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fiddlepickdouglas · 3 years

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Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 17 - With Him

Summary: Sunset Curve Alive AU, Willex, how will it go in the end?, 4.8k

@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16

One finger tapped on the strap of his fanny pack as Alex listened for the right bus stop to be called. If all those months since he’d seen Willie had been long, this past week had been longer. Especially since the news about Caleb had hit hard and every minute in the studio now felt like the band was precariously teetering on the edge of a cliff. He was going to try not to let any of that get in his way today, though. He’d made it to Saturday and Willie was only a few streets away, and he didn’t care what happened for the rest of the day - it was going to be good.

Finally he heard the next stop announced for where he needed to get off and he pulled the cord that told the driver to make a stop. Stepping onto the sidewalk, his heart bounced around in its chamber like the Tazmanian devil from Looney Tunes. He was glad that Willie lived in the basement of the apartment building he occupied because it would’ve been the worst if Alex forgot which room he was in and spent hours frantically knocking doors.

It was hard to tell if he was moving quickly or if his mind was just racing, but in either case, he eventually found himself at the door. For a second, he simply took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair, trying to get a visual of Willie immediately pouncing on him the moment the door opened out of his head. It wouldn’t exactly be unwelcome, but Alex was realizing how desperate he was to be with him and was amazed at how it affected his imagination.

Lifting a hand, he made sure he knocked loudly. Soon after, the door opened, and Alex was greeted with shining brown eyes, silky, gorgeous brown hair styled into two braids, and a smile he could make home in. Willie.

“Hey, come on in!” Willie was saying, standing to the side and gesturing for him to enter. Crossing the threshold, Alex gazed at the humble space, taking in the details with heightened interest. “This is mi casa!” He began showing Alex around. “We’ve got the main living space, very cozy. The kitchen to your left, but no dining room so it’s all criss-cross applesauce on the floor - makes it extra chill. Bathroom through the back. The sink and shower handles will sometimes shock you, so don’t mind all the electrical tape.”

It was surprisingly accommodating for a dingy basement, and Willie had already made little additions that spoke volumes about him without words. A king size mattress sat in the corner of the ‘main living space’ on the floor with a small bookshelf beside it. The bookshelf only had a handful of cassette tapes and a Walkman lying on top, with a few sketchbooks on the middle shelf. Next to that, the dresser had a small collection of vintage soda bottles and a camera sitting on its surface. Glow-in-the-dark star stickers covered the ceiling above the bed. Even a couple cat toys could be spotted on the floor. Immediately, Alex approached the area where Willie’s desk sat surrounded by sketches hung on the wall.

“So these are your drawings?” he asked, although the answer was obvious. They were so good. Willie followed him over, the squinty smile still in his eyes.

“Yeah. Some are new. Most of them are attempts to recover what Caleb tore up.”

Alex looked at Willie apologetically, even though the loss of Willie’s previous work wasn’t his fault. Without warning, a pressure on his leg and the sound of loud purring announced Sheldon’s presence. The cat looked up at him and blinked slowly, already begging for attention. Heart melting, Alex bent down to pet him.

“Hey, Sheldon,” he said. “I forgot how cute you were!” He smiled as Sheldon rubbed his head against his hand with more affection that he’d likely seen from any other creature on the planet. Well...maybe there was one other that matched it. Alex had heard about how pets could take on the temperament of their owners, and suspected this was a clear example. “He’s gotten so big since I last saw him.”

“Yeah, he’s supposed to be almost two years old, if Escobar guessed his age right.”

Standing again as Sheldon pattered off, Alex returned his attention to the wall of art, looking at the pieces more closely.

“So which one is your dad?” he mused.

Willie untacked one of them and held it out for Alex to examine. “This one.”

Holding the edges carefully, Alex gazed in amazement at the detail Willie had caught. The edges were certainly less defined, but the scene inside the truck was so easy to visualize that Alex could almost feel the leather of the seats and the windchill from the window. He wasn’t sure what began burning in his chest as he peered down at the image, but it was profound and complex.

“I’ve thought about seeing if I could find him, but I think with my memory it’s kind of impossible,” Willie told him.

