#even mary's floor-length gowns end up around your knees

[skyriderwednesday]

Mary doesn't object to Holmes raiding her wardrobe in the slightest, but she would like him to acknowledge that wearing any of her dresses in public is automatically ridiculous because he's a full foot taller than her.

#people are going to notice holmes #you're a tall man - you make an exceptionally tall woman #on top of that your skirt is a foot too short #even mary's floor-length gowns end up around your knees #sherlock holmes #acd holmes #holmes & watson & morstan consulting detective agency

[lavenderbexlatte]

holding you like this

stray kids  13.4k words female reader insert Reader x DILF!Hwang Hyunjin  EXPLICIT/NSFW

🖤 warnings: original characters (adult f and child f), single father, unhealthy family dynamics, relationship insecurity, oral sex (f receiving), vaginal sex, creampie, breeding/impregnation kink 🖤

🚨🚨 the unhealthy family dynamic warning applies to hyunjin and his parents, NOT hyunjin and his child! there are elements of emotional manipulation and emotional neglect of an adult child by his parents. please don’t read if you would find this content triggering!

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You prepare yourself for a lot of social what-ifs when you go to the grocery store, but a three-year-old almost taking you out with a headbutt to the knee isn’t usually one of them.

On this particular day, you’re standing in the coffee aisle, scanning the rows of beans, trying to pick between a new roast for your French press, or a new flavor for the automatic drip. You’re not having an easy time of it, either. They all look the same to you. And really, is a French vanilla that different from a caramel swirl? Why are some of these so expensive? They’re all just beans, aren’t they?

The coffee dilemma is taking up all of your conscious focus, so you don’t even hear the tiny footsteps clicking against the industrial tile floor. You don’t see the head of bouncing dark hair, barreling toward you. You don’t notice anything until a tiny body slams right into your leg, and little arms wrap around your knees.

You look down in shock, rocking back to steady yourself so that you don’t topple right over. Your phone nearly slips out of your hand, right onto the head of the very small human peering up at you with big round eyes.

It’s a little girl.

She has glitter extensions and a floor-brushing gown, looking royal and in control right down to the tiny Mary Janes on her feet. She doesn’t look confused or perturbed at all, not even bothered by clinging to a stranger like this. Well, that makes one of you.

“Hello,” the little girl says, her voice high but confident. “What’s your name?”

You tell her, and she nods wisely, in a way that looks incredibly bizarre for someone so young.

“Okay. I’m Minnie,” she says.

“Minnie,” your repeat.

The girl nods, her arms still clamped around your knees. “Like the mouse.”

She points at one of the barrettes clipped into her meticulously styled hair. It’s a flat metal cameo pin of Minnie Mouse, smudged with tiny fingerprints as if she touches it often.

“Cool,” you say awkwardly.

You reach down and gently unwind her arm from around you, freeing yourself, and you kneel down so that you’re at her height. She just looks directly at you, and you can feel the judgmental intelligence behind her gaze. It’s kind of scary.

“I’m three and three-quarters,” she tells you proudly.

“Where’s your grown up?” you ask her.

You don’t really think you’d be much help to this child. You certainly don’t want to have to be responsible for her for too long. Where are her parents, or whoever she came here with?

“My grown up?” she mulls it over, “You mean Daddy. He’s lookin’ at juice.”

“Why aren’t you with him?” you ask.

“Ran away,” she shrugs, “If I run, Daddy chases me.”

“Do you think Daddy likes chasing you?” you ask.

You immediately curse yourself inwardly for asking a preschooler a half-sarcastic question like that. You don’t know this kid from Eden, you can’t just mouth off at her. But Minnie is sharp, and she just smiles at you winningly.

“I dunno. Prob’ly not,” she shrugs again, and you marvel at the big attitude in this small person.

“What if he’s worried about you?”

“Then he should find me,” she answers.

And with that, the kid sits down cross-legged on top of your feet, settling her gown neatly around herself. You’re floored. Apparently, you’ve become the shade tree that this kid is gonna sit under until her poor father finds her. Are all little kids this weird?

You’re not sure what to do. If you move, if you take her and go searching, you could spend all day missing her father at every turn. That means you should probably just stay here and wait for her dad to come to you. At least this way you know the kid’s safe and not running around to meet strangers more dangerous than you.

You get back to your coffee dilemma, as Minnie just sits primly on your feet. It’s not like you could walk away without dislodging her, anyway. And as you pick out a package of coarse-ground beans for your French press, you hear it.

“Minnie!”

An exasperated voice, from the end of the aisle. You turn toward the sound, and the person that you see takes your breath away.

It’s a man, tall and slim, long legs in wide-legged denim. His hair is shoulder-length and blonde, the top half of it held back in a small ponytail at the crown of his head. His face is equal parts angry and relieved, dark thick brows furrowing. The guy is incredibly, distractingly beautiful. You kind of can’t believe it.

“Daddy,” Minnie pipes up, as if confirming it to you.

She leans back against your shins like you’re her personal throne. You look down at her, and then back up at the man as he approaches, dragging a half-full shopping cart behind him.

“I am so sorry,” the man is saying, “She has a mind of her own and sometimes-”

“I made a friend!” Minnie interrupts her father.

The man leans down and scoops his daughter off your feet, plunking her into the basket of his shopping cart.

“You’re in jail, princess,” he tells her curtly.

“I’ll get out,” she replies.

You’re sure that your jaw is actually hanging open several inches as the man turns back to you to continue his rambling apology.

“I really am sorry, um…” he pauses.

“(Y/N),” you fill in for him.

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you dismiss, “She just wanted to talk. And I wanted to make sure she didn’t get lost. More lost.”

The man grins at you sheepishly. “I’m Hyunjin, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” you say.

“I like her,” Minnie calls from her shopping-cart jail cell, “She’s funny.”

“That’s a high honor,��� Hyunjin tells you soberly.

“I’m glad to finally hear that someone thinks I’m funny,” you say.

Hyunjin laughs. He has a nice laugh, sharper and shriller than you would have thought, but full and honest. He looks just like Minnie when he smiles. You’re thoroughly charmed.

“Well,” you say, tugging yourself back to reality, “I have some more shopping to do, so…”

“We’re friends now!” Minnie announces.

Hyunjin glances at his daughter. “You two are friends now?”

“Yes!” the girl insists.

Hyunjin returns his gaze to you. “I guess you’re friends now. Any chance you’re up to see us again sometime?”

“See you again?” you repeat, nonplussed.

“Just for coffee, maybe. A playdate?” Hyunjin’s grin is teasing.

“Doesn’t she have other friends?” you ask, “Friends who are more…three years old?”

“Oh, sure. but Min is an equal-opportunity befriender,” Hyunjin says, “She likes everyone.”

You really don’t know what to make of this precocious little girl who’s just declared you her new friend and her very indulgent but admittedly very attractive father. You might consider that he was hitting on you, except that he’s clearly just bending to the will of his very willful child, and that he’s way, way, way out of your league.

“Sure,” you say, finally.

“Cool.”

Hyunjin pulls out his phone and offers it to you with the keypad open. You enter your number and call yourself, and you save each other’s data into your phones. ‘Hyunjin (Minnie’s Dad)’ goes in as your newest contact.

“We’ll text you to make plans!” Hyunjin promises, as he wheels his cart away.

“See you later!” Minnie calls.

She waves furiously at you until the two of them round the corner to the left, toward the checkout counters. You’re left standing there with your package of coffee and butterflies in your stomach.

Just like that, you have a new friend.

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

When you do eventually get a text from the number saved as ‘Hyunjin (Minnie’s Dad),’ it’s abundantly clear which of the two is doing the texting.

‘hello!!!!!!’ ‘yo u have to wear’ ‘princess dress!!!!!’

It’s a Thursday afternoon, and you’re at work, sat at your desk overlooking the production floor. Your lunch is just about to end, the boys in assembly below are already getting back to it, and you need to make this quick before your next meeting.

Hyunjin must have helped with the spelling, but that is definitely a message direct from Minnie. You’re debating how exactly to respond to this message, when a call comes in, instead. You answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi!” The voice on the other end is unmistakable.

“Hi, Minnie,” you say patiently.

“Did you get my text?”

“Of course,” you answer.

“Good. Wear your princess dress,” she says decisively. “Talk to Daddy now.”

The phone clatters loudly like it’s been dropped right on the floor, and you hear a shout in the background. You wince at the noise, but keep the phone pressed to your ear until Hyunjin’s voice replaces his daughter’s.

“Hey, sorry,” he says, “She decided that PJ Masks are more important than this phone call that she DEMANDED I make to invite you for coffee on Saturday.”  

“Coffee, huh?” you repeat.

“Yeah, if that’s okay,” Hyunjin says.

You can hear real hesitation in his voice, and you’re quick to reassure him, “No, no, I think it’s cute. It’s okay.”

“She just never takes to strangers this fast,” Hyunjin explains, and you can’t quite fathom why that piece of knowledge makes your stomach swoop. “I wanna encourage her to see the world as kind of…safe and fun, y’know? Is that stupid? Like, she shouldn’t just run around with strangers, but she shouldn’t be afraid of the world, either.”

“That makes sense,” you assure him.

“We had a talk about it, I think she understands the difference.”

He’s kind of rambling at you. You wonder how often Hyunjin gets a chance to talk parenting with someone.

“No, really, I understand,” you say, “I’d love to do coffee.”

“Great,” he says, “You can meet us at this café…I’ll send you the address. It’s called Mama Dining.”

You’ve never heard of it, but you trust Minnie’s taste. Hyunjin, you can’t say for sure. But you trust that little girl with more blind conviction than is probably necessary.

“Okay, see you then,” you say.

“Cool.” You can hear Hyunjin’s smile in his voice. “Bye, (Y/N).”

“Bye!” comes Minnie’s voice, far away but loud, and you know that she must be screaming as loud as she can.

You laugh, and you hang up.

--------------- Mama Dining is a small glass-front piece of realty across from a folk medicine shop and underneath a square brick apartment building, a few metro stops away from the area where you live. It’s so stuffed full of potted plants and flowers in vases that there’s barely any surface area for anything else, but it’s clean and bright inside. The tables are mismatched with their chairs, and the whole place smells like coffee and sharp herbs and fresh bread.

It’s homey, that’s the word for it. Cozy, and homey.

You’d taken your pint-sized new friend’s advice to the letter, busting out one of the nice dresses that you save for special occasions. The last time you wore it was to a coworker’s wedding; it’s light and floaty and floral, a long floor-length skirt over a tighter inner slip. It’s the closest thing you have to a princess dress. But it’ll have to do.

You check your reflection in the glass as you pull the door open, bells tinkling above your head. As soon as you step into the café, a little voice shrieks at you.

“YES!”

Minnie is sitting at a table in the corner, in a different gown, her hair in an elaborate braided style, half-up and half-down. She’s looking at you with the utmost approval, and even though she’s a three-year-old, you still feel proud that you’re passing her test.

“A princess dress,” she says, satisfied.

“I tried my best,” you say.

You give a silly little spin on the spot, so that your skirt stands out for her, and behind you, someone laughs. You freeze, cheeks heating up.

“You look nice.”

It’s Hyunjin, because of course it is. You turn around to see him in casual jeans and a long sleeve tee, an apron tied around his waist. His hair is pulled back again, off his face. He’s gorgeous. But it kind of looks like…

“Do you work here?” you ask.

Hyunjin nods. “Easiest place to meet up is here, while I’m on shift. Hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him.

“I’ll get you a coffee,” he says, “What do you like?”

You tell him your regular order, and he heads to the espresso machine to start it up.

“Oh,” he calls, over the sound of the grinder, “And if Judy comes in while you’re here, I’m sorry in advance.”

Judy? Your stomach does an awkward flip at the idea of him inviting you here if he has a girlfriend, or a wife. You don’t think you’ve seen a wedding ring on him, but…

Oh, well. Nothing you can do, at this point. You’re here for the kid, anyway, aren’t you?

You go over to the table where Minnie has set up camp, propped in a booster seat to reach the tabletop. She has a coloring book and a pack of glitter crayons in front of her, and you pull up the second chair to join her. Minnie stares at you for second, her cute upturned eyes so much like her father’s, and then she opens up her coloring book, flipping the pages as carefully as she can.

When she finds what she wants, she sets the book down and rips the page out. It’s a picture of a teacup and saucer on a table, with a pitcher of flowers behind it.

“This is yours,” she says, with the utmost seriousness.

“Okay,” you say, matching her tone, “Can I use your crayons? I didn’t bring mine.”

You kind of expect a kid as serious and assertive as her to be careful about her possessions, but Minnie just upends the crayon box onto the table.

“Yep,” she says.

She grabs a lilac color and dives right into her own coloring page: a dressing table covered in cosmetics and trinkets. You select a red crayon from the pile and join her, filling in the delicate pattern on your teacup.

You can’t explain why it doesn’t feel like babysitting, but it doesn’t. It feels more like…coexisting. Like this preschooler really is just happy to have your company.

What a weird kid.

Hyunjin comes over after a moment with your coffee. The café is empty aside from you three, so he sits down at the table with you, placing the cup with your drink down beside the precarious pile of crayons.

“Daddy can’t color,” the kid tells you.

“Really?” you ask, looking up at Hyunjin wryly.

Hyunjin raises his hands as if in defeat, “My talents lie in performing arts, not studio arts. Unlike this renaissance child, who can do it all.”

It’s obvious that Hyunjin adores his daughter. You can see it in his eyes as he watches her scrub her crayons across the picture, in the way he talks about her. You’re not around kids a lot, but you can tell that this little girl has a lot of love in her life. That’s probably why she’s so bold; outgoing, kind, and well-adjusted kids are usually well-loved kids.

You smile to yourself as you keep coloring, switching the red for a grey. And after a while, you’re aware of Hyunjin’s watching gaze focused not on his daughter, but on you.

Embarrassed by the attention, you look up and meet his eye. He’s just watching you, with a lopsided smile that shows all of his teeth and crinkly smiling eyes that emphasize the little mole under his bottom eyelid on one side.

“What?” you ask.

He gives himself a little shake.

“Sorry,” he says.

It seems like all he does is apologize to you when he’s done nothing wrong at all.

“I was just thinking, it’s really sweet that you’re here,” he admits.

“Sweet?” you ask.

He tilts his head. “Yeah. How many people do you know who would come across town just to hang out with a little kid?”

You take a sip of the coffee. It’s perfect. Maybe the best you’ve ever had. Is he even real?

“Well, she’s like the coolest person I’ve ever met,” you say, “Regardless of age.”

“Yeah, she is,” Hyunjin says fondly.

“I’m cool,” Minnie agrees.

The doors of the café open softly, and you and Hyunjin turn around simultaneously to see a young couple, maybe college students, seating themselves and talking softly. Hyunjin excuses himself to go help them, and you let out a breath that you didn’t know you were holding.

What are you even doing here?

Did you agree to come on this very strange playdate because you were so taken by a strange child that you felt the need to keep a promise you made to her? Or, on some level, did you just want to see Hyunjin again? Neither answer is particularly good. Or sane.

“You and Daddy can be friends, too.”

Your head snaps up when you realize you’d being addressed, and you regard Minnie. “What?”

“You and Daddy can be friends. You’re my friend, but Daddy, too.”

You hum, as if you’re really puzzling it over, when in reality you’re about to collapse from the embarrassment of this child inadvertently setting you up with her dad. Or maybe advertently. You have no idea how smart she actually is.

“How does it look?” you ask instead, holding up your drawing.

Minnie puts down her crayon and scrutinizes your picture as if she’s a museum collections pro scouting for art.

“Do pink flowers,” she says eventually, and she returns to her own drawing with the same intensity.

“Good idea,” you say.

You pick out a rosy pink color and try to will all your nerves about Hyunjin away. He’s just a new friend. The father of you new littlest friend. You can’t make this weird just because he’s good-looking. Hyunjin himself has vanished into the back kitchen, tucked away to prepare something. You can hear a stove going, cutlery clattering.

The café door opens again as you’re idly listening to the sounds of the kitchen. This time, it’s a middle-aged woman with a long black ponytail and a practical, motherly outfit. She greets the young couple cheerfully, and then she sets her eyes on you.

“My Min!” the lady coos, and Minnie looks up from her drawing.

“Hi. I’m coloring.”

“I can see that,” the lady says, coming up closer to lean on the table next to your casually, “And who is this?”

“(Y/N),” Minnie answers.

“I see.”

The woman is smiling, but her eyes are regarding you coolly, as if she’s sizing you up. You just offer her a nervous smile, unsure who this is or why she knows the kid.

Hyunjin emerges from the kitchen then, timing perfect, a plate holding a large grilled sandwich in hand.

“Oh, hey, Judy,” he says, on his way past to give the couple their lunch.

