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let-it-raines · 5 years

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Every Monday Morning (1/1)

Emma Swan likes her routines. She wakes up at four in the morning, goes to work as a host on The Morning Show, spends her day doing segments about cooking and this season’s fashion trends, and then she goes home to spend time with her son and help him with his homework. She’s finally found something stable, and she doesn’t like change.

So when the show’s regular chef retires and is replaced by Killian Jones, it throws Emma for a loop that she doesn’t necessarily like.

At least not at first.

Rating: Teen

a/n: So, I’m a day early as it’s her birthday tomorrow, but I realized today I won’t be able to post tomorrow because of family obligations. I think @searchingwardrobes might be okay with spreading the celebration out a bit!

Happy (almost) Birthday to the birthday queen herself ❤️ You are an absolute gift of a person who spends time writing stories for most everyone on their birthdays, and while I can’t do quite that, I thought I’d write you a little something because you absolutely deserve it! It’s been a joy getting to know you! I hope that you have the best day with your family! 🎉

Thanks @wellhellotragic for helping me figure out what to write about, even if I rejected everything. lol. And also, nonnie, I promise the “read more” is being used, so I’m sorry if it doesn’t work on mobile!

Found on AO3 | Here |

Tag list: @captainsjedi @wellhellotragic @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81

-/-

It’s five in the morning, Emma has coffee in her ridiculously oversized mug that Henry gave her for her birthday last year, and she absolutely does not want to be awake right now. She wants to be in her pajamas, and she wants to have to struggle to get out of bed and to have to make Henry breakfast that he’ll take two bites out of before deciding that he doesn’t actually want the pancakes she made. It’s been an obnoxious thing lately, his weird aversion to foods after saying that he wants them, and she’s really going to need him to grow out of that habit.

Kids are freaking weird, and after ten years of motherhood, she still has no idea what she’s doing.

“Stop twitching,” Ruby grumbles.

“I am not twitching.” “You are.” Ruby huffs, and Emma straightens herself in the chair before taking a slow sip of coffee. “It’s not easy to put your eyeliner on, and it’s even more difficult if you keep moving.”

“I am not moving, Rubes,” Emma insists before crossing her leg over her knee only for Ruby to slap it away so that both feet are on the bottom of the chair. “Okay, maybe I am a little bit, but I didn’t get the chance to workout this morning, and I’m feeling all jittery.”

Ruby hums, and Emma tries to relax her eyes so that Ruby can keep working on her makeup without it smearing. “Why not? Did you not sleep well last night?”

“We were up late doing Henry’s homework. I swear, I’m not that old, but some of his stuff I’ve never heard of. The math is killing me. I would never in my life want Neal to come back, but I feel like it would almost be acceptable if he could do this math.” “That bad, huh?”

“That bad.”

“Stop wrinkling your nose.”

“I am not.” “You are,” Ruby laughs as her finger hits the tip of Emma’s nose. “Give me ten more minutes, and then you can get dressed and take a few minutes to eat something and drink your coffee.”

“It’s Monday,” Emma sighs. “It’s Chef Rudianni day. I’m about to eat everything that he cooks when he does his segment.”

Ruby stops the light pressure of the sponge on Emma’s cheek, and she opens her eyes to see that Ruby is staring at her with an apologetic smile. Shit.

“Chef Rudianni retired last week, Ems. We’ve got a new guy, and whew, let me tell you, he’s as hot as the food that he’s going to teach you to make.”

Disappointment settles in Emma’s stomach. Maybe that’s just the lack of food…the lack of Chef Rudianni’s food. “You are shameless and also breaking my heart.” Emma groans and leans back in the chair while crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care how attractive the new guy is. I wake up at four in the morning every Monday with the hope that I can get food from Rudy. It is literally the only thing that gets me through the day.”

“Being a host on one of the most popular morning shows in America doesn’t do it for you? You work for half a day and then are home in time to spend all afternoon with Henry.”

Emma grunts and waves Ruby away. “Yeah, whatever. You don’t have to rub it in my face that I’m lucky to make me feel bad about it.”

“That’s what friends are for, my darling. Now, arch your left brow. I need to fix that little stray.”

Ruby keeps prodding and plucking and doing everything that she does every morning to make Emma look camera ready and not like she’s waiting to die from lack of sleep, and while it’s usually Emma’s time to relax, she doesn’t get much of that when her producers come in and run her through this morning’s program. Emma never does any “real” news, which is perfectly okay with her. There’s enough darkness in the world that she doesn’t want to have to extensively deal with that while at work. Instead, she spends her mornings talking to people who run their first marathons at the age of sixty, tries on different outfits for each of the seasonal trends, and gets to pretend that she knows how to cook as she does cooking segments.

Chef Rudianni made it easy for her to pretend that she had something more than basic cooking skills, even if he did very obviously make fun of her off the screen, but she never cared about that because the food was that good.

She’s not entirely sure about this new guy, and she hasn’t even met him yet. He better be able to cook pie for Thanksgiving. That’s what’s she’s going to miss the most.

(Emma is obviously very hungry right now, and she’s not even technically supposed to eat that much of the food.)

“You look happy this morning,” David teases her as she settles down at her chair behind the desk.

“It’s Monday, and I’m tired.”

“Working on a morning news show was not your calling.”

Emma rolls her eyes and twists in the chair as Mary Margaret, the second half of the power couple of The Morning Show, sits down in her chair next to David, and Will Scarlet, their weather and sports guy, sits opposite of her. They’ve got maybe ten different hosts total, especially since this show lasts for five hours, but the four of them have been the main four for the last three years. It’s nice, even if their personalities can clash, but Emma likes to think that’s what makes it interesting. Mary Margaret and David are both so full of hope and happiness, and the energy radiating from the two of them make it easier for she and Will to be a little more optimistic about things.

(There was once an incident with Will laughing at a story about a woman who made her living making sweaters for dogs, and they had a month-long sensitivity training session afterward. That also may be why they are all unwaveringly positive on-air.)

Emma hums and reaches forward to grab her coffee cup, wishing and willing that the caffeine will help her make it through the day. “I think I was meant to be, like, a late-night host or something, but then I couldn’t get away with wearing slippers underneath the desk and would have to be funny all the time.”

“Does it hurt to wear heels even while you’re sitting?” Will asks.

“Why don’t you try it one day, Scarlet? I’ve got someone coming in tomorrow to show the fall color trends for shoes. I’m sure she could give you a pair to try on. You’ll look great delivering the news in some plum pumps.”

“I’d do it. You know that.”

“We’re live in thirty seconds,” their producers call out, and each of them turn from each other back to face the camera, coffee mugs put down and hair adjusted with perfectly white smiles etched across their faces.

Three.

Two.

One.

“Good morning, America,” David begins.

“And welcome to The Morning Show,” Mary Margaret finishes.

And thus they begin.

The first ten or so minutes is spent with David and Mary Margaret reading off little snippets of news before connecting it to their personal lives, talking about their kids and their relationship before throwing it off to Will and Emma and to banter back and forth. Emma never talks about Henry on-air. His existence isn’t something she shares with the world, mostly because she doesn’t want Neal suddenly popping back in realizing that he has a son. He would definitely try to take advantage of her again and use her job and Henry as some way to advance his life, and Emma isn’t here for that. So, she plays the part of a single twenty-eight-year-old woman and never shares anecdotes over her life at home. At least not ones that involve Henry.

Soon they all branch off into their different jobs and topics. Emma and Will both leave the main table so that Will can do the weather and Emma can set up to interview a college student who is taking Krispy Kreme donuts and putting his own spin on them, and like every morning, time flies by in a mess of interviews and segments and talking to all of the people who are both crazy and awesome enough to stand outside their studio window just to get a chance to see where they film.

It’s an insane life, one Emma most definitely stumbled into it, but she loves it.

Until she walks over to the fake kitchen they have on set and sees the new guy setting up whatever it is he’s cooking today. Emma stops in her tracks, the heels she put back on scratching against the linoleum floor, and she has to take a moment to collect herself. Ruby wasn’t wrong when she said that the new chef was attractive. He obviously is. Even from here she can see the sharp line of his jaw covered with scruff that’s a shade or two lighter than the black of his hair, and his eyes are so blue that Emma is almost positive they’re contacts. It’s ridiculous. He’s tall, but not outrageously so, and she can see the muscles in his forearms and biceps under the t-shirt that he has on.

Guys who look like that always know that they do, indeed, look like they do, and it’s never good news. They think they’re a gift to women world-wide, and Emma prepares herself for him to be the same way, especially with the way that he’s obviously flirting with one of their production assistants, Tink.

Why in the world did Chef Rudianni have to retire? She’s going to miss him and his sweet elderly man ways where he thought of her more like a granddaughter than anything else.

Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she’s a professional, Emma walks toward the cooking set, grabs her apron off the hook, ties it around her, and walks up to the guy to introduce herself. He’s a once-a-week segment for four minutes, and it really won’t be that bad. It can’t be.

(Emma hates change.)

“Oh.” Tink jumps when she sees Emma, pink rising on her cheeks, “Mr. Jones, I’d like you to meet Emma Swan.”

The guy’s shoulders tense before he turns around, and Emma’s eyes are immediately hit by the blue, which is even more insane closer up. So is the brightness of the smile that seems to stretch all the way up to his eyes.

He better be a damn good cook.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, love,” he drawls out, the thickness of his British accent curling around his tongue. “Killian Jones, at your service.”

Emma forces a smile and nods her head as she reaches forward to shake his hand. “Emma Swan. Welcome to The Morning Show.”

“I’m glad to be here. Any tips for my time here? Who likes to steal food off the table? Anyone absolutely hate any certain kind of food? Anyone I should avoid?”

Emma releases his hand and cocks her head to the side, trying to size him up. “Just cook the food and smile for the camera when you’re supposed to, and you’ll be fine. Oh, and don’t expect me to be a good assistant. I’m not at all a chef. I faked it.”

He winks, and Emma has to grit her teeth. This guy is obviously a natural flirt. “That’s because you haven’t cooked with me yet.”

-/-

Killian Jones is even more charming on-camera then he is off of it. She has no idea what kind of television work he’s done in the past, if he’s done any at all, and he is every bit the natural at working the camera and the crowd as he takes her through the steps to make an absolutely fantastic end of the summer barbeque for the end of July that has her having to wipe barbeque sauce off her fingers in the middle of the segment. It’s also got everyone else coming over to check out the food, something that almost never happens, and Emma isn’t entirely sure how she feels about any of it.

It’s good for the show, at least. She knows that. She’ll simply have to get used to a little change every Monday morning.

-/-

“Mom,” Henry moans as he flops down on the couch, “I am starving. What’s for dinner?”

Emma shrugs her shoulders and gets up from her favorite chair in the living room to walk the few feet to the kitchen and the fridge. When she opens it, there’s barely anything inside. It’s half a gallon of milk, some cheese sticks, a bag of carrots, and then leftover lasagna Mary Margaret gave them a week ago. Emma needs to go grocery shopping, but she hasn’t had the chance recently. It’s been a crazy few weeks with work, the month of August and half of September flying by, and grocery shopping has been at the bottom of her list of things to do.

Mom of the year award, honestly. She needs to bite the bullet and pay the surcharge to have her groceries delivered, but the frugalness of growing up in the foster system has never really gone away when it comes to things like that. Expensive shoes? Sure, she can spend a few hundred dollars on that. Paying twenty dollars for a delivery fee? No, absolutely not.

Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, Emma looks at the complete lack of food in the fridge and decides that eating here is not an option. And she cannot eat takeout Chinese food or pizza again this week. That is not an option her stomach will agree with.

(She is making a change when it comes to their eating habits tomorrow. She swears.)

“How about we go out for dinner, kid?”

Henry sits up from the couch and puts his phone down, which is pretty much a miracle since this is the time that he’s allowed to use it, and he looks so much like Neal in this moment that her heart pangs. Or maybe that’s the consistent amount of junk food. She doesn’t really know.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, why not? It’s Friday night, and it’s not like we have anything better to do.”

“I mean, you don’t have anything better to do. I was going to play my game with Avery.” Emma narrows her eyes at him, and Henry holds up his hands in apology. “Sorry, sorry. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you find a place we’ve never been, and we’ll go there?” Henry opens his mouth and Emma holds her finger up. “Within one subway stop of here. I don’t want to traipse across the city. Let me go put on some actual pants, and then we’ll go, okay?”

Henry nods his head before quickly grabbing his phone and looking up restaurants while she walks back down the hallway to her bedroom to change out of her pajamas and into a pair of jeans and a light sweater that will keep the chill away since every restaurant is inevitably freezing. She can’t wait until fall truly rolls around and the temperature dips so that she can walk around all bundled up and no one will say a word.

Of course, this is Manhattan, and no one cares if Emma is walking around in nice, clean clothes or a T-rex suit.

When she’s finished getting ready and has run her hands through Henry’s hair to try to calm it down despite his protests, they leave their apartment, saying goodbye to the doorman Henry has pretty much adopted into their family, and follow the GPS to the restaurant Henry picked out. Emma didn’t look into it too much. All she saw was that it had good reviews and food that Henry would most definitely eat without complaint, and she was good to go.

(Her rumbling stomach really helps her make decisions much more quickly than she would otherwise.)

The place is on a corner lot, black gates cornering off the outdoor tables that all have umbrellas open over them if they’re not already covered by the black awnings that extend over the windows and toward the bubble lights that are brightening the space even with the constant flow of street lights and car headlights that keep passing by.

Sweet William.

“Kid,” Emma hesitates as they wait for the crosswalk light to turn on, “this place is packed. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to eat here.”

Henry tugs on her hand, and she looks down at him to see him smile. “Can we please at least try? The website said we didn’t need reservations, and that it has really good cheeseburgers. And those Alexander drinks that you like.”

“You really shouldn’t know about my alcohol preferences.”

“I know that you really like piña coladas, but you’re always too embarrassed to buy those unless we’re at the beach with Mary Margaret and David.”

Emma huffs and tugs Henry closer to her side so that she can kiss his forehead. “I think you’re too observant for your own good.”

“I thought moms wanted their kids to be smart.”

“We do…to a certain extent.”

The light changes and suddenly there’s a rush of people walking across the street. Emma holds onto Henry out of instinct as they move along with the crowd and walk up to the restaurant. Emma doesn’t expect them to get a table, especially once they walk inside and she can see that all of the tables and booths are full, but she asks the hostess anyway. She gives Emma a tight smile, one that is definitely more annoyed than kind, and then they’re told that it’ll be a forty-minute wait unless they want to sit at the bar. Emma’s fine with that, especially since Henry is insistent on getting one of these cheeseburgers, so they’re quickly guided through the restaurant until they get to the bar in the back and are stuck in the corner on the little swivel chairs.

How in the world has she never heard of this place? It’s obviously popular and in walking distance of her apartment. Emma needs to get out more often, but that’s too much effort.

When in the world did she turn into an old woman?

Probably when she had a kid at eighteen and then began getting up for work far before the sun rises.

