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elliesguitarstrings · 3 years

Text

promises, promises || part one: what used to be

masterlist || series masterlist

tom holland x reader

summary: you're crying over someone you haven't seen in two years, tom is straight up depressed, your friends are trying to set you up, and sam is just trying his best to help

warnings: ANGST, language, mentions of sex, little bit of fluff, probably typos

A/N: PART ONE IS HERE!!!! i absolutely love this fic and i hope you guys love it as much as i do :)

p.s. this ended up being really long sooooo i decided to make it into a series instead lol if y'all haven't figured that out

wc: 5k

~~~~~~~~

"I got the part! Holy shit I actually got the part!" Tom throws his computer across the bed in disbelief, almost hitting you.

"Wait, like THE part? Like Spiderman?" you question excitedly.

"YES!!! Check the Marvel Instagram right now!" he crawls over to you as you whip out your phone and quickly search up the account. You scan the page to see a post captioned, "Click the link in our bio to see who the new Spider-Man is!" You quickly find the link and impatiently wait for the page to load. And then you see it, boldface print and giant letters across your phone.

The new Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man will be played by: TOM HOLLAND

"HOLY SHIT TOM! You're fucking Spiderman!" you tackle him with a hug, squeezing him so tightly that he has to fight for breath. "I'm so proud of you, I knew you were gonna do big things." you smile brightly.

"We have to go tell everyone else, come on!" Tom pulls you off of him, dragging you out of his bedroom and down the stairs to give his family the big news.

The rest of the Hollands were already together in the family room, and they immediately took notice of yours and Tom's excitement as the two of you are bounding down the stairs.

Out of breath, Tom sprints to the center of the room. "Attention everyone, I have an extremely important announcement to make!" He pauses for dramatic effect, his family waiting in anticipation. "I'M GONNA BE SPIDERMAN!"

This causes an outburst of cheers and applause from his parents and brothers, each one of them getting up to hug Tom and congratulate him on this huge achievement.

Paddy pipes up, "How did you get the news? Did they call you or something?"

"Um, not exactly. They posted it on their Instagram and on the Marvel website as well, wanna see?" He turns to you, "Y/N, show them your phone!"

You pull out your phone and open the screen you were just looking at, showing the Hollands the Instagram post and article.

"No way, they're totally hacked." Harry remarks, earning disapproving looks from Nikki and Dom. "if you were really gonna be the next Spiderman, they would have called you."

Before Tom has the time to argue back, his phone rings, as if on cue. Tom pulls it out of his back pocket and nervously studies the number across the screen.

"Well, what are you waiting for div, answer it!" Sam chirps impatiently.

The rest of the room is silent while Tom listens intently to the person the other line. You can't make out what they are saying, but the eventual smile on Tom's face completely gives it away.

"Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity," he holds while the other person talks again. "Yeah, I'll be in touch, definitely. Thank you again." Tom ends the call and lets out a sigh of relief. "That was fucking Kevin Feige! I got the part! I actually am gonna be the next Spiderman!"

You and the rest of his family cheered even louder than before, enveloping him in a giant group hug.

"I say we celebrate!" Nikki announces. "How about we go out for a nice dinner?"

Tom smiles, "If I'm honest mum, as nice as that would be, I'd rather just stay in and celebrate here tonight. I like your cooking better than any fancy restaurant anyways."

"Of course honey, I'll make your favorite. We can have a nice big family dinner, how does that sound?"

"Sounds perfect mum, thank you."

She dashes into the kitchen followed by Sam, the aspiring chef of the family, while Dom, Harry, and Paddy go to dress the table.

You take this as your cue to leave, seeing as you don't want to disrupt the rest of Tom's night with his family. "I guess I should get going then," you turn to Tom, hugging him once again. "Congratulations again, I'm so proud of you Tommy." you smile as you head to grab your things before you leave.

"Nonsense! You're staying for dinner too!" Tom stops you.

"Tom, I can't, you should spend this night celebrating with your family." you try to reason with him.

"But I want you here too!" he pouts.

"And you are family!" Nikki pipes in from the kitchen, earning nods of agreement from the rest of the family.

"See, everyone wants you here Y/N, please celebrate with us?" Tom cups your face.

"Are you sure? I really don't want to-"

Nikki cuts you off, piping in once again, "Y/N, I insist you stay for dinner with us. You've been a part of this family for so long, and you know that. So please stay and celebrate with us!" she smiles.

You giggle, "Well, I guess I can't say no to that." Tom smiles, giddily engulfing you in another hug.

After a long and delicious dinner, you and Tom now lay under the stars in the treehouse in his backyard. Dom had built it for you two when you were eight years old, and it's been your special place ever since then. Obviously, it has been upgraded and redecorated since then, now that you and Tom were both eighteen, but it still takes you back to the old days when you were just carefree little kids.

You cuddle into Tom's chest, looking up at the night sky through the small window in the roof of the treehouse. "I wish we could stay here forever," you whisper.

"Me too." Tom pulls you closer, kissing your forehead.

"Everything's gonna change you know. We're graduating in two weeks, and then you leave for America. I don't know what I'm gonna do without you." A small tear rolls down your cheek which doesn't go unnoticed by Tom.

He wipes the tear off your face with his thumb, cupping your chin to make you face him. "Hey, hey, look at me. Things might be changing, but that doesn't mean we have to. I'm only gonna be gone for a few months, and then I'll be back. I love you so much, and a few hundred miles is never going to change that. I will never let anything come between us, ever, okay?"

You smile softly, "You promise?"

"I promise darling. It's you and me forever. I'm never letting you go. Never in a million years." he kisses you lovingly, and you swear you could just live in this moment forever with him, and only him.

That was six years ago. And what Tom said was true, everything had changed. You just wish everything else he had said that night was true too.

Now, Tom is a world-famous actor, living a luxurious life out in Hollywood. You, however, have stayed in England, living only thirty minutes away from your childhood home with your newfound best friends Julia and Finn. You are no longer a part of Tom's life, and he is no longer a part of yours. But that doesn't mean you've forgotten about him.

How could you possibly forget about Tom? Your entire childhood was spent with him. From the ages of two to twenty-two, you were inseparable. To this day, you still remember when you first met, and you think about it often.

"I no wanna go! I stay home and watch princesses!" you cry, defiantly pulling away from your mother's firm grip as she tries to stuff you into shoes that are much too small for your rapidly growing feet.

"I know honey, but we have to go welcome the new neighbors who just moved in across the street. We made them brownies, remember?" she smiles.

You scrunch your face up, " No! I stay home!"

Your dad chimes in, kneeling down to your level. "Listen peanut. How about we make a deal. You come with us and say hello to the new neighbors, and then after we get home you can watch any princess movie you want and maybe even have some ice cream, how does that sound?"

You smile, "Ice cream with rainbow sprinkles?"

He rubs your head, "With rainbow sprinkles."

"Okay. I go then."

Your parents smile, and you hold their hands as you walk across the street to meet the neighbors. Your mom rings the doorbell, and the door opens to reveal a red-headed woman, smiling at you and your parents. Hiding behind her is a small, curly-headed brunette boy about the same height as you.

Your mom introduces herself, "Hi! My name is Y/M/N, this is my husband Y/D/N, and this is my daughter Y/N. We live right across the street, and we just wanted to welcome you into the neighborhood." She outstretches her arms, holding the brownies, "I made these for you as well, I hope you like them!"

The woman smiles, "Oh, wow, thank you so much, you are so sweet! Would you like to come in for a bit?"

"Of course, as long as you'll have us."

She ushers the three of you in and you stay close to your mom, still wary of entering a stranger's home.

As she closes the door behind her, she introduces herself as well, "Sorry, the house is a little messy, we’re still getting settled in. But I'm Nikki, my husband Dominic is unpacking in the kitchen, and this is Tom." She motions to the boy behind her, "Tom, say hello to the nice people!"

He timidly steps forward, waving at you and your parents. "Hello." he says quietly.

"Oh my, he is adorable!" your mom gushes. She walks over to him, "How old are you Tom?"

He holds up two fingers, "This many."

She smiles, "Two years old? Wow, you're so big! Guess what, you know who else is that many?" Tom shakes his head no. "My daughter Y/N!" She motions for you to come, and you shyly walk forward.

You wave at him, and that makes him smile. Nikki taps Tom on the shoulder, "Do you maybe want to show Y/N your toys upstairs?

He nods his head, smiling at you, "Wanna go play?" he asks.

You smile back, looking at your mom for permission. She nods her head and pushes you forward. "Okay, we go." you respond. He takes your hand and pulls you upstairs, seemingly coming out of his shell. You don't know what it is about this boy, but he makes you feel warm, like a hug. It's something your two-year-old brain can't quite comprehend, but suddenly you couldn't care less about watching princess movies or eating ice cream.

Sometimes you wish that day had never happened, that you had never met him. You wish your little two-year-old self had fought harder against your parents so that you wouldn’t have to endure the years of pain he would cause you later in life. But you can’t go back, and in part, you’re glad about that. He was your first friend, your first crush, and your first love. But he was also your first heartbreak, and that’s something you can never forget.

You're snapped out of your thoughts by a sharp knock on your bedroom door. "Hey, are you almost ready? We have to leave in ten or we'll be late!" you hear Julia's muffled voice from the other side of the door. Finn is hosting a gala tonight for his art studio, and being his best friends and roommates, you and Julia are basically required to go.

"Uh, yeah, I'm about done, I'll be out in a minute!" You haven't even started getting ready, but you don't have any more time. You quickly raid your closet and find a short v-neck black dress and matching heels. You wiggle into the dress as you make your way into the bathroom. You had planned on straightening your hair, but you have no time, so instead, you brush it back into a sleek low ponytail and spray it with a bit of hairspray. There's no time for the elaborate makeup look you had planned either, so you quickly throw on some concealer, blush, mascara, eyeliner, a bit of highlight, and you're set. As you walk to the door, you grab your purse and slip on your heels, making sure you have your phone and keys. Finn and Julia are already waiting in the car, both with disapproving looks.

"What the fuck took you so long? We were supposed to leave five minutes ago! You know I can't be late for this thing." Finn complains as you slip into the backseat.

"Sorry, I, uhm, don't feel well. A little nauseous." you lie. You don't feel like telling them that you were actually crying about someone you haven't seen or talked to in two and a half years like you do every other night.

"You're not pregnant are you?" Julia chuckles.

"Oh please, we all know that Y/N hasn't gotten any since he who must not be named." Finn replies for you.

"Thanks Finn, what a great friend." you joke sarcastically.

He's not wrong though. Since you and Tom broke up, you haven’t slept with a single person. You’ve been on a few dates and kissed a few guys, but nothing past that. The closest you got was about a month after Tom broke it off with you. You were looking for someone to take your mind off of him, so you found a random guy named David at a pub and took him back to your place. But as soon as he took off his shirt, you saw a birthmark on his back that looked eerily similar to Tom’s, and you promptly broke down crying.

No matter what you do, you just can’t seem to get him off your mind.

"Alright bitches, we're here." Finn sighs. "Help me bring my stuff in, we don't have much time thanks to someone who took ages to get ready."

You give a halfhearted apology as you grab Finn's paintings from the back of his car. Julia stops you before you follow Finn into the venue, "Babe, are you sure you're doing alright?"

You smile lightly, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Okay, if you say so. And sorry about Finn mentioning... him. It's been two years, he should know better."

"Oh, no. No, don't worry about that. It's okay. I don't care." you lie.

She gives you an encouraging nudge on the shoulder, "Hey, who knows, maybe you'll find a hottie here tonight and finally get back out there! What do you think, huh?"

"Yeah, that would be great, actually. Maybe Finn can introduce me to his friend James, I know he's pretty hot." you say just to get her off your back. You know for a fact that you won't be going home with anyone tonight, but you want to ease her conscience, so you continue to lie.

"That's the spirit! Good luck hun, love you."

"Thanks Jules, love you too." you smile.

Halfway through the gala, you already want to go home. Finn is over at the bar flirting with some guy, probably trying to get him to buy his artwork. Meanwhile, Julia has disappeared into the bathroom with her boyfriend Ollie, who she invited about thirty minutes into the event because she "got bored."

You look at your phone and realize it's already midnight, and you know the event won't be ending anytime soon. You slowly make your way over to Finn through the sea of people and tap him on the shoulder, drawing his attention away from whatever guy he's flirting with.

"Hey Y/N, how's it going with James?" he asks excitedly.

"Oh, um, it didn't work out, thanks for introducing me though. I just wanted to come tell you that I'm still not feeling well, so I think I'm gonna head home, sorry."

"Oh, okay, no problem. You're probably gonna be alone tonight though, just a heads up. Jules is going back to Ollie's for the night, and" he starts to whisper, "I think I might be going home with this hunk."

You laugh, "Okay, thanks Finn, see you tomorrow then."

"Bye babe. Do you have a ride?" he questions.

"Uh, no, I'm just gonna Uber home, it's no problem."

Finn gasps, "Not this late at night you're not! Let me drive you, hottie with a body over here can wait."

"No, no, don't let me ruin your night. I'll just call Sam then."

His eyes widen, "Like... his brother Sam?"

"Yeah, we're friends still, it's not a big deal. Trust me."

"Okay, fine. But text me when you get home, okay?"

"Okay, love you Finn, see you later." you give him a quick hug and walk outside to call Sam.

You aren't lying, you and Sam are still good friends. Back when you and Tom were together, Sam was the brother that you were closest to, and you felt that it would be unfair to cut ties with the rest of the Hollands just because Tom was a dick to you seeing as they were as much of a family to you as your own parents were, maybe even more. He was attending culinary school in the area anyway, so you decide he’s the best person to call.

As expected, he's happy to drive you home, and about ten minutes later he arrives at the venue where you are still standing outside.

"Hey Sam, I'm sorry for calling this late, but thank you so much for picking me up." you smile as you slide into the passenger seat.

"It's no problem, I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. How've you been?"

"Fine, I guess. How about you?"

"C'mon, I know that look. Something's up with you." he pries.

"I told you on the phone, I'm just not feeling well." you lie, hoping he doesn't catch on.

"It's Tom isn't it?"

"How the fuck do you always know?"

He chuckles. "He is my brother, remember? And you're basically my sister too. I've known you both for literally my entire life, so trust me, I know when it's about him."

You sign in defeat, "I don't know why I can't get over him Sam. It's been nearly three years since we broke up, and I haven't seen him since. My roommates think I'm overreacting, and honestly, I'm starting to agree with them. I should be moved on by now, but I just can't stop thinking about him."

"Hey, hey, don't listen to them, you aren't overreacting. You and Tom were literally attached at the hip for twenty two years, and you weren't even dating for most of them. It's completely normal for you to feel like this, trust me. And I know it doesn't help much for me to say this because I've said it a million times before, but Tom's a complete dick for what he did to you. He's my brother, and I love him, but he's a dick."

"Thanks Sam. I just wish I knew why, y'know? Why, after twenty-two fucking years, he just completely cut me out of his life." you feel your eyes brimming with tears.

"I wish I could have an answer for you Y/N, I really do. But I haven't got a clue. Hell, I honestly don't even know if Tom knows why he did it."

You sigh, "Well, he must have had a reason. Plus, he seems to be doing great in Hollywood. He seems perfectly happy without me."

"You've been stalking him on Instagram, haven't you?" Sam chuckles.

You laugh, "Shut up." That's the great thing about Sam. He can always lighten up a situation, no matter how serious or how sad. Tom did the same thing, that was one of the things you liked most about him.

You and Sam sit in silence for a few minutes, until he finally breaks it. "He's not, you know."

"Huh?" you question, confused.

"He's not happy. You said he seems happy without you, but he's not. He's doing terribly, and it's not just from stress or his work. He won't admit it, but he misses you." he pauses, "I know I shouldn't be telling you this, but he asked about you the other day. About how you were doing and shit like that. I think he would take it back if he could."

You want so badly to believe him, belief that Tom actually still cares about you after all this time. But false hope is the last thing you need right now.

"Well, he can't, can he?" you say sharply, tears still threatening to flow out.

You and Sam sit in silence for the last five minutes of the ride back to your apartment. As he slows the car to a stop, Sam looks over at you sympathetically, "Look, I'm sorry if what I said made things worse. I just wanted you to know that your feelings aren't... one-sided I guess."

You know better than to yell at Sam, he was just trying to make you feel better, so instead of spitting out the sarcastic remark that was on your tongue, you manage out a half-hearted, "It's okay, thanks Sam." and shut the car door.

As soon as the door of your apartment closes behind you, all of the emotions come crashing down on you. A mixture of sadness, anger, guilt, and regret crushed your heart, smashing it into a million little pieces. It feels like two and a half years ago, when he first broke up with you, all over again. Everything was fine until Sam brought him up again, and the memories just all flooded back in. You fall to the floor, clutching your chest in pain, wishing someone was here for you. Wishing he was here for you. At the moment, it feels like you have no one. In reality, you do; you have an entire support system of people who love you so much and would do anything to protect you. But you only want him. You need him. He is the only person you have ever wanted, ever needed, and he's gone.

You want to hate him, you really do. He's caused you more pain in the past two and a half years than anyone or anything has ever caused you in your entire life. But you can't. You can never, and will never, hate him. Which makes you hate yourself.

After what feels like hours of crying, you finally calm down. There's no one at home to talk to and it's too late to call anyone at this point, so you flip on the tv. There's nothing good on Netflix or Hulu that you haven't seen yet, so you scroll through the other apps. You remember that you just got a free Apple TV subscription with your new phone, so you check to see what's on there.

And there it is. Cherry.

His face right on the screen in front of you, lighting your dark bedroom red. You know it's a bad idea and you know you'll regret it, but something draws you to watch it. You need him right now, and this is about the closest you're going to get.

It's fine at first. It's actually nice to see his face again after so long. He looks basically the same as the last time you saw him, just a little more mature. You feel good supporting him, even if he doesn't know it.

But then it's not fine. His character had just gotten into a fight with his girlfriend, so she comes to visit him in his apartment. They talk, and eventually he reveals that he joined the army and has to go away for two years.

"It's just a couple years. Just a couple years and a lifetime together." he whispers.

Then it all hits you, and you break down crying once again. You can't help but think back to that night in the treehouse, and how the conversation is so eerily similar. You wonder if Tom was thinking about it too, while he was filming the scene. Obviously, the circumstances were different, but it still makes you wonder.

You quickly shut the TV off, unable to bear it anymore. With nothing else to do, you try to sleep, but your thoughts keep you up. And as much as you try to fight it, your mind drifts back to the day you so badly want to forget. The day that it all ended.

"Hey, Tommy, what's up? I'm excited to see you tonight!" you pick up the phone. Tom is supposed to come back to London after filming his first solo Spiderman movie, and you could not be more excited to see him. It's been almost a full year since he left for America, and you miss him so much.

"Yea, uhm, about that. Plans have, er, changed a bit." you can hear the solemn tone in his voice.

"Oh no, what happened? Did your flight get delayed or something? I know there's some rough weather in Atlanta, but I didn't realize it was that bad."

"No, no, it's not that. I don't really know how to say this," he sighs, "I'm not coming home."

Your heart drops to your stomach. "What?"

"Yeah. I'm, um, I'm staying in America for now. I found a house in LA, it's nice."

"Well when are you coming back then?" you utter in disbelief.

"Not anytime soon. I have work, so it's just easier for me to be in America. I'm sorry." his tone is stiff.

"But what about us? I miss you so much, these past few months have already been hell for me. I don't think I can survive much longer without seeing you."

No response.

"Tom, are you still there? You know I can't move in with you. I'm already enrolled in university here in London, I can't drop everything and come to America if that's what you want."

"That's not what I want." At this point he seems to have no emotion in his voice, as if he's reading directly from a script.

"So then what do you want?" you start to really worry, tears already stinging your eyes.

"I think you can probably figure that out by now, Y/N."

"Tom, no. You seriously can't be thinking-"

"Yeah, I am thinking that. You've already said that these past few months have been hell, and I'm too busy with work, so I think that's the only option."

You plead with him, "Tom, please! We can figure this out, I love you so much. We can't break up Tom, I can't lose you." You're sobbing at this point, scared to lose the one person you need the most.

"No, we can't figure this out. We have to break up, there's no other choice."

"What happened to you and me forever? That- that night in the treehouse you said you wouldn't let anything come between us!"

"We were kids, Y/N! We had no idea what our lives were going to turn out like. That was a stupid thing to say and I never should have said it, okay? You can't keep every promise you make, especially when you're eighteen. But we're mature adults now, and the mature way to handle this is to break up. Understand?" His voice is booming through your phone speaker, and it's nothing you've ever heard come from him before. He was always calm, looking for a way to work things out. But now, he's completely giving up.

"Tom, please, I-"

"No, Y/N, I don't have time for this right now, I'm sorry. Goodbye."

He hung up. He's gone.

That was the last time you spoke to him. You didn't even get to properly say goodbye, let alone see his face before he was gone forever.

Unbeknownst to you, that phone call is still, to this day, Tom's biggest regret. Almost immediately after he hung up, he wished he had never called you in the first place. He was stressed from work, he was angry at his management team for making him stay in America, but most of all he missed you. So he did the only thing he could think of to take it all away - separate himself from you. He thought that if he broke up with you, he would feel better about his career choices and he wouldn’t have to wwc:orry about missing you anymore because it would be over.

He was wrong.

Every day since then, he’s wanted to call you, text, you, or somehow contact you to apologize; explain why he did what he did and how he still loves you, still needs you, still misses you every second of his life. But he knows he can’t. You would never be able to forgive him for breaking it all off so suddenly. There’s no way in hell you could still love him after something like that.

So he’s stayed out of reach from you for good. And he hopes that maybe one day he’ll be able to move on, find someone new like you’ve probably done by now. But deep down he knows he never will.

You’re still unable to sleep, and now that it’s almost four in the morning, you decide that you probably won’t be able to for the rest of the night. Not knowing what else’s to do, you begrudgingly roll out of bed and go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As you fill up your mug with warm water, you hear a knock at the door.

Who the fuck would be coming to your apartment this early? You suspect it’s Finn, as he always manages to forget his key. Maybe his night with the mystery bar hunk didn’t go as well as he had planned. You quickly set a tea bag in your mug and walk to open the door.

“Back so soon Fi... what the fuck.” your heart drops to your stomach.

It’s him. The same brown-haired, brown-eyed, British boy that you remember, staring down at you from outside your apartment at four in the morning.

“Hey.”