Judy? This is the Judy that he mentioned earlier? Not to be ageist, you think, but she seems too old to be Hyunjin’s partner. But romantic relationship or not, you can understand why he apologized on her behalf; she’s already giving you incredibly intense vibes.

“(Y/N)’s picture goes on the wall with mine, okay, Judy?” Minnie says suddenly.

“Sounds like a plan,” Judy agrees, “Now, is someone going to tell me who this young lady is?”

Moving very quickly and pretending that he’s not, Hyunjin rejoins the three of you over in your corner, setting a comforting hand on Judy’s shoulder. You can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it as a means of subtly holding her back.

“Min made friends with her at the store the other day after one of her famous mad dashes,” Hyunjin says. “And we figured the polite thing to do after that would be to invite her for a cup of coffee.”

“I see,” Judy says.

Her face softens at Hyunjin’s words, even though she’s still looking you over quizzically, like she can’t decide how to feel about you being there.

“Well, welcome,” she says, finally, “I’m Judy. This is my café.”

She extends her hand to shake, and you take it. Her hand is slim and pretty, heavy with a few jeweled rings and slightly roughened on the fingertips from hard work.

“She takes care of us,” Minnie pipes up.

“I try to,” Judy agrees. “They need all the help they can get.”

“I resent that!” Hyunjin says.

“But really, I just use this pretty face to attract customers,” Judy continues, waving a hand at Hyunjin.

He squawks his outrage, and you can’t help the smile that creeps over your face.

“The teens see this face and they come right in. It’s like magic,” Judy says, as if she’s being purposefully oblivious to how much she’s embarrassing him.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” you say.

And you mean it, too. Hyunjin obviously has an unconventional support system going on, with this woman who he introduced by her first name and not by her relation to him. It leads you to believe they’re not blood-related or anything. It doesn’t really matter, though. She seems nice, if not a little protective.  

“Nice to meet you, too,” Judy says, with such heavy finality that you feel as though you’ve just cleared a hurdle.

And from the way Hyunjin’s whole body perks up at her words, maybe you have. Why do you get the feeling that this was the equivalent of a meeting-the-parents moment?

As quickly as the atmosphere had heightened, it settles back to the lazy calm it was before. Judy pats Minnie’s head fondly and disappears into the back of the café, not to reappear. Hyunjin returns to his work, and you take back up the task of neatly filling in the coloring page, careful not to upstage your tiny host and her not-quite-developed motor skills.

It’s a slow afternoon.

The young couple eats their lunch across the room, adding only a quiet hum of activity to your surroundings. Minnie tells you stories while you work, regaling you with the deep inner workings of preschooler life.

“Their names are Sage and Ginger!” she’s saying happily.

You haven’t been listening closely enough, clearly, because you’re stumped. “Whose names?”

“The babies!”

“What babies?”

“From Blue’s Clues & You,” she huffs.

Oh. You vaguely remember the original Blue’s Clues show, but you can’t say you know exactly what she’s talking about. Is she talking about…the sentient salt and pepper shakers? Do they have babies? Why do they have babies?!

“That’s cool,” you say, with level enthusiasm.

Minnie looks at you flatly, but accepts your words with a nod. “They’re cute. So little!”

It goes on like that, bits of kids’ programming trivia and input on your crayon color choices. The couple leaves, and you can see Hyunjin zeroing back in on you as he lets them out with a wave and a call to come back soon.

“How’s it going?” he asks.

You pick up your drawing, for him to see. You’ve been finished with it for a while now (it’s a children’s coloring book, so it’s not all that intricate) but you don’t want to appear unengaged, so you’ve been going over your lines and blurring out the crayon marks. His eyes crinkle up with joy at the sight of it.

“Done!” Minnie announces.

She brandishes her own drawing, too, and Hyunjin beams at the two of you with equal pride.

“Can I put these up?” he asks.

“Together,” says Minnie.

“You got it.”

He takes both rough-edged pages and whisks them away to the counter. Behind the register, on an expanse of wall, there’s a collection of doodles and coloring pages that you hadn’t noticed when you walked in. They must all be Minnie’s; the bold coloring strokes are all the same, her heavy hand immortalized in wax and marker and glitter pen.

Hyunjin tacks up the pictures side by side on the wall.

It’s the tiniest gesture in the world, really. You can’t even count how many scraps of paper, how many school notebooks and work memos that you’ve scribbled on over the course of your life. You’ve colored kids’ menus at restaurants, done detailed adult coloring books at mixers. Somehow, this one ragged coloring page tacked to the wall of a café seems like a turning point in your life.

You wonder when you got so sentimental. It’s silly, but it’s there; warm happiness in your chest.

When Minnie begins to wilt, saying in not so many words that she’s getting tired, you know that your playdate time is coming to an end. It’s only been an hour and a half, maybe two, but that’s an awful long time to keep such a young kid occupied on one activity. You’re proud of yourself, honestly.

“She’ll go down for a nap soon, before dinner,” Hyunjin tells you softly, “You can head out if you want. I don’t wanna monopolize your day.”

“I think I will,” you agree.

It’s been a nice time, but you’re not one to overstay your welcome.

You say goodbye to Minnie, who insists on giving you another crushing full-body hug, and you make it all the way to the door before you realize Hyunjin is following you.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Walking you out,” he replies.

“I’m just going to my subway stop.”

“Then let me walk you to it,” he says.

You struggle to hold back your smile at his easy grace. “Okay, sure.”

The two of you set out into the afternoon, side by side, for the short walk from this inner part of the neighborhood to the metro stop that will take you back home. The breeze tugs at your skirt and ruffles Hyunjin’s apron, and you can’t help but sneak sidelong peeks at him as you walk.

“I hope Judy didn’t scare you too much,” he says.

“She’s intense. But I can tell that it’s out of love,” you reply.

He laughs at that, and you continue your slow meander down the unlined streets.

“She’s like an adoptive mom to me,” Hyunjin tells you. “I’m lucky to have her.”

“Oh,” you say, curious but knowing that you shouldn’t ask.

The two of you walk a while longer in your quiet bubble, but eventually, Hyunjin sighs.

“I don’t talk to my parents,” he says, “It’s not that crazy. Just how it is.”

“You don’t have to tell me more if you don’t want, I understand.”

“And now I’m oversharing. Sorry,” he winces.

You shake your head, “It’s not a bother, I just won’t pry.”

Hyunjin considers this, and nods. “It’s just me and Min, so Judy’s been a livesaver. Mom and auntie and grandma all in one.”

Just him and Min, which means no wife and no serious girlfriend. That makes you feel a bit better. You’d hate to get in the way of a serious relationship, even indirectly. Minnie is a nice kid, and you like her, but you’re not her nanny or her babysitter or anything. You’d hate to be that kind of person, shoving yourself into a family where you have no business being.

“But…I wanted to know…would you wanna hang out again?” Hyunjin asks.

You laugh gently. “For Min? I’d walk into traffic. Yes, I’ll hang out again.”

“Not with Min,” Hyunjin says, voice soft and hesitant. “With me.”

The word that falls out of your mouth before you can stop it is, “Why?”

Hyunjin snorts, and then breaks out laughing, harder than you’ve ever heard him laugh.

“Because I think you’re cool?” he says eventually. “You’re cute and you like my kid, which is more than I can say about ninety percent of the people I meet.”

This was not part of the plan. Not that you had a plan, but come on. You were here to hang out with a super weird toddler, to entertain a precocious little girl because it’s cute and fun, not to be asked out by her dad. Her gorgeous dad, who’s so out of your league that it makes your head spin.

You spare a thought to wonder if he’s playing a prank on you.

“Unless…” Hyunjin draws away from you (when did he get so close?), “Unless you’re already seeing someone? God, I didn’t even think – I’m sorry, I just-”

“No, you cut in quickly, “No, I’m not-”

“Am I being weird? I’m being weird,” he laughs, and he almost sounds…nervous?

“You’re not being weird,” you assure him, “You just surprised me. I didn’t think…” 

“Then you’ll go out with me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say, surprising yourself, “Yeah. I will.”

Hyunjin’s smile is the fucking sun coming up. It warms you right down to your toes.  

“I’ll call you,” he promises, “I’ll call and we can make plans.”

“Okay,” you agree.

The dimly-glowing sign marking the subway entrance looms ahead, and Hyunjin falls back, as you approach the down escalator.

“I’ll call you!” he says, again.

You wave as you go down the escalator, and once he’s out of sight, you practically melt. You have no idea why life is throwing you this curveball, but you’re not complaining.

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

True to form, it’s Minnie who calls you some days later. Not Hyunjin, the adult who presumably has control over the phone and has to dial the call. No, it’s the toddler whose voice filters over the line, the toddler who is undeniably and ultimately in control of her father’s whole world.

“Hi, (Y/N)!”

“Are you supposed to be making calls?” you tease.

“It’s okay, I have a mission,” she tells you.

“A secret mission?”

“Maybe…” Minnie’s voice pulls away from the phone, and you can hear her shout, “Daddy! Is it a secret mission?!”

Hyunjin’s voice calls something in reply, and then Minnie returns.

“Yeah, a secret mission,” she says.

“What’s your mission?”

“We gotta know, do you like Japan food or Italy food better?”

“Hmmm,” you think out loud, “I think I just like food.”

“Me too,” Minnie agrees, “I just like food.”

There’s another shout from Hyunjin that you can’t make out.

“Daddy says it’s gonna be a s’prise, then,” Minnie reports.

“Surprises are fun,” you say.

“It’s okay?” she asks.

“It’s okay,” you confirm.

“Okay! I gotta go. Talk to you later!”

Minnie hangs up, and you burst out laughing so hard that tears pool at the corners of your eyes. She manages to make it sound like she has a high-powered meeting that you’re keeping her from. How does she hide all of that thirty-five-year-old boss energy in her cute little self?

But more important than the absurd circumstance of the call is the outcome. You’re going on a real date. With Hyunjin. You try to pretend that a whole swarm of butterflies haven’t hatched in your gut.

You have a date with Hyunjin.

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

The date goes well.

It goes incredibly well, in fact. If you thought Hyunjin was pretty and charming when he was in more domestic setting, with his kid and at his job, that was nothing compared to fully-focused-grownup Hyunjin on a date.

He dresses well, he’s funny and he’s gentle, he nearly cries because the dish you order to share is too spicy for him. He’s got all the puppylike charm of the young man that he is, and this underlying tired seriousness of the doting single father that he is.

You argue with him until he lets you split the bill for the meal, and he gives you a gentle kiss on the lips when he leaves you at your subway stop. It’s like a fairytale.

So you go out again, and again, and again, still. Sometimes it’s barbeque in your neighborhood, at an outdoor restaurant with great side dishes handmade by the older couple who own the place. Sometimes it’s just coffee and a long chat at a 24-hour café. You haven’t been to his home, yet, and he hasn’t been to yours, but it’s refreshing to just take things slowly with him, when the rest of life moves so fast.

Underneath the fun of being with Hyunjin, though, is the doubt.

Everything you see makes you more and more certain that he’s not a real person. He’s a dating sim come to life. He’s so good-looking that teenage girls stop to whisper and giggle about him, and passing aunties give him bold compliments. Dogs like him, service staff like him, little kids like him. And you understand it; you like him tremendously.

You’re not entirely sure why he likes you, though. Compared to him, you’re kind of reserved, kind of plain. It’s not that you don’t like yourself, but you’re a cottage to Hyunjin’s skyscraper, a woodwick candle to his disco ball. Just different realms entirely.

It doesn’t matter, you suppose, because regardless of his motivation or your understanding, you’re spending more and more time with Hyunjin, and Minnie.

You learn that it’s Hyunjin who does her hair every day, creating looks with pins and braids and tiny ponytails. He grew out his own hair to the length it is now to practice on, he tells you one day. You learn that Minnie only likes crunchy vegetables, raw carrots and the stems of lettuce, and that she can inexplicably eat much spicier food that her father can.

You’re comfortable being part of the mundane. But Hyunjin seems to have different aspirations for the two of you, in your casual and fluid relationship, still without titles or formalities.

“I want to take you somewhere nice.”

You glance up from your laptop, blinking to get the fuzziness out of your vision at you look at Hyunjin where he leans over the prep counter. It’s a weekend, but you have a pile of leftover work to get through before Monday, so you’ve set up camp at the café for the afternoon. Hyunjin is on shift, and he’s been slinging you snacks and coffees between customers. It’s been just the two of you, work obligations notwithstanding, and it’s been…domestic.

“This isn’t nice enough?” you quip.

“You know what I mean,” he rolls his eyes, “Like a real date.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying the first half dozen dates weren’t real?”

Hyunjin sticks out his thick lower lip in a pout. “What happened to the shy awkward person I met at the store? Bring her back, please, this (Y/N) is mean to me!”

You laugh. “Where did you want to go?”

“There’s this place I haven’t been to in years. It’s really nice, my aunt used to take us back when family outings were more my thing,” he says.

“Sounds okay,” you decide.

“You’d have to dress up,” he warns, “Like, for real. I’ll have to dig out a suit.”

“That’s fine.”

You turn your attention back to your laptop, trying to hide your flustered face at the idea of Hyunjin cleaning up extra nice for you, Hyunjin in a fitted suit and shined shoes. He might notice it anyway, though, if the smile that lights up his face as he turns back to the kitchen is any hint.

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

It’s decided that Hyunjin will pick you up from work and drive the two of you to your first fancy date. So that morning, you hitched a ride with a coworker so as not to strand your car at the office overnight, carrying your change of clothes in a bag. The downside of that was having to explain to your coworker what necessitated the change, and your team quickly found out that you have a date. The teasing hasn’t stopped all day, good-natured ribbing all during your shift, about stoic, shy supervisor (Y/N) going on a hot date with a mystery man.

You stand in front of the full-length mirror in your office’s nice bathroom, the one reserved for visitors who can’t pee with the staff. The one with potpourri on the counters and immaculate tile floors. You’ve gone for a menswear look yourself, wide-legged slacks and a silky blouse, and heels. Hyunjin’s already seen you in a nice dress, you figure, and besides, clinging to the businesswear that you already don at work gives you just a bit more nerve.

Somehow, a date at a nice restaurant that holds some sentimental value for him is more serious than anything you’ve ever done, more intimate than splitting cakes at the café and watching Minnie force the other kids to take turns on the slide at the playground.

You adjust your French tuck just a bit, make sure that your necklace hangs neatly, and deem yourself as good as you’re gonna get. You walk out of the bathroom, bag now holding your work clothes tucked under your arm, only to see a whole group of your production team boys waiting for you.

The company where you work is a decently large tech manufacturing plant, and as a production manager, you oversee a team of techs and assembly workers who tend to be on the younger side, and much more often are young men close to your age. They’re all nice boys who you’re quite close to, but they’ve already been on your case all day. Several of them are right here in the hall, now, ready to make fun of you the way that annoying little brothers are meant to do.

“Jeez, (Y/N), out for blood,” says Taehyun, his silica filter mask hanging off one ear.

“Don’t be gross,” you say, rolling your eyes.

“It’s true, you’re really going all out for this date, huh?” adds Jeongin.

“Quit it before I vom and then report you all to HR,” you say.

“Oh, come on,” says Taehyun, “I’ve worked for you for like two years and I’ve never seen you have fun on purpose before.”

“That can’t be true,” you argue, walking toward the front of the building with your little line of assembly-boy ducklings following behind.

“On your birthday, you asked us to get you a firm handshake and a new set of pages for your planner,” Jeongin deadpans.

“You’re Ron Swanson with tits,” Jaemin says.

“Charming,” you glance at him, and he shrugs.

“It’s true.”

Car headlights shine in the picture windows that span the front of your building, and you can make out a small red car sitting in the visitor’s parking right by the door.

“Please don’t embarrass me,” you implore the boys, as you haul open the heavy glass door to let yourself out.

“We would never do that,” Jeongin says, defensive.

“Maybe we should talk to your date, though,” Jaemin suggests, “Rough him up a little.”

“Yeah, please don’t ever do that,” you say, “I’m leaving now.”

The driver’s side window is rolled down, and you can see Hyunjin leaning out, waving to you. You walk around to the passenger’s side of the car as fast as you can, giving your stupid underlings as little time as possible to ruin things.

You slide into the seat and slam the door behind you right as you hear one of the boys yell, “GET HER HOME SAFE. BY TEN.”

“Oh my God, go, drive away,” you groan.

“Who are they?” Hyunjin asks, amused, as he backs out of the parking spot.

“They work for me,” you say. “They wanna intimidate you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“They must really like you,” he says.

“No, they just really like being annoying.”

Hyunjin laughs, glancing at you as he maneuvers onto the main road.

“You look really great,” he says, sounding a little bit shy.

“Thanks.”

