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#my brother's wedding is this weekend. i have to see him on friday.
darlingshane · 2 months
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Professor Castle II
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Frank Castle x F!Reader
Summary: Frank takes you to Curtis' wedding in Florida as his date.
CW: 18+. Explicit, Smut, Angst, Romance, Fluff, Vaginal Sex, Fingering, Mutual Masturbation, Kissing, Feelings, Age Gap, Professor/Student relationship.
Word Count: 6.5k
— Links: First Part // AO3.
A/N: I wasn't planning on adding another part to this, but this idea came to me as I was finishing the first one and I had to write it. There are a lot of mixed feelings and romance and smut. And we also get to know how reader and Frank got together in the first place. Billy and Dinah have a significant appearance here, and Billy is kind of a bitch. I can never bring myself to see him in a better light, even in an au like this.
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It's Friday afternoon, after a hectic day of work and classes, that you get on a flight to Florida to accompany Frank to one of his best friends’ wedding.
It feels like a pretty surreal experience that he wanted you to come along, and that you also said yes. The last time you were invited to a wedding you were probably eleven or twelve and were seated at the kids’ table. Going to an affair like this as an adult with your very grown-up, secretive boyfriend feels like skydiving with no parachute.
It's already dark by the time the plane lands in the evening. The knot in your stomach tightens as you get off the plane. You were already nervous before taking off. Once your feet touch ground in Florida you wish you had a longer flight. It all happened so fast you didn't have time to prepare yourself for the idea of meeting Frank's friends. It's basically like meeting his family. Whenever you've heard stories about Billy or Curtis, he always talked about them as if they were blood brothers. So the whole thing becomes more scary the closer you get to the hotel.
There's a sudden shift during that half an hour ride to your destination. Internally, you feel like you still should hide your relationship with Frank, but he's been holding your hand the entire way there. You can't bring yourself to process how good it feels not having to care about if someone might see you or not. For months, being constantly alert is all you've done. It was exciting at first, but not as much as having his big paw holding your hand out in the open while the shuttle driver asks if you're here on vacation.
The building you arrive in sits so close to the ocean you can hear the waves crashing on shore and smell the fresh saltwater lingering in the air before you get out of the vehicle.
Once you've checked in, you get to a lovely room on the third floor with a view to the pool where a group of people enjoy an evening dive. You open the door to the balcony to let the air in, while Frank checks the rest of the room.
“Are you okay, baby?” Asks Frank as you lean on the railing outside.
“Yeah, just a little tired.”
“Well, there's a bed right here.” He points out before opening his suitcase on the mattress to take out his suit.
“It looks like a nice bed.” Glancing over your shoulder, you watch Frank straightening the fabric before hanging it in the closet.
When he's done, he joins you on the balcony, linking his arms around your waist.
“Should we go out to dinner or stay and order room service?” He softly kisses your nape.
“Hm, I'm fine with either. What do you wanna do?”
“Well, It'd be nice to go out since we never get to do that. But on the other hand, we haven't been really alone for a couple of weeks, and I was really looking forward to having you all for myself tonight.”
“It's still early, my king. We can do both.” You tuck your arm back to caress his jaw.
“Yeah? I thought you were tired.”
“I'm also hungry. Let me change and get rid of the airplane smell, and we'll go exploring.”
You unpack your suitcase and hang the outfits you picked for the next couple of days next to Frank's, which is such a bizarre thing to do. It's going to be an interesting weekend without having to put much thought into the secrecy of your relationship. Something as simple as just holding hands or letting your clothes live next to his, even if it's just temporary, makes you feel that normalcy most couples have. You wonder if this is what the future holds for you and Frank. It begs to question if this is the future you want with Frank.
Both of you freshen up and change into clean clothes. You slip into a long skirt with a halter top in your favorite color and a pair of sandals while Frank dons a pair of black chinos and a brown polo shirt.
Heading downstairs you go straight to the restaurant, sit at the bar and order some drinks first while you wait for a table.
“What?” you're chewing on the end of a straw when you notice Frank stare weirdly fixed on you. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No, you’re perfect.” His gaze beams full of wonder. “I just… Look at you. You're so beautiful. I can't believe you're here with me. I thought we'd never get to be out like this.”
“It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? But in a good way.”
“Yeah. C’mere,” his hand slides along your jaw and stops at your nape. A flick of his tongue swipes his lips before planting a wet one on your mouth. It lingers for a moment before diving for a deeper taste. It takes you off guard, and you almost want to pull back as soon as the tip of his tongue escapes past your teeth. It’s when it tries to meet with yours that you awkwardly pull your head back. His palm massages the back of your neck as you press your forehead against his, feeling a pang of sadness thrum in your chest.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
Your head slightly shakes, as you look down at your hands holding his forearm on your lap.
“I just… I feel like everyone is staring at us.”
“Let’em.”
“Frank.”
“Baby, I’m serious. Nobody is watching us. Look around,” his hold loosens around your neck and your head swivels to see that in fact no one is interested in whatever you and Frank do. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with an old man like me?”
“You’re not that old.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“I’m not embarrassed to be with you, Frank. I… I wish we could do this all the time like normal people do. It feels like after this weekend, we’ll never get to do this ever again. I know we just got here, and I’m just being dramatic, you don’t have to say it. But uh… it makes me sad we can’t go out like this at home.”
“Baby, I get it. I wish I could have you like all the damn time. It breaks my heart to see you every day and have to remind myself not to look at you or touch you or kiss you.”
“Sorry for bringing you down with me. It's been a long day. And being here with you is a little overwhelming. It's brought a lot of stuff to the surface I never even considered before. I see it comes out so natural for you to do something like holding my hand or kissing me, and I feel bad that there’s this weird thing blocking me from enjoying that.”
“Hey, don't apologize.” Frank sighs before gently pressing a kiss on your forehead. “I'm the one who's sorry for not realizing sooner that this was a bigger deal for you than I thought. I just wanted you here so badly, I didn't think what this meant for you– for us. How about we go back to the room, order something, put on a movie and take it slow.”
“No, it's okay. I'll be fine. I wanna get used to this. I wanna be here with you, Frank.”
“Yeah?”
Drawing a smile, you simply nod and squeeze his hand a little harder.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
“A couple of times. It doesn’t hurt to hear it again.”
Your lips pull up a little higher, as you lean forward to attempt to resume the kiss he started.
“Mr. Castle.” The restaurant’s hostess interrupts you just as you press your lips against his. “Your table is ready.”
She guides you to a table by the window with a view to the beach.
“Your waiter will be right over,” she politely says before going to fetch more people to place at the empty tables.
Despite being still a little nervous about the whole thing, you’re so over the moon with Frank, that it's easy to relax more and more in his presence. He knows how to smooth things over with just a few sweet words or an adoring glance framed by those glasses that really show the beauty of his eyes. You never thought he'd be this casual and forward when it came to showing public displays of affection. You're both overly cautious, but here, it's like he's flipped a switch in his head and all his problems are gone. Despite his impromptu decision the other day when he tried to break up with you, it feels like he's been dying to be able to show the world that you're his, and he is yours. You adore that about him and try to ease your mind into being more present right here and let go of all those worries that sadden your heart. Even if it's just for two days, you should be able to enjoy what you got.
By the end of your meal, you’re halfway through your dessert when a couple approaches the table.
“Hey, Frankie!” Billy, who you recognized from one of Frank’s pictures, makes him stand from his seat to give him a hug.
“Bill,” he addresses him before looking at the woman by his side. “Hey, Dinah. Good to see you again.”
“Yeah, good to see you, too.”
“And you must be the mystery woman Frank never told us about until a couple of days ago,” Billy directs his attention to you as you extend your hand in his direction.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“Oh, she’s funny.”
“You have no idea.”
They both shake your hand as Frank sits back down.
“Thought you were going to turn in early like the rest of the party.”
“That was the plan, but we decided at the last minute to come down. You guys wanna join us?”
“No, we’re going to this swing by this bar down the street. You should come.”
“We've already had a couple of drinks,” Frank says. “We were about to call it a night.”
“C’mon, just a nightcap. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you. And you just can’t bring a date to Curt’s wedding and not properly introduce her like she deserves.”
Frank glances at you and shrugs, “you wanna go?”
“Just one drink?”
“Just one drink,” Billy repeats. “I mean if you’re old enough to drink.”
He says so casually it throws you off, but you’re quick to reply when you’re nervous.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that but yes, I’m old enough to drink.” You prove it by lifting the almost empty cocktail glass from the table and bring it to your mouth to finish it.
He mimes his fingers zipping his mouth as Dinah gives him a look and Frank hangs his head down.
Once the momentary awkwardness has passed you choose to follow them down the boardwalk to a crowded bar at the end of the street. You take a table outside and order some drinks. You go for another cocktail, the guys have a couple of beers and Dinah settles for scotch on the rocks.
“So, Frankie here has strictly forbidden us to ask you questions. What is he trying to hide?” Billy stares at you from the other couch with his elbows leaned on his knees.
“I didn't say that. I only asked you to not give her the third degree.” He scoffs.
“It's okay.” You laugh, placing a palm at the small of Frank's back. “What do you wanna know?”
While Billy questions you about your life, where you come from, what you’re majoring in, what your hobbies are… Frank tries to remain not too bothered but often chimes in to say – you don’t have to answer that, when Billy pokes into something way too personal.
Almost through with your cocktail you stand up and head to the bathroom and Dinah stalks behind you.
“Didn’t realize you were coming too,” you say when you notice her holding the door after you step into the room.
“Yeah, I needed a break from hearing Billy talk. Don’t mind him, he always had a big mouth. It’s pathological, but he’s harmless… for the most part.”
“He’s… intense,” you say for the lack of a better word. “How long have you two been together?”
“Oh, we’re not together together. We just hang out sometimes.”
“You could’ve fooled me.” You lean on one of the sinks while Dinah fixes her makeup.
“How long have you been dating Frank?”
“Hm, almost a year.”
“You know, I dated a teacher once at the academy, but it was nothing like you and Frank.”
“How so?”
“He didn’t take me as a plus-one to a wedding for starters. It was just sex. I can see that it’s more for you and Frank. Is it?”
“I uhh… I think it is. It’s crazy that he invited me here.”
“Yeah, he’s been moping around for a couple of years since his last girlfriend. It’s good that he has you now. How did that happen?”
You can see that Dinah and Billy have more in common than she lets on. They definitely share the same hunger to gather information from anyone. You don’t mind them poking around to know more about you. It’s actually refreshing being able to talk about you and Frank for the first time, and if Frank has told them about you, it means that he trusts them.
“Well, it’s not an interesting story. We didn’t fall in love at first sight, or shared longing glances across hallways, or pass secret notes, and shit. He uh… we used to go to the same café outside campus that has the best coffee. One day I saw him trying to pay with his phone cause he forgot his wallet, and it wasn’t working cause he’s technologically inept to handle any app. So I paid for his coffee. The next day he paid for mine and I helped him manage his digital wallet. We started taking more and more outside class. We would walk together back to campus. Over time, it took us longer and longer to make it back. We would stop at this park to look at the ducks in the lake. Sometimes we fed them to stall. Though neither of us gave a shit about the ducks-”
“Of course,” Dinah softly smiles at your remark.
“Then I’d tell him I’d be at this art show, or go to this movie, whatever shit I was doing, hoping he’d show up, and he did. It was like that for months, one day we looked at the other, and we knew… I guess we fell in love. And at the same time we realized that we couldn’t see each other like that anymore. So we stopped hanging out. That lasted like three weeks tops. We were both miserable.”
“And then what happened?”
“I… it was the end of the semester, before finals, I had my first play, and he came to see it.”
“He came to see you.” She accurately points out.
“Right. Once it was over, he went backstage to say hi to everyone. I… before he left I said to him to wait for me in his car and he did. After everyone left, I headed out to the parking lot, got in the passenger seat and told him to drive. We talked for hours, trying to convince ourselves once more that we couldn't be together, that I'd never work, but it didn't matter. We made a choice and now here we are. We’ve been hiding for months and it…”
“It finally feels right to say it out loud.”
“I think so… I can’t tell anyone else in my life right now. It’s hard to trust anyone with a secret like that. But if Frank told you I guess I can trust you.”
“You can. I get it. Sometimes you can't choose who you fall in love with.”
“How come something that’s supposed to be wrong feels so right at the same time?” You’ve been wondering for months.
“That’s a complicated question, sweetie. But it’s usually the things that are supposed to be wrong that feel the best, unfortunately.”
Meanwhile, outside, Billy grills Frank a little more about you on a totally different approach than Dinah’s.
“C’mon, Frankie. You can’t be serious. You know you could lose your tenure if they find out.”
“They’re not going to find out.”
“If it was just sex I’d get it. I’ve had my fair share of coeds. The difference is that I’m not their teacher, well, sometimes they like to pretend that I am, if you know what I mean. But you’re bringing her to Curt’s wedding, as your date. That’s nuts.”
“Why is it so hard to believe that I love her?”
“Cause you haven’t been with anyone since Maria and the first person you date is one of your students. Does it sound sane to you? Are you having a midlife crisis or something?”
“You know, out of everyone, I thought you'd be the last one to judge, Bill.”
“I'm not judging you, Frankie. I'm just checking that you haven't completely lost your mind. Someone has to. You look like you're willing to risk it all out for her. Is she worth all that, your job, your reputation, your precious principles? I thought you had a code.”
“She's absolutely worth all that. Can you say the same about Dinah? When are you going to stop playing with her?”
“Me? She's the one who calls the shots. She's the one playing with me.”
“Yeah, sure.” Frank scoffs before taking a swallow of his beer.
“Okay, let's just say it's a game we both love playing. I use her, she uses me, it's a win-win situation.”
“Until someone gets hurt.”
“Well, some people like that. How are you keeping up with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean bed wise. I know from experience that twenty-year-olds are like feral cats. Can you handle something like that?”
“Jesus, Bill. You're fucking disgusting sometimes. Don't talk about her like that.”
“What? Have you forgotten how you were at her age? You were either fucking or thinking about fucking.”
“Not everything is about sex.”
“Right, so you're not having sex.”
“That's none of your business.”
“Well, if you're so willing to put your ass in the line, I hope you're getting at least something out of it.”
“That's all that is for you, huh? You never do anything unless you're getting something in return. Everyone and everything is trading businesses for you. Even love.”
“Love is for children, Frankie. Never did anything good for anyone. Look at you… Every woman that ever touched you left a deeper mark than the last one. I’d rather be shot a hundred times than having to carry imaginary scars. What do you think is gonna happen when she's done with you? You think a girl like that is ready to commit forever?”
“You're so full of shit, Bill. You talk big game, but you never made it past the side lines. If that's where you wanna stay there, fine, but don't pretend you know how it feels to put yourself out there and offer yourself without expecting anyone to hand everything to you right away.”
“You used to be more fun.”
“Well, your idea of fun is different from mine.”
“Hey, what did we miss?”
Dinah and you return to the table that seems to have gathered a visible dark cloud over them.
“Nothing, get your stuff. We're going back to the hotel.” Frank barks, promptly rising from his chair.
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“Are you ready to tell me what happened between you and Billy?” you straddle Frank's lap on the bed. He's taken off his glasses and most of his clothes and the only thing left is his boxer briefs. You tried to pry on the way back here, but he was clearly still upset about something. Now that he's more relaxed you try again while you comb his hair with your fingers. “Was he mean to you? Do you want me to kick his bony ass?”
“I'd like to see that,” he chuckles as his palms smooth the bare skin of your thighs. “There's nothing to tell, sweetheart. He's just an asshole sometimes. I'll get over it. C'mere.”
He tucks a finger under your chin and pulls your face closer so he can seize your lips. You can tell he's trying to distract you from asking further questions but if he's not ready to talk about it then there's nothing you can't do right now. You happily accept his affection and quickly melt in the slow undoing of his tongue as it finds yours. It's easy to forget and forgive when he has you like this. All rational thought abandons you and suddenly your hips are grinding against him, following the same rhythm as his tongue as it becomes more eager to please you. His hands hold tight to your hips, coaxing you to feel him growing hard between those layers of underwear keeping your flesh from coming to close contact.
“God, I've been dying to have you like this, sweetheart,” his breathing falters between sloppy kisses.
“I know.” You break from his mouth and press your forehead against his, gazing down at the spot where your centers rub together to see his cock bulging up like mad.
Frank gets a hold of your top and swiftly pulls it over your head so he can kiss your tits. He buries his face in your chest while your arm curls around his nape. He's all tongue, teeth, and lips inciting your skin to come alive into tiny pimples. He sucks a nipple into his mouth, hums around it, and bites hard as you let out a breathless gasp when his teeth sink into your flesh. Before it starts hurting he releases it to see a faint mark around the circumference.
“Fuck me.”
“Yeah?” Biting his bottom lip, he draws the shape of your jaw with a finger before shifting positions with you to have you on your back. That same finger traces the length of your torso all the way down to your underwear. He takes a full sight of you for a beat before yanking your panties off you and pushing his boxers down.
His feet shimmy out of the fabric, as he lowers himself on top of you, letting you meet his full erection that throbs over your tender, slicked flesh. His warm breath heats up your face when he presses his parted mouth at the corner of your lips. He viciously rubs himself against you, collecting your juices all around his cock. Then he buries himself inside you as your whole body trembles as usual. Every time he penetrates you like this, the most thrilling chill takes over your body before you can even come. It settles at the back of your head, as all your senses are taken by that powerful lust force that you can’t control. Each thrust of his hips, each kiss, and lick, and word whispered in your ear takes you closer to heaven. He fucks you with mind, body and soul, like real men do, making you come with ease each fucking time.
“Tell me you love me,” you moan against his jaw, while you dig your nails on his back.
“I love you. I fucking love you, sweetheart.” He desperately pants as the pace of his hips becomes more urgent.
“Tell me you need me.”
“Of course I need you. All the damn time.”
You both gradually lose your ability to breathe the closer you get to orgasm. His sweat sticks with yours as your bodies melt together in that haze of love and lust bubbling all over the room.
“Tell me you’re never going to leave me again.” It sounds needy as you say it, but you need to hear it over and over, especially now.
“I promise…fuck. I promise I’m never gonna leave you again, baby.”
One of his hands clutches to your hips to keep you still while he fucks the light of you with unbridled passion. You can feel every inch of your body vibrating to the sound of his skin slapping on yours. Your breath comes out forced in short breaths as he makes that final effort that tips you over the edge. Your walls flutter and contract around his cock for a moment as you reach the top of your climax.
“I’m gonna… fuck,“ you’re squeezing him so hard, he just spills all of himself inside you while you ride that tide that makes your vision blur and ears ring for a moment while he tries to tame his own orgasm.
When you come to your senses, he’s dead weight on top of you, limp and hot, kissing your neck softly while he regains his breath. You can hear your own heartbeat in your ears still as one of our hands blindly glides up his back.
“You’re fucking amazing, you know that?” his voice comes out hoarse.
“I know.”
“What you asked me to say… you know I mean it, right?”
“I think so.”
“Are you still scared that I’m gonna leave you?”
“A little, yeah. I… it was just seven days ago when you told me that you didn’t want to see me again. I know you didn’t mean it and that you only wanted to keep us safe, but it was a hard week, Frank. I’m not mad at you. It’s just been a roller coaster of emotions, and now we're here together, playing like a normal couple and I can't help but feeling a little insecure about all of it. Not just you.”
“I'm sorry,” he shifts on top of you, lifting his head so he can capture your eyes. “I really am. I hate to make you feel that way. I know it's confusing but you gotta know something. You… You're all that matters to me. I’d die without you, sweetheart.”
“Now, who’s the dramatic one?”
“I only learned from the best.”