~~~~~~~~

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161 notes · View notes

pitviperofdoom · 3 years

Note

I really liked your 'Life Preserver' excerpt and I'd love to read more about it. I liked the interaction between Gerry and Georgie, their characterization and Gerry's description of his relationship with Jon, plus this exchange: “He thinks your mum’s a homophobe, you know.”“You know, he’s probably right? Think she might just hate the idea of love in general, though.”“Messy divorce, I take it,”“Rohypnol and garden shears were involved, so yeah, I’d say it was pretty messy.”

Thanks!

Yeah, Gerry and Georgie surprised me as a really interesting dynamic to explore. In spite of Georgie’s caution around the Entities, Gerry just feels like the kind of person Georgie would get along with, given the people she canonically ends up loving.

Anyway here’s another part I’ve written! This one actually has Jon and Gerry in it.

---

When Jon went in for his next shift, things went smoothly enough to be genuinely suspicious. Tina was his desk partner again, and she greeted him with the same cordiality as always. No one official-looking ever came by to speak with him.

The only hint that anything had happened that night was a campus-wide e-mail paying respects to Daniel Lattimer, one of the subject librarians, who was reported as having “passed unexpectedly”. The message held all of the usual official platitudes and nothing else; Jon had read it word for word several times to be sure.

Someone should have known, shouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if he had been careful about covering his tracks, beyond making his tip anonymous. The library had cameras. He was sure he’d left at least a few shoe prints in all the blood.

But nothing came of it. The first hour passed peacefully, with nothing more exciting than a couple of patrons he had to inform of overdue books.

Jon spotted the familiar dark figure out of the corner of his eye, even before Tina hissed a warning at him. He raised his head to watch Gerard Keay’s approach, chest suddenly tight with nervousness.

How on earth was he supposed to explain this?

“Hey.” Gerard was in front of him already, leaning his elbows on the desk as usual. “Any word on that book? I tried to come in yesterday, but you were closed.”

“R-right.” Jon hesitated. There were several ways he could answer this. He could, of course, be utterly truthful and tell him that he’d burned the thing on account of it being made of meat and killing one of the librarians. He almost laughed at the thought. At worst, Gerard would complain to someone about Jon being unhelpful; at best, he’d find it funny, but he’d demand a real answer once he was done laughing about it.

He could lie and stall by saying that the book was still on its way. But that was a temporary fix at best, and it would only lead Gerard to keep coming in and asking.

And would that really be so bad? Jon shook his head to clear away the thought.

“Right,” he said again. “A-about that. Unfortunately—” He slipped his bandaged hand behind the desk, out of sight. “—we were unable to find the book in storage. It seems to have been marked incorrectly. It happens sometimes. Though not very often, I assure you,” he added hastily. “But it’s been marked down as missing, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Gerard’s face was the very picture of disappointment. “That’s a shame. Really did need that one.”

“Terribly sorry for the inconvenience.” Jon tried to sound like he meant it.

It was hard to force down the sheer, overwhelming relief. Just last night he’d regretted his own paranoia, but now? If he hadn’t gone back, if he hadn’t checked for the book…

Well, the library might not have been closed yesterday. And he didn’t have the first shift at the circulation desk. And whoever did might have been someone who didn’t know, someone who wasn’t haunted by the name Jurgen Leitner, who might have taken the book from the cart and handed it straight over—

The unwelcome memory of Mr. Lattimer’s body rose up behind his eyes, juxtaposed over the young man standing before him.

As a child, he’d doomed someone else to a gruesome death that should have been his. So maybe this time… maybe he’d actually…

“Well then,” said Gerard, shaking him out of his bubble of thoughts. “Guess that’s—er, guess I’ll look elsewhere…”

“Right,” said Jon. “Unless there was anything else you needed…?” He tried not to sound too hopeful.

“No, thanks, that’s it,” said Gerard, already turning away. “Thanks for all the help.”

“Oh, I hardly—I mean, I didn’t really do much, in the end.”

Gerard regarded him for a moment, head tilted to one side with a thoughtful look. Then, quite without warning, he smiled at him. “Don’t sell yourself short. You were great.”

“O-of course,” Jon stammered as Gerard turned to leave again. “Oh, wait—wait a moment.”

Gerard looked back. “Yeah?”

Jon dug into his pocket, pulling out the lighter. “Is this yours?” he asked, placing it on the desk. “I found it on one of the tables in the reading room, and I remembered you had it the other day…”

Instead of taking it, Gerard simply flashed him one last grin. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got loads.”

“It’s really not good to keep ignition sources in a library,” Jon protested, feeling inordinately flustered.

Gerard laughed, a brief, bright thing, and—

“D’you want to get coffee?” Jon blurted out.

The smile froze on Gerard’s face, before giving way to surprise. “What?”

A stab of terror nearly robbed Jon of his words, before he found his voice again and forged ahead. “Do you—I mean. Do you want to get coffee sometime?” he repeated. Shit. Shit, he was doing this, how was he already doing this? “With me?” He wanted to kick himself, of course he’d know he meant it that way. “I—my shift ends at noon today. If you’re free. I-if you want to, I mean.”

Gerard blinked at him, so utterly bewildered that it might have been funny if Jon’s heart weren’t currently climbing into his throat. “You—wait. Is this… are you asking me on a date?”

He said it so incredulously, as if the idea that Jon would ask him on a date were utterly incomprehensible to him. Rapidly, Jon’s heart sank back down.

“Yes,” Tina leapt in helpfully. “He is. Aren’t you, Jon?”

She nudged him none too gently. “Y-yes,” he said, because it wasn’t as if he could dig himself any deeper. “That—that was the intention.”

“Huh.” Gerard shrugged. “Sure.”

The whiplash made Jon dizzy for a moment. “Really?”

“Yeah. Noon, right? See you then.” With that, he turned and walked out of the library.

Once he was out of sight, Jon slumped over onto the surface of the desk like a marionette with its strings cut.

Tina patted his back. “Proud of you. Go get that goth D.”

***

It wasn’t that Gerry didn’t know it was a terrible idea—just that he’d had worse ones before. He was still breathing after years of them, in fact. So what was one more?

Jon the librarian was far from the first scarred survivor he’d ever met. They weren’t common, precisely, but nor were they unheard of. Technically he was one, and Mum had been as well, before she carved herself up.

But Gerry knew he was an outlier, and as rare as surviving one brush with the Fears was, meeting two of the things and escaping uneaten from both was on a level of its own. But against all odds, when he looked at the wispy little librarian who’d spent the past week being so divertingly helpful, Gerry could see two separate, distinct marks on him, where there had previously been only one. And they really were distinct from one another. The Flesh was like a shark sometimes, content to take one good bite before losing interest and wandering off, while the wisps of the Web still clung jealously. A scar like that could have been left years ago or the day before they met. You could never tell with the Web.

That added to the risk, of course. For all he knew, this was some ploy from the Mother of Puppets to catch him and draw him in. A little cliche, maybe, but Gerry couldn’t fault it for its efficacy.

He’d said yes, after all.

In his defense, it wasn’t every day he met someone with a nice face, a taste for burning Leitners, and enough luck or fortitude to walk away from two different Powers. Nor was it every day a person like that asked him to… well…

People didn’t flirt with him, was the thing. Anyone who knew enough to be worth talking to either wised up and ran the other way, or turned around and tried to take a chunk out of him.

So, yeah. Might as well give it a shot. See what it was like, while he had the chance.

He had til noon to brace himself, anyway. Not enough time to go back to Mum’s and freshen up, which was a shame. She’d just faded out a couple of days ago, so he knew he’d have the place to himself.

Ah, well.

In spite of himself, Gerry found himself turning his face upward with a grin and an excited spring in his step. It’d be a bit like traveling abroad, or visiting tourist traps, or all the other things he indulged in when Mum was gone. See as much of the world beyond his own as he could, before she finally fucked up and got him killed.

A date! Who’d have thought he’d get to check that one off the bucket list?

#tma fic #jongerry #jonathan sims #gerard keay #safe harbor au #tales from the pit #lady-with-a-deathwish

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thecoleopterawithana · 4 years

Text

Songwriting is like psychiatry

[Dear @eppysboys, your wish is my command.]

There are bound to be thickheads who will wonder why some of it doesn't make sense, and others who will search for hidden meanings.

'What's a Brummer?'

‘There's more to "dubb owld boot" than meets the eye.'

None of it has to make sense and if it seems funny then that's enough.

— Paul McCartney, in the Introduction to John Lennon's In His Own Write (1964).

When we had a party in the States to celebrate having finished the album, someone came up to us and said 'Hello, Venus. Hello, Mars.' I thought, 'Oh. no.'' When I write songs, I'm not necessarily talking about me, although psychoanalysts would say "Yes, you are, mate." But as far as I'm concerned, I'm not.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the promotion of Venus and Mars (1975). In Paul Gambaccini's Paul McCartney: In His Own Words (1976).

I don’t examine myself that way. I just am. I just go through it. I just wake in the morning and go to bed at night and whatever happens during the day just happens. I don’t really know how I am.

— Paul McCartney, in Music Express: ‘Paul McCartney Wings It Alone’ (April/May 1982).

I’m not a great reader into moods: I don’t naturally say that if I wrote a sad song then I was sad that day, or if I wrote a happy song I was happy. I compose songs like playwrights write a play. They don’t have to know everyone in the play, they don’t have to know anyone in the play, it’s just a product of their imagination.

— Paul McCartney, speaking of ‘Somedays’, interviewed for Club Sandwich n°82 (Summer of 1997).

“There are a lot of mindsets when you’re writing a song – and one of them is commercial,” he admits. “It’s like any job, where if you do a certain thing you’ll progress in that job. In songwriting it’s an unspoken thing, but I recognise it. I remember hearing somewhere that people like sad songs, so I thought, ‘OK, I’ll write a sad song.’ I knew what I was getting into…” So, in a way, you were acting when you wrote [Yesterday]? “Yes. I wrote from the point of view of someone who was sad. But when you’re taking on a part, it’s usually you you’re writing about. Your psychiatrist would say it’s you.” Later, someone suggested that lyrics such as, “Why she had to go, I don’t know” were about McCartney’s mother who’d died when he was 14. “I certainly felt that way when she died. So when I sing Yesterday now, it does make me think about my mum. It’s more personal than I realised it was.” You sense that the older he gets, perhaps the more McCartney is prone to analysing his gift.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

This series – I just woke up one morning and I had a germ of an idea, which is all I want really. I don’t want too formed an idea, it’s just not who I am. [...] I woke up with this thing and I thought it would be just a black canvas and these three-fingered scratches, like someone in prison and they’re either trying to get out or they’re trying to mark the dates. [...] But then a shape emerged with this blue, and I still don’t know what it is. It looks vaguely phallic, or somebody’s ass bending away from you. But that’s what started to fascinate me. It’s probably an accident, but also what I like about that is the inner content, that I have no idea what my dreams are about. I’ve no idea, yet they’re every bit as real as sitting here with you. But my interior world, I think it’s not a bad idea to try and tap it.

My view is that these things are there whether you want them or not, in your interior. You don’t call up dreams, they happen, often the exact opposite of what you want. You can be heterosexual and be having a homosexual dream and wake up, and think, “Shit, am I gay?” I like that you don’t have control over it. But there is some control – it is you dreaming, it is your mind it’s all happening in. In a way my equation would be that my computer is fully loaded by now. Maybe in younger people there’s a little bit of loading to go, but mine’s loaded pretty much, so what I try and do is allow it to print out unbeknown to me. And I’m interested to hear what it’s got in there.

I think we must be interested as musicians as often our music arrives that way. I dreamed the song Yesterday. It was just in a dream, I woke up one morning and had a melody in my head. So I have to believe in that.

— Paul McCartney, in “Luigi’s Alcove” by Karen Wright, for Modern Painters (August 2000).

I think a lot of these songs like 'Tell Me Why’ may have been based in real experiences or affairs John was having or arguments with Cynthia or whatever, but it never occurred to us until later to put that slant on it all.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Mile’s Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1997).

I was standing at the door and he was in bed, and we were talking about the lyrics of 'I Am the Walrus’, and I remember feeling he was a little frail at that time, maybe not going through one of the best periods in life, probably breaking up with his wife. He was going through a very fragile period. You’ve only got to look at his lyrics - 'sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come’. They were very disturbed lyrics.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

I remember giggling with John as we wrote the lines ‘What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.’ It could have been him playing with his willie under the covers, or it could have been taken on a deeper level; this was what it meant but it was a nice way to say it, a very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

"Sex is something I prefer to do, rather than sing about. Hi Hi Hi was from a period when everybody was getting stoned and having sex… I suppose singing about sex is not really in my genre. [...] It’s the same with trying to write angry songs,” he continues. “I can’t do it.” Really? “Yes. I wrote a song called Angry. Recorded it here with Phil Collins and Pete Townshend. At the time I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve really slammed this…’ I can be angry but I can’t find a natural way to put it into a song. It’s the same with sex."

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul. (May, 2015)

McCartney has written some of the world’s most famous love songs, but has he ever worried about revealing too much of himself? “Yes, but you’ve got to get over that feeling quickly, because that’s the game.”

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

[McCartney (1970)] was kind of… therapy through hell.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the Q magazine (2007).

GILBERT: Do you find it easier to write good records in a darker period of your life than in happier periods? You’ve lived through more than a few bad episodes…

PAUL: That’s a good question, I’m not sure. I think the answer is neither and both. I think it’s good when you’re in a dark period, the good is [the song’s] your psychiatrist, it’s your therapy, and you know we have many tales – anyone who writes has. Going away when you’re really upset about something and putting it in your song – you come out of that cupboard, toilet or basement and go, “I really feel better.” You’ve actually exorcised the demon. So it is one of the great joys of songwriting.

GILBERT: What would be an example of a song you wrote in a very angry or dark mood?

PAUL: I think the words of ‘Yesterday’, when I see them now I think there were quite a few of my songs like that, you know, bad moods made better. More recently ‘Calico Skies’ [evoking memories of Linda]; ‘Little Willow’ [for Maureen Starkey] was one I wrote about a friend when she was dying and, in fact, she did die, so those kind of things can help. With ‘Yesterday’, singing it now, I think without realising it I was singing about my mum who died five or six years previously, or whatever the timing was. Because I think now, “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say, I said something wrong…” I think the psychiatrist would have a field day with that one. (Sings) “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away / Now it looks as though they’re here to say” – there’s a lot of those songs, that’s just three where I can remember going into a hiding place with a guitar, purposely to exorcise your demons. It’s like writing your dream out or something, and it’s a physical effect where you come back out and you’ve created that magic again, pulling the rabbit out of the hat. “Where did that come from? Wahey!” It’s a great feeling.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Pat Gilbert for MOJO: Don’t look back in anger. (November, 2013)

Q: Do you have a song that you put on if you’re ever having a hard time or a bad day, and it instantly makes you feel better?

PAUL: There’s a track [’I Don’t Know’] on Egypt Station that came out of a hard time I think would fit the bill now! […] it’s funny what inspires you to write songs. For instance, John started writing ‘Help!’during a crisis at that time in his life, which is often a good motivator ‘cause there’s a therapy aspect to writing songs sometimes - but not all songs! It’s almost as if you’re telling your guitar your troubles and a lot of composure can be found through that. So you sort of say what you might say to a therapist, but you put it into a song and you might feel better afterwards. You don’t have to be going through terrible times, just something that’s frustrating.

— Paul McCartney, in You Gave Me The Answer (28 March 2019)

Q: ‘I Don’t Know’ opens with the lyric, “Crows at my window, dogs at my door, I don’t think I can take it anymore.” This imagery does seem pretty bleak for a comeback.

PAUL: Well, I was in a bleak mood. It’s a well-known fact, you talk to a lot of songwriters, that they write good songs from being in a bad mood. It can often be a really good motivating factor, because you don’t care. You can’t just go out to your friends or your relatives, and just start going, 'I’ve got crows on my window.’ You don’t necessarily want to just go and complain about everything, but you can complain to your piano, in this case, or your guitar… It’s a great therapy.

Q: Doubt and regret [hardly] seem to be things that people associate with you.

PAUL: It’s funny, isn’t it? People think that about me, that well, when you reach my position… you end up with no problems at all. But that’s unrealistic, because you’re in life. And if like me you’ve got a big family, there’s gonna be some sort of problem, even if it’s just someone’s ill. So realistically speaking, you have to think that it’s very likely that most people you know can have problems. Even President Obama. Even John Lennon. Even Taylor Swift. We’ve all got problems, and that’s what makes us all so human.

— Paul McCartney, interview for BBC 6 (20 June 2018).

The idea is that what I’ll leave behind me will be music, and I may not be able to tell you everything I feel, but you’ll be able to feel it when you listen to my music. I won’t have the time or the articulation to be able to say it all, but if you enjoy composing you say it through the notes.

— Paul McCartney, regarding Ecce Cor Meum, which premiered in 2001.