“He looks so happy here. I don’t get why you would end up as a foster kid.”

“Yeah, I wondered that too. Maybe he didn’t have a choice?”

Alex looked at Willie’s face, and he could tell half of him was lost in a world of what-ifs and other questions. He was always trying to seem so easy-going, and to an extent he truly was, but he couldn’t hide the constant sense of upheaval that rested on his shoulders. At least, Alex was picking up on it more, now that he knew the things he did. He may have been biased, but he couldn’t imagine anyone not fighting their hardest to keep Willie.

Suddenly his gaze was drawn to the unfinished work on the desk, and recognized it as a portrait of himself.

“Wow.” The word fell out of his mouth.

“Oh,” Willie started with a hint of shyness. “Obviously that one isn’t done, so…” He reached to put it away.

“You got that far off of memory, though,” Alex said. “I’m impressed. And you make me look good.” He offered an encouraging smile. “Maybe some time today I could be a model for you?”

Willie cocked his eyebrow, surprise and playfulness making an adorable combination on his face. It made Alex’s smile grow wider.

“Well, we’ve got a whole day ahead,” Willie said. “Your wish is my command.”

“Okay,” Alex said, leaning onto his back foot casually, one side of his lip curling with intrigue. “Well, I wanna see where you go around here. You seem to have a knack for finding the best spots. We can play it by ear.”

“What’s that one song with the one phrase?” Willie asked. “‘Any way the wind blows?’” He sang shyly, clearly playing down what Alex could tell was a nice voice.

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” Alex smiled. Willie’s job at the record store was at least giving him a good taste in music. “Don’t worry, you’ll know everything about the classics once you hang out with me enough.”

An emotion flashed in Willie’s eyes and after a moment Alex realized what those words were actually saying. He held his gaze, hoping he could communicate his intentions clearly, unlike the last time they’d seen each other. Willie swallowed, and his expression remained excited as he loaded his backpack and led them out the door, board in hand. Alex followed him, deciding not to question which direction they were going.

First, they made a stop to buy a bunch of apples. In classic Willie fashion, he went to a bodega, and this time he communicated with the cashier in rough Spanish. Alex knew he was showing off, and smirked at the notion that Willie enjoyed impressing him.

“So what do we need these for?” Alex wondered as they left the bodega. “Besides a ton of apples for lunch.”

Willie’s secretive smile made Alex raise an eyebrow.

“It’s a surprise.”

A little while later, they stood before the most unlikely place in all of Los Angeles: a horse barn. Staring at the building as if it loomed fifty feet above him, hands in his pockets, Alex gulped and a lump of dread landed in the pit of his stomach.

“Oh no,” he muttered apprehensively.

“Oh yeah,” Willie said, turning to him with a thrilled grin on his face.

Alex wasn’t exactly afraid of horses...he just had no idea what to do around them and therefore was not sure what to expect from them. Also, he would’ve worn different pants if he’d known this was on the agenda.

“I promise, they’ve got some really chill horses,” Willie tried to ease his nerves. “I’ve gone on this trail enough times. Don’t worry, you’ll know everything about riding once you hang out with me enough.” He winked as he threw back Alex’s line with a sly smile.

Unable to argue, Alex shook his head and used the hand in his pocket to gesture forward, signaling to Willie he was up to the challenge. He watched him practically skip inside and he had to jog to keep up after him. They signed in and then were led to two stalls.

Willie immediately gravitated toward a tall golden-colored mustang stallion with a dark mane, apparently both already familiar and happy to see each other. Alex watched him gently greet and essentially coo at it while comfortably stroking its nose and then feeding it an apple. He longed to have that sort of talent with other creatures, and simultaneously realized that he yearned to receive that same tenderness.

Once the horses were tacked up and one of the instructors had given Alex some brief pointers on how to ride, he found himself following Willie on a trail while mounted on a painted mare. The only philosophy he could adopt out here was to be gentle and not get lost.

“Not so bad, your majesty,” Willie called over to him.

An extremely nervous laugh elicited from Alex’s throat involuntarily, only making Willie laugh in return. Alex rode a little closer so they were nearly side by side on the trail.