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The next day, the wedding ceremony is set at noon.
Half an hour before the event, everyone starts gathering at the lobby to walk together to the beach. Frank holds a palm at the small of your back while he introduces you to Curtis finally and a handful of friends. He manages to avoid stumbling onto Billy altogether.
When you get to the beach, Dinah beckons you to take a seat next to her on the fourth row. Meanwhile, Frank stands next to Curt in the makeshift altar framed by swaying palm trees and a spectacular backdrop of vibrant blue skies adorned with wispy clouds and a blinding sun. Right by the groom’s side also stand Curt’s brother and Billy, who seems to be feeling the icy chill of Frank’s cold shoulder. You’ve never seen him this mad at anyone before and by the way Billy occasionally glances at you and Dinah, you start to wonder you're the cause of their rift.
Frank has traded his glasses for aviators and shines so handsome in a navy blue suit with a white dress shirt and no tie. Everyone is dressed in light fabrics and bold colors. You’ve chosen a floral romper and wedges.
Waiting for the affair to start, as you produce a pair of shades to shield your eyes from the sun, Dinah lightly touches your arm.
“You know I don’t agree with Billy at all,” she says coolly as if you had any idea what's going on. “I told you he was harmless, but he can be a real asshole sometimes.”
“I…” You glance at her, trying to gather some thoughts cause you’re really lost right now.
“Oh, Frank didn’t tell you?” She realizes by your expression. “I'm so sorry. I thought you knew.”
“No, he didn't tell me. I asked him. He said that it was just Billy being Billy. But I could tell it was more than that.” You're afraid of asking but if it's something about you, you have the right to know. “Bill doesn't like me, does he?”
“It's not that. He believes Frank isn't thinking clearly when it comes to you. Said you're just an infatuation that's going to get him in trouble. I'm sorry that you had to hear it from me. Frank should've told you.”
“It's okay. It's nothing that he and I hadn't thought of before. It's hard to hear it from someone else's mouth though. I guess that's why he didn't want to tell me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it'll be fine. I don't know Billy enough to care about what he thinks. It's me and Frank that matters.”
“You have more class than me. I'd definitely get back at him if he tried to alienate anyone in my life like that.”
“It's not really my style. He can think whatever he wants. It's a free country.”
“I shouldn't tell you this but… just so you know he didn't get any of this last night. After you and Frank left he kept whining like a bitch and I just had it with him.”
“Oh God, I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It's not your fault.”
When the music starts playing, everyone rises from their seats to watch the bride walk down the aisle. They exchange bows under the most stunning setting you’ve ever seen. Though you don't know Curtis and Delia besides Frank’s stories, it's straight up lovely to see two people in love celebrating their joy with family and friends.
Once they’ve sealed the ceremony with a kiss, they cross the aisle together as husband and wife between joyful cheering and applause.
Then, the party moves to the reception in a locale nearby. It's held outside under a canopy of flowers and fairy lights illuminating the array of tables framing the dance floor. The food is served buffet style and your plate is 90% filled with shrimp when you take a seat next to Frank.
“Did you leave some shrimp for the rest?”
You simply shrug, amused, “you snooze, you lose. That's the rule of the buffet. Are you nervous about your speech?”
“A little.”
“Just pretend you're in class giving a lecture.”
“Yeah, I'll try that.” He gazes at you as he brings a piece of salmon to his mouth.
“And if that doesn't work, you know what they say… picture everyone naked.” You start stuffing yours with pieces of shrimp.
“I don't see how that'd be better. I don't wanna see any of these people in their birthday suits.”
“Then focus on me and my birthday suit.”
“I'll try that.”
Frank, of course, despite having some jitters about that best man speech he just has the right words to say about Curtis and Delia. He even makes everyone laugh with a couple of heartfelt jokes about his friendship with Curt. It's really endearing to see him among his people. You can tell that he's made a tight-knit group of loyal friends that'd be there for him for the rest of his life.
As the day progresses, and the alcohol starts taking effect a few people step into the dance floor. You spot Dinah dancing with Curtis’ brother and Billy sweet-talking to one of the bridesmaids by the buffet.
“You having a good time, baby?” Frank's arms circle your waist while you pick a glass of wine from the bar.
“I'm having the best time. Everyone is really nice.” You take a sip of your glass.
“I told you that there was nothing to worry about. Everyone loves you.”
“Well, not everyone.” You tilt your head to the side to point at Billy. “You should've told me what happened.”
“I didn't want to upset you.”
“I'm not upset, Frank. Like I told Dinah, I don't know him enough to care about what he thinks. I know you were trying to protect me, but you don't have to.”
“It's not that, sweetheart. I'm just tired of having the same conversation. We know what we're up against. Figure I could save you the headache of going through all our faults again. There was no point in telling you all the bullshit that came out of his mouth.”
“Well, that's good to know, but I don't want to hear it from other people either. If he said anything about me, I have the right to know, don't you think?”
“He didn't say anything specifically about you, baby. It was mostly about me choosing to bring you here.”
“But it really upset you. You should've told me.”
“I know, I'm sorry,” he kisses your jaw. “How can I make it up to you?”
“Hm… let me think,” you sway your hips, making him move with you. “I think a dance will suffice.”
“Sweetheart, I love you, but I can’t dance to this.”
“I can wait for a slow one.”
“Alright, but just one song.”
“Got it.”
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As much fun as you had with Frank dancing without a care in the world, there's nothing like being back in the hotel room to rest for the night. Mingling with that many people can be exhausting and though you had a great time, you revel in the quietness and comfort of these four walls. To wash out the day of your skin, you take a shower together. Then you lay naked on the bed, face down with our arms tucked under your head while Frank's hands massage your back. His fingers knead all the right spots until you’ve completely relaxed before feeling his lips pressing soft kisses all over your spine. One of his hands slips between your thighs. You separate your knees further apart to make room for it as he softly massages your sex. His palm gently rubs back and forth while he presses his mouth to your ear.
“How does that feel, baby?”
“Good. So fucking good,” you hum. “Don’t stop, please.”
“You gonna make a mess for me, huh?” you notice one of his fingers slipping between your folds to feel those early drops of arousal. “Yeah, you always do.”
You laugh to yourself as he presses a little harder, drawing mind-numbing circles around your clit.
“God, I love you so much.” You lightly wave your ass at his touch, aching for more fiction.
Frank takes the hint and uses his index and middle fingers to rub harder around your hardened nub as he presses his semi-hard against your hip.
“Look what you do to me,” his breathing echoes in your ear, while he rubs himself on your skin. “You proud of yourself?”
“Not quite. You should be harder already,” you turn your head to look at him and move your closest hand to grab his length.
He laughs against your mouth before sending his tongue to taste your kiss.
Mutually serving the other, his cock grows harder in your fist, as you melt around his fingers when they invite themselves into your opening.
“Open your legs a little more, sweetheart,” you heed his command. “Attagirl.”
His thick fingers quickly are wrapped in a sheen layer of your juices as he pushes them in and out repeatedly, letting your arousal drip on the sheets. At the same time, you massage his raging erection that barely fits in the curl of your palm anymore when it's fully swollen.
“I wanna feel you, Frank,” you purr on his lips as he drives you out of your mind.
“Yeah? Want me to come inside you?” He makes a point to press his fingertips hard on your g-spot to earn a good moan out of you.
“You need me to beg?”
“A little. Yeah.”
“Please, I need you to fuck me.”
“Say what you whisper in my ear when you wake me up in the middle of the night just to fuck.”
“I'd die if you don't wake up right now and fuck me,” you sigh. “Please. I need you, king.”
“That's my girl. C'mere.” He takes his fingers away and handles your body so you're laying on your side. He pulls your back flush against his chest and drives the blunt tip of his cock smoothly between your legs.
“God, you're always so fucking wet.”
“Just for you.”
As you adjust your leg to be more comfortable, he tucks his arms around you. His bottom arm slips under your armpit to hold your chest, while his opposite hand rubs its fingers on your clit. Frank thrusts come long and dragged. His mouth opens at the crook of your neck to devour your flesh. You take the hand holding your tit and bring it up to your mouth so you can take his fingers between your lips.
“Fuck, you're gonna make me come, baby,” he rumbles in your ear when you blow his fingers as if it was his cock.
You can tell he's ready to burst by the way his length twitches inside you every time his fingertips touch the back of your throat.
Wrapped in an ethereal veil made out of love and lust, your bodies sync up and lace in an intricate knot, moving together like one. You expel the same shallow breaths. Pulses follow the same pattern. Arch your bodies at the same angle. He keeps a steady rhythm on your folds, you keep your mouth tight around his knuckles. When your legs start trembling, he trembles with you. You beg him again, to go harder. Your core fuses with his as the flame between burns brighter and hotter the closer you get to the top. Overwhelmed by the intoxicating haze, at the very last second, his body gives up and falls out of cadence. Frank comes with the force of a waterfall before you do. A deep grunt echoes in the room as his hips erratically keep pushing for a couple of seconds until he’s spilled every last drop into you.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, baby,” his breathing falters.
“It’s okay. Just don’t stop. Please.” You pull your mouth away from his hand.
“Sh, sh, I won’t. Come for me, baby.” His fingers stay glued to your clit, his cock remains hard, and deep buried inside your walls while he keeps viciously rubbing on it to grant you your release.
You're so close, you can feel your body about to meet that same force. You clutch your hand around his wrist as your body locks for a beat before being overcome by that whirlwind of pleasure that takes you to a higher ground.
Frank holds you tight as your body goes limp in his embrace. You’d die here if you could, in his arms wrapped around you, in the comfort of his kisses and his voice in your ear telling you how much he loves you.
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twopeoplecanchange · 3 months
Text
CALGARY AT MIDNIGHT
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quinn hughes x reader
summary: quinn needs a place to stay while going to a wedding in calgary. he gets a hook up from matthew tkachuk, who sets him up in the guest room of your apartment. finally, you won't be spending new years alone.
author's note: this is for @puckmaidens! happy holidays lydia!! i hope you enjoy :)
warnings: nothing just that my jet lagged brain wrote this, so there might be some errors!
wc: 2k
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The text comes in on Thursday at 9am while you’re at work. Your phone buzzes on your desk repeatedly until you decide to pick it up.
MATTHEW T.
Hey, you still have extra space in that apartment of yours?
Your brow furrows, wondering why he would be asking this, seeing as he could easily book a nice hotel instead of staying in your dingy apartment.
YOU
Yea, why though?
His text comes in quickly, and it’s not what you expected.
MATTHEW T.
Quinn Hughes needs a place to stay for a weekend or so. Told him I could hook him up.
Of course he would do this. Matt knew of your not-so subtle crush on his childhood friend, and had asked you multiple times if he could set you guys up. You always said no. The first time, you were still with your university boyfriend, the second you just felt that it would be too awkward. Quinn, of course, would know of your crush and you would have no idea if he was even interested in you.
YOU
You’re joking. 
Matthew Tkachuk.
MATTHEW T.
I’m not joking. Get your guest bedroom ready and pick him up from the airport tomorrow.
YOUI hate you.
MATTHEW T.
Love you too 🥰
You sigh, putting your phone down before your supervisor can see. As you move through the workday, which of course just has to be as slow as ever, you can’t stop thinking about how awkward tomorrow might be; having to pick him up from the airport and housing him for three days. Would he avoid you like the plague or make an effort? You could only hope it was the latter.
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On Friday morning you take the day off from work and spend the time dusting off every surface in your guest room. You change the sheets and add blankets, seeing that the heater is janky and decides to just not work on some days. You restock your fridge with food you can only hope he’ll want to eat. Then, once it’s the afternoon, you take off for the airport.
You arrive at his gate around 2, no sign, hoping your presence will be enough.
As you stand on your tippy-toes, looking for a sign of the eldest Hughes brother, two texts come in.
MATTHEW T.
Gave Quinn your phone number btw.
UNKNOWN NUMBERHey, this is Quinn. Where are you?
You elect to ignore Matt’s text and instead text Quinn.
YOU
By the coffee shop towards the exit.
You pocket your phone, eyes scanning the crowd when you see Quinn approaching you. He’s even more handsome in person, the tv screen and Matt’s shitty photos not doing him justice. It must be the captaincy. A slight beard grows on his face, his dark hair shaggy but somehow presentable. His eyes are visibly tired, and he looks nervous as he approaches you.
“Y/N?” He asks, his voice quiet and just a tad bit raspy.
“Hey, Quinn. It’s uh, nice to meet you. I mean- I’ve heard stories from Matt but I’m sure they don’t do you justice.” You smile, and Quinn nods, a faint smile on his face.
“Yeah, knowing him they’d probably put me in a worse light.” Quinn jokes as you start to head down to the car park.
“I don’t think that’s possible. You have a pretty good rep.” He nods, cheeks a little bit rosy and his small smile just a tad bit bigger.
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The car ride is not as awkward as you expected, you and Quinn fall into easy banter, talking about your memories with Matt, exchanging anecdote after anecdote until you arrive at your apartment. You park and take the elevator up, both of you are silent as you watch the number tick up to the fourth floor.
You quickly both get into your apartment seeing as the hallway is freezing because of the lack of heat. Quinn takes off his shoes and puts them next to yours before settling his bags near the door.
“What would you want to do for dinner?” You ask as you look at your fridge. None of the food looks quite appetizing. Quinn looks into your fridge, his cologne overtaking your senses in the best way. It’s a nice scent, not quite as overpowering as you’d imagine. “Takeout?” You suggest.
“Yeah, sounds good.”
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Takeout goes surprisingly smoothly. A Christmas movie plays on the screen despite the holiday having already passed, and the two of you eat in a comfortable silence. When you’re done eating, you ask Quinn questions.
When’s the wedding? Tomorrow
Who’s it for? Childhood friend from Toronto who moved to Calgary. ‘Nothing interesting’.
Are you excited? Quinn pauses for a bit, slowly chewing as he comes up with an answer. “I don’t know. I think they expect me to bring a date because they gave me a plus one, but I couldn’t think of someone to bring.” He gets out, the words feeling stuck in his throat.
You can’t tell if this is some kind of joke, if he knows about your crush and is trying to get you interested, just to leave you in the dust.
“Right.” You nod. You tried to think of something better to say, but what he said was not what you had expected. At all.
“I mean…if you wouldn’t mind being my plus one, that would be great. Better that than being alone.” Yeah, better that than being alone. Alone, thinking of all the girls fawning over you because they most likely know who you are. 
Instead of saying something revealing, you just agree. A simple sure does the trick, and he’s thanking you. When you’re settling into bed later, you can’t help but wonder why. Is he interested in you, taking his chance? Or does he simply just not want to deal with the wedding alone? You pass out before you can even realize you don’t have a dress to wear for tomorrow.
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You wake up in a panic, hurriedly making breakfast after realizing you do in fact, not have a good dress to wear to the wedding. Nothing formal, everything is either white or too extravagant. Quinn watches confused as you rush around the kitchen, and lets a small teasing comment slip, “You know we don’t have to be at the wedding till like, five, right?” He jokes and you freeze, stopping your every move.
“I don’t have a dress, and I don’t know the color scheme or the theme, and I don’t want to stand out and wear white.” You ramble without taking a single breath.
Quinn hesitates, “It’s okay, we can just go get you a dress right?” His voice is calming, and you smile slightly, turning around. “After breakfast we have to get me a dress.” Quinn nods before heading farther into the kitchen to help you out.
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You end up going to a little boutique a few minutes from your house. The dresses are mainly formal, with a few outlier party dresses. Quinn follows you as you scan the racks, picking out three dresses before heading to the changing rooms.
Quinn waits on one of the chairs outside of the dressing rooms, looking at his phone occasionally. Then you step out in the first dress. Quinn blinks, droopy eyes suddenly much more awake. It’s a pretty dress, you say, but it doesn’t feel right. Quinn just can’t get rid of the thought of how beautiful you are.
“You look great,” He blabs, and you let out a startled laugh, hand covering your mouth. “Right, thanks.” You smile weakly before heading back into the dressing room.
The next dress, a startling red, looks great on you, Quinn thinks. But you huff and sigh, saying you hope the next dress is better. Quinn says it looks great, and you laugh it off.
The last dress is a calm purple. Quinn’s eyes widen. You look great. You play with your hair a bit, looking at yourself in the mirror down the hallway.
“It’s…” You start, looking for the right word. 
“Beautiful.” Quinn finishes for you, making your skin burn.
“Yeah,” You nod feebly, hurrying into the dressing room to change back into your clothes.
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When you get home, you start getting ready for the wedding in a rush. Putting on the dress, doing your makeup and hair. When you finally leave your room, Quinn is leaning against the back of the couch, idly scrolling through his phone. He looks up at the sound of your door closing and freezes.
Matt had shown him multiple pictures of you, stories, and begged him to let him introduce the two of you. The photos didn’t quite capture your beauty. The stories were bland, they didn’t recall your humor and your joy. He always disagreed, not quite sure. But knowing you now, if Matt suggested setting you guys up, he’d say yes in a heart beat. He’s just not quite sure what your answer would be.
"Ready to go?" You ask, breaking Quinn from his trance. He nods blankly, extending his arm to you. Your skin warms just the slightest, and you wrap your arm around his, pulling him close. His cologne infiltrating your senses, and you blink, steadying yourself.
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You drive yourself and Quinn to the venue, and take seats toward the back. A few people come his way, greeting him and asking him about the season, or congratulating him on the teams success. If one of them were to notice you, they'd ask and Quinn would say you were a friend. The couple, the past friend, fan, or the acquaintance would nod, but have a knowing look in their eyes, like they knew all. They didn't, of course, seeing as you were both attending this as friends. If you were even friends. Friend of a friend?
You shook the thought as you watched the couple do their first dance to a cute song you'd never heard the name of. When the song came to an end, every clapped, including you. You didn't notice, too busy watching the newly married couple fondly, but Quinn was watching you, a slight smile on his face.
Once dinner was served, you learned the true meaning of the couple's, wedding. They wanted the party to go to midnight since it was New Year's Eve. They'd have the count down on the screen, and the couple would share a kiss in the center of the room. Any couple would be welcomed to share a kiss as well. It was cute, you thought. If you had someone to kiss you would. It would be a fond memory to share.
The people at the table you were seated at weren't quite close to Quinn, but you made conversation enough for the both of you. As people at the table drifted off to dance, you found yourself in conversation with Quinn. Talking about everything from his brothers, your family, to hockey.
Then, the DJ announced a couple's dance, and the last two people at the table, a couple, got up. They shared a glance before gesturing for you two to join them. You hadn't noticed, but it was nearing midnight, with just around two songs until midnight. Quinn shared a glance with you, and then you stood up, holding out your hand towards him.
Quinn looked worried, but he gently takes your hand and lets you pull him to the dance floor. You have a bright but nervous smile on your face as you settle your hands on Quinn's shoulders, his hesitantly on your waist. You sway side to side as some sappy love song plays. Your eyes get lost in his, but then the music changes to something more jumping, and your eyes get lost. Lights bounce across the room as a time is displayed on the wall. The countdown.
You start jumping along to the music, Quinn as well with a fond smile on his face. Your smile is bright as you shout the words to the club song that Quinn doesn't know the name of. But then the shouting becomes different The countdown. Quinn blinks, starting to yell the numbers as well. Then it gets to eight, and you're turning toward Quinn, eyes locking with his again. Your hands place on his shoulders again, and his hands go to your hips much more confidently. You're both mouthing the numbers until you get to five, and everything changes. The air is different. Tense, you think. Then it hits one, and everyone's cheering. Hey, maybe you're a little bit off on the time, but you kiss him and he kisses you back, and that's all that matters.