Henry catches her up on everything that’s been happening at school in the past week. His friends are all obsessed with some new YouTube blogger that she’s going to have to check out, and his science project is due in two weeks. Emma puts a reminder in her phone over that because they will forget about it, and Henry will come home the night before it’s due so that they have to make a last-minute trip to the store for absolutely everything he needs and neither of them will get any sleep.

“Wait, so what happened with Avery’s mom?” Emma asks Henry as she sips on her diet coke.

“She had to go to the emergency – ”

“Swan!”

Emma’s head flips so quickly at the sound of the familiar accent that she almost gets whiplash, and all of the sudden Killian Jones is standing in front of her behind the bar with a stupid grin on his face. It’s the one that he does whenever he’s made a joke after she spectacularly fails at some kind of cooking thing or spills food on her apron, and Emma is experiencing whiplash in more ways than one.

What the hell is he doing here?

“Jones,” she greets, nodding at him. “What are you doing behind the bar?”

He raises his brows, a signature move of his as she’s learned over their weeks of doing segments, but then they settle back down to their normal place. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Nothing,” he sighs as he leans forward and rests his elbow on the bar top. “Who’s this young gentleman? Your date for the evening perhaps?”

Heat rushes to Emma’s cheeks, as well as the urge to mutter a few curses, because this is not good. Not good at all. Only a few people at work know about Henry and those people are people who she spends time with outside of work. Those people are her family, bloodlines be damned. They’re not the chef who comes by every Monday morning and attempts to flirt with her while showing her how to make an apple cider bar for fall holiday parties.

Emma opens her mouth to try to save some face, but then Henry is speaking. “Henry Swan. You’re the guy who teaches my mom to cook on TV.” Henry leans forward and nearly knocks over his drink. “You’re not doing a very good job.”

Emma scoffs while Killian leans back with his hand on his chest and his entire face lit up with his laugh. A few people look over to them, but they quickly turn away while Killian keeps chuckling and Emma finds herself at a total loss for words.

Her son just called her a bad cook and also told someone that he’s her son. How in the world does she react to that?

“I’m trying my best, lad,” Killian chuckles, wiping away a tear from his eye, “but your mum is very much a beginner. Maybe if they let me come in for her show more often, I could help her out more.”

“Maybe,” Henry shrugs. “Do you work here?”

“Aye, I do. This is my restaurant.”

She hopes the floor is clean because Emma’s jaw is about to drop there.

Of all of the restaurants in this city, Henry had to pick this one.

“Cool, so you make the cheeseburgers? The reviews online say they’re really good.”

Killian looks at her, his eyes wide, and Emma realizes that he’s silently asking for her permission to keep talking to Henry. She doesn’t know how she knows that, but she does. Nodding, she tilts her head back toward Henry.

“I have other chefs that help me out,” Killian continues, “which is why I get to come out here and talk to you guys, but I did come up with the recipe for it. Is that what you ordered?”

“Yep. Mom ordered a salad and is making me eat part of it.”

“Ah, well, vegetables are important, and I promise that my salads are good salads.”

“I’ll believe it when I taste it.”

Emma snorts and hides her smile behind her drink while Killian looks back at her and moves his brows across his face. She didn’t know he could have this long of a conversation without flirting.

“Do you two want a table?” Killian asks them as he tugs up the sleeve of his shirt, and not for the first time, she notices the red scars that stretch up his left hand and arm. “I know we’re busy in here tonight, but I think I have a little pull to get you a table.”

“Thank you, but I think we’re fine. Right, kid?”

“As long as I get my cheeseburger, I’d sit in the bathroom and be happy.”

Sometimes Emma forgets that Henry is a ten-year-old boy who still finds the occasional fart funny and that he doesn’t have a great sense of hygiene, and then he says something like that to bring her back to earth and reminds herself that her kid is, indeed, a kid.

Killian stays and talks to them for a few minutes before he’s called off to sign some papers and disappears behind a set of double doors that Emma assumes lead to the kitchen. They don’t see or hear from him again that night, though their food gets to them much more quickly than most everyone else at the bar. Henry absolutely devours the cheeseburger, barely taking a bite of any of the vegetables that she puts in front of him, but she doesn’t expect anything less. Her salad is really good, though. She usually hates any salad that she has to eat (the pressure of being on TV and all), but she actually enjoys it tonight.

Even after she asks for the bill, and she’s told by the bartender that their check has already been paid and that they have a to-go box of a blueberry cobbler waiting for them at the front of the restaurant.

Emma is a sucker for any kind of cobbler or pie.

Henry seems to think that this has been the coolest night of his life, and she took him to Disney World in June after years of begging.

When Monday morning rolls around, Emma is as exhausted as ever, and she muddles through her routine of hair and makeup before rolling out onto the set and plastering a smile on her face that matches everyone else’s as they banter back and forth about their weekends. It’s fine, normal as ever, and then Emma is being shuffled over to the kitchen set in between takes where she sees Killian already in his show-provided apron.

Shit.

She forgot about this? How could she? It’s been a part of her routine for eight weeks now.

“Morning, love,” he greets, grin on his face. “Fancy seeing you here.”

She huffs and grabs her apron before tying it around her waist. “We obviously can’t stay away from each other’s places of business. What are we cooking today?”

“Healthy, easy meals that work perfect for leftovers for your kid’s lunch the next day.”

Emma’s heartbeat quickens, and she quickly looks around to see that everyone is distracted watching David and Mary Margaret go over some viral video. “Hey, so don’t mention Henry on air, okay? I never meant for you to meet him, and I don’t…he’s the best part of my life, but I like to keep my home life and work life separate.”

Killian nods and walks a little closer to her so that he sways into her space, his hand lingering close to hers. “I assumed as much, love. I promise you that I won’t mention him, and believe it or not, this was planned before I knew about your boy.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely a liar.”

He shrugs. “A liar who bought your dinner and gave you a complimentary dessert because I heard you were a fan of cobblers and all things in the pie family.”

“You know, just because you buy me dinner doesn’t mean I’m going to start liking you.” Killian winks before waggling those damn brows again, and Emma has to bite back her laugh. “Don’t think I’m taking my eyes off you for a second.”

“I would despair if you did.”

-/-

As the weeks go on and summer officially fades into fall, Emma continues to stick to her routines as all of the new parts of it become a little more normal. She wakes up early, occasionally getting to the gym before work but most of the time right after she finishes, goes to work to spend a few hours talking, and then runs errands before picking up Henry from school and spending her afternoon with him. Sometimes Ruby or Mary Margaret and David come over and on occasion Will takes Henry to the batting cages to practice his batting stance, but other than that, things are all the same.

Well, mostly.

She has gotten better about buying groceries more often (hello grocery delivery even with the delivery prices) and attempting to cook so that they can order less takeout, and Henry complains about her cooking a hell of a lot less.

(She really isn’t that bad.)

The one big change, however, is that every Friday night she and Henry wander a few blocks over to Sweet William to get dinner. It started out as an accident, mostly Emma craving a cheeseburger after going to a Pilates class that absolutely kicked her ass, and the two of them found themselves sitting at the corner of the bar again. That quickly changed as the hostess moved them to a booth that has comfortable seats and enough space to fit a few more people. Emma insisted that the bar is fine, but she was told that the owner insists that the two of them sit there.

(Henry is convinced that having a special table for him is the greatest thing in existence, and who knew that being treated specially at a restaurant would be such a huge thing for Henry?)

It goes like that every Friday night. She and Henry go to Sweet William, sitting at the same booth that is always reserved for them, and the two of them make it a challenge to try as many things on the menu as they can. Killian always comes out and sits with them for a few minutes, smelling of a mixture of foods that he doesn’t usually smell of on The Morning Show set, and he’s as charming as he always is.

Emma doesn’t trust it.

Except for the fact that she kind of does.

This is a coworker who is being kind to her and her son. He’s not doing anything untoward, and he’s not asking her for something. Not at all. Killian is simply being nice, entertaining Henry’s questions about what it’s like to be a professional chef and what it’s like to be on TV. Emma scoffs at that, telling Henry that she is literally on TV far more often than Killian is, but he doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

Professional chef obviously trumps Mom.

They learn that Killian moved to New York from London five years ago to open this restaurant after needing a change of scenery and getting all of the right paperwork and that he stumbled into working on The Morning Show because his restaurant manager saw the opening and applied for him as some kind of joke that ended up working out. In turn, Emma shares the story of meeting David when he came to visit the local news station she was working in and how that he offered her the opportunity to start working for the network. It took a bit of convincing, but she and Henry moved from Maine to Manhattan and had a bit of culture shock.

They love it.

The conversation never really seems to stop flowing, not at Friday night dinners and not during the Monday morning segments that keep on getting better and better as Emma becomes honestly comfortable bantering with Killian as she devours all of the food that he cooks. Ruby teases her about it, making far too many inappropriate jokes involving eating, and it only gets worse when there’s a stack of papers on Emma’s desk with printed off tweets talking about how many people look forward to having Emma and Killian working together.

“They ship you,” Ruby explains as she paints red lipstick onto Emma’s lips the day after a particularly funny Halloween segment where Killian made all of the food look both delicious and disgusting in all of its gory and spooky goodness.

“What in the world does that mean?”

“You have a ten-year-old. How do you not know what that means?”

“I think it’s a relationship thing, and he’s not interested in those, which I’m thankful for.”

“He will be,” Ruby promises, and Emma swears that doesn’t make her sentimental. “And shipping is, like, when you want two people to be together.”

Emma almost jolts forward in the chair, but she’s working particularly hard at not moving. She will not react to that. “That’s just weird.” “Eh, kind of, but also not really. You two are ridiculously hot and also have great chemistry together. I get it. Part your lips for me.”

Emma completely and totally pushes that entire conversation to the back of her mind as she finishes getting ready for work and spends her morning doing a Ninja Warrior course with a five-year-old who is a million times better than her at it. It’s actually ridiculous, and she really shouldn’t have worn tight jeans for this.

Not the best outfit choice. At least she got to wear sneakers and a sports bra. It probably would have been disastrous otherwise.

So things are changing, but even the new routines become actual routines, which is exactly what throws Emma for a loop when Henry asks her if he can spend the night with Avery Friday night. She says yes after checking in with Avery’s mom, and after dropping Henry off with his backpack and a promise to see him at noon tomorrow, Emma goes back to an empty apartment that never seems quite right when Henry isn’t around.

Emma’s all about her alone time, something she doesn’t get a lot of even with Henry getting older, but she’s thrown by not having him with her tonight. What does she do? Treat herself to a spa night? She doesn’t really need one. Her job pretty much keeps her pampered all the time. Maybe she could read a book? Or watch a new TV show? But what TV show? There are so many that she’s behind on, and she wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Food would probably be a good start.

And without really thinking about it, Emma grabs her purse, zips up her boots, and walks out the door of her apartment to find herself at she and Henry’s usual Friday night spot, the little reserved sign with their names waiting for them.

Except she’s by herself.

Until someone is sliding a piña colada in front of her and then sitting across from her in the booth.

“How in the world do you know that I like these?”

Killian grins, one of those dumb ones that reaches his eyes and makes them crinkle. “Your boy told me that you love them but that you have some ridiculous hang up about ordering them.”

“They’re not on your menu.”

“I know a guy.” Killian nods his head toward her. “Where is the lad tonight?”

Emma hums and takes a sip of her drink. It’s freaking fantastic, and she’s got to thank Henry for spilling her secrets to Killian. Or, at least, that one secret. “He is spending the night with a friend, so he abandoned me to eat by myself.”

“Kids, they betray us all.”

“You’ve been betrayed by a kid?”

“No. I find myself to be too charming.”

She snorts, not really meaning to. “Don’t get too full of yourself, Jones. One day you’ll probably have children, and they will betray you.”

He reaches up to scratch behind his ear. “Eh, I don’t know about that.”

“What? You don’t want kids?”

Wow, Emma. Just go for the personal, why don’t you?

“Don’t answer that,” she blurts out. “That’s too personal of a question, and I should have never asked it.”

Killian reaches over and places his hand over hers on the table, warmth spreading up over her arm. “It’s fine, Swan. I don’t find you intrusive. I think I’d like kids someday, but I’m thirty-four now, not seeing anyone I see a future with, and my relationship history isn’t the best.”

“I can understand that.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a twenty-eight-year-old single mother to a ten-year-old. Do the math.”

Killian smiles and reaches up to adjust the collar of his shirt so that she can see a flash of dark chest hair and the slightest bit of ink. “Aye, I know. I didn’t want to presume. Is Henry’s dad – ”

“He doesn’t know that he exists,” Emma blurts out before downing far too much of her drink. This is too sweet for large gulps like that but really damn good. “I never got the chance to tell him. I was seventeen with no resources except for a slightly sympathetic foster mom and a part-time job as a video editor at a local news station, and Neal just disappeared into thin air one night.”

“What a bastard.”

“You’re telling me,” Emma scoffs. “It’s why I asked you not to say anything about Henry. I’m not ashamed of him. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me. I just…”

“You don’t want Neal to try to come back now that you’ve made a bit of a name out of yourself,” Killian finishes for her, and for the first time in all of the times that she’s told this story, someone understands. “I left London because my brother died in a Naval accident, and my long-term girlfriend left me because my grief was too much for her. She tried to contact me for the same reason the other day. On some level, I understand you even if I know having a child makes things more complicated.”

Emma’s heart absolutely pangs. Sharing tragic backstories and the scars on her heart is not her thing, but something about this man makes the words nearly flow out of her without hesitation. It’s not something she’s used to, not in the slightest.

“What was his name?”

“Liam. He, well, he’d call me a bloody idiot for naming this place after him and after the flower. It was my mum’s favorite, most likely why she named Liam what she did even if we never called him William. I thought it was a great way to honor them both, especially since they’re the people who taught me how to cook.”

“It was.”

Killian tightly smiles before lifting up his hand to wave a server down. “Though, I had a miserable experience with a dish gone wrong that nearly burned down my kitchen and took off my entire arm, so I’m not sure how great of teachers they actually were.”

“You have a restaurant that’s always packed, so I’d say they did a pretty good job.”

He leans forward as a server gets closer to them, and heat does not curl in Emma’s stomach when Killian winks. Not at all. “Or maybe I’m simply that naturally gifted, darling.” She opens her mouth to say something, but then Killian is turning away. “Wendy, can you tell everyone in the back that I’ll be dining out here tonight? Miss Swan is just about to help me come up with our seasonal menu since she has a real thumb on what the public wants.”

“Yes, sir, I can do that.”

Emma arches her brow. “Just invite yourself to my dinner, why don’t you?”

“Would it make it up to you if I pay?”

“You always pay. Every employee in this place refuses to take anything other than a tip from both me and Henry.”

“Huh, wonder why that is.”

They spend the next few hours picking apart the menu, arguing back and forth over food and drink preferences and the pros and cons of classics and specialties, and Emma has never laughed so hard over food. In fact, she’s never laughed so hard in her entire life. She’s spent so much time with this man but usually in short spurts, so she’s never actually gotten to see what he’s like or learn too much about him. He’s still quick to make an innuendo and slow to accept changes or any kind of criticism to the menu, but by the time the restaurant is closed and all of the tables are cleared, they’ve figured something out.

