#the fucking at home fancy dinner thing is like sending me to the goddamn moon

[friendlyneighborhooddolan]

Mind the moon: part one

warnings: This story is very descriptive. Other trigger warnings are: sexual and graphic scenes, death, religion talk, descriptions of murder, alcoholism, and binge food eating.

pairing: Grayson Dolan x reader

summary: in the first two years after his girlfriend died, Grayson became a wreck, and maybe he will get himself fixed up, and maybe he won’t. Two years later, he meets Y/N.

Masterlist

FADO

when they told her her story was  written in the stars, she went to heavens and crushed each one with her bare hands: stars have no power over her, the night sky is hers now and she will carve it with constellations of her own.

–never tell a goddess her faith

;Wʜᴇɴ ᴅᴏᴇs ᴍᴀʀᴛʏʀ sᴛᴏᴘ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀ ᴍᴀʀᴛʏʀ?

You carry the heavens in your eyes like one of those ancient Greek tragedies.

And I’d call you Atlas but he wasn’t given the choice to hold the stars.

You were.

–yet you still break your back by holding the sky in your palms

–Wʜᴇɴ ʜᴇ sᴀᴠᴇs ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ ʙᴜᴛ ʜɪᴍsᴇʟғ.

She knew she fucked up the moment her customer laughed manically, pulling out a gun beneath his coat. She couldn’t speak a few moments, but then slowly raised her fingers from the keyboard, putting her hands above her head.

“Mr. Jameson, please, lower the gun,” she spoke calmly, but her shaky voice gave her away.

“You are Mr. Dolan’s girl?” the man spoke out, his eyes boring into hers. She nodded, heard his chuckle and looked around. It was a safe room, no cameras allowed here.

“Well then, miss Sage Tucker, you are dead,” he answered. A shaky breath escaped her. She couldn’t die! She promised to go out with him tonight, on a fancy dinner and then maybe… He would’ve proposed and then they could live happily after, and then— Her brown eyes were becoming pools of confusion and her vision blurred, and she wasn’t ready to die.

“Any last words?”

“Tell him that I loved him.”

A gunshot. A scream. Bangs on the door.

A year later, Grayson Dolan was standing next to her grave, still crying his eyes out for not kissing her that awful July morning. He never found out who killed her.

He just knew the letter he got from the killer said her last words were “Tell him that I loved him. “ Fuck he missed her so fucking much it hurt him.

God, he thought, God, if You’re really up there somewhere, keep her safe. Please. You took her away for a reason, but please protect her. She’s more fragile than she lets on. Please. If she had to die, please, let her know her life was my life’s best part. And, please, send me an angel. So I don’t get messed up.

A sigh behind him.

“You remember too much, Gray,” a man, a face, almost same to his, speaks out, “You carry too much guilt and it wasn’t your fault.”

“Where can I put it down, Ethan?”

God’s greatest joke was giving alcohol calories. It’s not about coping. At first it was, for inspiration, but for coping, too. But as months progressed, it was more of a need. He was drinking to forget he was drinking to forget he lost her. It’s easy to mix up coping and inspiration and addiction and he spiraled into the last one. It’s not about coping when he wanders into his and his brother’s house, all bruised up and beaten up and dirty and- He’s gotten out of shape. His beard unshaven and his eyes holding dullness everyone saw. He retired, claiming he couldn’t find happiness in the world anymore, and by the time he wonders why he can’t climb up fourteen stairs to his room without almost passing out; his heart wasn’t set on coping. It was set on self-destruction.

Most days, Grayson is a museum of things he wants to forget. If he could, he would rip his own skin off, but he knows the skin cells that touched her are gone. She was gone from his body, and all evidence she was ever his lost with the molecules of his skin components. He lost them in the first few months of grieving. That still makes him want to rip himself apart, though.

He left her in her favorite places. The diner where they first met. Her childhood home, where her parents still live. The creek where they used to skinny dip. His old car. He was happy he did. He was happy that she lived her favorite memories through him.

When Grayson asked his brother to stop smoking, Ethan laughed at him and said: “I will consider it when you stop drinking your way to death.” And as I’m writing this, he has seven shots of liquor swirling in his bloodstream and four hundred eighty three empty calories and no food in his stomach and he thinks he used to handle much more, and his best friends joke about him being such a lightweight.

He was drinking whiskey from a bottle when a girl interrupted him.

“Mr. Dolan?” her soft voice full of grief. He groaned in frustration, his vision blurring because of the alcohol.

“I don’t want to talk to any journalists right now,” he answered, words slurring, blinking a few times to focus his eyes on the girl that stood in front of him.

“Mr. Dolan, I’m not a journalist. You are sobbing in the middle of your backyard, drunk out of your mind, and it’s only one in the afternoon. It’s July. I wanted to ask you if you needed any help.”

He looked like the boy from those modern girl poems. His eyes were framed with wildflower bruises and he had quaking knees to prove she could wax poetry like Poe about his goddamn hands alone. He carried himself like one of those old Greek tragedies and his eyes looked like the skies Atlas held above their heads, and his trembling hands held watercolor bruises and she thought his beauty was more of a tragedy.

He wore the smell of blood and alcohol like a perfume, and there was fire on his lips and ice in his veins, and he was a star burning with a light of thousand suns.

“Miss…” he looked at her, his eyes pleading for her last name.

“Miss Y/L/N.” She finished for him.

“Well, Miss Y/L/N, thank you for asking, but I’m doing pretty fucking good.”

“No, you’re not. Look… Grayson,” she hesitated, her hands flying up to toy with the crucifix on her necklace.  Grayson scoffed. “Grayson, I know you’re not okay. You need help. “

He looked at her. Perhaps she was the angel he prayed for months ago. God, he hoped.

“What’s your name, honey?” He asked, his hands playing with the bottle between his knees.

“Y/N. And don’t call me honey,” she answered, her anger towards God showing up. He ruined an angel. They say the loveliest angels make the cruelest demons, and he was so kind and beautiful before they dragged him into hell. She knew, she did see him before he became the mess of limbs and heartache and hate. Two years ago.

“Sit down, Y/N.” He patted the grass next to him. She hesitated. He might have been nice before, but who knows of his morals now? She certainly doesn’t.

“Y/N. I’m not repeating myself. If you want to help me, sit the fuck down.”

So she did.

“Tell me, Y/N. Where does your God live?” He asked her when he caught the glimpse of the crucifix adorning her neck yet again. She smiled at the question.

“Oh, Grayson! What kind of question is that? Our god lives in His Glory, all over the world and its wonders!”

“How come He was there when Sage died?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your answer is wrong. God lives where we want him to live, where He is invited.”

She hummed.

“Yeah, He does.”

“I tried quitting. I really did. I know Sage would hate me now. But once you get dragged in there, there’s no turning back. I hate it, I hate myself.”

Y/N didn’t expect him to say that. Neither did he, to be honest. But if she was his angel, he should let her know. He should let her know he was in desperate need of saving.

“Was she pretty?”

“I’m not going to compare her to neither sunsets nor flowers. She wasn’t something pretty just to look at, she was the blood running through my veins, and when she died, she took a part of me to heaven. Yeah, she was pretty. But in other ways, like your mother’s hug or your childhood memories or your favorite stuffed animal. She was the sunshine, and when they told me she was gone, it felt like moon fell from the sky.”

“Oh, God.”

“No point in calling his name. He doesn’t hear a sinner’s suffering.”

The next time Grayson saw Y/N, she was talking with his brother. She laughed, and he was convinced God sent her. Perhaps He heard his suffering.

She brought a cherry pie. His goddamn favorite. The way she looked was so sweet; wearing that yellow sundress, all soft and delicate and warm, like an otherworldly being, her hair in a pretty braid, lying on her tan shoulders.  

She left as soon as Ethan took the warm dessert, thanking her. She said something about visiting her mother and how he should leave some for Grayson.

That night, Grayson texted the number she wrote on his notepad, claiming it was hers.