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dckweed · 2 months
Text
NEXT THING YOU KNOW, gator tillman
in which gator tillman and his arranged bride figure out life and each other and what a real relationship means to them.
warnings: mentions and depictions of abuse, mentions of bruises, arranged marriages, romance, humor, dead parents, slow burn relationship (not completely but not not), basically we know the tillman men are asswipes so i 100% see Roy forcing gator into this kind of situation for money for his militia, eventual smut with kinks such as thigh riding, gun play, choking, spanking, lots of marking and possible spit play.
p.s. if y'all ever wanted to send in little rambles or drabble ideas for pearlie and gator to my ask box feel free to my babes, i love interaction with my readers! or even if you wanted to just ask me questions to get to know me!
song in the last scene is somebody's heartbreak - hunter hayes
series masterlist here, series playlist here.
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PART FOUR: the weekend, pt 2
Friday. 
Your first night in the Tillman house was quiet to say the least. After picking up Jessica and Maude from their school, both of them clambering into Gator’s truck (he had insisted on taking his own so that he could be the sole driver) with slight grumbles, they were used to their mom picking them up, and even Roy on special occasions, they perked up when they realized that their older brothers wife to be was in the passenger seat. 
“Are you really going to marry him?” Maude, or maybe it was Jessica you weren’t sure how to tell them apart just yet, asked with wide, curious eyes that glanced between you and her big brother. Gator turns half cocked in his seat to give a dirty look to the offending twin. “What? You’re gross.” She muttered, resigning to buckling her seatbelt. 
You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in your throat or the grin that spread across your lips. “She’s not wrong,” You giggle when he gives you an equally offended look. “I’ve seen your bedroom!” 
Gator rolls his eyes at you but smiles anyway, asking the girls what they wanted for supper. 
He had made supper while you helped the girls with their homework, it was an oddly domestic experience that you basked in, as was holding his hand while he said grace before everyone dug into the sloppy mess of what you quickly gathered was about the only thing he was capable of cooking, pasta. 
He had left for work not too long after that, leaving with a hurried and wet kiss to your cheek and a stern look at his sisters to behave themselves, a reminder to lock the doors after he was gone, and to text him if he needed anything, to which you had called out to him that he would have to actually respond too. He simply flips you off as he walks down the steps of the porch. 
The girls were an absolute joy, much like your own little sisters. You could tell that they were sweet but that they absolutely enjoyed getting under their older siblings skin whenever they could and you couldn’t say you blamed them, he seemed like he could be a hard ass from time to time. 
When they were off to bed you were left alone to your own devices, exploring what bit of the house you felt comfortable enough to while you were alone, cleaning up after you and the girls’ evening and even cleaning up some of Gator’s room, at least cleaning the mess off of the floor. 
Eventually, it was late enough that your eyes felt heavy and you could barely hold your head up, you had busied yourself with wedding planning and looking at the photos that littered your fiance’s room, questions racing through your mind about who the women were in them as you explored. You hadn’t been paying attention to the time and were surprised to find that it was after three am, and that Gator had texted you around midnight. 
GATOR: how’s everything?
The girls go to bed okay?
Are you asleep?
Something about the string of messages, sent only a few minutes apart made you smile. And then you laughed when you realized that you were the one not responding now. Although in your defense, the messages had been sent when you had been downstairs putting a load of his laundry in the machine, having found a container of detergent on his closet floor, different from the kind that you noticed was downstairs. You hadn’t though to check the phone when you had come back up. 
Now that you were in his bed, under his comforter and breathing in his scent that was all over the pillows and sheets, you felt oddly relaxed. Smirking, you open your phone and pull up your camera, giving a slightly sultry face as you snapped a clear pick of you in his bed, one of your pert nipples hardened and showing through the thing fabric of your sorry excuse for a tank top. 
You attach the photo to a message and send it to him. 
YOU: nice and cozy 
You see him open the message, the little bubbles start moving like he’s typing something to you, and then they stop and you laugh, tossing the phone onto the pillow next to you and rolling onto your side. You close your eyes and you’re close to falling asleep when you hear it ping with a new message. 
GATOR: the hell are you doin’ up so late?
You pout. You expected a reaction to the photo you sent, at the very least an acknowledgement to it and you have to admit you're a little upset that he didn't. Were you over reading things? Did he not like you like that? You had thought that you were friendly enough to send flirty messages back and forth, especially given the way he had stared at your tits before he had even spoken to you, why wouldn't he give a response to the photo? 
Deciding to brush it off, you roll your eyes and snap a picture of the floor off the side of his bed, it gave a clear shot of the rug in front of it that was previously messy. 
YOU: keeping myself busy Deputy, your room was calling to me 
You send it and you don't bother to wait and see if he opens it, closing your eyes to try and get some kind of sleep. 
A couple hours later you wake to a God awful screeching in your ears, scaring you so badly you bit your head on the wall as you jump into a sitting position. It's coming from the nightstand next to the bed, closest to the pillow that smells the most like Gator. His fucking alarm clock bleating in your ears at goddamn six in the morning. 
“Two fucking hours of sleep.” You grumble, kicking your legs angrily as you try to get the comforter off of your body. “Jesus Gator, why's it so fucking cold in here?!” You whine outloud, arms folded over your chest as stomp your way to his closet, pulling his thick robe out and tying it around your waist. He's much bigger than you, it hangs to your feet and the cuffs fall over hands. You probably looked stupid but you didn't care, it was the warmest thing you could find. 
You remember that it's Friday, and the girls have school so you open the door of his bedroom and shuffle across the hallway to the girls’. You peek your head in and one of them is just starting to stirr in their bed. 
“Hey girls,” You say, soft but loud as you walk between their beds. The one on the left is the one already stirring, Maude you think. She rubs her eyes as you sit down on the edge of Jessica's bed, giving the girl a soft shake. “time to get up and get ready for school okay? Don't want your mama and daddy getting upset with me because you're late..” 
You would probably never hear the end of it from Karen. And you certainly wouldn't feel the end of it from Boyd if she ran her mouth to him about it. 
Jessica comes to with a little more persistence on your end and you make sure they're actually up and shuffling to the bathroom to brush their hair and teeth before you leave them alone, headed downstairs to make breakfast. 
You whip up a quick eggs and toast situation, and pour them some orange juice and wonder how the hell they're so perky when they come down the stairs and sit in their chairs. 
“Where's Gator?” Jessica asks, taking a big gulp of her juice. “He's usually home by now, I wonder if he got to arrest someone..I wonder if he'll have a cool story for us!” 
You shrug, sipping on your own juice. “I'm sure he's on his way, sweetie..” You say, keeping an eye on the time. You have just enough time to do the dishes and leave a plate out for Gator before you have to take them to school. 
You drive in his robe, planning to go back to the house and sleep for a little longer, the sleepless nights at Boyd's finally catching up to you. You promise to pick them up in your Jeep this afternoon, and to make them something other than spaghetti for supper too and make the drive back to the ranch. 
Gator's squad car is in the drive when you park, his plate of eggs eaten and sat neatly in the sink. You don't stop to wash it, too tired as you drag your feet up the staircase and into the upstairs hallway. His bedroom door is closed, and when you open it you find him sprawled on his stomach on the bed, nothing on but his boxer shorts. He's snoring lightly, and you know he must be exhausted to already be asleep as he couldn't have been home long. 
“Ugh, boys.” You grumble, tripping over his work boots that were laid in the middle of the floor, one stood up right and the other tossed unceremoniously on its side. His tactical vest is at least on the back of his desk chair, his thigh holster with the gun still inside of it placed on the desktop. You crouch and pick up his camouflage pants and his skin tight black shirt, tossing them in the empty laundry hamper in the closet before hanging the robe back up. 
Without much more thought you crawl into the bed next to Gator, getting comfortable next to his warm body and falling asleep again within minutes. 
Gator wakes a couple of hours later to warm breath in his face and weight across his chest. He's groggy and it takes him a moment to realize that it's you. Sometime between him coming home and going to bed, you had also come home and had crawled into bed with him, somehow winding up laying partially on top of him. 
You look so peaceful when you sleep, your lips parted and your face so uncaring. You were laying on your back, one arm thrown over his chest. He can't help but to guiltily look down, eyes roaming over your chest. He kept it pretty cool in his room, and it was clear your body was reacting to it by the way your hardened nipples poked through your flimsy tank top that obviously barely covered your tits to begin with. He stifled a groan when he felt himself getting hard, same as he had last night when you'd sent him that goddamn photo. God, he had practically cum in his pants when he'd seen it, but he didn't think you could have possibly meant it in any other way than just to be playful in response to his text. 
He had had to jerk off to it only a few hours ago, and now that he had you in his bed with him and he got to look at the real thing? Fuck, he couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough. 
Gently moving out from under your arm, he sits up, his elbow brushing the fabric of your tank top as he stands. He glances back at you once he's on his feet, one hand clutched on the comforter as you squirm around, his eyes locking onto discolored flesh on the upper part of your rib cage peeking out from the bit of your shirt he had accidentally moved. It was a violent shade of green with a little tinge of purple. 
Hard on long forgotten he reaches a steady hand out and gently pushes the top up father, exposing the bottom of your tit to his eyes, and the rest of a large, angry bruise that looked like it wrapped around your entire front. 
“Jesus fuck..” His first thought was that his father had done something to you, hit you with his horse whip maybe when you were alone yesterday, but he knew he wouldn't. Not yet, not until your last name was legally Tillman and he felt entitled to you. The bruise was too old for that anyway, his next thought was maybe some sonofabitch from school. Anger welled up inside of him. He was angry that some dickhead had marked up his fiance, angry that his bride was walking around with these bruises and he had no idea who put them there. Angry that he wasn't there to stop it, to put that fucker in the back of his squad car, or better yet, twenty feet in the fucking ground out in some forgotten field on the fucking ranch. 
With shaking, but gentle hands he shakes your shoulders. “Pearl,” He whispers, you groan in response, kicking your feet as if trying to push him away. “Pearlie, hon, wake up..need'ta ask you somethin’” 
You're groggy, eyesight swimming as you slowly open your eyes. “Mmm was'uh matter?” You ask, barely registering the shaking hands gripping your shoulders. You see a funny look on Gator's face, something between pain and sadness and rage and that's what wakes you up, wondering what had happened. “Gator? What's wrong?” You try to sit up but his strong hands keep you pinned down. “Ga-”
“Who hurt you?” His voice is strained, and you feel his fingers grip your shoulders tightly as he looks down at your..oh. He must have seen the bruises left over from Boyd's lashing. “Pearlie, honey, who fuckin’ did this to you?” His voice is a whisper but it holds so many emotions in it, sadness and pain, and anger that for once in your life isn't directed at you. Maybe it's because you're groggy still, or maybe because he's just so damn gentle in the way he asks it, the way he's holding your shoulders but you feel your lip start to quiver and before you know it, a sob is breaking from your chest. 
Gator doesn’t particularly know what to do when your entire body shakes with the force of your crying, his hands moving from your shoulders to let your sit up, your shirt riding down over the godforsaken bruise. It was your own fault, for wearing something so short, you realized. But it was also Boyd’s fault for hitting you in the first place. Sobs wracked your body as your mind started working, were you relieved? Scared? You had never had to tell anyone about what was going on at home before, you had always hidden it so well from everyone, including your own mother and now? You had to tell him, Gator wasn’t going to take ‘don’t worry about it’ as an answer, you may have only known him and been engaged for a week but you knew him enough to know that that wasn’t his style. You were as much a Tillman now as you were an Augastine, you were his to protect, to keep safe. 
For how long you cry, you’re not sure, but at some point it gets bad enough that Gator sits down with you, strong arms wrapped around your body, pulling your head into his bare chest. You tears left a wet mess in the smattering of hair that lay between his pecs, his fingers rubbing small circles in your hair as he whispered soothing words into the top of your head. “It’s okay, hon..” He would say, over and over again. “It won’t ever happen again, Pearlie girl..” Occasionally thrown in, and from the way he spoke it, the way his body felt underneath of you when the words left his mouth, you knew he was telling the truth. “I promise you’re safe with me..won’t ever hurt you..” He had whispered a few times, and you swore he was crying too. 
The tears stop after a while, and your heart stops racing, your body no longer shaking. He doesn’t let you go though, and in all honesty, you don’t want him to. “Boyd..” You say finally, giving a small sniffle after the word. Your voice was so small, cracked with emotion that you weren’t sure he had heard it at first until you felt the way his arms tightened around you, almost to the point of being uncomfortable. 
He breathes out of his nose, trying to calm the rage boiling inside of him at your words. He tries to focus on you in his arms, keeping you safe and comfortable while you tell him this. Your voice sounded pained and he couldn’t say he blamed you. “For how long?” He asks, eyes squeezing closed as images of the man hitting you filled his mind. “How long has he been doing this to you?” 
You sniffle again, bringing one of your hands up to squeeze his forearm, trying to comfort your comforter. “Ten years..” You say, breath catching as he lets out a pained sound. “Minus the four years i was at boarding school..except for when i would come home on breaks..” 
Gator doesn’t want to keep pushing you, pushing himself. He was really testing his own limits right now, everything in his body was telling him to go hunt that man down, give him a taste of his own medicine, but his mind was telling him not to. That you needed him. He breathes out a low sigh, breath shaky as he kisses the top of your head, breathing in the smell of your expensive ass shampoo. “Okay..why don’t you go take a hot shower,” He says, feeling you nod against his chest. “We can talk more about this later, if you want..” He could tell you were thankful for his words as when you finally sit up from his embrace, you give him a long kiss on the cheek, both hands cupping his face as you climb over him, whispering a soft thank you. 
The one bathroom in the Tillman house isn’t luxurious like the one attached to your bedroom at Boyd’s, but it has a beautiful clawfoot tub, and it feels nice and cozy, comfortable. The water is hot too, reddening your skin as it washes down your shoulders and chest, trailing down the bruise below your breasts. The contact made you flinch, the image of Boyd giving it to you flashing before your eyes before the pain turned into something more soothing, the sting reminding you that you’re at Gator’s house and for the time being, you’re safe from him. 
You take way longer than is probably polite when you’re a guest in someone’s home, and you’re glad that Karen isn’t here because you get the feeling that she would bitch about it, and it would somehow turn into you getting Gator in trouble without meaning to. You had forgotten to bring your shower gel from your bag in Gator’s room, so you use what you deduce is his from the smell, lathering yourself in it for a while before letting it run off of you under the fall of the water from the showerhead. 
When you feel like yourself again, and you’ve let cool water run down your face to where you’re sure its no longer puffy, you make your way out of the bathroom and back across the hall to his room. He’s nowhere to be found, but the bed is messily made and the closet door is open, you notice a pair of jeans missing off the first hanger, and the smell of coffee finally hits your nose. 
You put your pajamas under the pillow on the left side of the bed, you had only packed one pair, before making your way down the stairs, the sound of something scraping against a pan and hushed cursing meeting your ears before you reach the last step. You peek into the kitchen and a smile spreads on your face at the sight of Gator running a hand through his hair, smoke rising in front of his face as he turns every which way, talking to himself as he tries to fix whatever he had messed up. “I think you’re burning something, hon.” You quip, chuckling when he jumps about a foot in the air at the sound of your voice. 
“Jesus Christ, need’ta put a damn bell around your neck,” He sighs, fighting back his own laugh. “I was trying to make a fuckin’ grilled cheese..” He shows you the contents of the pan thats in front of him, and you laugh at the pathetic lump of burnt bread and cheese. 
“Did you butter it?” You ask, and he mutters another curse before groaning. “Who taught you how to cook, Gator?” 
“Literally no one.” He says, tossing the burnt sandwich into the trash before moving out of your way. 
You busy yourself making a sandwich for each of you, feeling hungry now that you’re actually in the action. You hear him rustling around behind you, the fridge opening and glasses clinking. You’re flipping both of the sandwiches in the large skillet when a full coffee mug is set next to you on the counter, clearly mixed with creamer. 
“I stopped on my way home and bought some of that creamer stuff..” He says, you pretend not to notice how his cheeks flush as he says it. “I know it’s not an iced coffee, but at least its flavored.” 
You’re not sure why you’re so goddamned emotional but you swear your eyes water at the notion. “That’s so sweet, you didn’t have to,” You say, going to give him another kiss on the cheek. You have to stand onto your tip toes this time, and he hums as you do. “Thank you, Gator.” 
“Want you to have the things you like.” He shrugs, taking a big drink of his own mug of black coffee. He crinkles his nose, chasing after you with a small sniff that makes your cheeks flush. “Are you wearin’ my body wash?” 
You shrug and move back to the stove, suddenly remembering the conversation you had had with his sisters when you were dropping them off at school this morning. “I promised your sister’s that i would make something for supper tonight,” You begin plating the sandwiches, switching the gas to the stove off. “Not that your spaghetti wasn’t good or anything, but i get the sense that cooking just isn’t your thing.” 
You hand him his plate, he’s looking at you with an unfamiliar emotion in those damn brown eyes. “Can you make cheeseburgers?” He asks, an almost childlike lilt to his voice. You nodded in agreement and you swear he would have done a happy dance if he hadn’t spilled some of his hot coffee out of the mug and onto his hand. “Ah shit!” 
It’s one thirty when by the time you guys finish with lunch and coffee and you set your plates in the sink with the notion of washing them later, you notice that Gator had already washed the plate you left for him this morning. “I think we’ll probably have to go to the supermarket on the way back from getting the girls..” You say, you had noticed earlier that there wasn’t any fresh meat for burgers in the fridge, and if that was what he wanted then it needed to be bought. 
“Okay.” He says, checking his watch. You hear him sigh. “I got a few chores to do before we go to the school.” He gets up and starts heading for the door, you start pouting as you watch his retreating back. You didn’t want to be left alone in the house, it was boring without someone to annoy. “You comin’?” 
You hum as you carry a bucket of feed to the chicken pen off yonder of the barn, it was heavier than you had told Gator, wanting him to think that you could do it on your own. He had already poked fun at you for never having done any real ranch chores outside of caring for your own horse before, you didn’t want him teasing you for having to carry a bucket of slightly heavy feed because you were too soft for it. 
He had stayed behind in the barn, a large shovel in hand as he had decided that you were much too pretty to do the easier although definitely stinkier job of shoveling horse shit from the stalls. He sent you off with a teasing jilt about how you grew up on that fancy ranch and never done farm chores, before he put his stark county sheriff deputy hat on your head (the sun was awfully bright, ‘don’t need you goin’ blind’ he had said). 
You rolled your eyes at him once you had turned away, muttering under your breath in mocking tones the word he had teased you with, though you regretted it almost as soon as you were out of sight of the barn. The feed was heavy, your arms were sore and your hands burned from where the wire handle was digging into your palms and you didn’t think it could have possibly gotten any worse, you didn’t think that you could have wished any harder that you had stayed back in the house to clean up from breakfast and lunch, until you walked into the chicken pen and sat the bucket of chicken feed down by your feet so you could turn around and close the door behind you, not wanting any of the birds to get loose. 
You heard the fluttering of all their wings first, and then the little noises they made as if greeting you. “Hey little dudes,” You say, starting to turn around. “Who’s hungr- OH MY GOD!” You flew back against the door, not expecting ten birds to be right behind you, one already sat in the bucket of feed. How did they move that fast? You were pretty sure that they weren’t supposed to sit in the feed though, so gingerly and a little fearfully you tiptoed just the littlest bit closer to the feed bucket, your hands outstretched. “Hey little lady..let’s just-HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” The bird had fluttered it’s wings and snapped it’s beak at you as you tried to move it away from the food that the other birds needed too, it’s beady black eyes locked on yours. You swore it was looking into your soul and that was all you needed to get the fuck out of there with what was left of your life. 