I have to leave And when I'm gone I'll leave my message In my song

Tangents

The Walrus | A case study for John’s struggles with meaning in song

The Surrealist | Meaning and Magritte

I Can’t Tell You How I Feel | Expressing emotions and feelings [statements in songs]

This One | A case study for Paul’s struggles with expressing feelings

I’m Scared To Say I Love You | Paul’s struggle with saying ‘I love you’

#Paul McCartney #John Lennon #the beatles #songwriting is like psychiatry #I don't examine myself that way #The Surrealist #A very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that.#Did I ever open up my heart and let you look inside?#I'll leave my message in my song #but the saving grace was as usual music #compilation #macca #johnny #linda #my stuff

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wouldduskwood · 3 years

Text

I Chose This 2 Option 1

I awoke early, still tired after a fitful sleep but suddenly alert. That was the way of life on the street. A constant reminder of how very weak and disposable humans were. I was one that should have died a long time ago. The odds had been against me right from my birth. I probably should have died from the infection that had kept me in the hospital as an infant. It would have saved a shit load of pain and the ripples would have been minimal. Not many people would have mourned the abandoned, sickly baby. I guessed the ripples now would have been even less, but there was a stubborn part of me that refused to die, even if that is what society seemed to want for me. Instead, I was flipping them a figurative bird while screaming “Fuck you world!”

As dawn broke around me, I didn’t stay put to appreciate the beauty. Not many things were beautiful to me now. I had lost that part of myself that would ‘stop to smell the roses’ and appreciate the beauty of Mother Nature. Now, as the sky turned orange, I glanced at it with mild distaste then slid from the rooftop onto the pavement below. Keeping my head down and my hand closed around my knife, I headed towards the direction of town, but stopped when I heard wolf whistles and crude comments coming from some of the vagrants gathered around the warehouses. I had decided overnight that I would put off my past for a while. Instead, I would focus on what I wanted...and right now what I wanted was for the morons behind me to shut the fuck up and leave me be.

Turning to face them, I caressed my knife and moved toward them. “What gives you the right to talk to me like that,” I snarled. “Oh you want some of this,” one of the doomed grinned as he exposed himself to me. That was it, he pushed me over the edge and I snapped. With a quick, sharp punch to the nose I had him doubled over and bleeding. This caused an uproar amongst his buddies, as they tried to avenge their fallen. I watched, looking for weaknesses, and by God there were a lot of them. The empty alcohol bottles that littered the ground gave a good reason why. They were stumbling over each other, but had the confidence of men that could fight.

It was all too easy and satisfying to lay them out. I didn't even need my knife. As I stood over my victims, snarling at them, a deep voice from behind me interrupted my celebrations. “Freeze,” Aw fuck. Of course. All the times I wanted a cop, there was never one around, yet when I took care of things myself, suddenly there they were. I made a split decision and hoped for the best.

“Oh officer, thank goodness you are here!” I simpered. “You won’t believe what just happened!” “I bet I won’t,” the officer sighed. I took this as a good sign that he would likely leave me the hell alone if I continued down this path.

“See, this guy here, he was hitting on the fella over there and this guy here, he didn’t really like it. I think the drink got the better of them. Then, they all started fighting, and officer, it was just terrible. I tried to step in to prevent anyone from getting hurt, but they were just so much stronger than me. Oh officer, you have to do something, what if it happens again when they wake up?” I cried, using all the tools of manipulation I had learnt over the years. My last words were enough to send doubt through the officer, as he looked at the drunken men. It would be a lot of paperwork and interview time for the lowest members of society.

“Okay, I’d recommend you head away from here young lady. Someone must be awfully worried about you!” “Yes sir,” I agreed, all the while thinking, ‘yeah right’. I left the area with a grin. Today was going to be a good day.

“Hold up,” the officer called behind me. Ah fuck. I was so close.

“That was all bullshit, wasn’t it?” he asked.

No sense lying now, not when he was so sure about it.

“Yes sir, it was.” I admitted, wondering how to get out of this one.

“You did this, didn’t you?” He asked.

“No, they did it to themselves when they tried to objectify me,” I snarled, my anger returning with a vengeance.

“Woah, chill lady,” the officer replied.

“Look, how about this, instead of arresting you, I will take you to the local homeless shelter. Get you some help.” I sighed, this wasn’t the first time I’d been moved along to a homeless shelter. “Oh thank you sir,” I smiled, putting as much fake warmth into it as I could. This was better than being arrested. I hadn’t yet had my prints run through the system, and I didn’t want to start that now.

I followed the officer to his vehicle and climbed in the back as he requested. We drove through the streets, reaching a building belonging to a church ‘do good group’. “Here, I will take you inside and get you sorted,” the officer smiled. I followed along, remaining silent and surveying all potential exits. Church shelters were the worst. They tended to be overly friendly, trying to help the damaged souls. It was a lot harder to escape.

Finally, as I was shown a bed and a spot for my backpack, which I refused to part with, the officer left and I was stuck in an impromptu therapy session with some well meaning ladies. Playing roles had become a coping mechanism, so I was well used to this routine. I had perfected routines over the years and could even cry on command. It meant that the well meaning ladies would want to bend over backwards to help me, though I knew this would eventually stop working the older I got. I really had to get myself off the street before then. The risk here was that they wouldn't leave me alone long enough for me to think, but it was worth the risk as it always paid to have people working for you rather than against. They wouldn't find anything about my parents anyway. “Anyway,” I cried, getting to the end of my well rehearsed script, “I just want to go home but I don’t know where my mumma is.” I hoped they wouldn’t realise I was pushing it to be passing for a helpless teenager that wanted her mum, but thankfully they didn’t question it.

“Let’s see what we can find out dear,” one of them smiled and put a hand on my knee. I gritted my teeth, fighting with myself not to push her hand away. Finally, they left me to it.

Now what? I questioned myself.

Escape the shelter

Wait to see what the ladies find out

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macybeckham7 · 4 years

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Nine Months -Ben Chilwell

October 2019

Ben found himself in nightclub in London and because it was Halloween it was the perfect excuse for the girls to dress up as sluts. Ben couldn’t help but crinkle his nose up at some of the girls, who was practically not leaving anything to the imagination. He looked at the girls that James and Demarai invited over. His eyes roamed around and saw a girl who looked gorgeous, she was in a cow girl, wearing short shorts and knee high cow print boots.

He decided to take his chance and walk towards the girl. He felt his heart rate rise as his eyes met with hers, and she was definitely even more goodlooking up close. He offered to by her a drink which she instantly agreed. The pair talked and drank and danced and had a good time. He learned her name was YN which was the perfect name for a stunning girl like her.

James appeared and introduced himself as Ben’s ‘wing man’ which she instantly sassed that he wasn’t a good one then as he came over by himself. James making a cheeky comment about Ben bagging a cow girl because they are good at riding, which instantly made her fake gag at his awful joke.

The two of of them decided to leave the club and call it a night. They both went back to YN’s place and into bed together.

November 2019

It had been a month since Ben walked out on her the next morning as if he had never been there. The two did swap numbers and YN didn’t want to be the one to slide into his DMs. But hadn’t stopped her friends for telling her everything the guy seems to do. Whether he has got a goal for Leicester or if he has got into the England call up.

It was mid November when YN started to feel alittle funny, her friend instantly telling her to take a pregnancy test which she does was complaining all the way through. Sat on her bed with her bed friend beside her she felt like her whole world had just paused and in slow motion as she looked at the two lines that means positive she was pregnant. She felt herself getting nervous as she questioned how she was going to tell Ben. Should she even tell him?

YN was pacing outside of Wembley stadium where England played, everytime the door opened she looked like a little meerkat hoping to find Ben walking towards the coach. But nothing. He was one of the last ones out, he was laughing and joking with a brunette guy with loads of freckles covering his face and a olive skinned toned guy with a cross earring.

‘Ben’ she calls reaching out for him.

He instantly recognised her, he told the guys to go without him, his hand was in hers as he distanced them away from the fans.

‘Why did you just up and bolt?’ She mutters. ‘Was I just a quick shag for you, wasn’t I good enough?’ She rambles.

His face softens. ‘I was late, I had a meeting that day’ he explained.

She didn’t believe him. He could of left a note to tell her or even wake her up, anything was better than leaving her high and dry.

She lets out a shaky breath before handing him the test. ‘Just thought you would like to know.. I don’t want anything from you’ she says before turning hot on her heels and walking off.

He was about to chase after her but James appeared and told him to get on the bus.

December 2019

Ben was sat beside YN as she winced slightly as she felt the cold gel on her stomach. The midwife spoke to the two of them as she talked about mummy and baby classes that they could go to before the baby arrives. Asking the two whether they are going to find out what they were having or if they have any names ready. Ben noticed as she gave a blank look, he answering for her and getting the lady of their backs. The three of them looked at the monitor with a confused look as there was nothing there but the midwife knew exactly what she was looking at.

The two of them decided to go for coffee in the hospital, he walks with two hot chocolate and slides one over to her.

‘Why did you come?’ YN questions.

His brows furrow at her. ‘Because I don’t want you to go through this alone, I know this was a drunken night out and neither of us planned this but I want to be there for you and my child’ he says softly. ‘If you’ll allow me that is’ he mutters.

She nods her head slowly before sipping her drink.

‘We should start thinking of telling family’ he mutters as he sees her wince.

He held her hand before knocking on his parents door, they had already told YN’s parents and now it was time to meet the Chilwell’s. They were surprised when they saw their son wasn’t alone, as they sat around the dining table YN couldn’t help but feel awkward as they tried to find out the pretty female was to their son.

‘I’m pregnant’ she announces, before see Ben’s face scrunch up slightly wanting to announce it a little bit more delicately.

Their reacts was probably how you imagined, his mum jumped up and walked out leaving you with his sister and brother. The three of the stayed quiet as they heard them call her every name under the sun. As they left YN muttering a small ‘that couldn’t of went any more worse’.

January 2020

YN was now four months into her pregnancy and Ben was always round when he wasn’t training or at games. He started waiting on her hand and foot. He made sure that she had everything she needed in the house and catered to her craving.

The two of them had got to know each other more, wanting to have a better relationship as the two of them were always going to be connected with this little person.

The two sat on the sofa with the two bidding names that they liked.

‘Curtis?’ YN questioned.

‘Absolutely not’ Ben chuckled.

‘I like Jamie for a girl’ YN announces.

‘Jamie Chilwell’ he says slowly before they both crinkled their noses and shook their heads.

‘Saint?’ Ben suggests.

YN bursts out laughing. ‘We’re not boujee enough for that’

February 2020

Ben had told YN that she could live with him, not really wanting her living alone and being close whenever he needed him.

He had a girl round when YN came walking into the living room gushing that the baby has kicked. Ben instantly jumped up and ran towards her, his hands instantly on her growing stomach. The girl stayed sat on the sofa as she watched the two freeze as they waited for movement. There was a suddenly squeal coming from the two as Ben instantly sinks to his knees.

‘That was amazing, that was a big kick’ he gushed. ‘Practicing your free kicks buddy’ he giggles.

He has recently got in his head that the baby is a boy and started pushing his favourite names.

‘Sorry to interrupt but who is this?’ The girl spoke up.

The two looking at, suddenly remembering that they weren’t alone in and realising how weird this looked. Ben stepped away from YN and the bump as he looked awkward.

‘I’m....’ she starts.

‘My sister, she’s my sister’ he quickly cutting her off. YN raises her brows at him as he tells her to go to his bedroom and he’ll meet her in their.

The girl smiles at YN and then walks down the hall.

‘Oh will me and the bump be your cock block’ she rolls her eyes at her. ‘Wear a condom this time, don’t want to be in this mess again’ she sasses.

She sits in the kitchen alone as she hears everything the two is getting up to as she eats icecream from the tub.

March 2020

‘Are you uncomfortable?’ James instantly freaks as he sees her wince and runs her hand over her bump.

She shakes her head as she lets James guides her to sit down.

After the last month situation, they both spoke about Ben not bringing any girls back. It hurt YN even though she wouldn’t admit it, she thought they were going well, even thought they could even try to be a thing. The two of them were so alike they even started finishing eachothers sentences.

‘I need to get the nursery done’ YN groans as James doesn’t let her get up.

‘You need to take it slow’ he mutters. ‘Let Ben do it’ he says softly.

She instantly bursts into tears. ‘Where is he? He missed the scan’ she cries, as he pulls her into him.

Ben comes waltzing through the door and sees his best mate with his baby mumma, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Mentioning that before they jump into bed wait till this baby gets out. YN jumps up and barges past him before pushing the scan into his chest.

May 2020

The past two months James has been the middle person between YN and Ben, they have been arguing a lot more and YN has really began to hate Ben with him saying some really mean things to her. They learned that they were having a boy. Whenever YN needed something she didn’t want anything from Ben, even though he was so desperate to help. Her comeback was to go to his latest slut.

James just wishing he could just banging their heads together and tell them to act like grown ups. He knew that they will be amazing parents but they needed to get on as they were on the same team.

‘Guys the baby is coming in 2 months let’s get your shit together’ he sassed.

He looks at his friend gives him a stern look.

‘You are old enough to fuck and get pregnant, act your age’ he mutters before leaving them.

Ben lets out a small sigh before sitting beside her. Her head going to his shoulder as they start having it out with eachother.

July 2020

‘BABE!’ YN calls in a panic tone which gets Ben running towards her voice. ‘My waters-‘ she says.

He instantly starts panicking looking like a stressed sim. She held onto the sink as he panicked called his mum. He was surprised when he looked over at YN she was starting a bath. He helped her in the bath and relaxed in there and overcome a few of her contractions.

A few hours went by of YN relaxing at home and riding her contractions, Ben being completely on edge.

The Labour was a few hours and Ben instantly burst into tears as the midwife places the large baby on YN’s chest. YN let out a small crying laugh as she looks down at her little man. Ben kissing her forehead as he tells her how proud he was of her.

‘Luke James Chilwell’ YN gushes.

They both gush over the little creation they made, the last crazy nine months completely forgotten about because it was now about the next eighteen years of being the best parents to this little guy. Neither of them would of believed when they were at that Halloween party that their lives would change forever.

#ben chilwell imagines #ben chilwell blurbs #ben chilwell

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robinskey · 5 years

Text

Apple Pie (Billy x Reader)

Request: Could I request a BillyxReader, reader is the girl next door and Billy finds himself looking for glimpses everyday after seeing her when he first moved in doing laundry, humming and just smiling which makes Billy not mind being at home because he knows there’s just this ray of sunshine. She brings a pie she baked to welcome his family & Billy is starved for baking cos his mum used to bake for him & he hasn’t had any in years. It makes him feel really happy? I’m ready for some fluffy goodness ❤️

A/N: This prompt is freaking adorable and I’m SO glad you requested it, @sweetboibilly.

Warnings: Slightly angsty and some foul language. Also, Neil Hargrove being a jerk/implications of abuse. Story under the cut.

Billy never expected to fall for the literal girl next door.

His first glimpse of you occurred on his first night in Hawkins. In the early hours of Thursday morning, Billy’s father had dragged him out of his warm bed. He was forced to load his entire life onto a moving truck, then follow it (and his father’s erratic driving) for thousands of miles in his Camaro. Susan, Billy’s stepmother, trailed behind him in his father’s pickup truck. In the rearview mirror, Billy could see her gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, terrified of wrecking it. Susan didn’t own a car; her driver’s license had expired years ago. She relied on her husband for transportation. Putting Susan behind the wheel had been a terrible idea. However, Neil had insisted that they didn’t have a choice. There were four people to transport in three cars, and he wasn’t about to let Susan’s fourteen-year-old daughter drive his prized possession across the country.

Late Friday evening, the caravan finally arrived at their new address. Billy found the run-down one-story house underwhelming, to say the least. Faded paint covered the chipped paneling, and overgrown vines crept up the sides of the house. The thud of Billy’s car door slamming shut caused a small critter to scurry off the porch.

After thirty-some hours of virtually-non-stop driving, everyone was exhausted and wanted nothing more than a good night’s sleep. But as the head of the household aptly reminded them, their new home was empty. They couldn’t collapse into a bed that wasn’t set up yet or press their heads into pillows that hadn’t been unpacked.

Billy glanced around, taking in his new surroundings. Flickering streetlights gleamed down on the fractured sidewalk. Small houses similar to his lined the street, all of them identically dead.

Except for one.

In the house next to his, a light clicked on in a tiny room. The silhouette of a girl carrying a basket on her hip appeared. He watched as you placed the basket on top of a counter and started removing articles of clothing from it, then dropping them into what Billy assumed was a washing machine. Despite the chilly October air, someone had left the window open. You hummed a soft melody, which carried on the breeze to Billy’s ears. Your graceful, fluid movements mirrored those of a ballerina, the song to which you danced light and dreamlike. It was the sort of sound a person could get lost in, and Billy did-until the bark of his father bit into his trance.

“Billy! Get your ass over here, and unload these damn boxes!”

Regretfully, Billy stopped watching the pixie of a girl to help his father. He spent the next hour dragging heavy furniture into the house while his dad “supervised.” After sliding the last box into the living room, Billy collapsed on the front step, his face drenched in sweat and muscles aching. When he looked toward your house, darkness had consumed it once more, and you were long gone.

***

Billy, Susan, and Max spent Saturday unpacking boxes and reassembling furniture. (Neil had helped for about thirty minutes, but as soon as his easy chair was set up, he became useless.) Throughout the day, Billy peeked out the window whenever he could, hoping to steal a glimpse of you. Once, he spotted you walking your dog down the sidewalk. Another time, you were sweeping the porch. It wasn’t until that evening, however, when Billy was taping posters up on the walls of his new bedroom, that he was able to see you for more than a few seconds at a time.

The room across from Billy’s had been dead all day. Billy didn’t think much of it; he figured your family probably used it for storage or something. But then, a switch flipped, suddenly illuminating the space with color. To be more, accurate, actually, it illuminated the space with yellow. Everything-the pale walls, the sunflower-printed quilt over the bed, the painted dresser-everything in the room was coated in different shades of yellow. It might have made him want to vomit if you hadn’t appeared in the doorway, shifting his focus from the horrid color scheme of your bedroom to the princess who inhabited it.

He watched for several minutes while you paced around your room, ponytail swinging behind you. You brought one nail up to your lips to chew on it; clearly, something was bothering you. Eventually, you flopped onto your bed and reached for an object on the bedside table-a dandelion-hued telephone. To Billy’s surprise, he was able to make out the words you spoke into the phone-probably because of your bad habit of leaving windows open.

“Hey, Darcy. It’s Y/N,” you said.

Y/N. What a nice name.

“Yeah, so I’m calling for advice...Apparently, we have new neighbors, and-I don’t know if they’ve got a son, Darce! My mom just mentioned at dinner that someone by the name of Neil Hargrove bought Mrs. Chesterfield’s old house...Wait, you recognize that name?”

You listened for a moment, then shot up quickly.

“No way,” you said, almost too quietly for Billy to hear. “Wait, hang on, Darce. It’s really cold in here-I must have forgotten the close the window this morning.”

Billy dove towards the floor as you rose from your bed. Gentle footsteps padded across carpet. Then, there was a faint click of glass and the jerk of curtains being pulled. When Billy peeked out his window again, he could only make out a shadowy figure holding a rectangle up to her ear.

“You know, Billy, you’re a lot of things, but I never took you for a Peeping Tom.”

A wiry redhead stood in the doorway to his room, a smug smirk on her lips.

“Buzz off, Max,” Billy said, slamming the door in the know-it-all’s face.

***

Sunday morning.

After stirring out of bed, Billy headed towards his window. He squinted at the room opposite his in the bright sunlight, but there was not much to see. The house was still motionless, lifeless-the curtains still drawn over the window. He had no idea what time it actually was. His alarm clock read 9:32, but that couldn’t have been right. Neil never would have let Billy sleep past 7:00 for fear of him wasting the day away like a lazy bum. Finally, Billy remembered: Today, the elder Hargrove started at his new job.

Billy pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans before stumbling into the kitchen, still half-drunken with sleep. Aside from the television droning on in the corner of the room, the place was just as dead as the neighbors’. He knew Susan planned to spend the day applying to various jobs in town, but Max wouldn’t have wanted to tag along. Thankfully, a short note left on the counter explained her whereabouts: Skateboarding. Be back never.