“The restaurant isn’t far,” Hyunjin says, “But I wanted to look cool and drive you.”

“I already think you’re cool,” you tease.

“Well if you’d told me that before, we could have called a cab,” he says.

“Nah, I wanted to see your car,” you say, turning around in your seat to get a full view of the interior, “Big pink carseat and all.”

“Min’s constantly telling me to just get a pink car to match,” Hyunjin says, “I don’t know if I could pull that off, though.”

“With your good looks and princess hair? I think you could.”

“Good to know. Next car, pink,” he says.

Hyunjin wasn’t lying about the restaurant being close by, because the whole drive is less than fifteen minutes. You’ve barely relaxed when he pulls up to the street parking outside a modest building with a pretty marquee and rough brick siding.

“This is it?” you ask, peeking out at the building.

“Yep.”

You scrutinize the restaurant as two of you get out of the car, and you can tell instantly that it’s an upscale place. Everything from the valet in front to the fabric of the curtains reeks of steaks that cost a paycheck and truffles in every possible dish. You’re kind of excited for it.

The maître-d greets you warmly, and brings you to a table against the window, with a view into a small back garden full of lanterns and lit trellises. The table itself is a delicate wooden thing, with full-course silverware and origami napkins. Candles dance on the tabletop, a single red rose in a vase brightening the whites and silvers of it all.

Hyunjin must know a thing or two about romance, because you’re properly wowed. It’s so stereotypically wonderful, it makes for a great sixth-or-seventh date. You’ve known him long enough that you know he’s not trying to blindly impress you, but just to treat you.

You wonder what kind of family he has, that they would bring him to a place like this as a kid or a teenager.

When the waitress, a pretty young woman in server’s blacks, comes over, the two of you order from the set menu and argue only a little about what dishes to taste and what wine to have.

“They’re barely Brussels sprouts,” you’re saying, “They’re covered in oil and bacon and shit.”

“They’re green vegetables,” he counters.

“They’re gourmet, don’t be a baby.”

Starters come and quickly disappear.

The main course comes, and by this point, you’re a glass or so of wine deep, and Hyunjin is only looking more and more handsome, as your stomach starts to be comfortably filled and the drinks warm you up from the inside.

Hyunjin’s gazing at you between bites of his dinner, expression so soft that you wonder if he’s gonna lean right across the table to kiss you. It’s tender, it’s lovely, and it’s unlike any other date you’ve ever had.

But a woman’s shrill, furious voice shatters the entire atmosphere with a single sharpened word.

“Hyunjin?!”

It’s almost comical, the way Hyunjin freezes with his fork halfway to his mouth, eyes wide and startled. It’s only almost comical, because this emotion seems to be very real fear on his part. He keeps his eyes on his plate, but you look toward the sound.

There’s a woman approaching your table, thin and elegant and beautiful. She’s got only the faintest age lines on her perfectly made-up face, and her clothes are designer, a plum-colored dress that brushes her knees and a handbag worth more than your whole closet. She doesn’t even spare you a glance, zeroing in on Hyunjin as she comes to stand right beside the table, puffed up in self-righteous anger like a provoked bird.

“Hwang Hyunjin!” she barks.

Hyunjin turns his head so slowly that you wonder if he’s even moving at all, until finally he’s looking at her.

“Of all the places – what on EARTH are you doing?!” she asks him, tone stiff and angry.

It’s the kind of tone that you can imagine her using to yell at waitstaff, or berate the hotel bellhop.  She’s that kind of wealthy, you can just tell. You’ve been dodging people like this your whole adult life, working your way up in the tech field, littered with its new and old money. You glance at Hyunjin, but the urgency in his face tells you to hold your tongue.

“I’m eating,” he says finally.

“Your aunt told me you were still in the city,” she says, “I can’t IMAGINE what you’ve been up to that you haven’t had time to even call, the nerve-”

“Mother,” Hyunjin says evenly, “You’re interrupting a nice time.

Mother. This is Hyunjin’s mother?

As if she’s just noticed that you’re there, she rounds on you. “And who is this?”

The disgust in her voice makes your stomach twist unpleasantly. It’s been a long while since someone has been so openly dismissive of you. Not since you were a student, you think, but God does it hurt.

“This is my date,” Hyunjin answers.

His words are clipped, like he really doesn’t want to say more.

“Well, obviously,” his mother sniffs, condescending, “What is her NAME?”

“You don’t get to know that,” Hyunjin says.

You know that Hyunjin is distant with his parents. He’s mentioned that they don’t talk anymore, and that they don’t really know his daughter at all. But it speaks volumes that he doesn’t even want his mother to know your name.

“And where did you meet this shining example of gilt wood pretending to be gold?” she asks, “The community center? The food bank?”

“There’s no need to be mean,” Hyunjin says, much more calmly than you would be able to, “We’re trying to have dinner. You should leave.”

“I’ve finished my meal. I’m on my way out,” his mother says haughtily, “But I saw you and I needed to come say something.

“No, don’t let us keep you,” Hyunjin says, gesturing toward the exit with his still-full fork.

“Hyunjin, when are you going to give up this ridiculous act and come back to make things right?” she asks, and though the tone is sincere, there’s no warmth behind it.

“Never,” he replies, “Things are just the way I want them.”

This woman, in her all finery and dignified air, stamps her foot on the ground like a child having a tantrum.

“You’re making a mockery of our family, you know that, yes?” she asks.

“You’re the one yelling at me and embarrassing yourself in a restaurant full of people,” Hyunjin points out.

“You are an aggravating and ungrateful child,” his mother hisses.

“Maybe,” Hyunjin agrees, “But I’m happy.”

Perhaps sensing that she’s starting to make a scene, his mother glances around at the other patrons, who are trying to hide the way they’re listening in with varying levels of success. Your waitress is lingering by the edge of the service floor, eyes glued on the scene.

“You’ll come to your senses,” she promises darkly. “And you’ll come begging for my help. We’ll see if I take pity on you then.”

And with that, she turns around and stalks toward the exit, not even pausing as she barks at the valet to bring her ride around. You watch until she’s outside and out of sight, and then you focus on Hyunjin.

His hands are shaking so badly that his fork clatters against his plate. You reach out and cover his hand with yours, easing the fork out of his grip and laying it down. You feel horrible, and kind of sick, but you know that between the two of you, Hyunjin is worse, so you have to push that discomfort down, just for a while.

“Let’s finish our dinner, okay?” you say, “And then we can talk about this.”

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

The rest of the date isn’t agonizing, but it is uncomfortable. You chat, and joke, albeit without the same easy grace as before. Seeing his mother, and having her speak to both of you that way has really seemed to rattle Hyunjin more than a confrontation usually would.

You settle the tab, splitting it like you always do, and then you find yourselves on a bench outside the restaurant, set away from the main road. It’s dark, and it’s chilly, but it’s comfortable with the gentle atmospheric music from the restaurant marquee and the sounds of traffic.

“Min’s mom wasn’t ready for a baby.”

You glance at Hyunjin at the sound of his voice. He’s fiddling with the cuffs of his blazer, still looking distinctly unsettled.

“Neither of us were,” he amends.

“Was she a hookup?” you ask.

“A girlfriend,” he says, “But not…she was just a girl from a good family. Someone my parents thought would be a good match, so we dated for a long time.”

“A good match,” you repeat, “A good match for you?”

“A good match for the family,” he says bitterly.

“What does that matter?”

“Oh, it matters. Way more than what I want,” he says.

“They’re really rich, aren’t they?” you ask, thinking about his mother’s clothes, and her attitude, and pretty much everything about her, “Your parents, I mean.”

“Disgustingly rich.”

“Oh.”

“She’s a really nice girl, a good person. But she really didn’t want to be with me forever, and she certainly didn’t want a kid,” Hyunjin says.

“So what happened?” you ask.

“She broke things off when she got pregnant, which made both of our families pissed beyond belief. The proper thing to do would have been to get married, right? But instead she ended the relationship, and moved home,” Hyunjin says, “They took care of Min for like a year and a half, her parents and a nanny.”

“Not the mom?”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “She just didn’t want a kid. Which is okay, more than okay. Our parents were the ones who wanted to keep the pregnancy, not her. I just wanted everyone to stop fighting.”

You just nod. Hyunjin is keeping this story so purposefully vague, not dropping names or placing blame or really showing any anger. You wonder how much time he’s spent thinking about this story, or telling it in different ways. He seems almost desensitized to it all.

“When Min was almost two, her mom asked if I would take on full custody so she could sign away her parental rights and be out of the picture for good. And I figured,” Hyunjin laughs bitterly, “I figured, better to have one parent that loves you the most than two while one is half-assing it.”

“No, I can see that,” you say.

“Minnie lived with me at my parents’ house until they realized that my ex was never coming back. They always figured we’d get back together.”

“Why?!” you ask, incredulous.

Hyunjin looks at you. “Because that would be the dutiful thing to do. Get married, stay together for the kid, avoid any embarrassing attention on the families.”

“Even if that meant you were both miserable forever?”

Hyunjin turns his gaze back at the ground, sighing. “My parents said they wouldn’t support me if I couldn’t even do that one thing right and convince my ex to do right by the families and marry me. But I wasn’t gonna force her. She’s a good person. just in over her head, and scared. And I can’t blame her for that. I can’t forgive her. But I understand.”

“So, what, they kicked you out?”

“Kicked me out, cut me off,” Hyunjin nods. “I used to be set for life, with their money to back me up. I could have fucked around forever, lived comfy. They took it all away because I wouldn’t marry a girl who didn’t love me and just wanted to live her own life.”

“You’re a good person,” you say.

“It was an easy choice,” he quips, some of his usual humor returning now that he’s gotten the stress of his story out of his mind, “Either my parents, who only love me conditionally, or my daughter, who loves the biggest and best out of anyone ever.”

You laugh, but you can’t shake the new strange feeling that has settled over you, now that you know all of this about him. Knowing that Hyunjin is the rejected son of a wealthy family, a silver-spoon kid with a heart of gold. It only validates some of those nagging feelings that in some unavoidable way, Hyunjin is far, far too good for you.

He’s given up a life of luxury and security for his daughter, and his freedom. You’re not about to make him compromise on anything else, ever. At all.

“Min doesn’t even miss any of them,” Hyunjin says thoughtfully, “Doesn’t even ask.”

“That’s good, I guess,” you say.

He shrugs. “Means that she’s not too fucked up from bouncing around like that as a baby, which is a fuckin’ blessing.”

“She’s safe and happy with you now, though,” you say.

Hyunjin grins at you. “But you know who’s been a great parent influence on her?”

“Who?”

“You.”

You laugh. “I’m no parent, trust me.”

“I dunno, you’re pretty great with her,” he says airily, “I don’t trust my kid with just anyone.”

“You gotta stop being so nice to me,” you say. “You’re gonna give me ideas.”

“Ideas like what? Afraid I’ll wanna take you out on a date? Introduce you to my kid? Oh wait-”

“Shut up!” you whine, nudging him. “I just…can’t believe you like me, sometimes. Like, that you really like me, like this.”

“Of course, I like you,” Hyunjin says, dumbfounded, “We’ve been going out for weeks.”

“Yeah, and that only started because Min told you that she wanted to be friends with me.”

“Did you really think that I got your number that day because I wanted you to be friends with my three-year-old?” Hyunjin asks.

“Yes!” you answer, totally honest, “Yes, I did. I think that you would do anything in the world for that kid, even something stupid like inviting me out.”

You stand up, suddenly needing some space, some air that isn’t warm from Hyunjin’s presence by your side or scented with his soft cologne. He just watches as you pace a few short steps away from the bench.

“It was maybe twenty percent because she was being so cute with you,” he says desperately, “But the other eighty percent was for me.”

You can’t believe that. Sure, part of you hoped for it, because it’s truly so insane to just let your preschooler make friends with random women in public. It makes sense for him to have an ulterior motive. You’d hoped that it was really him who was interested, even if he just intended to hook up with you and then cut it off.

It’s beyond obvious to you that you’ve fallen hard for Hyunjin, even in just this short time. The idea of him feeling anything like that for you is much harder to fathom.

“I know you care about me, at least a little,” Hyunjin says, standing up to join you, “At least, I hope you do. Something, some chance that you like me as more than a friend, or a casual date…”

“I do,” you say, voice strangled and tiny, “But you…you’re-”

“I’m what? I’m a father already? I have too much baggage for you?”

Your heart breaks a little bit more as he says that, as you imagine other people in the past dumping him with those exact words. The conviction in his voice is all that you need to picture it; a different person, a different night, the same outcome.

“No!” you insist.

“Then what?”

You bite the bullet, and you say it. “Because you’re beautiful, Hyunjin. You’re perfect. You have a wonderful kid and a nice life that you’ve built for her and yourself after all of that shit you went through. You…you’re too good for me.”

Hyunjin recoils like he’s been slapped. “How can you think that?”

“I just look at your life, and I can’t possibly picture you moving things around just to fit me in,” you say.

“How can you think that there’s not already space for you?! Can’t you see that you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time?” he asks.

“Because I’m…” you struggle, “I’m boring, Hyunjin, I don’t know! I’m not worth changing for.”

“That’s bullshit,” he scoffs. “You’re letting my mother get to you, which is just what she wants.”

“Then I’m just not right for you,” you say, trying to ignore his comment about his mother and how absolutely right it is. “You have this cute little picturesque life, and I have my normal job and my hobbies and my family and friends and I would just…be in the way.”

“You’re not in the way now,” Hyunjin says.

“We’re not a serious couple now!”

“Why can’t you just let me like you?!”

He’s practically yelling now, keeping his distance and nearly folding in on himself as he looks at you with eyes that are far too shiny. It’s not the yelling that gets to you, but what he’s saying.

“Because it’s scary!” you yell back. “I don’t want to lose you, or your kid, but I know that-”

“I can show you,” he pleads.

He draws in a little closer, like he’s afraid he’s going to spook you. Against your stubborn brain’s protests, you reach out to thread your fingers with his.

You don’t want to lose him.

But as disgusting and cliché and self-deprecating as it is, you just can’t fathom someone like him wanting to be with someone like you.

Hyunjin leans more fully into your gentle grasp, pulls you right up close to him so that the two of you are toe to toe, there on the street outside the restaurant, as cars pass by and streetlights cast their dim yellow light over it all. He’s looking right into your eyes, expression firm and warm and so, so Hyunjin. You can feel your heart fluttering in your chest as you scan his face for nervousness or insincerity, and find none.

He’s looking at you the way he looks at Minnie when she falls asleep on the couch watching Frozen 2 for the millionth time. The way he looks at Judy when her back is turned in the café.

“I’ll show you that I mean it,” he says again, “I’ll be here for you. I’ll support you the way that you’ve supported us. I’ll love-”

He can’t get to the end of that sentence, because you wrench your free arm around his neck and pull him down to kiss you. He startles, lets go of your hand, and you freeze, thinking you’ve miscalculated the situation and gone too far. But he recovers quickly, wrapping both arms around your waist. He adjusts you so that you’re flush against him, and kisses back, harder.

His plush lips are wine-sour and soft, and he molds them against yours like he’s starving for it.

“My place,” he says, pulling back just the slightest bit so he can speak, “My place.”

“But-”

“Min is at Judy’s for the night,” he says, “Please.”

You want to. You want to so badly that your head is spinning, that your heart is beating out a rhythm against your ribcage. He’s here in front of you, wrapped up in you, so handsome and so unattainable…

Well. You think that Hyunjin is making a mistake. But if he’s gonna make it, you’re gonna enjoy every minute of it.

“Okay,” you breathe.

“Okay, or yes?” Hyunjin says, “I need a real yes.”

You hesitate. You decide. You say it.

“Yes.”

Just like that, he’s pulling you down the road to his car and opening the passenger’s side door for you. His place is across the city from here, so you settle in for what’s sure to be the most impatient car ride of your life. Anticipation drags out the minutes, as the energy between you grows so tense that you’re sure one of you is going to snap and start things up before you even get there.

But you’re spilling out onto the sidewalk in front of his building before you know it, Hyunjin’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you.

You’ve been to his place before, to meet him outside for dates, but you’ve never gone inside before. It’s a regular villa building, boxy and painted a demure white, and he leads you up the metal stairs to the third floor.

“I’m not trying to pressure you into anything,” Hyunjin says uncertainly, as he unlocks the door.

“I know,” you say, “I wouldn’t have come up if I didn’t want…well…”

Hyunjin grins his understanding, and you follow him into the apartment, taking his lead as he kicks off his shoes. You peek around when he flips on the lights.

His home looks about the way you’d expect: modest-sized and full of plain, sturdy furniture that looks like it could take a few hits. The décor is understated, intending to be an atmosphere of minimalist modernism, except that a girly, demanding preschooler definitely lives here. Drawings cover the fridge, the corkboard on the wall, the dining table with its one normal chair and one pink booster seat. Toys, hair accessories, and art supplies sit on shelves, in baskets, on end tables.