“GATOR, GATOR, GATOR!” His head snapped up in the direction that he heard your voice from, eyebrows furrowed. You sounded terrified. He stepped out of the horse stall he had started in, closest to the back exit just as you came barrelling into the barn, straight into him and his arms and damn near knocking him over in the process. You babbled as he steadied the two of you, his hands on your biceps as you looked up at him with big, watery eyes looking up at him and your lips puckered so deep in a frown that he just couldn’t help but to smile at how fuckin’ adorable it was. 
“Slow down, Pearlie, can’ understand what you’re sayin’ when you’re babblin’ like that..” He says, rubbing his hands up and down your biceps gently, trying his best to soothe you. He was new to this whole thing, but he had learned fairly quickly earlier that soothing words and touches and a calm tone seemed to be best with you. He watched you take a big, deep breath in and let it out, a small sniffle and your lips puckered just a little bit less.. “Start again, hon..what happened? What’s got you so spooked, hm?” 
“The birds, Gator!” You say, voice wavering. “They attacked me!” He immediately check’s every inch of available skin for talon marks, anything that resembled an attack, but aside from the emotions on your face you were otherwise unscathed..his eyebrows furrow again. “Gator..they..they were waiting for me when i turned around and it..it was sitting in the feed bucket and i..i just..i went to move it and it yelled at me..it yelled at me, Gator and it fucking like..fluttered it’s wings at me and it had friends!” 
Here you were telling your fiance about the horror movie level ordeal you had been through, and what does he do? He laughs. Laughs! Head thrown back, shoulders shaking and gut hurting laughing at you. You smack his chest. “Stop laughing!” You say and you swear he only laughs harder at you, which pisses you off. “Gator Tillman you fuck head stop laughing at me!” 
“Oh, Pearlie girl..” He sighs, wiping a tear from his eyes with the back of his hand as he finally stops laughing, hand rubbing his side as he shakes his head. “You afraid of the fuckin’ chickens?” You pout and he starts laughing again until you start hitting his chest with the hat he had put on your head, which makes him hold his hands up in surrender before taking it gently from your hand. “They’re just fuckin’ birds, hon, just kick ‘em they ain’t gonna hurt you none..” 
“Bullshit, Gator,” You stomp your foot, arms crossing over your chest as you glare at him. “You didn’t see the way they all looked at me!” He shakes his head at you, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. “They were talking! They probably planning how they were gonna kill me and eat my body and feed my bones to the hogs!” 
“Pearl, we don’t even have hogs!” He exclaims, completely done with your buffoonery at this point, though he knows it’s not buffoonery. He knows how real it is, can tell by the fear in your face and he knows that he shouldn’t make fun of you for it but it just seems like something a husband would do to his wife. “Oh my god I know the Augastine ranch is ritzy but i figured he would’ve had you working with the ranch hands like my daddy did..this is fuckin’ hilarious..” 
“Gator!” You pout, stomping your foot once more and he only starts laughing once more, cackling once you push him in the chest on your way past him. “You go feed the damned demons then! I’ll shovel horse shit, can’t be any scarier!” 
And shovel the shit you did until it was time to go and pick up his sisters from school, a car trip of which was filled with him poking more fun at you from the drivers seat of your own car! You were downright tempted to salt his macaroni and burn his burger tonight for supper, but you could never stand to mess up on purpose when it came to the kitchen. 
The girls clambering into the Jeep at the school pick up took the attention off of your harrowing ordeal this afternoon, their chatterbox selves keeping Gator entertained as he drove through town on the way to the supermarket. Roy had enlisted the girls into he local christian academy, a private school and you made a mental note to ask Gator later tonight if he went to the same school too, if the highschool is where he got the trophies in his room from. 
The supermarket was an ordeal in its self. The girls constantly asking Gator for something that he would exasperatedly say to put back where they found it, and it you swore that the amount of people you guys stopped to talk to, who were shocked that the rumor of Gator being engaged was true, caused what should have been a thirty-minute trip to turn into an almost two hour one. Each time a random couple or person whom you didn’t know (but he clearly did) stopped the pair of you, his arm would be immediately around your shoulder or your waist, tucking you into his side tightly. You would find your own arm or hand across his broad back with such ease it was as if you had been doing it for years, as if you guys had had a conventional engagement rather than having signed on a dotted line for your parents. It was safe to say that by the time Gator had pulled up next to his police cruiser, you were both exhausted. 
You spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, listening as Gator helped his sisters with their homework so that they wouldn’t have to do it over the weekend. “Look, i thought it was stupid too, but i promise you, you my step-mama always told me it’s better to do weekend homework on friday so that you have the whole weekend to play and do fun things..” He had said, trying to convince them to sit down and pay attention. You thought it was rather sweet to hear him with them, he always seemed so cold and distant when his father was around but hearing when he wasn’t was another thin. You loved how warm and happy he was, how hands on he was. You knew that you were supposed to have a child of your own with him, it was part of the agreement, and you were a little more comfortable with that fact knowing that he was gentle. 
By the time the sun had gone down and the four of you had sat down to eat, Gator praising and moaning into his plate the whole time, it was a meal filled with laughter and stories of how everyone’s days had went, which was all fine and dandy until your fiance had decided to tell his younger twin sisters the story of your harrowing encounter with the murderous devil chickens just before coming to pick them up from school, to which they had laughed and laughed and in all fairness, you couldn’t help but laugh a little too because now that you thought about it, it was a little silly the way that you had reacted. 
Not more than an hour or so after that you were stood at the kitchen sink, the water running and your phone on the counter beside you just barely drowning out the noise of the piano being playing in the living room as you cleaned up the mess that had been made throughout the day. You hummed along to one of the songs, realizing that you needed to start working on a playlist for the wedding, as you scrubbed the dishes.
You didn’t hear his footsteps approaching, but you felt his presence, felt his bicep brushing against your shoulder as he stepped up to the sink right next to you. You looked up at him with a small smile on your face when you noticed the dishtowel thrown over his shoulder, and the other in his hands as he picks up a dish from the clean side of the sink to start drying it. 
“Supper was good,” He says quietly, arm brushing against your own as you both worked. It made your skin buzz, that tingly feeling, you didn’t mind it though, there was something quite soothing about it. “Thank you for cooking..and for putting up with the girls..and me too i suppose.” 
You chuckle, handing him a dish you had just finished washing when the song on your playlist changes, you pause it quickly recognizing the opening notes of it and turn to him. “Hey Gator?” You ask, and he hums, looking down at you as you turn off the faucet. “Dance with me?” 
He was going to say no, to argue about how it wasn’t very manly, but you already had your mouth open. “We’re gonna have to have to dance at the wedding, and i want to make sure you’re not gonna be stepping on my foot the whole night!” 
Now he wouldn’t come out straight and tell it to you, but he had taken a class or two during prom season back in highschool, for that girl he swore he was in love with. “Fine.” He concedes, tossing the towel down onto the counter as you bounce with happiness. 
You click your playlist back on as you feel one of his large hands on your hip, turning you against his chest as he takes one of your hands with his free one, your other hand going up to his shoulder, just below the nape of his neck. It was an oddly comfortable embrace, nothing awkward about it as he started moving the two of you gently around the kitchen. 
‘I'd love to know just what you're thinkin'
Every little river, runnin' through your mind
You give and you take
You come and you go
You leave me here wonderin' if I'll ever know
How much you care or how much you don't
Whatever you need, whatever you want’
“You’re not so bad at this,” You say, looking up into those damn brown eyes, those giant glassy eyes that hold so many emotions that you wish he would let you get to know. And maybe he will, somewhere down the line, but you know it won’t be any time soon. 
“You’re not so bad yourself,” He teases, a smirk crossing his lips as he looks down at you, humming along to the song as he leads you around the room. It wasn’t any particular kind of dance, but it was a formal one none the less. “This what we gonna dance to at the weddin’?” He asks softly, a pink tinge to his cheeks as he thinks about dancing with you for the first time as his wife. You shrug in response, body pressing against him as he continues to lead you. 
“Maybe..” You tease and he chuckles, his head tipping back just a bit before he plants his eyes right back on yours. “Haven’t decided yet..i’m makin’ a playlist..” 
‘I guess that all I'm tryin' to tell ya
Is a minute with you is better than two without
Oh, I won't be a fool but I can't play it cool
So I'm playin' safe and I'm breakin' the rules
I'm wishin' I had what I know that you got
So if you're comin' my way then please don't stop’
“And do i get a say about this playlist?” He asks and you throw your head back laughing. “The one part of the wedding planning that i might actually know what the hell i’m doing.” You’re both full on laughing now, still locked in the dancing embrace though you’ve stood still. It takes a minute for you guys to calm down as you keep teasing him about the ivory and white situation, but when you finally do he gives a gentle kiss to your forehead, chuckling as he tells you to help him finish the dishes. 
The two of you continue to make each other laugh as you guys do the dishes together, Gator singing off key to the music he recognizes on whatever playlist you have going, you teasing him for it, both of you blissfully unaware that his two sisters had seen your whole dancing exchange and had run off to the living room to talk excitedly about how much they already adored having you in the family..
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punk4ndisorderly · 10 months
Text
light on
The one where Y/N is the daughter of a legendary Team USA coach and used to attend the development program with the boys. 8 years after they last saw each other in person, a reunion brings Jack and Y/N back into each other’s lives... and hearts.
if you keep the light on, i'll keep the light on
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X XI - stranger things have happened XII
“What?”
“I’m getting married!”
A huge grin grew on Y/N's face. She stood up immediately, tackling River and hugging him tightly.
“Oh my god! Are you serious?”
“Yeah!” her older brother nodded.
Pulling him to her chest again, the doctor refused to let go for a little longer.
“I’m so happy for you! Congratulations! This is amazing!” she gushed, completely losing her cool.
“I know, I can’t believe it either but… Would you mind easing up on the hug? I don’t need to be nursing a broken rib when I walk down the aisle.”
Y/N released River, her eyebrow raising.
“Wait… The wedding’s in two weeks? How on Earth did you manage to pull that off?”
“I might have been secretly planning it since Christmas…” her brother disclosed, looking down at her feet coyly.
“What?” Y/N all but screeched, her eyes now looking like saucers. “You’ve been engaged since Christmas and you didn’t think to tell me about it?”
“Technically, I’ve been engaged since my birthday, but kind of procrastinated ninety-nine percent of the planning till around Christmas…”
“Why am I only being informed now?” she insisted, placing her small hands on her hips, a stern look on her face, as if she were talking to one of her subordinates.
“We wanted to organize everything before telling anyone about it. Plus, if people only knew we were getting married two weeks prior to the deed, there’d be less of a chance of someone blabbing to the wrong person and it ending up on the internet. You know how people love to gossip about Coach Y/L/N's family.”
“What if I had things planned for that day already?”
“Please, you mostly stay home alone painting and watching paranormal documentaries when Joey's at her father’s.” River quickly dismissed that possibility.
Y/N gasped in mock outrage, earning a pointed look from her brother.
“Fair enough…” she shrugged. He knew her too well.
“Okay, so now that you’re on board: David's mom insisted we had to get married on a Sunday because I am enough of a sinner already living with the man and all that, but I wanted to have a grandiose weekend, so we booked the main cabin for our closest friends to stay here. Starts Friday night and ends at dawn on Monday.”
“Right, and who are these friends?”
“You and some others. Mom and dad, David's parents, family and other guests will only be here for the actual day. Don’t worry, I’m inviting loverboy as well.” the eldest sibling winked, starting to head back to the trail.
Y/N scoffed, patting her sweaty forehead dry with her tank top.
“Do I know any other people?”
“The boys will be there, don't worry. Apart from them, I’m only inviting a few of my childhood friends, co-workers and immediate family. Keeping it low-key.”
“Knowing you, it’ll be the most over-the-top thing I’ll ever see in my life, but sure… I still can’t believe you waited until now to let me know you were getting married!”
“I’ve still got something to tell you…”
“Are you adopting?”
“No, god, no.”
“Are you that opposed to having children?”
“No, no. I mean, I want to, just not planning for them right now… I don’t feel the need to rush into anything...”
“Then what is it, Riv?”
“You’re going to be by my side at the altar.”
“You mean…”
“I want you to be my maid of honor.”
“Oh my god!” Y/N squealed, squeezing the life out of her brother. “I’d be honored, River!”
The pair hugged for a few seconds, laughing at how ridiculous they both looked with tears in their eyes, threatening to fall at any moment. During their walk back, the duo reminisced on their childhood and the long winding road that led them to that precise moment, to that exact location.
“One last thing…” her brother began, climbing into his car.
“Lord have mercy…”
“You have throw me a bachelor party. By the end of the day all guests will have been informed about the wedding, so I’ll text you the names and numbers of the people I want to have there. Oh, and it has to be next Friday.”
“Are you sure you want me to set up your bachelor party or do you plan on doing it all yourself?” the doctor chuckled.
“You know I’m a control freak, I can’t help it.”
“Relax.” Y/N patted his leg. “I got you.”
*
 “So now you’re in charge of planning her last hurrah?” Jack inquired, holding his phone to his ear with the help of his shoulder, putting the lasagna he was making in the oven.
“Yep.” Y/N confirmed, popping the ‘p’. “I just have a tiny problem with that: I have no idea how I’m going to do it. I mean, my idea of fun on a Friday night is staying in playing board games and watching scary movies or those really corny, completely unrealistic romcoms.”
The brunette man smiled at the mention of her calm evening plans, walking away from the kitchen and turning on the TV in his living room, zapping through the thousands of useless channels he paid for mostly for his friends’ enjoyment other than his.
“Oh sweet, innocent Y/N Y/L/N… There’s so much to do in New York on a Friday night… Bachelor parties practically plan themselves.”
“Easy for you to say, Mr. Superstar.” she quipped, biting hard on her bottom lip as she tried to hold up the mattress with just one hand to change the sheets on her bed. “I don’t really like crowded places, but I’ll make the sacrifice for River.”
“That’s very noble of you.” the Devils' player teased. “Hold on, Trev is here.” he said when he heard the doorbell ring.
Jack opened the door, signaling for Trevor to come in, stepping aside.
“I’m just going to finish my call, I’ll be right back.” he told his friend, entering the kitchen. “Hey, I’m back.”
“As I was saying, I’m completely out of ideas. I considered karaoke, but it’s such a typical thing for me to suggest.”
The Devils' player was mindlessly going through his unopened mail while she was speaking, randomly finding a flyer that caught his attention.
“What about a concert?”
“A concert?”
“Apparently, The Bucks are performing Friday at MSG.”
“Yes! That’s perfect!” Y/N jabbered, ecstatic. “River was obsessed with one of the band members back in the day.”
“Yeah?” the brunette man asked, drinking from his beer bottle.
“Yeah! Oh Gretz, if only you knew how much I love you right now!” she raved, speed-walking to her desk to check the availability of tickets.
Jack choked on his drink, coughing uncontrollably, making Trevor run to his rescue.
“Do you need me to do the Heimlich? Dude, I know it would technically involve me practically grinding against your ass, but your mom would kill me if I let you die and we’re bros, it doesn’t matter, okay?” he babbled, closing the distance between them. “It’ll be okay, hold on!”
“Z.” the hockey player said in between coughs. “I’m fine, it was just beer.”
“Oh, thank god. You know I was prepared to do it though, right?”
“I do, thanks man.”
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it. Just bring me food when you’re done, please. I’m starving.”
“Jack?” Y/N called from the other side of the line. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, yeah. I’m here. So, what are you guys doing after the show?”
“Wait, we’re supposed to go out after the concert?” she panicked.
“It’s a bachelor party, Y/N. It’s heavily implied.”
“Fuck… Precisely the reason why I was probably better off without one… I’ll figure it out later. Let me know if you got any suggestions, though.”
“I will. Have a good day, Mess.”
“You too, babe.”
Jack hung up the phone, clearing his throat one more time. He couldn’t believe he had reacted the way he did to her words. They weren’t supposed to make him feel the way he did. He wasn’t supposed to picture what it would be like hearing them in another context. What the hell was going on with him?
“Talking to Y/N again, I see…” Trevor smirked, leaning against the doorframe.
“Friends usually tak to each other, right?” he grumbled, trying to play it cool, checking on the lasagna.
“Sure… What’s up with our lovely friend?”
“She’s in charge of planning River's bachelor party and I suggested she’d buy tickets for a concert.”
“Who’s performing?” his friend inquired, coming closer to him, attracted by the smell of food.
“The Bucks.” he shrugged.
“The Bucks? Oh, dude, we’ve got to go!” Trevor hooted, slapping Jack's arm enthusiastically.
“Didn’t know you were a fan.”
“Are you kidding me? Why do you think I tried growing my hair out back in middle school? I wanted to be a part of the band so bad. I used to have a huge poster of them looking down on my bed. All the action they witnessed…”
“You mean the action between you and your hand?”
“Just get the fucking tickets, Hughes. We’re going.”
*
“Wear the shorts, Y/N.” River sighed, giving her a stern look and motioning to the pair of golden high-waisted shorts she was holding up. “It’s my party, I define the dress code.”
“I’m going to freeze my ass off.” Y/N countered, tightening the silk robe against her body.
“What are you talking about? It’s June!”
“Fine! I’ll wear the damn shorts.” she grumbled, taking the garment from her brother's hands and reluctantly putting them on.
The hotel suite was hectic: ten people, including a very frantic River running around getting ready for a certainly memorable night out, talking to each other over the loud music one of River's college friends was adamant on blasting.
The soft curls she had managed to create on her heavy, strong hair, were framing her face perfectly, her only care now being what outfit her brother would be imposing on her. Y/N knew she could protest all she wanted, but she’d eventually give into River's wishes.
“Now, the black spaghetti strap top and… The pièce de resistance… The blazer to go with the shorts! I know you have never worn this purely out of spite, but –“
“It’s not out of spite, Riv. It just makes me look like a gold bar!”
“Precisely. It makes you look like a million dollars.” one of River's friends said from behind her. “You look hot, momma!” he added, winking at her.
“Yeah, yeah…” the young woman waved them off playfully. “Let’s just get this over with.” she chuckled, picking up a flute from the table and joining the rest of the group in toasting the groom-to-be. “To River Y/L/N, our favorite Groomzilla...”
“Watch it!” her brother cautioned, laughter erupting around the room.
“I hope you enjoy your last night of freedom…” the doctor winked. “Cheers!”
The group raised their glasses and downed the sparkly champagne before heading out.
“Ready or not, here we come.” she whispered to herself as she linked her arm with River's.
 *
“Dude, I’m literally so pumped right now! Feel my heartbeat, feel it!” Trevor shrieked.
Jack chuckled to himself, adjusting his cap before burying his hands in his pockets.
“I only came along so I could give you moral support when what’s-his-face fails yet again to acknowledge your existence. I really couldn’t care less about the band.”
“Well, that’s an extremely disrespectful way of referring yourself to one of the greatest American bands to ever grace the Earth, rock royalty if you must say, but okay.” his friend sneered, genuinely offended by his comment.
“Let’s just get inside and make the most out of the ungodly amount of money we paid for the VIP seats someone insisted we’d buy.” he declared, glaring at the curly-haired man beside him.
“Best seats in the house, you’re very welcome.”
The duo went through security calmly, stopping a few times on the way to their section to take pictures with people who recognized them, even though Jack kept his eyes down and the dad hat was buried in his head.
Their seats did have the best view, but he would never willingly admit that to his overly excited friend.
Seeds were the opening act. Trevor dramatically sang along to Poppy, the last song on their setlist, turning to Jack, who laughed loudly, covering his face with his large hands in an attempt to diminish the secondhand embarrassment he was feeling.