God. They drag him to this stupid town and then ditch him within a day.

Itching for a glass of orange juice, Billy whipped open the refrigerator door. It, of course, was empty, and it would probably stay that way for a few days, unless Billy made a trip to the grocery store himself. Not wanting to deal with the stares of overly-nosy fellow shoppers trying to place the new face, Billy settled for tap water.

He leaned against the sink as he tipped the glass to his lips. He downed the entire cup in one go, then gazed out the window. Across his overgrown lawn, Billy spotted a tiny flurry of motion. A small girl was making a beeline towards his house.

“Shit,” Billy mumbled. He panicked, knowing he had about a minute to make himself presentable. Billy wasted about thirty seconds making a mental list of hygenic priorities before realizing that if he kept thinking, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of them. He managed to gargle a bit of mouthwash and run a comb through his curls before a gentle fist knocked at the front door.

“Coming!” Billy called from his bedroom. He jogged through the hallway and flung open the door before actually halting to a complete stop.

You stood on the front step, slightly rocking on your heels. Billy first noticed that you were even prettier up close. Then, a sweet, fruity smell drifted to his nostrils, and he glanced down at the glass dish in your arms, covered by a dishrag.

You cleared your throat. Billy wondered if the strain in his voice had anything to do with the fact that he hadn’t showered yet today. But then you flashed him a shy smile, and it was enough to melt away his fears.

“Hi,” you piped up. “I’m Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N? My parents and I live next door. I, um-I just wanted to welcome your family to the neighborhood.”

Billy chuckled despite himself.

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but it’s just me here,” he said.

“Consider me thoroughly disappointed,” you said with a wink. “In all honesty, though, it’s lovely to meet you, uh…”

“Billy,” he said, finally mirroring your grin. “Nice to meet you, too, Y/N.” He gestured to the covered dish in your hands. “What’s that?”

“Oh!” you cried in realization.

You tugged at the cloth, revealing a pastry with a beautiful lattice design sprinkled with sugar on top. Billy started salivating almost immediately. He hadn’t been this close in proximity to a homemade baked good like that in years. Not since, well…

“I didn’t know what kind of pie you guys would like. Heck, I didn’t even know if you guys liked sweets, but I wanted to do something nice for my new neighbors. I figured most people will at least tolerate apple pie, so...” You started bouncing on your heels again, and it was so cute that Billy almost forgot to respond.

“This looks...amazing,” he said honestly, then stepped back a little to allow you room to pass. “Do you want to come in for a bit? We could sample this masterpiece together.”

You bit your lip, gaze darting toward your house anxiously.

“I-I probably shouldn’t. My dad would lose it if he knew I was alone in a house with a guy.”

It was Billy’s turn to wink at you.

“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

The corners of your mouth tugged upwards. You glanced toward your home once more before darting into Billy’s, claiming that “one piece of pie won’t hurt.”

Taglist: @novaddictx @sweetboibilly

If you want to be added to the taglist for my writing or for a specific character, leave a reply or send me a message! Thanks for reading. <3

If you liked this story, feel free to check out my masterlist. :)

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x female reader #billy hargrove x fem!reader #billy hargrove x fem #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove drabble #billy hargrove one shot #stranger things #stranger things x reader #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #parker-potter writes

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bohrapbois · 4 years

Note

A short fic of the cast all reuniting after quarantine? Lots of hugs and fluff included please!

I’m so sorry that this took so long! Suddenly had loads of things on my plate and then this slipped my mind... I’m sorry! But here it is, and it was hella fun to write!

Words - 2,000+ (This will also be posted to AO3 cause god damn we need more fluff right now)

Relatsionships - None! Just pure friendship fluff!

“Holy shit Ben,” Gwil eagerly grabbed the shorter man, pulling him close and burying his face in the mess of uncut curls. “God, it feels good to actually get to see you again, actually being able to hug you again!” He felt Ben nodding against his chest, and maybe they looked a bit insane standing on the pavement hugging a little touch starved, but it had been so hard not being able to do this. They’d both gone slightly insane stuck inside, but knew it was for everyone’s safety.

Lockdown had eased as the cases dropped, and maybe three o’clock in the morning wasn’t the best time for Ben to text his fellow London residing friend, but the following morning at a reasonable time, they’d sped walked towards each other at a meeting place and just hugged.

“I know mate,” Ben chuckled, squeezing his arms around Gwil’s waist a few times before pulling back. They both keep an arm around each other, friends not caring what others think about them and start walking. They weren’t far from Gwil’s house, and as many places were still closed, they’d just have to make do with kettle instant coffee and some pastries from Tesco. “I think I would’ve gone insane if I kept staring at the walls any longer”. He shoved his sunglasses slightly higher up his nose, the sun unreasonably bright for this time of year.

Gwil laughed and nodded, pulling Ben closer to his side and giving him a gentle shake, “you really hate not doing anything, don’t you Benny?”

They kept the conversation light for the morning walk until finally, they got back to Gwils, kicking off their shoes by the front door and wandering into the kitchen. In the couple of years of knowing each other, these two had been over to each other’s places many times, sometimes unannounced, so it was nice being in a familiar place for Ben as he jumped up to sit on the edge of the table, legs dangling over the side as Gwil went around and made their drinks.

Although they’d talked most days, video called with the others and the group had basically been a vital support for each other, it was still better getting to see each other in person. Voices were clearer, didn’t have to worry about the internet connection or going out of shot, and somehow, conversations were easier.

They sent off a picture of them together to Joe as they moved into the living room, Gwil’s partner happy to let them bond as she went to work in the little office. Now with a couple of bottles of cheap wine and a Pot Noodle each, they relaxed on either side of the sofa and flipped on the TV. Although lockdown had been eased a bit, didn’t mean the world was A-Okay again, so day drinking and junk food eating was still acceptable.

Finding a terrible film, Ben threw the remote between them and tucked his feet under Gwil’s thighs, pulling out his phone to send a few more texts to Joe.

The hardest part of being back with one friend is realising you can’t meet up with the others straight away.

Taking a long sip of wine straight from the bottle, Ben kept the conversation airy, didn’t want to make Social-Butterfly-Mazzello upset he was still stuck inside with his mother. Catching up with the redhead, Ben read off the texts to Gwil, letting Joe know what the other mans opinions were at the same time as enquiring more information himself until eventually, they were on a second film and maybe a bit too tipsy.

“I miss the guys,” Ben sighs, head leaning back on the arm of the chair as his legs tangled with Gwils on the sofa, “not that I don’t love you too, mate,” the blond chuckles, wine spilling slightly onto his chin as he took another swig of the basically empty bottle in his hand.

“ ‘ know what you mean,” Gwil had long since finished his bottle, eyeing up the last one they swore they wouldn’t touch, much like the one Ben is emptying now. “Somehow seeing you here makes it harder?” Fuck it. He’s going to get drunk with his best friend on a Wednesday at 5pm. He grabbed the bottle, loosening the cap and flicking it off somewhere across the room. He reached for the glasses his darling had brought through awhile back, and with unsteady hands, filled both glasses without spilling too much.

“Yeah, exactly,” empty bottle now placed on the floor, Ben sat up, shoulder propped up against the back of the sofa. He didn’t grab his glass straight away, needing a moment to think. “We getta see each other but not them? And Joe is being extra careful cause of his mum, it just… are we selfish for meeting up?” He glances over at Gwil, who was just about to take another drink but stopped, frowning slightly and lowering the glass from his lips.

“What? No!” He shook his head a little too long, “Joe knows about England, he’d be more surprised if we didn’t … get drunk like this,” he gestured towards the wine splashing around in the glass, finally bringing it up to his lips and taking a sip. Nothing like cheap corner store rose when having a philosophical talk. “Yeah it’s shit, but come on, we gotta celebrate being able to actually go outside again”. His words would probably have more impact if they were actually inside, but Ben was nodding anyway.

“M’kay, I kinda guess,” Ben rubs across the soft stubble starting to come through on his chin, “gonna make it better when we can actually see them all, ya know? I can’t wait to actually meet baby Leech,” reaching over and grabbing his glass, Ben does a small cheers gesture. They hadn’t been able to meet the new addition yet, and although they’d all been dubbed Uncles and Auntys, they hadn’t gotten to cuddle and bicker on who’d be best. Allen had been keeping them all updated on his pride and joy, and Ben had already printed off a photo to add to his wall.

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

It was a few months later when they were all able to meet up again. Summer was coming to an end, evenings becoming shorter and colder, but that didn’t mean Joe’s hands weren’t sweaty to the touch. Lockdowns around the world had been eased, then brought back in place, and it had been an entire shit show really. He was glad he’d had his mom with him, he didn’t look over the precious time they spent together, but when a Gwil had sent over some flights in the group chat a few weeks ago, asking if the lot stuck in America wanted to come to Britain, he’d actually cried.

Arranging to stay at Bens for an undiscussed amount of time (“Joe, you can stay however fucking long you want, ‘kay? Always got a spare bed for you, buddy”), Joe had checked with his mother if she’d be alright, and she shooed off any of his fears, saying it’d be nice to get to see her grandbabies and other offspring, she’d hardly be alone. So, he packed up his stuff and set off.

Rami and Lucy were coming too, and Joe was practically shaking in anticipation. When he spotted them, and they spotted him, they rushed to each other and had a massive hug, full of giggles and tears.

“Oh my god have I missed you guys,” Joe kissed Lucy’s forehead and Rami’s cheek before giving each one an individual hug and rib repositioning. It was great that they could touch and hug each other again, and Joe thought that he’d never stop doing it if he can.

“Seeing someone other than Lucy is a miracle,” Rami joked, arm wrapped over Joes shoulder and pulling him up against his chest again. He loved his girl so much, loved the future they were building together, but months trapped in a flat was hard for anyone. It made them stronger in some respects, but they’d had more arguments then than the rest of their relationship. He got a teasing punch on the arm from his girlfriend, who wiggled her way under his other arm and here they were again, the group hug they’d all been daydreaming about for weeks.

There was still precautions taken in the airport, with spacing and temperature checks done at the gates, minimal contact with crew and workers, and god damned hand sanitizer everywhere. It still felt odd how quiet things were. There was an air of caution in everything everyone did now, but they had to get back to normal, had to keep going, so here they were.

The plane journey was as long as ever, but somehow felt longer. Lucy and Rami were moving to their London residence for a bit, had her family to see and get a break from the craziness from America, so they were telling Joe about all the renovations they were going to do when there.

“Rami wants to do the garden, but I’m not sure, you know?” Lucy, sat in the middle chair, explaining the plans her boyfriend had been rambling to her for the last month or so, “a great actor, maybe not the best gardener”. Joe nodded along and laughed as the couple started a light hearted bickering, and maybe he teared up a bit again because he was actually able to see them again, and he wished the plane could land faster.

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

In London, Gwilym and Ben were in a similar situation. Setting up the blonds flat for the little get together, they kept fussing over the smallest of details although they knew that no one would really mind if the pillow on the sofa was on the left side or the right, but it kept their minds off of things.

Disappointingly, the Leech family wouldn’t be joining them tonight. They didn’t want to risk the baby getting sick, but had agreed to come at a later date and meet them in smaller groups. It would have to do, but it didn’t mean the conversation wasn’t a bit disheartening.

They tried to ignore the time as they cooked the party foods and reorganised the alcohol in the fridge for the third time, but when Bens phone pinged on the kitchen counter, they both scrambled to look at it.

“They’re on their way!” Gwil announced, grinning over the screen as another text came in, this time a photo. Ben unlocked the device, and they beamed down at a photo of the three people they can’t wait to meet up with again.

But now it’s the whole ‘how long do we have to wat?’ game, and suddenly Ben was convinced his shirt wasn’t right and had to change about five times before walking back out of his room with a slightly lighter coloured shirt.

It was as he was running a hand through his still long hair and trying to tame it when his doorbell rang. Gwil leapt over the back of the sofa and skidded to the door as if it was his life mission to get to it at a surprisingly quick rate. He flung open the door and saw the tired trio light up in excitement just as Ben shoved his way into the doorway under the Welshmans arm.

There was a moment where no one moved before chaos ensured. Ben and Joe instantly wrapped each other in the biggest hug they’d ever done, the blond tucking his nose against Joe’s neck and letting a few relieved tears pass his eyelashes as he squeezed the air out of his American.

Gwil was tall enough that he could wrap both Rami and Lucy in a hug, laughing up at the sky as the joy of the whole thing finally sunk in. The couple didn’t mind, instead competing on who could actually get closer to their tallest friend.

After a few minutes, it was time to rotate the hugs. Ben loved being squished between Lucy and Rami, both smothering his cheeks in kisses and getting the emotional man to laugh in glee. Maybe some tickling was involved, but it had been long overdue anyway, and it made them all laugh as they watched one blond chase the other blonde down the pavement with happy threats of tickling her to death.

Joe and Gwil rocked back and forth as they hugged, Gwils hand on the back of Joes head and holding him close to his chest as Joe rubbed across his spine to remind them both that yeah, they were here, were hugging, and had gotten through a global pandemic without going mad.

It was only when a shrill alarm started screaming from inside the flat that the reunion was broken. They all jumped and startled, looking through the open door and seeing a thing layer of smoke. “Oh shit my pizzas!” Ben yelped, jumping past everyone and rushing into the flat.

Ah, yep, nothing had actually changed.

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grownups-are-the-real-monsters · 4 years

Text

My Friend Emmett Kelly

Summary: Eddie pulled away and looked off into that bright orange sky. “I miss them.” He frowned as he started walking up to a dead freight car. Mike followed and accepted the helping hand of his friend when it was apparently came time to hop inside and sat at the edge. “I miss them and I couldn’t even remember them a few days ago.”

{IT happened but these 3 idiots meet-up before the 2nd showdown w/ Pennywise. They’re about 28 in this story}

By the way, just in case you don't know: Emmett Kelly was a circus performer, who created the clown character "Weary Willie", based on the hobos of the Depression era :)

{She doesn’t care but I dedicate this to the #1 Emmett Kelly fan @m-o-o-n-thatspellsblog ;) !!}

Words: 5,184

Ship: Reddie,

“No one wants to ride and train when they can just jump in a Ford and go.”

The Hitchhiker came and went through the bloodied recesses of Edward Kaspbrak’s mind often. He would repeat old time-y sentiments that were not necessarily blatant horror, sentences Eddie could take as calmly as a pill only a little too thick to swallow on the first try. But they were the kind of words that ripped another stringy clot of skin from the wound that the first had created.

Sometimes,The Hitchhiker would open his mouth to a gentle ‘O’ and out would pour the sounds of an old radio trying to tune itself to a station. Static would salt out of his painted lips before landing on something like Roger Miller singing ‘King of The Road’.

“Third boxcar, midnight train, destination Bangor, Maine Old worn-out suits and shoes I don't pay no union dues...”

Though The Hitchhiker hadn’t started doing that until he tunneled his way out of Eddie’s mind and bled into the real world. But there was also the likely possibility that Eddie had manifested the character into the air by building him a subconscious bridge.

The train-yard in Derry, Maine was the first place that he saw his little friend slinking around a plain of existence that Eddie hadn’t made-up.

It was late-afternoon with the company of a low-hanging sun and nice screeches coming from under the wheels of great long freight trains. Passenger trains long since halted their run in the town. But the freights were loaded with goods to bring into places to the north and to the south. His favorites used to be the ones which had gleaming Fords and Chevies because it had been a real dream of his childhood to own a car like those.

His little hitchhiking friend must have known of this affection for the yard because that afternoon, when he was back in his hometown to watch over his sick mother, the sad man was just sitting on a paused freight.

His eyebrows frozen in what looked to be an upward quiver and lived under a flat little brown hat. A shadow of paint took over his chin like a beard and made the white around his lips truly stand out. But most notably, a ball of red sat in place of his nose.

Eddie recognized the familiarity of the man in an instant. For he...was what Eddie had begun to associate with patterned, fuzzy memories that sometimes came back into his head. They were never complete nor useful, just sentences that could be a mighty pain to that first wound. But the man on the freight was the image they were almost always voiced from.

In an old worn out suit, lived an Emmett Kelly looking clown who sometimes appeared to Eddie in passing thought. Of course, he was never quite sure why he’d first began to associate a clown with old childhood memories but it never much bothered him until he set foot back into Derry.

And in that moment, as he sat on the train with a clutched fist around a small sack, the Kelly lookalike seemed so real.

The man turned to Eddie and spoke one of those charmed little sentences but this time, he had his very own voice because there was the absence of him being trapped in Eddie’s own internal narrative. “No one wants to ride and train when they can just jump in a Ford and go.”

That had been his mother. Sonia. Eddie was sure that she had once said something of that sort to him when he asked about the trains that ran through town. It was a plain sort of comment she’d thrown into her little story but nonetheless, it had pained the boy in that childhood memory who adored trains for whatever odd reason.

Emmett, Eddie supposed he could refer to him as such, reached out a hand which poked out from the boxcar. Eddie flinched in some sort of sweaty fear but calmed slightly when he realized he had only been pointing to a crate sitting in the cinders.

Eddie was sort of paralyzed with either fear or shock but decided to take a peek when Emmett covered his eyes in a playful manner. As if to say ‘Hey! I’ll look away, if you want’!

So Eddie tipped his body and took a small, gentle peek into the crate that was clicking around and caught sight of something eerily familiar. Slithering and crawling inside were 4 lobsters. Printed across the side of the box in faded yellow paint were the words; ‘Take em’ home to yer mum’.

“Oh, Fuck off” He shook his head and stepped back to his original spot. His memories of the early days had begun to clear up ever since he returned to Derry some days ago and if he recalled right, this had once happened to him before...in a different way.

When he glanced back to the train, Emmett had disappeared altogether.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four days later, Eddie decided to sort out all the closets and his old bedroom for any hidden treasures or shit to just jog his memory. He ran into an old looking photo-book and some old books he decided to bring to the library because he doubted his mother would ever miss them.

Plus, it was a good excuse to leave the old home. So Eddie took a nice mid-afternoon stroll through Derry with the small box of books under his arm.

He went through the train-yard, walking along track 4 and browsing that old photo-book. He glanced up every few minutes but never once did he catch a glimpse of his Hitchhiker Emmett.

It was strange...that kind of fear that his little Hitchhiker caused him now. Bouncing from mind to reality like that and something about clowns absolutely terrified him lately. A fear that, he again didn’t notice until returning to Derry.

The air smelled strongly of dark brown perfume and mild touches of wet autumn leaves as Eddie moved back towards the main street. He found the library in mere seconds and attempted to balance the box and the photo-book underneath it as he took the stairs and strolled inside.

His forearms itched, that dirty itch, when he set the box onto the main counter. Which felt like bugs had crawled under his skin and were now making themselves comfortable.

“You wanna donate these or-...?”

Eddie glanced up when the man didn’t finish his sentence and found a nice looking dude looking completely wrecked with shock.

Little Emmett Kelly was back in his mind, opening his mouth and tuning it specifically to a song...“Like the pine trees linin' the windin' road I've got a name, I've got a name...”

“Mike-...Mike Hanlon?” Eddie heard himself say out-loud before he truly could place him. But when the man smiled back at him, wide and lovingly, he found his place and Emmett smiled too before the image left his mind.

“Eddie Kaspbrak!” Mike reached out for a hug that felt amazingly soft. Eddie melted into him like butter...and kinda like a man about to breakdown and cry. But the long lost pal just tightened his arms around him and sighed with something like relief and pride.

‘Long lost pal...that reminds me of a song...’ Eddie paused to think. ‘Something another friend used to sing-’

Emmett reappeared in his mind’s eye for a brief second and used his magic mouth-radio to play just what he was looking for.

“If you'll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al...”

Eddie nodded to himself and pulled away from Mike even though he desperately didn’t want to move an inch.