“It’s cute,” you say.

“Hm?”

Hyunjin pops his head out of the kitchen, now sans blazer, where he’s switching on more lights. He obviously has a just-gotten-home routine, and he’s not about to abandon it just because you’re here.

“This place. It’s cute,” you repeat. “It suits you.”

“It’s small,” he says with a shrug, tossing his blazer onto the back of the couch, “But we each have a bedroom and that’s really all that I can ask for. You ever shared a bedroom with a toddler? Not cool.”

“I’d like to see your room,” you tease, cringing at yourself instantly for making the dumbest of the dumb jokes.

But Hyunjin’s expression is just dangerously joyful, like he’s really taking it to heart.

“I’ll give you the grand tour,” he says.

“Sounds like you’re plotting.”

“I did tell you that I would prove it to you,” he says, drawing in close to you again, “How much I care about you.”

“The only way you know how to do that is with sex?” you ask playfully, “That’s sad. Maybe expand your vocabulary, first.”

He looks down at you, amused and just slightly frustrated. “Why can’t you make this easy for me?”

“Nothing with me is easy,” you say, “You should get used to that.”

“I dunno. You’re kind of easy to love.”

There he goes again, with that word. You can feel your cheeks burning, unable to process such casual affection from someone you like so much.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask.

“As much as you want,” he promises.

You slot yourself comfortably into his arms and lean up to kiss him. He’s got such ridiculous plush lips, soft and sliding against yours, and he holds you like you’re something precious. It’s an overwhelming amount of attention, but you let yourself bask in it.

“C’mon,” he says, “I’ll give you that tour.”

He winks, and then he releases you, walking across the small living space toward the doors on the far wall. Following him is second nature, at this point, and you pad after him.

“This is Min’s room,” he tells you.

He cracks the door on the right, so that you can see a peek of the pink explosion on the other side.

“She picked all her own décor,” he says.

“I’m starting to think that pink is just your favorite color, and you’re using the kid as an excuse,” you say.

“You’ll never get me to admit it,” he grins.

He opens the door on the left, and this room is soft woods and earth tones. Definitely an adult’s room, almost stark in its lack of personal effects. It’s dark except for city lights filtering between the open curtains, casting the room into a seductive kind of shadow. You follow him into the room, grinning to yourself.

“Bed looks comfy,” you say.

Hyunjin sits down on the edge of the bed, strong thighs in dress pants drawing your eye shamefully quickly, and fixes you with a look.

“Come find out,” he offers.

You can’t keep being so self-conscious about this. It’s Hyunjin, it’s only Hyunjin, your friend. One of your dearest friends. With his supermodel face, and his long blonde hair falling out of its ponytail in wisps around his cheekbones, and the outline of his cock against his thigh-

Fuck.

Something in you snaps. You climb into his lap, settling yours knees on either side of his hips, winding your arms around his neck to pull his mouth back against yours. He laughs into the kiss, his hands landing on your hips and pulling you down harder into him.

“See?” he says, voice low, “It’s not so hard to open up to me, is it?”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” you mutter.

“You’re so mean to yourself,” Hyunjin chides.

You cock an eyebrow at him. “I can be mean to you instead.”

He just laughs again, grinding his hips up into you briefly. You can feel him getting hard beneath you, distinct even through the layers of clothes that separate the two of you.

“Can this come off?” he asks, plucking at the collar of your nice silky blouse.

“Yeah.”

His answering smile is dark and satisfied, conniving in a way that makes your pulse jump. Hyunjin is so calm and sweet most of the time, cheerful in a way that suggests naivety. You almost worry about him, sometimes, worry that to other he’ll come across as just pretty and dim. Why are you getting the feeling that you’ve stumbled across a very different part of him, tonight?

“D’you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” he asks, against your collarbone, as he unbuttons your blouse down your chest, down your stomach.

“How long?”

“Too long. Way too long.

He’s pushing your shirt off your shoulders before you know it, reaching around to unhook your bra. His hands are firm and certain, the stumbling hesitation that he’d shown while asking you out nowhere to be found. Here, apparently, he’s absolutely comfortable.

Your shirt and bra are discarded carelessly, and you’re surprised that you feel no shyness at all when Hyunjin cups your breasts in his hands and thumbs over your nipples.

“Knew you’d be pretty,” he says.

“Shut up,” you mumble.

He gives you another one of those feline grins.

“Watch it,” he warns.

Hyunjin hooks one arm around your back and flips the two of you over so that he’s on top, all but dragging you up to the middle of the bed. You’re sprawled on your back under him now, bouncing gently on the mattress with the force that he’d used to move you.

“You’re even prettier like this,” he smirks, “I like the slacks, by the way, very professional. I didn’t tell you that earlier.”

“Thanks,” you reply, breathing heavy, unsure how to handle this new Hyunjin and his blinding confidence.

“Can those come off, too?”

“What about your clothes?” you whine.

“We’ll get to that,” he promises.

He only needs one hand to unbutton, unzip, and tug your slacks down to your knees in one fluid motion, and he move aside so you can kick them off all the way.

“These are so you,” Hyunjin says.

You’re confused, until you look down yourself to see the panties you’d put on that morning: light blue with a pattern of tiny white running llamas. They’re not all that sexy, but they’re comfy, and it’s not like you’d explicitly planned on anyone seeing them, date or no date.

“I wasn’t expecting to get fucked tonight,” you say bluntly, “Give me a break.”

“Should have at least hoped for it,” he grins.

“I try to keep my expectations realistic.”

“You need to give yourself more credit,” Hyunjin says.

To punctuate it, he leans down over you fully, caging you in, and kisses you breathless again. He trails his mouth and hands down your front lazily, scraping his teeth against your hipbone where it peeks from the waistband of your underwear. He lets one long finger trace over your panties, across your covered pussy, and you can’t help how you twitch.

“Bet you’re fuckin’ delicious, too. Am I gonna get to taste?” he asks.

“Jesus Christ,” you groan.

The mouth on him…you’ve never had someone talk to you like this before, so tender and affectionate but also so obscene. It sends arousal pealing through you, the idea that he can be so into this, into you.

“Use your words,” he says, “Come on, can I taste you?”

“Yes,” you say, “God, Hyunjin…”

“Oh, I like how my name sounds, like that, listen to you,” he purrs.

He hooks his fingers into your waistband and pulls your panties off smoothly. Those are abandoned over the edge of the bed, too, and Hyunjin has his face between your legs seemingly as fast as he can.

“Tell me if anything doesn’t feel good,” he says, warm breath fanning over your inner thighs.

“I will,” you say, “Don’t worry.”

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he mutters, and he licks into you indulgently.

He’s got one hand bracing himself against your leg, one hand holding your folds open for him so he can dip his tongue into your opening, drag it slow across your clit.

“Fuck,” he says, and you swear you can feel the word against you, “Can’t wait to feel this sweet pussy around my dick.”

You moan. You can’t help it, can’t help the way you’re leaking your arousal against his tongue, the way his words and his gorgeous mouth are working you over. He pulls away from your core much too quickly, and he smiles when you whine.

“Just a taste, I said,” he placates.

He sits back on his heels between your legs to strip off his own clothes, but you haul yourself up to meet him.

“Let me do it,” you say.

“Be my guest.”

So it’s your turn to undo his buttons and give yourself an unencumbered look at his body for the first time. He’s slim, working muscle like a dancer, gorgeous skin under your hands. You kind of want to take your time, leave marks all over him and get to know every inch. But it does seem like he has an agenda tonight, as he impatiently shrugs off his shirt and undoes his own belt.

He rids himself of his pants and underwear quickly, and you really should have expected him to have a cock like THAT. He’s tall, and pretty, and of course, this part of him matches perfectly, long and thick and beautifully flushed.

“I’m clean,” you find yourself saying, “And on birth control, so if you want…we can…”

Hyunjin grins at you. “You just want me to fuck you raw.”

“I do,” you agree, “Fuck, I do.”

“I’m clean, too,” he tells you.

He nudges your legs apart to make room for him as he crawls back up your body, giving you a gentle playful shove so that you lay flat on your back for him again.

“Is that what you want? Want me to fill you up, just like this?”

He’s looming over you, propping himself up with his hands planted on either side of your head. You can feel the tip of his cock nudging between your folds.

“That’s what I want,” you agree desperately. “Please.”

You don’t know why you’re begging him like this. Are you that easy to break?

But you can’t bring yourself to care how ridiculous you sound, because Hyunjin rocks his hips forward to dip the head of his cock into you, and you keen.

“What do you want?” he asks, with a knowing smirk.

“You know exactly what!”

“I can’t give you anything unless you tell me,” he says.

“I want,” you struggle, “I want you to fill me up. Please.”

“That’s a good girl,” he praises gently.

He rewards you with another thrust, a little deeper, sending a fantastic thrill through your body but still nowhere near enough. He works himself into you slowly, just a bit at a time, pulling completely out in between just to be able to sink all the way back in.

After what seems like an eternity, he slides in completely, hips flush against yours. You squirm, needing him to do SOMETHING, after taking his sweet time to get to this point, but Hyunjin seems content to just sit like this for a moment.

“I was right,” he tells you, “Feels fuckin’ heavenly.”

“Move, please,” you beg.

“Be patient. Maybe I just want you to cockwarm me for the rest of the night,” he teases.

“I would go home,” you say.

He laughs. “Okay, okay, you got me, that’s not what I want.”

So slowly that you know he’s doing it on purpose to torture you, Hyunjin draws back and fucks into you, hard and deep. It coaxes a punched-out moan from your throat, already so strung out though you’ve just begun.

He’s stronger than you would have imagined, driving into you with those narrow dancer’s hips and leaning down to press kisses to your cheeks, your mouth, the sides of your throat. His hands roam like he wants to be touching all of you at once: kneading into your breast, smoothing back your hair, bending your legs up farther so he can fuck you deeper, better.

“Look how well you take me,” he says.

You do look. You crane your neck up to look down the narrow space between you, as Hyunjin props up his body above you, and you can just barely see his thick cock working into you, disappearing with an obscene squelch that leaves no question about how much you’re enjoying yourself.

“So messy,” he teases.

“’m not messy,” you mumble, feeling sex-stupid but indignant.

“No?” he grins, “Not dripping wet for me?”

You want to argue, but he’s right; you can feel exactly how wet you are for him. You can’t remember the last time someone had you so desperate, so ready and eager to take what you’re given. Hyunjin falls forward to let your bodies press together, covering you and pressing a kiss to the shell of your ear.

“Sweet girl,” Hyunjin murmurs, voice soft and fond and dangerous, “So good for me. So good with my kid. We could give her a sibling, you know.”

It sounds like something that just slipped out, the way that it’s so honest and the way that Hyunjin nearly gasps at himself. But your mind has gone one hundred percent completely blank. You let out a moan that’s mostly silent, as you let the implication of that wash over you.

You didn’t think you had a thing for, well…this.

But Hyunjin, looking at you like this, talking like this, honest and filthy, right in your ear. You know that it’s just dirty talk, that he doesn’t mean it, not right this instant. You both know that you’re on birth control. But the game of it, the idea of it…

“Yes,” you gasp, “Oh my God-”

“Oh, you REALLY like that,” he purrs, “I can feel you squeezing around me.”

“Hyunjin!” you moan.

“Is that what you want, baby? You just wanna be filled up with my cum, is that it?”

You can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, and you doubly can’t believe how much you fucking love them, how you’re nodding and clawing your fingernails down his back at the picture he’s painting for you.

“Please,” you gasp, “I want – I want-”

Hyunjin draws up so that he can look into your eyes. “Baby wants me to give her a baby. Hm.”

Never in your life have you been brought right to the point of cumming just from someone’s words, but that’s exactly what’s happening. You can feel that perfect fuzzy electricity in your toes, building up. If you cum untouched, just from this, you’re gonna have some real soul-searching to do.

He seems to be at a similar place, fucking into you at a breakneck pace, still murmuring at you mindlessly.

“Want to fill up this sweet pussy, put a baby in you…Jesus fucking Christ, so good,” Hyunjin moans.

“Inside,” you agree, “Please – I need you, I just-”

As if he couldn’t be more perfect, Hyunjin slips his hand between you, presumably to bring you over the peak with him. The instant his finger presses against your clit, starts to rub a messy circle in the wetness spreading across your folds and your inner thighs, you cum.

You feel like screaming, but your voice is strangled, constricted with arousal, “Oh-”

“Fuck!” Hyunjin moans, like he’s agreeing with you.

One, two, three, four deep strokes, and Hyunjin bottoms out, pressing into you as he cums. Your hips buck into him on their own accord as he paints your walls with his cum, and you can’t help the newly-awakened corner of your mind that thinks about what could happen, if you weren’t on your birth control, if you did this again…

Goddamn. You really have some journaling to do later, or something.

“So perfect,” Hyunjin mutters, letting his head fall, burying his face in your shoulder, “So fucking perfect, how did I get so lucky?”

You’re the lucky one, you think to yourself. Your brain is simultaneously too full and too empty to say anything coherent, so you just lay there, wrap your limbs around Hyunjin as well as you can. He gets the message, you think, because he snuggles more firmly into you and turns his head to press a kiss to your jaw.

He’s warm, and kind of heavy, but you don’t want him to move, or to pull out of you. Just let this minute last a little longer, you think. Just a little longer, before you have to talk about what all of this means.

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

You only know you’ve fallen asleep when you wake up.

There’s a weight on your chest, pressing you into the mattress. For a second you think you have sleep paralysis, until you get a face-full of blonde hair and realize that it’s just Hyunjin, fast asleep on top of you.

“Get up,” you say, pushing on him gently, “And, ew, let me clean up.”

You can feel his cum drying on the inside of your thighs, where it trickled out around his softened cock while you slept. It’s kind of nasty, but the memory of all the hazy lust-filled things you said to each other makes you not mind so much.

Hyunjin yawns audibly, right next to your head, and then he peels himself off you.

“Sorry,” he grins. “Are your arms asleep?”

“No. Doesn’t your neck hurt from laying like that?”

He presses a smacking kiss to your forehead. “No. You’re a good pillow.”

Hyunjin pulls out of you and climbs gingerly off the bed. You squint around the room until your eyes find a glowing digital clock on his bedside; it’s only just past midnight.

“Shower and then sleep?” Hyunjin offers.

“Sounds good.”

He helps you to your feet, laughing as your knees threaten to buckle despite the cooldown period you’ve had.

“I hope I didn’t cross any lines,” he says tentatively, “I took a risk with all that baby talk and-”

“I liked it,” you admit, shy.

“Really?”

You nod. “I mean, we shouldn’t do anything stupid. Not right now. But just to play with, in the bedroom…”

Grinning, you fan yourself dramatically with your hand, like you’re a proper lady being overwhelmed with the saucy behavior of your male paramour.

Hyunjin laughs again. “Good to know.”

He shows you across the hall to the bathroom, men’s hair and skin and shaving products lined up next to rainbow-packaged kiddie shampoo and a small bin full of bath toys. As the shower is warming up, steam and the sound of rushing water filling the bathroom, he nudges you with his elbow.

“I knew all along that you were just into me because I have a kid,” he says.

You consider it, as you pull back the shower curtain and test the water. It’s warm, so you draw the curtain fully back and step under the spray. Peeking out at him, water starting to run down your back and warm your skin the way that Hyunjin’s presence warms you on the inside, you smile.

“Guess you’re just a DILF.” 

💕💕💕💕

#hwang hyunjin #stray kids #hwang hyunjin smut #hwang hyunjin fics #stray kids hyunjin #stray kids hyunjin smut #dilf series #kpop #kpop fanfic #tw emotional manipulation #tw emotional neglect #tw unhealthy relationship

[adrenaline-roulette]

Crazy little thing called love

Roger Taylor x Reader

Warnings: None! 

Preview: “Turn around! Get your arse back in that fitting room right this second!” She yells, waving her arms above her head wildly.

“Mary? What on Earth are you doing?” “Roger! The boys! They’re outside, they saw me and are coming in!” “Get rid of them! I don’t care what you have to do, but they cannot be in here!” You plead.

“Look Y/N, there’s another one!” Mary squeals excitedly as you walk along the busy street, you come to sudden halt as she stops moving, your linked arms preventing you from going any further without her. “Come on, lets take a look!” She urges, as she gently tugs you into the bridal store. As you enter, you feel like royalty, and know that you definitely do not belong in here. Pristine white dresses are displayed across the shop floor on mannequins in uncomfortable poses. Marble tiles line your way as you walk further inside, your jaw going slack as you look around. There’s a crystal chandelier hanging above you, its lights twinkling away merrily, unaware that no one in the history of the world would ever be able to afford a dress in this store.