“I’ve been here once,” he said. “I think I was about twelve? My mom thought that it would make me change my mind about taking ballet classes. We rode for maybe fifteen minutes before I got so nervous we had to turn back around and go home. Never made it through the full trail.”

“Man, that sucks,” Willie commented. “I didn’t know you did ballet.”

“Yeah, that and a few other types of dance. I was forced to quit a little couple years ago. That’s about when we got serious as a band, so I just found something else to bother my parents with.”

He could see the gears click into place as Willie came to a few conclusions about his parents and gave an emphatic nod.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance. That was the one thing Caleb had promised to teach me. He’s the worst, but he definitely knows how to dance.”

Suddenly, Alex remembered watching Caleb’s movements when he’d served him and the boys at the diner. Of course he could dance; everything had been fluid and smooth. All he could say to that thought was “huh,” at first. Then after a few moments: “I’ll have to teach you one of these days then.”

Willie’s eyes crinkled at the corners, happy at the prospect.

“Yeah, okay! Add that to our to-do list.”

Alex chuckled. They had a to-do list now. He bit his lip as he continued following Willie along the trail. It was a gorgeous day and in this area the sky was so clear compared to further inside the city. Greatly contrasting his experience from years ago, Alex felt himself become much more at ease and felt confident enough to take greater control of his horse. Willie pulled out his camera and snapped a few scenic photos every once in a while.

Eventually, they stopped at an outlook and Alex had to take in an awed breath. The view was clear for miles all around them. Green hills spanned the landscape in every direction with patches of city speckled in between. Even the ocean line was visible from there. How did Willie know how to find these?

“Hey, Alex!” Willie called, lifting his camera. “Say cheese!”

Turning to face him, Alex flashed a genuine smile as Willie captured him atop his horse against the scenery. He was usually pretty camera shy, but this time he really didn’t mind. Keeping memories like this actually felt important to him, unlike the many times he’d been forced to pose with his family at functions he’d also been made to attend. Those occasions had always felt so insincere - less about enjoying the memory and more about trying to prove their status as the polished, functional family everyone aspired to.

He saw Willie dismount for a moment and stretch his legs. Gripping the reins and looking around in uncertainty, Alex realized he’d gotten on before ensuring he could properly get off. Thankfully, Willie noticed and came up to him, hands raised.

“Okay, so just...carefully lift your foot out of the stirrup and swing your leg over toward me,” he instructed. Sucking in a breath hesitantly, Alex did as he said. “Alright, then...here.” Willie offered a hand for Alex to grab so he could slide off with ease. Landing on the ground, he leaned into Willie to gain his balance, and felt a congratulatory pat on his back. It took more restraint than Alex anticipated to not simply wrap his arms around him and sit like that for an indefinite amount of time. They had all day ahead of them; he didn’t need the sudden fear of losing him to derail things out of nowhere.

“Sorry if I look like a wimp about all this,” he said, letting go of his hand.

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Willie assured him, shaking his head. “This is...this is new.”

His eyes seemed to take Alex in from head to toe and Alex could’ve sworn the charge in the air between them would buzz if they got closer, spark if they made contact. It was almost like that moment in front of Willie’s door the week before. For a few seconds they remained locked in that trance before Willie took hold of the horse’s reins and handed them to Alex.

“Technically this trail could take hours, but I’m guessing this isn’t all you’re interested in today,” he said. “What do you say we stretch our legs a bit and then ride back?”

Looking from the reins in his hand back to Willie, Alex nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Opening his backpack, Willie handed him an apple and then bit down into one of his own. Taking a bite, it was one of the most refreshing apples Alex ever eaten. They walked the horses a little ways and tried to get good pictures of the different views around them. Alex asked to try his hand with the camera and get a few good shots of Willie. He didn’t consider himself a photographer, but he doubted when the photos got developed that they would turn out badly. The way Willie smiled made him seem like he was made of sunlight from the inside out.