The man before him was so obviously placed now that Eddie couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. He was just as charming, handsome and grounded as he was in their childhood days. Michael Hanlon. 1 of 7. : : : : :

Before Eddie could stop himself and maybe be polite enough to leave Mike to his work, he had begged him to come walking with him. He hadn’t felt that deeply connected to anyone in many years so he planned to enjoy it while he had the time. It sucked that the catch-up had to take place in Derry, of all places, but it was a town that would live in each of them for as long as they lived even if they forgot for a while. ‘How fucked was that?’

That photo-book now curled up in his fist. He took Mike back by the train-yard and the two strolled down track 4 while the sun bathed them both in colors deserving of Summer even though it was mid-fall.

“And I suppose...once you leave, you’ll memory will fade again.” Mike finished his long story of their fucking shitty childhood nightmare which seemed to drag Eddie down like the thick filmy sweat that use to coat his body after a long summers day in the Barrens, the one that made him realize that day was over.

“I’ve been seeing a clown-...”

Mike snapped his eyes directly to Eddie’s, they were filled with dreaded fear.

“No-...It’s not like that...” Eddie couldn’t really explain himself because he wasn’t sure if it really made sense out-loud. “It’s this character that I sorta created a few years back, the angel and devil on my shoulder or something.” Eddie scratched behind his ear and Mike hopped off the rail and strolled closer.

“When memories pop into my brain or weird shit that I can’t place, it speaks through him in my head. Which is fucked-up I guess but I didn’t really give a shit about it before. I just thought it was something I did, y’know? He was a train-hopper kinda...dude. Which I always liked but now...”

Mike pulled Eddie’s sleeve just to let him know he was safe to speak.

“Mike, he scares the shit outta me. Not because he’s doing anything scary. But when I got to Derry and started feeling things the way I used to...Clowns just didn’t fucking sit right with me-”

Eddie broke into a loud laugh which Mike had to join in because their lives were too fucking weird.

“One time, I was driving this client of mine, right?” Eddie bumped their arms together and laughed. “And my little Hitchhiker popped into my brain when a really good song was on-...‘Roll Me Away’ Bob Seger, I think...-and in a clear impression of Richie Tozier, which I now recognize and can place as I’m telling you this, he said ‘Life is just what happens in between long drives.’.”

Eddie sighed like he couldn’t believe his own words. “That’s what Emmett does. He repeats things like that to me...like a moment’s reminder not strong enough for me to keep remembering but strong enough to deepen a wound I didn’t know I had.”

His eyes were watery when he turned back to Mike, which he didn’t realize was breaking Mike’s heart a little. “Emmett?”

“Oh, That’s what I call him. Because he isn’t a Bozo kinda clown...looks more like an Emmett Kelly, you know him?” Eddie asked and suddenly pulled out an inhaler to suck on which sent Mike back some years ago. “Anyway, I think Richie told me that once when I got my license and drove him to a K-Mart one town over.” Eddie giggled.

Mike smiled with a touch of sadness that now broke Eddie’s heart. “If there’s anything I learn from staying here in Derry, Eddie, it’s that you can’t live your todays being scared to wake up for the tomorrows.” Mike gently put his arm around him and squeezed. “It’s not a good way to live and...” He looked to him with warm eyes.

“If there’s no reason to, don’t start convincing yourself to be scared of your Hitchhiker. We all got our angels and devils on our old shoulders. And don’t let the memories of...IT...-” Mike hesitated before he said that “Overwhelm you. No use in giving it a thought unless there should come a day when we have to.” Mike added that with a look of sorrow but found the joy to smile again.

“I should live by those words, Mike.” Eddie shook his finger and repeated them in his head, like a mantra. ‘You can’t live your todays being scared to wake up for the tomorrows.’

He thought upon all those horrible nights spent wide awake and being scared of how many times he might lose his breath the next day. Clutching his inhaler like an anxiety filled mess.

Eddie didn’t notice he’d been anxiously clasping and unclasping his hands until Mike held out his arms for a hug. He fell into Mike’s grip as if the number of years hadn’t actually passed and they were still teenagers who saw each other everyday. Mike rubbed his hand in a circle on his back. “We have to be there for each other...”

Eddie pulled away and looked off into that bright orange sky. “I miss them.” He frowned as he started walking up to a dead freight car. Mike followed and accepted the helping hand of his friend when it was apparently came time to hop inside and sat at the edge. “I miss them and I couldn’t even remember them a few days ago.”

Mike watched with a tilted chin as Eddie paced the length of the old boxcar in that nervous way he had always approached stress with. It brought a little light into the car, Mike thought. He could only be what the situation handed him in moments like this, where he was pretty vulnerable. And the situation tossed him a memory of joy so he smiled at his friend who’d been young once too despite the speed in which they’d all had to grow up in. “I can’t imagine how you’ve been feeling. Considering you didn’t forget.” Eddie dropped his shoulders and sat back down.

Mike shrugged like it was no big deal but there was a bit of pain behind his kind eyes that gave him away.

“I mean...at least we got to forget all that shit and have the luxury of not being aware we had any trauma. What the others made of it, I don’t know but...” He waved his hand out into the air but let it fall. “Well...who’s there for you?”

Mike’s lips trembled which was strange to see. “I don’t if either of those two options is great, Eddie.” He rolled his lips together when his friend raised his brow. “Remembering our trauma for the six of you is extremely exhausting. But also...forgetting trauma leaves room to pick up unhealthy habits again...”

Eddie clutched his inhaler and blinked back some stress tears. He looked off towards the middle of the train-yard and found his little hitchhiker in the distant boney and dead grass. Emmett was shaking what looked like his very own inhaler except when he went to suck on it, water squirted out and drenched his face. He frowned and made brief eye-contact before tossing the thing deep into the field, looking betrayed.

‘Yeah’...Eddie decided the Hitchhiker was nothing to be scared of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside. That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive...” Bruce Springsteen lyrics. That’s what Emmett tuned his good ol’ mouth radio to in Eddie’s dream last night.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was aiming for with that but decided it’d be best not to think too hard about it. Instead, Eddie made his mother some breakfast and tried not to self-diagnose the itchy spot on his arm as eczema.

The bushel of pink-painted roses covering the delicate plate was covered in scrambled eggs and a side of bacon made just for Sonia.

They say the older you get, the harder it is to forgive & forget. Fixing up moist yellow scrambled eggs...for a mother only surviving on the given notion that her son was too much of a victim to say no...-Eddie was finding that saying to be true. He plopped the mess of food onto the table in front of his mom and remembered something simple.

Upstairs & and on his wooden bedroom window-sill there was a small carving. Eddie smiled to himself and took of for his room, no matter how his mom complained that they needed to spend actual time together. He just had to see if it was what he thought it was...

Kneeling down, he dragged his finger against the wood he couldn’t see until he felt the markings. He dipped himself to take a peek & found that it was still there, of course. ‘BADLANDS’

The song in which those Bruce Springsteen lyrics had come from. “Holy shit.” Eddie mumbled to himself and slapped the window-sill in pure shock. He laughed to himself, a deep sort of chuckle that may have sounded a little crazy.

Richie Damn Tozier. The memory was getting a little clearer now.

Fourteen year old Tozier had carved that into the weak wood with the butter knife Eddie had used to spread butter onto his toast that morning.

The Hitchhiker spoke in Richie’s voice as he reappeared in Eddie’s mind- “I’m tellin’ ya, Eds. You gotta listen to the song, there’s this part that reminds me of you. Listen-....” Emmett paused and instead of continuing with young memory version of Richie reading out the lyrics, he tuned that good ol’ mouth radio and sounded out that specific part.

“You wake up in the night With a fear so real You spend your life waiting For a moment that just don't come Well don't waste your time waiting”

Bruce sang out lyrics that eerily reminded Eddie of what Mike had said a few days ago; ‘You can’t live your todays being scared to wake up for the tomorrows.’

He really couldn’t blame Richie for associating that lyric with him. Eddie smiled to himself and dragged his thumb across the carving once more before standing. The dork had carved the title in so Eddie wouldn’t forget to listen to it.

His heart skipped a beat or two and he tried to wrap himself in that happy memory.

: : : : : : : :

A call came in through Eddie’s cell when the man was showering some two days later and was answered by his loving mother. Sonia picked it up without a moments hesitation because she had as much of a right as her son, after all she had paid for his living for around 17 years.

“-Is Eddie there, Mrs. Kaspbrak? I have an important message.”

She paused and glanced up the stairs to listen for a stop in the running water but it was still going off and probably splashing onto the tile because her boy always left a mess in there. “Michael Hanlon, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

A small snort escaped her lips because it felt very much like the past when those rowdy kids would ask for him to come play. “What is so important? Don’t you know Eddie is here to take care of his sick mother? Is that not more of an emergency-?”

Sonia was cut off not by Mike but by Eddie who’d suddenly burst down the stairs and snatched the phone out of her hand. “Mike? Sorry, it’s me.” He spared a look to Sonia, who only shook her head and left to lay across the couch in the other room. “What is it?”

“Nothing bad, actually. I think there’s someone down at the library you’ll want to see again.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“ED’S!”

“Richie fucking Tozier, what on earth blew you into town?” Eddie jogged towards the main desk and threw his friends a warm grin.

“More like who on earth blew me into town!” Richie broke into that little chuckle he used to do whenever he was being a little shit. Mike and Eddie only tossed each other annoyed looks and waited for an actual response. “-Yeah, nobody did...ha...Not funny, huh?” He swiped his curled knuckle under his nose and shook his head.

Mike rolled his eyes fondly and thumped their arms together to urge Richie to spill. “Um, yeah I-” Richie awkwardly began and ran his palms down the legs of his jeans. “I’m just visiting my parents for the weekend. Wentworth is being a little asshole, say’s he wants to redo the living room.” Richie shrugged. “So ma called me to try and y’know, talk him outta it...distract him - which is my talent after all -” He broke for laughter.

“But my ulterior motive, you ask?” Richie waved his arms and smugly grinned.

“Oh, tell us!” Mike chirped happily from behind the desk.

“I want to try and convince ol’ Went to hand over all his old or vintage luggage and suitcases to me, y’know?” He leaned back onto the desk and shrugged. “He’s got tons of nice junk perfect for me stuff my shit into. I just gotta get him to make the big journey to our storage unit place.” He grinned madly.

“What did you pack your stuff into to get here if you are without that necessity?” Eddie narrowed his eyes and came to stand against the desk, to Mike’s left and Richie to his right.

Richie waggled his finger and clicked his tongue. “A garbage bag-”

“Jesus, Richie-”

“What it wasn’t a used garbage bag, Eddie. I have some class.”

“Yeah, you’re the picture of class. Just drop the C & the L.” Eddie shook his head and feigned his attention elsewhere which always used to annoy his friend. A few seconds of silence passed them.

“Oh, I’m the ass?”

“Congratulations, you figured out the joke!” Eddie playfully clicked his own tongue and pretended he was more interested in the books stacked just next to his elbow. Richie reached over and smacked his other arm off the counter.

“Don’t start with me Kaspbrak, I can so pick up where we left off back in fifth grade & you stole my Twinkie!” Richie was now trying to smother his laughter and playfully swatting Eddie’s hands.

But his friend paused for a second and turned to Mike. “So, you remember that?” Eddie turned back to Richie. “What else are you remembering?”

“Oh, the killer fucking clown? Yeah, no - Mike helped catch me up to speed.” Richie stuck his finger out to point at him and laughed but it was not at all happy. It was bitter and miserable which could strike any Loser’s Club member with fear. The three men went quiet again, which the library was probably thankful for. The sour change in the mood easily took them over and kept them from enjoying the nice reunion. “Anyway, why are you in town?” Richie gently tapped Eddie’s hand.

The strong smell of his mothers perfume suddenly filled Eddie’s nose as he let himself frown. “My mom is sick.” His throat suddenly tightened and he knew it was because the anxiety was trying to worm it’s way into his body again, the subject commonly triggered it. He dragged his pointer finger around in small circles against the cold counter. “It’s nothing serious, I mean I know that but...you know Sonia.” He sighed.

“Boy, do I know your mom!” Richie automatically fell into a joke but realized his mistake when Mike thumped his palm onto the back of his head.

“She’s really laying the guilt on thick this time.” The misery was clear in his voice and he was kind of embarrassed. “Telling me to move back because she’s very weak-” He rolled his eyes “Your father was sick, Eddie-bear. I took care of him just as I took care of you. I’m sure you’re grateful for that, aren’t you?” He mocked her voice and shook his head.

“Eddie-” Both Richie and Mike started, knowing exactly where this was going. The panic on the man’s face was clear and sad.

“I sure as shit don’t want to come back here, guys. Jesus, I hate to think about living here with her again but...” Eddie was finally having the mental breakdown he’d been pushing since just before he left New York. “What if it kills her? Fuck, my leaving again could really upset her and-”

“Hey, hey, hey-” Richie Tozier’s hear shattered into a million pieces and he clasped his hands around his friends arms to calm him. “Ed’s, you said it yourself, she’s not seriously sick. I hate to say it...y’know what? Maybe I don’t...but I hate your mom!” Richie let go to wave his arms and a few people stared when he laughed. Mike gave them a charming grin and laid his gentle hands on both pals. “She manipulates you. It’s all she’s done since we were kids, man.”

Eddie blinked a few times and shook his head. “I know...I know that-...” he shrugged. “But she’s my mom. Shouldn’t that mean something?”

That broke something in Richie. The boy he’d grown up...loving with the entirety of his thirteen year old soul (not that he’d speak a word of that memory), was absolutely wrecked. “It should, yeah-” Richie nodded. “And that’s why it’s so fucking shitty that she treats you like that, Eds. ”

Mike nodded. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your happiness and well-being for your mother. That’s not a good relationship.” He spoke in a more reserved and mature tone than Richie but seemed to be in agreement.

Eddie slowly nodded and leaned away from their grips. His mind somehow went back to the train-yard and all the childish thoughts of traveling he’d used to express to himself there. Dreams of being a wanderer who didn’t get worked up from simple messes. No, he went wherever the trains took him. He couldn’t imagine having that sort of lifestyle because he was nowhere near the type of person who could handle it. He could barely ask to bum a ride off a co-worker, let alone hitchhike.

Emmett returned to his mind’s eye, as he so often did these days, but this time he carried a garbage bag as if it were filled with extra clothes. Next to a deserted road, he stuck his thumb out. It was the kind of uncertainty that Eddie couldn’t even entertain at the moment but used to admire as a silly kid.

Mike took the moments where Eddie was in deep thought to admire the way Richie was so blatantly staring at the nervous man. The wonderful thing was that Mike didn’t need to piece it together like his friends did, he just remembered the way those two drifted together. He wondered if Eddie’s little Emmett friend would help him remember that. “Why don’t you two take a walk? I gotta finish my shift and you have some catching up to do.”

Eddie shook himself out of thought and smiled. “I could use the distraction.”

Richie playfully smacked his arm and started ushering him away. “See ya later, Mikey!” He blew several kisses and tried to hide the small blush on his face from the touching.

Mike had to laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So why do you want to steal Went’s luggage?” Eddie asked after several minutes of silence which had succeeded Rich’s story about his old gig as a radio DJ for the collage that ate all of his money.

“Oh, I’m thinking of moving out to L.A.” He nodded. “New York just isn’t my place and I don’t-”

Eddie stopped walking and was overcome with the giggles. “We were in the same city, dude. I’ve been living in New York!”

Richie let his mouth hang open for a bit. “I wonder if we ever crossed paths.”

“New York is a huge city, Rich. I doubt it.” Eddie shrugged and started up the stroll again. “It’s not like Derry when we were just a bike ride away.”

Richie looked back at Eddie, a pace or so behind him, and was struck with how much he’d grown. Jesus, Richie's world had pretty much revolved around walking him home from school and earning his laughter. And now...Well, there was no school to chase him away from. They were both grown-ups...

“Badlands?” Eddie interrupted his thoughts with a strange sort of laugh.

“Huh-?”

“You were whistling. You used to do that all the time when you were nervous. Badlands by Springsteen.” Eddie smacked his arm like there was a joke between them but Richie didn’t get it. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“Ed’s, let me in on the joke or I’ll kick you in the shin.” He pushed up his glasses and pretended to kick out his leg.

Eddie looked off in thought again like he was debating something but he soon settled on an answer. “It’s just...you carved that song title on my window-sill, remember? So I would listen to it? I found the carving.”

“Ohhhhh, Well, did you listen to it?” he grinned.

Eddie rolled his eyes but nodded. They kept on walking that natural stride towards the Kaspbrak household while the sky faded into a cloudless blue.

They hadn’t had a childhood innocence since about thirteen but the simplicity of being young and stupid was to be grieved just the same. Sweaty days of summer spent climbing trees, riding bikes like no damn car was ever a desire...and falling out of trees. All of that was behind them and Richie would be lying if he said he didn’t want just a taste of that kind of joy now. What was the adult equivalent of that nice itch you got after rolling down grass hills all day? ‘Is there a dirty joke to be made there?’ Richie paused.

“We’re gonna forget each other again soon.”

“What a downer, Eds.” Richie frowned.

Eddie stopped at the steps of his home and twirled around. And there, sitting on a neighbors porch a few houses away, was his Hitchhiking buddy. Emmett's head was hanging so low that he couldn’t spy his quivering brows or the tired and lonesome frown. He waited for the clown to repeat something or...do something at all but he just sat there on Mr. Walsh’s steps. Dejected and lonely. Longing for something?

‘Fuck’. Eddie realized that maybe he, himself, was the one feeling dejected and lonely. Emmett was a manifestation of his own thoughts and feelings, wasn’t he? And he knew damn well what he was longing for.

So, with a little skip step, Eddie bounced closer to Richie and fell into his arms.

Richie made an exaggerated ‘oof’ sound but instantly returned the embrace and even rested his head atop the shorter mans. “I’d really like to kiss ya, Eds.”

The man pulled back and stared at this friend who he’d forgotten and felt all the sentimental love shit that a person could feel. “Do it then, Dick.”

Richie moved in and kissed him gently.

And Emmett bled back into Eddie’s mind and away from the real world.

#dont be surprised if i publish a book later & it shares this plot lol #idk why i had this idea #but i did #SO?#;)#eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #reddie #the losers club #mike hanlon #my fanfiction #it chapter 2 #it chapter two #stephen king #stephen king books

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scornedlove · 5 years

Text

Chapter Thirteen

Robyn

“Home sweet home” I paused, inhaling a deep breath of the island air as soon as we walked out the airport. I was glad to be here and couldn’t wait to see everyone.

“We’re going to check-in at the hotel, then go see mama” Melanie stated as J loaded their suitcases into a taxi.

“Okay, I’ll be at home, let me know when you’re trying to link up” I replied as I waved my own taxi down.

I couldn’t help but smile when I pulled up to the house. It was lit up in red and green Christmas lights, music was blasting, and it looked as if everyone and their grandma was having a blast.

“Rob!” Rorrey yelled, reaching me before I could even step out the taxi.

“Come’a big head! “ he greeted pulling me in for a tight hug.

“Man, I’ve missed y'all so much” I replied kissing him and leaving a shiny lip print on his cheek.

“Everybody been waiting on you to get here” he grinned, grabbing my suitcase and pulling me towards the house.

Within a few seconds, the rest of the family started bombarding me as well. It was like everyone in my family tree was on the scene today. They were all just as happy to see me as I was to see them. By the time I made it to the living room, I was literally crying tears of joy. I hadn’t been home in so long, I forgot what it felt like to be around family.

“I got some good news” Rorrey announced after everyone returned to the party, . “I was performing downtown and a record producer offered me a deal. He wants me to fly to New York and work on a demo”

“What!?” I yelled as Leandra brought out three tequila filled shot glasses .

“Yeah sis, this gon be big he grinned happily”

“Yup, and I’m going to be there all the way” Le added, handing us a shot. “To big shit Poppin”

“Robyn, weh Rayven? “Mama asked just as I started to pour the liquid gold down my throat and I damn near choked on it. I’d forgotten everyone would be asking about the skettel.