“Mary, we shouldn’t be in here. We don’t belong!” You mutter, as you gaze down at yourself, your dusty combat boots nearly leaving scuff marks on the tiles.

“Oh come on, Roger just popped the question, you have to at least start looking for a dress!” Mary admonishes sharply, with a final tug at your arm to move you further into the store. She was stopped in front of the clothing racks, each garment in a bag to protect it from dust, and other foreign bodies. Ivory and cream fabrics were overloading your senses as she moves each dress to look at it.

“He asked me last week, we haven’t even spoken about it since, he’s been so busy with the record, I don’t think we’ll start planning it until the end of the month.” You shrug, following Mary’s lead and looking through the numerous dresses.

Mary rolls her eyes, huffing at you. “That isn’t the point Y/N. The point is, is that you are going to be Missus Roger Taylor at some point in the near future! And I’ll be damned if you don’t look a million dollars on your wedding day!” She declares, stamping her foot down to make her point as final. An older woman looks up from a few racks away, lifting an eyebrow at the noise Mary had been making.

“May I help you ladies?” She asks, her lips pursed as she saunters her way over to you both. You gulp, looking to the bottle blonde woman, wanting to simultaneously run from the store and also give her a swift kick to the knees. You knew you didn’t belong in here, but she didn’t have to make it so obvious with that look!

“Yes actually, I’m in the market for a wedding and maid of honour dress.” You smile sweetly, your perfect customer service voice coming in to play. Moving your hand to brush away a stray lock of hair, you make sure your engagement ring is clearly visible to the shop assistant, noticing her frown lift from her face somewhat. She still has a hard look about her, though it seems to be crumbling away slowly. Mary stifles a giggle from beside you, hiding it behind a sneeze.

“Of course, congratulations on your engagement! Was there any style of dress you were looking for in particular?” She asks, moving her hands in grand gestures towards the racks you and Mary had just been browsing through.

You frown for a moment, you hadn’t really thought about your dress very much. You know that Roger would find you stunning no matter what style you picked, though you also know that he would probably prefer you to wear jeans and one of his leather jackets. “Nothing too over the top, classic and simple, maybe with lace? I like off the shoulder sleeves…” You finally decide, an image of what your dress should be forming in your minds eye.

 “And nothing too frilly, or too puffy.” Mary chimes in, and you find yourself nodding in agreement. The two of you had been to a wedding earlier this year, for a friend you had both went to school with. Although it was her big day, both of you decided that the dress was utterly hideous, not that you would ever say that to her face of course. The dress had wide, puffy sleeves that were at least twice the size of her head, the bodice had a corset style ribbon running across it, with lace surrounding the edges. Then, there were the ruffles. The skirt had layers, upon layers of tulle, with ribbon edging each one. All in all, she looked like a yeti, but it seemed to make her happy at least.

You nod your agreement, and the sales woman busies herself with finding suitable dresses for you to model for Mary.

Twenty minutes later, you find yourself in a circular fitting room, with mirrors covering the entire wall around you. The sales woman was with you, helping you into each dress you tried on. The first three had been, nice enough, just not quite what you had been hoping for, and you were beginning to think that maybe the dress you had imagined didn’t exist. “There we are, all buttoned up.” She smiles, patting you on your shoulder with a soft smile. “Now, off you go and show your friend this one!”

You step out of the dressing room, noticing that you didn’t have to lift the skirt while walking unlike with the other dresses you had tried on, a smile forming on your lips at that. You wanted to be able to move easily in your dress, and the idea of lifting the hem each time you took a step just sounded like torture!

**********************************************************************************

The four men walked through the bustling streets, smiling and waving at fans as they made their way to the nearest pub. They had been in meetings all morning, discussing what their latest album should be, and were tired of trying to explain what they had all come up with.

“I just don’t get it.” Roger huffed, kicking a stone away from his feet as he walked. “What about Radio GaGa don’t they understand?” He groaned, as John placed a hand on his shoulder in an effort to comfort him.

“It’s a great song Rog, and it’ll be on the album whether the record execs understand it or not.” John offered with a smile, which was returned by Roger.

“Mary!” Freddie squealed loudly, causing the other three men to look at him in surprise. From what they could see, there was no Mary anywhere in sight.

Brian looked at Freddie, squinting down at the excited man. “Fred, there’s no Mary here.” He shrugs, unsure as to where his exclamation had come from.

Freddie points towards a bridal store, grinning light a child on Christmas. “She’s in there darling.” He coos, waving at Mary through the display window. Mary looks shocked, then promptly runs away from the window, arms flailing like a mad woman.

Roger had turned his attention to the store now, along with Brian and John. “What’s Mary doing in a bridal shop?” He muses aloud, as he takes a long drag from his cigarette, before stamping it out beneath his toe.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, let’s go find out, shall we?” Freddie decrees, as he pushes his way through the crowds of people, parting them as if they were the red sea.  The remaining three men gaze between one another, before following their lead singer towards the elegant store.

Upon entering the store, the four men look around, rather overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of white dresses. How can there be this much choice in only one colour? Roger walks further in, stopping every now and then to take a closer look at some of the garments hanging around him. From the corner of his eye, he spots a frantic Mary shoving a figure draped in white back inside a dressing room. “Get in! And don’t come out!”  She shrieks, as she barricades the door with her body. Roger frowns at the sight before him, shaking his head before making his way towards his flustered friend.

As he reaches Mary, the other men had decided to check what all the commotion was about themselves. “Uh, hi Mary?” Brian begins, lifting an eyebrow at the pale rose coloured dress she had on.  The dress boasted puffy sleeves at the shoulders, with the length ending mid forearm, a deep plunging neckline showed off her chest nicely, and a large bow was tied at the back. “You look stunning love, but I must ask. Do you have some news to share with us?”

Mary had the decency to look affronted by Brian’s suggestion, placing her hand against her chest. “Why, whatever do you mean Brian?”

It was John’s turn to speak up next, folding his arms across his chest as he regarded Mary. “I think what Brian means to ask, is whether or not there is a particular reason as to why you’re trying on bridal dresses?”

“Yes! Who is the lucky man? And for the love of God, why did you not tell me you were getting married?” Freddie gasps, as he takes Mary’s hand away from her chest, twirling her in a circle.

Roger frowns deeply, desperately trying to put the pieces together of this puzzle. “Who’s hiding in the fitting room?” He finally asks, referring to the figure he had seen her practically tackle into the small room just before

Mary blinks up at the four men before her, her eyes darting between each of her friends, desperately trying to think of a way out of this situation. “What makes you think I’m getting married?” She finally asks, folding her arms across her chest, tapping her foot impatiently as she awaits a response.

“Well darling, either you’re getting married, or being just a little bit presumptuous. I will happily speak on behalf of all men here, if you were to find a wedding gown in the closet before having asked the woman to marry you, it would be a little bit confronting.”

Mary’s eyebrows crease together, listening intently to Freddie’s explanation, of course he of all people wouldn’t buy her story! She bites down on her lower lip, looking back at the fitting room behind her, praying that you would be able to keep quiet, and hidden from just a little while longer.  “If you must know, my dear friend is getting married shortly, and she has asked me to be a bridesmaid. So I’m looking for a dress for her big day.”

“Oh really?” Brian smirks, lifting an eyebrow in challenge up at her.

“Yes really, thank you very much.”

“What’s her name?” Roger queries, leaning his hip again a glass cabinet filled with tiara’s and accessories of the like. His arms are folded across his chest, his baby blues regarding her with scepticism.

“Um, my friend’s name?” Mary stammers, her eyes going wide, as if she were a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car.

“Yes, your friend’s name. Who else?” Deaky jumps in, from what he could tell, none of the others were believing her story. What he couldn’t quite understand, was why she was being so secretive. If Mary was engaged, surely, she would be excited?

“Her name?” Mary begins, before losing her nerve, and stepping backwards, pressing herself closer to the door leading to the fitting room. “Jessica!” She quickly declares, breathing a sigh of relief as she thinks up a name.

Freddie’s grin broadens across his lips, showing off his teeth. “My dear, I met all of your friends while we were together, you have never known a Jessica.” He chuckles, and the four men watch the colour drain away from Mary’s face.

“Just tell us the truth Austin, who’s in the fitting room, and who’s wedding is it?” Roger groans. He was already tired from the morning they had had, and he found himself in no mood to play silly games with an over emotional Mary.

Mary gulps audibly, “I dragged Y/N in here to start looking for her wedding dress.” She finally admits, and as if on cue, the fitting room door which she had been guarding is pushed wide open, sending the young woman tumbling to the ground, as a vision in white emerges behind her.

 You only manage to make it halfway towards the podium in the centre of the store, surrounded by mirrors so you could see yourself from each and every angle, before Mary comes running at you, the silken fabric of her maid of honour dress shining merrily beneath the bright lights. “Turn around! Get your arse back in that fitting room right this second!” She yells, waving her arms above her head wildly. You blink at her in surprise, unsure of how to react to her sudden outburst, that is until her hands are cupping your shoulders, and marching you backwards, back into the fitting room you had just emerged from.

“Mary? What on Earth are you doing?” You gasp out, as you take hurried steps backwards, both trying to follow the lead of your friend, and also get away from her.

“Roger! The boys! They’re outside, they saw me and are coming in!”

Your eyes widen, while your jaw goes slack, Roger can’t see you! It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress! Even if this isn’t the dress you end up purchasing, you still don’t want him to see you! “Get rid of them! I don’t care what you have to do, but they cannot be in here!” You plead, just as the chiming of the bell above the door informs you that the band had arrived. Mary has just enough time to slam the fitting room door shut, sending you  tumbling into the sales assistants arms. She caches you swiftly, a scowl forming over her features.

“What do you think you’re doing, playing around in a dress this expensive?” She chastises you, glaring daggers down at you.

“I am so sorry. But please, we need to stay quiet, my fiancé just walked in with his friends, he doesn’t know I’ve started looking at dresses yet!” You plead with the furious woman. The moment you had regained your balance, she had taken her arms away from you, whether to protect the dress or because she was cross with you, you were unsure.

You keep your voice hushed, and the sales assistant does the same, allowing you to hear the conversation beyond the door. The boys are pressing Mary for a reason as to why she’s here, and her lies didn’t seem to be doing a good job at convincing them as to her situation.

“I’m sorry my dear, but I don’t care who else is in this store. You do not, under any circumstances throw yourself around wearing a dress like this.” The woman hisses at you, as she pushes you towards the door again, desperately trying to get you out of the fitting room, despite your protesting.  “This is a three thousand pound dress, you either get out there or get out of the dress!”

With one final push, you find yourself practically flung out of the door, falling against Mary as the door swings open. You both crash to the ground, Mary luckily breaking your fall. “Five more minutes Y/N! I nearly had them convinced to leave!” Mary groans, as you roll off her back.

“You really didn’t…” Four voices laugh from above you, and you find yourself too embarrassed to look up at them. Mary pushes herself up to a standing position, before dutifully reaching her hands down to you, assisting in pulling you upright.

Once standing up straight again, you smooth the dress out around you, lifting the skirt before dropping it back down, quickly removing any creases that had formed from your, elegant entrance. After a few moments of silence, you finally look up at your audience, biting your bottom lip, desperate for someone to break the silence.

“Y/N, you look stunning…” Roger breathes out, drinking in the sight of you. You were an absolute vision, the dress looked as if it had been made just for you, and he would not mind seeing you walk down the aisle wearing exactly this dress.

“Thank you, Rog.” You smile gently, your gaze meeting his heated one, causing your smile to grow wider. It wasn’t an often occurrence for Roger to be honest with his feelings, however you knew he was genuine with his compliment.

Brian nods in agreement, his wild mane of curls bouncing around his shoulders. “You truly do look wonderful, but I must ask. Why are you trying on wedding gowns?” Deaky and Freddie both nod their agreement, all with equal looks of confusion adorned on their faces.

You blink at the three men, confusion colouring you features also. “Why wouldn’t I be trying on bridal dresses?” You press, lifting your eyebrows in anticipation.

“Well as we said to Mary just now, typically one waits until they are engaged before they start dress shopping.” Deaky supplies helpfully.

Nodding, you lift your left hand up, just as Mary points directly at the engagement ring adorned on your ring finger. “Yes, I think I’ve completed step one.”

Freddie gasps loudly, racing over to you and wrapping you up in a rib crushing hug. “Who and when?” He squeals, reaching a pitch that only dogs could hear.

“What do you mean who? Roger of course!” You declare, whirling around to glare at your fiancé.

Brain looks between the two of you, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Roger finally got up the guts to propose?” He chuckles deeply.

“Roger Taylor. You have some explaining to do Mister!” You snarl, your hands resting on your hips as you glare at the blonde, who at least looked somewhat embarrassed by the situation at hand.

“Yes, I proposed, last week so everyone knows exactly when it happened, on a Tuesday. I just, I wanted to keep it between us for a little while, before telling this lot.” He shrugs, a look of guilt gracing his features, as he gazes at you. You step closer to him, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, causing him to smile against yours.

“Okay, I understand. You just had me worried for a moment there. I thought maybe I had imagined the whole, you getting down on one knee, and asking me to marry you, thing. But good to know I didn’t!” You blush, reaching up to push his hair back off his forehead.

Mary sighs dreamily behind you, wiping a fake tear off her cheek. “No matter how many times you tell me, I still find it hard to believe that The Roger Taylor proposed to you in a traditional manner.”

You roll your eyes at her antics, shaking your head slowly, smiling once more as you feel Roger’s arms circle around you, his hands resting gently against your waist. The moment is soon broken however as Deaky raises his voice to gather everyone’s attention. “While this is all very romantic, may we just take one moment to remind ourselves of the fact that Roger, our dear drummer, didn’t think any of us important enough to share this news with!”

Roger bows his head, his shaggy hair flopping over his forehead once again. “I mean, you did find out eventually.” He shrugs, looking only somewhat guilty about the whole situation. Deaky shakes his head in disapproval, while Freddie and Brian grin at the semi argument before them.

You can feel Roger’s fingers gliding along your spine as you face the group, playing with the ivory buttons that trail from the nape of your neck, down to the base of your spine. His fingers catch on the price tag, and he plays with the piece of card idly, taking a moment to glance down at the price stamped across it. His breathe hitches in his throat for a moment, though you pay him no mind, instead focusing on the grumpy sales assistant. She had recently emerged from the dressing room, her arms folded across her chest, a stern look gracing her already hard features. “This is no place for a friendly catch up! I must insist Miss, if you are not here to try on our gowns, then you must leave.”

Her look is focused solely on you, and you feel a blush cover your cheeks, averting your gaze quickly. Freddie, reading the discomfort on your face jumps to the rescue, sauntering over to the woman, a devilish grin tugging at his lips. “My dear, we were just leaving now! We are so sorry to have caused a scene, please forgive us!” He finishes his apology by walking up to the woman, taking her hand gently, and placing a kiss against the upside of her palm. Freddie’s grovelling only manages to raise a small smirk from the woman, though it soon falls away.

“I believe it best if I never see you four in this store again.” She grumbles, before turning her attention to you and Mary. “And you two are on thin ice too.” Mary gasps, taking a step back, at what she had deemed as a verbal attack.

“What did we do wrong?” She demands, stomping up to the older woman, both standing with their arms folded across their chests, glaring daggers at one another. You couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, it truly looked as if Mary were fighting with an older version of herself.

As Freddie rounds the band up, deciding it really was time to leave, Roger leans down against your side, his lips resting against the shell of your ear.  “Get any dress you’d like Y/N…. Just not this one.” He whispers, still struggling to wrap his head around the exuberant cost of one dress. Pressing a kiss to your cheek, he dashes out of the bridal store, racing to catch up with the others, leaving you to try and stop Mary from arguing with the sales assistant.

 The four beer bottles clinked together, the noise muffled out nearly entirely by the noise of the band playing in the small pub. “To Marriage!” Brian declares as he grins at Roger.

“To secret proposals and not telling friends!” Deaky interjects playfully.

“Let’s just stick with to Roger hm?” Freddie offers, before downing a large gulp of his beer, the other three quickly following his lead.

Roger taps his foot along to the song the band had begun playing, the drummer in him unable to rest when a decent beat started. He had never heard of this band before, nor seen them at any of pubs the regularly visited. Though they were quite good, might even be the next Queen he thought. “Is it wrong for me to be worried about the cost of this wedding already?” He laughs half-heartedly, looking at John intently. “You got married Deaks, how much did it cost? Are you still in debt? Help me!”

John blinks at Roger in surprise, the usually stress-free drummer looked to be in the midst of a panic attack. “Ronnie and I kept it pretty simple, so it wasn’t too much, and no we aren’t still debt. We were never in debt. It’s the dress that’s the killer, they can cost a small fortune.” He finishes, before taking another swig.