And had a few too many drinks that have her laughing even more.

They also have her accepting Killian’s offer to sleep in his guest bedroom in his apartment upstairs. She should say no, should not at all be accepting an offer like that when she has a perfectly good place ten minutes away, but she’s tired and the thought of getting to bed soon feels too good to pass up.

Her routine changes just a little bit more, and she embraces it for once in her life.

The alcohol makes it be a little less terrifying.

-/-

Killian does an entire segment on pies on the show Monday morning.

He says that it’s for Thanksgiving, but she knows that it’s for her.

He also adds more to the menu at Sweet William.

-/-

After that night, Henry starts inviting Killian over to the apartment for cooking lessons, claiming that both he and Emma could learn to be a little better so that they could eat more than one good meal a week, but Emma knows that there’s some kind of ulterior motive in Henry. There’s a sparkle in those brown eyes of his, and even though he claims that he wants to cook (as much as a ten-year-old can), he always seems to find himself in the living room so that Emma is left with just Killian.

Sneaky kid.

Who gets even sneakier when he invites Killian to Thanksgiving dinner with them. Emma was going to do it. She honestly was, but Henry beat her to it. And that’s exactly how Emma shows up at David and Mary Margaret’s house on Thanksgiving with Henry, Killian Jones, and three pies.

Every single person there is thoroughly intrigued and confused.

Emma is too.

She doesn’t bring men to holidays. She doesn’t bring men around at all. And she especially doesn’t bring men around who sit with their arm around her shoulder or who press their hand lightly into the small of Emma’s back as they stand in the kitchen and debate the different types of dressings to go with turkey.

Except that’s exactly what is happening here, and it sends a little thrill down Emma’s spine that she can’t quite place.

(She can, but it’s almost too terrifying to do that.)

Killian knows most everyone from his mornings on the show, so Emma doesn’t spend her time trying to ease him into things. He does that completely on his own and charms everyone the way that he always does even if she sees him scratch behind his ear, which is undeniably his nervous tick. And hopefully, just hopefully, no one is asking him a million questions like she’s getting asked about whether or not the two of them are dating and does he know that a weird section of the internet ships them?

They’re not, and he does. They laugh about it over wine and Emma’s really gross lasagna on the nights Killian has off from the restaurant.

The day passes in a blur of football and too much food, and before Emma can even blink, the three of them are packing up leftovers and getting an Uber back to Emma’s apartment. Henry crashes as soon as they get there, mumbling something about being too exhausted to take off his shoes, and then he disappears into his room while Killian puts the Tupperware containers into the fridge.

“You don’t have to do that,” she tells him before adjusting her shirt from where it wrinkled. “I can do it.”

“It’s fine, love,” he insists and he puts the leftover apple pie away next to the one he made for her to stay here. “Should we get some coffee and watch a movie? Are you one of those who is ready to celebrate Christmas already?”

“The turkey has been eaten, Jones. It’s time for Christmas. If I didn’t feel like I was dying from overeating and having to talk to people all day, we’d be out getting a Christmas tree right now.”

“Would I be the one carrying it?”

“You know it.”

“It would be my pleasure. I think the pine would mask the smell of kitchen on me.”

Emma turns the coffee maker on, and while it percolates, she starts straightening up the kitchen, putting away dishes in the dishwasher and wiping down countertops, but since they cooked (they being mostly Killian) in the kitchen of Killian’s restaurant, there’s not much to clean up. It’s what has her looking at Killian as he stares down at his phone, fingers typing away a message before the screen goes black and he’s placing it in his back pocket and looking at Emma with the softest smile that she’s ever seen.

And maybe it’s the wine or maybe it’s that she’s feeling good…hell, maybe it’s because Emma wants to do something for herself for a change. Maybe it’s that her reasons don’t matter. All she knows is that she’s stepping forward and pressing her palms to Killian’s cheeks and kissing him.

She’s kissing him.

He doesn’t kiss back, not at first. There’s a bit of a grunt, one that doesn’t necessarily sound pleasant, but then his hands are pressing against her back and his lips are moving over hers while he backs them across the kitchen until the sharp edge of her counter is hitting her back. His kiss is warm and tastes of apple and cinnamon and quite possibly a bit of the rum he had right before they left. Emma groans when his teeth nibble down onto her and his hand snakes up underneath her shirt so that she can feel the heat of his palm.

Everything about him is warm and inviting, and as his tongue runs over the seam of her lips and she parts her mouth for him, Emma realizes that it’s been like that the entire time, even when she was upset with him simply for replacing Chef Rudianni and daring to be something different.

Emma almost likes different now.

No, she does. When it’s the right kind of different and a change that she’s okay making.

Killian pulls back, and Emma realizes that they’re both panting, foreheads pressed together and noses squishing into each other’s cheeks. Emma nearly giggles at the thought of her having beard burn.

She’s the height of maturity. She also doesn’t care. It’s been a long time since she’s felt like this.

“That was,” Killian breathes out.

“Definitely happening again,” she smiles before kissing him again.

Little by little they manage to make it out of the kitchen and back to Emma’s bedroom, both of them careful not to make any noise so as not to wake Henry, and once the door is locked behind them, clothes are shed and Killian’s lips run across her body, whispering words that sound sweeter than anything else, until he’s driving her into madness in a way that she hasn’t felt in years.

Maybe not ever.

The good changes keep on coming.

(So does Emma.)

-/-

Henry barely bats an eye when Killian is there to make them breakfast in the morning even though Emma is more than sure to make sure everything stays appropriate for him. She’s not really sure how to navigate dating around Henry, and when she asks him if he’s okay with she and Killian being together, he tells her that he wants her to be happy.

He also says that he wants to keep getting free cheeseburgers.

-/-

A year later, Killian names the cheeseburger at his restaurant after Henry.

The piña colada is named after Emma.

-/-

Every Monday morning and every Friday night turns into every day, and Emma is more than okay with that change.

#every monday morning #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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juniperwindsong · 4 years

Text

Necessary Monsters (5/16)

Summary: "Isn't it considered ungentlemanly to keep a lady in suspense? Especially after she's nearly been killed?" "How many times do you plan on using that?" "As many as I can before the novelty wears off."

Felix is lucky he's already garnered a reputation for himself at the Romanian Reserve. He's sure he would never pass this interview otherwise. He can't remember half the things he's learned about international dragon research regulations, and completely fumbles the telling of his team's recent successful capture. But the Reserve Liaison cannot stop shaking Felix's hand, awed to meet the young man who "caught a Common Welsh Green at seventeen, quite remarkable!" He assures Felix the paperwork will be finalised and forwarded to Romania that very day, and by tomorrow, Felix will officially be the Reserve's Junior Resident Dragonologist for the Peruvian Vipertooth.

"You'll be such an exciting addition! So many brilliant young people there just at present. Makes me wish I weren't retired to an office, but, the missus does like her quiet life."

Felix manages a polite smile, and the Liaison pumps his hand a final time.

The job he's dreamed of since childhood is his. And it's a beautiful early summer morning that greets Felix as he steps onto the sidewalk outside the Ministry for Magic guest entrance. By rights, it should be the best day of his life. If the sound of Juniper's eldritch scream wasn't replaying in the back of his head every few minutes.

Felix sets off down the deserted street in a random direction. Freshly washed and laundered, and no work required of him for the rest of the day, he knows he should be apparating back to St Mungo's to check on Juniper's condition. But a strange reluctance tugs his feet around a corner and onto a walk bustling with muggles. He doesn't know what to expect upon his return; Juniper once again laid out like a corpse on white sheets, or wide-eyed and wailing, unable to escape whatever horrors that curse had inflicted upon her.

Shuddering at the memory, Felix's eyes squeeze shut briefly and he bumps into a couple turning a corner in his direction. The woman holds up a hand in quick apology, her other hand caught fast by the man beside her. Eyeing Felix, the man pulls his companion closer so they take up less room on the walk. The woman giggles, melting against him, and Felix is forgotten as they traipse away, wrapped entirely in each other.

It's exactly the sort of casual romantic display Felix dreams of, and his heart aches with a desperate longing. His evenings of the last year have been filled with similar fantasies: meeting Juniper somewhere in passing, chatting her up charmingly, letting her see how much older he is now, how much more confident and impressive. One particularly alluring daydream he indulges in often involves rescuing Juniper from some dangerous enemy and comforting her from the subsequent fear, until his embrace wipes away all memory of the horror she's experienced.

Felix stops abruptly, and the man behind him almost runs him down. He swears at Felix loudly, then rights himself and speeds away. Felix takes no notice. What on earth is he doing here, strolling past muggle shops, while Juniper is in pain, alone with only abrasive healers and murderous aurors and, well, Snape, to provide any sort of comfort?

Fiery indignation at his own cowardice burns a hole through Felix’s chest. This is hardly his fantasy; he's never imagined Juniper tortured or half-dead in hospital. But it's still an opportunity. Perhaps the opportunity. To show her the precise depth of his feelings in a way she cannot misunderstand.

Felix pats his inner pocket. He still has the letter he spent an entire night composing. And a whole day before he has to be in Romania.

The hospital is a good deal less crowded when Felix returns that afternoon. He bypasses the help-witch, nose firmly in the air, exits the stairs at the fourth floor and wanders down the main corridor, trying to remember the sequence of hallways leading to Juniper's hidden room. As he walks, he becomes aware of voices in the distance. Vaguely familiar voices, though he can't place how he knows them. The sounds grow clearer the farther Felix walks, and just before he turns onto the final dead-end hallway, he recognises one.

"Barnaby?"

The young man's head whips around, eyes comically wide as he stares at Felix. Felix stares right back, taking in the tableau in front of the dirty window in disbelief. Barnaby Lee has his arm around a tear-stained Rowan Khanna. Propped on the windowsill behind them, Felix can make out Penny Haywood and, his heart thuds unpleasantly, Charlie Weasley, hands shoved deep into his pockets. In front of the sixth-year students, a tall healer with long, black hair lounges against a door. Her face is sharp and forbidding, until she blows a large pink bubble from her chewing gum and pops it loudly.

"Maybe he can help?" says the healer, jerking her chin at Felix.

"Felix!" Barnaby rushes up the hall. “Are you here about Juniper, too? Have you seen her yet?"

"Do you know if she's okay?" Rowan asks, trailing behind Barnaby and wiping her eyes on her scarf.

"What-what on earth are you all doing here?" Felix stutters.

"Why? Did we get the wrong hall?" The strangely impish healer cocks her head curiously. "I swear this is the one Snape turned down this morning. I just didn't see what door he went through."

"It doesn't matter, they're all locked anyway," adds the Weasley boy, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.

Felix's shock gives way to irritation. "I mean - how did you get here? You're all supposed to be in school!"

The healer chuckles around her wad of chewing gum.

"We're here to see Juniper," explains Rowan in a rush. "They said she was attacked but no one will say anything about what happened or how she is, just that she was here. And then Chiara told us the fireplace in Madam Pomfrey's office is connected to one here so she can communicate with the healers, and so Tulip distracted her by letting off a bunch of dung-“

"Rowan!" cries Penny from the window, "You're going to get us all in trouble!"

Rowan gives a choked sob and Barnaby drapes his arm around her again.

"It's okay, Felix will help. He wants to see Juniper, too." Barnaby looks expectantly at his former prefect. "Do you know where she is?"

Felix is entirely lost for what to do. He's never even heard of students sneaking from the school as far away as London; the amount of house points that's likely to cost them makes the old prefect within him feel faint. He knows he ought to enforce their immediate return to school, but a five-to-one duel in a cramped hallway seems unwise.

"Look," he sighs. "I don't think Juniper is up to visitors just yet. She isn't - isn’t well."

"You've seen her?" gasps Rowan.

"How is she?" asks Penny, jumping up from the windowsill and hurrying toward him, Charlie and the odd healer following closely.

Felix takes a step back from the throng of eager students. They look like a nest of newly hatched Vipertooths all edging toward him with hungry expressions, and he has to make a conscious effort not to draw his wand for protection.

"Like, I said, she's not well.”

"But she's alive?" Charlie insists.

Felix's eyes narrow at the red head. "Yes."

There's a chorus of relieved murmurs.

"But she needs rest," Felix continues. "She's still...still - hurt." he finishes, unable to think of a better way to describe her condition.

"If she's hurt, she needs some cheering up!" the healer says brightly. "Who better to do that than her friends?"

Felix looks the woman up and down. "Which friend are you?"

The healer's entire body suddenly shifts, and he recognises the pink-haired Hufflepuff from the Quidditch after-party.

"Tonks," she says with a wink and another pop of her gum.

"Please, Felix," begs Rowan. "We just want to see her. We won't stay long."

Felix flounders. His desire to send them all away and speak to Juniper alone battles his itch to return to her side as quickly as possible.

"Look, when I left she was asleep. And there isn't much room in there-” Felix breaks off as he remembers Juniper’s ever-present guard. If it's Snape, he'll have each student in detention every evening for the next year. And if it's Moody, well, he might just jinx the lot of them. "Alright then, hurry up before someone sees."

Felix edges around the teenagers to the end of the hall, and taps the window with his wand. The lock clicks, the door swings open, and he steps aside to let Juniper's friends push into the tiny room. He leans against the doorway where he can duck out of the line of fire if necessary, but neither Snape nor Moody are inside. Instead, it's the nervous trainee healer from last night who jumps up from the bedside chair.

"Who are you? What's going on?" He points his shaking wand from person to person, finally settling it on Tonks, again disguised as the severe looking healer, who draws herself up to full height.

"It's alright! I have given us - that is - these students permission to visit Juniper, er, Miss Windsong. Which I can do, being a fully qualified healer and all."

Felix snorts quietly and turns his attention to the bed. He does a double-take, pushing himself quickly off the door frame. Juniper is sitting up, staring at the horde of people packed into her room.

"What's the password, then?" demands the trainee, his challenge belied by the obvious fear in his voice.

"Ah, the password, yes..." Tonks waffles. She flicks her eyes to the students around her, all as clueless as she. "Well, I definitely know it. And....it is...”

"Dragon Heart-String."

The words from the door cause the trainee to promptly drops his wand, then almost drop it a second time when he recognises Felix.

"It's alright," Felix assures the young man. "They're not dangerous. But they're not supposed to be here. Would you mind sending an owl to Hogwarts letting them know some students have escaped? Post it care of Professor Snape, if you please. I'll keep watch."

Juniper's gang of devotees all look at Felix askance. Someone at the back, and Felix has a sneaking suspicion who, mutters mutinously.

The trainee healer hesitates for only a second before nodding and scurrying from the room, doubling back just before Felix shuts the door. The young man points the chewed-up nail of his index finger at the bedside table.

"She's supposed to take a draught for dreamless sleep in a minute. It's the blue one. Will you -"

"I'll make sure she drinks it," Felix confirms, and leans back against the closed door.