As they rode back to the barn, Alex kept replaying those moments where he’d refrained from making a move over in his head. This had been strike two. If he continued on like this, he was going to hate himself for the rest of eternity, he was pretty sure. Was it some weird kind of side effect of the whole ‘Willie come back to life’ thing? Watching him affectionately say goodbye to his horse once they were ready to leave, Alex looked at his own horse and raised a tentative hand up to her nose.

The mare gazed back, patience gleaming in her eyes. He finally set his hand down on her nose and gently rubbed it up and down, smiling a little to himself. This wasn’t so bad. He could do this - it was just a matter of getting through all the barriers he made for himself in his head. Moving his hands from the horse’s nose, he stroked along her neck, and caught Willie smiling at him from the corner of his eye.

“You wanna try feeding her an apple?” he asked.

Thinking for a few seconds, Alex nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Pulling one out of his backpack, Willie placed it in Alex’s palm.

“Alright, so hold it out in front of you like this…” He positioned Alex to offer the apple. “And keep your palm flat.”

Alex uncurled his fingers and after sniffing at it a little the mare ate it out of his hand. He could ignore the sensation of her mouth touching him because Willie still had his arm around his shoulder to hold him steady. They looked at each other, and Alex wished he could get a proper shot at Willie’s face at that angle with the camera.

“Looks like you’re gonna get the hang of this,” Willie commended.

Alex looked back up at the horse, a little bit of pride swelling in his chest. “Yeah, I think I will.”

Later, they went to the beach at Alex’s suggestion. He was perched on the surface of a picnic table, posed as if he were looking off into the distance. Willie sketched with great concentration, having taken his hair out of his braids so he could run his hand through it. The late afternoon sun brought out all the best color contrasts in their surroundings - one of the things Alex loved about coming to the beach at this time of day.

“So I have a question,” Alex started, trying not to move too much. His tendency to talk with his hands kept getting him in trouble.

“Shoot,” Willie prompted him, not looking up.

“Did Caleb let you go to school or anything? Or did he provide any sort of education at all?”

Squinting, Willie looked thoughtful for a moment.

“So, after the accident, he told me that I’d had to be taken out of school,” he began, continuing to sketch. “Which makes sense, I guess, if I forgot everything. I remember some basic things, like math wasn’t hard to pick up again. Once I was recovered enough to go places, he just let me go to the public library and find whatever I wanted to read. But he always insisted on not having reminders of who I was before and said it was supposed to be helping me ‘become my own person’. He got rid of things like my school yearbooks and old journals and things. I didn’t think anything of it at first because he’d just called it useless clutter and I believed him. As soon as he decided I was fit enough to work in the diner and help out at the hotel, he told me to forget about school. Anything else I picked up was from watching TV, or listening to the radio, or something. Sometimes I’ll just remember I know something after hearing about it and it’s like it was just always there.”

Listening intently, Alex marveled at the whole thing. The fact that Caleb was not only negligent, but actively discouraging Willie from knowing anything, made him wish he could take down the man’s whole career. However, he figured Willie probably had a lot of his intelligence still untapped. If he’d been able to get away from Caleb and somehow create a life for himself in the span of a few months, Alex wondered what else he was capable of.

“What’s something you remember?” he wondered.

“I guess I used to be really obsessed with space. Just planets and stars and all that. I can spout off facts about Jupiter’s moons and stuff like that. Did you know that the moon Europa has a saltwater ocean under a layer of ice?”

Alex shook his head. “No, I didn’t. That sounds really cool though.” He thought of the stickers on Willie’s ceiling and smirked a little before reassuming his pose.

“I sort of wish I could remember being in school,” Willie was saying. “Everyone else seems to just share all of those memories and understand each other that way.”

Alex saw his brow furrow, and could tell he felt left out. He pondered on his own experience growing up in public school. There was almost no other way he would’ve met Luke, Bobby and Reggie if they hadn’t all attended the same schools. While he could easily critique and complain about it to no end, he knew it was a privilege.

“School is definitely hard,” he told Willie. “But I did get my friends out of it, and I guess that makes up for it. If it’s any consolation, you could just complain about Caleb like he was your horrible English teacher who thought he knew more about the subject of your essay, but you cited all of your sources and they proved him completely wrong.”