“Trust me, I know. The dress Y/N was wearing, I don’t think I could ever afford something like that.” Roger sighs, his nerves now calmed somewhat from John’s reassuring words.

John nods in understanding, smiling gently. “You may think that now, but the dress is what makes them the happiest. That’s what Ronnie says at least. At the end of the day, all she cared about was having me there, and her perfect dress.”

“So, from the sounds of things. As long as you let Y/N get the dress she loves, then the wedding could be held in a grocery store, and she wouldn’t care!” Brian chuckles, noticing as the colour drain from Roger’s face.

Roger gulps audibly, before he leans forwards and rests his chin against the table. “I told her not to get the dress she was wearing. And now I can’t imagine her wearing anything other than that one!” He groans, as John moves Roger’s beer away from his head, in an effort to stop it from spilling.

“Congratulations Rog, your marriage is already doomed, and you haven’t even started planning the wedding yet. Surely that must be a world record!” Freddie smirks, while Brian timidly pats Roger’s head.

 “Did you get the dress?” You hear Roger long before you see him, as he stumbles through your apartment door, swearing as he walks directly into the coat stand by the front door. Despite you both having your own apartments, you can’t quite recall the last time Roger had stayed at his, not that there was much of his there anymore. Most of his belongings had migrated their way into your living space during the course of your relationship.

You bite down on your lip, waiting for your drunk fiancé to navigate his way into the sitting room. You couldn’t blame him from having a few drinks in celebration with the others, even you and Mary had gone to a fancy café that served mimosas all day, after leaving the bridal shop. Though from the sounds of things, Roger had likely had a few more to drink than you. “You’ll just have to wait and see won’t you? Just, you know, don’t go into the closet.” You grin softly, as he finally makes his way to you. It was fun to tease drunk Roger, it was fun to tease sober Roger too. Roger looks down at you, curled up on the sofa, with a book across your lap. He raises and eyebrow at your comment, mulling over your words for a few moments, before turning on his heel and marching towards the bedroom.

 A part of Roger was ecstatic at the thought you having bought the dress, the other part of him was utterly terrified, still unable to get the price tag out of his mind. Soon, he finds himself stood before the closet, hand hovering above the handle, shaking with anticipation. “Just do it!” He mutters to himself, before swinging the door open. There, in the corner of the closet, is a white garment bag, with the name of the bridal store printed across it, in black cursive. Reaching out, he pulls the bag off the rack and brings it over to the bed, draping it over the duvet. It’s not as heavy as he had thought it would be, though really, what did he know about the weight of a wedding dress?

Carefully he pulls the zipper down on the bag, pulling it down inch by inch, before it lay open before him. Roger wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry at the sight before him, there, in the garment bag, from a bridal store none the less, lay a brand new leather jacket. A note, with Roger written in your handwriting taped to the material. He hurriedly shook off the denim jacket he was currently wearing, before replacing it with your gift, grinning at how well it fit, the smell of leather filling his nose as he breathed in deeply.

While Roger was engrossed in his findings, you quietly made your way into the bedroom behind him, leaning your hip against the wall, as you waited with a baited breath for him to reveal the jacket. “Damn I have excellent taste in clothing.” You chuckle, as he whirls around on the spot, sporting his new jacket.

“So, you didn’t get the dress then?” He raises his brows in surprise, blinking his striking blue eyes over at you. With a sly grin, you step over to him, reaching your hands out to his jacket.

You zip up the jacket slowly, a small smile tugging at your lips. “I will not justify that question with an answer.”

The zip stops at his throat, and Roger smirks down at you. “It’s at Freddie’s isn’t it?’

“it’s at Freddie’s.”  You smile.

My Masterlist

#roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor x you #roger taylor fanfic #queen fanfiction #queen band #Freddie Mercury #Brian May #John Deacon #mary austin #shopping #dress shopping #wedding dress #fluff #humour #sweet #funny #love #romance #wedding fluff #domestic roger is my spirit animal #you and mary are terrible liars #mary especially #why are wedding dresses so expensive #roger forgot to mention that he proposed #whoops? #roger stresses over the wedding

[artistic-writer]

CS Halloweek: Between Now and Nether :: Chapter 1

Title:  Between Now and Nether by @artistic-writer

Summary: On their way to a Nolan Charity Gala, tragedy befalls Emma and Killian who is given just seven days to set things right.  Can he make Emma believe and escape the Nether before he is lost forever?

Rating: T+

A/N: Please don’t be put off by what happens in this chapter!  I PROMISE it gets better!  This was written for CS Halloweek : Spirits & Traditions.

Huge thanks to @hollyethecurious @kmomof4 @winterbaby89 @rouhn and @wordsmith-storyweaver for your advice and suggestions.  This fic would just be so much worse without you guys! <3

Also, I made the most obscure fanart for this fic lol  It is basically an excuse to show Killian getting dresed up as I didn’t want to give anything away!

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“Swan, are you ready yet?” Killian huffed, straightening out the collar of his crisp, white shirt and fiddling with the cufflinks at his wrists.

“Almost!” Emma called from the bathroom, her voice a little shaky, her nervousness hidden by a tiny cough at the end of her words.

“We have to go!” Killian called back, tugging his bowtie slightly to the left a bit with a frown. These damn things were sent to test him, he was sure of it. He wasn’t sure how many of David and Mary Margaret’s Charity Gala’s they had attended, but one thing he could always count on was they would be late because of the time it took his lovely girlfriend to prepare.

There was no need for all of her makeup, he had told her many times before because she was beautiful just the way she was. A natural light curl to her blonde, shoulder length hair and the smooth texture of her skin was stunning, and he never fathomed why she would ever want to cover it. Her radiant smile was amazing and never needed lipstick of any sort to accent its perfection, but time and time again, Emma brushed off his compliments and insisted she could never attend one of her brother’s gala’s in ‘sweatpants and one of his t-shirts’.

Killian wouldn’t mind. She looked beautiful in everything she wore, especially his clothes.

Killian tugged at the elasticated straps holding up his suit pants, arranging them more comfortably. He eyed his reflection as he threw his arms into his jacket sleeves, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt that poked out of the ends. Smoothing his hands over the fine, Italian suit he paused when his hand bumped into the lump in his inner pocket. Invisible from the outside, Killian had stashed the velveteen box away from Emma for nearly a month, plotting with his soon to be brother in law about how to finally ask Emma to marry him.

Tonight was the night. In a room full of people, fuelled by the buzz of fine wine and live music all around them, Killian would drop down to one knee and ask her. He had never been terrified of anything more in his entire life.

Emma sat paralyzed on the toilet seat, her full-length gown pooling around her feet. The chiffon material rustled a little as she moved her feet, her heels catching on the tiled floor of their bathroom when she moved to stand and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was pale, paler than usual, and the ruby red lipstick drew her attention more than it should have.

She sucked in a huge breath and blew it out immediately, grabbing the edges of the vanity with quaking hands. Her reflection remained unchanged, still in shock at what laid before her in the bottom of the sink. The rounded plastic stick sat motionless in the sink where she had tossed it, unable to process what it was telling her. Two blue lines. Positive.

Emma Swan was pregnant.

She was happy. Although it was happening all too quickly in her life for her liking, they had talked about having children at some length, just not yet. Killian wanted children, ‘the more the merrier’ he would say, but Emma doubted her ability. She knew that she could look after children. Her brother David and his wife Mary Margaret had a son, Neal, and she always managed to make him smile and laugh but having one of your own was entirely different.

And terrifying.

She wasn’t sure how far along she was, but she had a good idea. Emma’s regime of birth control had only been interrupted once recently, six weeks ago when she was taken ill unexpectedly the day after a fantastic night of amorous love making. Clearly the pill she had taken less than an hour before her stomach evicted its contents of her breakfast had not worked. The worrisome voice of Emma’s mother reciting ‘it only takes one time’ sang in her ears and she rolled her eyes the exact same way she had at sixteen.

“Swan!” Killian called again and she snapped her head towards his voice as it echoed from their bedroom. Emma snatched the pregnancy test from the sink and wrapped it in some tissue paper, tossing it in the small chrome bin beside the toilet.

“Just coming!” She chirped fakely, brushing her perfectly styled hair from her face with manicured fingers and smiling at her reflection one more time.

“Are you alright, love?” Killian asked softly, wrapping his knuckles to the bathroom door lightly.

Emma reached for the handle and pulled the door open, the light from the bathroom blinding behind her as he took in her figure. She was a vision, heaven sent and angelic with the white hue radiating behind her. The gown she was wearing flowed all the way to the floor, tiny blue sequins sewn over the almost see through outer layer of white chiffon. It was strapless, the whole ensemble held up by a fitted blue bustier that accented her bosom and let her golden tresses fall gently over the soft skin of her shoulders.

Killian sucked in a breath. “Wow, Swan…” he breathed, mouth hanging agape and his eyes roaming over her hungrily. Emma had told him she had bought a new gown for this gala, and he had already seen it on its hanger, but somehow the whole thing was transformed once she was wearing it. “You look…”

“Is it okay?” Emma fussed, looking down her own body and smoothing her hands over her hips uncomfortably.

Killian smiled at her sweetly and licked his lips, lost for words to describe how she looked. “How do I describe perfection?” He stepped towards her and rested his hands on her hips, pulling her to him.

“Oh stop,” Emma rolled her eyes but let him pull her towards him.

“I mean it, darling,” Killian flicked his eyes over her one last time before meeting the green of her hues once more. “You are a vision.”

“Well, you don’t look so bad yourself,” Emma grinned, running her hands over the satin lapels of his suit jacket and leaning her body into his. Killian’s hands slipped around her body, his fingertips dancing over the bare skin of her back exposed by the cut of her gown.

Killian nudged his head sideways. “I try,” he teased, his lips curling into a grin when Emma cupped his face lovingly and he leaned forward even more. Their lips met with a tenderness that made Emma’s stomach fall away from her, the plush skin of his mouth setting her skin on fire. Emma curled her fingers through his scruff, pulling his face closer to hers and humming contently before reluctantly breaking the kiss.

“We are going to be late,” she said a little breathlessly, her thumb stroking over the scar on his cheek.

“We are always late,” Killian laughed, stepping away from her and offering her his arm. “Shall we?”

“Wait, Killian,” Emma stopped him with a small tug on his arm. She had to tell him that she was pregnant before they entered a room full of alcohol and company that she would have to try and avoid all evening. “There is something I have to tell you.”

Killian gave her a sweet smile that made her heart skip a beat, the effect he had on her still present even after a three year relationship. “I’m sure whatever it is can wait until we are in the taxi,” he nodded. “David will murder us if we miss his opening speech again.”

Emma’s lips twitched into a small smile. He was right. The taxi was outside already waiting and they had a twenty minute journey to the gala anyway. “You’re right,” Emma agreed with a smile, her fingers curling into the crook of Killian’s arm as they made their way down the stairs. “Let’s go.”

As soon as Killian opened their front door, Emma felt a chill. It wasn’t because of the weather, unusually mild for October, but a more sinister cold that rolled over her body with the slight movement of the breeze. Her cop instincts kicked in and she scanned the area, eyes narrowing on a hooded figure walking across the street. The person had their hands buried deep in their pockets and their head hung low, seemingly ignoring them both as they descended the white steps of their house and stepped onto the pavement.

Killian too was oblivious, turning to give her a smile as he reached the pavement first, offering her his hand as she wobbled slightly in her heels. Taking her eyes from the figure for a second, Emma smiled back at him, the whole world switching to slow motion as the crack of a gunshot rang out in the night and the spray of blood splattered her in the face. Killian’s smile faded instantly, his brow pulling together with pained confusion, his hand slipping from hers and clutching his abdomen, his fingers instantly turning red under the flow of blood.

Emma screamed, her shriek piercing the darkness and alerting the cab driver who jumped from his seat and shouted after the masked assailant who took off down the block. His voice was muffled, Emma’s ears ringing from the gunshot, the dull thud of Killian’s body hitting the ground in a limp mess all she heard. Emma dropped to her knees and pressed her hands over his wound, the bullet having entered his back and exited his front, leaving a gaping wound through his abdomen. The edges of his previously perfect suit were singed black, slightly melted with the heat of the projectile, and Emma felt the sting of tears prick at her eyes.

“Killian!” She cried, pressing hard to try and stem the flow of blood.

“Bloody hell,” Killian gasped out through clenched teeth, hands scrambling to cover Emma’s as he fell onto his back, his fingers slipping through his own blood.

“Call an ambulance!” Emma shouted to the cab driver who had run to their side and stopped dead, his face losing all of its colour through shock. “Tell them a cop has been shot!”

“Emma…” Killian coughed, his words watery and crackly. Emma knew he had been shot through the lung and it was filling with blood, his own body drowning itself slowly.

“Shhh, don’t talk,” Emma quickly ripped the skirt of her dress and stuff the material into his wound. Killian grunted, twisting his body sideways as she tried to slow his blood loss in vain. There was so much blood, the pounding of Killian's heart pumping more and more of the claret over her hands as she fought to keep it inside his body.

“Emma…” He repeated, his arm lifting slowly to grab at hers.

“Shut up, Killy!” Emma shook, her emotions getting the best of her as his pet name slipped from her lips. “You’re going to be okay,” she chanted, more to herself than anything else as she watched the blood pour from his gunshot wound despite her efforts. The pool of blood surrounding him grew larger and the edges of her gown began to soak up the crimson colour.

Killian coughed again, blood dribbling from his mouth and down his chin. Emma looked up at him instantly, watching the flare in his eyes fade as his they flickered closed. Adrenaline coursed through her body and Emma let out a pained cry of frustration, her tough cop exterior unable to hide the real panic she was feeling.

“No! Killian! Don’t go to sleep!” Emma screamed at him, shuffling her body weight closer to him and slapping his face with a blood soaked hand. Killian’s head rolled sideways limply, and his eyes peeled open again and looked directly at her with a calm expression that made Emma shiver.

Killian smiled. It was weak, his face smeared with his own blood that had begun to dry in his beard. He lifted his arm and clutched her hand to his face, a shallow breathed sob escaping from his mouth. Emma had never seen Killian cry before and it was the most innocent, childlike whimper she had ever heard, full of fear and sorrow. “It’s okay,” he whispered, his breath hitching.

Emma shook her head. “No,” Emma sniffed, shaking her head angrily. “Don’t you dare say goodbye,” She cried, her entire body shaking with her own sobs.

“I love you, Emma,” Killian choked out, tears rolling down his cheeks and his fingers digging into her palm. “Never forget that.”

“Killy, no, no, no!” Emma chanted as his hand went limp, the light behind his eyes finally going dark and his last breath leaving his body on a heavy sigh. Killian’s hand slipped from her, landing with a slap on the pavement next to his head, his cold, dead eyes staring directly up at her, lifeless and fixed. “Dammit, Killian!” Emma cried harder, wrenching her hand from the hole in his stomach and clasping it with the other one over his heart.

Emma pushed hard against the springy resistance of his ribcage, counting dumbly in her head to five before she leaned forward and pressed her quivering lips to his and breathed into his mouth. She felt Killian’s chest expand but too easily deflate as soon as it had. “Come on!” Emma sobbed, continuing CPR aggressively as Killian’s limp body rolled around in the pool of blood covering the pavement outside of their house.

Emma was exhausted by the time the medics arrived. She had no idea how long she had been working on her partner in life and work before they arrived but her arms had gone numb a long time before they had taken over, bundling her away from his lifeless body as she detested. Blood had soaked into her dress and it felt heavier than before, dragging along the concrete as a fellow officer led her to the back of a second ambulance. Emma could only stare at the scene before her through watery eyes, the blue lights flooding the entire neighborhood from every emergency vehicle that arrived stinging her eyes each time she blinked.

This wasn’t supposed to be how this evening was going to go. Emma was going to sit in the cab next to the love of her life, her fellow officer, and partner, and tell him that they had made a baby. A life. They were to be parents, and she couldn’t be happier. Instead, the life growing inside of her would now never know the man that had created it because of a split second in time that had destroyed everything.

As a thin, plastic sheet was draped over Killian’s body, the questions from the officer beside her fell on deaf ears and Emma flattened her palm over her stomach and cried.

#cs halloweek #cs ff #cs au #cs fic

[growningupgeek]

Season of Love

Word Count-1373

Characters- Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Elaina Mason(oc) and some special guests.

Summary- Sam and Elaina just wanted a simple quiet wedding.  Chuck and Gabriel have some other plans.

A/N-Surprise @d-s-winchester this is the first of two fics I’ve written for your 12 days of Christmas challenge.  I told you that you didn’t know what you were letting yourself in for letting me take White Christmas.  Tags under the cut.  As always, if you want on or off my tag list drop me an ask or a message.