“I don’t want to seem unapproachable, but it’s hard to interact with people sometimes. It’s draining.”

He hit send. It was hard, and he thought about it for a few minutes, but he did it.

“I know, G. I was like that once, too”

And then, another message: “People shouldn’t expect everyone they want to talk to wants to talk to them”

“They don’t get us, Y/N. They think you’re okay unless you are bleeding.”

“My mom tells me pain fades with time.”

“I don’t think so. You just learn to be strong despite it one day.”

“True”

And again: “How did you like the pie? It’s my favorite recipe”

“God, it was the best pie I had in a long time.”

“I’m glad.”

#grayson dolan #grayson dolan series #grayson x reader #grayson dolan fanfic #grayson dolan kiss #grayson dolan smut #grayson dolan fluff #grayson dolan fic #grayson dolan angst #grayson dolan sad #ethan dolan #ethan dolan fluff #ethan dolan fanfic #ethan dolan fic #ethan dolan cute #ethan dolan sad #ethan dolan angst #dolan twins #dolan twins fluff #dolan twins fic #dolan twins angst #mdm #mind the moon

[myownprivate-johnnyutah]

If Found (Chapter 1)

AN: A Fluff-as-Fuck Penpals Story because we’re in a fuckin’ pandemic and I want to write about yearning, goddamnit. I have no outline, no plan and am just going wild with it. 

Synopsis: After losing a notebook in a Brooklyn bar two years ago, Alana Miles has lost a few more things and gained some others. Lost? Her tiny Brooklyn apartment, her first love-turned fiancé, their shared cat. Gained? A small rental house in her hometown, a second book deal, a rescue bulldog and a facelss email pen pal she may or may not be falling for. (AO3)

Wordcount: 1,530

September 2020

It’s a little early to be up for a Saturday, but she cracks open her laptop anyway— careful not to jostle the sleeping bulldog deep snoring across her legs. Alana has tried to let herself sleep in on weekends, lately. With the weekdays full of deadlines, interviews and long calls with her editor normally kicking off before her morning coffee’s kicked in, the few blissful hours of no screens and light-blocking blinds on Saturdays were usually her favorite thing. Usually.

It’s not her fault, though. Because of stupid timezones, there was a message waiting for her that she’d be itching to see and even after years (plural) of back-and-forth emails with her accidental pen pal, the little rush of seeing where the conversation would go next was enough to make her a bit more of a morning person (even when she doesn’t have to be). 

To: [email protected].

From: [email protected]

Subject: RE: RE: RE: The Not-Divorce is Finalized! 

A, 

Sure, okay, I believe you.

I know you said you were fine and I understand I’m maybe half-obligated by the terms of our friendship to take that at face value and instead pivot to asking you about your day or the book proposal or whether you got around to reading that book I sent you (it’s a chapbook, honestly, and you pretty much read for a living). And I will ask those things. 

But I wanted to add, RE: your point on “closure not even being a fuckin’ real thing” that I’m not sure if I agree. Provided you’re giving yourself the grace to step away and close the chapters, relationships, painful memories in order to open something up, it’s as real as you want to make it. 

But what you’re going through (all of it), it’s draining and exhausting and you’re carrying a lot. Closing a door doesn’t mean everything’s resolved behind the door, just that you’ve resolved to let yourself be on the other side. 

I think you’re brave and good, if that helps. And I hope you’ll read that goddamn chapbook so we can talk about it.  

Yours, 

KC

Welp. That’ll need coffee to respond to, she thought, slowly inching her legs out from under Bruce (who let out an insulted snort before snuffling back into the duvet) and heading out to the kitchen. 

Mug in hand, she made her way out to the porch and took in the fall morning: the lake’s got the beginning reflections of red and orange showing through and the smell of burning leaves (they still do that out here) is already making its way to her door. The tiny one bedroom house she’d been renting is about five minutes from where she grew up (where her parents still live). It’s modest (if maybe cramped) but has big windows, a monthly rent that doesn’t drain her bank account beyond recovery and lets her be close to her mom for doctor’s appointments and long meetings with specialists that she trades off with her sister and brother. 

She leaves the door open a crack, since Bruce is unlikely to last long in the bed alone before stumbling out to his sunny porch bed, and takes a seat on her own “grown-up porch couch” — an oversized wicker basket chair her little brother salvaged from a friends’ student house and spray painted white to look less wretched, paired with some overly fluffy pillows her twin sister bought her. She cracked open her computer again and tried to figure out how she’d respond.

She tried, not infrequently, to picture KC. She was sure he was good looking, despite that name feeling so deeply undignified and childish for a man in his forties. (Or is he fifty by now? A funny thing about surprise pen pals is you never really exchange birthdates or A/S/L — and, in their case, they just went for the emotional jugular). She imagined a doe-eyed John Cusack-type (maybe a bit more “High Fidelity,” actually) or, of course, a Tom Hanks “You’ve Got Mail” has crossed her mind but neither really ever felt right. 

She knew a lot about him, after nearly two years of correspondence. He’s told her about the long scar going up his stomach that he got in a motorcycle accident (how he’ll forget its there even after 20 years); she knows he works in film but simply says “I help people tell lies for a living” when she asks for specifics; she knows he fell in love a few years back, after thinking he was never going to fall in love again (and that he has a gift for emphasizing the sweet of a bittersweet ending) and she know she’s a Virgo with a Cancer moon. He knew a lot about her, too: He knew birds freaked her out, that she was in the middle of final proofs of her first book and the proposal on her second; he knew she broke off an engagement (and thus a relationship spanning nearly all of her 20s) in the last year and reflexively performed being cavalier about it; he knew her mom was sick and that she left the life (the one she secretly wasn’t all that wild about) in Brooklyn to be closer to her.

It’s funny the way these little stories and pieces of ourselves can be assembled to make a person feel so whole and so close, even if they’re thousands of miles away and you’ve never seen their face and you probably wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for the right amount of happy accidents flowing in succession. 

He was her happy accident and, if she were the fate-believing type she’d believe it was some of that kismet that brought him to that Fort Green bar on that rainy afternoon. She’d been transcribing some notes in one of her many junk-ish notebooks (full of story ideas, a few email addresses and phone numbers for sources, a scribbled quote, some ticket stubs and a lone piece of gum between the back pages (whoops) — all organized by chaos) and got a call from Brandon, her then-fiancé reminding her that they’d need to leave their Greenpoint apartment for his department chair’s dinner party on the Upper West Side (a thing she’d forgotten she’d agreed to do) shortly and if she was still stopping to grab the wine. 

In her rush to settle up her tab, scamper to the liquor store next door and procure a fancy-ass bottle for the academic circle jerk, she left the notebook behind. Luckily, she’d remembered to scrawl her email in the front cover that time —she wasn’t going to let some rando find her address!

KC, as he told her later in one of their subsequent emails, found it and “began trying to decipher its many, many mysteries (the gum, for example).” 

She couldn’t be mad, she 100 percent would’ve done the same thing if fate, kismet, the universe’s funky algorithm, who knows, left someone else’s brain-dump to her doorstep. Between that confession (and the charming apology that came with it), the emails just didn’t stop — long after he’d sent the book back. 

Despite this two year friendship, she hasn’t seen his face — and only recently heard his voice. She knows he’s older than her 34 years by a not-small amount.  (He doesn’t have an instagram or a Twitter and when she asked him why he responded “Oh, that. What would I do with that stuff, really?”) And 95% of the time it doesn’t bother her. But then she sees emails like that and thinks of his deep, thoughtful voice (the calm, intentional pauses when he speaks that make everything go soft and quiet over the phone line) and something in her twitches. 

It’s been a long 18 months of being very single and maybe, just maybe it’s messing with her head to have such careful, considerate attention 4-8 (depending on how much they write and how busy they are) times a week. 

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected].

Subject: Doors Open & Closed — moving on.

KC, 

That poet soul of yours is working overtime today, bud. It’s too early for my icy heart to thaw the way it needs to if I’m going to adequately respond, so take this: I know. You’re right. I’ll try. Thank you. 

And try to let it be the end of this for now. 

I’m digitally and spiritually cleansing this space and cracking open this sad  pamphlet of a book you sent me. Stand by for my thoughts. 

Chilliest regards (with a gooey center), 

A

P.S. You promised me that shortlist of “films I need to watch now that I work from home and can watch movies all day.” Keep in mind, my attention span is like my love life: short, sad and ridiculous. 

She hits send and quickly checks in on the few dangling work emails that couldn’t wait until Monday. It’ll be a few hours before her West Coaster pen pal is up and a few more before he’s near a screen. He’s an early riser, but more of a yoga, outdoors-y, going jogging (ugh) kind than a feverish AM emailer. But she’ll forgive him that one (admittedly well-adjusted) flaw for now.

#keanu reeves fic #keanu reeves x oc #email penpal AU #You've Got Mail AU but not #keanu reeves

[jynappreciationsquad]

Far Ahead the Road Has Gone

It seemed that, although it was the goddamn twenty-first century, there was a single song on all the radio stations in Britain, and it had been playing for the past three hours. Or maybe they all just sounded extremely similar.

Or maybe they weren’t similar at all, they all just got on her nerves the same amount.

She turned it off and sighed in relief when the car filled with a blessed silence, just the motor and the murmur of the wheels on the concrete. She used to love this, she remembers. The calm and the quiet, just the black landscape slipping by at the fringe of her vision and the milky white shadow of the moon in the anthracite sky above. Even the traffic jams she’d hardly minded back then, liked them, even – it was pretty somehow, the red lights meandering into the distance and its bright white twins to the right. Sometimes she’d caught sight of another driver across the crash barrier, evidently annoyed at being stuck for the near future, sometimes muttering to themselves in annoyance or snapping at someone (their spouse, presumably) over the phone. She used to grin to herself, and tell herself how bloody lucky she could consider herself that she wasn’t tied down like this, that there was nobody sending her passive-aggressive texts about how she’d said she’d be home an hour ago.

Looking back, she thought the truth was she’d been jealous, just a little. Maybe she’d remembered the days her father had come home from a work trip when she was little. Her mother had made some kind of dish that she’d have never let her have for dinner otherwise, homemade pizza usually, or they’d gone out to get Chinese food or fish and chips. And then she’d let her stay up and watch a movie, even a scary one if she wanted. She thought her mother’s favourite had been the really old ones, the black-and-white horror films, Christopher Lee as a vampire, these sort of things. They’d curled up on the couch together with thick woollen blankets and chocolate and peppermint tea, and at some point Jyn had always fallen asleep, no matter how hard she’d tried. She’d usually slept through her father’s return, and barely woken up when he’d carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed.

She hadn’t let herself miss all that in a very long time.

The road was very empty; she hadn’t passed another car in at least five minutes, and pleasant and welcome though the silence was after the long days she’d had at the conference, the empty car didn’t really feel like a refuge anymore.

It just felt… well, empty.

She briefly toyed with the idea of turning the radio back on, then decided against it. No, there was something she wanted to do, and she could almost see the old Jyn passing her by on her right and scoffing at the idea.

Come on, Jyn, she’d probably think, haven’t you learned anything?

She sighed again, then felt herself laugh.

No, maybe not. Maybe she hadn’t. And when she wound up alone again, this time probably because of something she’d said, or done, it’d hurt every bit as much as when her father –

No, if she wound up alone again. If. A little optimism wouldn’t kill her, after all this time. It was too late either way, so she might as well hope a little. Cassian liked to say something to that effect, and she made a point to pretend she didn’t remember what exactly he said.

A sudden noise made her jump. Damn that stupid fancy car, and whoever had invented the hands-free kit.

For just a moment, she considered not answering it. But then the old, scared Jyn passed her by, back towards London, her dingy lonely flat, and she remembered that this was her boyfriend of two years, who had no idea of those moments she had.

Then again, it was Cassian. He’d probably known from day one.

“Sorry, got stuck in traffic. Fucking London, you know how it is,” she said by ways of a greeting, and could hear him laugh a little at the other end of the line.

“Yes, I know,” he muttered, his voice very close to the speaker, but quiet and a little husky. “I just figured I should keep you from falling asleep.”

She smiled faintly. “Sounds more like you’re trying to keep yourself from falling asleep, Cass.”

“That too,” he replied, and she could hear the grin in his voice. It’d been a long time since she’d had that, too, since she’d known someone well enough to hear things like that in someone’s voice.

“Where are you?”

She sighed. “Anywhere between Reading and Swindon, don’t ask me. But the road seems pretty clear now, so –“

“Smooth sailing from there, right,” he replied. “I guess that means I can open another bottle in the meantime.”

“Beer, I hope.”

“Why, did you have plans for the tequila?”

“For you, actually,” she gave back with a smirk, and heard him laugh at the other end of the line.

“Oh, you did?”

(She did have plans, and plans she intended to stick to.)

“So, drinking by yourself,” she said after a while. “Sounds like your night is almost as exciting as mine.”

“I’m watching The Exorcist.”

She laughed. “What?”

“The Exorcist. I’ve never seen it before, and I thought it would keep me awake.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“I don’t know, I feel like I should be more scared,” he answered sheepishly. “Does that make me a bad Catholic?”

She smiled. “It’s not your fault, England’s never really been a great place for that.” She glanced at a sign at the side of the road. “20 miles outside of Swindon, by the way.”

“Good. Less than an hour.”

“Please. I can make that in thirty minutes. Maybe less.”

“Jyn,” he said in a strained tone, that tone that always tore at her heart a little bit. There was a touch of pleading to it, a faint note of please don’t anyone do this to me again, and that was painfully familiar.

“I’m joking, Cassian.” Mostly.

“There’s still food left,” he said softly after a moment. “Chinese, from Baze. I’ll heat it up for you.”

She smiled to herself. Yes, she’d like that. She’d actually really like to just curl up on that couch that wasn’t really big enough for the both of them, and have some re-heated noodles and a glass of wine and watch some old movie and…

She’d missed him. She was brave enough to admit that to herself now, on occasion, that she missed him. A lot.

Not quite brave enough to say it, though, at least not in those exact words. Maybe someday.

She turned down the heating a little.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. That’d be great.”

She could hear the sofa creak a little as he got up. “There might still be salad, too. I’ll try to make something, but no promises.”

A little more than two years ago, she'd have returned to a cold, messy flat and an empty fridge, and the only life form to greet her would have been a little mould on the leftover bread. Her life right now seemed a little too good to be true, in comparison, and the night around her was so still and dreamlike that it wasn't hard to imagine she'd somehow made it all up...

“Don’t hang up,” she said, before she could stop herself. “Can you put me on speaker? The radio is driving me insane.”

“Sure," he replied after a slight pause, and she thought she could hear him smile that soft surprised little smile, the one that made her heart ache a little every time. "Do you want tea?”

“If you’re offering.” Jyn grinned to herself. Damn it, at some point she really did slip up with this man, didn’t she? Still, tonight, she’d get a late dinner out of it, and something to make up for the cold hotel beds she’d slept in in the past week, even if maybe someday – no, stop it, Jyn.

(Maybe someday, the whens that she’d turned into ifs over the last two years could disappear for good. He didn’t deserve to be doubted like that, and she was trying, honestly trying not to. It was a process, though.)

“I brought you chocolate,” she said quietly. “It’s a bit cliché, right? But I figured it’s Switzerland, so…”

“You didn’t have to bring me anything.”

“I know. But you’re making me dinner at eleven forty, even though you got up at six.”

“Yes, I am. Is that desperate?”

She laughed. “I don't know. But I like it.”

[AO3]

#rogue one #other: cassian andor #by: ruby red inky blue #fanfiction #ours #au