Willie laughed. “Why? Did that happen to you?”

Alex bobbed his head from side to side and feigned looking thoughtful . “Maybe.”

“I kind of like reducing him to a loser English teacher. He just sounds petty and sad.”

“That’s high school,” Alex confirmed.

Leaning back from his work for a minute to take it all in, Willie brushed a hand through his hair.

“Here, you wanna take a look at it?” he said. Alex hopped off the table and went to stand over Willie’s shoulder at the drawing and was immediately rendered speechless. The detail was impeccable, but Alex was more impressed by the feeling he got looking at it. Willie had managed to make him appear...handsome, and pensive, and fascinating, like anyone else could look at him and create a million unique ideas of who he was. However, it wasn’t anyone else looking at him, it was Willie, and what he’d captured felt like the truth. Alex couldn’t really explain what that meant, only that it was an honest representation.

“Okay, I know I said the one back at your place made me look good, but this is...this is unreal.”

He could see Willie trying to be modest, but the corners of his lips couldn’t stay down. Funny enough, he appeared even more unable to find words, and simply beamed as he looked back and forth between his sketch and Alex’s face.

A sudden impulse came over Alex, and he kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, dropping it on top of Willie’s skateboard and backpack. Willie sat looking flustered for a moment.

“Wanna swim?” Alex nodded toward the waves, bidding Willie to follow. He didn’t wait for him to catch up as he immediately began running into the waves up to his knees. Alex knew his pants would be even more ruined the second he hit the salty water, but he didn’t care. Now the sun was beginning to set and the chill of the waves was refreshing, and he couldn’t express what he felt just then in any other way.

Willie tackled him from behind, climbing onto his back and nearly knocking him over into the shallow tide. Clambering back to his feet, Alex splashed water at him. They began a playful water fight back and forth, until they were both drenched. Eventually, Alex tried to catch hold of both Willie’s hands in an attempt to prevent being splashed anymore. He had the advantage of longer arms, but before he could get a tight hold of the second arm Willie’s leg swept under his and they both fell just as a large wave washed over them.

As the water pulled back, they sat in the sand in a tangle, laughing. All Alex could think of was how pretty Willie was in this light, hair swept back off his face with tendrils resting over his shoulders, sun gleaming in his eyes and constantly shining from the inside out. The laughter died between them and he caught a look in Willie’s eye that made him wonder if he appeared to him to be just as perfect in that moment.

This time his mind and body worked in sync as he lifted a hand and gently pulled Willie into a short, tender kiss. All the self-flagellation from earlier was washed away in one pure moment, and exhilaration moved into its place. It felt soft and sweet, just the way he expected it should. Just as quickly as he’d let go, Willie went in for another one, a little longer and a little deeper. One hand remained caressing his cheek while the other wrapped around his upper back. Alex couldn’t help smiling into another kiss; he was too happy to care about anything else. Hardly a week ago, this had been impossible.

As they let go, their hands came together and they looked into each other's eyes, both releasing a relieved chuckle. Willie looked at the rest of the beach behind them and Alex’s eyes followed, but at this hour there were too few people around and no one paying attention to them. Turning back to Alex, Willie sighed and shook his head with a smile.

“Wow,” was all he said, biting his lip.

“Yeah, I’d definitely do that again,” Alex smirked, until the joy in his chest converted it into a full grin.

A wave washed over them again and they both stood, shaking out their hair and trying to wipe off whatever sand they could. Heading back up the beach, Willie grabbed Alex’s hand so they could make their way up together. The sun was nearly set but Alex was sure it had just gone into his chest, bursting with excitement. Once they reached the picnic table, they gathered their things and Willie offered to carry Alex’s shirt inside his backpack on the way home. Thank goodness there were a few patches of grass so Alex could try to get a little more sand off his feet before putting his shoes back on.

“So how long have you been sitting on that?” Willie teased as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and they left the beach.

“Shut up,” Alex laughed, knowing he was being called out.

“No, really!” Willie bumped his side jokingly. “I want to know!”

Tilting his head back to try to remember, it didn’t take Alex long to give him the answer.