He looked around, smiling at how much everyone seemed to be having an amazing time.
The Bucks came on stage next, a shrilling sound next to him making him turn his attention back to his friend. Trevor jumped up and down, psyching himself up.
“Fuck, Z! You nearly made my eardrums pop!” the Devils' player scolded, like an annoyed father.
“Zip it, they’re playing Burnin’ Up!”
Jack sighed, asking himself why he had let his friend drag him to Madison Square Garden when he could have stayed at home, catching up on his favorite sitcom. He shifted on his feet, once again skimming through the large venue, his eyes setting on a particular person coming his way.
“Well if it isn’t the two… Stooges!” Rover cheered, a bottle of expensive champagne in her his and a grin on his face.
He rushed to him, giving him a warm hug and moving to Trevor by his side.
Jack waved to the rest of the party accompanying his former coach's eldest chile, his smile dropping slightly when he noticed Y/N wasn’t among them. The brunette man was too withdrawn in his thoughts to see she had approached the small group in the meantime, holding a large container filled to the brim with warm popcorn.
“Hey what did I m – Jack!”
He looked her up and down, his jaw nearly dropping at the sight of her outfit. The way the sparkly blazer subtly showed off her full breasts and her shorts let him get lost in the amazing pair of legs she had nearly made his knees buckle.
The Devils' player didn’t think she could look even better than the last time he had seen her, but apparently, subconsciously, her favorite thing to do was prove him wrong. Y/N's beauty continued to render him speechless.
“H-Hi!” he managed to stammer, leaning in for the usual kiss on the cheek, but being pulled in for a hug afterwards.
“What are you guys doing here?” she inquired.
“Z is a huge fan, didn’t you know?” Jack snickered, nodding towards their mutual friend.
Y/N averted her eyes to his side, where Trevor was chugging down the champagne River had offered him, while simultaneously performing his very own choreography od the song playing as it reached its final chorus.
“For you, baby!” the blond man shouted triumphantly.
“Well, can’t say that’s the strangest thing I’ve seen tonight.” the doctor confessed.
“I’m guessing the champagne isn’t helping?” Jack suggested, a teasing smile on his lips.
“That and the ten jello shots they just had to drink. It’s like dealing with nine drunk toddlers.” she snorted, seeing Trevor and River take turns at doing the robot dance, now to the sound of another song. “Popcorn?”
His sweet tooth had always been his Achilles heel.
“Thanks” he smiled, taking a handful of the sugary snack from the carton, watching the show their friends were putting on instead of the actual concert.
The grom-to-be waddled her way to the pair, grabbing Y/N by the waist, the bottle he earlier held no longer in her grasp.
“Y/N! Little sister! I just had a fantastic idea!” he chirped, a toothy grin adorning his doll-like features.
“Yeah?”
“They should totally come with us!” her older brothee screamed in her ear, pointing at the duo in front of them.
“I think we’ve got enough madness going on already.” she tried to dissuade him, nodding towards their group.
“Please?” River pouted, his pleading green eyes boring into hers.
Y/N pinched the bridge of her nose, thinking about the potential havoc that would be wrecked if they decided to add the dynamic duo to their entourage. At least Jack would be there to help her handle them all.
“Alright, they can come.” she consented, knowing full-well she’s too much of a softie to deny her brother anything. “But you better not get too rowdy!”
“You’re the best!” River chanted, smooching her forehead.
“Oh boy…” the doctor yelped, earning an amused chuckle from the man beside her. “You think this is funny, do you? It might be hilarious for now, but you do realize you’re stuck with me tonight, don’t you?”
“I think I can handle having you around for the night.” he winked, amazed at how smooth he suddenly sounded.
She stuck her tongue out in response, gathering around the bachelor party entourage, plus the two new additions, so they could leave the venue.
“But it’s not over yet, Junior!” River moaned.
“We have a commitment on the other side of town if I recall correctly, and we won’t make it on time if we stay until the concert is over. Bear with me.” Y/N all but begged while leading her brother outside, to the rented party bus he had insisted was a must-have.
Jack followed the pair, accompanied by Trevor, who couldn’t hold in his excitement over crashing a bachelor party.
The doctor had given the driver their itinerary in advance, leaving the two men completely clueless about their destination.
Getting off the large bus, the loud group of partygoers found themselves right in front of Rage, a well-known club in the Upper West Side.
“Shit, I love this place!” Trevor exclaimed, wrapping an arm around River and going inside.
“Now we’re talking!” Evan hooted, following them.
He stood outside, incredulous. He couldn’t actually believe the Universe had brought him to that place. And with Y/N, of all people.
“Are you coming?” he heard her ask as she came back outside with the sole purpose of finding him. “You have to. You know I can’t carry River and Trevor if it comes to it.”
“I am a mere babysitter to you, hu?” Jack feigned hurt, clutching his hands to his chest and moving to where she stood waiting.
“Well…” the doctor teased, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers with his swiftly. “Come on, we have seats right next to the stage.”
It didn’t take him long to notice how her hand fit perfectly in his, and how warm it had turned upon the touch of her skin. Jack happily let her guide him through the Friday night crowd until they reached their table.
“Get ready to be amazed.” she shouted over the loud music, cheering as the performers walked by, one of them barely moving past them before turning on his heels and coming back.
“Jack!” the blonde queen gasped, pulling him up and hugging him to her chest. “Guys!” he called out, making the rest of the performers stop and look their way. “Jack is back!”
“Rowdy!” they all howled in unison.
The brunette man's cheeks flushed a deep shade of red as the entire entourage, except for Trevor, looked at him with quizzical expressions on their faces.
“Hey, guys! Nice to be back!” he flashed them a wide grin.
“We were starting to think you had ditched us for Maxim’s.”
“I would never.” he assured them, patting the bleach blonde in the back.
“Well, honey, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Yeah, of course! This is Y/N. You know Trevor… We’re on a bachelor party… And the groom-to-be - ”
“River Y/L/N! I’m such a huge fan! Your last collection was to die for!” the beautiful queen jested, fanning herself.
“Thank you!” Y/N's brother chirped, giving him a side hug. “I had been dying to watch your performance live!”
“I’m so happy you came, babe!” he smiled sweetly. “Oh, look at the time! Lovely to see you, Rowdy, but the show is about to start, so you know I better get my ass ready. Have fun, bachelors!” the former RuPaul's Drag Race contestant said, hurrying to get backstage.
Y/N was staring at Jack, utterly confused.
“I thought the Dreamgirls show was on Mondays.” he commented, sitting back down at their table.
“River called in a few favors.” she answered automatically, still stunned, shaking her head to snap out of it. “Are you a regular?”
The Devils' player took a deep breath, glaring at Trevor for laughing at her assumption.
“Luke, Alex and this goof held my twenty-seventh birthday party here. I had a bit too much to drink and invaded the stage.” he explained.
“You didn’t…”
“Oh, yes… I did. I performed. It was so good they made me an honorary member.”
“It wasn’t half as good as he thinks it was.” their blond friend smirked. “He was just too drunk to actually remember how it all went down.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Chad said I was drag queen material.” Jack huffed.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself it wasn’t out of pity for a drunk guy who interrupted his number.”
“Anyway, ever since that fateful night, we’ve been coming here for my birthday and other random celebrations and getting drunk with the queens after the show.”
“You guys are the weirdest group of grown men I’ve ever met.” Y/N chuckled, after blinking a couple of times. “And I don’t even mean it in a bad way!”
The doctor propped her elbow on his shoulder, picturing Jack singing and dancing along to show tunes, eighty’s songs and diva hits. It was a difficult idea to grasp, since he had always been so shy around her and she could only get him to let go of his inhibitions with a lot of persistence.
“I think it’s pretty cool how you have fun without worrying about what people might say. I’m just letting you know you’ll be up for karaoke with me the next time we go out.” she stated. “And that I resent not having been invited to your last two parties. They sound like they were epic.” the coach's daughter joked.
“You’re officially invited to my next one, then.”
“Deal.” Y/N shook the hand he held out for her, as the resident DJ announced Chad Michaels' entrance. “Oh my god, is that Cher?”
“He's good, isn’t he?” Jack smirked, whistling loudly as he leaned back on his chair.
“Extraordinary!”
The renowned Cher impersonator dance around the stage, singing the first verses of Believe before waltzing his way to their table, pointing directly at the Devils' player.
“No, not tonight.” he refused politely.
“Come on, show us what you’ve got! Rowdy! Rowdy! Rowdy!” the doctor chanted, making everyone else join her.
He held his hands up in the air in defeat, standing up and taking off his cap, handing it to Y/N, who promptly set it over her slightly disheveled hair, instantly hearing a round of applause as he took the stage.
It’s so sad that you’re leaving, it takes time to believe it. But after all is said and done, you’re going to be the lonely one, woah! Do you believe in life after love?
Y/N watched her former linemate dance around on stage, proud of the man he had grown-up to be. He didn’t make a move to deny the fun he had and the nights he had spent at a club where the patrons seemed to love him. He didn’t try to belittle the performers to assert his own masculinity and wicked sense of superiority like most of the men she had ever met would have. He was simply, unapologetically, having the time of his life.
Besides, he looked extremely handsome while doing it. His t-shirt showed off his biceps, the fabric clinging to his perfectly toned back and chest. Realizing where her thoughts were headed, the doctor forced herself to come back to reality, grinning and bobbing her head to the beat of a song from a faraway land.
Jack noticed her cheerfulness, holding his hand out for her to climb on stage. She gladly took it, joining the two experienced individuals, lip-syncing to the old hit. He twirled her around, never loosening his grip on her small hand or losing the adorable smile on his face and she found herself giggling. For the first time in a while she felt carefree, as light as a feather.
“I think I might let you keep my hat.” he said into her ear.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It looks better on you than it does on me anyway…”
Y/N scrunched up her nose the way she always did when she was flustered, beaming at him adoringly as he spun her around one last time.
“You know, this is pretty amazing. You’re pretty amazing.” she admitted, partly to herself.
I need time to move on, I need love to feel strong.
“Mess, listen, I…”
-
Did I completely make up band names and a club called Rage and another one called Maxim's? Yes.
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jrob64 · 6 months
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Silly Songs With Killian - a CS Modern AU One-shot
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You can blame @sotangledupinit for this silly, but sweet, little story! She posted a prompt on Discord which caused my muse to jump to attention, and I wrote it in two days. If you're not familiar with the Veggie Tales videos, you'll still be able to enjoy this, but do yourself a favor and check out the songs on Spotify here. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy them and I guarantee they'll make you laugh!
Special thanks to Kit for making young Henry look even younger for the pic set, Mary for being my beta, and Krystal for being a second set of eyes for the Silly Songs lyrics and also for the pic set I created. It pays to have wonderful fandom friends!
Summary: After a frustrating and exhausting day, Emma Cassidy is relieved when her little boy, Henry, is entertained by a gorgeous musician at a restaurant, giving her a chance to sit back, relax, and enjoy the music (and the view!) It gets even better when the singer, Killian, sings some of Henry’s favorite Silly Songs from his favorite videos, Veggie Tales. 
Rating: T
Words: 3946
Also posted to Ao3 and ffn
*********
It’s been one hell of a day. It wasn’t supposed to be this exhausting, but of course my ex, Neal, had to complicate things.
I was looking forward to going wedding dress shopping with my future sister-in-law Mary Margaret and her other bridesmaids, sipping champagne and giving my input on each of the possibilities. It was going to be so much fun.
And then...remember the saying that was popular many years ago - shit happens? Well, Neal can be used interchangeably with shit - they’re one and the same.
It was his scheduled weekend with our three-year-old, Henry, which was one reason why Mary Margaret chose this day. Then on Friday, almost an hour after Neal was supposed to pick Henry up at my apartment, he sent me a text: Something came up. Can’t make it this weekend. Tell Henry I’m sorry.
Apparently he turned off his phone after sending it, because he didn’t answer any of my increasingly volatile texts - eighteen of them, to be exact - or phone calls. I had to sit Henry in front of the television so I could go into my bedroom to leave some choice words on Neal’s voicemail.
Fortunately (or unfortunately for my sweet little boy) Henry is used to being let down by his father. In the eighteen months since we called it quits, Neal has skipped out on more weekend visits than he’s kept. I guess being a lying piece of shit takes up way too much of his time and he can’t spare any for his son.
Also unfortunately, all of the people who usually babysit for Henry were unable to watch him. Most of them were included in the shopping trip, my brother David was busy because he was painting the living room of the house he and his fiancée just bought, and Ruby’s Granny was off bowhunting with her new beau. (Bowhunting with her beau has been a running joke ever since she left a week ago.)
So instead of enjoying a carefree day of shopping with Mary Margaret, Belle, Ruby and Elsa, I had to keep an active, inquisitive toddler entertained in one bridal shop after another. We were all relieved when he finally fell asleep in the third shop, until the manager woke him up by screeching about how he was going to drool on the green velvet upholstery. That cost her any business she might have had from us (though in all honesty, her gowns were all hideous and looked like something only the Wicked Witch of the West might wear.)
Eventually, Mary Margaret said ‘yes to the dress’ in the fifth shop late in the afternoon, then we all decided to get an early dinner at a nearby restaurant that serves kids’ meals and has outdoor seating. If Henry has to spend one more minute inside today, I think he might have a complete meltdown.
After placing my order and getting Henry situated with the provided coloring sheet and obligatory four crayons, I hear someone speaking into a microphone and look over to see a guy standing on a small stage with a guitar. A very, VERY attractive guy.
“Good evening, everyone,” he says, and my jaw drops at the sound of his British accent. “My name is Killian and I hope you enjoy the music tonight. I do take requests. Feel free to sing along or dance in this nice, open area in front of me.”
“Oh, wow!” Belle gasps. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he, Emma?”
My jaw snaps shut and I turn to look at her. Seeing her sly smile, I teasingly say, “Why are you asking me? We all have eyes, you know.”
“Yes, but we all have significant others, too,” Ruby adds, which is completely unnecessary but, sadly, also completely true.
While my self pity begins to set in, the guy - Killian - strums his guitar and launches into the Eagles classic “Take it Easy”. Henry, who by this point has scribbled all over the coloring sheet, somehow managed to break his crayon into at least four pieces and, judging by the color of his teeth, took a bite of it as well, looks up with bright eyes. Since I allowed him to kneel on a chair instead of trying to strap him into a booster seat, he takes advantage of it and hops down.
Before I can chase after him, he makes a beeline for the open space in front of the admittedly gorgeous singer and begins jumping around in what passes for a three-year-old’s version of dancing. I sigh and start to get up, but Mary Margaret stops me with a hand on my arm. “Let him go. He’s been very good all day and deserves to burn off some energy. Besides, he’s only a few feet away and we can see him clearly from here.”
It doesn’t take much convincing for me to heed her advice. If someone else can entertain Henry for a while, I’m not going to complain.
When the song comes to an end, Killian acknowledges the smattering of applause and plays the extremely recognizable first chords of “All Right Now”. Henry doesn’t miss a beat, throwing himself around like a rag doll while all of us at our table, as well as most of the other diners, laugh delightedly at his exuberance.
By the time Killian is in the middle of his third song, “Old Time Rock and Roll”, our food arrives and I face the dreaded task of dragging my son back to the table to eat. I nibble at my fish and chips until the song ends, then dash to the makeshift dance floor to cajole Henry. When he shows the expected resistance, Killian chuckles and helpfully says, “Go with your mum, lad. I’ll play a slow song that’s not as much fun for dancing.”
True to his word, he croons the song “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” as Henry acquiesces and comes back to his seat to shove French fries into his mouth as fast as possible. It might not be a good song for Henry’s style of dancing, but Killian’s smooth voice singing the beautiful lyrics is sending pleasant chills down my spine.
Another song with a slow tempo follows, during which my little man polishes off his fries. But when Killian starts “Footloose”, all bets are off and Henry is back on the dance floor with a chicken nugget squeezed into both of his chubby fists.
After we finish our meals, Belle, Ruby and Elsa leave to spend the rest of the evening with their boyfriends. Mary Margaret lingers, telling me she’ll stay to keep me company, because she’d rather not have to help David clean up his painting mess. We don’t want to take up a table, so we move to some empty seats along the edge of the patio from where we can still see my little dancing king.
“You’d think his battery would run down soon,” Mary Margaret comments.
“Are you serious? That kid is like the Energizer bunny, plus he’s been cooped up in stuffy dress shops all day. My money is on the singer wearing out before Henry.”
She’s uncharacteristically quiet for several minutes. When she finally speaks, she says quietly, “He really is very handsome and seems like a nice guy.”
Her statement is out of left field and I’m confused. “Who?”
“The singer - Killian,” she clarifies.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What’s your point?”
“No point. I was just making a comment,” she shrugs, all innocence.
I don’t believe her. Mary Margaret is the queen of set-ups and wears the crown proudly. She introduced Belle to Will, Ruby to Jefferson and Elsa, well, she introduced Elsa to Victor, but that didn’t work out very well. Elsa met Graham on her own.
“I’m not looking for someone to date, Mary Margaret. I’m still dealing with my idiot ex and trying to concentrate on raising my son not to follow in his father’s footsteps.”
“I understand, but…”
And it’s at this point I resign myself to the fact she’s going to spout some argument that’s going to weaken my resolve not to date.
“If Henry had a really good male role model in his life, it would help you in raising him to be a gentleman.”
“Seems to me David does a pretty good job of that, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I know,” she sighs, “but between working, getting the house ready and planning the wedding, his time with Henry is very limited.”
“The house will be ready before you get married and the wedding is in less than five months. After the honeymoon, he’ll have more time.”
“Oh, but then we’ll have children of our own, and you know how much time that takes.”
“Is this your way of telling me you’re pregnant, Mary Margaret?”
‘’What?” she gasps. “No! I’m just saying…”
“I know what you’re saying and I hear you. If the right guy comes along, I wouldn’t be opposed to dating him, but I’m not gonna try to force something to happen.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a date for the wedding, though?” she presses.
“Henry will be my date. He’ll be very dapper in his little tux.”
“But…”
“No buts, Mary Margaret. I don’t want to be set up with someone just so I don’t look pathetic at your wedding.”
We both fall silent as we watch Henry continue to dance in front of the bemused musician. Glancing at the time on my phone, I realize he’s been at it for well over an hour and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. It’s beginning to get dark and I know I’ll have to wrangle him into the car before too much longer for his bath and bedtime.
I feel a little sorry for Killian, though. Nobody else has taken him up on his offer to dance, despite his repeated invitations. In fact, most of the diners aren’t paying attention to him at all. I hate to take his number one fan home, especially when I’m able to sit back and relax while listening to some seriously good music.
“I’m going to take a little break and then I’ll be back,” Killian announces, lifting the guitar strap over his head.
“Well, I guess that’s my cue to take Henry home,” I say to Mary Margaret.
“I suppose so,” she agrees. “Let me say goodbye to him and then I have to be on my way, too. According to his text, David is anxious for me to see how the living room turned out.”
We both stand up and move toward the stage, but I stop in my tracks. Killian is squatting down in front of Henry, listening to him with a huge smile on his face. I don’t know what Henry is saying, and I’m not sure Killian will be able to understand it anyway. Henry has an extensive vocabulary for a three-year-old, but I listen to him with ‘mom ears’, which means I can actually decipher what he’s trying to say.
When we reach them, Killian looks up at us and whatever I was going to say flies right out of my head. From a distance, the man is handsome. Close up, he’s nothing short of breathtaking. Carefully trimmed scruff covers a jawline sharp enough to cut glass, his cheekbones would put every male model to shame, and his dark hair is swept back from his forehead with a few rogue strands hanging down enticingly. Even his slightly pointed ears are adorable.