“I in no. She wan do her own thing” I shrugged, attempting to avoid a lie. I had no interest in discussing what happened between us, at least not right now.

“You tek care of ya family now, I aint care what ya’ll go through” she ordered. “And slow down on that drinkin”

“My liver is made up of steel” Le yelled over her shoulder, and I couldn’t help but snicker. Le had a high tolerance and could probably drink more than all of us combined.

“Where’s Mel, I thought she was coming with you” Rorrey asked, pouring himself another shot.

“She stopped to see her mum first but she’ll be here later” I replied, shoving my glass to him so he could refill mine…I was ready to get wasted and join the rest of my family in the turn up. I took one more shot and felt it hit me as I swallowed.

“Come dance with me mama” I jumped up playfully grabbing her hands and swinging them as I rocked to the music that was blasting outside.

“I’m going to bed, go out there with the rest of ya drunk family” she laughed, pushing past me.

I was dancing and celebrating with my family and neighbors, trying to enjoy myself, but hearing Rayven’s name brought that situation from the back of my mind. Those shots had me a little faded and before I knew it, someone passed me a blunt.

“Robyn?” A voice called out, and I couldn’t quite make out who it was. “It’s me, Mike” he grinned, causing my stomach to churn. Everywhere I turned, I kept being reminded of her.

“Hey, how you been” I asked, giving him a quick hug.

“I’ve been ok…not better than you obviously. Damn, you look good girl” he replied as he looked me up and down.

I couldn’t front…time had been good to him as well. He had grown at least 6 inches and was now standing over me with his dreads hanging just past his shoulders. He had no shirt on and was proudly showing off his dark, muscular chest. I caught my eyes traveling down to his print but not before he did.

“We just came from the beach, we saw the party and wanted to check it out. Now, I’m glad we did” he grinned showing his pearly whites.

“Look.."I began before he quickly interrupted.

"I know we left off on a bad note and we haven’t seen each other in years…but I have regretted that day ever since it happened. That was your cousin, I’ve never forgiven myself-"

”-We were sixteen Michael, it’s really not a big deal” I shrugged, bringing the blunt back to my lips. I took a long drag and offered it to him. He took it and did the same, not breaking eye contact.

I don’t know if it was the high I had tonight, the drought I’ve had for the past ten months, or a combination of both, but my nani was screaming for some attention. On cue, my song started blaring from the speakers and my body began to do its own thing. Before I knew it, I was dancing on Michael like I had to show him what he missed out on. As I grinded my hips into his, I could feel his manhood growing, which turned me on even more.

“Come with me” I ordered, pulling him towards the side of the house. I wanted some dick and was feeling bold enough to get it. “Do you have a condom?” I asked and he responded with a nod and pulled it out of his back pocket.

“I just need to feel good” my voice slurred as I whispered in his ear.

“I got you” he replied and began to eagerly suck on my neck. His cologne was so strong that I began to feel nauseated.

“Waaii…” I started to say when he quickly swung me around so that my back was against the house, but it was too late. I vomited all over his perfectly sculpted chest, as he jumped back seconds too late.

“Damn bitch, you must be faded!” Mel yelled, popping up just in time to witness it all. I hadn’t even realized she was here.

“I’m so sor” I started to say as another wave came rushing up. This time, he dodged it and left without another word.

“Rasshole!” Mel shouted towards his back, before coming to grab my hair out of the way. I felt like I was going to die as wave after wave continued to come up. I was so embarrassed but grateful my best friend was there to help me make it inside without anyone else seeing what had just happened.

“What’s wrong?” Ella asked an hour later when she found me on the couch recuperating.

“I drank a lil too much and threw up on Mike” I chuckled back the embarrassment.

“Good, I know bout him and Ray” she laughed. “and I saw you wukkin up wit him. He don’t deserve dat”

“Yeah, you right. I was just having fun tho” I defended myself with a shrug.

“Well, what would be more fun is celebrating my acceptance to the BDF! Training starts the first week of January” she beamed. She always said she’d be a coast guard, looks like dreams have been taking off while I’ve been gone.

“Fi true?! You always said you would, look at you growing up on me. I’m so happy for you” I practically yelled, giving her a big hug.

“That’s why you need to get up! The turn up just started!”

An hour later, we were five deep, wearing all black like a mob. Mel,Le, Nita, and I all grew up on the same block. It had been years since we hung out like we used to. Being with my girls brought the life out of me. They were my sisters and we had an unbreakable bond. I would do anything for them and vice versa.

By 2 a.m. we were on the beach huddled around a small bonfire giggling as we reminisced about the sleepovers we had when we were in middle school. We laughed about buck teeth and old crushes until our guts hurt.

As the waves crashed in the sand, I realized for the first time in a long time, I felt like myself again. I laid back in the sand and relished in the moment.

“What about you Rob? What was de best part of your year?” Nita asked, after everyone raved about the good things that happened to them. Mel’s engagement, Nita was graduating, and will be an MD in the spring, Ella was accepted to the BDF, and Le was going on a tour with Rorrey.

“Nothing. This was a shitty year. I don’t even want to talk about it” I rolled my eyes because my mood was just shot to shit. “A lot of crazy shit happened to me. Never in a million years would I have imagined my life going like this”

“But you’re still here, standing strong. That’s the best part.” Mel interrupted as I pushed back the wave of tears that were on standby. I wasn’t going to ruin a perfect evening with my girls, so I shook off the sadness.

“You know what, this is the most happiness I’ve had in a long time. We should do this at least twice a year. Crop over and Christmas. We have to escape the madness and steal this moment together” I suggested, and they all nodded in agreeance. We spent the rest of the night talking about what we would do different, and how next year will be better until we passed out on the beach, huddled together like old times.

Chris

The past few days have been a complete shock. Kate and Cindy were staying with me since we couldn’t get a decent hotel with the holiday season being here. Her parents weren’t coming back until after the holidays and I didn’t have it in me to just leave them at a dump so I made sure they had everything they would need to get them through the week.

She stayed to herself in the room I initially had set up for Cindy. I hadn’t even realized I still had all the stuff I’d gotten her. She would only come out to eat or dispose of dirty diapers and I barely even knew they were there. Only today was different, it was Christmas and I didn’t know what to do. I had to stop by mama’s and Trey’s today, but there was no way I was bringing Kate along. At the same time, I really didn’t want to leave her alone in my house either.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was a little after eight. I could swing through mama’s to watch her open my gift, then stop by Trey’s for a quick minute, and possibly make it back before she even knew I was gone.

I took a quick shower and was dressed in fifteen minutes tops. I stopped by and peeked in on them, they were sound asleep just as I expected, so I quickly made my exit.

I made it to mom’s just as she was setting the table. After the food was done, I ate like I hadn’t eaten in days, then we exchanged gifts.

“Wow… this is beautiful” mama smiled in awe at the painting I’d made for her. It was a recreation of a picture of the two of us when I was five. It was the first time I had been to the beach, one of my happiest memories.

“I have to get your gift from the garage” she announced before taking off in that direction.

“I have something for you too” Richard stated pulling an envelope out and handing it to me. It was a Christmas card with two tickets for the Lakers game tonight.

“Wow Richard, I would love to go but I can’t accept these. I’ve been so busy that I didn’t get a chance to get you and Amber anything.“

"Nonsense, these are a gift and I want you to have them. We all have tickets for tonight’s game. You’re always busy so we can consider you joining us as our Christmas gift. ” he replied.

“I don’t know man, I had something to take care of tonight…"

"Damn boy, do you ever take a day off? Either you’re the busiest man in Cali or you REALLY don’t like us” Amber interrupted.

“I just promised a friend some time tonight that’s all"

"That’s why I got you two tickets” Richard pointed out. I really wanted to go, I just had Kate to think about. There’s just no way I’m bringing her and Cindy and I’m definitely not leaving them alone in my house that long. I felt like they were putting me on the spot so I was happy to see mama coming back from the garage with a small box in tow.

“You’re going to love this!” She squealed placing it in my hands. “Open up"

I did as I was told and was more than surprised at what was looking back at me. It was a puppy.

"It’s a bulldog! Now that you’re so busy and I don’t see you as often, I have to make sure there’s a lady in the house, keeping an eye on you” mama smiled while Amber took her and gave her some kisses.

“I’m gonna miss you…let me know if you ever need a sitter” She stated, passing her back to me.

I could tell the ride home was different for Diamond, that’s what I decided to call her. Her eyes just twinkled while she whined the whole way. I prayed she wouldn’t do this all day.

I was pulling back in my driveway with Diamond asleep on my passenger seat and leftovers from Mama’s big breakfast for K when I noticed Ryan’s car pulling up right next to mine.

"Merry Christmas” she called out as she stepped out with a gift bag.

“Merry Christmas. I’m sorry I didn’t realize we were doing the gift thing” I shook my head feeling bad.

“It’s okay we can share this gift” she replied pulling out a bottle of spiked eggnog.

“Can I take a rain check on this one?”

“So basically, you’re going to ditch me on Christmas knowing you’re my only friend?” she asked dramatically.

“Okay fine since you put it like that” I agreed. I figured Kate and Cindy were still asleep anyway and Ryan and I can chill for an hour or so. I grabbed the puppy and she excitedly took her from me.

“Awww, you have a new little baby. What’s his name?” she asked, pulling her close to her chest.

“HER name is Diamond” I corrected her with a smirk.

“Well. I’ll take her, you grab the bottle” she ordered, pushing it in my hand.

When we walked in, it was still as quiet as it was when I left and I couldn’t be more grateful. That is, until Diamond started whining again. She was so loud, you would’ve sworn someone was torturing her.

“She’s probably hungry” I realized, snapping my finger. I ran back to the car for her food and by the time I came back, she had woke Kate.

“What is that noise" she asked, clearly frightened.

“Kate?!” Ryan squealed, pushing me out the way and hugging her.

“Hey girl what are you doing here?” Kate asked, finally recognizing Ryan. “I didn’t know you knew Chris”

“Chris is my only friend these days” she joked. “We were going to have some eggnog; you wanna join? Wait where is your daughter…Sin right?”

“Uh…. how do you two know each other" I asked after getting the puppy settled.

“This is Kiki’s cousin, the one I was telling you about with the crazy baby daddy” she mumbled the last part. ‘How do you guys know each other?

“This is my Kate…I mean my friend I was telling you about”

“Ohh…” Ryan slowly begin to remember and suddenly it was awkward.

“Wow, small world” Kate whistled, breaking the silence and moving past us.

“We were going to watch Home Alone and sip eggnog, come hang with us” I offered with a shrug.

“Maybe after I feed Cindy” she replied, just as the baby began to cry.

“That’s my cue” she continued down the hall.

“Uno! I win!” I yelled dropping my last card on the pile. Just as promised, Kate joined Ryan and me on Home Alone, which led to the Grinch, which led to Uno. We were on our third game, and Kate had won the first two.

“It’s about time I get some competition around here” Kate laughed as I danced and celebrated my win.

“Naw, y'all cheating” Ryan sucked her teeth as she threw her Pile of cards in.

“You’re just mad you suck” I teased, and she rolled her eyes.

“Y'all lucky I have to work tonight, or I’d sit here until I win” she laughed as she stood up, laid Diamond down, and threw her jacket on.

“Well that was embarrassing” K announced when I came back from seeing Ryan out. She looked irritated, and the grin she was wearing a second ago was now replaced with a frown.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I’m known as ‘Kiki’s cousin’s baby mama’ ” she repeated in Ryan’s English accent.

“Well that’s what happens when you randomly have someone’s baby” I replied and felt bad instantly. I didn’t hear how fucked up it sounded until it came out. She tossed down the cards she had picked up and stormed off without giving me the chance to correct myself.

A couple of hours later she still hadn’t come from the guest room. I felt like I needed to apologize, we were finally comfortable around each other again and I didn’t want to move backwards.

“Kate” I called out easing the door open to her room. I regretted it immediately. She was sitting on the bed with Cindy in her arms breastfeeding. Her breasts were at least two cup sizes bigger then I remember, which caught me by surprise. I didn’t mean to stare, but I couldn’t help but notice the difference.

“I’m sorry, I was just making sure y'all were okay” I stammered as we made eye contact.

“You actually have good timing, I really need that bag right there if you don’t mind passing it to me” she asked, pointing to the other side of the room.

Just as I started towards it my phone rang. I gave her the bag and rushed out of the room grateful for the distraction. I missed the call, but a text came in immediately after.

Tina: Detective Reynolds left a message on the machine… He wants you to come down to the station for some questions.

“They just never give it a rest” I sighed shaking my head.

“Who?” K asked scaring the shit out of me.

“I didn’t know you were standing there” I chuckled. “I’m sorry about earlier I wasn’t intentionally disrespecting you. You know me better than that” I explained.

“Look, I know it was fucked up how everything turned out. If I could take it all back I would” she began to explain.

“We really don’t have to talk about this” I sighed. I wasn’t interested in going down memory lane with the situation. I’d actually prefer to forget it even happened.

“Yes, we do. I need to get this off my chest. Ty wasn’t some random dude. We had been of and on for a few years. Obviously while I was with you, we were off and when you were consumed with Robyn, I was with Ty. That doesn’t change how bad I felt when things turned out the way they did. If I knew there was even a small possibility that Ty could have been Cindy’s dad, I wouldn’t have gone through with having her. I know that sounds fucked up but it’s true. He’s not the type of person I want to be connected to forever.”

“So, you’re saying that you would have had an abortion?” I quizzed, remembering the time Robyn suggested it and Kate flipped shit.

“Yes, only because he’s not equipped to be a parent. The only reason I told him she was his is because I thought him seeing her would be enough to encourage him to be better, especially towards me.”

“K… is he putting his hands on you?” I asked, looking in her eyes for the truth. She nodded as tears filled her eyes.

“He’s always been verbally abusive but since I had Cindy, he’s hit me twice. If I would have known he could be even worse towards me, I wouldn’t have told him about her. I just need a job so I can save enough money to start over somewhere he couldn’t possibly find us.”

“How about I just take care of him?” I asked, feeling a wave of anger boiling in my gut. Yeah, she did some fucked up things, but Kate didn’t deserve to be hit on.

“You can’t” she protested.

“I know people that can get away with it” I pressed.

“Oh, you mean…no, no, no. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing you had him killed!” she exclaimed. “He’s not a bad person, it’s just how he grew up. He had counseling and therapy but when he drinks everything, he learned flies out the window.”

“That’s bullshit and I hope you’re truly done with him. I’ll give you a job, I’m sure Tina can find some use for you. You can have a good amount saved within a couple of months.” I suggested. “But you better not go back to that man. You deserve better”

“Well, would it be too much to ask if I wanted to stay here with you until I’m able to get my own place?” she pleaded.

“I don’t know it was rough when you were pregnant remember?”

“That’s different. My hormones were out of whack” she laughed. “but seriously can you at least think about it?”

“We’ll just take it a day at a time” I decided.

“Thank you so much!” she sighed, giving me a big hug. “Oh, and the other day you said something about losing your son...does that mean Robyn was pregnant?”

“It wouldn’t be from anyone else” I nodded “She lost him in a car accident a couple of days before my birthday.

"Wait we were together at that time...so that's why you were so withdrawn. You were a complete dick to me"

"I'm sorry...It wasn't personal"

"No, I get it now. You were in mourning and I'm sure our situation didn't make it any better." She sympathized.

We spent the rest of the night playing with Diamond and Cindy and I couldn't help but wonder how things would've turned out if Cindy had been mine. Would I still be so in love with Robyn, or could I see myself falling for Kate and being a happy little family? For whatever reason, this is what God wanted. I just had to work on accepting it, so I can move on.

“Chris someone is at the door” K announced, shaking my shoulder repeatedly.

“Okay. I’m, up I’m up” I replied as the knocking continued, louder this time.

When I opened the door, I was face to face with two police officers and the first thing that came to mind was something happened to mama.

“What’s going on officers?” I asked as my heart rate sped up, preparing for bad news.

“Are you Christopher Brown?” The first one asked, flipping his badge out.

"Yes"

“You are under arrest for the murder of Michelle Davis"

"this must be some kind of mistake” I tried to explain but neither of them was hearing it.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back” the first one ordered. I did as I was told, and he forcefully grabbed my hands and put them in cuffs.

“Chris… what’s going on?” K appeared with Cindy in her arms.

“Call my mom asap and let her know I need her. The phone password is 0220.” I yelled over my shoulder as they pulled me to the police car.

#robyn rihanna fenty #chris brown #ff #fanfic #fanfiction

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jennycalendar · 5 years

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imperfections (53/?)

read it on ao3!

GOD. OKAY. i am two chapters ahead and have officially entered the section of the fic that uses canon as more of a suggestion than a direct plotline. look forward to some messy family drama and a lot of emotional conversations.

not that this chapter has a shortage of that either, tho.

By the time Buffy returned from her usual patrol, the Scoobies had found a handful of articles on fear demons, as well as a few books detailing how to stop them. The only problem with this, however, was that none of the fear demons described were as subtle or as insidious as the situation that was happening in Sunnydale.

“There’s always the possibility that this really is just Sunnydale paranoia going horribly wrong,” Giles was saying as Buffy entered.

“Oh no,” said Ms. Calendar. “No, no, no. Remember what you said in the hallway? You said I’m always right about everything and you should listen to me.”

“Jenny, your argument is the most convincing one,” said Giles, looking up from his book with a tired frustration, “but even after countless hours of research, we’ve found little to no evidence that would support demonic involvement.”

“I might have to poke a few holes in your argument there, Giles,” said Buffy, striding up to the table. “What do we know about these kids?”

“What?” said Giles, setting his book down.

“Facts,” said Buffy. “Details.”

“They were found in the park,” Willow began helpfully.

“No,” said Buffy. “Where do they go to school? Who are their parents?” She paused, looking around, and saw that her instincts had been correct: not a single one of her friends had an answer to give her. “What are their names?”

“My mom’s been talking about those kids nonstop,” said Cordelia uneasily. “But she’s never once mentioned any names.”

“It never came up,” said Faith. “At all.”

“I assumed someone else had the details,” said Giles, looking bemused. “I suppose I never really…”

“We need info,” said Ms. Calendar. “Willow, pull up some newspaper articles, see if anyone ID’d the kids.”

“On it,” said Willow obligingly, taking Ms. Calendar’s place at the computer.

Ms. Calendar stepped up to Buffy, giving her a small, tense smile. “How’s your mom?”

“Well, let’s put it this way,” said Buffy, her stomach twisting at the thought of some of the things her mom had said, “I sure as hell hope that it’s some kind of fear demon pulling her strings.”

“Two Children Found Dead, Mysterious Mark,” Willow read aloud, then frowned. “No, wait, that’s from fifty years ago.”

“Keep going,” Xander added.

“Wait,” said Giles. Then, in a very different tone of voice, “Jenny, Buffy, come here and look at this.”

Exchanging a puzzled look, Buffy and Ms. Calendar obliged, stepping up to peer at the computer screen. From behind her, Buffy heard Ms. Calendar’s low whistle, and found herself extremely agreeing with the sentiment. “Those are the same kids,” said Buffy. “How are those the same kids?”

Willow loaded up the next page. “1899,” she read, eyes wide. “Utah. Rural Community Torn Apart by Suspicion.”

“A hundred years ago?” said Giles, confused. “How is this possible?”

“Oh, it goes way past a hundred years,” said Ms. Calendar suddenly. “Willow, can you scoot?” Willow scooted, and Ms. Calendar took her place, typing furiously. Information flew across the screen faster than Buffy could keep track of it.

“Jenny, would you mind slowing down a bit?” said Giles, leaning over her shoulder.