“Since day one,” he told him.

Surprise swept over Willie’s face as he looked at Alex.

“Seriously?” he asked.

Alex nodded.

“Me too.”

It was Alex’s turn to look surprised. Without saying another word, he took Willie’s hand in his and then kissed it before continuing back toward his place. The whole way they talked about all the different things they needed to do together in the future. Riding on more horse trails, dancing lessons, skating lessons, art modeling sessions, going to band practices and gigs, visiting the record store while Willie wasn’t working, etc. They both agreed that the entire day technically counted as a date, and all further plans would as well. Alex was reminded once again that he didn’t have a notebook to write things down in, and vowed to have one for the next time he saw Willie. Once they reached Willie’s door, they had already put their shirts back on and it was completely dark outside.

“Are you free any time next week?” Willie asked, still holding onto Alex’s hand.

“I wish I could say yes, but probably not. And as much as I’d love to give you my number, it’s really not the best idea.”

“Well, I could give you mine,” Willie said.

Alex shot him a confused look. Holding up a finger, Willie dug into his backpack until he found his sketchbook and tore off the corner of a page, quickly scribbling one down and handing it to Alex.

“It’s actually the one for work,” he said. “But if it’s what we can do for now, I’ll do it. Kyle won’t care.”

Looking at it for a minute and then stashing it in his now-dry pocket, Alex took hold of Willie’s chin and went to kiss him again. It was really hard to stop, but they soon broke apart.

“I gotta go,” Alex murmured.

Willie only nodded, squeezing his hand before letting go and slipping his own into his pocket.

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight.”

Once again heading up the short set of stairs to the sidewalk, Alex rubbed his lips together, relishing in the taste of what he and Willie had just done. He couldn’t imagine anything sweeter.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #fanfic #jatp fanfic #sunset curve #alive au #willex #willie #alex mercer #luke patterson #reggie peters #bobby wilson #julie molina #caleb covington #viva las vegas #with him #fiddlepickdouglas

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gravelyhumerus · 3 years

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Criminal Minds College AU - Chapter 8

Title: “I may just take your breath away” / Sweater Weather AU

Relationship: Jemily

Word count: 35,604

Summary:

Penelope hacks the college. JJ pets a cat. There are three blowjobs. Need I say more?

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months.

Read it on AO3

Tumblr: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Epilogue

JJ adjusted the textbook in her hands, rolling onto her side to get comfortable with it. Behind her, was the calming sounds of Penelope’s pop music and her dancing fingertips as she typed code into her computer.

She had only a few pages left to read, but she was having a hard time focusing. JJ’s brain kept drifting to the events of that weekend. On Halloween, they played spin the bottle. JJ’s spin landed right on Emily, meaning that they had to kiss.

But it was not chaste. As Penelope most eloquently put it: “you two were seconds from ripping each other’s clothes off in front of us.”

JJ couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Emily had really kissed her. There was tongue. It was not a peck to play the game; they had gone at it like teenagers in the backseat of a car at a lovers’ lane.

It made reading her textbook difficult when she knew what Emily’s tongue felt like against hers. It made doing her essay challenging when she could remember the taste of her lips. It made doing just about anything next to impossible when JJ was desperate to kiss Emily again.

“Did you know that it’s Hotch’s birthday tomorrow?” Penelope asked, spinning in her chair to look at JJ.

“Wait, what?” JJ asked. She looked up from her textbook.

“So... I’ve hacked into the college database,” Penelope said, turning back to her computer, her hands were once again typing a mile a minute. “Because of the whole thing with Reid not telling us about his birthday, the poor thing, and I didn’t want to miss anyone else’s.”

“Maybe we could do a co-birthday?” JJ mused, thinking about the logistics of that.

“You read my mind, my beautiful sporty friend,” Penelope replied. “I’ve almost got everyone’s, just a minute.”

JJ stood up, walked over to Garcia’s side of the room. Somehow, her side of the room was cleaner than JJ’s, despite the sheer amount of things. Her desk was covered in trinkets, decorations and her wall covered in posters, art prints and photographs. JJ’s, on the other hand, had significantly less stuff, and way more mess. She was a busy girl and her desk was basically useless with all of her books and loose paper and miscellaneous things she needed to deal with ages ago.