"Juniper?" ventures Penny cautiously, taking the seat by the bed. "Are you....are you alright?"

Juniper, uncharacteristically silent through all the excitement, blinks at her friend.

"I'm sorry," she says in a low, hoarse voice. "Do I know any of you?"

The room is deathly quiet. For several seconds, no one seems to breathe, and Felix is sure his heart has stopped beating. Then the ghost of Juniper's lop-sided smile appears.

"You should see your faces," she chuckles feebly.

Felix's intake of breath sounds like a gasp, but no one hears it over Rowan's fresh burst of tears and the appreciative laughs from Charlie and Tonks.

"Nice one, Juniper!" The once-again pink-haired Hufflepuff collapses onto the foot of the bed. "Nearly had me on!"

"Juniper, that was awful!" chides Penny in a hurt voice. Barnaby continues to look confused, and bends down to whisper a question to the glassy-eyed Rowan.

"C'mon, I can't have my little joke? I did nearly die." While her humour has apparently made a full recovery, Juniper's voice sounds frail to Felix, and worry gnaws little holes in his stomach.

“Blimey, did you really?" Tonks asks, almost awed. Charlie nudges her in the side with his elbow and she tumbles from the bed.

"But you're okay now, right?" Charlie asks in concern. "What happened?"

Something in Juniper's eyes goes abruptly dark, like curtains drawn across windows. "I don't know. I can't remember anything."

"Is this another trick?" asks Penny nervously, but Juniper shakes her head. The movement is slight, a quick angle of her chin to either side, but it makes her flinch. The sight of Juniper in obvious pain shakes the rest of the shock from Felix.

"Alright, you lot, that's enough. You've seen her and she's alive, so off you go."

Every person in the room begins to protest at the same time, and Felix has to raise his voice to be heard over the clamour.

"Snape is on the way,” he reminds them. That silences the lot. "Now, he knows there are students here, but he doesn't know who. If you clear out before he arrives, he may not know whom to punish."

"Won't you just tell him?" argues Charlie from the corner.

Felix considers him coolly. "I can tell Snape I didn't recognise anyone." Barnaby grins, and Felix fixes him with his best prefect’s glare. "If you all leave now."

The sixth years exchange calculating looks with one another, then Penny gets to her feet.

"We'll come back and see you when term's over," she promises Juniper, to murmurs of agreement.

Tonks pops her gum again as she scrambles off the bed. "And we'll send you loads of sweets!”

"Yeah, Mum says the food here is rubbish," agrees Charlie.

They congregate at the edge of the bed as if unsure of the proper goodbye to give someone covered in countless angry cuts. Juniper relieves them of the decision by lifting her trembling hand in a little wave, which her friends return before filing out the door. Only Rowan breaks away and rushes for the bed. She throws her arms carelessly around Juniper, who winces but pats her friend's back lightly.

"I'm so glad you're alive," Rowan sniffs.

"I'm always alive," Juniper reassures her. "Now, go! Get revising, please. You’ll have to help me catch up later."

Rowan straightens with a shaky smile and returns to the waiting Barnaby. The door closes behind them with a quiet click.

Juniper leans back, eyes closed. Felix can now see she's not so much sitting as propped up by several large, fluffy pillows. Her body sags against them, seemingly unable to support its own weight. He clears his throat, and Juniper's eyes snap open.

"Merlin's beard, I didn't know you were still here!" she groans, pushing herself up weakly, and fixing a smile back onto her face. Felix's heart breaks at the sad display.

"Stop," he orders gently, crossing the room to take the bedside chair. "Don't sit up, you need to rest."

"I'm fine," Juniper argues, her anemic voice entirely unconvincing. Felix presses on her shoulder lightly, but she collapses against the pillows as if he had shoved her.

"Don't even try that bit on me, Juniper. You can fool your friends, but I saw you unconscious. And I saw you wake up." The blush flooding her face looks like overdone rouge, emphasising how unnaturally pale she still is. Felix grimaces at it as he continues, "You're about as far from fine as it's possible to be."

"No, yesterday I was as far from fine as it's possible to be. Today, I'm a good deal closer."

Felix scans Juniper critically. She's still sickly-looking, the cuts standing out against her skin like violent freckles. And her fingers continue to twitch where they rest at her sides. But she's so much more alive than the last time he saw her, and he can't detect any obvious signs of madness. Relief envelopes him like a warm blanket.

"Felix?" Juniper interrupts his inspection. "Is it true my brother was here?"

Felix wonders which thoughtless person mentioned this and what story they told. He briefly considers lying, but thinks better of it.

"Yes," he admits. "He was the one who woke you up."

"Did you speak to him? What did he say?" Excitement is obvious even in her unsteady voice and a fresh surge of jealousy at Jacob Windsong courses through Felix.

"He just said...he was sorry he dragged you into all this. And...that he... loves you."

A small, almost embarrassed smile graces Juniper's features for a moment, then fades as she remembers, "But he didn't stay."

Felix can only shake his head, determined to hex Jacob first thing the next time they met for the look of pitiful hurt on his sister's face.

"That was it? He didn't say where he was going to be? What he was going to do next?"

This line of questioning makes Felix nervous, and he chooses his words carefully.

"He said he wanted you to be safe. Whatever he's doing, I don't think he wants you to follow him."

"Don't worry, I'm not about to go anywhere right now."

Juniper wriggles back against her pillows, and reaches across to the bedside table for the draught of dreamless sleep. She lifts the bottle toward her, accidentally dropping it into her lap. She picks it up and fumbles it again, her trembling fingers unable to keep hold of the glass for more than a second.

"Here, let me," offers Felix but she pushes his hand away with a grumbled, "I've got it."

Juniper clenches the bottle between her knees to keep it still and tries to tug on the cork, but her twitching fingers refuse to grip. After a minute of struggling, she throws her arms down with a noise of frustration.

Delicately, Felix plucks the bottle from her lap and uncorks it with ease. He holds it out, unsure exactly what to do next. He catches Juniper's eye and she attempts to smile, as if in a shared joke. But he can tell the need for assistance causes her as much pain as her injuries. She leans forward and allows him to tilt the liquid into her mouth, then falls back again, eyes closed and face a garish shade of pink.

"Thank you."

"Of course," says Felix. He means to sound cheerful and unconcerned, but it comes out too high pitched. “It’s just a side effect of the c- I mean, just... everything you've been through. I'm sure it will right itself. Or they'll find some way of fixing it. The healers here are supposed to be the best." He shuts his lips tightly over his nervous prattle, and worries a finger across the scar on his neck.

Juniper says nothing. Felix wonders if she's heard him at all, or if the potion has already worked its magic. Until she murmurs his name sleepily, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Felix?”

"Yes?"

"If my brother comes again, will you wake me? Please?"

The pleasurable sensation dies.

"I will," he promises.

Once Juniper is safely asleep, Felix settles back into the armchair, grateful for the extra time to think. Something about this fresh reminder of Juniper's condition has set his confidence off-kilter. If she's preoccupied with her injuries, she may not be in the right frame of mind to receive his admission with the enthusiasm he would prefer. He broods on this for a while, considering the correct approach.

Felix pulls the letter from his pocket and turns it over in his fingers. He remembers the gist of its contents, but the desire to re-read it in light of Juniper's new circumstances is too strong to be ignored. Glancing around, he unseals the envelope carefully and straightens out the parchment.

A few second’s quick reading, and Felix’s face is a shiny, brick-red. The colour only grows with each successive line. He makes it half-way through the letter before he's forced to thrust the parchment back into his pocket out of self-defense, mortification squeezing his head so fiercely he's afraid his eyes might pop. Had he really written this just days ago and felt proud of it? Even intended to send it? Felix shudders at the thought of any one ever reading what he clearly wrote in a fit of sleep-deprived pique. It's a sappy, sopping mess of pretentious lines and flowery adjectives.

Embarrassment prickles against his skin like tiny needles, and Felix leaps to his feet, unable to sit still. He paces the small space between the door and the wall. Barely half a dozen steps, back and forth, over and over again, until the noxious tide of shame begins to ebb. He takes several deep breaths, running his hands over his hair and smoothing it flat to his head.

Perhaps he's a bit hard on himself. Love is something words are hardly ever able to do justice, and it’s not as though he has much practice. Felix pulls a corner of the parchment from his pocket and peeks at it again. A second glance suggests his confession might not be complete drivel. It contains a dramatic flair that could, perhaps, appeal to an average seventeen year old. But it's not remotely the sort of thing to interest a girl who's just been tortured nearly to death.

That's the trouble with Juniper Windsong. She isn't easy to impress. Which of his accomplishments from the last three years can stand up to hers? Any danger he's faced, she’s faced worse. She's the cursebreaker, after all. The hero who's saved Hogwarts more times than he can count.

Felix rubs at the scar on his neck in distraction. Now he thinks about it from that perspective, he isn't sure what he has to offer the young woman asleep on the bed. She eschews protection, hardly needs assistance, clearly has no lack of dedicated friends. Why has she even bothered keeping up with him all these years? It's clear she doesn't need him for anything.

Misery dulling his senses, Felix nearly crashes into Snape as the professor opens the door abruptly. Behind him is the curly-haired healer from yesterday and her nervous trainee. And, Felix takes a step back in surprise, Professor Dumbledore. Felix dips his hand into his pocket, but Snape gives the password before Felix can produce his wand.

The healer stomps roughly past him to the bed-side table. The sounds of violently clinking bottles echo around the still room.

"I still do not see why this has to be done right this minute," she seethes.

"Healer Early, you know I would not bother your patient if it weren't of the utmost importance." Dumbledore approaches the other side of the bed, looking down at Juniper's sleeping form. “The more we know about this attack, the greater our chance of catching the perpetrators."

"I understand your priorities, Headmaster, but this girl has hardly been conscious a day. You're far more likely to get helpful information if you allow her to rest and recover than if you press her mind at this delicate stage."

Dumbledore makes another apologetic reply, but Felix's attention is captured by Snape who jerks his head pointedly at the still-open door. With a quick glance at Juniper, now sandwiched between the arguing healer and headmaster, Felix follows. The lock hasn't even clicked behind him before Snape is in his face and whispering urgently.

"Has Miss Windsong said anything to you about her attack?"

"She said she couldn't remember anything."

Snape's eyes bore into Felix's from an uncomfortably close proximity. Felix tries to angle his head away from the Potion Master's unpleasant breath without being too obvious.

"And I don't suppose you could be relied upon for any useful information?"

"Like I said before, I didn't notice anything unusual."

For a moment, Felix fears Snape's eyes will actually burn a hole right through him. Then the Potions Master relents, drawing back with unconcealed contempt. In spite of the fact that he's been graduated for years, Felix can't help feel a quick stab of shame at disappointing his former head of house. He steels himself against it, focusing instead on his most recent concern.

"Professor," Felix begins tentatively. "The healer said yesterday that - that Juniper...that she didn't expect Juniper to be alright, even if she did wake up. And earlier, she couldn't - " A sudden lump rises in his throat, and he has to swallow hard to dislodge it. "Juniper couldn't hold her own potion bottle. Let alone open it. She's still - I mean, her hands aren't...." He trails away, kicking himself for sounding so scattered in front of Snape, whose opinion of Felix has clearly taken a significant dip.

"It will get better soon, won't it?" he finishes childishly.

There's the merest flicker of something in the Potion Master's eyes, too quick for Felix to identify before his inscrutable mask is back in place.

"It's difficult to say," Snape replies quietly, his own fingers rubbing against the palms of his hands unconsciously. "With therapy and the regular administration of certain restorative draughts, Miss Windsong may achieve some limited mobility within a year."

The sensation of his jaw actually dropping is distantly strange to Felix. His mouth feels both dry and heavy, and completely unfamiliar with the formation of words. For a few seconds, he can only emit cracked syllables. He has to physically shake his head from side to side to reset his brain.

"A year? Professor, what.. what is she going to do? How will she go to school if she can't hold her own wand? She has NEWTs this-"

"Mr Rosier.” Snape cuts off Felix's frantic questions tartly. "As tragic as her condition undoubtedly is, Miss Windsong has brought this upon herself with her absolute refusal to pay even the slightest attention to the rules put in place for her own safety." He raises his voice a fraction over Felix's choking noise. "However, the Headmaster has made a habit the last six years of allowing Miss Windsong an excessive amount of exemptions from rules and consequences. I doubt very much he will stop now. And you may rest assured she will have the best care St Mungo's can provide. There is no reason to overburden yourself with worry about her physical condition.

"What you can do," Snape pauses, ensuring he has Felix's undivided attention. "Is inform me immediately if Miss Windsong mentions anything about her attack. And if you notice anything out of the ordinary about her in the coming months."

"What do you mean?"

Snape pauses, and Felix has the distinct impression he's searching for a way to explain without revealing something important.

"If Miss Windsong appears in any way out of character, it may be worth noting. We do not yet know what curse she was under nor whether it has lasting effects. It would be prudent for the people closest to her to keep an eye."

"Professor, I'm... I'm supposed to report to Romania. Tomorrow," Felix realises with a start and suddenly wonders at the hour. Time seems to stand still in the hospital room. "I suppose I could ask to postpone-"

Snape's black brows travel the length of his forehead in an expression almost like surprise. He casts an appraising look at Felix.

"I do not think that will be necessary. I believe you and Miss Windsong...correspond?" he sneers. Felix's blush is so habitual by now he hardly notices as he gives a short nod. "If her writing gives any indication that she may not be herself, you may simply send an owl."

There's the sound of breaking glass from behind him, and Felix turns instinctively to find Dumbledore ducking swiftly from the room. He nods at Felix sombrely.

"Mr Rosier, Miss Windsong has asked if you would speak to her before you leave. Although," he smiles, the expression not meeting his eyes, "You may be required to duel Healer Early for that particular privilege."

Felix creeps around the edge of the door cautiously and runs straight into the irate healer.

"Young man, Miss Windsong needs rest just now," she pronounces in clipped tones.

From behind her, Juniper's wobbly voice says, "Miss Windsong is right here and she's fine."

"You are most assuredly not fine," the healer snaps. "It's a marvel you're awake at all. I wouldn't have put any money on it."

"I've been through worse," Juniper insists.

Fury snorts from the healer's nostrils like a Chinese Fireball. "I sincerely doubt that."

Recognising a brick wall, Juniper changes tact in a heartbeat.

"Please, Healer Early. I've been through a lot the last day and I just want to speak to a friend for a few minutes. You know, to help calm myself down before I go back to sleep."

Felix hides his smirk behind a closed fist, feigning a cough, while Healer Early narrows her eyes at Juniper suspiciously. She glances at the trainee healer clearing up broken glass by the bedside table, and spins on her heel to face Felix again.

"Five minutes. Not a second more." She pushes past him forcefully and marches from the room. Felix can hear her footsteps rage down the hall even as he takes the seat beside the bed.

"Is everything alright?" he asks without thinking. "With Dumbledore I mean. Was he angry?"

"No, not particularly, he's used to me by now I suppose. Didn't even take any house points. But never mind that," Juniper waves the topic aside with a shaking hand. "I forgot to ask how your interview went?"