-JediCat

Edit is mine.  Please do not post any of my works on another website with my written permission.  Giving credit does not count.

Elaina looked at herself in the mirror and smiled.  Her simple ivory satin and white lace dress was complemented by an updo and light make-up done by Alex and Claire.  She wore her own heart shaped blue topaz earrings and Jody had loaned her a matching necklace.  Out in the library, Sam was waiting with Dean, Cas and a few friends for the wedding to start.  It might not be the wedding she’d dreamed of when she was a kid, but having Sam made up for it.  A soft smile crossed her face at the thought of her soon to be husband.

Gabriel’s face appeared behind her in the mirror, “You must be thinking about him. You’re glowing.”

She squealed and threw her arms around the archangel’s neck,”You made it!”

“Did you think I’d miss this,” he asked hugging her back.  Then he withdrew just enough to look into her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

Elaina looked into his suddenly serious face and smiled at him. “I know Sam and I have had our ups and downs, but I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

Gabe searched her face, then smiled back satisfied with what he saw there.  “Then let’s get you married.  But that dress, pretty as it is, will never do for you.  Close your eyes and let me work, cupcake.”

Knowing that there was no use arguing with him, Elaina sighed and closed her eyes.  She could hear Gabe walking around her, studying her from every angle like he’d never seen her before.  Then he made a soft noise and snapped his fingers. Her shoulders chilled but her legs felt warmer as Gabe turned her.

Finally he whispered, “Open your eyes.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes.  Her knee length dress had been replaced with a strapless floor length gown trimmed in red on both the top and bottom.  The red band on the top was studded with beads and there was intricate beadwork on both the skirt and the bodice.  Gabe hadn’t touched her hair, makeup or jewerely and she felt tears well up in her eyes as she ran her hands over the material.  She turned to him to express her thanks when the door opened and Jody stuck her head in.

“Elaina, we’ve got…” her voice trailed off as she took in the sight of her friend.  

“Jody, this is Gabriel,” Elaina said softly.  “I know I asked you to walk with me but…”

Jody smiled, “Well, since I’ve just been introduced to God and the Avengers I think I can handle being replaced.”

Elaina’s eyes went wide, “Thanks, Jody.  We’ll be along in just a minute.”

As the door closed Gabriel produced a silk handkerchief.  “Let’s get you married.”

On the other end of the bunker Chuck was talking to the Winchester brothers, trying to talk them into letting him change their Fed suits into something more festive.  Sam was trying to explain that he and Laine wanted something simple when Chuck tilted his head to one side, then shot a questioning look at Cas, who rolled his eyes and nodded.  Chuck walked towards his guitar with a flick of his finger.

“Trust me boys, you’ll thank me later,” he called over his shoulder.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered behind Sam.  He turned to find his brother’s Fed suit had been transformed into black tux, with a red bow tie and a narrow band of red trim around the lapels.  He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Dean looked up at him.  “I wouldn’t laugh if I were you.”

Sam looked down, his suit was now a white tux with a red bowtie and pocket square.  He just shook his head, Chuck was going to have his own way one way or another.  He and Dean shared a look, then walked over to where Cas was standing and looked out over the transformed library.

Bookcases had been pushed back against one wall, the other was lined with tables decorated with evergreen, holly and ivy and laden with a feast.  Garlands of evergreen and holly were strung between the pillars and green carpet ran between rows of chairs from the stairs to where Cas was standing.  There were a few more people sitting there than Sam expected to see; Donna, Alex, Claire and Mary he expected to see, but Jody was supposed to be with Elaina.  He caught her eye but she just gave him a reassuring smile.  Behind her were Elaina’s friends from the Avengers and SHIELD: Phil, Grant, Steve, Bucky, Natasha and Wilson along with Thor and his lady, Jane, smiled at him from their seats as they waited for the bride.  Dazed, he looked to Cas for an explanation.

Cas looked as bemused as he felt. “Chuck wanted to give you and Elaina the wedding he felt you deserved.  And there’s no arguing with him once he sets his mind.”

“At least he didn’t bring that Stark character along,” Dean said just loud enough for Cas and Sam to hear.

Before he had a chance to make any more comments, Chuck began to play the wedding march on his guitar.  The small group rose to their feet as Elaina appeared at the top of the steps on Gabriel’s arm.  Sam felt like he couldn’t breathe as he watched them walk up the makeshift aisle, the only thing he could see was the woman coming towards him.

Elaina took no notice of any thing around her, all her attention was focused on Sam.  She felt like the only thing holding her down was Gabriel’s arm wrapped around hers as they made their way to the alter.  A few feet away the two of them stopped and Sam stepped forward reaching his hand towards her.  She reached out and felt his warm fingers close around hers, their eyes locking.  Gabriel chose that exact moment to clear his throat so that they both turned to look at him.

“You’d better be good too her, Samsquach,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.  “I know where you live.”

A titter of laughter ran through the guests and Elaina leaned over and kissed Gabe on the cheek.  He flushed just a little as she and Sam moved in front of Castiel.  

The ceremony itself passed in a haze, little things stood out to her: the look in Sam’s eyes as he repeated his vows, biting her lip as she slipped a plain silver band onto his finger, how warm her band was as he pushed it on and the feel of his lips on hers as Castiel pronounced them man and wife.  And as they turned to face their guests glitter that looked like snow flakes began to fall over them. She looked over towards Thor who pointed at Gabriel and smiled.

Dean was the first one to hug her, whispering in her ear, “Welcome to the family, officially.”

The next few minutes were a blur of hugs and congratulations until Claire announced loudly that she was hungry, which sent everyone towards the food.  After the cake was cut and passed out Chuck returned to his guitar.  All eyes were on Sam and Elaina as he led her to the middle of the library, now cleared of chairs.  But instead of taking her in his arms for their first dance like she expected, he took her hands in his.

“You once told me this was your favorite Christmas song as well as one of your favorite movies,” he said with just a hint of nervousness in his voice. “I didn’t know what to get you, nothing seemed special enough, so this is my wedding gift to you.”

Then he looked over at Chuck, who had his guitar in his hands again.  Chuck nodded at him and began playing.  Tears formed in Elaina’s eyes as she recognized the opening notes of White Christmas.  When Sam’s rich, mellow voice joined the guitar she didn’t even try to stop them from flowing down her cheeks.  Her grip on his hands tightened on his as he sang the final phrases of the song

May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas’  be white

The Usual Suspects-   @darkcastersruletheworld​​ @black-shad0w-w0lf​​ @imagine-that-supernatural​​ @ladysaraharper​​ @thedepthsoffandomminds​​ @kbrand0​​ @soaringeag1e​​ @supernaturalismalife​​ @iwantthedean​​ @jojomonsterbunni​​ @little-red-83​​ @growleytria​​ @ashleymalfoy​​ @jerkbitchidjitassbutt​​ @halespecterwinchester​​ @driverpicksthemuusic​​ @isometimeswritesomethings​​ @whyisleepacesoamazing​​ @mist-and-echoes​​ @sassysupernaturalsweetheart​​ @kaylas-obsessions​​ @aerisawriting​​ @letsgetoutalive​​ @divinitycas @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid​ @jodyri​​ @soab1967​​ @busybee612​​ @appleschloss​​ @kazchester-fanfiction​​ @oriona75​​ @screeching-pterodactyl-fangirl​​ @deandoesthingstome​​ @littlegreenplasticsoldier​​ @sammy-moo​​ @for-the-love-of-dean​​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​​ @kittenofdoomage​​ @sandlee44​​ @apeshit7x​​ @purgatoan​​ @fast-times-in-the-impala​​ @wereallbrokenangels​​ @wonderless-screwup​​ @dontsassmecastiel​​ @cherrie-liquor​​ @deascheck​​ @mrssamfuckingwinchester​​ @winchesterprincessbride​​ @tjforston​​ @babi-correia​​ @helixiaray​​ @writingthingsisdifficult​​ @mysaintsasinner​​ @mogaruke​​ @wheresthekillswitch​​ @skybinx-blog​​ @bohowitch​ @hexparker​ @jensen-jarpad​ @ellen-reincarnated1967​ @masksandtruths

#12 days of christmas challenge #supernatural fan fic #sam winchester #sam x elaina #sam x oc #elaina mason #elaina #dean winchester #avengers #chuck shurley #gabriel

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Undefinable (Chapter 5)

Summary:  High School AU. Lance likes Hunk. Hunk likes Lance. There should really be no problem there, except neither of them thinks the other knows they exist. Keith and Pidge just want their dumb friends to be happy but that won’t happen unless they can get them to talk. Rating: T Pairings: Kidge, Hance, and a little Shallura

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Also posted on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown

Chapter 5

Pidge stared at her reflection in her full body mirror and adjusted the floral headband in her hair for a seventh time. She wore a high neck dress in dark green, which flowed just past her knees. It was sleeveless and had a diamond-shaped cutout above the chest, which on anyone else would show the slightest hint of cleavage.

“This is as good as it's going to get,” she muttered to herself. After one last look over, she walked across the room and opened the door, only to find her path blocked by Allura.

Pidge took a moment to admire the floor-length gown her friend was wearing. At first glance it appeared that there were no sleeves holding it up, but as she looked closely she could see the sheer lace of the halter neck, carefully attached to the light pink satin of her dress, which split down the middle and opened to reveal a layer of powder blue underneath. She looked like a fairytale princess come to life.

“Um, I think you're in the wrong house, Allura. Shiro and Keith are next door,” Pidge joked.

“I know that! I came over to help you with your makeup!” Without waiting for a reply, Allura pushed her way into Pidge's room.

“Makeup?” Pidge repeated with a sense of dread. “I really don't think that's necessary. I'm fine just like this! Besides, I already have some on.”

Allura turned and carefully scrutinized her face. “Hmm... nope. Regular face care and powder doesn't count!”

Pidge groaned.

Allura rolled her eyes. “Will you relax? I'm not going to do anything crazy. Just a little mascara and eyeshadow. Maybe some blush... eyeliner... lipstick...” She began pulling new packages of the mentioned items from her purse and set them on a corner of Pidge's bed, along with a set of brushes.

“You know I'm never going to use those again, right?” Pidge asked.

“We'll see,” Allura said with a smile. “Now sit so I can get to work! When I'm done with you, Keith won't be able to keep his eyes off of you!”

“Might be a problem, since he's going with you.”

Allura pulled over the chair from Pidge's desk and forced her to sit in it before she began arranging products in order of use. “I'll make sure he saves a dance or two for you. I'll even take one for the team and let Lance dace with me as a distraction.” She picked up the eyeliner and opened it. “Now hold still while I work my magic.”

Pidge held still for an agonizing twenty minutes, though not without plenty of complaining about Allura trying to poke out her eyes. She mostly did it to annoy her friend. It felt a little strange having someone else touch her face, but it wasn't completely unpleasant. And she had to admit, Allura did an amazing job, applying just enough to be noticeable.

Allura left soon after she finished her work, with the promise to get Keith to leave before Lance arrived to pick her up. The two of them were getting a ride from Shiro, who had insisted on dropping them off. He'd also be picking all of them up afterward, as long as everything went according to plan.

Pidge spent a few more minutes in her room, waiting for Lance to arrive. When she got tired of standing there, she gathered up her wallet, house keys, and phone into a small, black purse, and walked downstairs to deal with her family.

“Aww, sis, you look so cute!” Matt teased the moment she stepped into the living room.

Pidge paused, staring blankly at her brother, and then turned to walk away. “Nope. Waiting outside now.”

Matt laughed as she got up and steered her back into the room. “Don't be like that, Katie. Mom wants a picture to commemorate this moment!”

“Could we not do the embarrassing family routine?” Pidge begged. “It's just a dance and I'm only going with Lance. It's not that big of a deal.”

“It's senior prom, sweet pea,” Sam Holt said from his seat on the couch. “It kind of is a big deal.”

“Our little girl, all grown up!” Colleen chimed in, pretending to wipe away a tear.

Pidge groaned in despair. Why was her family so weird?

“It seems like only yesterday that our little Katie was running around bare n–”

The doorbell rang, cutting off the end of Sam's sentence.

“Thank you, Lance!” Pidge whispered under her breath. She fled the room, practically running for the front door. She yanked it open and, without even greeting her date, called over her shoulder: “It's Lance! We're going! Bye!”

“Have fun!” Colleen yelled back.

“Go! Go!” Pidge hissed, physically turning Lance around and pushing him back towards the car, where his sister, Marie, waited.

Lance let her push him along, trying not to laugh at the silliness of the situation. He was more than used to the antics of the Holt family and knew, just as well as she did, that if they lingered too long, one of them would come out and play up the Embarrassing Family Routine for the entire neighborhood to see.

That didn't mean he couldn't tease her about it a little.

“Hey, Pidge, mind if I run to the bathroom first? It's just such a long drive...” He glanced down and caught sight of her death glare. He gulped and quickly backpedaled. “Or not. Okay, definitely not. It was a joke? Ha ha? Pidge? My dearest best friend? Whom I love?” Lance looked at her hopefully, still letting her push him toward the car. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight? Because your beauty outshines even the brightest star!”

Pidge snorted in amusement and Lance was able to relax. If she was laughing, that was a good sign. “Right. Why don't you save your lines for someone else. Someone like, let's say... Hunk?”

“Pidge!” Lance's voice came out as an undignified squeak. “Could we, maybe, not mention that in front of Marie? I mean, she's supportive and all about me liking boys and girls, but I'm not ready for my entire family to interrogate me about him...”

“I won't say a word, but if we're not in that car and leaving in ten seconds, Matt will come out here and do the protective big brother thing. Again. And then we'll be dealing with your whole family thinking we're dating. Again.”

Lance opened the door for her. “It might be a little late for that.”

What followed was one of the most awkward car rides Pidge had ever been subjected to. And that was saying something, considering the number of years she spent carpooling with Keith! It seemed the simple act of going to prom together was enough to reignite the belief that she and Lance were dating, no matter how many times they insisted they were just friends.

While Lance groaned and whined about his sister's teasing, Pidge stared out the window and only answered questions when directly addressed. She had a million other things on her mind to worry about, the most pressing of which was: what was Keith's plan?

Her boyfriend hadn't breathed a word of it to her and the deadline was swiftly approaching. Either he was that confident that it would work, or he didn't actually have a plan and was just hoping for the best. It left Pidge pondering the best way to get the keys to one of the janitor closets and, from there, how to trick Lance and Hunk into going inside.

Somehow it still felt like the better choice than just bluntly telling Lance about Hunk's crush on him, and vice versa.

“Almost there, you two,” Marie told them. “What time is it over? I'll come pick you up.”

“We already have a ride home,” Pidge blurted out before Lance could get through more than a syllable. She could feel his curious eyes on her. “Shiro volunteered, since he's picking up Keith and Allura anyway. I think the plan is to get food afterward.”

Marie smiled. “That's nice of him. Are you sure he won't mind driving Lance home? It's a little out of the way.”

“It's fine,” Pidge waved off her concern. “Lance could always crash at my place if Shiro isn't up for it. It's fine,” she repeated to Lance in undertone. “I think Shiro's hoping that by inviting you, I'll be less likely to fight with Keith? Or maybe Keith will be less likely to pick a fight with me?” She shrugged. “At least we'll get food out of it.”

“I'm not going to change your mind even if I say 'no',” Lance said knowingly. “Anyone else I should be expecting on this trip?”

“No.”

Lance was immediately suspicious of how quick her reply was. He narrowed his eyes. “Pidge, is there anyone else?”

“No,” she responded a little more firmly. “Not unless Matt tags along with Shiro. Let's hope he doesn't.”

Lance grinned. “What, tired of the teasing already? He's only been home for a week? A week and a half?”

“Do you really want to sit through another round of so-what-are-your-intentions-with-my-baby-sister? Because that's all that will be happening. Along with Shiro and Allura encouraging him and Keith being an ass,” Pidge said bluntly. Out of habit, she apologized to Marie for her language.

Marie waved off the apology with a laugh. “I've lived in an all-girls dorm for four years. The sort of things that get said there would make even Lance's hair curl!”

Lance reflexively patted his hair, as if the very mention of it curling would cause it to rebel.

“Alright, here's your stop!” Marie announced as she pulled over to drop them off. “Have fun, be safe, and call me if you need a ride. You have a cellphone. That's what it's for.”

Pidge thanked her for the ride before sliding out of the car. She wobbled slightly as she found her footing in the slight heels she wore and smoothed out her dress to rid it of the wrinkles that appeared on the ride over.

Lance followed soon after, a deep blush visible even on his darker skin. He couldn't quite meet her eyes as he offered up his arm to escort her to the gym.

“More unwanted advice from Marie?” Pidge guessed, accepting his arm.