“Did you know that Morgan is a gemini?” Penelope asked.

“Figures,” JJ replied, hoping that was the right response.

Garcia had two monitors on her light, wooden desk, and a large desktop computer that she had built herself tucked underneath. On one monitor, was a file that she was slowly adding to, of birthdays written in white text on a grey background. Her own was there, alongside Spencer, Hotch, Derek….

JJ then watched as Garcia typed out Emily’s birthday: October 12. They had missed it too!

“Oh my god,” Penelope said, “why don’t they tell us these things?! How did we befriend such secretive people.”

“Wait, when was that?” JJ murmured, grabbing her wall calendar and flipping through the pages. “Oh my god I saw her that day. She was baking cookies, alone.”

“Alone?” Penelope whimpered.

JJ thought back to that night. She had barged into the kitchen, talked all about her impending break up with Will, and ate Emily’s cookies. She felt awful. Obviously they didn’t know each other as well then, but why was she alone?

“She didn’t even tell Derek,” Penelope said, “oh that sweet summer child. Who hurt her?”

JJ always celebrated her birthday. Be it a family dinner or a full on birthday party when she was a kid, JJ was used to a fuss made about her each year. It was harder after Ros, but her parents refused to let the day pass without at least a cake and a present.

As she befriended Penelope last year, their birthdays were filled with presents and friendship and alcohol, both girls making sure to give the other a thoughtful gift and make a fuss for the day.

Her heart was breaking that three of her new friends were about to let theirs pass without anything to show for it.

“We should have a party,” JJ blurted.

“You read my mind.”

JJ frankly welcomed the distraction from her circular thoughts about her kiss with Emily.

———

JJ left another store empty handed. She had first placed an order at a store downtown for a birthday cake, with three names on it which confused the baker, then began to wander downtown searching for presents.

She had another half hour before she was supposed to meet back up with Derek and Penelope, who were at the dollar store buying decorations, and she had hoped to find something for Emily by then.

The three of them were quite efficient at party planning, and they had to be with such a quick turnaround time. JJ had been tasked with finding a present for Emily.

For Hotch, they wrangled a bottle of the nicer whiskey that he liked, because even at the age of 21, he was somehow already an old man in his tastes. Spencer was also easy, because Penelope was working on knitting him a scarf. Apparently it was from the show Dr. Who, but JJ didn’t really know much about that besides that it was British and both he and Penelope were big fans.

Emily was a lot harder to shop for.

What could JJ get for her with the thirty dollars that they all had pitched in to fund her present? Not much. Especially since JJ knows that Emily comes from money. If she wanted something, she could probably just buy it for herself, right?

It was also difficult because it would be from her. It would be a token of her affections. What were her affections? Did she want to simply sleep with her? Date with her? Be her best friend? JJ’s thoughts were a mess.

JJ had been in just about every store downtown, browsing clothes, gift stores, even a plant store in which she contemplated the meaning of getting Emily a cactus. Nothing was quite right.

She had almost given up when she wandered past a used book store. She had never been in before but always meant to. Out front was a stack of old milk crates filled with books, mostly romance novels and thrillers, and inside the window, beautifully bound antique books were resting in the display.

A bell dinged as she walked in, and an elderly man waved at her from the counter before returning to his own book.

Inside, the smell of old books filled her senses, mixed with the smell of apples and cinnamon and the earthy smell of all the old buildings in her college town.

Stacked floor to ceiling were mountains of books, towering over her head.

There were a few other patrons in the shop, some sitting and reading, others wandering the stacks, pulling out the occasional book.

JJ slowly made her way through the maze. It was larger inside than she expected, with thousands of old books surrounding her, no matter where she looked. At times, she had to step over a pile of books in her path.

The books were organized by topic, but within that, JJ couldn’t discern a clear system.

She climbed the creaky staircase and pondered what kind of book Emily would like. Is buying her a romance novel too forward? JJ wondered. She probably wouldn’t be able to find one with two women anyways.