Her face is more alive than Felix has seen it since her attack, and nerves squirm pleasantly in the region of his abdomen.

"As expected," he says casually.

"Ugh," Juniper groans in mock frustration. “Isn't it considered ungentlemanly to keep a lady in suspense? Especially after she's nearly been killed?"

Felix matches Juniper's ironic expression, with the addition of one arched eyebrow.

"How many times do you plan on using that?"

"As many as I can before the novelty wears off." She grins, and it cracks his cool mask.

"I was accepted, of course."

Juniper laughs, a sound of joy that wavers only slightly, and something about her enthusiasm is catching. The sight of her so much better than yesterday unravels the knot of worry inside him and for the first time he's able to feel the full excitement of his achievement.

“Felix, that’s incredible! When do you start?”

"Tomorrow, actually," he says, and has to fight to keep giddy elation from his voice.

"Tomorrow?" Juniper's eyes widen in alarm. "What on earth are you doing here, then? You should be getting ready!"

And it suddenly occurs to Felix how very unprepared he is to start a brand new position in less than twenty-four hours. He hasn't had a moment to look through any of the documents the liaison had given him, hasn't replenished any of his supplies or had any of his clothes repaired. He feels dizzy under this sudden avalanche of new worries, and he wonders vaguely when the last time he ate was.

"I've...got time," he says evasively, and Juniper rolls her eyes.

"Oh please, Felix. You know you’ll want to make a packing list and go over it at least three times. And you like to arrive early to get a lay of the land before you start. I'm surprised you didn't leave as soon as the interview was over." Felix glows a little at how well she knows him.

"I needed to check on you first."

Juniper makes a scoffing sound reminiscent of Healer Early's. "Felix, I'm fine. Yes, yes, I know I'm hurt," she admits quickly over his light protests, "I mean, I'll be fine. I'm sure that healer's exaggerating a bit. Bet I'm good as new by the end of the summer."

The trainee healer makes a small, strangled noise and Juniper glances at him defiantly.

"I mean, she didn't think I'd ever wake up, did she?" she fires at the nervous young man. "I managed that, didn't I? I always do. So go!" She commands the last to Felix gesturing toward the door.

Felix stands reluctantly. The letter is still stuffed into his inner pocket. Felix can feel the slight shape of the crumpled parchment against his side. But he can't give that bit of rubbish to her now. He shoots a dark look at the trainee, now wringing his hands uncomfortably. Why is there always someone around when he needs to say a proper goodbye to Juniper?

"Wait," she struggles into a sitting position, and holds out her arms toward him with a smile. "Come here." His obedience is automatic.

It's a weaker embrace than what they shared just days ago. Juniper's arms can't clutch him to her quite as tightly, and Felix's touch is delicate for fear of hurting her. But it feels so good to be pressed against her again, and he soaks up every ounce of closeness he can. She pulls away almost reluctantly, and the way her eyes linger on his lips as she looks at him...Felix wishes he knew a spell to capture that precise expression. In that moment, he is positive Juniper wants to kiss him. He knows it with the same certainty he knows his own feelings. And that knowledge is enough. For now.

"You'll write and tell me how you're doing?" he asks.

"Of course," she agrees.

The trainee healer clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably. And it isn't until Felix is back in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, rushing to put together everything he'll need to begin the job he's dreamed of his entire life, that he wonders how Juniper will be able to hold a quill.

Read Chapter 6 | View all stories on the Masterpost

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caeows · 4 years

Text

jeon jeongguk . cis male . he/him ／ graeme bae just pulled up by blasting dirty little secret by all american rejects --- that song is so them ! you know , for a twenty three year old actor , i’ve heard they’re really gullible , but that they make up for it by being so tenacious . if i had to choose three things to describe them , i’d probably say tousled hair , triple dog dares and a closet full of black . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

hello ! i’m deni ( she/her pronouns , gmt+9 timezone ) . i’m best reached on discord at gayfairy#6371 for plotting . below the cut is ... a ridiculous amount of keyboard smashing but it was a holiday and i was feeling inspired so !! i included a few TLDRs for some quick scanning . there’s also some plots at the bottom i’d LOVE to see . looking forward to writing with you all !

* ☆ ·˚ background.

you could say he was destined for the spotlight .

an only child , he grew up watching his parents performances on the stage , accepting their kisses and gentle smiles before they set off for tours around the country and left him with his cousins . sure , they were absent --- but they tried --- and graeme knew he wanted to be just like them . when his parents delighted in his little home-staged sets he presented , they quickly enrolled him in acting classes and coached him through first auditions , even moved back to korea when it was clear some american roles wanted to confine him to one note . after gaining exposure , graeme shared the screen with one of the biggest names in the american industry in a dramatic hit that led to some ridiculous fanmail being sent to him as a kid , then excitedly landed a role in a revamped science fiction film he was stoked af abouy !!! unfortunately , the film was met with an absolute brutal blowback from fans , some of that hot , petty anger taken out on graeme , and at thirteen years old , his parents made the decision for him to step back and focus on school . ( he still holds onto those spiteful letters------ all that hate from grown ass adults thrown at a child )

performing arts high school , but graeme stayed away from the public stage for a bit . worked on some sets as a tech to get a better idea of the film making process . kept a low profile occasionally caught by curious paparazzi at a basketball court or baseball game . recognizable , but not to the point where he couldn’t be seminormal . there were a few bumps in the road :: leaked photos of a beer at a high school party , couple of fake friends sliding in for clout , people pushing questions like when are you returning ?? how does it feel to ruin one of the most important films of all time ??? shitty . but , with the help of his parents , friends and coaches , graeme returned to student films to grow more comfortable in front of a camera . his official comeback was in the background of a friend's directorial debut , a lady-love drama critics salivated over but failed to earn is’ nominations . still , graeme’s name was back and out there . jumping headfirst into the thing that scares him , graeme’s slated for teen flicks , romantic dramas , action films . a diverse portfolio . people love a comeback . ------as if there was something wrong with what he did before .

TLDR. former international child star who took a break after experiencing a massive fan-driven backlash . pseudo retired , did the performing arts school thing . popped back on the screen about a year ago and working his ass off since . early career inspiration : jake lloyd , natalie portman , yeo jingoo

* ☆ ·˚ current.

suddenly getting all this praise and earning cash , living on his own in a sprawling city of work and sin . hasn’t stop busting his ass , no , but maybe he’s found outlets for all his stress in . . . less than healthy outlets . some of the headlines are way off the mark , some a little too close to home . either way , it’s not something his parents or his management company are thrilled about ( doesn’t he want to be taken seriously as an actor , they say ) and he does . of course he does . but what else does he have to sacrifice to be taken seriously ? and how serious does any twenty-something year old wanna get ?

late hours on dance floors , strips of things he doesn’t know the name of on his tongue , lips on any pretty , wanting pair he can find . he’s young , virile and at the top of his game . who can blame him ? it starts with a string of tabloid images , a rumpled and sleepy-eyed graeme leaving apartments that aren’t his in clothes he was spotted in the night before . zoomed-in , fan-cropped photos on twitter of hickeys and swollen mouths and unbuttoned shirts . america’s sweetheart ? maybe , but clearly not around the clock . him , scaling rails of hotels and dancing on top of cars . grabbing mics at clubs and taking over DJ boots at parties . twitter explodes when he moonwalks through the airport one time and baristas trend his insane coffee orders .

and even though he’s got his own name --- and a variety of different spellings , hashtags , and whatevers --- blacklisted on social media , every now and then he’ll run along a stream of grueling comments , petty nitpicks about his performances , his looks , his voice , his goddamn smile and it’s----- it’s rough , even for someone who grew up in that environment . there’s days where he’ll hole up in his apartment and refuse to see anyone , refuse to leave . the guy in the interviews with the wide smile and sparkle eyes is so , so far away and people almost forget that he’s human , too . he pushes himself out of that mindset , sometimes with help , but it’s always a shadow on his back , waiting to catch him at his weakest .

TLDR. tabloids gossip about speculated hookups and strange behavior . potential alcohol abuse . pushback from management and parents . anxiety towards social media . current career inspiration : ansel elgort

* ☆ ·˚ tidbits.

sporty as fuck —— basketball , soccer , skateboard , swimming , climbing . says he would’ve been an athlete if not for movies . fit as fuck despite a steady diet of ramen and pizza . claims to like horror movies the most , but he’s a total schmaltz snob . can hold a pretty tune well enough to pass . has a private twitter account for the memes , public accounts are all operated by a social media manager so he doesn’t have to read comments . watches college basketball championships religiously . has very strong opinions about scented candles . likes sugary drinks more than coffee but claims to be a connoisseur . loves biopics . punk and 2000s emo rock fan . gets anxious easily , suffers through interviews and avoids personal topics as best as he can . is rumored to be difficult to work with , but keeps to himself on sets save for a few opinions about blocking and lighting . pan as fuck and fairly open about it . mom and dad are chill , but don’t understand much of anything past bi . they get on to him more for his diet and job . when not on the court or working , spends free time rewatching anime in the safety of his bed in an threadbare pair of boxers , eating Doritos by the fistful and leaving his manager on read .

even his underwear is black . occasionally, he’ll change it up with a screen printed vintage t-shirt and wears whatever kind of fancy thing his stylist squeezes him into . otherwise wears by a black or white t-shirt , black pants and combat boots . seventy percent of his sneakers have sharpie drawings on them and he’s got a lot of holes in his ears and another in a place you’d be lucky ( or unlucky ) to see . loves dangy earrings and wearing his hair loose , a bit long with a mild perm . silver on his wrists and friendship bracelets from yesteryear but no rings . tattooed up ! recently collaborated to design a line of temporary tattoos . extensive collection of sunglasses . hit up a lot of music festivals in the past but that’s died down in recent months due to a busy schedule . swung his way into VIP passes before . he was a total Warped kid in the past , no shame . no longer does fan conventions because of a negative experience a few years back , and even fan meets are a little awkward , but he manages to push through . can’t drive worth a damn but he’ll kick your ass at any arcade game . occasionally , he’ll stream over twitch but that’s becoming less and less common . was banned from several dave & busters before he made it back on the screen . moody as fuck .

* ☆ ·˚ plots.

so . bonds . there’s a best friend who may not have been there since the beginning , but they’ve been there when it matters . the friendship is new , fresh , and maybe graeme shouldn’t be as dependent on it as he is , but he can’t help it . clinging to them like crazy --- let’s hope it doesn’t fall to the wayside . ( ? / 1 ) there’s several of his idiot friends who , after being stranded on too many red carpets , a hundred hotel rooms , and hours of press junkets , have learned to survive by snapchatting each other random dares throughout the day . ( 1 / unlimited ) there’s a few childhood friends who , like him , grew up either in or close to the spotlight and they have this , like . . . support group kind of situation . i don’t know . graeme checks on them from time to time , even as they’ve grown apart . ( 2 / unlimited ) he’s got some partying buddies who may not have his best interest at heart --- who may or may not stop him when he’s slurred out and whining about twitter trolls . some gaming partners he teams up with over stream , but lately they’ve drifted apart .

it’s such a cliche that his management’s set him up for a fake dating situation . if graeme wants the dramatic , serious roles , then he needs to show he’s a mature and capable young man . how else to do that than jump headfirst into a few awkwardly orchestrated dates with another hotshot on the radar ? ( ? / 1 ) but they’re not serious . so , he hasn’t stopped hooking up , or thinking about a one night stand that totally rocked his world . ( ? / 5 ) and ( ? / 1 ) media and fans definitely know about a few of these . the jury’s out for how they feel about it . then there’s his competition , actors in the same demographic targeting the same roles . it’s a tough business and they know it , but the press picks up on all these weird quotes and posts that twist shit into beefs . what other misunderstanding will cause the casket to blow ? ( ? / unlimited ) there’s some co stars on old and upcoming films . people who see how hard he works and how much effort he puts into what’s seen on the screen . they tough out hard days on set and the press circuits during promotion . see him at his worst and best . ( ? / unlimited )

#excess:intro #tw flashing gif #tw anxiety mention #going back to SLEEP c u l8r

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

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Globe, January 25

You can now buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: COVID patient Larry King’s nasty battle over $50 million will

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Shia LaBeouf shows off his tattooed belly on a walk, Jessica Alba matches her mask to her shoes, Simon Cowell works out as he continues to recover from breaking his back

Page 3: Amy Schumer on the beach in St. Barts, Peter Weber is a total cue ball, Jenny McCarthy hauls garbage outside her Illinois home

Page 4: David Bowie’s supermodel widow Iman confesses she gets lonely but will never tie the knot again because the singer was her true love -- she made her revelation in the January issue of a fashion magazine where at age 65 she’s still hot enough to be the cover gal -- David and Iman’s daughter Lexie asked her if she would ever marry again and she said never and that their life together was beautiful and ordinary and that David was a very funny warm gentleman

* Kindhearted Kelly Ripa is so spooked by her new gruesome true crime series about digging up murder victims’ bodies that she’s having terrifying nightmares that have driven her to a shrink for help -- Kelly and actor husband Mark Consuelos are bigwig producers behind Oxygen channel’s series Exhumed that debuted January 17 featuring unearthed corpses to solve cases -- many nights Kelly will awaken haunted by a case she and Mark reviewed and realizing the horror and heartbreak the victims and their families went through is something you don’t forget once the lights are out -- while Kelly and Mark aren’t on the show as executive producers they have to approve the episodes and become intimately involved with the devastated families who help tell their heartbreaking stories -- her immersion in the grisly material has had a chilling effect on Kelly who is an empath which is a highly sensitive gal who can often feel the pain and suffering others are going through and Kelly’s therapist encourages her to do positive meditations each night before bed and think about at least two things that made her happy that day and Kelly is doing her best to follow doctor’s orders but she is so affected by the plights of other people that somehow the nightmares still manage to find their way into her dreams

Page 5: Onetime Bond girl Tanya Roberts passed away at age 65 less than 24 hours after her prematurely announced death -- Mike Pingel who was a rep for Tanya says he told the world that she had died at L.A.’s Cedar-Sinai Hospital on January after speaking with her distraught beau Lance O’Brien -- following a goodbye visit with the ailing star mistaken Lance claimed she died in his arms but bizarrely the very next morning sobbing Lance said he was told by the hospital that Tanya was still alive in the ICU while filming a TV interview about her untimely end -- however according to Lance she finally perished hours later on January 4 after being taken off life support -- Tanya reportedly collapsed in her California home after walking her dogs and rushed to the hospital she remained on a ventilator from December 24 until her death which was not COVID related

Page 6: In Denmark a bitter feud between royal wives is tearing the ruling family apart -- Danish Crown Prince Frederik’s Australian wife Mary detests her French-born sister-in-law Marie who is wed to Frederik’s kid brother Joachim and Mary helped banish Marie and Joachim to Paris to get her sophisticated rival out of her hair -- Frederik’s wife who is the future queen desires to be treated with the deference befitting her station even by relatives while Marie is far less stuffy and very outspoken and she’s made it plain she was unhappy when her husband was ordered to become military attache at the Danish Embassy in Paris in 2019 -- shortly after his arrival in France Joachim suffered a blood clot in his brain and when Frederik showed up to visit his ailing brother Mary was nowhere in sight