But it’s his eyes that shut down the functioning part of my brain. To say they are blue is like saying the sun is a tad bit warm, and the way the waning light catches them makes them shine like sapphires. I’m aware that my mouth is hanging open like a fish on dry land, but I can’t seem to make it form actual words.
“Hello, Killian. We’ve been thoroughly enjoying your music tonight, even if we haven’t been showing it as much as this little guy.”
Thank God for the natural chattiness of Mary Margaret.
Killian reaches out to ruffle Henry’s sweaty hair, then stands up. “I’m very happy to hear that,” he says in that beautiful, lilting accent. “I was just telling young Henry here that I’ll play some special songs for him after the break.”
I finally find my tongue. “Oh, but I was coming to tell Henry it’s time to go home.”
My little con artist turns his baby browns on me. “Please, Mommy. I be a good boy, I pwomise.”
That’s just great. Now if I take him home, I’ll have to forfeit my Mom of the Year award.
Mary Margaret laughs. “Well, Henry and Emma may be able to stay, but I really have to go.”
Why did she emphasize my name so much? As if I don’t already know.
She hugs Henry and me, tells Killian goodbye, and winks at me as she passes by. Even without trying to set me up, she’s setting me up.
I look back at Killian, who finishes chugging a bottle of water and grins at me. Reaching out to take my hand, he shakes it and says, “It’s nice to meet you, Emma, and little Henry.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Killian. Thanks for entertaining my son tonight.”
“It’s been my pleasure. I love how uninhibited kids are, and how joyful.”
“Well, his day certainly didn’t start out joyfully at all.” I shouldn’t have said it, but I’m still boiling about what Neal did to his own son, especially when this stranger seems so happy to spend time with him.
“No?” Killian questions. “May I ask what happened?”
I glance down at Henry, not wanting to bash his no-good father in front of him. He’s happily lining up little stones he collected along the edge of the patio, oblivious to the conversation going on above him.
“He was supposed to be with his dad this weekend, but he canceled. Again. So Henry was stuck shopping for wedding dresses with us all day.”
“I see.” He ponders for a second. “Would that wedding dress be for the lovely lass who just left…or someone else?”
“Yeah, it’s for Mary Margaret. She’s engaged to my brother.”
“I’m very glad I was able to make Henry’s day better, because his dancing did the same for me.” We watch Henry play, babbling to himself. “He seems like a happy little lad,” Killian observes.
“I do my best, but as a single mom, I make a lot of mistakes.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Love. All parents make mistakes. It’s a good thing kids have perfect aunts and uncles,” he says with a smirk.
“So, are you an imperfect father or a perfect uncle?” Am I really flirting with him right now?
“I have two nieces, so that would make me the latter.”
“Do you get to see them very often?”
“Aye, they live just a few miles from me, so I spoil them as often as possible. They’re my brother Liam’s girls.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re originally from the U.S., if you don’t mind me saying.”
He chuckles again, rubbing his finger behind his right ear. “We were born in England and lived there until I was fourteen, then my father took a job here so we moved across the pond.”
“That explains the accent.”
He nods and checks his watch, blowing out a breath. “I should probably get back to my set. Will you allow young Henry to stay for a few more songs?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Sure. What’s another fifteen minutes in the grand scheme of things?”
A genuine smile splits his face. “Excellent! I think he’ll particularly like the next three or four songs I play.” He looks around and grabs a nearby chair from an empty table, setting it down beside me. “Won’t you please have a seat, Emma?”
“Such a gentleman,” I say, sinking onto the offered chair.
“Oh, I’m always a gentleman.”
Somehow I don’t mind him flirting with me.
He steps back on the stage, slips his guitar into place, and positions himself in front of the microphone. After giving me a wink, he announces in an overly accented, squeaky voice, “And now it’s time for Silly Songs with Killian. The part of the show where Killian comes out and sings…a silly song.”
I burst out laughing at the very familiar words. Henry is addicted to Veggie Tales, the wacky shows featuring talking fruits and vegetables. I love them because they teach good moral values; he loves them because they’re hilarious. His favorite part of every video is Silly Songs with Larry the Cucumber, which we watch over and over and over again. Apparently he conveyed this obsession to Killian.
Killian closes his eyes, somberly strums his guitar, and sings, “Oh, where is my hairbrush? Oh, where is my hairbrush? Oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh wherrrrrrrre…is my hairbrush?”
Henry is jumping up and down like a kangaroo on a pogo stick, shouting, “Mommy! Mommy! It’s the Lawwy song! Keeyin is singin’ the Lawwy song!”
Wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, I look around at the half-dozen people at the tables, who are looking at the musician like he’s lost his damn mind. Bunch of sticks in the mud. Lighten up.
But Killian isn’t bothered by their response, or lack thereof. He smoothly transitions to another of Henry’s favorite silly songs. “Oh, everybody’s got a water buffalo. Yours is fast, but mine is slow. Oh, where’d we get them, I don’t know. But everybody’s got a water buffalo, oooooo.”
Henry is beside himself with excitement. He’s running around in a circle, waving his arms in the air in his best impression of a rabid chimpanzee.
Killian moves on to sing a few lines of “I Love My Lips” (I can’t help thinking I’m quite fond of them, too), followed by “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything”.
By this time, the diners have relaxed, laughing and clapping along with the crazy tunes. Meanwhile, my son has finally worn himself out, collapsing in a small heap in front of the stage, looking up at Killian adoringly.
“...and we’ve never been to Boston in the falllllll,” Killian concludes with a flourish and takes a deep, dramatic bow.
I dig into my purse and pull out a twenty dollar bill. I always try to watch my budget, but I’ll skip getting a chocolate caramel latte for a few days to compensate. It’s worth it for what Killian did for Henry tonight.
Walking up to the stage, I drop the bill into the tip jar, smiling up at the singer. He’s between songs, so I say, “Thank you so much, Killian. You’re my hero for entertaining Henry tonight. It was great and he loved it, didn’t you, kid?”
Henry jumps to his feet. “I weally did, Keeyin! I love Lawwy songs!”
“What do you tell him?” I prompt.
“Thank you, Keeyin,” he says obediently.
“You’re very welcome, lad. I play here again in three weeks. Perhaps you can stop in and see me again?” He’s talking to Henry, but he’s looking at me.
“Can we, Mommy?” Henry pleads.
I know we probably can’t. This restaurant is all the way across the city from where we live, plus it’s pretty expensive. Mary Margaret footed the bill today, but twelve bucks for a kid’s meal is a little steep and I won’t pay it. I don’t want to say any of this though, because my tired son is walking a thin line between lingering happiness and an emotional collapse. So I use the parental standard, “We’ll see.”
Taking Henry’s hand, I say, “Thanks, again, Killian. Have a good evening.”
Something that looks like slight panic flashes through those gorgeous eyes of his and he speaks into the microphone, “I’ll be back in five, folks.” He slides his guitar around to his back and steps off the stage, placing himself directly in front of me. “Emma, if I may be so bold, and if you’re not already dating someone, would you consider going out with me?”
“Wh-what?” Apparently, getting asked out by the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on renders me a bit stupid.
He lightly wraps his hand around my wrist and pulls me further toward the side of the patio for some privacy. “Even though we just met, I would really like to get to know you better.”
“But…but you don’t even know my last name.”
“What is it?”
“Cassidy.”
“Mine is Jones, so now we know each other a little better already.”
I stare at him, trying to think of a single reason why I should say no to him. “I…we…um…Henry and I, we…uh…we come as a packaged set.” That’s the way, Emma. Use your kid to try to scare him off. And you did it so gracefully, too.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m really quite fond of your son. That’s not a deal breaker,” he states firmly. He still hasn’t let go of my wrist and now he’s rubbing his thumb over it. I find I don’t mind at all.
“I…”
“Mommy, potty!” Henry announces.
Oh, geez. Killian has to get back to his set and Henry has to pee. I’m running out of time.
Dropping Henry’s hand, I rummage through my purse, trying to find a pen. “Got a piece of paper?” I ask, mid-rummage.
Killian dashes to his guitar case and pulls out a piece of sheet music, returning with it just as I locate the elusive pen. He plants his foot on a chair and slaps the paper down on his knee so I can scribble my number on it.
When I finish, I lift Henry into my arms and take off to find a bathroom. Before disappearing inside the restaurant, I glance back at Killian. He’s still standing where I left him, a broad smile on his face as he grips the paper in his hand. Raising my free hand, I give him a little wave and he returns it.
After I’ve had time to think about it, I might regret giving him my number. Right now I just have to keep my kid from peeing down the front of my dress.
*********
A year ago, Killian Jones was my hero for giving me a chance to relax while he entertained my son. Five months later, he was once again my hero by being my date to Mary Margaret and David’s wedding. Today, he’s still my hero because he’s continuously proving that not all men are incomparable asses.
On the contrary, he’s everything I dreamed a man should be, once upon a time. Killian Jones is talented, intelligent, funny, considerate, masculine, caring, loving, passionate, and a great conversationalist, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous (if I didn’t mention that, it would be a crime.) He’s the total package and I’m head-over-heels in love with him.
Oh, and he’s a fantastic role model for my little boy. I usually hate to admit when Mary Margaret is right, but in this case, she was unequivocally correct. He and Henry absolutely adore each other and it makes my heart so happy. They do everything together - read books, play Star Wars with lightsabers, build block towers, climb trees, ride bikes, you name it.
And Henry loves singing silly songs with his soon-to-be stepfather. What more could a mother want for her son? Except, perhaps, a sibling.
Killian and I are working on that…and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.
*********
Thank you for reading. I hope it brightened your day!
Tagging: @hookedmom​​​​​​ @kmomof4​​​​​​ @cs-rylie​​​​​​ @qualitycoffeethings​​​​​​ @grimmswan​​​​​​ @wyntereyez​​​​​​ @the-darkdragonfly​​​​​​ @ultraluckycatnd​​​​​​ @paradiselady19​​​​​​ @xarandomdreamx​​​​​​ @motherkatereloyshipper​​​​​​ @julesep3026​​​​​​ @courtorderedcake​​​​​​ @lfh1226-linda​​​​​​ @pawshapedheart​​​​​​ @vampcoffeegyrl23​​​​​​ @tiganasummertree​​​​​​ @captainswan4life85​​​​​​ @bluewildcatfanatic​​​​​​ @eleveneitherway​​​​​​ @elfiola​​​​​​ @kday426​​​​​​ @julieenchanted-swans​​​​​​ @gingerchangeling​​​​​​ @andiirivera​​​​​​ @djlbg​​​​​​ @jonesfandomfanatic​​​​​​ @snowbellewells​​​​​​ @huntressandlioness1​​​​​​ @anmylica​​​​​​ @booksteaandtoomuchtv​​​​​​ @pirateherokillian​​​​​​ @cocohook38​​​​​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​​​​​​ @laschatzi​​​​​​ @zaharadessert​​​​​​ @jennjenn615​​​​​​ @yasbio2015​​​​​​ @lyssapup27​​​​​​ @nachocheese-itsmycheese​​​​​​ @singersdd​​​​​​ @mie779​​​​​​ @undercaffinatednightmare​​​​​​ @winterbaby89​​​​​​ @xsajx​​​​​​ @jackieorioncat​​​​​​ @teamhook​​​​​​ @bdevereaux-blanche​​​​​​ @soniccat​​​​​​ @searchingwardrobes​​​​​​ @jarienn972​​​​​​ @apiratewhopines​​​​​​​ @softkilly​​​​​​​ @goforlaunchcee​​​​​​​ @kymbersmith-90​​​​​​​ @captainswan217-blog
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kimchaybrainrot · 4 months
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Neither fandom brainrot nor gender feels but a different third thing
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows: ten years ago to the day, I tried to kill myself.
It was a Friday night. My housemates were away for the weekend. I locked myself in my room, took as many sleeping pills as I could find, and waited to die.
Obviously, it didn't work. I lost however many days in a hungover stupor and could only make it to the kitchen by crawling, but I was alive.
It feels so - stupid, so vulnerable but so insignificant, to share this. There was no lasting damage; I could have tried harder, maybe put rocks in my coat and walked into the frigid winter lake like I thought about. Maybe I didn't try hard enough to die. But it's been ten years. Back then I couldn't imagine living at this point, let alone the things I would actually be happy for.
I mean, I also feel ungrateful. Nothing happened to make me this way. I don't have any family trauma, or a history of abuse, addiction, or sexual trauma. Lots of people have legitimate reasons for why they decide to take their lives. What do I have - a brain that works weird.
That aside - I never thought I'd make a post like this. Ten years later, and yeah, the anxiety gets bad, depression is still there, lots of things in my life are at what feels like a crossroads right now - but there's also stuff I am so glad I got to experience in these past 10 years that it would feel a little disingenuous not to mention it. At least a sprinkling.
The sound of drums through a speaker so loud it alters your heartbeat. Hugs from friends. Laughing til you're in pain. Giving speeches at weddings. Meeting my partner. Reading A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time. Helping colleagues at work. Finding a favourite song, a favourite band. Reading poetry. Learning to drive. Watching the seasons change through the bathroom window. So many first sips of coffee in the morning.
Dance, my love, my truest passion. Learning new skills, experiencing new ways of moving and of thinking of moving. Baby's first stage performance. Tap dancing on a broken shelf my wife screwed together during covid. The friends I've made in-studio. The feeling of engaging my core properly when I lift my leg in retire. Practicing dance on the subway. Improv that feels almost achingly raw. Being so sore I can't bend over. Realizing six months down the line that I actually know the barre exercise. The pain of walking on feet that are split open and bleeding and raw. Cheering my heart out for classmates and friends as they dance.
Delicious food. Learning I like gin cocktails and dancing drunkenly. Fandom and the people I've met in each one, fanfic and the way it peels back layers of my heart; the brainrot and excited screaming, the community, the desire to write and create. Immense capslock.
Hugs with my brother. Excitement to see him at Christmas. Holding my friends' child in my arms. Sitting outside with the neighbour's cat. Matcha lattes. Kisses. Helping friends through hard times. Holding my partner's hand. The way the sun feels on my skin after a long winter. Being smiled at by babies.
Learning more about who I am.
It's a surreal day. Nothing is perfect and I'm still scared of the future, cause I know it won't be without pain and heartache and fear.
But there's also so much damn love.
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lilabella12 · 5 months
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1348 - Day 3
"Say Elaine, where's Rachel?" Evan asks one day out of the blue.
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"Silly, don't you know? She's with daddy. She wanted to see him so much she just went to get him."
"But I want to see daddy, too."
"I do, too. But she never ever met him so she gets to see him first, okay? We have to wait a bit."
"I can wait" Evan smiles.
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Julianne does, too, when she hears the conversation. It's a good thing that kids sometimes find their own explanations.
Cassian is nervous when his wedding day approaches. He takes extra care preparing his home and the fields that day.
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He even asks Julianne for advice.
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"Don't worry, Cassian, everyone is nervous. You will get to spend the rest of your lives together, she would not have agreed if she didn't want to."
Julianne is right if course. They plan a small ceremony in their back garden in the summer and all of the Atwoods and McKinleys attend.
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"I promise to take good care of you until the day I am no longer able to."
"I promise the same to you."
Even Sir McKinley has to wipe a tear from his cheek when their vows are spoken. He is so glad that his daughter found love in these hard times with a war raging and the plague pillaging the country.
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After the ceremony Cassian takes Isabelle home for the first time.
"I made most of it myself. It's how I plan to provide for us and our family if the Watcher will allow it."
"It feels like home already, Cassian."
"It's not as big as you're used to and I need to fix the stairs again and...."
"It's perfect. Don't talk now. I want to cherish this moment with my husband."
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"Okay, love."
A few days afterwards Madeline speaks to the local tavern owners about playing the Lute in the evenings.
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She even plays some songs for them and they agree to let her play two days a week for starters.
While waiting outside for her brother she even meets their son.
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"And who amight you be, just standing on front of the tavern? Why don't you go inside? I can fix you a drink if you want to."
"I'm Maddie, I just spoke to the owners about my music. I'll be back on the weekends to play."
"Oh, shame. So no drinks for you. Mother tells me not to pursue staff."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, what did you think?"
"Sorry to cut this short, I think my brother is coming to get me."
"Sure, sure. Bye then, Musician."
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"The name is Maddie" she mumbles after he leaves. What a rude encounter....
She tells Cassian about the boy when he comes to pick her up.
"I would stay clear of him if I were you. He doesn't sound like the nicest boy in the neighbourhood."
"I agree. But that's my employers son, so... I think I'll have to mingle a bit."
"So you got the job?"
"Yes, I did. Fridays and Saturdays for now."
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"I knew you could do it!"
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mstacobelle · 1 year
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The Sunday night woe
This weekend was a good weekend. We spent some lazy time watching movies, I spent some time with my nose in a book while he puttered around on Saturday. He made breakfast this morning and we just enjoyed each other’s company. We make each other laugh. We (redacted) quite a bit too this weekend too. Even a little Sunday morning delight. There’s just something about having someone reach for you in the wee hours. That was missing from my life and from my marriage. E has reminded me what it’s like to be wanted.
I really need to be home this next weekend and do some chores. I told him last night that next weekend I’m not coming till Saturday night. He’s planning on working some OT on Friday, so I think that will work for both of us. The following weekend is Easter and we are both on vacation for several days. I won’t get anything accomplished then. The 13th is my procedure and everything I’m reading says no strenuous or heart raising activity for a few weeks till it’s healed. So nothing will get done then. Unfortunate timing too because April is my tough month. Anniversary of mom’s passing, old wedding anniversary. A month of reminders of loss and failure. I guess I’ll focus on crafting which I can do with little efforts.
The teenager put on her prom dress to show me and oh my heart. Drop dead gorgeous. I said to E, can we lock her up? Her dress is Navy and just fantastic with her ginger complexion. I’m glad she’s sharing these little moments with me. I hadn’t expected or anticipated getting attached to her but I am. I’m glad E just lets us find our own connection without getting involved himself.
I’m drying some herbs in the dehydrator. I’m going to hate giving that back to him. Who knew i’d use such a thing.
My current dining table is Amish built, solid cherry and the best farmhouse table. It’s too big for the space. My brother is giving me a smaller antique table he thrifted from an estate sale and I’m going to redo it. I’ll store my big table in the basement till I move. So that’s my summer upcycle project.
E is starting to get to the we need to spend some time at your house attitude. He’s been afraid I’ll be resentful because of the lack of balance. I told him as soon as it warms up, I’ll choose to be at home and you’ll have to come to me sometimes. I said to him I’m getting very familiar with your habits and quirks and lifestyle. I know what things will be a challenge cohabitation wise. You don’t know that about me. You won’t until you choose to spend time in my spaces. 7 months and he’s never slept here. He’s never spent more than 4 or 5 hours here in one sitting actually. I’m really curious to see what Summer will be like.
I blew my diet this weekend and kicked myself out of keto and then kicked myself back in. I think it was a good test of can I eat crap one day and then come home and eat well 5-6 days. I can. I need to measure and weigh in for final week. It’s transitioning week and my goal is too eat the lower carbs but eat some berries and things too. Taco salad for dinner the next few days and tuna salad for lunch. Blueberries for snack. I also bought Monkfruit extract for sweetener. Everyone keeps mentioning it, so I’ll give it a try.
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lindonorris · 2 years
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Details, a shortfic with Charles Leclerc!
(1/?)
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Plot: Where the love between Elena Sainz and Charles Leclerc grows into little details.
Warnings: none except mentions of alcohol, probably two or three bad words and a lot of fluff.
(English is not my first language so sorry if anything is spelled wrong).