Did Emily like fantasy? Sci-fi? Non Fiction? Should JJ get her something she’s read? JJ realized that she hadn’t read anything that wasn’t for school in ages.

JJ felt overwhelmed. Was she thinking too hard?

She did a double take at the window sill, realizing that the movement that caught her eye was a black cat basking in the sunlight.

JJ reached out her hand tentatively to pet it. The cat nuzzled her hand, and began to purr. JJ smiled, spending a few minutes giving the cat much needed attention.

The cat then stood, apparently growing bored, and ran off to investigate something or chase a mouse or whatever bookstore cats got up to.

Where it lay was a small book. It was old, but not as old as some of the other leather bound texts in this store. Its white cover had a simple drawing of a boy, and written in a looping script: “Le Petit Prince.”

JJ smiled slightly, picking up the thin book. She leaned against the windowsill and carefully flipped through the pages, admiring the illustrations and trying to decipher the premise with her limited understanding of French.

It seemed like it was for children, with whimsical art of a boy on a small planet, a king, a rose and a fox, among other things. She read the first few pages, about a boy falling in love with a flower, and decided it was perfect.

It was a sign, JJ thought, the cat led her to this book.

The cat—which reminded JJ of Emily with its standoffish exterior but affectionate personality—had clearly shown her that this was the perfect present.

There was no price on it, and JJ worried that it would be out of her budget. Holding it to her chest, she descended the steps and brought the book to the clerk.

“Hello sir,” JJ greated him, setting the book down on the table, “How much is this book? ”

He was seated in a comfortable looking chair behind a counter with an old-fashioned cash register. The sign on it read, ‘cash only’ and there was a tip jar in the form of a cat mug.

“Oh this is an excellent choice!” The man lifted the book up, examining the cover. “On ne voit qu’avec le cœur.”

That was French. JJ didn’t know what it meant, only catching the word “heart” at the end. She nodded nonetheless.

“You speak French?” He asked her.

She shrugged. “I’m learning.”

“This book will teach you more than just French,” the man said. “Trust me.”

JJ didn’t know what he meant, but nodded. He still hadn’t told her how much it was.

“It’s a gift,” JJ explained, “for a friend.”

He handed her back the book, smiling at her. He gave it to her for fifteen dollars, seeming to make up the price on the spot. The black cat waited for her near the door, letting her pet him on the ears before she left.

JJ left the door, hugging the book to her chest.

———

Wrangling three of their friends into attending a surprise party was harder than it looked.

With three student athletes, nights during which none of them had games, or practices were scarce, so it took them until the next Friday before they found a free evening. Then, they had to go through the ordeal of convincing them to show up at Derek’s room at the right time.

JJ felt giddy with the secret, greatly enjoying the party planning and doing something special for her new friends. On her Wednesday afternoon study date with Emily, her excitement for the party almost overpowered her nervousness with the girl due to their recent kiss. JJ caught herself looking more at Emily than her notes, alternating between imagining them kissing and imagining the look on Emily’s face when she received her present.

By seven that Friday night, they had fully decorated Derek’s tiny dorm with streamers, balloons, and just about anything Penelope could find at the dollar store. A happy birthday sign was strung over one of the windows, with the addition of their friends' names written in marker on poster boards taped underneath.

Their presents were wrapped messily, as JJ wasn’t particularly good at using wrapping paper. The cake sat on Derek’s desk reading “Happy (belated) birthday Emily, Hotch and Spencer!” in red icing on white cake.

The three of them were frantically blowing up balloons and checking their phones. JJ felt slightly light headed by the time they were done.

Hotch and Emily were coming for a “study date” with Derek, and Spencer was expecting a Dr. Who marathon with Garcia. All were supposed to be there any minute.

There was a knock on the door.

“Get ready!” Garcia squealed, “someone’s here!”

She opened the door, and instead of the birthday kids, it was David Rossi, who JJ had met for the first time a few weeks prior. He was 22, only a few months older than Hotch, in his first year of his masters. He and Hotch were close, and Emily and Derek knew him well since he TA’d one of their classes.

“Rossi?” