#tw vermont mention
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Rest in piss to the guy who used to have my PO box. I haven't checked it in like 4 months, and in that time you've gotten 5 letters about how you're not paying on your 2023 Tesla Model 3. Your monthly bill was $530. That's a lot. A burden, even. I imagine, by now, it's been taken from you. You wanted to look cool in front of your friends (??) and the ladies (??), and now you have a repossession on your record, Paul. Corn grits, Paul, you silly billy. Or maybe you've absconded to the wilds of Vermont (??) and Tesla Motors Corp. of East TN will never find you. In which case: Congratulations, you've won a free car. It may or may not explode, and the steering wheel may or may not decide to have an early retirement as you're fleeing police custody.
#tesla#tesla model 3#car#po box#post office#mail#it's my po box ok? i was curious as to why this guy was getting so many bright red letters from the local tesla dealer.#i usually just throw out mail that isn't mine - the polite option.#but curiousity killed the cat and brother. I'm the biggest pussy i know.#or something#tw vermont mention
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Ghost Story
Words: 6,652
Summary: During a vacation to New England, a freak accident leaves Alfred in a tricky situation. Luckily, Matthew is there to help bail him out. Today's Halloween nightmare is tomorrow's urban legend, but sometimes, the truth behind the myth is just two brothers doing their best. A very belated Halloween oneshot.
TW: Death, dead bodies, mention of drunk driving and related accidents, general macabre themes—but it's more the spooky creepy variety than the dark and existential kind
Halloween? In December? It's more likely than you think! I'd meant to finish this in time for Halloween but it just wasn't meant to be. A VERY belated Happy Halloween, everyone!
I know literally nothing about how a morgue/medical examiner's office works. Whatever inaccuracies exist are just pure, indulgent campiness.
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Friday October 30, 1990
Burlington, Vermont
It was a cool and damp Friday evening, as evenings tended to be this time of year. The moon was a middling sliver of light behind a blanket of clouds, which was anticlimactic all things considered.
The cool and the damp had leached indoors, and after a long and tiring workweek, Linda was entirely ready to wash up, hang up her coat, and return home where a pile of green and yellow fleece was waiting for a fairy godmother to turn it into a 10-year-old-sized t-rex costume. She'd promised her son it would be ready, claws, teeth, zipper, and all, in time to go trick-or-treating with his father, but the clock was ticking alarmingly close to midnight.
Linda's coat sleeves were down to her elbows when the phone rang. She sighed and glanced at the clock with equal parts annoyance and resignation before flipping her coat back on and falling into her creaky desk chair with deliberate aggravation.
"What," she griped into the receiver, wrestling with the tangled cord. The voice on the other end told her what, and she rubbed a hand over her face, worried that there would be no fairy godmother for costumes this Halloween..
"Aw, jeez," she sighed into the phone, sounding sad despite herself. She leaned away from the desk to look to where her assistant was packing up to leave. "Don't go anywhere yet, Jen," she said. "Got one coming in from Windsor."
"Oh?" Jen, who'd already done up her lipstick and changed into heels, the poor thing, was clearly trying to be nonchalant through her disappointment. Linda couldn't blame her. It was 8:45 on a Friday night, for Christ's sake, the girl should be out with her friends. Still, Linda hadn't made her take the job. If she was going to stick around, she might as well learn.
"Yeah," she sighed, pausing to let her caller finish his report before hanging up. "They're bound to be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. Go ahead and start filling out the paperwork so we can make this quick."
"Paperwork?" to her credit, Jen was swapping out her heels for clogs once more without complaint. "Did they give you the details?"
"No," Linda said sadly, standing from the desk and going immediately to clear off the exam table. "It's a John Doe." Jen frowned.
"Oh."
"You tag one of them before?"
"No."
"Well, it's depressingly uncomplicated. Grab a new folder and I'll show you how to start. We'll fill out the rest when he gets here."
Pedestrian deaths were, unfortunately, a common enough occurrence that Linda probably could've written the police report herself. Vermont drivers were confident even in the pitch black of an October night, sometimes too confident when rounding blind bends in the backroads. The driver in this particular incident was currently in Windsor county jail after blowing a 0.14 on the scene. But the poor soul who'd got caught on the passenger side headlight was here in Burlington, in a morgue on a slab looking considerably worse for wear.
"His face isn't in too bad of shape… I'm sure they'll want to put out a public notice to see if he's got family," Linda sighed, standing by as moral as well as clerical support as Jen recorded what little details were available. The body was blue-lipped and mottled with bruises, some pre-mortem but most of them wine-red stains of pooling blood. He was tall, handsome, and depressingly young. He also had a graphically broken arm and a skull cracked in two places. bloodying the back of his blond hair.
"Did he really have no ID?" Jen asked, looking up from the typewriter. "It's strange for someone to be out on the roads so late without a wallet or keys or something."
"Maybe he lived in the area," Linda shrugged. "I mean, I hope he's got someone looking for him." She glanced at the body, which they'd only just cut out of its clothes. "No wedding ring, though. Parents, maybe? Looks a bit old to be in school." She sighed. "Any which way, I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make that phone call."
"Yeah," Jen agreed quietly, click-clacking on the keyboard slowing to a stop. She reviewed the page before pulling it free of the machine. "I guess this is it," she handed the report to Linda for review, who trusted her assistant enough to give it only the briefest of skims.
"We'll have to call in tomorrow and ask if there's another photographer available while Jordan is out. But this is good for now. Come on, let's get him on ice and clean up."
"I can do it," Jen said confidently. "I know you wanted to be home tonight, go on ahead and go, I can finish up here."
"You sure?" Linda asked, hesitant to take the young assistant up on her offer, but preoccupied in equal measure by the tissue paper pattern that had been ingrained into her memory since her son told her he wanted to be a dinosaur.
"Yeah," Jen gave her a smile, "don't worry about it, I got it."
Jen cursed quietly, digging around in the top drawer for the White-Out. She'd grown adept at typing during her undergraduate degree, earning higher marks than her peers. Unfortunately, one summer using her boyfriend's desktop computer had ruined her for manual typing, and though she'd only had a "backspace" key for four months, she had no idea how she'd ever done without.
"If you'd gotten better grades in English, maybe this wouldn't be a problem," she grumbled to herself, fingers jittering in frustration. The sooner she finished up her notes, the sooner she could leave. "You know how to type, stupid hands, just do it." It was perhaps a bad habit, talking to yourself, but she worked in a morgue, and tonight she worked in a morgue alone. It wasn't as if her office-mates minded.
"Fuck," she hissed when the "E" key stuck for the umpteenth time. She pried it back to rights and resumed typing. : 5 8. R— the "E" key stuck again. "Oh, for the love of—
BANG
Jen jerked so hard she'd have to use White-Out for half the last line. She didn't notice, head jerking automatically to look at the locked door of the freezer room.
BANG
She jerked again, the creaky office chair wheeled halfway across the room from the force of her standing up.
BANG
Jen reached a shaking hand out toward the coffee mug full of pens and pencils, fishing around until she found the letter opener. The blade was only an inch and a half long, but she wielded it like a dagger in front of her, staring at the freezer room door.
BA—
She jumped again, and rushed to the door, keys in hand. Missing the lock several times, she had to hold her right hand still with her left to fit the key into the lock. Turn, turn, and the bolt unlocked. She pressed the handle down and pulled. Reached around the doorframe with her right hand, hit the lights.
She met eyes with the corpse heaving for breath on the floor, and screamed.
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It was 1 am on October 31, and Matthew Williams was still sleeping off the inadvisable amount of cinnamon whiskey and chocolate he'd consumed at the office Halloween party the night before. When his phone began to ring, he thought it must've been his hangover headache trying to wake him up, so he dug his head deeper into his flannel-clad pillows and pulled the duvet up over his head.
When the phone rang a second time, he thought it was a phone in his dream, but it was the prime minister's job to answer it. The third time, he realized it was real, and that it was his, and that it might actually be something important. Unwilling to sacrifice warmth for the sake of whoever was on the other line, he shuffled into the kitchen with his duvet as a cloak, eyes opened only by a sliver with which to see. He was wincing when he got to the phone, not sure if the sound hurt because he was hungover or because he was tired. It was probably both. With effort, he yanked the phone free of the receiver, tucking his arm back under his duvet as he smushed it to his face.
"This had better be good," he groused, voice deep and groggy.
"Mattie,"
Matt opened his eyes fully. It was just a name, his name, spoken by a voice who'd usually receive an earful of colorful language for calling at this time of night. But tonight, there was a strange timbre in those two syllables that rang too many alarm bells to ignore.
"Alfred?" He asked, still groggy but now trying to rouse himself.
"Mattie, I need help," and Alfred Jones could utter no scarier words than those. "Thank god you answered, you didn't pick up and I thought–I mean, I only just remembered your phone number, I thought maybe I'd—I'm sorry to call you, I didn't know who else–I'm stuck in here, there's no way I can get out on foot like this, she's going to wake up sooner or later and I'm going to be even more in the shit—"
"Al, slow down,slow down," Matt's head felt like it was at sea, so he pinched the bridge of his nose to anchor himself. "What happened? Who's going to wake up? Are you hurt?"
"I'm in the morgue," Alfred told him. "I broke out of the freezer and scared this woman so badly she fainted."
"The morgue? Al what the fuck did you–"
"I got hit, I think? Didn't see him–look, we can talk when my brain is back online, I was—report said my skull's been bashed in, I'm not doing so hot at the whole thinking thing—god why does this always have to be so fucking cold."
Matthew was fully awake now. Head throbbing, mouth dry, entire body engulfed by a duvet, he looked around for his car keys.
"Where are you?" He asked, testing the length of the phone cord while he rummaged around his countertops.
"The city name is long, my eyes are patchy–starts with a B. Vermont."
"Burlington?" Matt found the keys buried under some potholders.
"Yes, that one. Morgue. Medical examiner's office I think."
"Okay. How long have you been back?"
"I don't know. I didn't–wasn't fully back
Until I turned and saw this chick screaming in the doorway."
"You're not still in the freezer, are you?"
"No, but it's cold as fuck in here. Or in my brain. Borrowed lab coat but they make them cheap and thin now."
"I'm going to be there in a few hours. Hang in there, okay?"
"Hanging sucks, I don't want–oh wait you meant. Yeah. Okay. I'll be here."
Matt hung up the phone and went back to his room, groaning as his headache intensified. Not changing out of his fleece pajamas, he pulled on jeans and a hoodie and shoved his feet into boots, tossing back three advil and a pint of water before he retrieved his keys.
"Honestly," he complained aloud, no real heat in his voice, "couldn't have picked a better time to die, could you?"
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It was beginning to mist by the time Matt's wheezing Pontiac rolled to a stop outside of the Medical Examiner's office. The night was slowly turning into morning, but the human world would be slumbering for a while yet. Matt turned off his headlights but left the engine running, heat on full blast. Pulling up his hood and tucking some clothes under his arm, he followed the sidewalk up to the front door.
"Alfred?" He whispered into the night, glancing this way and that. As far as he could tell, he was well and truly alone, but this was a morgue, after all. Matt had seen his fair share of ghosts in his life and deaths. He had no doubts this place was home to a handful of unlucky souls, and normally he would've shown more respect than to go right up to the door and wiggle the handle, press his face against the window with hands cupped and leave fog on the glass. However, he was only here to fetch one particular ghost. When the back of his neck burned with the stare of something unseen, he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder and instead ducked down, quietly sneaking around the building.
Past the dumpsters and AC units, he found the back door had already been opened, a clipboard wedged between the door and its frame. Slowly, he pulled it open, not sure what to expect on the other side. The building was dark save for a few safety lamps and the red flicker of a smoke detector.
"Alfred?" He called, and let the slight echo hang in the air.
"Mattie?" came the response several seconds later. Matt followed it into a nearby office, where he found his brother: muddy, shivering, nude but for a lab coat and what looked like a white bedsheet, sitting curled up knees-to-chest right on top of the medical examiner's desk.
"Al, holy shit, are you okay?" Matt rushed forward immediately.
"The floors are cold," Alfred explained, aware of his bizarre perch. He let Matt come to him rather than attempt to move himself. "This building is cold," he added, bringing his legs over the side of the desk, shivering so violently it took a few tries to get his left leg out from under him. "I know I'm a wimp, I know your place is worse, but god I'm just cold, coming back didn't used to be this cold, I swear to Christ."
"You are a wimp," Matt said, shaking out a bulky flannel. "But not today. Come on, this is way warmer, give me the coat." Alfred struggled to do so, so Matt helped him. Absurdly, he was struck with a childhood memory of Alfred doing the same thing for him, when he was small. Alfred shucked the thin lab coat, but the bedsheet remained wrapped around his hips.
"I don't suppose you brought pants, did you?" he asked, nodding at the bundle of clothes.
"I did, actually," Matt looked his brother up and down. "Do you need help putting them on?" When Alfred did not immediately respond with indignance, Matt realized how nasty a return he must've had. Alfred heaved a sigh.
"My brain is still mush, let's just do it before I remember how to feel embarrassed." Normally one to tease Alfred for his puritanical sense of modesty, Matt only unfurled the clothes.
"Okay," he said, glancing at Alfred's bluing toes. "Socks first, though."
------------------------
Matt ended up carrying Alfred piggyback to the car so as not to get his socks wet. He'd tried to lighten the mood by teasing Alfred about his weight, which was familiar and comfortable bickering territory between them. Alfred, to his credit, tried to bicker back, but ended up blacking out in the crucial few seconds where he'd usually be telling Matt that he was a vain bitch.
"Oh hey, there you are," Matt said, and Alfred looked over at his brother, disoriented for a moment to realize he was buckled into the passenger side of Matt's hatchback and they were moving. The outside world was a blur, and not only because of the rain, which was coming down heavier than before. His face scrunched and he rubbed his eyes, which were sore. Everything was sore.
"I want my glasses," he whined, knowing it would do no good.
"Sorry, bud," Matt said, looking over in sympathy but unable to help. "I've got some spares at my place, it's not the same prescription, but–"
"Your place? Alfred looked up, momentarily distracted from his pain. "We're going north?"
"Um, yeah," Matt said, glancing quickly between Alfred and the road, newfound concern putting a wrinkle in between his eyebrows. "Why wouldn't we be?"
"I don't have my passport."
"Alfred, you're with me. It'll be fine," Matt assured. Alfred stared at him for several long heartbeats, blinking as though to clear the blurry world around him, before his brain found the right synapses.
"Oh, right," he said, sinking down in his chair and enjoying the brush of the fleece against his neck as he let the lined flannel collar bunch around his chin. "Right, I forgot."
Matt chuckled, glancing over at him. "Forgot? You were the one who kept pestering me to carry those fancy-ass ID cards around with me in the first place." Matt's laugh faded, and, not hearing Alfred laugh or make some other comment, glanced at his brother. "Al, are you–ah."
Alfred, who'd forgotten that he and his brother were not human, had fallen asleep.
------------------------
When Alfred next awoke, his whole body had woken up, too. They were only just over the border, Matt told him, and had crossed without issue. The Canadian began describing the rest of their route up through Ontario to his house outside of Ottawa, but Alfred was not listening.
His insides felt as though they were on fire, or frozen, or melted, or shot full of lead. He struggled to arrange himself in a position that was not excruciating. Eventually, he settled for sitting in his chair sideways, bent over his knees with one foot underneath him. Unfortunately, his regenerating guts were also stealing the heat he'd been enjoying in his hands and feet, and just as the cramps seemed to have passed, he started shivering again. He stayed huddled in his bent position, no longer out of pain, but against the cold.
It had stopped raining, so the cab was quiet save for the hum of the engine and tires. Alfred's shivering must've caused some amount of disturbance, however, because Mat reached over to him.
"Hey," he gave his brother's arm a gentle squeeze. "You okay?"
"Hungry," Alfred said quietly, curled in on himself. Matt did a double take and frowned at him.
"Are you ready for food yet? I brought a thermos of bread broth if you want some, it should still be warm."
"Bread broth," Alfred huffed out in surprise. "Jesus, Mattie, did I wake up in the Hoover administration? I want real food."
"Alfred, you were dead a few hours ago, you know food is a bad idea."
"I'm hungry."
"Al, you're not ready for–"
"The first vacation I've had in ten months on my property in my states, one of my stupid-ass, careless fucking idiot citizens beamed me in my own fucking driveway and landed me in a goddamn freezer, and now I'm going to be spending my remaining days off regrowing my guts and remembering how to count backwards from 100, I want a goddamn burger, okay?!" The outburst left Alfred winded, but his face remained pink and angry, glaring out at the out-of-focus road.
Matt chewed on the inside of his lip. He knew better. He knew that real food this soon was a doomed idea. He also knew that Alfred's habit of self-soothing with food was not something he ought to indulge. But Alfred hadn't done a very good job of hiding it when he wiped away his tears of frustration, and Matt knew the feeling acutely well.
"How about a breakfast sandwich?" He suggested. "There's a Timmies coming up soon, does that sound good?" Alfred nodded, and then, as if realizing he'd not spoken out loud, said,
"Yeah, that's great."
"Okay. I was wanting some coffee anyway." Matt flipped his blinker on to move into the right lane.
"Thanks, Mattie," Alfred muttered softly. Matt sighed softly.
"Let's just get you home, eh?"
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In a few days, Alfred would be willing to admit that, in retrospect, the Timmies had been a bad idea. Matt had warned him, and had even talked him out of adding cheese to his order, but even so, Alfred had ordered two of them. They'd tasted divine and he'd felt immediately better after eating. However, even while he tried to drift off into a food-fueled coma, it didn't take very long for him to regret his choices.
Alfred was sitting up straight now, and was warm from head to toes, so Matt could finally turn down the heat (he'd stripped down to his t-shirt). He was coherent and talkative and, despite the lack of glasses, was at least able to figure out more or less where they were as they approached Ottawa.
Unfortunately, coming back from the grave—or freezer, in this instance—always came in fits and starts. It was still dark out, and in the light of the headlights, the trees and grass were like zoetrope figures, slip-sliding this way and that across Alfred's vision in a way that made the world feel tilted.
"Matt," Alfred said, staring at the dashboard in an attempt to ground himself. It wasn't working. "Matt, can you pull over?"
"Huh?"
"Pull over."
"Is something wrong?"
"Now."
Matt did, cursing as cars whizzed past him and honked as he threw on his hazard lights. They'd not yet come to a complete stop on the gravel shoulder before Alfred undid his seatbelt, opened the door, and threw up his hard-bargained breakfast into the grass. In the car, Matt sighed and rubbed his eyes. Undoing his own seatbelt, he reached into the backseat and dug around for a fresh bottle of water. Once Alfred was done retching and coughing, Matt tapped his shoulder with the bottle.
"Careful," he said, instead of the tempting 'I told you so' that rang in his mind. "Don't want you to start choking all over again." Al just groaned and took the water, sitting slumped halfway out of the car staring at nothing and trying not to gag.
"How much farther to your place?" Alfred asked, sounding desperate and exhausted.
"Not far. Little less than an hour." Alfred groaned pitifully, shoulders slumped.
"I know," Matt said, scratching his brow and thinking of his warm bed. "Almost there. You okay?"
"I fucking hate dying," Alfred said, spitting and rising his mouth out with more water. "But I think I hate coming back even more."
"I know," Matt said, not knowing what else to say. It had been a long, long night. "I'm sorry, Al."
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A little less than an hour later, they were safely back at Matt's house. Alfred carefully tread across the path to the door, trying not to muddy his borrowed socks. By the time Matt followed him inside, Alfred was lying on the couch with an arm thrown over his eyes to stop the world from spinning. They showered and changed—Alfred showered again when he decided he still smelled like the inside of a morgue freezer. Matt dug out a small pharmacy of drugs for Alfred to take, and then made breakfast: waffles for Matt and a plain piece of white bread with a glass of water for Alfred.
Just as the sun was coming up, the brothers turned in for bed. Like they had when they were small, they bunked together. However, in a reversal of their childhood custom, it was Alfred who was snuggling into Matt's side for warmth. Matt, still awake and yawning, combed his fingers through Alfred's clean hair, which sent the American drifting toward sleep as fast as a rocket. Matt yawned again and looked down at Alfred's smushed, drooling face. He paused in his combing for a moment to appreciate his brother like this: alive, warm, close. He resumed moving his fingers and glanced at his clock—and beside it, the calendar.
"Oh, by the way, Al," Matt whispered.
"Mmnh?" Alfred grunted, only barely lucid.
"Happy Halloween," Matt told him. Alfred snorted softly into the blanket that cushioned his face against Matt's side.
"Should I go as a zombie this year?" he slurred. It was Matt's turn to snort, and for a moment both brothers shook with tired, contained laughter.
"I'm going as a bear," Matt decided through a yawn, hand slowing, eyelids heavy. "So I can sleep through the whole thing."
"Mmmm," Alfred groaned, falling alongside his brother towards a much needed rest. "Sounds good."
Matt's hand slipped from Alfred's hair and landed near his shoulder, where it would stay until they woke up in November.
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Tuesday October 31, 2000
Burlington, Vermont
It was a cool and damp Tuesday afternoon, as afternoons tended to be this time of year. Alfred Jones had camped out at the diner booth for nearly an hour, and had for the past half hour or so been occupying himself with spinning his Nokia on the table like a top. He watched it spin and clatter to the table, before picking it up and trying to make it spin longer. Occasionally, he would look out into the parking lot, craning his neck this way and that.
"Did you want a refill, sir?" Asked a feminine voice, which distracted him from the cars outside. Alfred turned to the waitress, who was wearing striped stockings under her apron and a glittery witch's hat over a stern and uncompromising face. She was also holding a full pot of over-brewed coffee in one hand.
"Oooh, witch's brew, huh?" Alfred smiled up at her. Longsuffering expression unchanged, she blinked at him. His smile wobbled and he winced.
"Sorry, that was. Um, yeah, if you could just leave the pot, actually?" The waitress glanced at the clock—it was nearly four.
"Suit yourself," she shrugged, sliding the pot onto his table. As he was pouring himself a cup, the bell on the door announced a new arrival, who paused to wipe his feet at the door.
"Ayyy, there he is!" Alfred shouted across the diner, not caring if others stared. The newcomer rolled his eyes and took off his scarf and jacket. "Long time no see!" Alfred smiled as he approached.
"It's been ten months, Alfred."
"Is a man not allowed to miss his brother after nearly a year of radio silence?" Alfred asked, feigning magnanimity. He stood and hugged Matt hard before the Canadian could protest. Matt smiled and hugged back just as hard despite himself. Once they withdrew, Matt threw his things into the bench opposite his brother and slid into the booth.
"Radio silence," He scoffed,."You're the one who's been holed away at NASA this whole time, not me—weren't you literally in space last week?"
"Details, shmetails," Alfred waved him off, slurping at his coffee.
"Is that decaf?" Matt asked. Alfred regarded the mug.
"No, why?"
"It's an hour till sunset."
"So?" Alfred took another sip. Matt only tilted his head and gave his brother a quizzical look. Uncomfortable with such scrutiny, Alfred leaned back in his seat. "So, what's up with you?"
"Oh you know, same old hat."
"Aw come on, don't give me that. The Kiwi said you got your ass handed to you in some kind of drunken rugby match against uncle Alisdair?"
"Oh god," Matt winced, "she told you about that?"
"Not nearly enough. Spill."
The brothers launched into conversation as though they'd seen each other yesterday. The waiter came back around and seemed to appreciate Matthew's mild manners better than those of his brother, which gave the two something to argue about while she fetched them both a slice of apple pie. It was beginning to grow dark outside, and in between the ever-present rainclouds, shades of orange and pink peaked through to a hidden sunset.
"Thanks for coming down," Alfred said, drawing Matt's attention from the sky. "I know it's odd timing. I'm flying back down to Maryland on Thursday, Houston on Saturday, but I wanted to say hi before I left town."
"It's no problem," Matt demurred, holding back a comment about how Alfred ought to take a vacation. "NASA must have you busy to make you miss Halloween, you're not even dressed up."
"Ugh, I know," Alfred complained, pausing when the waiter arrived with their pie. "I thought about wearing part of a space suit or something, but apparently that's 'abuse of government property,'" he rolled his eyes, making dramatic air quotes with his fingers. "And 'a waste of taxpayer dollars.'" He took a bite of his pie. Still chewing, he added, "so I just went with this," he flicked the collar of his windbreaker, which Matt only just realized had an Apollo mission patch on the left breast. Behind them, the door bell rang and a gaggle of high schoolers piled into the diner, trying to decide whose parents' house was best suited to host a Blair Witch Project watch party.
"I mean," Matt said, fighting a smirk, "it's a better costume than the last time we did Halloween in Vermont." Alfred squinted at him for several seconds before realization dawned.
"Oh, shit, I'd nearly forgotten about that!" Alfred laughed, covering his mouth politely since he was unable to keep from smiling around a mouthful of pastry. "Oh, man, that was a bad vacation." Matt laughed, cleaning his plate of whipped cream before leaning back and propping his feet up beneath the table.
"Did you ever find out what happened to that assistant you scared half to death?"
"No," Alfred sounded disappointed, "I mean, I don't even remember what she looked like. I hope she wasn't too shaken up about it, I feel bad."
"I mean, I don't know, maybe the bump on the head made her forget about the whole thing."
"Maybe," Alfred continued eating, and did a double take at Matt's clean plate. "Did you finish your pie before me?"
"I had a light lunch."
"Do you want more?"
"God, no, I'm way too full."
"The owner's husband is Canadian, you know, makes a mean fried dough." Alfred told him, "they have some fresh-made beavertails up at the counter. Got little pumpkin and witch hat sprinkles."
"Wait, really?" Matt whipped his head around to look up at the counter. After a moment of indecision, he stood and scurried to the pastry display. The ensuing lack of conversation allowed Alfred to focus on his pie. It also allowed him to eavesdrop on the noisy teenagers who'd piled into the large corner booth at Alfred's back.
"Oh come on, it can't be that scary," a boy was saying.
"Have you seen it?" replied another male voice. "I don't know, man, I like that kind of shit, but it made me pretty jumpy, no joke."
"I didn't even realize how much it freaked me out until nighttime," said a fememine voice. "I got so paranoid, it really does get to you! I think you'll like it."
"I just don't get why fiction is supposed to be so scary," the first voice said. "There's plenty of scary stuff in real life! Like, make a movie about real horror stuff, if you really want to scare people."
"Oh, what, you're going to make a nature documentary about vampires in their natural habitat?" The group laughed at that. "Get real, Jamie."
"No but seriously!" Jamie insisted. "You don't even have to go that far. There's creepy stories everywhere—have any of you guys heard about the John Doe that disappeared from the morgue back when we were in elementary school?"
Alfred choked on his pie. Half the teeangers began to groan.
"Oh, come on, not this again."
"I knew it! I knew it would come back around to this."
"Jamie, it's just an urban legend."
"No! That's where my mom worked, there are pictures, it was like a whole–"
"A whole cover-up, we know,"
"Wait wait wait, I don't know," cut in a new voice, "What happened?"
"Please don't encourage him,"
"Okay so basically," Jamie began,
"Here we go."
"There was this hit and run accident down in Windsor county, and—"
"This thing is as big as my head," Matt announced, carrying over a truly massive beavertail. "You and your portion sizes. You're going to have to help me eat… this… thing…" Matt trailed off as he sat, because Alfred was shushing him with a finger over his lips and waving at him to stop talking. Matt frowned at him, glancing around.
"What?" He mouthed. Alfred, who was smiling and trying not to laugh, pointed over his shoulder at the booth behind him.
"–but in the middle of the night he just… disappeared. Literally walked out the door and was never seen again."
"What, were there like footprints or something?"
Matt took a large bite of his pastry and gave his brother another "what the hell" shrug. Alfred tapped his finger to his lips again and gestured for Matt to wait and listen.
"No footprints, but the freezer door was kicked open," Jamie said, pausing for dramatic effect, "from the inside."
"Oh come on, you can't just kick open a freezer door," complained a friend.
"No, I'm serious, look, there are pictures!"
"Oh my god, of course you would carry pictures around in your backpack."
"Only for Halloween," Jamie said, rifling through notebooks.
"So wait, when was this?" asked someone else.
"Almost exactly ten years ago," Jamie answered, and in the neighboring booth, Matt began to frown. "Midnight on October 30th—or Halloween morning."
"Ooh, witching hour," teased someone.
"Give me those. What the hell?"
"Right?"
"Come on, these have to be faked, right?"
"No one could kick that door open with just their feet," the most skeptical of the bunch said, "they'd break their ankles for sure."
"Yeah, if they were human," Jamie said.
"Oh my goddd," groaned the skeptic.
"So what, a whole ass dead body just. Disappeared?"
At last, Matt's eyes widened, and he fixed Alfred with a look.
"Are they talking about…?" he mouthed. Alfred began to nod his head rapidly, a maniacal smile on his face.
"Oh my god," Matt laughed, trying to muffle his laughter.
"So wait, how do you know it was at midnight?" Asked the girl who was unfamiliar with the story.
"My mom's assistant, Jennifer, she was staying late that night to finish the paperwork on this John Doe, she heard a big BANG, BANG, BANG, from where they keep the bodies," Jamie mimed, "she walked in to see what it was, and there was the dead body out of the freezer, standing up on its own two legs, staring at her."
"Oh jesus, so they stuck him in there when he was still alive?!"
"No, that's the thing, like I said, my mom was the medical examiner back then, they had to take photos whenever they got new bodies in, look at this!"
"Oh, fuck I didn't need to see that," someone complained, gagging.
"Wait is this a real photo?"
"Yeah."
"Oh my god that's so creepy."
"Aww, that poor man!"
"Damn, he was hot."
"Brittney, it's literally a dead body."
"Yeah but he was hot."
Alfred was biting his index finger, trying not to laugh. Matt rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, he'd be hotter if his brains were inside his skull."
"Ugh that's just… so gross—are you even allowed to have this stuff?"
"I mean, not really, but I made scans of it when I found it a few years ago. The police have the original file, but mom has a copy too."
"Wait, so the police investigated?"
"Yeah, but nothing really ever came of it. It never made it to the media, beyond a milk carton "have you seen me" kind of thing, they had a sketch artist do a portrait." Paper rustled as Jamie produced the sketch.
"Oh come on, that looks nothing like him."
"Eh, I see it."
"He's not nearly hot enough."
"Brittney."
"So did the police ever find anything?"
"That's where it gets really weird," Jamie said, dropping his voice to a loud whisper, "they started going through all the evidence—whoever this guy was he left the office a mess. They found hair and even blood, but before they could start testing any of it some people from the FBI showed up and shut it all down."
"Wait what?"
"Yeah, so no one even knows what all the police found, if they found anything. It never even made the evening news."
"Nuh uh," one of the teens snatched paper out of Jamie's hand. "This can't be legit. Someone would know something."
"I mean, my mom knows about it. Poor Jennifer was traumatized–she left mortuary school right afterwards."
"Ugh, I'm still mad he died, he's so cute."
"A reanimated corpse is covered up by the FBI, and you're worried about how cute the zombie is?"
"I have an idea," Alfred said softly, so only Matt would hear.
"What?"
"Just be ready to leave in a second. Not in a hurry." Alfred grabbed his phone and stretched out his right arm to rest on the top of the bench, tapping the Nokia idly on the wood.
"But if he wasn't actually dead, why would the FBI need to get involved?"
"He could be like, an informant or something?"
"He can't not be dead, you saw the photos! You can't fake those kinds of injuries."
"Yeah, unless you work for the F B fucking I."
Alfred dropped his phone over the booth, causing a few students to lean out of the way.
"Ah, shit, I'm so sorry," He said, bringing his knees up to the bench so he could lean over into the teenager's booth. "New phone, kinda slippery," he joked, making sure they could've gotten a good view of his face. The kid who Alfred assumed was Jamie had wide eyes and a suddenly-pale complexion. "Thanks so much, I'm so sorry," Alfred said to the girl who handed him his phone. He could see the moment when she recognized him, because her eyes went wide and darted immediately back to the photos spread out amidst their sodas and snacks. He followed her gaze and winced, which was not part of the act. He'd never seen the images before, and a part of him wished they didn't exist, but then again, this was going to be fun.
"Yeesh," he commented, eyes lingering on the photos. "I always hated those. Camera adds ten pounds, and all that. Anyway," he grinned at the group, "Happy Halloween!" He waved his phone at them and stood completely from the booth. Some of the students craned their necks and leaned out of the booth to see him better.
"Ready to go?" Alfred asked Matt, who to his credit, had somehow repressed his smile enough so that only the dimple in his left cheek gave him away.
"Yup," the Canadian said, holding his partially eaten beavertail in one hand and his coat in the other.
"Awesome," he spoke loudly enough to be overheard. "Just enough time to swing back by the house and change into costume."
"Oh?" Matt was willing to play along. "What are you dressing up as?"
"A ghost!" Alfred answered.
"Oh what, are you not already in costume?" Matt improvised, and Alfred burst out laughing. They left the diner with conspiratorial smiles, taking a moment in the parking lot to spy the group of shocked teenagers through the window.
"You're not going to be able to show your face here for a few years, at least," Matt commented.
"Worth it!"
"Alright, come on, Casper. I'll buy you a drink for your funeral." Alfred laughed as they climbed into Matt's aging Pontiac.
"Here, hold this," Matt said, handing Alfred his beavertail. Alfred took a large bite out of it, smearing chocolate across his mouth. When Matt looked over to check for cars, he caught Alfred's shit-eating grin as he watched the teenagers argue from a distance.
"Never even made the evening news," Matt tutted, ducking his head to follow Alfred's gaze. "It's a damn shame."
Alfred laughed, face and smile stained with chocolate and an errant pumpkin sprinkle. "I fucking love halloween!"
#hetalia#hws america#hws canada#aph america#aph canada#halloween#my fanfic#my writing#hurt/comfort#they're just dorks your honor#immortal dorks#but dorks all the same
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Café con Lychee by Emery Lee - Book Review
6/10 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
TW: homophobia, racism, cultural appropriation, fear of being outed, toxic friendships, bullying
(TWs are ranked in order of severity, please take them seriously!)
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while! I just started senior year and everything’s been moving kinda fast, but I have gotten the chance to read a lot!
Most recently, I’ve read:
On a Sunbeam (graphic novel by Tillie Walden)
Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa
Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali
Lobizona by Romina Garber
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma
I’m currently reading Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner 🍜
^me and my college applications rn😭
Summary:
“Sometimes bitter rivalries can brew something sweet.
Theo Mori wants to escape. Leaving Vermont for college means getting away from working at his parents’ Asian American café and dealing with their archrivals’ hopeless son Gabi who’s lost the soccer team more games than Theo can count.
Gabi Moreno is miserably stuck in the closet. Forced to play soccer to hide his love for dance and iced out by Theo, the only openly gay guy at school, Gabi’s only reprieve is his parents’ Puerto Rican bakery and his plans to take over after graduation.
But the town’s new fusion café changes everything. Between the Mori’s struggling shop and the Moreno’s plan to sell their bakery in the face of the competition, both boys find their dreams in jeopardy. Then Theo has an idea—sell photo-worthy food covertly at school to offset their losses. When he sprains his wrist and Gabi gets roped in to help, they realize they need to work together to save their parents’ shops but will the new feelings rising between them be enough to send their future plans up in smoke?”
Representation:
This will be an own voices review since I’m coming from an Asian American & queer perspective, but we are not a monolith and not everyone will agree with my interpretation.
To be honest, I had really high expectations for this book. It had been in my TBR ever since I heard it was coming out, and I was super excited to read about two queer PoC falling in love (not to mention the enemies to lovers and food!!) but it ended up falling short in a lot of ways.
For representation, Theo Mori is Japanese and Chinese (if I remember correctly) and Gabi Moreno is Puerto Rican. While Theo is gay and out, Gabi is very much in the closet and struggles with his father’s machismo expectations.
I will say that while this is the author’s own experience growing up in these cultures, the book’s impact depended on the readers. For white readers, the book would appear to reinforce negative stereotypes like Asian parents pushing for perfect grades, and Latinx parents being machismo and sexist.
It’s one of those things that for Asian kids, we know that sometimes our parents can be strict, but it’s not something that applies to all Asian parents. I would have liked to see some of those stereotypes challenged in this book instead of reinforced.
That being said, the book did a really good job of showing the struggles of being in the closet, especially with a homophobic family.
What I Liked:
I liked the plot and how it flowed - nothing seemed choppy or didn’t make sense. There was always a reason the characters were doing what they did, and even if you didn’t agree with it you understood their motivations.
I needed a good beach read when I picked this up, and it did not disappoint. I also love love love when romance books have switching perspectives - it adds a lot of dimension to the characters.
Why I couldn’t give it a 10:
Sadly, this book ended up falling into a lot of unfortunate stereotypes that I felt readers from other backgrounds wouldn’t recognize as such. I discussed this a bit already, but it was to the extent that I had to put the book down at times. I also didn’t really like how the “enemies to lovers” aspect was basic - they genuinely had little reason to hate each other and it was mostly one sided. This is later acknowledged so that they can have a romance, but it fell flat for me. I prefer when characters have complex motivations, especially for a plot line that propels so much of the book.
Ultimately, I’m grateful for the representation this book brings to the table and I hope it can make people feel seen, I just didn’t enjoy the writing as much as I wanted to. For a debut novel, it’s not bad!
I can’t think of any recommendations like this book at the moment (because this is a months-old draft) but I’ll keep an eye out!
Thanks for reading!
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That’s the difference between you and me. You wanna lose small, I wanna win big.
𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: Samuel Jordan Adlawan
𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 & 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒: cis man & he/him
𝐀𝐆𝐄: 37
𝐎𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: lawyer
𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: Civilian
𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐊: N/A
𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌: Charles Michael Davis
+ Zealous, Charismatic, Quick-witted
- Cynical, Self-Absorbed, Impatient
TW: DEATH
Samuel was born in upstate New York, to a first-generation couple of immigrants. Not too long after his birth, his family moved to Vermont due to his mother finding a new job as a Bed & Breakfast manager, while his father opened a small restaurant that served Filipino food. Safe to say, money was always short in the family where Samuel became the eldest of two. It also made a lot of responsibility fall on his shoulders to set up a good example for his younger sister Alaya and everyone around them. Soon, it became his unspoken rule that he would break free from that city and he would make a world of his own. To do that, Samuel focused on school, since, due to his strict upbringing, he felt like it would be the only way possible.
He’s always excelled in debates and did terrific on political assignments from school, which, in one of the career fairs he attended, it became clear to him that he would do great as a lawyer. Samuel focused on that idea and also, on getting himself a scholarship out of there, since there was no way his parents could afford college education for any of their kids. There had already been talks around the house about who would help in the B&B and who would help in the restaurant, and, as honorable as these jobs were, and as much as he helped around during summer breaks, Samuel wanted more. He wanted everything else the world had to offer. So did his sister.
His drive landed him a scholarship to study Psychology in California, and once he was done, he was accepted into UC Irvine to continue his studies by going there for Law School.
In California and being away from his parents, Samuel felt like he could finally breathe and be the person he had always been born to be. He met someone during his college years, who also happened to bring out the best in him, and together, they were inseparable. Cemre was smart, beautiful, and above all else, she was ambitious just like him. They shared dreams, hopes, victories, and losses, and eventually, they would share a life, too, because, in the first few months of being together, Cemre shared that she was expecting someone else’s baby. Someone she had been with before Sam and she had even gone out on their first date.
Sam was well aware of the responsibility that raising someone else’s baby entailed, but he was also far too deep in love with Cemre to scrap the last few months over something that had happened before they had met. When Deniz was born, everything made sense. He had a family in the making, a decent job, and one hell of a girlfriend. What else could he ask for? A few years after being together, when the clock struck midnight, Samuel proposed to her and she said yes.
Life was good.
Until it wasn’t.
First, it was the news of Alaya’s death. Although he had been in touch with his sister this whole time, apparently there was another side of her life that he had yet to get to know. The news of her death struck him like lightning and forced Samuel to travel to Arizona for her funeral. His brother-in-law didn’t tell him directly, but it didn’t take a genius to put two plus two together and simply assume why there were so many people wearing leather cuts while they laid her to rest. Alaya had mentioned finding a solid source of income and bringing Ezrak along, he just wasn’t imagining it would be anything related to motorcycle clubs and the type of underground activity there might happen there.
Grieving, he spent the following couple of years stuck in a haze and it was another call from Arizona that changed his life and solidified his own ties with the Wild Coyotes. A request to bail Ezrak and another fellow Wild Coyote member from prison. He traveled to Arizona once again, and through client confidentiality, he learned more about the gang his sister had been involved with. It was a tough pill to swallow at first, that by trying to give herself a better life, Alaya had been involved in criminal actions, that he couldn’t protect her somehow… because he simply hadn’t been there. In the following six months, he stayed in Arizona, preparing the case for the Wild Coyotes and flying home every once in a while.
During his last trip back home he was welcomed with a photo of Cemre and Deniz and a message that someone was watching them. Consumed by fear of what that picture might mean, especially after hearing Ezrak’s suspicions that Alaya’s death had not been an accident, Samuel decided to break things off with Cemre and then moved to Lancaster, leaving both mother and son behind, despite what that loss would mean to him.
His first months post-breakup was filled with alcohol, parties, and sex. Then, work followed. Samuel became relentless. He found himself a job at a Law firm in Phoenix, doing what he did best, which was to persuade people… more precisely, judges, using every verbal way and finding loopholes in proofs. Who cared about fairness or justice, right? He also continued working for the Wild Coyotes when it came to their legal matters, hoping this would keep trouble away from the ones he loved.
Sam just wasn’t expecting trouble to follow him some time later and stare him right in the eye, asking questions on why he had missed his last birthday.
#crime rp#gang rp#oc rp#original rp#mature rp#dark rp#town rp#semi appless rp#literate rp#c.all#c.civilian#death tw
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Is that SOLEDAD YILDAZ that I see over there? You know they have quite the reputation of being the THE SWEETHEART around town. The 28 year old has been around these parts for 2 YEARS and within that timeframe has landed themselves a job as a/an BARISTA AT ONCE UPON A TART while living in CHESTNUT APARTMENTS I overheard that they can be quite STUBBORN but their saving grace is that they are KIND HEARTED. They remind me of COFFEE RINGS ON A WOODEN TABLE, SUNSHINE MIXED WITH A LITTLE HURRICANE, AND LEATHER-BOUND BOOKS but you’ll have to decide that for yourself.
tw: death mention, bullying mention
Soledad was born to two loving parents, both of who adored their daughter with everything they had. She was the only child of Carmen and Ömer Yildiz. Shortly after her arrival into this world, the Yildiz’s moved from Turkey to Boston, Massachusetts, when her father got the opportunity for an excellent traveling salesman position and the move had been planned for a while now.
Growing up, Soledad was a happy child at home. She was so infectious with her laughter and smile that her family quickly nicknamed her “Sol,” and the name was one she fell in love with from a young age. She tried her hardest to live up to it every day.
Despite the loving household Sol had, things at school were different for her. For some reason, one Sol couldn’t seem to understand, the kids in her grade always looked at her funny. The girls never wanted to talk to her about anything, no-one made an effort to sit with her at lunch, during gym she would always get picked last, and her locker usually had some sort of goop or slime smeared on it as ‘the prank of the day.’
She found her escape in books. One day she picked up a copy of ‘Harry Potter’ and the brunette was hooked since. It wasn’t long before she was trying to read as many books as possible, from all different genres. Thanks to her books, the older she got, the tougher her shell began to get towards the world around her.
Her real escape came when she left Boston to attend university at NYU. She chose to take the business path like her father. Starting her second year of school, she met someone and the pair dated for just shy of one year. They was her first love, first one (and only) to have ever slept with, and heartbreak. During her third year at school, her mother ended up passing due to complications with heart surgery. She was devastated and kept to herself even more than ever. It wasn’t long before her relationship came to an end, closing her happily ever after, though she used the sadness she felt towards motivating herself to study harder.
With a lot of hard work, she ended up graduating top of her class. After graduation Sol took some time to travel around Europe for a bit. She did some backpacking and in her adventures met many lovely, and not so lovely, people along the way. She went to places like Paris, Peru, Japan, China, Egypt, Prague, but her biggest dream has always been London. For some reason or another she just can’t seem to get there.
Now, a bit new(ish) (2yrs) to Ravenswood, Vermont, Sol is ready to make her mark in the town and the small business. She always tries to show up with a smile on her face and a bright personality.
She can come off as shy at time but once you get past her shell she is extremely friendly and always ready to talk your ear off about her newest book she’s reading.
fun facts:
she may not be too outspoken about it, but she is a gamer.
loves music, late night talks, and laughing
she is always ready to lend a helping hand or shoulder to lean on
she will keep your secret and take it to the grave
her favorite customer is (wc) and she often tries to have their cup of coffee always ready for them when they makes their daily visit to once upon a tart. .
she has made (wc) her unofficial roommate as she has given them a key they can freely use to enter her home whenever htheye needs it. she’s used to them coming over needing to be stitched up, fed, or just wanting to hang out. all in all she cares about them.
#rw.inspo#tw: death mention#tw: bullying mention#( tumblr is being weird#so if this post looks off/wonky that's why!#sorry guys!#)
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⌠ lizeth selene. twenty three, unlabeled, genderfluid, they/she. ⌡ wait a minute, is indigo martinez still in town? i thought i saw a flash of (late nights at the store meticulously sorting the marvel collection, patchwork tattoos without much of a theme, homesick for a place they’ve never known )! last i heard they were working as an owner of liminal comics nearby. when it’s the (scorpio)’s birthday on october 31st i forget that they’re detached and celebrate that they’re articulate i hear man eater, nelly furtado every time i think of them. ⌿
tw mentions of: implied abandonment
born & raised in centralia
her father, rico martinez, was a single father .. who chose a life of modesty to his only child, raising them on the records of def leppard, dolly parton, fleetwood mac and don henley..
he never spoke much about indigo’s mother, only that she existed and is living in vermont, or was it nevada? they couldn’t be sure.
even if they could remember their mother it wouldn’t of mattered. her father made up for the lack of her presence, he made every little league game, every parent teacher conference, he never skipped a beat.
indigo’s fondest memories stem from riding in her fathers beat up truck, cassette tapes of his favorite 80s bands blaring in blown out speakers as they run to the diner for their weekly milkshake run.
rico was a mechanic who’d taught them how to drive when they were 13 and kept them working in the shop after school, without any convincing on that front.. indigio loved every minute of it
she dabbled in sports, played soccer, softball.. but nothing really stuck, she was always spending their time watching the stars, staying up as late as she could to catch them in the sky
their love of music was blatantly obvious and well predicted. rico thrifted an old set of drums when he was in high school and it sat in the basement of their home.. it didn’t take long for indigo to become curious and start practicing
some would say their talents were remarkable, some chalked it up to luck.. regardless it became a passion very quickly.. they partake in battle of the bands every now and again, posting youtube videos on occasion but nothing serious
another trait that indigo picked up from their father was their love of comics & everything to do with super heros. they’d sit on the living room floor every sunday morning with a bowl of cereal and vintage comics that had been stored in the closet
it was no surprise that they started working at the comic shop downtown, they fit right in and their knowledge of the books in stock was impressive
when the man that owned the shop retired, he handed the keys over to indigo without a second thought.
he was a lucky one… getting out of centralia before things begun to get worse, indigo couldn’t have been that fortunate.
personality:
would probably join a cult if the right one came along, they’d fit in nicely.
finds amusement and humor in the darkest of topics, paired with no filter you’d wonder if they had any manners at all
has a bit of fire to them, they’ll call you on your shit but give you every reason to call them a hypocrite
wanted connections:
ex-gf/bf(s)
the one that got away:
one-night stand
bandmates: banks, x, x, x, x
regulars at the comic shop
local degenerates indigo parties with
best friend
enemies
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thread count: 3 | drafted: 3 | posted: 0/3 | replies: thursday
The Basics ~
name: tuncay ‘cay’ aslan çelik
dob: august 21st, 1987
sun&moon: leo&cancer
occupation: interior architect / celik design CEO
birthplace: adana, turkey
legal residence: east haven, vermont
gender identity: cisgender
pronouns: he/him
orientation: bisexual / biromantic
status: openly married
family: mehmet çelik (father), sevda çelik (mother), amman ulusoy (ex-partner - deceased), tbd çelik (husband), mehtap çelik (daughter - 12), ayah çelik (daughter - 3), minnoş (german shepherd).
Possible Connections~
business partners ~ while his best friend is his main business partner, Tuncay likes to dip his toes into promising adventures in many areas of the business world. He mainly focuses on architecture but enjoys the idea of providing affordable and sustainable housing to people. Your character could be a fellow architect, they could be currently working together on a build, they could work for or with him in any capacity. Perhaps, they only know of each other in the business world.
friends ~ Tuncay is career focused and likes to surround himself with like-minded people but he also loves meeting people with different perspectives and opinions than he has. He tends to listen more than speak and grows protective over the people that he harbours fondness for. Most of his friendships have been surface level up until this point in his life, whether they are old friends or new budding ones, your character may find it difficult to delve deeper into a friendship with him or very easy depending on the situation.
childhood friends
ex-partners / current partners
neighbours
pet-sitters / walkers
live-in nanny
assistant
Personality ~
positive traits: driven, philanthropic, kind, respectful, honest, family oriented, open-minded, critical, quick witted, playful.
negative traits: apathetic, blunt, sarcastic, noncommittal, over-protective, judgemental, critical, reckless, closed off, difficult, aggressive.
likes: learning, traveling, reading, music, exercise, health and nutrition, psychology, language, working, dark chocolate.
dislikes: disrespect (towards himself and others), feeling suffocated, itchy fabric, boredom, slow movement, small spaces, dull knives, disorganization, sleep.
hobbies: cooking, writing, pottery, volunteering, drawing, painting.
The biography ~
tw: transmissible disease (hiv), medical issues, partner death, brief mentions of internalized homophobia/toxic masculinity, fertility issues, infidelity, pregnancy/surrogacy, PTSD, Grief, and abandonment issues.
Affluence by default was the expectation for the first-born and only son of Mehmet and Sevda Çelik, a power couple of the Turkish high society. Mehmet, the heir of a chain of international hotels and Sevda, a fierce fashion designer held preconceived notions about the little boy who had changed their eternity of fertility issues. For a while after his birth, these preconceived notions were their reality, however, the undertone of Sevda’s concern for her son’s late blooming clouded some of the joy that she felt in being a mother. Tuncay didn’t crawl until 10 months, couldn’t stand for long periods of time until 22 months, and when he finally walked, his gait was wobbly and abnormal. Physicians assured them that their son was perfectly healthy, that he was simply a strong-willed boy who didn’t want to follow traditional standards.
It was late in the afternoon when he was three that things went awry. He had gone to bed early, had slept through the night and into the early hours of the morning but he was difficult to wake, lethargic, his fever so high that after refusing to eat his breakfast, he had start convulsing in the middle of the garden, attended to by one of the landscapers. It was at this moment that all of Sevda’s worries became reality. Her healthy baby boy was reduced to nothing, a consistent patient of the pediatric ward for two more years before her own medical emergency made them understand exactly what was going on with her child.
She had passed HIV to her son unknowingly.
Although putting a name to the reason that her son had gotten so sick in a rapid manner was a relief, the guilt that she felt for being the cause of it made it difficult for her to truly enjoy her son’s health when it finally came. After a couple of years of medication therapy and when Tuncay was old enough to understand his condition, Sevda was happy to learn that Tuncay, instead of hating her, started to open up to her more. They became closer than ever, made a routine of their medical upkeep, and in his teenage years, didn’t quite fall out as often as most teenagers and their parents did.
Moving abroad to Germany for university was harder than he thought. Although he saw his parents more often than most kids, being away from his parents affected him more than he supposed it affected his parents. As difficult as the change in culture, language, and society was, he found it fun and interesting and studying made it easy. What wasn’t easy, however, was meeting Amman Ulusoy, a Turkish-born student from Canada. Their ideas clashed, their cultural morals were vastly different, but their opinions on business, life, and art was where chemistry was born. Tuncay didn’t make it easy, his attitude toward his sexuality screamed internalized homophobia and Amman called him out every time that it came up.
He worked through it for years before he finally accepted him as a partner. By that time, they had spent so much time together that they decided not to wait - they got married in Canada, moved to Vancouver after graduation, and talked about children. Sevda was glad despite her apprehension, Mehmet became distant so as not to offend his son with his ignorance and even though he struggled, even though in the present day, he still made comments that made the architect internally cringe, his effort in acceptance was the most important thing for Tuncay.
Mehtap, their first daughter, was the consequence of a slight misalignment between Amman and Tuncay. His infidelity weighed heavily on him for a long time after Amman passed away from an accident on the scene of one of their new constructions. Mehtap’s mother decided that it would be best for their daughter to live with her father, her intention being that having an infant to focus on would help him through the grief that came with the loss of Amman and it worked for the most part; the only issue was the distraction of tending to his daughter kept the grief away.
He moved back to Istanbul very quickly afterward, hoping that being near his family would help ease some of the pain, he started treating life as if it was normal but once again, he used the distraction of building his own architecture company as a way to prolong dealing with the grief of losing his partner.
There was something about grief that made his art better.
He gained notoriety, his designs were admired, his opinions were sought after, and when an opportunity to take his work to the U.S came up, he decided that he was ready to face his demons head on; they had always talked about living in the mountains and raising their children there, whether those mountains were in Canada, Turkey, or anywhere else on the planet they felt drawn toward.
And as if the universe was playing with him, while designing the project that he'd been brought in specifically for - he met a man who saw his demons and still took his hand with the excuse that they would face all of them together. The unfortunate bit was that losing his first husband created a lot of problems for him; he'd grown over-protective, anxious, and when their daughter came into the picture, it got even worse.
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rolling your own cigarettes. stick-and-poke tattoos. being late to bed and early to rise. detention as an extra-curricular. keeping a packed bag at the back of your closet. a white t-shirt with cuffed sleeves. an heirloom watch that’s long-since stopped. opening your parachute at the last possible moment. falling in with the wrong crowd. your childhood bedroom being converted into an office. burning bridges. knowing that nobody really cares what you do anymore.
statistics.
full name: isidore emiliano fiorello
nicknames: izzy, iz, fiorello
name meaning: gift of isis
age: twenty-nine
date of birth: april 10th
star sign: aries
place of birth: staten island, new york
current location: east haven, vermont
gender: cis-male
pronouns: he/him
sexual orientation: a very good question
religion: catholic (lapsed)
occupation: line cook at the sunny side up diner
family: giovanni fiorello (father, deceased) bianca dawson (née lombardi, mother, estranged), robert dawson (step-father, estranged), stefanie dawson (sister, estranged), james dawson (half-brother, estranged), molly dawson (half-sister), arturo fiorello (paternal uncle, deceased)
education level: high school drop-out
living arrangements: lives in his uncle's old house in sutherland park
financial status: poor
biography. (death tw, motor accident tw, abusive parent tw, homelessness tw, assault mention tw, prison tw)
Izzy's father died when he was eight years old, and it ripped his world apart. His mother, Bianca, coped very badly with the loss, and struggled to balance her grief with raising Izzy and his little sister, Stef, alone.
Only a year after his father passed, Bianca started dating somebody new. His name was Robert Dawson - he'd known both of Izzy's parents since high school, and had apparently always held something of a candle for his mother. Izzy hated him from the moment he laid eyes on him, but Robert was there to stay. He and Bianca were married by the time Izzy was ten, and the Fiorellos became the Dawsons, with only Izzy clinging to his father's name.
Time passed, and Izzy's relationship with his family deteriorated irreparably. Robert was a controlling, insecure man, and seemed determined to erase all traces of Izzy's real father from existence. Pictures began to disappear from around the house - even ones kept in the supposed privacy of Izzy's room - they lost contact with the Fiorello side of the family, and any attempts to talk about his father were firmly shut down. Izzy started getting into trouble at school, picking fights and skipping class, and it just exacerbated his home life all the more.
He was so angry, so full of grief, so alone. Izzy ran away from home eight times between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, and after getting suspended from high school again and the argument to end all arguments, he ran as far as Vermont, to a town he remembered from his childhood. He could only hope his uncle still lived in East Haven - and that he'd take him in, if he did.
Izzy lived with his Uncle Arturo for a year and a half. He tried to set Izzy back on a decent path, but his efforts went unrewarded - Izzy was too far gone, and he couldn't accept the help. Ultimately, he destroyed the last safe haven he had left, stealing a sizeable amount of cash from his uncle and suddenly vanishing from town without a word.
After that, Izzy bounced around along the east coast, going wherever the wind took him - he was young, resourceful, and could find friends when he needed them. He fell in with a bad crowd, the petty crimes he’d committed in high school became more serious, and it seemed there was no turning back. The things Izzy did didn’t make him happy, and they didn’t fix his problems (rather increased them tenfold), but he was resigned to his fate.
When he was twenty-two, Izzy's crimes caught up with him, and he was arrested. He was sentenced to ten years for breaking and entering, and aggravated assault against a police officer.
It would be wrong to say it was a wake up call, but it certainly put his sad excuse for a life into perspective. He’d fucked it up, let his uncle and his father's memory down, and enough was enough. Izzy kept his head down, immersing himself in audiobooks and his work detail in the prison kitchen, and waited for his opportunity to apply for parole.
While he was inside, his uncle passed away. Izzy’s application for compassionate leave to attend the funeral was denied, though a lawyer came to tell him that Arturo had left him his home in East Haven. It wasn’t much of a comfort, but when Izzy finally got a date for parole, that is where he told the judge he would go.
Izzy lost six years of his life to prison. He has no family to turn to, and no friends worth knowing. He’s been back in town for four months now, and it’s been an adjustment… but he’s trying. Nobody owes him a second chance, but he is trying.
other things.
He’s never been formally tested, but Izzy is almost certainly dyslexic.
That being said, he’s a huge audiobook fan, and is technically very well-read because he listened to a lot of the classics while he was in prison. His favourite novel is Frankenstein.
He’d rather talk on the phone than text. Hell, he’d rather learn morse code than text - if you text him, he’ll respond with a voice note nine times out of ten.
Izzy has a lot of tattoos. Many of them are shitty and faded now - stick-and-pokes he’d either done himself or had a friend do for him - but there are a couple of nice, professional ones in the mix.
You’ll never find Izzy at the diner on a Thursday. That’s the day he meets with his probation officer, which he has to travel to Montpelier for.
The only member of his family that Izzy has any kind of contact with is his half-sister, Molly. It’s funny, he’s been in jail a solid most of her life, but she’s the only one that ever bothered to write to him.
The watch Izzy wears belonged to his dad. The face is cracked, and the hands have stopped turning, but he hasn’t tried to fix it - it got broken the night he was arrested, and serves as a reminder that he must do better.
#izzy: about#death tw#motor accident tw#parental abuse tw#prison tw#assault mention tw#basically this bio is fucked up and sad anyway <3
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FULL NAME robyn freya lind
AGE , D.O.B. thirty-nine, june 14th
PLACE OF BIRTH montpelier, vermont.
OCCUPATION political campaign manager, business shareholder
EDUCATION bachelors in political science from columbia university
GENDER, PRONOUNS cis woman, she / her
ORIENTATION lesbian
RELATIONSHIP STATUS chronically single.
POSITIVE TRAITS rational, intellectual, reliable, astute, sophisticated
NEGATIVE TRAITS domineering, mercurial, obsessive, cynical, repressed.
BIOGRAPHY.
TW parental neglect / abuse, slight body horror mention
the threads that connect you to the earliest recollections of your childhood are mostly superimposed, but you remember morsels of the truth. you are but a babe, one who is subject to your birth mother’s advances the very moment you enter worldly fruition. bathed in her blood, she may not want you but you are hers and hers alone. but she was inept to care for a child when she was nearly one herself. so you become the one she will blame for her ruin. a child that would leave her young body ravaged and a stranger to herself. you would not see this woman again until your thirty-first birthday. rather you find yourself in the arms of another, an odd child bestowed upon an equally off-beat couple. you meet in footnote circumstances, unbeknownst to an empire with a singular piece missing – an heir. how strange to have everything but to be hollowed by a singular absence. the reason they wanted you for was — well, no one really knows exactly why. you were never bold enough, or maybe cruel enough to demand an answer. perhaps they felt they wanted a child because it was the last bastion to cross, the last fence in the orchard of adulthood. maybe they had simply seen a challenge, as it was so often their style, and launched headlong into it. they would approach child-rearing with the precision of mass reviews, as journalists do with great disasters, until it had the featherweight touch of a quantitative analysis: a rulebook to be followed to the letter.
they did all they were supposed to, adjusted you according to this litmus test. doctor visits, stellar extracurricular programs, language exchanges & debate clubs overseeing genovese lakes. they provided the bare essentials for this aluminum blueprint; anything superfluous, of course, would skew the results. you were the experiment they invested in, a uniform whole, rather than a sum of parts. if you judge it by any other name, the trial was a success. you had become the best version you could’ve ever been, all things considered. what if it was hollow, as all polished shells are? it was light enough to float. given the haphazard turns of your mind, the way it led itself to a fool’s gold chase that could’ve ruined you long ago — yes, given all these fatal flaws, your parents tempered as much as they could. you are not the first in line, but you are the first daughter, and god, isn’t that worse somehow? you are their sweet, golden bird. a cluster of feathers they smother in their palms. they chide and you are expected to fall in line – that you do. but sometimes when you’re alone with yourself, you begin to consider why you think of flight as an illness. why are you so afraid to simply take what you want? is what you’ve been given enough – is it too much?
the others follow you in quick succession and there is both sadness and elation in the notion that you are no longer alone in your loneliness. ( but isn’t that odd? isn’t it cruel? ) the answer still perturbs you but you do what you can stop the softness of childhoods from slipping as easily as yours had. you become a shoulder to cry upon or a hand to squeeze beneath the dinner table when father comes inquiring about your grades. it matters little how your mother’s eyes sharpen when you misstep during ballet recitals or how your father secludes you in the thing he calls love. you become everything except yourself. adapt to the needs of others and make yourself useful, maybe then someone could love you properly – without asking for everything in return. you carry the habit of giving too much of yourself onward into adulthood, no funeral held for it with the rest of the girlhood niceties you buried in the crawlspace between your bedroom and father’s study. in the meantime there are glimpses of want, of interest, but no true fulfillment of either. you show interest in bohemia early on, always a bit too eccentric for your parent’s taste so they push you in the opposite direction. you became theirs to command, because if you couldn’t will yourself to do as you pleased, you would allow them to mold you. they urged you to attend university so off to columbia you went. and perhaps for the first time in a very long time, there are peeks of who you are beneath that friendly, only slightly on edge expression of yours. you make yourself useful, earn a degree that would serve you well had you been inducted into the ranks of the family business. for once you had something of your own, and if it were merely a political sciences degree, then so be it.
getting your foot in the door means it’s no longer about what you know, but who you know, and as it turns out, maybe your pedigree isn’t so bad. father deems your occupation superfluous, that you could do more than your ill-defined, and frankly a bit foggy job. but you’re happy, even if your only reward is the satisfied looks you get from the old foxes when you’ve done well enough to keep them in political good-graces. they appreciated your curated coldness, that glacial calm, the luxury of a sublimely cut suit in a soul-crushing deposition. your parent’s contacts helped a lot, of course, but otherwise it was all you. there’s something better than the power sex gives you, and that’s ambition.
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Information
Name: Lincoln Grimes
Nicknames: Link
Birthday: March 2nd
Age: 24
Star Sign: Pisces
Education: University of Vermont, majored in Animal science
Job: Currently working as a farm hand on his parents farm out of town, but aspires to be a veterinarian
Appearance
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brunette
Build: He sports a fairly athletic build with lightly defined muscles, strong without necessarily showing it physically, he stands at approximately 5’11.
Face Claim: Hunter Doohan
Personality
During his years in Highschool Link could have been regarded as popular amongst his peers, however unlike some of the other popular crowd Link has always retained his level head and remained humble despite his popularity.However, Link is easily swayed and influenced by his peers. He likes being liked and if that means acting out of character on occasion he has previously been known to comply with less than kind ploys against unfortunate victims of his ‘friends’ bullying.
Link, however, is a kind and well-meaning individual. He admires people who don’t feel the need to fit into the status quo in the same way he does and desires the confidence they have to break out of the confines of social norms.
He’s a romantic at heart and loyal to a fault with romantic partners. Meeting Kaitlin in his freshman year he committed to her and her alone until their breakup and even then never really moved on from their past together. He deeply regrets his cowardice in leaving her when she was still recovering and truly believes she could bring out the best in him; feeling much more liberated when he was with her and could really open up about who he really was away from his friends
Relationships and Others
Sexuality: Bisexual but deeply, deeply closeted
Family: John Grimes (father, strained bond), Cecelia Grimes (mother, very close bond), Sicily Grimes (younger sister, very close bond)
Relationships: Kaitlin Harris (ex-girlfriend), the two broke up after Kaitlin’s accident after being together from freshman year to graduation. After Kaitlin’s accident, Link found it difficult to continue their relationship with limited methods of communication due to her coma and non-verbality. Despite their breakup, Link has not dated another person since and currently is not seeking out a new relationship.
Biography
tw// mentioned abuse
Lincoln ‘Link’ Grimes was born on March 2nd to John and Cecelia Grimes, who lived on the outskirts of Ravenwood on more agriculturally appropriate land, John being a typical low-scale animal and crop farmer. Lincoln was an only child for the majority of his life until he turned 17 and his parents gave birth to his little sister, Sicily. Link has always had a strained relationship with his emotionally distant father, mostly due to his deep rooted issues with his sexuality and his fathers inability to accept his son as anything more than a poster child for toxic masculinity.
During Link’s school years he got in with the wrong crowd, mostly popular meat-head’s with a one track mind for sport that he had met while being on the school’s football team. Lincoln, however, never felt like he fit in perfectly with them. He always felt like a crudely shoved in puzzle piece, however his popularity and affinity for sport impressed his father enough to keep him happy for some time and allowed Lincoln to avoid his fathers alcoholic rages — which gradually got worse over the years. Meeting Kaitlin in his freshman year was arguably the best case scenario for Link, he finally had someone he felt like himself around as well as a beacon of hope away from home — she gave him something to look forward to every day and he was hopelessly devoted to her from day one.
After Graduation and Kaitlin’s accident as well their breakup, Link withdrew from most of his old friend group and got stuck into his studies at university. He briefly moved away and lived on campus until his graduation with a degree in Animal science and a goal set to get into veterinary studies next. He moved back to Ravenwood after and started working full time as a farm hand, as well as passively learning sign language — just in case. His fathers alcoholism and tendency to take out his frustrations on his family has ultimately led to his family withdrawing from him for the most part aside from necessary familial interactions and work, Link assumed the role as man of the house since his father was usually passed out drunk or too inebriated to step up anyway.
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Delaware Headcanons-The 1968 Occupation of Wilmington
Warning! These headcanons are dark and mention abuse and druggings. Please read at your own risk.
During the 9 month National Guard occupation of Wilmington (and somewhat Dover) in 1968, Delaware was under curfew and restricted by his governor in order to control him and make sure he didn't join the protests. Then when Delaware got a new governor and the occupation was immediately ended, Delaware quickly went back to the other states.But with some bruises and cuts from when he would lash out against it. America couldn't do anything to stop the occupation, and Delaware was heavily watched and could barely talk to his people without being punished for it, and was never allowed to speak to the other states or America alone. The Governor had planned it and refused to listen to anyone else when they advised the occupation should end, wanting to keep Delaware under his control, so everyone else was helpless as Delaware remained trapped.
Delaware was forced to tell America that he was perfectly safe during the occupation, and that no harm was going to come to him. But Delaware was tapping out "help" and "SOS" in Morse Code, so America knew something was wrong, but still couldn't do anything. Delaware was caught doing this and after the meeting was punished for it, and that's when he officially was banned from talking to anyone.
Maryland and Pennsylvania try to get into Wilmington. They are successful and see Delaware acting out against the National Guard. Only for him to then be restrained, hurt, and threatened. Then they get forced out and told that if they tell anyone, Delaware would be hurt even more.
Whenever Delaware was hurt they were careful to make sure it could be hidden so that they could still say "look Delaware is fine and okay with the occupation"
They would also drug Delaware after hurting him when he tried to act out to keep him "under control". Sometimes they would drug him unprovoked as well. They always made sure Delaware was unaware of this, as his confusion made him easier to control. By the time the occupation is over, his mind is foggy and he struggles to remember some of it. He doesn't remember that Maryland and Pennsylvania were there, and those two were horrified to discover that.
The druggings made it hard for Delaware to keep track of times, so sometimes he felt the occupation had lasted weeks, and other times he felt as if it had lasted years. Either way, Delaware was convinced it would be the rest of his existence
When the occupation ends Delaware is very jumpy and always expects to be hit whenever he does something. Raised voices and people lifting up their arms would always make him flinch. Whenever his siblings fought, for a long while after the occupation, Delaware would always flinch away and cover the spots he was always hit. The states tried to avoid arguing around or with him because of this
Delaware tried to play off his fear at the fighting. He didn't want to come off as being weak or whatever, and wanted to show he could handle himself. He was also very afraid that if they thought he couldn't take care of himself, he would go back into occupation, as if he couldn't take care of himself, the National Guard should
Delaware continues to isolate himself after the occupation ends as he has been convinced that it's what's best for him
The Governor died a year after the occupation and Vermont definitely had something to do with it. America and Vermont both claim he didn't have anything to do with it, but all the states know they did, and Delaware is very grateful to them for that.
After initially giving him space, America talks to Delaware about the occupation. Delaware broke down and explained all the abuse he could remember to America while sobbing. Then Delaware started talking about how he was, and still is, so confused as to what had been happening and how he can't understand why he can't remember certain things. America plans to murder the former Governor after this.
Delaware has frequent nightmares about the occupation, often crying out things like "please stop", "let me go", "leave them alone" often accompanied by sobbing and screaming. These happened a lot after the occupation, but nowadays Delaware only has them once or twice a month. They are still very concerning to everyone and always active America's parental instincts. America will wake Delaware up as gently as he can and let Delaware cry into him, most likely with Delaware squeezing the life out of him, and just be a comforting presence for Delaware. If America can't do it, Pennsylvania or Maryland will
Delaware blames himself for the occupation, saying what his people went through was his fault because he didn't try hard enough to get rid of the National Guard, curfews, and lockdowns. Especially because he can't remember any specific times when he acted out or protested against them.
Delaware had acted out agains them, but the beatings and druggings make it hard to remember why he was hurt, only that he was hurt. Maryland and Pennsylvania keep trying to convince him that he did act out, as they had seen it, but he refuses to believe it
America, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Maryland will not hear any talk of the occupation in terms of "something else could have been done or that it couldn't have been that bad" and any state that dare says it will get in a lot of trouble, as Delaware will side with that person, despite them being wrong
#statehumans delaware#statehumans vermont#statehumans pennsylvania#statehumans maryland#countryhumans headcanons#countryhumans america#weird’s headcanons#1968 occupation of wilmington#occupation of wilmington#abuse tw#drug mention
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D.C.: What scares you the most?
Ohio: Failing.
Louisiana: Bears.
Missouri: The unstoppable marching of time that is slowly guiding us all towards an inevitable death.
Vermont:
Vermont: Missouri.
#aph d.c.#aph ohio#aph louisiana#aph vermont#aph missouri#the west#the midwest#the south#the northeast#the original thirteen#tw death mention#aph states#statetalia#the states#states#usa#aph america#aph statetalia quotes#incorrect statetalia quotes#aph statetalia#incorrect state quotes#incorrect quotes
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@ofkarenpages
The grass crunched under Frank’s boots, dry after weeks of the Vermont heat. It had taken them almost seven hours to drive up to Fagan Corners, and Frank knew that the bust tyre they got on the way and the brief confrontation he got into at the garage was far from the most difficult thing that awaited them on this trip. Frank kept Karen close to his side, hand gripping firmly on her waist as they walked somewhat awkwardly through the graves. He turned to her, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “Lean on me, baby, yeah?” he muttered, knowing that she’d pick up on the other meaning as they made their way towards her mother and brother.
He wondered if she felt them here. He never felt his wife and kids when he went to the graveyard. Sometimes, he felt his mom -- even at that, it was a push. He doubted he was the kind of son a mother fought fate to reach out to, after all. Finally they stopped, and Frank saw their names carved into the stone. Penelope Page. Kevin Page. He broke from Karen for just a beat, just enough to bend down and place the flowers in his hand at their graves, then rejoined her. “Maybe we should’ve got some rest before, huh?” he asked, knowing there was no conversation you could make in a place like this, but also knowing Karen took comfort from him talking to her. “How you feeling?”
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The smell of death sizzled in the air. One after another, bodies fell to the floor as people inhaled the thick black soot. Embers danced in the dark sky, illuminating the small town of Ferry Hills. Loud shrieks filled the static silence of the town so shocked that this tragedy could be happening to their home. Their sanctuary.
The radio hummed with their only connection to the outside world. A voice of warning, too late. “The time to evacuate military occupied Ferry Hills is long gone. If you are in the area, please seek shelter in a vault. For those of you who have not been lucky enough to receive admittance into the vault...”
“Get in!” was the loud voice on the other side of vault 333. “You’ve got 30 seconds until it’s all over and you burn alive. 20 seconds until you’re hit with radiation and ten seconds until I close this door.”
“Go honey! We love you! Chris, please take care of her.”
“I will sir. I promise!”
The large vault doors closed for good that day, admitting 10 lucky lottery winners and 1 overseer. The vibrant white walls doing nothing to drown of the sound of death and destruction emblazoned in Tillie’s mind. The fate of her parents who had fought the crowds to get her and her fiance to their randomly earned safety, the most prominent thing on her mind.
“10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...” And the town of Ferry Hills was no more.
#War: A New Beginning Story#I rewrote this a bunch of times trying to capture the moment but how? it's just so intense thinking about it#Legend doesn't condone violence to this degree or at all#just a quick reminder! Enjoy the story!#Tillie Vermont#Christopher Bradshaw#tw: death#tw: murder#tw: bombing mention
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a/n: hola!! So, I’m posting the first 7K here since this is just one long one-shot. I hope y’all will join patreon to continue reading the rest of the story. I worked really hard on this one, and for whatever reason I feel like this is some of my best writing. Enjoy!
Words in total: 38K
Warnings:
TW - mentions of abortion/planned parenthood
Some angst, mostly just two people being idiots
Smut - slight daddy!kink, slight soft dom
Being the new kid in school is never easy. When you’re in elementary school, it’s exciting. Everyone wants to know you and be your friend, but in middle school…the kids judged you on day one. Orla Murphy and her family moved to Boston halfway through fifth grade. It would have been one thing if it was summer, she’d be able to slide in undetected. She could just pretend she was from a different elementary school and be done with it. But no, her father got offered a new job in the big city that he couldn’t turn down. Orla’s an only child, so it wasn’t even like she could mope and complain with a sibling. It was just her and her parents, and even though her mother was a bit more sympathetic to her daughter’s misery, it didn’t make Orla feel better.
So, here she is, on her first day of school on February 1st standing in front of a classroom of kids she doesn’t know, being forced to introduce herself and where she’s from.
“Go on, Orla, tell us a little about yourself.” The teacher says with a warm smile.
“Um…I’m Orla Murphy, I just moved here from Vermont. I’m from a small town where the whole school is the size of this classroom.” She looks down at her snow boots before looking up at the teacher.
“Wow, this’ll be quite the adjustment. What do you like to do for fun?”
“I draw and listen to music. I play Barbies, um…that’s all I can think of right now.”
“That’s fine, thank you, Orla. You can have a seat now.”
Orla goes back to where she was sitting before she got called up to introduce herself to her home room. She slumps down into her seat and listens to the morning announcements. The bell rings and it’s off to math. The class goes across the hall to the other teacher.
By the time lunch rolls around, Orla isn’t feeling much better about her new school. She had brought lunch, and wasn’t sure who to sit with. Her class has two assigned tables, but she doesn’t want to take anyone’s usual seat. She contemplates going to eat in the bathroom until someone taps her on the shoulder.
“You can sit with me and my friends, if you want.”
She turns around to look at a boy with a mess of chocolate brown curls on his head, a pair of round glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, and braces gracing his smile.
“Oh, um, thanks.” Orla blushes and follows him to one of the tables.
“I’m one of the few people that brings lunch too, everyone should be over soon. I’m Harry by the way.”
“Hi.” She says shyly.
“What kind of a name is Orla?” He asks, biting into his apple after they sit down.
“It’s Irish…”
“Cool! Does it mean anything.”
“Golden princess, or something like that, I don’t really know. My dad’s Irish and I guess his grandmother’s name was Orla so they named me after her.”
“That’s really cool. My mom just liked the name Harry, and now that’s my name.” He shrugs. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No.” She says, and pulls her sandwich out of her lunchbox. “Do you?”
“Mhm, I’ve got three older brothers, I’m the youngest. My oldest brother is a senior in high school, isn’t that cool? He’s going to college next year.”
“Does he drive you places?”
“Yeah! And sometimes he lets me sit in the front seat without my mom knowing. He’s the best.”
Orla felt like she was finally starting to open up, but Harry’s friends joined their table and took over the conversation. They acknowledged her, but didn’t make any effort to pull her back into the conversation. Harry noticed this and didn’t like it. She excuses herself a few minutes before the bell rings to go use the bathroom. There’s a study block after lunch where all of the kids in class could get a jump on homework, or read.
“Okay, everyone!” Mrs. Sampson, the teacher, cheers. “We’ve got a very special treat today. It’s Harry’s birthday, and his mom sent him in with cupcakes for the whole class!” Harry stands up and smiles as Mrs. Sampson places a birthday crown on his head. “Harry, would you like to pick someone to help you pass out the cupcakes?”
“Sure.” He nods and looks around the room. Many kids raise their hands with excitement. He spots Orla looking out the window with her chin resting on her fist. “I pick…Orla!”
Her attention snaps over to Harry while everyone looks at her. She stands up and walks over to him and takes a tray of cupcakes to help pass them out. Once everyone has their cupcakes, and a carton of milk supplied by Mrs. Sampson, the kids are allowed to sit with their friends and chat. Soon, some of the girls start talking with Orla, and it helps her feel more welcome.
By the end of the day, all of the kids are dismissed to go to their lockers and grab their backpacks before getting into their bus lines or go wait for their parents to pick them up. Orla sees Harry at his locker and she works up the courage to go talk to him.
“Hey, um, why’d you pick me earlier?” She asks him.
“Huh? Oh…I don’t know, I didn’t like that my friends were ignoring you at lunch. So, I just thought if you passed out the cupcakes with me more people would talk to you.” He rubs the back of his neck and grabs a card out of his locker. “Listen, I’m having a birthday party this weekend at Roller World, you should come.” He hands her the invitation. “The whole class is coming, it’ll be fun.”
“I’ll, um, I’ll ask my parents…thanks, Harry.”
“Don’t mention it.” He smiles. “Are you taking the bus home?”
“Yeah.”
“What number?”
“Eleven.”
“That’s my bus! You weren’t on it this morning.” He closes his locker and they start making their way to the auditorium where the bus lines are.
“Yeah, my mom wanted to drop me off this morning to walk me into the office so I could get my schedule and stuff.”
“Cool, where do you live?”
“I’m the second to last house on the left of Langston Ave…number twenty-four.”
“You can’t be serious. That’s literally right across the street from where I live! I was wondering who moved into that house. I’m number twenty-seven.”
“Whoa, that’s freaky.” Orla blinks.
“Well, at least you know you have a friend close by. We can wait at the bus stop in the mornings together if you want.” The two go into their line and wait as the teacher on duty keeps them at bay. “Do you wanna sit together?”
“That’s okay, I’m sure you have other friends you usually sit with.”
“Yeah, but none of them are new and exciting.” He scoffs. “Unless…uh, if you don’t wanna sit with me that’s totally fine.”
“No, I do! I just didn’t want you to think you had to offer.” She blushes.
“You’re funny, you know that?” He gives her shoulder a nudge with his hand, and the teacher lets the kids know they can go to their bus.
Orla follows Harry outside and onto bus eleven. He grabs a seat in the middle of the bus and sits down. Orla sits down next to him and smiles. The two talk the whole way home. Harry listens as Orla explains what her dad does for work and why they had to move.
“You’re gonna like living closer to the city, I think. It’s really fun to ride the trains and stuff.” Harry tells her.
They get to their stop and make their way off the bus. Orla’s mom is waiting outside on their front steps for her with a smile on her face.
“Um, thanks for being so nice to me today.” Orla says to Harry.
“You don’t have to thank me. Don’t forget to ask your parents about coming to my party on Saturday, okay?”
“Okay, bye.”
“See you tomorrow.” Harry smiles before crossing the street to his house.
“There she is! How was your day? Was that a new friend?” Orla’s mom gives her a big hug and kiss.
“Mum, stop!” She pushes her mother off of her and they both go into the house. “I got invited to a party on Saturday, can I go?” She hands her mother the invitation Harry had given her.
“Sure! I think I can make this work. I knew you’d make friends right away.”
“I didn’t make friends, I just made one. His name is Harry.” Orla sits down at the kitchen island while her mom makes up an after school snack for her.
“One is still good, Honey. I know this move hasn’t been easy for you, but I’m so proud of you for making it through your first day.” Mrs. Murphy sets down some peanut butter covered celery sticks in front of Orla. “Were your teachers nice?”
“Mhm, Mrs. Simmons is my homeroom teacher, and she’s my English and Social Studies teacher. Mrs. Rayburn is my math and science teacher from across the hall. We had a study block after lunch and we had cupcakes cause it’s Harry’s birthday. Tomorrow we have art after lunch.”
“That’ll be fun.” Mrs. Murphy smiles. “Wait until Dad gets home, he’ll be so happy to hear how your first day went.”
//
On Saturday, Orla takes a deep breath as she walks into the roller rink. Her mother is right behind her making sure she gets in safely. Orla grips the gift bag with Harry’s present in it as they walk further in.
“There they are.” Orla says to her mom, and they make their way over to the other kids and their parents.
“Orla, you made it!” Harry beams and gives her a high five. “Put that down, we can go get your skates.” He tugs her along to the counter while Mrs. Murphy says hello to Mr. and Mrs. Styles.
“Hi, Monique Murphy, I’m Orla’s mum.” She shakes both of their hands.
“You just moved in across the street, right?” Mrs. Styles says. “We’ve been meaning to come over to introduce ourselves.”
“No worries, I’m sure you’ve been busy putting all of this together. Your son has been so sweet to Orla these past few days.”
“We’ve always taught him to treat others with kindness. Um, is your husband at home, or is it just you two in that darling cape house?” Mrs. Styles asks.
“Oh, Shawn’s doing some unpacking for me. I work from home, and I needed him to put my desk back together and all that.”
While Mrs. Murphy gets acquainted with the other adults, Harry helps Orla lace up her skates. Many of the other kids say hello to her, but mostly keep to their established friend groups.
“Have you ever roller skated before?” Harry asks her as he helps her stand up.
“No.” She wobbles and latches onto his shoulders. “Maybe I should just sit this out. I don’t wanna slow anyone down.”
Harry rolls his eyes and takes Orla’s hand to help her get to the rink entrance.
“Come on, Harry! We’re gonna race!” One of the boys says.
“In a minute, I’m hanging with Orla right now.” He looks back at Orla as they both get onto the rink. “Okay, so you’re gonna glide right and left.” He spins around to take her hands, and starts slowly skating backwards. Orla looks at him with wide eyes. “I play ice hockey.”
“Oh, cool.” She swallows, and grips his hands as she follows his movements.
“There you go, you’re doing it!” Harry cheers her on. The DJ announces that cosmic skating is about to begin, and the rink goes pitch black. Neon lights turn on around the rink and everyone starts cheering. “Think you’ve got the hang of it so I can skate beside you?”
“Yeah, but you can go with your other friends. I don’t want you to think you have to babysit me.”
“I don’t think that.” He moves beside her and takes one of her hands. “It’ll just be easier to guide you like this.”
Orla ends up having a fun time with Harry, and she even warms up to some of the other kids. She learns that Logan, Owen, and Matt are Harry’s three best friends. Logan takes Orla’s other hand at one point and helps her skate a little faster with them. She laughs with all of them and gets the hang of skating on her own. Eventually it’s time for pizza, cake, and presents. Orla sits next to Sammy and Frida, two of the girls she was getting friendlier with in class. Harry starts opening his gifts. He gets some action figures, a new Bruins jersey, skate laces, and then he gets to Orla’s gift. From the few days Orla had spent getting to know Harry, she had learned that science was one of his favorite subjects. So, she got him a make your own volcano kit.
“Wow!” He exclaims as he pulls the kit out of the bag. “This is so cool! Thanks, Orla!” He smiles at her.
“You’re welcome.” She says back quietly.
After they eat, the kids go back for a few more rounds on the rink. Others go off to play in the arcade area. Kids start getting picked up by their parents, and Mrs. Murphy lets Orla know it’s time to go.
“I’m really glad you came.” Harry tells her.
“Me too, thanks for inviting me. Um, see you on Monday?”
“Yeah.” Harry pulls something out of his pocket. “I won these at the arcade, they’re just rubber bracelets, but I don’t need two of them. Do you want one?” He holds up the red rubber bracelet that has Roller World imprinted into it.
“Sure, thanks.” Orla takes the bracelet and slides it onto her wrist. She watches as Harry puts his own on.
From that day on, Harry and Orla were the best of friends. They did everything together. She’d go to his hockey games, and he’d invite her over to do homework after school. In the summer time they’d go swimming in his pool, and Mr. Murphy would grill them up some burgers. By the time eighth grade hit, the teasing started. Their friends told them to just kiss already, and they’d ask why they’re not boyfriend and girlfriend. Orla didn’t like Harry like that, as cute as he was. He was just her friend, and she liked it that way. Did they go to the eighth grade dance together and have a conjoined end of middle school party? Sure, but that’s what friends do.
High school is an entirely different ball game. They lived closer to the high school, so they didn’t need to take the bus. Harry and Orla would walk together every morning. They were put into different homerooms because of their last names, but they had many classes together. They were able to choose their seats so they made sure to sit together whenever they could. They had the same lunch period with their friends, so it was easy enough to get through the day. Orla tried out for the girls’ volleyball team, and she got on, so Harry would make sure to go to her matches. He made it onto the varsity hockey team, so Orla continued to go to his games as well. Again, people continued to ask if they were dating. This was mostly because Harry got more handsome by the day and girls were starting to express their crushes. Orla was pretty in her own right, but she was too shy to even look to see if anyone was looking back at her.
They went to school dances as a group, but they always danced to slow songs together. The summer between freshman and sophomore year of high school, the duo got jobs working at a retirement community restaurant that only hired high school students as servers. This meant new friends, and new people to hang out with after work. Most nights someone would host a fire in their backyard, and most nights this led to making stupid decisions. Orla and Harry didn’t drink, but they did smoke weed every once in a while.
“I don’t wanna smell like it, my parents would freak out.” Orla says to her friend who’s about to pass the joint to her.
“We could shotgun it.” He says.
“What do you mean?”
“I can inhale it and pass it to your mouth.” He smirks.
“Oh…” She furrows her brows. Harry isn’t paying attention to the interaction between Orla and Trevor, the sixteen-year-old boy who Orla secretly had a crush on. “Wouldn’t that be like kissing?” She giggles.
“Maybe, would that be a bad thing? If I kissed you?”
“You wanna kiss me?” Orla asks, but before she can get an answer, Harry’s hand finds her shoulder.
“My dad’s here, we need to go.” He says into her ear.
“Oh, um, okay.” Orla stands up.
“If you wanna stay longer, I can drive you home.” Trevor says.
“You’ve been smoking.” Harry says, stepping in front of Orla. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He takes Orla’s hand and tugs her along.
“Harry, where’s your dad’s car?” Orla asks when they get to the front of the house.
“He’s not here, I just said that so Trevor would leave you alone. We’re only a block away from home, let’s just walk.”
“Trevor wasn’t bothering me though.” Orla says to him as they start walking.
“Well, he was bothering me.”
“Why?”
“He was pressuring you into taking a hit off his joint.”
“No he wasn’t. And since when do you care if I want to smoke? It’s not like it would have been my first time.”
“I have some edibles in my room, we can have those.”
“Harry, you ruined something that could have been really special.”
“Yeah? Like what?” He huffs, walking slightly ahead of her.
“Trevor was going to kiss me, and I really like him.” Harry stops short and turns around to look at her. “And you know that would have been my first kiss, so…it would have been special.”
“You wanted your first kiss to be with a guy you would taste like weed in front of a ton of our friends?”
“No one was watching us.” She looks down.
“Why do you like him?”
“Because he’s cute and funny, and he always helps me buss my tables at work.”
“Is that all it takes?” Harry scoffs.
“What’s your problem? You flirt with girls all the time, you know.”
“Girls flirt with me, and news flash, I haven’t kissed anyone either. It’s not like I’m being hypocritical.” He rolls his eyes and starts walking again. Orla crosses her arms over her chest and follows behind him in silence. They don’t say another word to each other until they get to their street, and Orla starts to walk away from him towards her house. “Where are you going? I thought you were sleeping over.”
“Think I’d rather just be alone right now. I’m too annoyed to spend another second around you tonight.”
“You’re being a baby.” He follows her across the street and they both stop at the front of her walkway.
“And you’re being a jerk.”
“Why would you want your first kiss to be with someone who’s just trying to get into your pants?”
“He’s not like that.”
“Yes he is! I heard him, okay? I heard Trevor talking to Eric at the dish drop off. He…he has some bet with him that by before summer is over you two will have gone all the way.”
“You’re lying.” Orla’s eyes start to water.
“I’m not, why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know!” Orla sprints off into her house. Harry sighs heavily and goes to his own house.
Mr. and Mrs. Murphy have already gone to bed, so Orla’s quiet as she makes her way up to her room. She washes her face and brushes her teeth before getting into her pajamas. She sits on her bed with her laptop so she can watch TV to calm down. About twenty minutes later, Harry’s climbing in through her window. She looks over at him with a pout and puffy eyes. He doesn’t say anything to her, all he does is cup her jaw and press his lips to her. Her eyes nearly pop out of her head. Before she can even do anything Harry steps back from her.
“Now we’ve both had our first kiss.” He mutters, cheeks a deep shade of red. “I care about you, and you care about me…so it’s special.”
“Oh…well…thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He goes back over to her window, ready to climb back down. “Date whoever you want…just trust me about Trevor, okay?” With that he leaves.
She touches her fingertips to her lips and flops back into her pillows. Her first kiss was just with her very best friend, what could be better?
//
“Logan asked you to junior prom!?” Harry shrieks when Orla tells him after school.
“Shh, yes. I told him I had to talk with you first.”
“Well, do you want to go with him?”
“Not if it’s going to put you in a pissy mood.” She smirks.
“Do you…like Logan? Do you think he’d be a more fun date?”
“It’s not that I think he’d be more fun, but…you know he and I make out sometimes, it’d be nice to go with someone that I could be a little more intimate with. Besides, you have a crush on Josie, why don’t you ask her?”
“Because we go to every dance together.” Harry takes a deep breath. “Go with Logan, it’s fine. As long as you and I still take separate pictures together.”
“Of course! Oh, thank you, Harry!” She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. She’s about to walk away from him to go tell Logan, but he wraps his hand around her wrist. She furrows her brows as she look at him.
“But for senior prom, let it be known now, no matter what, you’re mine.” He’s as serious as a heart attack. For some reason, Orla’s mouth feels incredibly dry. She nods in understanding and Harry lets her go. “Go on, go tell your lover boy.”
Orla runs off to go find Logan, and Harry rolls his eyes. He ends up going to junior prom with Josie, who was overjoyed when Harry asked her to go with him. They all have a good time, and they end up having a big sleepover party in Owen’s basement. The lights are dim, and the air is a little smokey. People are drinking, others are staying sober, no one is pressuring anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. Harry can’t help but glance over at Orla every once in a while. She’s sitting on Logan’s lap in a hoodie and joggers, but her hair and makeup are still all done up. They’re kissing and giggling, and Harry feels like he’s going to be sick.
“Let’s play truth or dare!” Frida shouts. Everyone gets into a circle on the floor, and they use a glass soda bottle to spin. Owen spins first, and it lands on Harry.
“Truth or dare?” Owne smirks at his friend.
“Dare.” Harry says confidently. Frida whispers something into Owen’s ear and he nods.
“I dare you to go into the closet with Orla for eleven minutes in heaven.”
Everyone falls silent. Harry and Orla look at each other, and then they both look at Logan and Josie.
“It’s not like they’re going to do anything. I say go for it.” Logan shrugs.
“This is so stupid.” Harry huffs and stands up. Orla follows behind him and goes into the closet.
“Timer starts now! We’ll let you out when it goes off!” Owen yells to them as he turns the music up.
Harry and Orla both cross their arms over their chests as they stand face to face in the cramped closet. They don’t say anything at first, but Harry breaks the silence.
“I think this is, like, the gazillionth time someone has dared us to do this.” He shakes his head.
“Sounds about right.” She sighs. “I’m so glad no one knows we were each other’s first kisses, they’d die if they found out.”
“Yeah.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. “Did you have fun with Logan tonight?”
“Mhm.” She smiles. “What about you and Josie?”
“She’s nice enough, I’m not really sure why I was crushing on her so hard for. She’s not really my type.”
“That’s too bad, I’m sorry.” Orla frowns. “I didn’t think you really had a type.”
“Well, I do.” He snaps. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I don’t think I do.”
“Why do you like Logan?”
“He’s always been sweet to me. I think he’s cute, he helps me with my history homework. And he’s a good kisser.” She grins.
“Is that all you’ve done together? Just kiss?”
“Yeah, I would have told you if something more happened.”
“So…no second base?”
“Has he groped my boobs? No, I’m not ready for something like that yet.” She laughs.
“I thought second was, uh, blow jobs.”
“I thought that was third.”
“No, third is fucking.”
“Then what’s home plate?”
“Being in a relationship.” Harry laughs, and so does Orla.
“That’s fucked up.” She shakes her head.
“Do you think you’ll get to any of that with Logan?”
“I don’t know to be honest. I’m not really worried about it. I’m just going with the flow with him. Why do you care so much? I know he’s one of your oldest friends, but-“
“That’s not why I care. I just…” He steps a little closer to her and tucks some loose curls behind her ear. “I know how sentimental you get about things, and I’d kill him if he ever did something to hurt you.”
She looks up at him. She can feel his minty breath fanning over her skin.
“You can’t be my first for everything, Harry.” She says quietly.
“Why not?” He whispers. He’s just about to lean in when the door swings open.
“So? Did anything happen?” Frida asks excitedly.
“Nope, sorry to disappoint you all yet again.” Orla says, and brushes by all of them to go grab some water.
Harry walks out of the closet, and they all continue their game. When they finish, they all go back to just hanging out. Orla takes her place back in Logan’s lap.
“Do you wanna go somewhere private?” He whispers to her.
“To do what?” She whispers back.
“You know.” He wiggles his eyebrows at her.
“Logan, I’m really only into kissing right now. I don’t want to do anything else.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to kiss in private, though?”
“We do that in your car all the time.” She laughs. “I’m having fun with everyone right now.”
“You just don’t wanna sneak off because Harry’s here.”
“That’s not true.” She frowns. “I just know what I’m personally not ready for. I…I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Orla stands up and grabs her sleeping bag and pillow.
“What, you’re not going to sleep next to me now?”
“I never was.” She throws her things down next to Harry, and buries her face into her pillow.
“You okay?” He asks, rubbing her back.
“Why is every guy a jerk? Like, why is sex the only thing on your pea sized brains.”
“Because our brains are pea sized.” Harry smirks. “We don’t have room to think about anything else. Did Logan try to pull a move?”
“Sort of. He asked if I wanted to go somewhere more private, and I said no, and he said I was only saying no because you’re here, but that’s not the case at all. I just don’t wanna go further than kissing, and he couldn’t comprehend that.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“No, I think that’ll just make it worse. It’s not like we were dating, it doesn’t matter. I just…do you think Josie will care if I sleep next to you?”
“Oh, her mom picked her up.”
“When?”
“Like an hour ago…after I politely declined a hand job from her.”
The two burst out laughing and get into their respective sleeping bags. Orla cuddles up to Harry’s side and he throws an arm around her. For the first time in a while, Harry’s able to fall asleep with ease.
//
The pair ended up going to the same college for undergrad, of course. No one expected them to go to different schools. However, their majors were vastly different. Orla wanted to be a Physical Education teacher, and Harry wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. So, while Orla was in her education courses, Harry was balls deep in biology, anatomy, chemistry, and calculus. Harry was assigned a roommate at random, another pre-med student; his name is Neil. And Orla ended up rooming with another girl from their high school who she didn’t know that well, but she figured it would be better than rooming with a stranger; her name is Katie.
During their freshman move-in, Harry got his shit settled and then went to help Orla. Their families all went out for lunch, and then it was just the two of them. Luckily, they were put in the same dorm, Harry would just be down the hall from her. Katie was an education major too, but her concentration was in social studies. Her and Orla would have a few basic education courses together before breaking off into their respective concentrations. She made it onto the women’s volleyball team, and Harry decided he’d just play intramural hockey when the season rolled around so he could focus on his classes.
Harry would go to all of his Orla’s home matches. As things got busier during the semester, they weren’t able to see each other as much during the day. They made up for it at night in the library or in their dorm rooms. The two had grown comfortable with one another over the years, so Orla had no problem just hanging out in a sports bra and spandex shorts around Harry, and he had no problem just wearing his boxers around her. One night, Harry was hanging out in Orla’s room while Katie was at work. They were laying in bed watching a movie. Orla was wearing one of Harry’s old Bruins shirts and a pair of cotton panties. Her phone keeps buzzing, and Harry’s just about had enough. He pauses the movie and sits up to grab her phone.
“Harry!”
“I’m muting your fucking volleyball group chat. I’m getting sensory overload from all of the buzzing…” He furrows his brows at the screen. “Why are they all asking you if you asked me something yet?” He looks up at her. “What do you have to ask me?”
“Nothing, it’s stupid.” She snatches her phone from him. “They’re stupid.”
“If it’s stupid then just tell me what it is.”
“Can we just watch the movie?”
“Give me your phone, I need to know.”
“No.” She hugs her phone close to her chest.
“Orla, just tell me what it is!”
“No!”
“Give me your phone!”
“No!”
Harry and Orla start wrestling on her bed. She’s not wearing a bra so sticking the phone down her shirt won’t work. She does the next best thing and shoved it down the front of her underwear. Harry pins her down by holding down her wrists.
“That’s not fair.” He says.
“It’s my phone.” She tries to wriggle out from underneath him, but he’s stronger than her. The phone buzzes again, and she grunts. “Harry, just let it go.”
“I’m literally not going to be able to sleep unless you tell me.” The phone buzzes three times in a row. Harry watches as Orla bites down on her bottom lip and looks away from him. “Oh my god, is that buzzing against your clit?” He laughs.
“Harry!”
“You did this to yourself.” He presses down against her to keep the phone even closer to where it’s effecting her. “Just ask me whatever it is and I’ll let you go.”
“You’re such an asshole!” She wraps her legs around his waist to try to flip them over, but her legs just aren’t strong enough. The phone buzzes again and she groans. “What are you gonna do, make me come you sick fuck?” She starts laughing from how absurd this whole thing is.
“I’m not the one who shoved my phone down my underpants.” He laughs. “Just tell me.”
“No.” Three more buzzes. “Fuck.” Harry’s eyes widen as he looks down at her, and she gasps. “Are you hard?!”
“No! I…my dick twitched!”
“Why?!”
“Because you’re moaning!”
“Harry, I swear to god if-“
The door opens and Kate comes in. She stops short when she sees Harry on top of Orla.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry.” Her cheeks heat up.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Orla shouts as Harry scrambles to get off of her. She takes her phone out of her underwear and takes a deep breath. “He was trying to read my texts and we started wrestling.”
“Right…” Katie puts her things down and grabs her shower caddie. “I’m gonna go take a shower. I should be back in about thirty minutes.”
“We weren’t doing anything.” Harry says.
“Mhm.” Katie scoffs and leaves the room.
“Will you go to my volleyball formal with me next weekend?” Orla says to Harry.
“What? Is that what you had to ask me?”
“Yes.”
“Orla, why were you making such a big deal about this?”
“Because the girls were making it seem like the formal is a big deal and…I know you have a lot on your plate right now. I didn’t want you to feel pressured.”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that? Of course I’ll go with you to your formal. It’s just one night, it’s not a big deal. I’m doing well in my classes, I’m not worried.”
“You got so stressed your cried two weeks ago.”
“I was overwhelmed during midterms, you know I have test anxiety.” He hops off her bed. “Don’t sweat it, okay? Just text me the details.” He yawns. “I’m headed up to bed.”
“Gonna go rub one out?” She smirks.
“No.” He blushes. “I’m gonna go play video games with Neil. Have fun masturbating with your phone.”
“Don’t need it. I have stronger devices.” She grins.
“Yeah? Need help using them?” He teases.
“Get out!” She laughs and throws a pillow at him.
Harry blows her a kiss before he leaves and she blows one back. When Katie comes back in after her shower, Orla’s put herself to sleep. Well, actually she’s watching TV on her phone with her earbuds in because she doesn’t want to listen to Katie give her shit about Harry.
The night of the formal, Orla wears a simple little black dress that’s also strapless. She slips on a pair of black flats as well. Katie helps her get her hair up into a cute messy bun on the top of her head while Orla does her makeup. (Orla had Katie help her flatiron her hair to tame it a bit. She usually loves her curls, but she’s been experimenting with different looks.) Around 10PM there’s a knock on their door.
“Come in!” Orla shouts.
“Ready to go?” Harry asks and nearly chokes on his tongue when he sees Orla. “Wow, you look really nice.”
“Don’t act so surprised.” Orla rolls her eyes.
“Want me to take your pic in front of the tapestry?” Katie asks.
“Yes, please.” Orla smiles and hands her the phone. She poses with Harry for a few pictures, and then they head out.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” Harry asks her on their way to the volleyball house.
“Nah, we won’t be out for long.”
They make their way into the house about ten minutes later. There’s a table set up like a bar for everyone to make their own drinks at. Harry sticks with beer while Orla goes for a rum and coke.
“Hey, O.” Ben smiles at her. Ben was a junior on the men’s volleyball team, and he’s very cute. “Saw you on defense at your last match, you looked great out there.”
“Thanks.” Her cheeks heat up, and she takes a sip from her cup.
“You come here with anyone?”
“Just my friend Harry.”
“Friend, huh?” He grins.
“Mhm.” She nods and takes a step closer. “He’s off talking to Chloe and Heather.”
“Not very nice to leave his date unattended.” He steps a little closer to her. “Especially when she looks so gorgeous.”
“Ben.” She giggles and gives him a playful push.
“You guys had one hell of a season. Aren’t you only one of, like, three freshmen to start this year?”
“Yeah, something like that.” She smiles.
“Gotta look out for the short ones I guess.”
“We’re pretty sneaky.”
An hour or so passes, and Harry can’t find Orla anywhere. He’s starting to get worried so he ventures through the house to see if maybe she went to the bathroom. She’s not in the one in the main hallway, so he goes upstairs.
“Where the fuck did she go?” He says to himself. He had been in the volleyball house plenty of times for various parties, so he had a good lay of the land. He goes to the larger bathroom, and opens the door.
“Ah, oh my god, B-Ben.” Orla’s head rolls back, allowing Ben to kiss on her neck. There she was, sitting up on the bathroom counter with Ben’s fingers knuckle deep inside of her.
“Orla?” Harry says.
“Dude, get out of here!” Ben shouts.
“Oh my god, Harry!”
Harry’s face flushes and he shuts the door immediately. He quickly goes down the stairs and weaves through the crazy amount of people in the house. He had been buzzed, but what he just saw totally sobered him up.
“Harry!” Orla shouts after him, but he doesn’t stop, he needs fresh air. “Harry, wait!” He pushes the front door open and sucks in a deep breath. “Harry! Oof!” She rams into his back and stumbles backwards.
“Get someone to walk you home, I can’t even look at you.”
“I thought he locked the door! And to be fair you didn’t knock.”
“I couldn’t find you for over an hour, excuse me for worrying about you.” He scoffs and turns to look at her.
“I was dancing with Ben and then we went upstairs, I’m sorry. I should have texted you.”
“Since when do you let random guys finger fuck you in bathrooms?”
“Um, Ben’s not a random guy. I’ve known since school started, what the fuck? I…I’ve been fingered before.”
“What? By who?” He shakes his head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” He chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“I told Frida.” She rubs her arms up and down. “It’s as far as I’ve gone, and I’ve never taken my clothes off to have it happen…”
“Did you do anything to him?”
“I gave him a hand job.”
“Was that your first time doing that?”
“No.”
“Oh my god!” Harry runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Are you going to tell me you haven’t done things? I’ve heard rumors, you know?”
“I’ve dry humped, that’s about it. No one’s ever seen my dick.”
“No one’s ever seen my vagina, not that that’s any of your business. There are certain things I don’t want to talk about with you, can’t you understand that?”
“I understand, I understand perfectly fine.” He goes to say something else, but he just shakes his head. “Come on, you look like you’re freezing.”
“That’s because I am.”
After that night, Harry let out his inner manwhore. During the spring semester, he fucked so many girls he lost track of their names. He didn’t tell Orla a single thing. He fucked all summer long without saying a word to her about it. When Orla first had sex the following school year, she slept with the same guy for the entire fall semester. It didn’t end well, though, which led to her crying into Harry’s chest for over an hour. That night they both opened up about everything, and agreed that keeping things to themselves wasn’t a good idea.
//
Undergrad flew by. Orla passed all of her certifications, and even found a job teaching phys ed at the high school level. She’d have all summer to work her ass off to save up some money and build her savings before starting fresh at her new school in the fall. Harry got accepted into all of the med schools he applied to, and was having trouble deciding.
“NYU is offering me the most amount of money…” He tells Orla one night.
“If…if you go there then you’ll probably end up working at a New York hospital.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you heard back from Harvard Medical yet?”
“No, and at this rate I bet I’m not getting in. Besides, they’re known for offering shit grants. My parents can’t afford to help. All of their money went to their lawyers.” Harry rolls his eyes.
After Harry’s freshman year, his parents told him they were getting divorced. His three older brothers had long since moved out, and with Harry gone his parents realized they just weren’t right for each other anymore. He didn’t take it well. This may have led to him fucking a lot that summer, and the absurd amount of tattoos he got.
“Then I guess…I guess you’re going to NYU.” Orla swallows. “You should do it, it makes the most sense, and you’ll get a great education.”
“Harry!” Mrs. Styles shouts from downstairs. “You got a large letter from BUSM!”
“Holy shit, I forgot I applied there.” Harry says, and the two race downstairs. Harry rips open the large envelope and gasps. “Oh my god! I was accepted in to BUSM’s MD program. Holy fuck, they partner with Boston Medical Center for their surgical residencies.” He looks at his mom, then Orla.
“Are they offering you any money?” Orla asks.
“Orla, um…do you mind if Harry and I go over this together? I’m going to need to FaceTime his father to discuss everything.”
“Oh, sure! Yeah, this is a big family moment. Come by later if you want, H.” She smiles and leaves.
“They’re offering me a decent amount of aid, Mum.” Harry says as he reads over the letter.
“Honey…don’t you want to get out of Boston? NYU could be a great experience for you.”
“Mum, BUSM is a prestigious medical school. Why would you want me so far away?”
“I don’t want you far away, I just want you to have some life experience, meet new people.” She chews on her bottom lip. “I don’t want you to stay here just because you don’t want to leave Orla.”
“That’s not why I want to stay.” Her mother gives him a look. “Okay, maybe I want to stay closer so I don’t have to be far away from her. Can you blame me? We’ve been best friends since the fifth grade. I couldn’t imagine only seeing her once every few months, and then I’d probably have to move out there full time, and she’s only certified to teach in Mass.”
“Honey, you’ve never had a stable girlfriend. Maybe being away from Orla could help you do that.”
“I just haven’t met anyone, it’s not her fault.”
“You’ve liked her since the day you met.” She laughs, astonished at his ignorance.
“No, I’m not one of those guys that’s only friends with a girl because he wants to date her.” Harry rolls his eyes.
“I didn’t say that’s why you were friends. I just think if something was going to happen between you two it would have happened already. So, stop wasting your time waiting for her.”
“I’m not waiting for her to do anything. She’s my best friend, and she’s always going to be my best friend. BUSM makes more cost-effective sense. Think of how expensive the hole in the wall apartment I’d be living in in New York would be. I could definitely find a better priced place here, or I could commute for a bit to save money.”
“If you’d rather go to BUSM, then go. But make sure you’re doing it for yourself and not just to stay close to Orla.”
“I’d say it’s about 80/20.” He smirks, earning him a swat to the arm from his mother. “I’m kidding! It’s more like 60/40.”
“Jesus Christ, go call your father and let him know the good news.” She sighs.
//
Flash forward to present day – eight years later. The pair are twenty-eight; Harry is an attending pediatric surgeon at Boston Medical Center, making absolute bank, and Orla is at her third high school in six years because budgets keep cutting funding, which means P.E. teachers aren’t exactly in high demand. She lives in a small one-bedroom apartment, she’s constantly exhausted, and she wishes she had chosen any other profession. She coaches the girls’ volleyball team for extra money, and works at a bar on weekends and in the summer.
Harry and Orla are still the best of friends. They’ve made it through a lot of ups and downs. Through it all they’ve always had each other. He’s currently seeing a girl named Bailey that he met at a bar near work. Orla is going through a dry spell, but she’s not dwelling on it.
The school year had just ended, thank god, and she has Sunday through Tuesday off from the bar. Orla takes some time to go through her wardrobe and get rid of any dingy leggings or tee shirts. She has a strict budget for clothes because she’s constantly having to replace her athletic wear. She’s chilling on the couch Tuesday evening watching Property Brothers: Forever Home when she hears the jingle of keys on the other side of her door.
[READ THE REST ON PATREON]
#save the best for last#harry styles#harry styles fic#harry styles fanfic#harry styles imagine#harry styles x oc#harry styles au#doctor!harry#doctorry#friends to lovers#bestfriend!harry#dad!harry#dom!harry
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Do you have fics that are kinda aesthetic and soft? Like gardens, coffee shop, etc
Thanks💗
Hi! I hope you’ll enjoy this little selection of gentle delights. - S
Also see...
Fics with aesthetic here
Long soft fics here
New(ish) flower shop/bookstore aus here
June ‘21 staff recs - coffee/tea shop aus here
‘Raise Your Spirits’ here
‘Foxglove Court’ series here
‘Petal-shaped Epiphanies’ here
‘the sparrow’ here
‘cocoa dust’ here
‘Morning Fuc*offee AU’ here
‘Bittersweet & Sugar Free’ here
‘Hatford Beans & Books.’ here
‘Bleeding Hearts’ here
‘cone sold stober’ and ‘the ballad of the cat café’ here
‘don't dream it's over’ here
‘his elastic life’ here
‘Dawning on Me’ here (since updated)
‘what’s yours is mine’ here
Say You'll Stay by Willow_bird [Rated T, 5091 words, complete, 2021]
“Why didn’t you call it ‘Kitty-Cat Books’?” Nicky asked out of nowhere.
Andrew raised a brow and looked down at his son. “What?”
Nicky let out a huge gusty sigh. “The book store, Daddy. Why didn’t you call it ‘Kitty-Cat Books’? You like kitties bestest. You don’t even have a fox stuffie or anything. So why make the store about foxes? It makes no sense!”
Ah. Andrew shrugged and looked back out at the torrent raging outside. “I had a friend, a long time ago. He liked foxes.”
---
On a stormy day, Andrew expects the store to remain completely empty other than himself and his young son. The last thing he's prepared for is for a boy from his past to come in seeking shelter from the weather with his own small son in his arms.
tw: scars, tw: implied/referenced torture
Daily Special by moonix [Rated M, 7517 words, complete, 2021]
Detailing the fast and slow seduction of one Andrew Minyard by a coffee shop specialising in hot chocolate and rude baristas.
At Swim by moonix [Rated T, 4335 words, complete, 2021]
Bee prepared Andrew for her death as thoroughly as she'd done everything in her life. She left him her house and her garden, her recipes and her spices, the river where she used to go swimming every day.
The only thing she forgot to mention was Neil.
tw: minor character death
Necromancy for Children by Paradoxolotl [Rated G, 3506 words, complete, 2021]
To celebrate his transfer, Andrew takes his nieces to Build-A-Bear. Queue one Neil Josten who is determined to have a little fun at work, especially if it involves one famous exy player.
Foxhaven by justadreamfox [Rated T, 6981 words, complete, 2020]
Andrew is looking for a change - a change in the weather, a change in location, a change in something - and Kevin is pretty damned sure his best friend just might find it in the tiny Vermont town of Foxhaven.
tw: alcohol
Next to You by KatherineF [Not Rated, 10101 words, complete, 2020]
Neil Josten works as a math professor and lives a comfortable life in a neighborhood that happens to house all of his closest friends. He meets Andrew Minyard, the owner of the quaint bookstore down the street, at a barbeque and makes the mistake of agreeing to go to his book club.
Lots of Andrew being an obviously lovesick fool, Neil being oblivious, and their friends loving them unconditionally.
tw: implied/referenced torture
flour petals, sugar stitches by ephemeralsky [Rated T, 11309 words, complete, 2018, locked fic]
“Thanks for coming with me,” she says, keeping her eyes trained in front of her.
“It is not like I had a choice in the matter,” Andrew says, blowing out a stream of smoke through his mouth.
Renee’s lips curl into a smile. “Maybe you’ll win our next sparring match and I’ll finally have to buy you ten cartons of Haagen-Dazs.”
“It cannot be worse than tagging along to a bridal boutique.”
“Maybe,” Renee allows, humor in her voice. “But what kind of man of honor would you be if you didn’t come with me to choose a dress?”
(or: Andrew is a baker, Renee is a bride-to-be, and Neil is a dressmaker)
tw: implied/referenced eating disorder
coffee shop au by @thefoxholestuff [tumblr, 2021]
I present to you: Neil works at a coffee shop. Andrew is a regular.
bookshop au by @psych0midget [tumblr, 2020]
Andrew had thousands of followers.
He wasn’t sure how it had started. He was the owner of a small independent bookstore and he regularly hit the gym. Nothing more, nothing less.
Tattoo parlour/flower shop au by @knox-knocks [tumblr, 2019]
a flower shop/tattoo parlor au where the two shops are right next to each other, so close they might as well be one store
andreil: flower shop au by @audreils [tumblr, 2017]
part 1, part 2, part 3
okay so andrew and neil are neighbors right and neil has two cats that almost never stay in when he’s not home
Art
Andreil moodboard by @ladyferocity [tumblr, 2018]
Andreil flower shop/tattoo parlour by @allisoinreynolds [ tumblr, 2020]
#fic#Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard#Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard#Andrew Minyard & Renee Walker#au: flower shop#au: bookstore#au: coffee shop#au: tattoo parlour#au: neighbours#au: different first meeting#au: no exy#au: writers#au: single parent#theme: fluff#theme: fluff & angst#theme: fluff & humour#theme: mental health issues#theme: grief/mourning#theme: recovery#theme: meet cute#theme: pining#theme: enemies to lovers#theme: found families#theme: hurt/comfort#theme: asexuality#theme: disabilities#tw: minor character death#tw: implied/referenced torture#tw: eating disorders#tw: scars
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