Page 7: After failing to land plum roles in A-list movie blockbusters Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry inked a $40 million deal to crank out podcasts and the first installment was branded a bomb after airing late last month -- despite superstar Elton John dropping by for Archewell Audio’s first holiday special the highly hyped recording embarrassingly landed at No. 17 on the Spotify podcast list behind entries like Deep Sleep Sounds which features whale sounds -- many in the royal inner circle are gloating and smirking over the arrogant couple’s disastrous debut and even with Elton’s help Meghan is still a second banana to whale noises and no one wants to listen to the couple’s self-absorbed drivel

* Not only has royal renegade Prince Harry traded London for L.A. he’s ditched posh palace pronunciations and speaks more like an American during his public appearances -- while doing his first Archewell Audio broadcast Harry dropped the refined Received Pronunciation favored by his grandmother Queen Elizabeth and sounded like a regular American

Page 8: Anti-vaccine crusader Bobby Kennedy Jr. has been kicked in the teeth by his powerful political clan after triggering fears about immunizations and the desperately needed cure for COVID-19 -- brother Joe, sister Kathleen and niece Kerry Kennedy Meltzer who is a doctor battling the virus on the frontlines publicly accuse Bobby of putting Americans’ lives at risk by telling lies about vaccines in general and attacking injections aimed at stamping out the killer virus -- family members were always skeptical about Bobby’s slightly off-kilter anti-vax ideas but they supported him because the Kennedys stick together and hate to show a rift in the family but now they have shifted against him

Page 10: Garth Brooks’ sloppy habits during nine months of lockdown have iron-willed wife Trisha Yearwood in a tizzy and their marriage is dangling by a thread after she clobbered the slob with a strict set of house rules -- after exasperated Trisha spilled her guts to pals a friend advised she put the rules in writing and hang it where he’ll see it and she did but Trish’s demanding ways are pushing Garth to the brink and he’s ready to walk unless they can find middle ground, one that doesn’t include Trisha calling all the shots -- Trisha has given Garth a list of do’s and don’ts that include wearing deodorant at all times and stop leaving the bathroom a mess and to remove his clothes from the dryer once he’s done but on the top of Trisha’s list is a ban on Garth’s constant 24/7 whistling that has her pulling her hair out

Page 11: Dynamic diva Jennifer Lopez is bored with fat-cat fiance Alex Rodriguez and is struggling to keep their romance alive -- after postponing their marriage and saying there was no real reason to tie the knot Jennifer has kind of hit a wall with where she and Alex can really take things and she is particularly frustrated by ho-hum Alex’s lack of motivation -- those who know J.Lo want her to stick to her wheelhouse by making movies and recording music however those endeavors don’t offer retired baseball player A-Rod any position to play -- they haven’t fallen out of love exactly but they have run out of the joint projects and goals that were the rocket fuel for their relationship and they’re stuck with no obvious places to go next

* Teresa Giudice and new beau Luis “Louie” Ruelas are already shacking up together and plan to buy a pad of their own and Teresa can see herself marrying Louie and combining his kids and hers under one roof -- he stays over most weekends and some weeknights at her place in New Jersey and they cook Italian together and stay up late watching movies -- her four daughters like Louie too and see how happy he’s made her

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Maitland Ward wearing masks on her breasts (picture), Demi Lovato battled a life-threatening secret eating disorder for years but today she bravely flaunts the stretched skin she’d once considered painfully flawed by wearing glitter paint on her stretch marks to celebrate her body and all of its features whether society views them as good or bad, Paul McCartney still gabs with dead pal George Harrison whose sprightly spirit has planted itself in a tree, Ray Liotta has asked girlfriend Jacy Nittolo to marry him and she screamed yes, legendary country star Ricky Skaggs is lucky to be alive thanks to an emergency quadruple bypass that saved his ticking time bomb of a ticker

Page 13: Mel Gibson steps out in Malibu with his arm in a sling (picture), Amy Poehler loads up at a Beverly Hills market (picture), brothers and Kinks bandmates Ray Davies and Dave Davies brew up an outing in London (picture), Michael Jackson’s one-time associate billionaire biz-wiz Ron Burkle snagged the late pop star’s beloved Neverland Ranch for the bargain basement price of $22 million

Page 14: Bryan Dattilo the 47-year-old soap star who’s played Lucas Horton on Days of Our Lives since 1993 now calls himself grandpa to a bouncing baby boy thanks to his 21-year-old son Gabe and his girlfriend and he’s also becoming a granddad on TV too with Alison Sweeney who plays Sami Brady, no more boozy days or nights for Chrissy Teigen and she declares she’s on the wagon and through with imbibing embarrassments

* Fashion Verdict -- Reese Witherspoon 7/10, Greta Gerwig 1/10

Page 16: Cover -- As 87-year-old Larry King battled for his life against killer COVID in an L.A. hospital his estranged wife Shawn was making a grab for the talk star’s $50 million fortune -- the cheating blonde is raging because in the months before his hospitalization Larry filed for divorce and cut her out of his will, leaving the fortune to their boys Chance and Cannon and Larry Jr. his son from his second marriage -- it’s going to be a fight to the finish literally and Shawn is trying to make sure she’s not left out when it comes to his cash

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Anthony Anderson

* Kim Cattrall swore off motherhood because bedroom sessions with then-husband Mark Levinson didn’t fit into her Sex and the City shooting schedule -- Kim was 41 and newly wed when she decided to slam the door on pregnancy

* Bill Cosby is refusing to shower with other inmates a Pennsylvania prison to avoid contracting COVID-19 and he says he controls his stink by washing up in his cell’s sink but he doesn’t expect the situation to last forever because he’s hoping a court will toss his 2018 conviction

Page 21: LeAnn Rimes has admitted she checked into a mental ward after feeling bullied when news leaked she had cheated on her husband with married Eddie Cibrian -- she reveals she did 30 days in therapy in 2012 because she couldn’t handle the public shaming that rained down on her over her affair with future husband Eddie who was still married to Brandi Glanville and she was still wed to Dean Sheremet -- LeAnn calls her therapy the best gift she could have given herself

Page 22: True Crime -- Survivor villain Jonny Fairplay is living up to his bad boy image after cops busted TV’s evil liar accusing him of ripping off his dementia-stricken granny

Page 24: Marie Bobette Riales knows where the bodies are buried in actor Danny Masterson’s Scientology rape scandal and terrified church leaders want her silenced at all costs but Marie who dated the indicted actor and slapped the sci-fi faith with a civil suit won’t back down -- Marie’s impending testimony at Masterson’s criminal trial and in her civil case threatens to destroy the controversial church by exposing the intimidation used by ruthless Scientology bigwigs to hide the twisted secrets of its celebrity members

Page 26: Health Report

Page 30: Tom Cruise has taken on the mission to shield his movie crew from the rampaging coronavirus by building a disease-proof studio on a former top-secret army base -- Tom who is already taking heat for screaming curses at crew members who ignored virus safety measures is shelling out millions to build a secure shooting facility at the former English tank base in Longcross -- Tom is obsessed with finding ways to beat the fast-spreading virus ever since filming of Mission: Impossible 7 was shut down when the pandemic savaged Italy and when it spread to Britain

* Alec Baldwin’s yoga guru wife Hillary a.k.a. Hilaria Baldwin has been busted as a fraud after putting on foreign airs and talking with a Spanish accent -- the mom of Alec’s five young kids claimed to be from the Spanish isle of Mallorca where she was called Hilaria but her tale unraveled after a social media video showed her accent mysteriously drifting on and off and pals from Boston’s preppie Cambridge School of Weston began texting that she’s all-American with one saying her name was indeed Hillary Hayward-Thomas and she did not have a Spanish accent -- now Mrs. Baldwin is confessing she was born in Boston but spent a lot of time in Mallorca where her American parents called her Hilaria and she picked up the accent

Page 36: Angelina Jolie is panicking over her sky-high legal bills but she only has herself and her vengeful divorce war against ex Brad Pitt to blame -- she may be worth $100 million and rake in moolah from producing and directing but her high-maintenance lifestyle and refusal to finally settle her four-year divorce and custody war with Brad have left her cash-strapped and she’s starting to panic over her dwindling cash flow and every time she files a motion like her losing attempt to dismiss the judge it costs her money because these fancy lawyers can charge more than $850 an hour and it adds up -- more and more Angie’s having to dip into her savings but as much as it hurts she’s stubborn and refuses to settle and she blames Brad for everything -- on top of legal bills the luxury lifestyle she shares with her brood including a whopping $17.5 million mortgage on her L.A. mansion are a humongous cash drain and she also supports a household staff plus she’s never learned to say no when one of the kids wants an expensive high-tech toy

* Pop diva Taylor Swift’s image has been erased from a mural at Nashville’s iconic Legends Corner bar because some die-hard fans believe she turned her back on country music -- artist Tim Davis notes the saloon’s owners told him to replace Taylor with Brad Paisley -- furious Taylor fans cry that she won country’s highest honor the Pinnacle Award in 2013 but painter Davis notes Taylor has turned to pop and some inebriated bar hoppers have spit on her image specifically feeling betrayed by her venture from country

Page 40: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting unstoppable and savoring his favorite stogies just three months after major heart surgery but a medical expert warns the 73-year-old’s love for cigars could trigger a devastating health catastrophe and he should kick the habit -- however Arnold who had an aortic valve replaced in October has been feeling his oats with galpal Heather Milligan in resort Sun Valley, Idaho

* In the latest twist in Dr. Dre’s messy billion-dollar divorce the rap mogul admits he spent a night of passion with estranged wife Nicole Young after they split -- in legal documents the music tycoon claims that although Nicole moved out of their family home in mid-March the two continued to speak and socialize and see each other and he also revealed that on the couple’s May wedding anniversary Nicole invited him to dinner at her Malibu home and the two did the horizontal mambo -- Dre vehemently denies Nicole’s claim that he abused her during their 24-year marriage adding she was not and is not afraid of him and insists she’s lying to bolster her divorce claims

Page 45: Robin Williams’ wife Susan Schneider insists she’s haunted by his ghost who shows up when she needs him and she says she recently saw him in the yard

* Gilligan’s Island’s goody-goody girl Dawn Wells took a shameful regret to the grave that the perky pothead was accused of being a dope dealer -- the 82-year-old actress best known as girl-next-door Mary Ann Summers on the classic sitcom was still humiliated over her secret stoner past when she died of complications from COVID-19 -- her drug scandals dated back to 1998 when her friend and co-star Bob Denver who played Gilligan was arrested after a parcel containing half an ounce of pot was delivered to his house in Princeton in West Virginia and Denver later fingered Dawn as his connection and said she’d been selling him dope since 1995 but Dawn lawyered up and denied everything and was never charged -- she was busted for having marijuana in her car as she drove home from her 69th birthday party in 2007 and she was sentenced to five days in jail and fined and placed on probation -- her years as a pothead continued to haunt her until the end

Page 47: Bizarre But True

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simplyrali · 7 years

Text

Hope Chapter 5 (Jameron fanfiction)

Chapter 4 --> https://simplyrali.tumblr.com/post/167732216645/hope-chapter-4-jameron-fanfiction

Chapter 5

A black Porsche 911 stopped in front of the Phoenix’s building. Today Joe decided to drop off Cameron for work on his way to SF University. He killed the engine and looked outside through the window. There were only four other cars at the parking lot and honestly the place looked dull from the outside.

So much history was behind these walls – excitement, happiness, tears, hope, broken dreams, memories. Nothing lasted here, no business survived for long and yet all of them kept coming back. He listed in his mind every company that saw its end on these grounds – Mutiny, CalNect, Comet, and now Phoenix was here. But for how long? His life has been a string of failures in this business, everything grew so fast and passed so quickly that made it impossible for someone to be at the top for long. But in exactly this deadly environment the magic happened, ideas were born and progress was made, not only in technology but for people and their way to each other.

The thing that gets you to the thing.

Did he believe in Cameron’s vision and talent? Yes, of course. What she created was unique and had potential to grow in many directions. Joe was more worried that her shortsightedness and stubbornness at the moment might be the things that will bring her down. AI was more than just games. To be honest he had his doubts about Phoenix’s future, but he would never tell her that. Right now her bubble was still intact and that was what mattered, as Gordon had said before all there is is now, he’ll let her enjoy the ride.

Joe handed to Cameron her bag from the back seat as she was fixing her hair in the review mirror.

“Got everything you need?” Joe asked.

“Yep. Thanks for the ride.” Cam put her bag on her shoulder with one hand and with the other she held her steaming coffee. One last look in the mirror and she was ready to go.

A new car parked next to them. A red Toyota Tercel’95. From her got out a plump man with baby pink T-shirt and dark sunglasses. He almost passed them but stopped in his tracks and turned completely towards them, took off his glasses, his jaw dropped and a loud gasp left his mouth. He opened it a few times trying to say something but no words came out. The man pointed with two fingers at his eyes and then pointed Cam with them in a gesture that spoke “I see you”. What followed could only be described as a small happy dance which included a series of uncoordinated movements with his arms. He then burst into laughter and hurried up the stairs.

“Oh boy, here we go…” Cam was not looking towards the explanations she’d have to give inside after this spectacle.

Joe looked at her with amusement.

“A colleague, I assume.”

“Yes, that was Jerry from Graphic Design. He’s genius in his field but the guy loves to gossip way too much,” Cam shook her head. “That was so not what I wanted after skipping work for two days.”

“He seemed cool, I liked his shirt.” Joe gave her a smirk.

“He is. Anyway, good luck today with your interview! ” She kissed him on the lips, a quick peck.

“Thank you, you too with your…” he waved a hand at the building, “ …thing. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yes, bye. Oh, and call me to tell me how the interview went. Love you.”

“Sure. Love you too.”

Cam stepped out of the car, closed the door after her and inhaled deeply before heading towards the entrance.

As he watched her climbing the stairs Joe started the engine again.

Time for new a start.

The black Porsche drove down the road leaving a cloud of dust behind.

Catherine Howe hated explaining herself, she was never good with words or with people for that matter. And as she stood in front of the door of her company, she knew she had to do exactly that. She could already hear muffled conversations from inside followed by a series of laughter and whistling. Damn Jerry!

Let’s do this.

She opened the door and every pair of eyes in the main hall fell on her. All conversations died and suddenly everybody was super busy.

“So, the lady boss is finally back! How was the vacation? Did you get some… rest? Met someone new?” Jerry spoke with a big smile on his face and gave a high five to the guy next to him – Nathaniel.

Someone laughed and badly tried to cover it with coughing.

“None of your business. Everybody back to work!” Cam took off her coat and passed them. Although she really couldn’t hide the growing smile on her face.

Cam walked in her office and plopped onto her chair. Her glass doors closing behind her. Actually she kept all the glass from Comet’s days. She liked it, it gave transparency to things. There were no barriers like before in Mutiny. Her six employees were all in the main hall with desks put in a circle. That way there was always communication, sharing ideas and obviously… gossip.

She sighed.

A knock on the door.

“Can I come in?” It was Mike, her assistant. He was in his late 20s, tall with short brown hair and he always dressed way too formal for their laid back work environment.

“Sure.” He was already halfway in.

“You didn’t tell us you’re going to take some days off.” He started.

“Oh, that… yeah, I wasn’t really planning it. Did anything important happen that I should know about?” She asked him as she sipped from her coffee.

“Well, Simon Cornwell called to discuss the new marketing strategy, a few calls - none of them of importance… Oh, miss Emerson called Monday morning.” Mike answered as he looked at his notepad.

“Donna? Did she say anything?”

“To call her back. Also she said if you didn’t come to work that we shouldn’t disturb you and you’d probably show up soon… Now we know what she meant.” He grinned and raised his brows meaningfully.

Cam gave him a look. “Not you too, Jerry is bad enough.”

Mike raised his hands defensively.

“Hey, we’re all happy for you. I don’t think I ever saw you with someone or heard of you being in relationship. Honestly I thought you had no social life, with all this work and deadlines… ”

“Well, thanks. I guess.” She turned on her computer. “Hey, did you fix the bug with-”

“Yes, we did.” He gave her a proud smile.

“You’re awesome.” She returned the smile. “Which reminds me, give this to Yuki on your way out,” she handed him a disk. “That’s the new upgrade, I finished it Saturday, it should run smoothly but she can double check it.”

When Mike opened the door to leave, Jerry popped his head inside with a grin on his chubby face, which now was red from all the laughing, his eyes glistening.

“Hey, boss… I saw his Porsche! I didn’t see his face but he looked like a catch!”

“Don’t you have a job?!” Jesus, he was so annoying.

“I’m waiting for Nathaniel to finish the coding for the new features so that I can continue... and in the meantime… When will we meet him?”

She sighed loudly.

“Probably soon.”

“Is he hot?” Jerry made a fanning motion with his hand.

“Out! Now!”

John Bosworth was a happy man. These days he enjoyed every minute of every day and grabbed with full hands of what life had to offer him. The married life was better than what he remembered from his first marriage, or maybe the person was better. He and Diane had clicked right away, they both knew what they wanted, had their priorities straight and were ready to find someone with whom to share life.

It wasn’t easy, but nothing in life ever is. Diane was strong and powerful woman and the fact that she did better in business than him hadn’t helped but at the end none of that mattered. It took a tragedy for them to realize that they had no time to waste and life was too short to worry over meaningless things. They had to enjoy every second of what they had left. So he stopped fighting to stay in the business and found pleasure in his retirement. Bos had a good life, not everyone got a second, a third and even a forth chance like Bos did. And along his journey he created connections with people he now was proud to call a family.

Bosworth was driving to Cameron’s house, he was singing along to Conway Twitty’s “Red neckin', love makin' night” and tapping with fingers on the steering wheel.

Well it's a red neckin', love makin' night You ain't had much 'til you been touched in the moonlight You feel it the most when you get real close and you hold on tight It's a red neckin', love makin' night It's a red neckin', love makin' night

Stars in your eyes, the wind in your hair Oh, what a down home love affair

Hell, he still missed Texas. All of the traveling in the last couple of years made him a little homesick, maybe he and Diane should visit his son soon…

John finally arrived and parked his truck. What he saw next surprised him, right next to Cameron’s car was Joe’s shiny black Porsche. What was he doing here?

Oh, well, past is always lurking behind us…

Bos wasn’t expecting anyone to be home, he knew Cam must be at work, but that wasn’t a problem since she’d given him a key a long time ago. Last week she asked him for a favor and of course he agreed, that’s way he came.

He got out of the car and took his tool box from the trunk.

Bos knocked on the front door.

Joe opened.

Pause.

“John?” Macmillan was visibly surprised by the guest.

“Well, hell… glad to see you too.”

“Um, yeah… Cameron’s not here but if you want I can give her a call.”

“That’s alright, that’s alright. I didn’t expect her to be home. She asked me to take a look at the bathroom on the second floor, it kept drippin’ she said. ” Bos explained lifting his tool box.

“Oh.. come in then.” Joe stepped out of the way.

Bos made two steps inside and took a look around.

“Beer?” Joe asked, obviously not very comfortable with the whole situation. They saw each other at the dinner for the Haley’s birthday but never really had a chance to talk.

“Sure, sure.” Bos took of his jacket and watched as Joe opened the fridge. The younger man was wearing jeans and a loose white t-shirt. He looked… at home. “So, you two…?”

“Ah, I guess…” Joe handed him the beer.

“Heh…” Bos shook his head. “I’d tell you I’m surprised but not really. Life has a funny way, you know, you think something’s over for good and then it turns back right at you and bites you on the ass. Didn’t take you long, did ya? ”

“It’s hard to live just with pictures and memories, John. It wasn’t easy for either of us…”

“I’m sure… ” Bos gave him a look. “Listen, Joe, I know you and I know Cameron. Things with you are always complicated but you care for each other. I told you before, you’re a changed man. I know why you let her go, you didn’t want to hold her down, did ya? You wanted things but she looked in different direction, so you let her pursue her carrier. Now, I didn’t like the way you did it, because I know how hard it was for her, but I get it.”

“I wasn’t ready to… not after… I needed time…”

“Hey now, I know. It hard to stay and it’s hard to go, but you make choices and live with the consequences. It comes a time when all you can do is to hope it will get better and at the end you make compromises with yourself… I’m glad you’re not a stranger, Joe.” Bos smiled and patted Joe on the back. They never were best buddies, but behind the tough mask Bosworth could recognize his good soul.

“Yeah, you want things but in chasing them you lose what you already have... It was hard to let go of the future that I wanted, that’s why I searched other ways to fulfill this… need, but it was harder to live without her. So, you’re right, you learn to make compromises with yourself and put your needs aside and hope this time it will work out. And I’m not getting any younger so…” Joe said and clinked their bottles.

“I wouldn’t go that far. You both just needed time because back then you were at different places. Now… it’s different. Time changes people and age has a way of tempering us all. So who knows… maybe she’ll surprise you. ”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Joe gave a sad smile. “Cameron will always be Cameron, she’s a free spirit and I always loved and admired that about her. Maybe it was wrong of me to try and put her in a box…”

“Well, Joe, time will show. For now enjoy the present and deal with problems one at a time. You know what recursion is?” Bos asked as he put down his bottle on the kitchen table.

“Yeah…” Joe took his last sip of the beer.

“Great. But just so you know, I don’t care how much she loves you, if you hurt her again or force her into doing something that she doesn’t want, I’ll break your legs.” Bos patted his tool box. “Come on now, let me see that bathroom. I miss the old days when the water pipes used to be high quality, what they do now…My God!” he shook his head with disapproval.

Bos started climbing the stairs. “You know anything about plumbing, Joe?”

“No, not really.”

#halt and catch fire #fanfiction #jameron #joe macmillan #cameron howe #john bosworth

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yuriplisetsk · 7 years

Note

Yurochka Plisetsky being (adorably) territorial over his ties to Victor and Yuuri both.

Yuri Plisetsky is laudably adept at showing his love in hidden ways. He fits it into the dark nooks between snarls and insults, keeps it guarded with bared teeth where it sits, liquid threatening to spill out at any moment, caught in his throat, scorching hot like molten lava. His love is sentient, annoyingly unruly, and the more he tries to guzzle it down, the more it rises to choke him.

One day, he’ll learn that love is nothing to be locked into a chest, that just as a vulcano, stuffing it too far down will only make it pop out angrier than before, and lapilli are nothing to be joked about. But that’s not happening yet, not for another pair of years at least, and that’s a burden he has to bear with poise and grace. Except he has no intention to.

Yuri Plisetsky doesn’t want to deal with poise and grace, not ever, not unless he really, specifically has to. He’s stuck between wanting to scream at the top of his lungs and crying it all out into his pillow, and the choice is pretty easy to make. He kicks and throws things, stands with his legs just a little too far from each other, pulls up his hood against every external input he doesn’t feel like accepting. He screams, of course, and pretends to gag and stuffs his mouth full of profanities against the lava inside his gut. He might be a prima ballerina on the ice, but that’s just professionalism.

If only everyone had his same professionalism.

(ao3)

The gross couple. That’s what he calls them. Not Dad One and Dad Two, like Mila keeps changing his mobile contacts to. (No matter how many times he changes them back, Mila always figures out his passcode and Yuri has to painstakingly go through the process of figuring out who’s who again. Because she likes to swap the numbers to mess with him and wipe out their convos to make it harder. Of course.)

(There’s also the fact that Viktor and Yuuri text in a scarily similar way?)

But then again, Mila is the least of his problems. Because, back to the gross couple - Yuri does his stretches religiously. He has to, because he wants to be perfect, and because he’s scared of his body betraying him.

He’s kicking up his foot to hook his leg on his shoulder, careful not to hit himself with the skate guard, when he hears them. They’re giggling. He really doesn’t need to see this, but he whips his head to anyway. Viktor has his hand splayed on Yuuri’s calf as he pretends to help him stretch it up. Their noses are too close and they have matching silly smiles painted on their faces. It’s sickening. And adorable, but Yuri stops that thought at the origin, sticking strenuously to the first one.

“It’s seven am, which means that it’s too early for this shit” he grouses, a little too loud for comfort. He sees them jump in their places, and that makes him suddenly really smug.

Viktor doesn’t budge from his uncomfortably close position, still. “We’re stretching,” he replies merrily, and proceeds to fold his husband like a pretzel. There’s a terrible gleam in his eyes, and Yuri shudders when his brain automatically tries to guess the thoughts Viktor is probably having. Definitely not safe for work, and not where he wants his own thoughts to be going right now.

Tragically, he can still hear them. “My Yuuri, you’re so deliciously bendy,” Viktor trills, and then gets his mouth down to whisper something directly into Yuuri’s ear that makes him splutter and flush.

This guess is pretty easy to make. Yuri’s unholy shriek can do nothing to erase it. “I hate you,” he spits out as he steps out of his position and kicks off his skate guards. Yuuri looks apologetic, but that’s not gonna cut it.“I hate you so much,” Yuri repeats, and is finally able to skate away.

“We love you too!” Viktor yells to his retreating back, and then “Ow!” as Yuuri thwacks him on the shoulder.

Despite himself, Yuri smiles. They can’t see him, anyway.

This reporter is not different than any other Yuri has met in his short lifetime under the reflectors of fame. Nosy, too blunt, not very knowledgeable of concepts like personal space and privacy. She’s tightly snug into a dark tailleur, the camera guy tailing her closely, and she thrusts the microphone into his face with intent, narrowly missing his nose with a corner of the square mic flag. “The Ice Fairy of Russia,” she says, and Yuri’s eyebrow twitches minutely. He has to be courteous, not make a scene. He has to duck and hightail it out of the building as fast as he can with a well practiced “no comment” and then he’ll be free to turn back at the hotel and maybe, if they beg hard enough, get hotpot with the gross couple.

The reporter doesn’t even congratulate him on the new shiny medal hanging from his neck. It’s only a bronze, but it’s still very rude.

“You know the internet has dubbed you and the Katsuki-Nikiforov pair as the podium family,” he doesn’t mean to even listen to her question, but as he opens his mouth for his line, she barrels on “but we all saw you express your distaste at this clearly and vocally. Would you say you hate it?”

Before thinking better about it, Yuri closes his mouth and blinks. Just in time for the reporter to add “We all know the Katsuki-Nikiforovs are old news anyway, and their retirement is being rumored from a long time now. Aren’t you, say, disgusted at having your name always tied up with disgraced skaters as they are?”

In another universe, Yuri replies succinctly with his coldest “no comment” just before turning his back to her. In another, more satisfying universe, Yuri punches the shit out of the honestly terrible reporter and the camera guy both, coming out unscathed and really smug. In this universe, though, Yuri Plisetsky squares his shoulders and the bridge of his nose starts going red. His eyes narrow, his lips curl in a derisive snarl. “What the fuck,” (this will be disgracefully redacted) “is your problem?”

He doesn’t give time for the question to settle in. “Viktor and Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov have won together more medals than you could even count on your grossly manicured fingers. And they’ll win more in the years to come. I can only hope to do half as great to the legacy they will leave when it’s time,” he takes a shrill breath from his nose, clenching his fist angrily “Just you wait. We’ll kick everybody off the podium again and again, as a family. Maybe that’ll shut you up!”

Words are terrible, for they reach your brain only after they already spilled out. Yuri can only watch in rapt horror as the reporter gapes like a fish out of water, and then his body moves for him.

He’s shaking with embarrassment and rage as he closes the door of the bathroom stall behind his shoulders, slumping against it right after. What the hell, he thinks. He expands his lungs to get the air back, tries to lessen the swell of panic clawing at his throat.

He’ll realize, one day, that the words were exactly the same lava he had tried to smother and push back inside since the start. He’ll learn that it burns a lot more when you let it simmer, and the quicker way to lessen the rawness it causes is to get it out as fast as possible.

For now, he just starts breathing in a regular pattern and waits for his heart to stop rabbiting in his throat. For now, he exits the stall when he’s sure no one is there to splash his face with cold water and thinks that Yakov will give him an earful whenever the interview, if you can even call it that, is released (he’s under no hopeful impression that it won’t, he’s not that naive). For now, he just hopes Viktor and Yuuri will be too preoccupied making out and being grossly in love to ever learn about it (this is an impression that he can’t really start to believe either).

On cue, his phone pings. Yuri takes another breath and whips it out of his team Russia jacket. Might as well.

Are you coming to get hotpot with us?

Yuri groans. The text is filed under “Dad One” and he’s had to wipe his memory to free space for some songs Otabek sent him. There’s no precedent conversation to give input as to who it is. Go figure.

Which dad are you again, he punches out the send button before he can think better of it.

It’s Yuuri! :) is the immediate reply. Meet you at the hotel?

Yuri taps an affirmative reply before pocketing his phone and heading towards the back door of the building. He doesn’t bother changing the contact names ever again.