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Elena walked through the Paddock with her head down and sunglasses preventing the sunlight from making her head pound even more. She followed the footsteps of Soraia, her assistant, recognizing her only by the red sneakers she wore, without bothering to look up to see where she was going.
If there was something the brunette regretted in her entire life, it was drinking too much on a Friday night knowing she had plans the next day. Her bad mood was palpable everywhere she walked.
Considering the fact that she got kicked in the ass by her -now- ex-fiancé, just two weeks before the wedding, all the chaos her personal life had become since then and last night's drunkenness trying to lessen how much of a failure she felt in every aspect of her life, she was in perfect conditions. That's what she had said to Soraia, who obviously didn't believe her words one percent, she just let out a sigh and waved for Elena to follow her to the car that would take them to their weekend plans.
"Lena are you even trying to hear what I’m saying?" Soraia seems to be about to lose her infinite patience at that moment.
"Sorry, I'm not feeling very well. Do you have any headache medicine with you?" The eldest just laughs, leaving aside the fact that the girl is totally oblivious to anything happening around her. Handing her the small pill and reaching for a bottle of water, Soraia waved at the pilot who was heading towards her, without Elena seeing.
“Mi amor, I'm so glad you came!" Lena recognizes her brother's voice, soon being swallowed in a tight hug from him, who whispers a sorry, he's an asshole in her ear.
Carlos Sainz Jr was one of - if not the biggest - passion in Elena Sainz's life. Since they were kids the girl took him as a role model and surprisingly nothing changed even when the life of a very known Formula 1 driver took him away from home. The distance and less frequent physical contact changed even more when the girl launched her career as a model and moved to another continent.
"It's all right!" Elena tries to smile. She didn't know if she was trying to convince her brother or herself.
"I know you better than anyone here in this place, and I also know that pale face and the bad mood that's hanging around here. And you smell like alcohol! What a decadence, Elena Sainz!" The brunette laughed, while looking sideways at Soraia, who shrugged.
"I tried to warn her, but she didn't even hear two words of everything I said." Elena snorts, looking around and pretending to be interested in anything other the hard she was taking from Carlos and Soraia.
"So, you can leave it to me, I can handle the monster. You can enjoy and walk around, I'll call you if we need anything!" And then he left, dragging Elena towards the eating area that was over there. Carlos was free until early afternoon, when he would switch places with his teammate, heading to free practice.
Nothing in the snack display looked appetizing at that moment to the model but the girl knew that her brother would force her to put something in her stomach anyways.
"So, how things are going at the agency?" Carlos asked, setting the tray with a plain sandwich and orange juice in front of his younger sister.
"Always the same, completely stressful!" Carlos laughed, starting to eat his own lunch. "But I don't think I would change a thing." The woman smiles. "Except that I always wanted you with me, of course. But I’m already feeling at home there." He nodded, Carlos felt the same way.
The Sainz family have always been very close, when they still lived together, every night they gathered at the dinner table to talk about the frustrations of their routines, on Saturdays it was usual to find them piled up in the living room playing some card game or watching movies. Seeing Carlos leave home at a young age had broken Elena and her mother's hearts in many ways, Carlos Sainz (the father) understood, he had lived that way too, from continent to continent the eldest spent his weekends, showing the world his talent in racing.
Despite everything, they continued to be extremely present in each other's lives, chatting by text every day and whenever possible they went to the fashion shows that Elena participated and to Carlos's races.
"You know Junior, I don't want to comment on that asshat. Entertain me as best you can." She braced her left hand over her brother's, who gave her a mischievous smile. The same one he'd thrown at her when they were kids and they were close to do something wrong. “Okay, let's not go that deep, nothing involving alcohol, please!" And then the two stood up laughing and walked out of the cafeteria.
"Have you seen Lando around?" Elena shook her head, she hadn't seen the boy in a long time. They exchanged messages and comments on posts on their social media from time to time, but they hadn't seen each other in person since Sainz's last race for his former team, McLaren.
Nor had she met his new partner at Ferrari. Somehow she had never bumped into the Monegasque pilot around the Paddock, she only knew him from photos and unfortunately couldn't deny it, Charles Leclerc was the definition of the word "perfection”.
"Lele!" Elena smiled as she recognized Lando Norris's voice. "Finally you’re available, should I start my attempts to win your heart now or should I leave it for later?" The group laugh.
"In your dreams Norris, in your dreams!" Carlos ruffles the youngest's hair, the three of them walking towards their respective teams.
“Lando, we're going to introduce some colleagues to Elena and tomorrow after the race we'll go out to celebrate. Let the funniest driver on the grid know that we'll need his services!" Lando nodded, saying goodbye and heading towards Daniel.
Elena stopped suddenly, placing her hands on her stomach.
"Why did you turn blue all of a sudden? Is everything okay?" She just nodded, bowing slightly and feeling another pang in her stomach. At that moment she was absolutely sure that sandwich had been her worst choice of the day.
"No, I'm not okay." She smiled nervously, running in the opposite direction, desperately looking for a bathroom before she put all the lunch she had just eaten out.
"Por el amor de Dios, where is the toilet?" She asked hurriedly, not even looking at the person she had bumped into.
"On your left!" The Monegasque responded, recognizing his teammate's younger sister. Elena quickly pushes open the door, finding the nearest garbage can and then emptying everything she still had in her stomach.
"Fuck, are you okay?" Charles asked, also stepping into the bathroom, not caring if it was the ladies' room and the few people who saw him enter stared at him weirdly.
"I..." The woman didn't even had time to finish, instantly going back to dumping everything she had ingested for probably the entire prior week.
"Dios mío, Elena!" Carlos entered the bathroom, breathing heavily from having to run after his sister.
"I’m gonna die!" Elena manages to get through her clipped speech, gasping for air.
“You’re not going to die, relax!" The Spaniard replied, laughing. "I don't know whether to feel pity or disgusted.” Charles laughs along with his friend.
"Okay, I feel better now." She speaks, moving away from the sink where she had just washed her face and taking a deep breath, just before losing strength in her legs and practically falling into Charles's lap.
"Okay, what's going on in here? Is it some kind of secret club? What the hell Elena, even you couldn’t resist him?" Lando appeared in the doorway, laughing at his friend's face, which was now turned into a pepper while the three men present laughed.
Elena rolled her eyes, letting go of the pilot's arms and trying to walk steadily towards the door, which was not possible as she soon felt another wave of dizziness hit her.
"Okay, enough messing, I'll call Soraia and you'll go back to the hotel." Carlos spoke up, taking her by the shoulders and helping his sister to go to the Ferrari facilities.
Elena found herself sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, waiting for Carlos to come back from wherever he'd been.
"Sorry for making you wait, your brother had to go to training and asked me to keep you company until Soraia arrives." She nodded, accepting the bottle of water Charles handed her. He watched the woman open the bottle and drain most of the contents in one gulp.
"Do you feel better now?" She nooded.
"Three more of these and I can consider myself a living person again." She had a small smile on her face, pointing towards the water bottle she still had in her hands.
"Good, I was worried you were going to throw up all over my new sneakers." He shrugged, taking a middle finger in response from Elena, who laughed.
"I’ll never drink like this again!" The Spaniard stated, throwing her head back and settling herself in a better position in the chair.
"Maybe not for the same reason!" Charles shot a wink towards the brunette, who he shrugged, turning to see the door opening, revealing her assistant.
"Can I kill you now?" The eldest said, stepping into the room.
"My head is already doing you the favor!" She joked, running a hand through her hair, being watched by the Monegasque.
"Let's go to the hotel, your brother wants you to spend the night in his room. You've got the man worried!”
"If he keeps making jokes about what happened today I'll throw myself out the window." Elena retorted, feeling the bitter taste in her mouth again, making Charles stand up automatically when he saw the girl bring her hand to her mouth.
"You need to take some medicine and rest for a bit. A good and cold shower will help!” Charles said, stroking the brunette's arm. She took a deep breath, nodding again, she wouldn't be able to say something without spilling it all over again.
Soraia helped her out of her chair, the two of them walking to the door. After waving to Charles and thanking him for the company, the two left towards the hotel where the pilots were staying for the weekend.
"Take a shower, I'll ask room service to bring you some tea and arrange to go to a pharmacy to buy medicine." The oldest of the girls pushed her lightly towards the bathroom.
The two worked together for about two years now and thanks to the little difference in age, the two understood each other very well and adored each other. Soraia took care of Elena, just like Elena took care of Soraia.
Elena walked into the bathroom wearing a white hotel robe. She untied her hair and then went under the running water, trying to wash away how unease she felt.
"Is everything okay over there?" Soraia asked after knocking twice on the door, receiving a request from Elena to come in.
"Could you stay here for a while? I don’t want to be alone." Soraia smiled tenderly, she knew that moment was being rather difficult. As much as she had fought with Elena for the way she was dealing with the situation, Soraia knew that her friend was feeling lost.
The glass of the shower contained a black and frosted film, preventing whoever was outside not to see more than the silhouette of whoever was inside. Soraia sat on the sink, thinking.
"You know, Charles is really cute!" She could hear a faint laugh echoing from Elena.
"I can't deny that, he was really kind to me." She replied, finishing rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.
"I answered the door before, there's a delivery for you outside!" Soraia said after a moment of silence. Elena turned off the shower, putting her hand out of the shower for Soraia to hand her the robe, seconds later, leaving the small space wrapped in it.
"From who?" She asked, wrapping a towel in her hair and pulling her toothbrush out of her necessaire next to her friend.
"I don't know, they just asked to deliver it to you." She shrugged, typing something into her phone. A short amount of time later, Elena came out of the bathroom, accompanied by Soraia, who was looking at her with some excitement in her eyes, waiting for the woman's reaction.
Elena was startled to find the bouquet of colorful flowers on the coffee table, along with a bag of chocolates and some medicine. But no letter or anything that revealed who had sent it.
"Seriously, who sent this?" Elena pointed to the flowers, picking up one of the medicine boxes and reading what it was for.
"I told you, they sent it with room service, they didn't want to tell me too, something about privacy, or whatever she said, I was too enchanted by the flowers to hear it." Soraia shrugged, it was obvious that she knew who had sent the flowers and medicine, but she wouldn't be the one to reveal that to Elena.
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tickle-page · 10 months
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Domestic ships Hcs!
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I decided to do my fav ship in Big Mouth!
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• What is their love language at home, from subtle gestures to bringing home gifts and spoiling the others?
Matthew gives Jay what ever THE FUCK he needs. At first it be small things like chocolate, or roses, or maybe both, but then it escalated to him buying the other a freaking gum machine? Ig. Jay, on the other hand, he’s a bit of a mess. He’ll give Matthew a cum sock that he made, and/or he’ll give him a pillow made for fucking? Matthew doesn’t want to straight up tell Jay his gifts suck, but that’s his boyfriend, so he did it anyway. Jay wasn’t too hurt abt it at all, very understanding he was.
• Who cooks, who cleans, and who makes the biggest mess?
If you watch Big Mouth, this will not come to a surprise. Matthew cleans all. The. Time. He’s a skilled chef too, believe it or not. Jay doesn’t do anything neat and/or tidy, he makes the messes, leaving his boyfriend to clean them up. Matthew would tickle some sense into Jay every time he sees him leave a mess, which taught him a lot. But he acts like a dog, so he needs a lot of training to not leave messes behind.
• Their most occurring reason for having tickle fights, and who wins them?
As I stated before, Matthew would tickle the living shit out of Jay because he just won’t clean up after himself. Jay hates getting tickled, so he gets his revenge on his boyfriend, which Matthew hates getting tickled too, so he would retaliate and destroy his shorter boyfriend. Jay is just more, and I mean more, sensitive than his boyfriend, so Matthew has the up most needed advantage.
• Who does the groceries, and what do they buy? (Unnecessary things, Healthy/Unhealthy, etc.)
Matthew sent Jay out to do the shopping, once! And once was enough. He came back with loads of icecream, candy, and things to prank his brothers with, but all Matthew asked for was milk and eggs. So Matthew would do the shopping for them because Jay had ADHD, so he’ll get distracted and forget why he came there, resulting in buying unnecessary things. Matthew will buy some vegetables, but he buys non vegetables too, making sure him and his boyfriend gets the proper meal.
• The kind of movies they like to watch together and who picks them?
They have a calendar set, so they know who’s turn it is to pick the movie. They would watch movies every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, and Matthew will pick something kid friendly more so, I see him as a mystery type of guy, while Jay picks something horror or scary. Matthew doesn’t like all of that, so he usually watches like Madea, Jay gets bored of Madea or Matthew’s movies in general, so he puts on movies like “Friday the Thirteenth” or “Chucky”. Jay also scores bc Matthew will occasionally jump towards Jay, hiding behind him while grabbing his arm. He’s much shorter than his boyfriend, so he actually enjoys feeling stronger and bigger than Matthew.
• “Their song”- The song they often dance to and that played/would play at their wedding.
OMG!! They are different in personality wise, but they can agree ON ONE SONG!! And that is dead girl in the pool- Girl in Red IT’S SUCH A BANGER SONG!!
• What kind of pet would they have, and what would they name it?
Jay would NOT leave his pit bull behind, so when he moves in with Matthew he’ll make sure to bring him. His names, Ludacris, btw. But Matthew would want something exotic, like a monkey, and he’ll name him, Gonzo.
• The most trivial things they fight over?
Jay has a habit of pulling pranks because of his older brothers so he’ll forget the pranks are lying around in his house, and Matthew would get stuck in them all the time. This got a stern talking to.
• A wild spider appeared, how do they act?
Spider? Hell naw, not for Matthew. If he sees a spider, he’ll jump on the closet highest thing, screaming for his boyfriend to come and kill it. Jay would come running everytime, only to find a long leg that his dearest boyfriend was scared of, but honestly, same too. Jay starts laughing making Matthew angry and start yelling, “JUST KILL THE FUCKING SPIDER JAY!” Jay giggled some more “Wohohoa, sorry your majesty, I shall slain the monster for thou my dearest husband ordered of me too!” They aren’t married, but I thought it was cute. Jay picked it up and tossed it outside, now Matthew can come down safe and sound.
• Their behavior in bed (does anyone steal blankets, who wakes up first, etc.)
Jay is a MASSIVE bed hogger, he would steal the blankets, snore, and kick in his sleep. Matthew got tired of this so he would sleep on the couch, WHICH WAS HIGHLY DANGEROUS IN JAY’S HOUSE!!! But he just didn’t care. Jay woke up at 12 in the morning realizing his boyfriend wasn’t in bed, only to find him on the couch fast asleep. So him being the MANLIEST and STRONGEST out of the two, he carried his sleeping boyfriend bridal style, and placed him gently in his bed, tucked him in, and went to go sleep on the couch. Matthew would wake up early at like 7 on weekends and 5 on school days, so he’ll find his boyfriend laying on the couch without a blanket, went to go get one, kissed him, and waited till he woke up so they can go to school together. FOR JAY!! This boy sleeps through half the day on weekends, sleeping till one in the afternoon, and he would do the same for school days, if his boyfriend doesn’t come wake him up everytime.
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today was a lot better I think? nothing has really changed but I tried to be more positive and upbeat about it all. yesterday my lead took away a small project they’d assigned me but then today she changed her mind and gave it back, so I had something to work on for most of the day that wasn’t reading these accursed trainings. I also set up a bunch of other stuff (wifi, electricity, driver’s license appointment, etc) in preparation for the move. only one more work day and one weekend day before I officially fly to seattle with pip!!!!!!!!!! ruthie gets to hang out with my parents for an extra week and a half while pip and I scope out the new place… I’m going to miss my angel baby but also I think it’ll be good for pip to get to settle in and explore a bit with me because 1) he’ll be chiller with the movers and 2) I think having to deal with his sister’s barking in unfamiliar settings makes him a little tense lol.
my pod won’t arrive until next friday which feels like an eternity (I just want my NEW COUCH!!!) but I’m going to try to make the best of the time. here’s my tentative plan:
sunday: arrive in the morning! give pip some time to decompress at my brother’s place while I drive a couple carloads of all the amazon stuff I had delivered to his house over there in the afternoon. maybe set up the router and see if I can activate the wifi. I might also do a costco + target run to buy basics (toilet paper, towels, toiletries, etc) and then if I’m not too tired I might also swing by home depot to get some paint samples + initial supplies for the living room and kitchen.
monday: I decided to pay a company to do the initial deep clean of the new place (I’m already spending a million bucks on this move why not spend more!). although in retrospect I probably should’ve had them come after I painted hmmmm. might reconsider that tbd. I also want to go over during the day to see what the samples look like at different times.
tues/wed/thurs/fri: paint living room and kitchen (and maybe bedroom too), get everything set up, buy all the stuff I didn’t ship, order peel and stick tile + wallpaper, spend time figuring out what I want to buy furniture-wise, prowl around facebook marketplace looking for deals, maybe get my sister or brother to help me with some of the peel and stick projects, etc. pod arrives on friday!! on friday I might try veryyyy carefully taking some stuff out myself since a few of the disassembled furniture pieces were near the front of the pod and I could start putting those back together.
saturday: movers come in the morning!! then I can unpack all weekend!!!! my priorities are to reassemble all the big pieces of furniture so it feels like a place where l actually live. I don’t have my bookshelf situation figured out yet but that should make unpacking a bit easier since I can just stack boxes of books upstairs for now. AAAAAAAA I’m so excited I hate packing but I actually quite enjoy unpacking especially when you’ve been parted from your stuff for some time.
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boldlyvoid · 2 years
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It’s me! 👨🏼‍🦳 back with an update!
So this coming week is his birthday and I won’t be able to spend it with him since I’m going out of town on Wednesday for my brother’s wedding.
I made his birthday kind of a big deal just because he said he doesn’t really ever do anything. We went out to eat, we saw a movie, we went to Top Golf; ate, had drinks just a general good time. I got him this cool watch box because he’s a watch guy, he loves it.
I spent the entire weekend with him, Friday evening to just now and it was the best.
We finally did the freaky… good lord was it everything I thought it was going to be and more. Lemme tell you… God is indeed a woman, I met her more than once this weekend.
Before I left, he said when I got back home from my brother’s wedding, he said he wanted to talk about where things are going to go from this point forward. He said he wanted to give me time to think about it between now and then that way I don’t have to jump into something I’m not ready for.
I found out he was engaged when he was in his early 20s, it was his high school girlfriend. 2 months into their engagement she cheated on him and that was her way of breaking up with him. She was scared to get married so young and that’s why she did it. I think that’s why he gave me so long to think about what I want next?
I without a doubt had such a good weekend and don’t want to face reality of Monday, I just want to see him again.
Oh he sounds like such a lovely man! I hope you do end up together, no matter what the age gap is I think you’ve found your person ❤️
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missduplicities · 9 months
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Chapter 59: Family Meeting (pt. 2)
Eunha was the last of her roommates to leave the house that morning. She had a virtual meeting, which gave her enough time to prepare something to eat for her and her brother, who was still asleep upstairs. After her meeting, Yoongi asked her to call him so they could schedule their weekly agenda with Han. Finally, about an hour later, Seong Dae-Hyun came downstairs to inspect the kitchen for something to eat. Eunha didn’t notice, being too focused on the screen in her videoconference with her team to realize her brother was pacing around wearing her own bathrobe, which suited him very tight.
            “Hm, Ms. Seong?” Han interrupted when he caught sight of Dae-Hyun in the corner of Eunha’s camera.
            “Yeah?” She asked, still oblivious. Han made a move with his head, not wanting to say out loud that there was someone behind her since Yoongi was distracted by his phone. Only then, Eunha turned and saw Dae-Hyun, sitting on top of the counter, eating the breakfast she had made. “Oh, my God! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
            “Who is that?” Dae-Hyun asked, not reading the room. Eunha muted her mic and turned the camera off; Yoongi was still busy on his phone, so he didn’t notice the interruption.