“Trust me, you don't want to know,” Lance told her.

Pidge silently agreed and together they joined the flow of seniors making their way from the drop-off spot to the dance.

Two hours.

It'd been two hours and Pidge had only caught glimpses of Keith and Allura through the crowd of other students. She'd had a brief moment to greet Shay (looking gorgeous in her gold gown and hijab) and Hunk (very handsome in his matching tuxedo and neatly brushed hair), while Lance was off getting drinks, but for the most part it'd just been the pair of them. Which was fun, but there wasn't much of prom left and they had a deadline.

Pidge was seriously regretting leaving the plan entirely to Keith.

“Is everything okay?” Lance asked, worry in his eyes. “Need another drink?”

“Uh, no. No, I'm okay,” Pidge said, peering almost frantically around the gymnasium. At last, she spotted Allura moving towards them with a determined expression on her face, Keith nowhere in sight. As she watched, Allura gestured towards one of the side doors.

“Are you su-”

“Actually, I'm going to get some air,” Pidge hastily interrupted, pulling away from him. “Be back in a few!”

Lance watched in confusion as his friend vanished into the crowd, her short stature working in her favor for once. He was shuffling away from the designated dance floor, so he wouldn't be in the way, when Allura caught up to him.

“It seems we've both lost our dates,” she joked. “Care for a dance?”

“With you, beautiful? Anytime,” Lance replied smoothly. He was pleasantly surprised when she smiled instead of rolling her eyes, as she normally did. He was more than happy to let her pull him back onto the dance floor.

Pidge stepped outside into the humid, early June air with only one goal in mind: find Keith.

It didn't take long at all to spot him standing off to one side, leaning against the makeshift, metal fencing as he stared up at the night sky. She slowly made her way over to join him.

“So how's that plan going?” she asked.

“The plan's fine...” Keith's words died in his throat the moment he turned to look at her. He looked her up and down as he struggled to compose himself. “Katie, you look... you look incredible.”

Pidge blushed at the compliment and gently leaned into him. Heat radiated off of him, even through the suit he wore. “You too. I mean, you look nice. Handsome.” She could feel her cheeks heat up even more and knew her face was turning cherry red. She sneaked a glance at him and was stunned to find him in a similar state.

Keith cleared his throat. “Katie, would you like to dance?”

Pidge's heart pounded loudly in her ears. It was a moment she'd only dared to dream of. Agreeing to dance with Keith was the same as announcing to their entire graduating class that they were dating. It was the end of the road.

She didn't hesitate in the slightest in taking Keith's hand. “I'd like that.”

“So you had to come with Keith, huh? That must suck,” Lance remarked.

“It's not so bad. I would have loved it if Shiro was able to attend, but the rules are there for a reason,” Allura said with a disappointed sigh. “I'm glad Keith asked me. I imagine it would have been quite lonely without him. He's better company than you think.”

Lance wasn't convinced. “If you say so. Where is he anyway? What kind of date just goes off and abandons his partner?”

“He needed some air,” Allura explained. “He'll be back—oh! There he is now! And he has Katie with him.”

“What?!” Lance turned around and frantically scanned the crowd for his best friend. He wouldn't be much help if he couldn't find her to bail her out of whatever scene she was likely about to be a part of.

And then he spotted her.

Holding hands with Keith.

Smiling.

Dancing?

Lance's brain briefly short-circuited. “Wait, what?!”

Allura's expression was wistful as she watched Keith pull Pidge a little closer, a soft smile on his face as he gazed down at her. “It's good to see them like this.”

“Am... am I missing something?” Lance asked incredulously, unable to take his eyes off the unexpected pair. “Last I checked, they couldn't stand being in the same room as each other! Did I wake up in some weird alternate universe or something? Maybe I'm dreaming. Hey, Allura, could you pinch me really hard?” He tore his gaze away to look at Allura pleadingly.

“I'm not going to do that,” Allura said gently. “Tonight's a special night. Anything can happen.” She brushed against his arm as she stepped aside, giving him a clear view of Hunk approaching them. “Anything.”

Lance's first instinct was to turn and run. He wasn't prepared for anything that was happening. He wasn't sure if it was Allura physically holding him there or if it was something in Hunk's expression that had him unable to move, but there he stood, rooted to that spot, hardly daring to breathe in fear of breaking whatever spell had fallen over the them.

Time slowed to a crawl as Hunk stopped in front of him.

“Uh, hi?” Lance greeted eloquently.

“H-hello...” Hunk lowered his eyes, appearing to have an intense mental debate with himself. It took Allura pointedly clearing her throat and a quick look at Keith and Pidge, who were still dancing close, before he could look back at Lance. “Would you like to dance? With me?”

Lance's heart swelled with hope so swiftly he thought for sure it was about to burst free of his chest.

Hunk Garrett was asking him to dance.

Hunk Garrett was asking him to dance!

Lance nodded eagerly, unable to find his voice for several agonizingly long seconds. When he did find it, it came out as an excited whisper: “Yes!”

A brilliant smile broke out across Hunk's face and it was like all of the worries, the fear, the tension, that had built up between them bit-by-bit over the past year came crashing down all at once, unearthing something tender and new.

All they were aware of was each other. It was all that mattered.

Lance slid his hands into Hunk's and let him take the lead in a slow dance.

NEXT

#voltron #fanfiction #kidge #hance #high school au #prom night

[wendyimmiller]

‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing.

So, it’s come to this.

As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.

So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”

So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.

So. Starved.

Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.

It’s not about the money…

Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.

What wrestling a tiller really looks like.

I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.

You earned it. You spend it.  Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.

She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.

If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?

I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.

If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.

I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.

Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener.  My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.

Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.

All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice.  Susan did that already.

I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.

Let Them Eat Cake

What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.

I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.

At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:

“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before.  So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”

Here’s one of my gardening projects – Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.

What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)?  What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?

Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?

We have been six months at this pandemic.  After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point.  It might even be classified as a COVID death.

And no doubt my husband feels the same way.

And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.

Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.

My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)

And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.

No awareness from Hollywood apparently.  Or from Bedford.

“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”

Quarantine.  De rigueur.  Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.

Lost in Translation

And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.

It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out  Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”

No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.

I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.

My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.

I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.

99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.

I know I did.

And here. Here is the issue.  Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.

The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable.  Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.

Just Ask Martha

A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’

Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”

Maggie:  “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”

And then there are the celebrity cameos.  Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.

“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.

I’ll just leave that right where it fell.

Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.

I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me.  When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly.  “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”

Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.

To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn.  He almost seemed a little embarrassed.

Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.

She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.

Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.

But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.

Those are people like Joe Lamp’l on Growing a Greener World, or Nan Sterman in A Growing Passion, or or down-to-earth influencers like Erin Schanen (www.impatientgardener.com) or Doug Oster (www.dougoster.com), or Ron Finley (www.ronfinley.com) who show you the trials, tribulations and glorious successes without the catchy music and celebrity friends.

Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)

For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.

But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.

Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)

Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.

Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.

  ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. originally appeared on GardenRant on September 10, 2020.

The post ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. appeared first on GardenRant.

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[turfandlawncare]

‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing.

So, it’s come to this.

As a nation, we are so starved for American garden programming that we are willing to accept that a woman worth over $620 million dollars, stuck for 82 days on her 153-acre estate in Bedford, NY; with her gardener, one of her housekeepers, and one of her drivers; and joined as needed by groundskeepers and their foreman, is going to fill that need and leave us hungry for another season of down-to-earth gardening advice.

So starved, that we are willing to accept HGTV promos that tell us that this immaculately dressed and fully made-up celebrity, sans sweat, sans grimy hands, and sans, apparently, a production assistant to create some small illusion of same, is relatable; and “puts the G back in HGTV.”

So starved, that we are willing to overlook her frequent – and historical – transposition of the pronouns “I” and “they” when discussing the nitty-gritty of projects undertaken on that 153-acre estate.

So. Starved.

Six episodes worth of gilded crumbs. And I’m afraid this gardener has lost her appetite.

It’s not about the money…

Perhaps the best way to launch into my review [and accompanying visual aids] of the first season of HGTV’s Martha Knows Best, (which I watched in its entirety after Susan’s recent review here) is to make it perfectly clear that I have no problem with the [legal] accumulation of wealth.

What wrestling a tiller really looks like.

I have no problem, as it were, with the wealthy.

You earned it. You spend it.  Martha Stewart is not just an extraordinary business woman, but a talented creative with an expert eye sharpened over many years.

She also has the genius to recognize, nurture, and promote that spark in other creatives.

If she insists that the 1000+ containers on her property be of the same color family (stone, concrete or marble), and never wishes to see an artistic vegetable in a flower arrangement, and lines utilitarian pathways to peacock enclosures with cut blocks of granite, who am I to criticize her from enjoying the whims that whacking great wads of cash can indulge?

I’ll have to tell my insanely talented friend Louisa Zimmermann-Roberts at Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, MD, that her summer arrangement of Swiss chard, sweet pea, red raspberries, grapes eggplant, okra, chives, black-eyed peas and banana leaves is not officially sanctioned. She’s going to take it really well.

If I lived across the street as one of her “very many fancy neighbors” I would raise a glass to her abilities at the neighborhood block party, and conscientiously ask her advice when it came to pairing champagne and stemware for a well-lubricated celebrity crowd of twenty on a Saturday night.

I might even ask which echeveria to use in the tablescape.

Wickedly, I’d also try to tempt her hardworking gardener, Ryan McCallister, to cross the street and become my personal gardener.  My current gardener, Cutout Andy (though versatile and well-traveled), doesn’t have the same twinkle in his eye.

Cutout Andy and I discussing plans for the garden.

All this to say, I respect what she has achieved and have no desire to set up a mini-guillotine in the exquisitely designed cobblestone courtyard of her horse stables. I won’t even debate aspects of her gardening advice.  Susan did that already.

I also respect the fact that she is a 79-year-old woman who is a damn sight more active than your average 79-year-old American.

Let Them Eat Cake

What I don’t respect however, is this laughable attempt to appear ‘relatable’ as someone who is just like me, or like 99% of the gardening public.

I don’t respect the producers of this show having so little awareness of the current suffering going on throughout the country that they felt that a conspicuous display of fabulous wealth could feed the public’s very real (and in many cases, economic) need for gardening advice.

At a certain point it goes from being laughable, to being downright offensive. From the intro:

“I’ve lived on this farm for about 17 years. And like you I’m spending more time at home than ever before.  So I’m going to take you behind the scenes as I do my gardening projects. I’m going to help my celebrity friends. And surprise new gardeners.”

Here’s one of my gardening projects – Endlessly Weeding. On my knees. On my own. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

It must be horrific to spend 82 days on 153 acres. With a modified staff.

What about 82 days on a tenth of an acre (like my last house)?  What about 82 days in an apartment with a philodendron?

Uhhh….there’s a pandemic going on?

We have been six months at this pandemic.  After years in cramped quarters, I now live on ten beautiful acres in a four-bedroom house. And I’m ready to bury my husband’s work-from-home body in a remote corner of the property at this point.  It might even be classified as a COVID death.

And no doubt my husband feels the same way.

And yet, every evening of this mess, when I watch the news and see cities in such turmoil, I think of my 10×12′ apartment in New York, when I was 100% dependent on food service jobs and student loans to make my bills.

Each and every morning when I walk through the garden I think of our little upstairs flat in Southeast London when my son was a toddler, and how desperate I was for more than a window box and a few pots by the door.

My very first vegetable garden – a 2x17ft unpaved strip in the parking lot outside our tiny apartment in Southern California. (Photo from Big Dreams, Small Garden, 2017)

And each morning I am deeply grateful for the space around me, and painfully aware that others are struggling in this pandemic under terrible conditions with no end in sight.

No awareness from Hollywood apparently.  Or from Bedford.

“When the pandemic started and quarantine became de rigueur,” says Stewart, “I invited Ryan, my gardener, I invited Carlos, one of my drivers, and one of my housekeepers Elvira, to stay with me during this time.”

Quarantine.  De rigueur.  Alrighty then. So is a floor length gown at a debutante ball Martha. But okay, we’ll just go with it.

Lost in Translation

And if you didn’t study French in high school and are currently running to Google Translate – keep the tab open. To Martha, soil that is ready for planting does not resemble a palm full of pastry dough, but pâte brisée.

It’s actually an excellent analogy that falls short in its delivery. As does dropping mise en place to describe setting gardening tools in place for a project.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out  Île de la Cité, where Martha gets “all her seeds.”

No Chanel or Dior for this everyday gardener when she arrives in Paris, she tells us, but straight to those lovely little seed markets.

I didn’t want to bring Marie and her cake into this, but damn.

My husband and I on our way to the seed markets. Regrettably he had to drive us due to some staffing issues.

I remark upon these Gallicisms as someone with five years of French under her belt, a fair amount of experience in the kitchen and garden, and an unfortunate history of dropping sans into conversation, but a young, beginning American gardener doesn’t know her pâte brisée from her pot of ease-ay.

99.9% of low or middle-income gardeners are not jetting to Paris for their seeds and will probably see what’s available at local garden centers before they consider even splurging on shipping fees for online sources, no matter how wonderful they are.

I know I did.

And here. Here is the issue.  Pretending that this is a gardening show instead of a celebrity reality show.

The wonderful thing about Cutout Andy is that he is so incredibly portable.  Here he is on his way to help my mother in her garden in California.

Just Ask Martha

A few moments of FaceTiming Mitch in Lemoore, California about soil preparation for his carrots; or telling Maggie in Mississippi that she needs “ferns” for the north side of her shady house; or letting Karlin from Florida in on the not-so-little secret that she needs a coop for her ducks to keep them safe from predators; does not constitute ‘hanging with the little people.’

Especially after each performs the requisite sycophantic prelude before speaking to “the Gardening Queen Herself”

Maggie:  “I almost started crying but I did keep it together.”

And then there are the celebrity cameos.  Hailey Bieber needing dog grooming tips. Jay Leno showing us the kitchen in his garage and asking what a pomegranate is. Zac Posen telling Martha he’s been gardening since March in Bridgehampton.

“Well. It’s SOOO easy to garden in the Hamptons” she laughs.

I’ll just leave that right where it fell.

Cutout Andy taking a few moments away from digging out a new pathway to enjoy a warm tomato from my mother’s garden.

I made my life-long gardening mother watch two episodes with me.  When Martha begged Snoop Dogg to join her in Maine on her 63-acre estate, Skylands, for her next party post-COVID, Mom turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. “It’s like digging your heel into somebody’s face.” She said quietly.  “I’d be embarrassed to say that.”

Even if I gave millions of dollars to charities each year – as no doubt Martha does – I would too.

To his credit, a tee-shirted Richard Gere sat cross-legged and underneath a tree in his father’s average suburban garden where he grew up – even if they spent the entire time discussing the shade beds at his exclusive Relais & Châteaux establishment, The Bedford Post Inn.  He almost seemed a little embarrassed.

Perhaps we have his friendship with the Dalai Lama to thank for that.

She knows her stuff. But she’s forgotten her audience.

Martha’s smart. She’s exceptionally talented. She built an empire.

But she is not the person to put the G back in HGTV.

Those are people like Joe Lamp’l on Growing a Greener World, or Nan Sterman in A Growing Passion, or or down-to-earth influencers like Erin Schanen (www.impatientgardener.com) or Doug Oster (www.dougoster.com), or Ron Finley (www.ronfinley.com) who show you the trials, tribulations and glorious successes without the catchy music and celebrity friends.

Ron Finley of South Central L.A., an activist gardener who has changed thousands of lives by inspiring people living in the food deserts of inner cities to garden (Source: www.RonFinley.com)

For advanced gardeners who have yet to watch ‘Martha Knows Best,’ do. I’d like to know what you think.

But if you’re a brand-new gardener – look to the shows, feeds and podcasts of those who garden with the resources and in the region that you do. I guarantee you there are hundreds on YouTube.

Or, depart these shores altogether and take advantage of UK programming that still respects its population enough to provide polished and professional gardening programs to inspire everyday gardeners, such as Charlie Dimmock’s new endeavor, Garden Rescue, classic episodes of Ground Force, or Monty Don and others truly getting their hands dirty in BBC Gardener’s World. (Please leave your suggestions in the comments for excellent gardening programming in other parts of the world.)

Martha Knows Best is not a gardening show. It’s a celebrity reality show that takes place outside. And in the middle of a pandemic, when millions are out of work, businesses are shuttered, and large segments of the population are watching their future dreams for even a modest home and garden sabotaged by something completely out of their control, we deserve better.

Let’s hope HGTV digs a little deeper and finds it.

  ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. originally appeared on GardenRant on September 10, 2020.

The post ‘Martha Knows Best’ Is Not Great. It’s Not Even a Good Thing. appeared first on GardenRant.

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