry, "For what? I can play you something. Choose a song." 

"I only know the one." 

He blinks at you. You shrink into yourself as he averts his gaze, knowing what he's thinking. How useless you are. 

The song starts slowly. Steve taps one key, and then another. It lends and lists into music suddenly, the repetition of a simple melody. He doesn't sing, just speaks the words as he plays. 

"She sends me a flower to hold me," he says, an echo of song in his tone. "She sends me a flower to– night." He moves his hands up to a higher sound. "She loves me too much, so she's told me. But if she loved me, oh loved me, she might… Come to see me, oh sweetheart, come to see me, oh lover, come to see me, oh darling." He smiles at you. "Come to see me to– night." He clears his throat, hand stilling. "You'd sing the bridge again, but I think I'll spare your ears." 

"Is that yours?" you ask him. 

He drops his hand into his lap. "No. Steve Harrington doesn't pen love poems, I'm afraid." 

"Only plays them." 

His smile turns to a smirk, so sticky it's catching. 

"You're not the mouse I'd thought you were," he says.

"Was this realisation before or after I tried to maim you with a cast iron pan?" 

He's about to answer, a spark behind his eyes, when the door opens wide enough to split its hinges. The origin of the hole in the wall is clear, and he waltzes in with a band of men behind him, grinning. 

"Oh, for Stars’ sake," Steve mutters. 

"What?" you ask. 

The man at the front of the group of men — or, as they step into the light and reveal themselves, boys — sets his one un-patched eye on you and Steve, smiles like the devil, and croons, "Stevie!" 

Steve's smile is gone. 

"Eddie," he says tiredly. 

"You're back!" Eddie looks you up and down, and his expression turns to one of complete surprise. "With a wife? My, my, we have been busy." 

Steve stands, and Eddie, in all his darkness, dark hair and eyes and tunic, his grin turns mean. You hide behind one of Steve's thighs, hesitant. He drops his hand against the top of your head. 

"Why's it matter?" Steve asks. 

"It doesn't." This Eddie sounds all too cheerful. "What does matter, I'm afraid, is the debt between us." 

"I don't owe you anything." 

You watch with widened eyes as Eddie unsheathes his sword. The scabbard has a mottling of shiny reds and blacks, and the blade glows silver to white in the light. It's sharp.

Steve pulls a small knife from his hip. You hadn't realised he was carrying a weapon. 

Eddie takes a step forward, his shoes like a thunderclap across the wooden floor. 

"I'm afraid my Sweetheart here doesn't agree." 

˗ˋˏ ☆ ˎˊ˗

eddie isn’t a bad guy he’s just confrontational <3 thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed, and if you did, please consider reblogging i promise it makes a huge difference <3

[reysim]

Thursday November 16 / 2023

We were set to leave Arenal area today. We left our lovely hotel at 7:30 am. Simon had an appointment to meet the national park administrator at 8:00 am. After his interview, we drove to mystics hanging bridges.

Wow, gorgeous nature, with wild animals accessible by trails and suspension bridges. It took us almost a couple of hours to complete the route. We saw many species of plants, spiders, and few tarantulas, and a mammal, that we have yet to identify. During the day, the tarantulas stay in their holes and position a piece of food at the entrance. When an unsuspecting animal comes to take that food, they become dinner, as the tarantula strikes fast.

Then we went to the Puma rescue sanctuary. We met with their in-house biologist. She gave us a tour of the facility. They had hundreds of birds like parrots, macaw, and toucans, as well as a few Ocelots, one Margay, and several Pumas. The sanctuary was home to five species of wild cats of Costa Rica. We did not get to see two species, since they were in rehab, learning to hunt, prior to their release back into the wild.

The facility also had white-faced and spider monkeys. It was a very educational visit. At the end of the tour, the largest male howler monkey was warning us that rain was coming by sounding a loud grunting alarm! This seemed to agitate all the animals.

Then came the thunder, lightning, and a very heavy rain storm.

Through which, we drove to our hotel in Liberia, settled in, and went out for dinner. We had delicious Mexican food with salads and local beer.

[muzanlove]

Five years of university and I'm finally a doctor. After being in the city I decided to move to a small town. Or neighborhood, I've never heard of this place, all I know is there was an ad in the paper about them needing a doctor. I took the job because they would be providing housing. I don't know who 'they' are but I guess it would be nice to get out of the city. 

After hours of driving, I made it to the edge of a forest. What the. Am I going the right way? I looked at my GPS and it said to continue, suddenly I felt a wave of paranoia wash over me. This can't be right. Should I continue? A small town in the middle of a forest sounds like the start of a horror movie. Oh well, I made my way into the forest and to the small town. I park my car at the house, this place is weird. It's so bright and tiny. There are seven houses, a doctor's office, a post office, and a store with a one hundred percent off sign on the window. 

"You must be Nohemi!" I hear a man say behind me. A mailman, odd that a place this small even has a post office, figured if you needed to tell someone something you'd just go to their house. 

"Yes, and you are?" 

"I'm Eddie Dear the mailman! Well, I have to be off, I'll see you around!" 

"Nohemi! You're here! I've been waiting all day we're gonna have so much fun together! After you settle in you should come over my house is over there!" A girl said while pointing at her house.

"I didn't get your name"

"Oh silly me! Julie! Julie Joyful!" She said before skipping away. 

Wow, she's really... joyful. 

5:20 pm 

I finally finished unpacking, I should go to that girl's house, it'd be rude if I didn't. When I left my house I didn't see anyone outside, which was weird because it was the middle of the day. Despite not seeing anyone I could feel someone watching me. No, I'm just being paranoid. There can't be anyone watching me... can there? I knocked on the door to Julie's house and she quickly opened the door.

"Good you're here, are you sure you weren't followed?" She asked.

"Followed what? No, I wasn't"

"Just come in quickly." She pulled me into the house shut the door and locked it behind her.

"What's going on? Are you ok?" 

"You need to leave!" She said.

"Leave? I just got here?"

"He's been expecting your arrival for years now, he's been watching. They chose you for a reason and if you don't get out of here now it'll be too late." She explained in a serious voice. Julie looked afraid, she was serious, this isn't the same person that I met earlier today. 

"Juile what are you talking about?"

"Nohemi, please. Please heed my warning, I don't have much time. Leave and never come back!" She continued. 

"It's" She looked at her watch before continuing

"5:45, by 8 you're car will be gone. Don't make the same mistake I did, I shouldn't have-" Julie was interrupted by a knock on her door.

"Julie! Are you in there?" an unfamiliar voice said.

"Yes! Nohemi's here too!" She says in her cheerful voice. Julie unlocks the door and lets them in.  A well dressed blue haired man walks in. There's something off about him. 

"Hello you must be Nohemi, I'm Wally Darling,"

"I'll show you around town! Doesn't that sound fun!" He grabs my hand and leads me out of her house. I quickly looked back too see Juile giving me a simpthic look. Then she closed the door.