Ms. Calendar stopped on a German article. “1649,” she said with satisfaction, then squinted at the print. “My German’s a little rusty. Rupert, can you…”

“Of course,” said Giles, tilting his head and reading the article himself. “It was written by a cleric from the Black Village. He apparently found their bodies himself. Two children…”

“Greta and Hans,” Ms. Calendar finished, at which point she and Giles exchanged a Look.

“So they have names,” said Xander. “That’s new.”

“Do you think—” said Giles.

“Greta and Hans,” said Ms. Calendar with meaning. “Hans and Greta.”

Buffy cleared her throat. “Anything you guys wanna share with the class?” she said.

“Some folklorists believe that certain regional stories have very, ah, literal antecedents,” said Giles.

Buffy blinked.

“Fairy tales are real,” said Ms. Calendar.

“Hans and Greta,” said Faith, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit.”

“Jenny’s paranoia theory was entirely right,” said Giles proudly, knocking Ms. Calendar’s shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Ms. Calendar. “I kinda thought that whatever we were up against was using the deaths of those kids as a way to screw with the minds of people in the town. From what we’ve found out, it looks very much like the demon is the kids.”

“It feeds on our darkest fear,” Giles added. “Turns peaceful communities into vigilantes.”

“And the leader of those vigilantes is my mom,” Buffy finished, horrified. “We have to talk to her!”

“I’ll go with you—” began Ms. Calendar.

“Absolutely not,” said Giles. “You’re already on their witch list. I’ll go with Buffy, and you—” He hurried to a stack of books on the table, pulling one out and handing it to her. “Chapter seven, I think,” he said. “It should make the demon appear in its true form. I’ve supplies at home in the study.”

“Cool,” said Ms. Calendar, and gave him a quick kiss. “Beep me when you need me, ‘kay?”

Giles gave Ms. Calendar a worried smile in return, then turned to Buffy. “To your mum’s, yes?” he said.

This was when Michael from Willow’s coven tumbled in, sporting a black eye and a bloody lip. “I was attacked!” he gasped.

“Oh, no, by who?” Willow gasped, hurrying forward to support Michael.

“My dad,” said Michael miserably. “Him and some of his friends. They’re taking people out of their homes—talking about a trial at City Hall. They got Amy.”

“Giles, we have to get to my mom,” said Buffy.

But Giles’s eyes were on Willow and Ms. Calendar. “Anyone who’s even close to being a witch, stay here,” he said sharply. “Jenny, that goes for you too. Don’t go home, don’t get anything, just—”

“Oh, you are not pulling this!” objected Ms. Calendar, infuriated.

“Jenny,” said Giles. “There is a stark difference between me being overprotective and me making sure the angry mob doesn’t put you on witch trial.”

Ms. Calendar opened her mouth, glared, and shut it. “Fine,” she said. “Fine!”

Giles muttered a few words, and the books once again vanished, leaving only the book in Ms. Calendar’s hands. “We’ll get to Joyce and get the spell together,” he said. “Stay safe.” And with that, he hurried out of the library, Buffy at his heels.

So absolutely nothing went according to plan.

“Buffy,” Willow was saying, her voice squeaky and urgent. “Buffy!”

Buffy stirred, wincing. Her head ached, and were those ropes digging into her stomach? As she opened her eyes, she was met with an angry mob, all of them holding torches and surrounding…oh no.

“So they got to the library,” said Ms. Calendar helpfully, her voice thin. She was tied to a stake at the far end of the room. “Can’t wait to tell Rupert all about how his bright idea ended up with us all tied to stakes. You know. If we don’t get burned alive.”

“Great pep talk,” said Amy sarcastically.

“Hey, B,” said Faith from the stake next to her. “Think Cordy and the guys got away, if that helps.”

“Not really,” said Buffy, wincing. At the front of the mob, she saw her mom, looking impassively up at her. “Mom!” she called. “Mom, you don’t want to do this—”

“When has it ever mattered what I want?” said her mom matter-of-factly. “All I wanted was a happy, normal daughter, and I got a Slayer.”

“Torch,” said Mrs. Rosenberg helpfully, handing Buffy’s mom a torch.

“Can you get loose?” Faith asked Buffy.

“They tied me pretty tight,” Buffy answered, but struggled anyway. The ropes didn’t loosen. “Willow, Ms. Calendar, you guys got any witchy tricks up your sleeve?”

“I’m a theorist!” Ms. Calendar burst out.

“And the most I can do is float pencils,” Willow added, sounding miserable about it.

Buffy’s mom had lowered the torch to the kindling, and a fire was beginning to start around them. “We need an exit strategy,” said Buffy through her teeth to Ms. Calendar.

“Working on it!” Ms. Calendar seemed to be trying to jostle her pager free. This only kind of worked. It did fall out of her pocket—and right into the flames. Ms. Calendar cursed violently in a language that Buffy didn’t know, which made more than a few torches turn in her direction.

That gave Buffy an idea. “That’s right!” she shouted at the crowd. “Be afraid! Be—uh, be very afraid, for if we die, your souls will be—”

“Cursed!” Faith chimed in. “Totally fuckin’ cursed and shit!”

“Maybe don’t yell at the angry mob, kids,” said Ms. Calendar tensely. “Really didn’t work in Salem.”

Amy then attracted a significant amount of attention by turning into a rat, scampering free of the fire, and running from the stake-burning.

“She couldn’t have done us first?” Buffy said indignantly.

Faith was still playing up the curse angle with a ridiculous amount of enjoyment for someone who was being burned at the stake. “Yeah, you in the back!” she was shouting. “You’re gonna have, uh, boils! Don’t look at me like that, you know where they’re gonna be—”

“Maybe we should leave,” said the subject of Faith’s curse in a high-pitched voice.

The air in front of Buffy’s mom shimmered, and then those two little kids were standing in front of the stakes. Oh, great,thought Buffy.

“But you promised,” said one.

“You promised to kill the bad girls,” said the other.

“Mom, dead people are talking to you,” Buffy persisted. “Do the math!”

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” said her mom placidly, like Buffy wasn’t a hair away from being really on fire.

The doors opened, and Giles, Xander, Cordelia, and Oz all hurried through, none of them noticed by the angry mob. Oz made a dive for the fire hose in the corner, Giles started getting his supplies ready, and Xander and Cordelia hovered apprehensively at the back.

Oz broke the glass. This got the crowd’s attention. “Stop them!” Joyce shouted, right as Oz turned the fire hose in Willow’s direction. Giles was frantically reciting in some language that sounded kind of like German; Ms. Calendar seemed to be trying to shout over the angry mob and correct his pronunciation.

“This is a mess,” said Faith conversationally to Buffy. “You wanna get milkshakes after?”

“Yeah, okay,” said Buffy without thinking, then stopped. Blushing, she glanced over at Faith (who was giving her a small, crooked smile), not quite sure what to add as a qualifier. It’s not a date, she thought, but…honestly, she kinda wished it was. It felt weird to hammer home a point when it wasn’t a point she really wanted to make. And what did that mean for her and Faith, if—

Buffy’s semi-panicked thoughts were interrupted when the two kids morphed into one giant, terrifying demon, provoking screams from the now-much-less-angry mob and a relieved grin from Giles. Buffy’s mom blinked, then stared. “Oh my god!” she gasped. “Buffy!”

“Protect us!” the demon rasped. “Kill the bad girls!”

“You know what?” said Buffy brightly. “Not as convincing in that outfit.”

Rupert and Joyce freed Buffy first, careful to make sure the dead demon didn’t topple over and fall on all of them. Then Joyce went to untie Willow, Buffy untied Faith, and Rupert untied Jenny, who spent most of the process making cheerful jokes about A) bondage and B) I Told You Staying In The Library Was A Bad Idea. It was perhaps a mark of how exhausted Rupert was that he didn’t really argue with her; Jenny made a mental note to kiss him silly before bed. That usually helped.

Willow’s mom had left.

Jenny noticed this fact because, as she was rubbing the rope burn on her wrists, she saw that Willow’s gaze was directed towards Joyce and Buffy. Joyce was whispering half-sobbing apologies and kissing the top of Buffy’s head; Buffy was snuggled in her mother’s arms, smiling softly.

“Hey,” said Jenny, sitting down next to Willow on a patch of charred straw. “You okay?”

“She burned me at the stake,” said Willow quietly. “And I know Sunnydale’s weird, I know she won’t remember tomorrow, but…Buffy’s mom at least remembers right now, you know? My mom isn’t gonna hug me and kiss me and put burn cream on the places where my sneakers melted weird—”

“Let me see those sneakers,” said Jenny immediately.

Willow’s mouth trembled. Without a word, she stuck out her feet; there were indeed a few places where the tips of her sneakers were made of strange, liquid plastic. “They don’t hurt that much,” she said. “But they still hurt. And it’s not even that she doesn’t notice, Ms. Calendar—she’s just not there.”

“Let’s go home,” said Jenny quietly.

“I don’t wanna go home,” said Willow, her voice wobbling.

“Not to your mom,” said Jenny, feeling suddenly very grateful that she and Rupert had sprung for a house with an extra bedroom. “Rupert and I have more than enough space at our place, remember?”

Willow nodded, then tucked her face into Jenny’s shoulder. As Jenny carded her fingers through Willow’s hair, she noticed something else: Joyce, still hugging her own daughter, was giving her a small, approving smile over Buffy’s head.

#fic #imperfections #it is terrifying to think abt this fic being finished. god #edit: forgot to put in the link to ao3 dhdfklfdshlfdsfhlfds

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meatmeinthemiddle-mark · 6 years

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🌵Flower Shop AU🌷

Hyunjin + Changbin

it's my first time doing this type of content so please reblog and put in the tags what you think and maybe i'll do more!!

and @versekiller wanted a HyunBin au so i gave her one

so changbin's family owns a flower shop

they live above their shop and its super cute

the flower shop is really popular because of that ONE worker

yes that worker is changbin

reason number 1 is bc he is always smiling

all the ladies (young and old) love him so much

HE ALSO WEARS A DIFFERENT COLOURED FLOWER PRINT SHIRT EVERY SINGLE DAY

it's because he doesnt want to ruin the perfect flower aesthetic image of the shop if he only wears black lmao

he started working in the shop during one of his school holidays and his mum basically persuaded him to continue working there bc he brings in so many people

okok so lets start

since changbin wears a different coloured flower print each day

he wore a yellow one one day

but it wasnt flower printed

IT WAS CACTUS PRINTED

he didnt know it because he had to open the shop early that day and was basically half asleep putting on his clothes

he was still doing a great job tho selling loads of flowers to the regulars that day

so changbin was minding his own business sitting at the front of the shop snipping off thorns from roses since there were lesser customers

he was lookin cute wearing his cactus shirt, his apron and his gloves

and he's got his own music (3RACHA obvies) playing in the background

something interrupted his flow

IT WAS A FLASH AND A CLICK

but changbin LOOKS AT THE DAMN SKY

why?

he thought it was lightning and that it was gonna rain

he has to pull out the shelter thingy over the flowers if it does rain

a precious dumbass

but the skies were super blue that day, not even a cloud in the sky

so changbin was like

Eh? Where did that come from?

He looked around before spotting another boy

The other boy was holding a camera and only wearing black

he basically stood out from all the other colourful shops in that lane so he was easy to spot

Changbin chuckled a little looking at the dudes bucket hat (hm i wonder who) but tried to cover it up with a cough

Camera dude panicked and almost dropped his camera

boi he aint slick at all

Changbin took off his gloves and wiped his hands on his apron before approaching the dude

(lmao he forgot he was snipping off thorns)

SO BASICALLY HE ACCIDENTALLY SCRATCHED HIMSELF BUT HE DIDNT KNOW YET

Changbin walks up to the dude and asks if he wanted to buy any flowers (his mum would kill him if he didnt do customer service)

Camera dude was all flustered and held out his hand

"NWLDJWONN SORRY FOR TAKING THE PHOTO OF YOU ITS JUST THAT THE SHOP JUST LOOKED REALLY PRETTY AND I HAVE TO TAKE IT FOR A PROJECT"

Changbin tilted his head back and looked up at the tall camera boy

"nah man its alright we get that a lot, do you still want flowers tho?"

AND CHANGBIN WENT TO SHAKE HIS HAND AND WHEN HE LET IT GO

THERE WAS LIKE BITS OF BLOOD

"Wait omg shit im so sorry i didnt know i scratched myself"

so here we have two boys panicking over blood before changbin's mum called

its not a lot of blood but if u shake someone hand with your own blood its kinda weird

"BINNIE WHO IS THAT, IS IT A FRIEND"

Changbin looked back at his mum and showed her his hand

But camera dude answered back "Hello Auntie, i'm Hyunjin and I think Binnie just cut his hand and theres some blood"

BEODSNDKN CHANGBIN BLUSHED BECAUSE CAMERA DUDE CALLED HIM BINNIE

"Bring him in the shop binnie"

SoooOooO camera dude followed behind Changbin into the shop to wash his hands

"Sorry for getting blood on your hands Hyunjin"

"Thats ok binnie" and Hyunjin flashed a really cute smile which made changbin all shy

BUT CHANGBIN TRYNA ACT FAKE TOUGH

"Please call me Changbin, my mum calls me Binnie just to embarrass me"

"But Binnie sounds cuter" is2g hyunjin is so smooth im gonna die

so they finished washing their hands and hyunjin looks around the shop

"Do you mind if i take more photos outside the store, the flowers are really pretty"

in changbin's head he's all like "Omg what is this dude on about he is even prettier than the flowers we sell oh my"

irl, changbin just nods his head and goes back to his seat at the front of the store snipping off more thorns

Hyunjin was snapping lots of photos of the flowers and the store and then he suddenly laughed

"Binnie you stand out from the flowers so much with that yellow cactus shirt"

Changbin was all confuzzled and hyunjin showed him the photo

The photo had changbin in it and all the flowers were behind him

changbin was the main focus of the photo

HO DAMN ITS A GOOD ASS PHOTO THO

"Hey youre a pretty good photographer"

"Well you are a pretty good focus point"

"What"

changbin turned to face hyunjin and OOPS

THEIR FACES WERE SO CLOSE LIKE IN THAT ONE EPISODE OF STRAY CUTS

Hyunjin has his eyes covered by his bucket hat so changbin couldnt see what hyunjin was staring at

TRUTH WAS HYUNJIN WAS TRYING NOT TO STARE AT THE PHOTO OR ELSE HE'LL GET ALL FIDGETY AND BLUSHY

HE WAS ALSO TRYNA LEAN AWAY FROM CHANGBINS PRESENCE

"Do you wanna bring any of the flowers home, if you wanna take more photos of them"

"Can I have some cactuses?" hyunjin asked bashfully

ok so if camera dude wants a cactus imma get him one so changbin looked around the store to find

hyunjin was lowkey disappointed changbin didnt get his pickup line

"Oh man, I dont think theres any cacti left tho" Changbin was super apologetic that he couldnt get cute camera dude a cactus

Hyunjin pointed at Changbin's shirt and waited for his response

CHANGBIN HAD TO PROCESS

damn he a slow one tho

So Hyunjin straight up said "Do you wanna get some coffee sometime?"

CHANGBIN.EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING

Changbin: "You're not expecting me to bring flowers arent you"

Hyunjin: "I'll bring a cactus for you dont worry, are you gonna show up in another printed shirt?"

"maybe"

if u listen carefully changbin's mum is giggling at the background with changbin's dad

the next time they met changbin was wearing a black shirt with red roses on them

and hyunjin was still wearing the black bucket hat

HE FORGOT TO BRING A CACTUS BECAUSE CHANGBIN'S STORE DIDNT HAVE ANY

#AAYEE #i did stuff #stray kids #straykidznet #changbin #hyunjin #hyunbin #: D #jan speaks #jan writes #jan edits

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sleemo · 7 years

Text

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

What is cooler than one multibillion-dollar box-office hit? Two multibillion-dollar box-office hits.

British actor Daisy Ridley is about to have both to her name as she returns as Rey in the next instalment of Star Wars. Emma Brockes meets her as she prepares for superstardom. — ELLE UK, December 2017

A few weeks after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey – Jakku scavenger, desert-planet survivor and feminist hero – went on holiday to an island off Croatia with friends from the crew. The actor, who was 23 at the time, had been warned that after the release of the movie – number seven in a franchise that has made more than $42bn (£33bn) – her life would dramatically change, and she was terrified. This was, after all, her first big-screen role.

In restaurants, she scrutinised waiters to see if they were being too nice to her; she wondered if she’d ever be able to use the tube again. On holiday, her friends started calling her Linda, ‘as a jokey alias’, she says, ‘and then they started calling me Paranoid Linda’ when she became convinced a man was following them around and wondered if he was a private detective employed by the studio.

Two years later, 25-year-old Daisy is sitting opposite me at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, dressed in a shirt and capri pants in clashing blue-and-white prints, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s brimming with the kind of enthusiasm that reads on screen as charisma, and that helps to explain her meteoric rise from stage-school graduate with a few TV credits to her name to one of the most recognisable young stars on the planet. Paranoid Linda still makes an occasional appearance, she says, but mostly she has managed to adjust to life after two Star Wars movies.

Daisy clings to the fact that fame doesn’t need to have a warping effect. It also fits in with her belief that the best way to survive the pressures of high-voltage exposure is to try enjoying it. Everything is ‘amazing’ in her world and everyone is ‘remarkable’, ranging from her mum (‘a great person’) to Barbra Streisand, with whom she recorded a song in 2016 (‘a fantastic woman’), Harrison Ford (‘awesome’) and ‘Colly’ – Olivia Colman to you and me – who she starred with in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and who she found ‘incredible’, naturally. There is no hint of sycophancy here; it appears that Daisy is simply joyfully happy.

This cheerfulness has acted as a useful screen to hide behind during the years since she made Star Wars. Now her character, Rey, is back for The Last Jedi, the new Star Wars movie, directed by Rian Johnson. But Daisy found this one to be much more pressure than the first movie. ‘I suddenly felt a much bigger sense of re- sponsibility,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that.’

This is no humble brag. Daisy’s candour when it comes to her own performance is kind of startling. As a child, her general inability to disguise her feelings occasionally sent her into scatter-brained overdrive, an impulse that her loving London-based family: Mum, who works in internal communications; Dad, who’s a retired photographer; and two sisters – a model and a musician.

Daisy sometimes reads as posh – there is a certain ringing tone to her accent. In fact, she says, her family is more bohemian than posh. The accent, meanwhile, probably comes from boarding school. Aged eight, Daisy went to board at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire – not, she says, from any desire to be an actor, but because a friend of hers had gone to boarding school and it sounded like fun. ‘I was such a grumpy child,’ says Daisy, smiling at the implication that she can still, now and then, throw a big wobbler. ‘I used to get super-distracted – once I’d done my work, I would be annoying to everyone else – and my mum thought if I was busy, I’d be less distracting. I always sort of felt like I didn’t fit in.’ This anxiety wasn’t just a result of being a bookish teenager, but a feeling of unreadiness to go out and meet the world as an adult. ‘At 12 or 13, I didn’t know how to do make-up,’ she says, ‘and I still don’t know how to do my hair. And people wore high heels at that age!’

Even now, Daisy retains some small sense of herself as an outsider looking in. How could she not? Her CV at this point is extraordinary: as well as Star Wars, the actress has starred in Ophelia opposite Naomi Watts, and shot Murder on the Orient Express alongside Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Sir Derek Jacobi and Olivia Colman. It was on that last set that Daisy finally cracked. ‘I turned to Ken, wiped away a tear, and said, “I can’t believe I’m here, thank you so much.”’ Daisy adds, only half-jokingly: ‘“Did someone make you cast me?”’ (No, he said.) The self-deprecation is real. It’s not just the burden of fame or lame faux humility. There have been times in Daisy’s life, most notably after the first Star Wars movie was released, when she was literally uncomfortable in her skin.