#victuuri #viktuuri #yuri plisetsky #victuuriwriters #yoi #screams #ahhhhhhh is this more than you bargained for (yet)#yuri loves them so much though #it was time everyone knew it too #The Katuski-Nikiforov get a hold of the interview not long after it's released but as mutually agreed they never bring it up #(Viktor was not so keen on it but that's another story)#Yakov pretends to scold him but is secretly really proud of him.#Mila discovers that she doesn't have to change his contact names again and clutches at her heart #thinking maybe she can finally let Yuri off the hook. For a whole second #Then she starts plotting how to mess with him again.#scribbles on ice #Anonymous #THANK YOU FOR THE PROMPT IT WAS SO CUTE

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acomplexjourney · 5 years

Text

OB/GYN

I just finished my first OB/GYN rotation and it was a great experience overall! My preceptor was “Dr. G.,” an obstetrician-gynecologist who has been practicing in the community for over 30 years. I found it incredible that a few of his patients were babies he delivered early in his career and are now having babies of their own! Walking into Dr. G.’s office was a little like stepping back in time. His nurse, “Dolores,” also functioned as Dr. G.’s receptionist. She would answer the phone, schedule follow-up appointments, and was constantly on the move taking vital signs and acting as a chaperone for sensitive exams as well. For his part, Dr. G. maintained a full-time schedule at age 72, seeing patients from 9 AM to 6 or 7 PM every day, often without a lunch break! He took his time with every patient, asking not only questions directly pertinent to the pregnancy or annual gynecology visit, but also questions more typical of a primary care setting, such as whether the patient always used a seat belt or if she had received her pneumonia vaccine yet. Dr. G. was an old-school doc who still used paper charts and gave his cellphone number to every patient, instructing them to call anytime of day or night if they had a concern. He was very well-liked among his patients and I learned a lot working with him and Dolores for a month. I am much more comfortable now performing pap smears and bimanual exams. I even got to help deliver two babies! In addition, I was reminded of the importance of never judging a book by its cover.

The deliveries

My first delivery was an experience that I will never forget. Prior to residency, I had only ever observed vaginal deliveries and was never directly involved. That changed one evening when I followed Dr. G. to the maternity ward to check on one of his patients in labor. Ms. A. was progressing smoothly, but it still seemed like it was going to be a while before her baby arrived. “I have to go to the bathroom, deliver the baby if it comes out!,” Dr. G. said to me and left the room. So I leaned against the wall, fully expecting Dr. G. to return well before the time of birth. Suddenly, Ms. A. yelled, “I think she’s coming out.” Dr. G. wasn’t back yet, so I jumped into the hallway to look for him, but he was nowhere to be found. When I returned to the room, Ms. A. repeated in an even more urgent voice, “I think she’s coming!,” so I ran over to her bed and got ready to deliver the baby, feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. A tuft of hair from the baby’s head was all that was visible coming out of Ms. A. Then, with the next contraction, the whole baby popped out onto the bed in one fluid motion! I stood there in shock, my gloves covered with bodily fluids, seeing the newborn lying in front of me. “Put the baby on Mom,” I heard one of the nurses say to me, so I quickly refocused, lifted the baby up onto Mom’s belly, and the nurses began drying baby off. Meanwhile, the baby took her first breaths of fresh air, Ms. A. cried tears of joy, and her family in the room was elated. Naturally, at that point Dr. G. walked back into the room and seemed pleased with how everything had gone. He delivered the placenta and guided the father in cutting the umbilical cord. I was just glad that both Mom and baby were alright. Fortunately, my second delivery went much smoother. Dr. G. was right next to me the whole time and I again got to experience the amazing feeling of being the first person to hold a baby after birth. There is nothing quite like it.

Will I practice obstetrics after residency? Probably not. As amazing as it was to deliver a baby, I worry about the time commitment and malpractice that goes along with it. I had the opportunity to talk to one of my family medicine attendings whose “retirement job” is precepting the residents in clinic a couple times a week. He delivered countless babies over the course of his career and while he does not regret it, it did cause some stress in his personal life. I imagined the worst part of practicing obstetrics would be being woken up in the middle of the night to have to go to the hospital. My attending disagreed, saying that getting woken up at night wasn’t that bad. What was really difficult for him was having to tell everyone in the middle of a family gathering that he had to leave. Or there was the time (before cellphones) when he left his wife in the middle of a movie and then forgot to return to the movie theater to pick her up until several hours later! I am sure that my attending’s spouse is quite supportive and forgiving since she is still with him all these years later.

Trying not to be judgmental

In medicine, one is supposed to treat every patient equally, but that is easier said than done. Around 5 PM one day, when I was feeling tired and ready to go home, a 17-year-old female named Ms. T. walked into the clinic for her initial obstetrics visit. Reflecting on the experience, I am saddened that I instantly had several assumptions about Ms. T. before she had even said a word to me and Dr. G. “Here’s someone who’s way too young to be pregnant.” “She must be irresponsible and uneducated.” “Even though her boyfriend is being supportive now, he’ll probably be gone within a year or two.” Still, I was there to learn, so I listened in as Dr. G. interviewed the patient in her office. Ms. T. was from a small town in Western New York and lived with her Mom and 15-year-old sister. This was Ms. T.’s first pregnancy. My assumptions began to unravel when the patient asked Dr. G. if he could give her more prenatal vitamins. “Okay, so this patient is doing at least one thing right if she is taking prenatal vitamins.” Then, I found out that she had already earned her GED and was enrolled in a local community college working on her nursing degree. “Hmm, I guess she’s more educated than I initially thought.” On top of that, the patient was also working part-time as a waitress to help make ends meet. Dr. G. explained to the patient that in four to six weeks, she could undergo prenatal screening for Down syndrome and other genetic disorders. Would she terminate the pregnancy if Down syndrome was found? “No,” Ms. T. confidently told Dr. G. “I will love the baby no matter what.”

By the end of the encounter, I had a lot more respect for Ms. T. than when I initially saw her. I had no reason to believe she would be anything but a great Mom when her baby was born. But what if Ms. T had ended up being the uneducated, irresponsible 17-year-old I had assumed she was? I like to think that I would have had the same amount of respect for her, but the reality is probably the opposite. It’s too early for me to start becoming jaded as a resident. I resolve to be more cognizant of the unconscious judgments I make about patients, because I know that it will allow me to provide better care and become a better family physician at the end of the day.

PS- Two videos I’d recommend if you have time to watch them. The first is from the vlogbrothers about their new project with Partners in Health to improve healthcare in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world- 1 in 17 women die from pregnancy or childbirth. In addition, I recently watched a PBS documentary on abortion in the United States. I found it difficult to watch at some points, but would recommend it.

That’s all for now. I’m currently back on internal medicine again. Just 4 weeks to go!

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: Bubble Keeper Week Cap League; Heiskanen and Honka; Iginla; Zucker – July 27

Bubble Keeper Week is continuing here at Dobber Hockey and I’ve been very heartened to see the Dobber community come out and talk fantasy hockey. This is typically a time of year where most people have football, baseball, and barbecues on the mind, and it goes to show the passion you, as a community, has for the game we all love.

A couple days ago I mentioned one keeper league I have that follows a cap structure. We keep 18 and the scoring is as follows for skaters: goals, assists, shots, special-teams points, hits, blocks, takeaways, face-off wins. We start three centres, three of each wing, four defencemen, three utility, and two goalies. We haven’t had our rookie draft yet.

This is my roster (missing are goalies Jonathan Quick, Aaron Dell, and Darcy Kuemper) and they are last year’s salaries, which means someone’s contract information like Boone Jenner’s is incorrect:

These are the guys I know I’m keeping for sure: Nico Hischier, Jake Guentzel, Chris Kreider, Yanni Gourde, Ivan Provorov, Shea Theodore, Nazem Kadri, Brett Ritchie, Brad Marchand, Boone Jenner, Vladimir Tarasenko, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Jonathan Quick, and Aaron Dell. That makes 14.

A couple guys I’m waiting on are Josh Morrissey and to an extent Ondrej Kase. Both are RFAs without their new contracts as of yet.

Some guys I’m unsure of: Pavel Zacha, Evgenii Dadonov, and Justin Faulk.

I have always been a fan of Zacha and think he’s due to breakout this year so, considering his cheap salary, I will probably keep him.

Dadonov I really don’t know what to do with. He provides little in peripherals and could lose his power-play spot to Mike Hoffman. If he’s basically a nothing in half the categories, is he worth $4-million in this league setup?

Finally, I thought Faulk would be in a new destination by now. The addition of Dougie Hamilton is going to ruin hopes of a bounce back for Faulk in a Carolina uniform. It’s a matter of whether we get 2016-17 Faulk or 2017-18 Faulk. I just don’t know yet.

What does the Dobber community think on each of Zacha, Dadonov, and Faulk in this format?

We are down to a one-handed number of days as the 2018-19 Dobber Hockey fantasy guide is set to release in five days. Be sure to grab your copy early so you can absorb all the fantasy goodness contained within and take advantage of the updates that will occur as we progress to the end of the off season. Just head to the Dobber Shop and pre-order yours now!

Sean Shapiro of The Athletic had an interview recently with new Stars head coach Jim Montgomery. I encourage those with subscriptions to read it but there were a few interesting takeaways:

It sounds like we can expect the trio of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and Alex Radulov to skate together infrequently at five-on-five. I assume Radulov is the guy moved down. Reading between the lines, does that mean Valeri Nichushkin gets a shot on the top line?

Montgomery specifically talks about wanting to play a “puck-possession game” which probably bodes well for their skill players.

Montgomery also specifically gushes over Miro Heiskanen’s ability to generate offence from the defensive zone, so maybe they let him make mistakes while trying to create offence through the neutral zone.

The new coach also discusses Julius Honka’s ability to create clean entries, which is something he will be emphasizing. Those who’ve waited for Honka to finally be a staple of this blue line, it looks like it may happen.

There is a lot more to the interview, specifically talking about Stephen Johns, Radek Faksa, Devin Shore, and Jason Spezza. I really do encourage people to read it. This interview is more enlightening than the vast majority of interviews from coaches.

Something I’ve just been thinking about for this year is Jeff Carter’s value. He lost two-thirds of his 2017-18 due to injury but still managed 13 goals and 22 points in 27 games. That’s pretty good.

My big issue is that he’s going into his age-34 season. The list of centres with 25-goal, 30-assist seasons at the age or older over the last five seasons is as follows: Pavel Datysuk (2014-15). That’s it. That’s the whole list. In fact, Datsyuk is the only centre in the last decade to have a season with at least 25 goals and 30 assists at the age of 34 or older. We know of aging curves in hockey. We know that shots and shooting percentage fall off in the late 20s and get worse. There was also an article recently from Ryan Stimson at The Athletic showing that playmaking skills can sustain themselves much more than shooting later into a career. Carter is a shooter.

He’ll still get 17-18 minutes a night centering the second line and on the top power-play unit. With Ilya Kovalchuk in town, do some of his shots on the PP disappear?

This will largely be a question of ADP. He was often drafted inside the top-75 last year. Even if he’s still just inside the top-100, it might be worth passing on him. Once I finish projections, I’ll have a better idea of where to grab him. This might be a situation where I’d rather be a year early jumping off the boat than a year late.

A couple days ago, the Calgary Flames announced that Jarome Iginla would be having a retirement ceremony in Calgary at the end of the month. So ends a career that began as a draft pick of the Dallas Stars and ends as one of the most prolific wingers to step on NHL ice.

In the history of the NHL, there have been 17 players to manage both 600 goals and 600 assists in their career. Only two aren’t Hall of Famers and those two are Iginla and Jaromir Jagr. That’s why I had to laugh when I saw some people on social media, just after the announcement was made, ask whether Iginla was a Hall of Famer. I know they’re just trying to spark some sort of discussion (need those engagement numbers) but the thought to the contrary is an absurd one.

Let’s dig a little more into Iginla’s career (all from Hockey Reference’s Play Index):

From 1998-1999 through 2014-15, a span of 16 seasons, Iginla managed 25 goals in 15 of those seasons, only missing in the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign. Marian Hossa had the next-most 25-goal seasons with 12.

In the 10 seasons from 2001-02 through 2011-12, the prime production years of his career, he had 806 points in 800 games. Only Joe Thornton had more points in those seasons (899).

Since the turn of the century, Iginla has 12 seasons with at least 30 goals and 30 assists. No one else has more than eight.

No matter how it’s cut or sliced, Iginla is one of the top wingers to skate in the modern era of the NHL. That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of his impact on the game when you consider his impact on others:

Jarome Iginla is the reason I even picked up a stick in the first place. At a young age there weren’t too many players with a similar background to me. I’ve idolized him my entire life and wish I could have stepped on the ice with him. Best of luck Iggy!

— Tyrell Goulbourne (@Tgillz12) July 25, 2018

When someone leaves the game of hockey, be it retirement from the playing or management side, there are always platitudes that are offered. Every single person is the Classiest Person Ever in hockey. Every single person is a Hall Of Fame Individual. Et cetera. Et cetera. These aren’t platitudes when it comes to Iginla. From fellow players, to fans, to coaches, to just regular people on the street, he treated everyone with respect, and assumed the role of a true leader.

We will see another player like Iginla; there are too many talented players across the world for it not to happen. I’m not sure we’ll see another player with his on- and off-ice qualities again, though.

I have gotten a couple questions on Jason Zucker – which is kind of surprising given I’ve probably written more about him than any other player over the last few months – so I wanted to go through his breakout season piece by piece.

Zucker’s 2017-18 was a career year, cracking 60 points for the first time. In fact, he cracked 50 points for the first time, finishing with 33 goals and 31 assists. He also played a full 82-game season for the first time, while averaging 16:58 TOI per game, also a career-best.

We may look at his 14.9 percent shooting and just assume, considering he shot 12.1 percent over the previous five seasons, that it’ll come down. Here’s the thing: his 11.5 percent shooting at five-on-five in 2017-18 was actually lower than both his 2016-17 season (12.6 percent) and his 2014-15 season (15.3 percent). His aggregate shooting percentage from 2012-2016 at five-on-five was 11.4 percent, right in line with his 2017-18 season. He scored 20 goals at five-on-five, as he did the year before. In other words, he didn’t get lucky at five-on-five.

The difference came on the power play. For his career, Zucker had three PP goals in 248 games before last season. He was finally given regular minutes and popped seven. Minnesota split their time between two units so it’s not as if he had monster top-unit minutes like guys in Washington, Boston, or San Jose. Even though he was given regular power-play minutes, looking in a league-wide context, he still had fewer minutes on the man advantage than guys like Alex Tuch, Alex Kerfoot, Max Domi, Nick Schmaltz, and Adam Henrique.

Zucker shot 21.9 percent on the power play, which explains his bump in overall shooting percentage. That may seem high, and it’s certainly above average, but among forwards with 170-plus minutes on the man advantage last year, that mark wasn’t even inside the top-20.

The one concern is that this was the third straight season with a declining shot attempt rate at five-on-five. Though his actual shot on goal rate went up, his shot attempt rate went down. That’s probably an aberration and if he doesn’t start shooting more, his overall shot totals will decline unless he sees more ice time. If his ice time and shot rates don’t change, don’t be surprised if he drops 20 or so shots off his totals, which would result in a few fewer goals.

His individual points percentage last year was 68.8 percent, a three-year high, but not far off his 2016-17 season (65.3 percent) and lower than his 2014-15 season (74.3 percent). Again, it just seems about normal for him.

All told, despite it being the best production season of his career, not too much of his 2017-18 season was out of line with what he had done in his career, and most of the changes can be explained in a change in usage. Maybe he doesn’t improve next year, or even declines a little, but barring a really unlucky year, there should be too much of a change. He can still push for 30 goals and 60 points.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-bubble-keeper-week-cap-league-heiskanen-and-honka-iginla-zucker-july-27/

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