            “It’s my boss, you creep!” Eunha told her brother. “Why the hell are you wearing my robe?”
            “I didn’t bring mine,” he said, as if wearing hers was the obvious choice. “Did you put salt on this?”
            “Hey, I’m working! Go to your room!”
            “Ugh, so grumpy for no reason,” he sighed, taking his plate to the living room to continue his breakfast.
            “Sorry about that,” Eunha said, going back to her team’s meeting. “My brother arrived last night,”
            “I didn’t know you had a brother,” Yoongi said, finally putting down his phone.
            “Uhm… I’m sure I’ve mentioned it,” Eunha said. “Anyway, back on the agenda,”
            “Right,” Han said, sharing the screen again so they could see the calendar. “We have the trimestral meeting in HQ this Wednesday; the Label Managers have been working on the distribution of the projects per team. From what I heard, they are asking Mr. Min and you, Ms. Seong, to work on the new debut group’s EP,”
            “I called Deku last night,” Yoongi said. “She wanted to discuss the details of the concept they have for this group. It’s pretty straight-forward, taking inspiration from early 2000s American rock bands, mostly,”
            “Do you know who is running the visual concept?” Eunha asked, taking notes.
            “I think it’s the same team that’s running Kwan’s project,” Han said; both Yoongi and Eunha grunted, they didn’t like to work with Kwan.
            “How old are the group members?” Yoongi asked.
            “I think the youngest is 20,” Han said, going over his notes again. “All I know is there are four members: drummer, bassist, and two guitarists,”
            “Make sure to ask for their brand book and concept book,” Eunha told Han. “It will give us enough info to know what we’re dealing with,”
            “Sure, count on that,” the young assistant said. “Now, going to the next point in the minute. I wanted to ask you both about your personal agendas for the next couple of weeks. It is my understanding that Jung Hoseok’s sister is getting married since you’ve both mentioned it before. Are you both planning on taking those days off?”
            “Yeah, I forgot about that,” Yoongi sighed, getting stressed with the whole wedding stuff. “It’s next weekend. I won’t be available from Friday to Sunday, but I’m planning to go back to work on Monday as usual,”
            “Alright,” Han said, blocking the dates on the calendar already. “Ms. Seong?”
            “Yeah, same as him,” she said.
            “Great,” Han blocked the dates for her, too. “There’s a shooting next week in Busan, as well,”
“Oh, I totally forgot about that,” Yoongi grunted.
“It’s the same project from a couple months, the one Ms. Seong was in charge of,” Han said. Eunha wasn’t sure if she remembered the necessary details about her trip to Busan.
            “Cool,” Yoongi said. “Send her back, then,”
            “Hey, I only went last time because you were busy,” she complained. “The team was very condescending with me,”
            “There are rude people everywhere,” Yoongi said. “You need to be firm with them, let them know you are not playing around,”
            “This time they’re shooting a short music video,” Han interrupted. “It’s supposed to be a continuation of the previous one, so…”
            “If I’m going, I’ll need an assistant,” Eunha said out of nowhere. “And I’m staying at least a couple of days. Traveling back home on the same day was a pain in the ass,”
            “We’ll make it work,” Yoongi said, trying to hide his smirk as he knew exactly what was on her mind. “I’ll need Han to stay in the office, so let’s see if we can find someone to help you with this,”
            “Oh, I have lots of friends who are professional filmmakers,” Han said, unaware of what Yoongi and Eunha were telepathically plotting. “Some of them are freelancers, so I could call them,”
            “We’ll check that later,” Yoongi said, going to the next thing to check on their agenda.
After two and a half hours, Eunha was finally free of her morning meetings. She was expected to go to the studio to work with Yoongi later but still had enough time to eat her breakfast and even grab some coffee. She had almost forgotten that her brother was in the same house until she heard his laugh come from the living room.
            “Don’t you have something else to do?” Eunha asked, joining him on the couch. “Why the hell are you still wearing my robe?”
            “I was looking for the only clean shirt I have left but I can’t find it,”
            “Oh,” Eunha said, knowing exactly which one he meant. “Taehyung needed a change so I gave it to him,”
            “First of all, gross! I don’t want your boyfriend’s sweaty body to ruin my silk shirt!” he whined. “And second, we need to talk about him sneaking into your room at night as a horny teenager,”
            “Shut up!” Eunha was not talking about her romantic and potentially sexual life with her brother. “We’re not teenagers anymore, and we’re not horny,”
            “Sure,” he sarcastically said.
            “Besides, what we do or not is none of your business,”
            “So, you are doing it!”
            “No, we’re not!”
            “You’re not?” he asked, now laughing. “You’re really not?”
            “No,” she sighed, fuming.
            “Hey, I just want you to be careful when you actually do it,”
            “Nope, we’re not talking about this,” she stood up, going back to the kitchen.
            “Eunnie,” he said, following her. “I’m serious! I don’t want you to fuck up like me. Just… remember you don’t owe him anything just because he is your boyfriend and because you love him or whatever. I don’t want you to feel pressured to do something if you don’t feel like you’re ready,”
She knew it was coming from a good place, and she actually appreciated her brother’s attempt of taking care of her. Still, she didn’t want to talk about it. She was sure she and Taehyung were not there yet. Sure, the thought had crossed her mind a couple of times, but it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
            “What are your plans in Seoul, anyway?” she asked, letting him know the previous conversation was over.
            “I want to see what the city has to offer,” he sighed. “I’m tired of working in Mom’s restaurant. I mean, I appreciate them letting me stay at their home and all that but,”
            “But you miss your freedom,”
            “Exactly,” he chuckled. “Besides, Dad keeps asking when I’ll recover and go back to play baseball. To be honest, I’m not even sure if I want to do that anymore,”
            “I thought you loved baseball,”
            “I do. I just don’t love the team, the city, the people around me,” he unconsciously started rubbing his injured shoulder, thinking of everything about his current life that hurt him. “After the last time I saw you, I kept thinking of how happy you looked, and good you were doing. I… I want that, you know?”
She didn’t say anything. She wished it was as simple as her brother made it sound, but to get to the point she was now, she had struggled and cried a lot. Still, Eunha didn’t have the heart to discourage her brother. She wanted Dae-Hyun to be happy; he deserved it.
            “Want to grab some coffee?” she asked.
Eunha continued her day as she had planned, only with her brother coming along, too. She was happy to catch up with him as they walked to the bus stop and answered all his questions about Taehyung and her roommates on the way to the café. She was a bit sad that she didn’t get to see James, wanting to introduce him to Dae-Hyun, but still told him all about the little Aussie kid who was friends with her. They walked together to Eunha’s office, where she gave him a tour, showing him the fancy studio where she was supposed to meet Yoongi.
            “This is dope!” Dae-Hyun complimented. “The studio I saw yesterday was smaller,”
            “Yeah, that’s where the rest of the crew works, but this is my boss’ personal studio,” she proudly said. “He lets me use it,”
            “Is that a Johny Cash Martin?” he was already on his way to grab the guitar, which gave Eunha a little panic attack.
            “Don’t! That’s Yoongi’s! That’s like the only thing I’m not allowed to use, so please, don’t!”
            “Damn, you’re making him sound like a monster,” Dae-Hyun said, frowning at the thought of his sister’s tyrant boss.
            “No, he is a sweetheart, honestly. Well, at first he might come off as a jerk, but that’s only because he is an introvert,” she wasn’t helping the mental image he was making. “He’s just very careful with the things that are important to him, like this guitar,”
            “I thought you said he was your friend,”
            “He is. He is probably my best friend. After Taehyung, of course,” she made sure to clear that out. “But he is still my boss and I respect him a lot,”
Just then, the studio door opened, and Min Yoongi came in, holding a six-pack of beers in one hand and a jumbo bag of chips.
            “Let’s finish this fucking EP already, oh… hello,” Yoongi seemed very confused by the presence of a stranger in his studio.
            “Hi, Yoongi, this is my brother Dae-Hyun,” Eunha was fast to say. “Dae-Hyun, this is Min Yoongi,”
            “Nice to meet you,” Dae-Hyun said, bowing his head and offering a friendly smile. Yoongi’s eyes went from brother to sister, trying to catch the similarities between them. “Let me help you with that,”
            “Thanks,” Yoongi said, letting Seong Dae-Hyun grab the beers effortlessly and put them in the mini-fridge.
            “I couldn’t leave him home alone,” Eunha explained. “He might burn down the house or something,”
            “Ha-ha,” Dae-Hyun ironically laughed, glaring at his sister. “She’s just scared that I bump into her boyfriend again,”
            “Taehyung had the brilliant idea of breaking into my room last night,” Eunha explained. “Now he doesn’t trust me,”
            “Honestly, I’m just surprised he had the physical ability to climb through your balcony,” Yoongi chuckled, finally sitting down in front of his computer. “Feel at home, Dae-Hyun-ssi,”
            “Thanks,” Dae-Hyun’s eye smile appeared as he took Yoongi’s word and sat on the couch. “I’ll be nice and quiet, don’t worry,”
            “Where do you want to start today?” Eunha asked, getting into work mode already.
            “I’d like to re-record the bass line now that you’re here,” Yoongi said, opening the bag of Cheetos and passing it to Eunha’s brother. She thought it was cute that he was doing his best effort to make Dae-Hyun feel welcome, knowing how hard it was for Yoongi to open up to strangers at first.
            “Can you remind me what's the melody?” Eunha was already walking over the guitars, taking the pretty precision bass she liked. Yoongi helped her plug it in and played the previous recording so she could figure out what to play.
Dae-Hyun kept his promise, allowing the two friends to work in peace, enjoying seeing their process and noticing how easily they understood each other, almost as if reading the other’s minds. After they finished recording all the bass parts, Yoongi made an unusual pause to open a beer and offer one to the guest.
            “We don’t usually drink at work,” Yoongi felt the need to explain. “But we’re really sick of this particular song. The process it’s been dull as hell,”
            “I imagine,” Dae-Hyun said, accepting the beer. “It sounds great, though. Did you write it?”
            “No, I’m only producing and mastering it,” Yoongi explained. It looked as if neither of them knew exactly what to do with their drinks. Dae-Hyun wasn’t sure if he had to turn his head to the side, not knowing if Yoongi was older or younger than him.
            “So, you’re Eunha’s older brother,” Yoongi said conversationally.
            “Yeah, for two years,” Dae-Hyun said, letting Yoongi do the math.
            “He was also born in 93,” Eunha finally said.
            “Really?” Dae-Hyun looked happy about it. “What month?”
            “March. I’m a Piscis,” Yoongi said. “I mean, not that I believe in that stuff but people always ask,”
Eunha almost laughed at how out of pocket his comment was.
            “I’m a Sagittarius,” Dae-Hyun said.
            “November or December?” Yoongi asked.
            “December,” Dae-Hyun said, finally drinking from his beer. “Jin-hyung is a Sag, too,”
Of course, Dae-Hyun had no idea who Jin-Hyung was but he made sure to remember that information. For a minute, the room went silent. None of the boys knew exactly what to talk about. Eunha was running through her head all the different possible conversation topics she could bring up to make the two of them keep talking.
            “Oh, did I mention Dae-Hyun plays baseball?” she was sure Yoongi had mentioned liking a sport that involved a ball, but she wasn’t sure which was it.
            “Played,” her brother corrected. “Well, I mean, I’m not playing at the moment,”
            “So, you’re in a team?” Yoongi asked with curiosity.
            “Yeah, but right now I’m on a break,” he explained. “I got in an accident recently so, I can’t really play,”
            “I’m sorry,” Yoongi said.
            “It’s okay, I’m still getting paid,” Dae-Hyun drank from his beer again and Yoongi mimicked him. “Do you play any sports?”
            “Basketball, but not professionally,” Yoongi said. “I considered it, though,”
            “Oh, so you must be good, then,”
            “I’m okay, I guess,” Yoongi said. Eunha was happy the conversation between them was going well. She really wanted them to get along, especially if Dae-Hyun was considering staying in Seoul for a while; she thought her brother could use some friends his age. “Of course, that wouldn’t have worked because of my height,”
“What are you talking about? You’re just perfect,” Dae-Hyun laughed. “Besides, stereotypical physical attributes end up being worthless if you compare them to actual talent and use of brains,”
 “Says the guy who is pure muscle,” Yoongi laughed.
            “That only means I don’t have the brains,” Dae-Hyun laughed even harder, making Yoongi laugh as well.
            “Shut up, you graduated with honors,” Eunha didn’t like when his brother used self-deprecating humor to entertain the rest. “He learned to play guitar overnight,”
            “Really?” Yoongi asked. “Do you play any other instruments?”
            “Mostly guitar and piano,” Dae-Hyun said. “But not seriously, I mean I just know a couple of scales,”
            “That’s all you need,” Yoongi said, trying to be nice. “Music is just a couple of scales if you think about it,”
            “I guess. Still, music is not where I shine the most. Not like you guys do,” Dae-Hyun finished his beer, not saying anything else. Yoongi followed right after, drinking the last sips from his bottle, and left it on the table before going back to his computer.
Eunha: So, Yoongi and Dae-Hyun met
Tae: how did that go?
Eunha: surprisingly good
Eunha: They seemed to get along well
Tae: Did you take him to the studio?
Eunha: Yeah, but he left a while ago
Eunha: Said he was meeting some old friends
Eunha: But I’m sure I saw a Tinder notification pop up on his screen
Tae: Good for him I guess
Tae: You said he broke up with his girlfriend, right?
Eunha: Yeah, some months ago
Eunha: So I’m happy for him to put himself out there or whatever
Eunha: What are you doing?
Tae: I’m taking Tae-Jun to get a haircut
Tae: He also needs some clothes
Tae: I don’t think I can make it to lunch babe
Eunha: It’s okay!!
Eunha: Are you free later?
Eunha: Yoongi invited Dae-Hyun to his place later
Tae: So, party at Yoongi’s at night?
Eunha: I don’t think he meant party, but he mentioned some wine
Tae: Sounds great!
Tae: Wait, am I invited or only Dae-Hyun?
Eunha: I’m sure he meant all of us
Eunha: I’ll ask him later
Tae: Alright, text you later
Tae: This kid is taking too long to pick a drink
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Eunha: Cuteeeee
Tae: what about me?
Eunha: You're the cutest
Tae: ok
Tae: see you at night love
Eunha: bye 💗
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xtrablak674 · 1 year
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We Have History
My niece is coming to the city this weekend. She is twenty-three and lived with her mother in Florida for most of her life. She still lives in Florida, but now lives with her boyfriend, I think. She is her father's oldest child and this will be my first time meeting her.
I am not going to say I have let myself go this winter, but I haven't made a huge effort to look like anything much because I didn't have anything or anywhere I needed to go looking like much. I had started my yoga a week ago but then stopped it, I can't remember what broke up my routine, but now it seems I need to start up again. I will never lose any significant weight in four days, but I can start things like exfoliating and moisturizing so my skin will look decent for our weekend meeting.
My hair will need to be washed and retwisted, I am overdue for the former my seborrhea having built up again. I would have preferred a few weeks notice so I could have gotten myself together, but I can work with what I have. I still need to find a look that is comfortable and appropriate for whatever we are meeting for.
I am amused at people not asking for what they want I am sharing our DM's regarding her trip.
"You know I'm coming to New York Friday night?"
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"I don't know how I would know that" (As I am not Miss Cleo)
"I had it on FB but I will be there Friday to really early Sunday with my boyfriend."
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I can't avoid being a smart ass. (with my Starfire meme) But I didn't want to leave her out on a ledge so I went on.
"I'm waiting for something else. Because I know you're grown and know how to use your words. Sharing your travel plans isn't saying much. I have been in Florida dozens of times. #😏
"I would like to see you on my visit up there. I guess I forgot to mention that in my first message LOL."
Kids today, don't know how to ask for what they want. And I wasn't going to let her off the hook. She is an adult, she pays her own bills and socializes with whomever she wants to. It was important for me to get her to say what she wanted. I understand it was possibly difficult for her especially with a family member she hasn't met, but I felt it very important for her to stand in her truth and ask for what she wants. It's a very important life lesson, that if she hadn't learned before she will learn now.
It is important to ask for what you want because you have a 50% chance of being turned down. My general policy is to always just ask because you never know they might just say yes. When you learn how to ask for what you want, you will become bolder in what you ask for.
Then I was forced to address the elephant in the room when my niece sent me this message.
"I'm supposed to meet up with my father as well. I've gotta contemplate some places I'd like to see and make it a twofer."
The last time I saw her father, the person I refer to as former brother, was at my other former brother's wedding where he couldn't find it in his heart to come over and say hello to me. My Aunt Mary said I should have gone over to him, to which I responded I had traveled to the town he lives in not the reverse, I feel very strongly he held the host responsibilities not me. I am not going to rehash this event because I already wrote about it in [LAST COMMUNICATION WITH MY BROTHER] which is the letter I finally sent to my brother explaining to him how my treatment at his wedding well over a decade ago made me reticent in general about weddings.
This was my first time seeing him after emailing him this letter to which he never replied ergo the name of the entry. The groom also didn't greet me and I was met with open hostility by my first cousins, there is no digital record of me attending this wedding because I wanted to forget it. It also marked my decision not to interact further with my mother's family including the two I had shared a womb with. I want to be with people who celebrate me not tolerate me and since nobody on that side was ever really invested in me it would be no huge loss. The only thing that saddened me was not seeing the children, but my self-respect was worth more than being disabused constantly.
My relationship with my niece prior was once she was eighteen I would message her a happy birthday I deliberately waited till she was of legal age as to not have any signs of impropriety on my part. My former brother said, but this is your niece and I told him I do not know her mother and her mother doesn't know me, it would be inappropriate for a grown ass man to be talking with a minor. Between eighteen and twenty-three we went through a yearly ritual of happy birthday and her thanking me. I never pushed her beyond birthday wishes.
One year she had shared with me she had an interest in the playwright [Paula Vogel]. I was so excited I had done a play with Ms. Vogel during my internship with the Circle Repertory Theatre, I had an old program and sent her pictures to show her proof that I had indeed worked on the play and had known Ms. Vogel as much as a young stagehand intern could. I was maybe a little too excited, but I didn't know this young woman I was so eager to find a way to connect with her.
This year I couldn't find her on G+ so I went in search of her on Instagram and FB, it began innocently enough I wished her happy birthday and then told her I would like to send her a book for her birthday a book I had read that I thought she might like. This began a phase of us interacting more sharing little memes etc. I sent her a friend request on FB she accepted and now here we were meeting for the first time finally. But as her uncle I didn't want to put her in a situation where she would be uncomfortable or awkward esp with her boyfriend around so I sent her this message:
"If you didn't bring him up I know I wasn't. Your father and I have history. But for the record, I am very proud of the man he has become. It's up to him if he wants to share you with me. I'm fine being unsupervised with you and your beau. I live in BK so I have much more flexibility than he does."
I was anxious about sending her this message. Up until this point even through all of the birthday wishes and the more recent communications I never once bought up her father. I felt it would be remiss and unfair to her for me NOT to inform her of a conflict and allow her to choose how to proceed. She is a young adult she knows her mind and her heart, but I did not want her first interaction with me to be laced with tension and hostility that had nothing to do with her. Let me be clear I do not know how my former brother feels because unlike his daughter he didn't use his words, but silence speaks volumes and you can make whatever assumptions you like from his non-response.
She replied:
"I understand that. And that's not a problem at all. I'll give ya a time and place tomorrow."
I replied simply, smiling.
"Cool beans."
[Photo by Brown Estate, Comic Panel by George Perez, Screenshot of Ms Cleo]
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