At 15, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition of the uterus lining that, along with other symptoms, can result in severe acne that is exacerbated by stress. You know, the kind of stress that comes when you find yourself the star of the biggest-grossing film of all time. ‘I was in my flat going nuts, and then my skin got really bad with the stress of it all, and I hadn’t been well – I had holes in my gut wall and stuff – and we were trying to figure out what to do with that because I’d felt poorly.’ She did what she always does in times of stress and turned to her family, moving first to her sister’s house, a few streets from their parents, then to a flat she rented on her own in the same west London neighbourhood.

Still, says Daisy, it was scary. It is difficult to think of a more in- tense introduction to Hollywood than winning a big role in a new Star Wars movie, nor a bigger professional leap than Daisy’s jump from small parts in the usual roster of UK dramas and long-running soaps – Casualty, Silent Witness, Mr Selfridge – to the first day of filming The Force Awakens in Abu Dhabi. She had only turned up to the audition when a friend mentioned she was going, too, and now here she was, on day one of the shoot, with a production assistant holding an umbrella over her to keep the sun off while she looked around and ‘freaked out’. And then JJ Abrams, the director, yelled ‘action’.

Daisy will never forget that first scene, in which she had to dismount from her Speeder bike and walk a short distance with BB-8 while saying something like, ‘We’re going to get you home.’ Is it true that, after delivering her line, JJ called her acting ‘wooden’? Daisy laughs. ‘It is true! After the first take, he goes, “Just a bit... wooden”, and then we carried on. But JJ is the kind of person who before a scene says, “Don’t fuck it up.” So he said, “Just a bit wooden”, and I was like, “Oh my God.” But it got better.’ She is still laughing at the discrepancy between how bad it sounds (quite bad), and how bad it was. ‘It’s only because that word “wooden” is so loaded. But it was just tense. And I thought, “OK, loosen that shit right up and it’ll get better.”’

In fact, Daisy found JJ Abrams and the rest of the production crew to be incredibly nurturing, to the extent that she was rarely aware of the Star Wars ‘ma- chine’. It was a friendly set, she says, where she mostly hung out with John Boyega, the 23-year-old Brit who plays Finn, and with whom she had the greatest number of scenes, although her best friends were among the crew. JJ Abrams had deliberately hired hair and make-up for Daisy from the team who had worked on the Harry Potter franchise because, she says, ‘aside from the fact that they’re amazing, he knew that they had looked after Emma [Watson], Daniel [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint] for however many years. I felt very well taken care of.’

Harrison Ford, meanwhile, reminds her of her dad – ‘They both have an earring and are fucking awesome,’ – and the first time she shot a scene with him, he gave her a hug and said, ‘She’s so adorable’, and she felt right at home after that. (Mean- while, when her real dad visited the set, he went up to Mark Hamill and, in classic dad fashion asked, ‘So, who do you play, then?’)

In fact, the most difficult thing about the whole Star Wars experience has been reconciling the terrible warnings she received about how life would change with the reality of what actually happened – that, and the anxiety of shooting the second film. In the first instance, ‘Everyone asked me, “Are you ready for your life to change?” And that gets into your mind.’ Throughout this period, she tried to hang on to a piece of advice given to her by the late Carrie Fisher – not to shrink away from the success, but to enjoy it – ‘And that was wonderful.’ Beyond that, she threw herself back into work. ‘At work, you’re normal, you’re not the anomaly, unlike in other situations.’

Surely she has occasionally been starstruck herself? ‘Absolutely not,’ she says. ‘I’ve never idolised anyone, really. I never had a crush thing. So when I met Barbra Streisand, for example, I was blown away, not because of her work, but because she’s a fantastic woman.’ It was JJ Abrams who recommended Daisy to Barbra, who was looking for a young star with a good voice to feature in Encore, her album of 2016. Daisy ended up singing with her on the song At The Ballet from A Chorus Line, and finding a new role model for herself. ‘I went to her house and we talked about [psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl] Jung because my dad loves Jung, and we were talking about dreams, and I left and got super emotional, not because she’s famous, but because she’s amazing. Part of her reputation comes from being a woman. If it was a man being “controlling” about his career, people would just say he knows what he wants.’

One of the things Daisy has struggled with in the wake of grow- ing fame is the responsibility of being told Rey is a role model for young girls. She has been asked about feminism and has had to scramble, on occasion, to form an opinion, not because she is bland or apolitical, but because everything she now says has the potential to come back and haunt her. For someone struggling with self-doubt, this can have a paralysing effect, and it is testament to Daisy’s seriousness that she has the sense to acknowledge it.

Of course, whatever kind of attitude you have, being a beautiful young woman in Hollywood means you are exposed to constant scrutiny. Daisy, like Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence before her, will have to weather the salacious interest that undercuts anything she has to say and, if she seems less confident than her peers, it’s not only part of her charm but also, paradoxically, speaks to some deep-seated security that one assumes comes from Daisy’s family; it can take greater courage to admit to one’s weaknesses than to cover them up with bravado or a fake kind of self-confidence.

She has also learned to sit back and relax a little, although shooting the second Star Wars movie, in which she had fewer scenes with her pal, John Boyega, made her briefly very stressed. ‘It’s not this big adventure that I’m on with John [unlike in the first movie]. I was thinking I did the first one because I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into and I was having loads of fun, and suddenly I’m realising what this actually is, and I can’t fucking do this.’

She says all this with a smile to acknowledge how neurotic this was. ‘I’m highly dramatic – so it’s all “oh my God”. And [director] Rian [Johnson] just said, “We’re going to do this, and these are the scenes, and this is how it’s going to work,” and finally I was like, “Oh yeah, this is working.” The fact is sometimes you’re not good at your job, and sometimes you’re better at your job.’

Having that kind of experience helps, but Daisy still has moments when she has to check herself to make sure it’s all real. There was one night on the set of Murder on the Orient Express when she found herself sitting around playing cards alongside Sir Derek Jacobi, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz and her husband Javier Bardem, who had come to support his wife. (Judi Dench had retired early to bed.) The next day, she and Sir Derek sat around doing the crossword. Even Paranoid Linda couldn’t worry the fun out of that one.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on 14 December.

— ELLE UK, December 2017

#i forgot to post this earlier #*#uploads #daisy ridley #elle uk #interview #rey #star wars #tlj #the last jedi #the force awakens #john boyega #jj abrams #harrison ford #rian johnson #kenneth branagh #murder on the orient express #carrie fisher #q

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 6 years

Text

Chapter 2

As far as Eren was concerned, today was quiet possibly the worst day of his life. 3 months ago, when he'd turned 13, he never thought he'd be presenting as an omega... or so soon. He was only just getting his life on track. He'd managed to find a part time job... thanks to his mother's meddling, and he was only home long enough to sleep and shower... which was just how he liked it. It wasn't like his father had always been a complete and total arsehole, or maybe he had been and Eren had been to young to understand. Whatever it was, his presenting as an omega was the final straw for the man. He'd never raised a hand to him, but words could cut deep, and now he was being forced out of the house... and into the arms of a total stranger. A stranger who had been a complete arse at his early morning shift by stepping back and straight into his way. Sure he might have got doused with boiling hot tea, but Eren was the one who worked there and wouldn't hear the end of it. He'd only just come off of his training period, which had been delayed thanks to him presenting. He'd only just transferred from afternoons to early morning, and bam, his first heat. It was shit. And totally not fair. He was supposed to be an alpha, he was certainly stubborn and headstrong enough to be.

Eying Levi across the man's desk, Eren felt he certainly deserved the right to be mad. The alpha clearly didn't want him here, and even if it meant leaving the house, he wasn't about to trade the devil he knew for this unknown alpha... especially seeing he worked in a morgue. Seriously. He didn't know how his parents could just leave him in a place like this. It wasn't like he was scared, but it wasn't the place really didn't seem appropriate for a first meeting. Or even a second meeting...

Waiting for Levi to make the first move, Eren's left leg was bouncing in annoyance. Since his parents had left, Levi had been sitting there just staring at him like he was some unwelcome bug. Reining his scent in, Eren sat a little straighter. Levi's scent smelt like rich earth, like how you'd expect a forest to smell. It didn't exactly match the OCD clean freak vibe he was getting from the man's office, but there was something in it that was really nice and comforting... so only served to irritate him further.

Eren had no idea how long it finally took for Levi to move, but the man slid open a draw in his desk and pulled out a can of scent canceller

"Look brat I know you're not happy at all, but until you learn to control your scent you need to use a canceller when you're here. I can't have a family coming in and asking what happened to their loved ones and being hit by you smelling all horny"

Eren glared openly

"I'm not horny"

"You know exactly what I mean. Now, I have work to do... Don't you have school?"

"You want me to go to school?"

"You go normally right? What makes today that different?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that you're supposed to be my alpha and I've just been kicked out of home?"

Levi sighed heavily

"I might be an alpha but I highly doubt I'm your alpha. You staying with me is just a temporary thing until this is all sorted"

"Fine, whatever. Can I at least have the keys to wherever...?"

Eren waved his hand letting Levi assume whatever he assumed when it came to "home". Pulling out a white envelope from the same draw the scent canceller came from, Levi slid it over

"The address and apartment number are inside, as well as the phone number for here and my mobile. I assume you have things to be sent over?"

"Not really. I don't have much stuff. It's already waiting behind Izzy's desk"

Levi might be a dick, but his assistant Izzy was awesome. His dad had made him throw out almost everything he owned, though his mum had saved a whole heap of it for him and hidden it up in the attic. She'd gotten so mad he was throwing away so much, and had somehow failed to realise it was on his father's orders that he was. All he was taking to Levi's was the very bare minimum in the way of his school things and the few other clothes he had, including his work clothes

"Fine. I'll ask her about it. Now I need to get back to work. Don't go poking around things on your way out"

Making it in time for lunch, Eren immediately sought out his two best friends. Neither of them knew that he was meeting his alpha today and both had all these romantic notions about how his alpha was going to sweep him off his feet. What a load of shit. Slipping into his usual seat beside Armin, Eren let out a tired sigh

"I didn't think you were coming today"

"Me neither. Work this morning was awful"

Armin nodded sympathetically

"I don't know why you swapped to the morning shift"

"Because no one in their right minds would do it"

Eren shot Mikasa a half hearted glare. Even though they were a "tea store", the store was little more than a 24 hour coffee shop. Starting at 3, he worked until 7.30, and then went to school. After school he got home about 4, did his homework, had dinner and went to bed. It was hardly a glamorous teenage life, but it did mean he barely saw his dad... though he did miss his mum.

Being at school left him with hours to wonder what his new alpha was up to. Levi was a medical examiner by the seems of it, but he also seemed awfully young to be working in such a position, given he seemed to run the whole morgue. To him it was just weird. His alpha was surrounded around so much death and it was like all the time... What if he'd picked up certain kinks because of his job? Levi had said he had no intention of touching him, so did that mean if he didn't bother going back to Levi's apartment the alpha wouldn't even care. They hadn't even talked, not properly, yet he was already hated by his "mate". What a fucking mess.

Noticing his absent mindedness, Armin jabbed him lightly in the side

"What's up?"

"Nothing, just trying to work out this maths problem"

"You've been on the same page since class began"

"That's because it's a hard question"

"6x=42... you literally just have to divide 42 to by 6"

"7... x=7..."

"See, now do your work. We're being watched"

Eren knew full well the answer was 7. He just had more important things on his mind... like Armin. What would Armin present and who would his best friends mate be? Maybe Armin would get lucky and it would be someone they knew... or at least someone who liked him. Filling in some random answers, the last two blocks of the day seemed to take forever to be pass, yet be over in a heartbeat.

Walking out the front of the school, Eren pulled the envelope Levi had given him that morning from his school bag. His name was neatly printed in the middle of it in black ink. To think that he wouldn't be going home was just weird... well, he would be going home, just to a home he didn't know. Moving to lean against the hall way at the front of the school, he slid his finger into the small gap and tore the envelope open. All it contained was a small note and a set of keys. 52 Survey road, apartment 104. Pin code 52104... it all seemed easy enough. Taking his phone out, he googled the address. From his school to Levi's apartment was roughly a 45minute walk. That was manageable... though shouldn't Levi really be making an effort given they were "exceptionally compatible mates?". Eren had no idea about the particulates when it came to matching mates, but according to his mother they couldn't be a better pair with a 100% compatibility. Eren was almost certain their had to be some kind of mix up, but here he was.

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niall-is-my-dream · 7 years

Text

The Bucket List - Chapter Four

You were in the kitchen getting your morning coffee when your phone bleeped. It was Katie.

"Annie Louise Hammond it is already 9:45am and you have not text me any gossip yet!!! Get talking!"

You smirked!

"Wow, full named, shit I am in trouble!" You replied.

"So?" She asked.

You could imagine her sitting at her desk, swirling around on her chair fidgeting impatiently. The thought made you chuckle. Should you tell her that he kissed you? Probably best not to lie but make it sound like it was just a quick kiss and not the passionate heated kiss it was.

God you could still feel his taste on your tongue. You stood for a second just thinking about how good it was and how you hoped it would happen again. You knew he wasn't up for a relationship but you didn't want to be his fuck friend. Would you maybe date? You had a sort of date tonight.

"We ate pizza, drank beer and watched tv." You message back.

"And? Did you kiss, are you seeing him again? Did you do the dirty? Is he still there?!"

"Katie! Jesus woman! No we did not fuck! We did have a little kiss and he's taking me to see The Lumineers tonight. But it's not a date!"

"A little kiss?! What the fuck is a little kiss?! Did you cop a feel while you were kissing?!"

"No I didn't cop a feel! Fucking hell! It was just a kiss, it was nice."

"You kissed NIall Horan and describe it as nice?!"

"Ok, it was fucking great! Happy now! Aren't you suppose to be working?!"

"I am working, I'm multitasking by texting you to! Have fun on your not a date date tonight."

"Thanks I will. You coming to the pub tomorrow? I'm working the bar for my Mam."

"Yes, I think I'll need a drink after this week, work is shit!"

"Ok hun, stay positive and I will see you tomorrow x"

You drank your coffee whilst making a shopping list of groceries you needed. You'd planned a very exciting day of domestic chores to, hoping it would keep you busy and not thinking about tonight. You were nervous about going out with him. Worrying to yourself that someone might take a picture of you and slate you even though you were just friends. He had spoken about people assuming he was dating someone just because he happened to be talking to someone of the opposite sex. His cousin had even received abuse for a picture of them and she'd had to explain that no she wasn't dating her cousin and was actually engaged to someone. Seemed crazy to me how much people invaded someone's privacy like that. Niall was fiercely private you knew that, he didn't like talking about his love life in the press and you didn't know who he'd dated in the past.

The need to Google him was overwhelming but you felt that you would be snooping. You decided to get dressed and go out to Tesco for the shopping. Try and take your mind off that beautiful man.

Niall had text to tell you he'd pick you up at 5:30 so you guys could get across London and get food before the gig started. By the time you'd finished the chores it was 4pm. Plenty of time for a shower and to get dressed. You'd already decided on jeans, a cream floaty top and blue casual blazer with Brown boots. He arrived on time looking absolutely fucking gorgeous wearing dark denim jeans, a white tee and a khaki jacket.

"Hey, wow you look beautiful!" He said as he walked in. His hands reaching out to yours which he held and entwined your fingers together. You gazed at him, his piercing blue eyes just sparkling.

"You scrub up pretty nice to Horan!" You said with a chuckle, trying to ease the heat between you both.

"I try!" He said chuckling back. "You ready to go?"

"Yes, let me just grab my bag." You answered, letting go of his hands and heading back towards the kitchen where your bag laid.

You grabbed your stuff and headed out the door, a Range Rover waiting out the front of your building with two men in the front. Niall introduced them as Basil and Martin some people from his security. You jumped in the back and fastened your seat belt. You chatted in the back of the car during the 25 minute drive to the restaurant, Niall telling you he'd booked a Japanese place. Something was bothering him though, he looked on edge and you felt uneasy.

When you arrived and had been seated you knew you had to find out what was bothering him.

"You ok? Is something bothering you?" You asked.

"I'm ok, just feeling a bit nervous." He replied.

"What about?"

"Just don't want to see any press, that's all."

"Oh well, we could've met at the gig instead if you didn't want to be seen with me." You felt your throat close up, your heart beating fast in your chest.

"Oh no, it's not that." He replied, realising that he might have offended you. "I just know you're a private person like me and you don't really want your picture printed everywhere. I didn't mean to offend you."

"No, you didn't offend me. And no, I don't really want to have my picture in the paper, my Step Mum, Step Sister and ex know I'm in London but not where and definitely not that I have money now."

"What happened with them?"

You realised that you'd been vague with him about your past. Katie knew everything but hadn't told anyone.

"Well my Dad remarried when I was 13 and I gained a Step Sister Megan who is a year younger than me. She was spoilt by my Step Mum and we never got along. I moved out at 20 as I could afford a flat by myself by then. Or more pushed out as she sold my family home not long after. My Dad by then had already died and I got all my childhood possessions and stuff of my Mum's, plus a few bits of my Dad's that my Step Mum wanted to throw out."

"That's a bit harsh, she sounds like an awful person."

"She is. Although I never lived with my ex Nick I had a key to his flat. He had cheated on me numerous times and was sometimes verbally abusive but I stayed with him, I'm ashamed to say that I was glad to be loved by someone again."

You saw Niall look sad at your confession.

"Anyway about 15 months ago I was at work one Friday when I got an email from the lottery people asking me to call them. I did, and they told me I'd won shit loads of money. I was so excited and I went to Nicks on my lunch break to tell him and found him fucking Megan."

"Holy shit!" He said his mouth open in shock. "What did you do next?"

"Said a few choice words and left. It was a total wake up call for me. I went back to work finished my shift but gave in my notice the following Monday, once my win was confirmed in person. I wrote my bucket list that weekend to. My mum died when she was 29, the same age I am now. I'm not wasting another minute. I want to enjoy my life, I want to travel, meet people, enjoy my hobbies, laugh and have fun."

"Jesus Annie!"

"I know, its like something off of Jeremy Kyle isn't it?! Katie, my Mam, Pops and Michael know about everything, but not how much I won. They've not asked for anything from me. That's why I treat my Mam and Pops to golf and lunch every week. Katie doesn't give a shit about the money, she's so easy going its refreshing. She's made me who I want to be again. She so honest."

"She is great, her and Willie are brilliant together. They never ask anything from me either. People always want to know what I'm worth but the money doesn't really mean anything to me. I know I'm lucky I live in a nice place, I have a place in LA to and I can treat my friends to stuff but they keep me grounded."

It felt good to have been opened and honest with Niall, he seemed to relax a bit and I felt him stretch his legs out under the table locking them around mine. Fucking hell I wanted to kiss him.

The waiter bringing us the bill brought me back to reality. "Hey I'll get this." You said. "You got the pizza last night."

"I'm not letting you pay for dinner on a date with me!"

"A date?!"

"Yeah a date, that ok with you?" He said with a cheeky smirk.

"Maybe." You smiled back.

You arrived at the gig and went straight backstage to a VIP area. Niall got you both a Guinness and you stood scanning the room. You didn't recognise anyone but Niall did as he was nodding hello to a few people. You felt Niall glide his hand to the small of your back tucking his thumb in the waistband of your jeans. You looked up at him and smiled. He gave you that cocky grin of his and started rubbing at your back. You felt your stomach tighten and your cheeks blush, God this boy had such an effect on you. But you couldn't let it get you. He wasn't after anything serious and he was going to be globe trotting for the next 6 months. This thought didn't stop you from leaning in and placing your free hand on his arse, tucking your thumb into his jeans pocket. He raised his eyebrows to you and leaned in to whisper in your ear. "God I want to kiss you so much."

"Maybe later Horan"

Chapter Five

https://niall-is-my-dream.tumblr.com/post/167636371748/the-bucket-list-chapter-five

#niall horan #one direction #niall smut #niall imagine #niall fic #the bucket list #chapter four

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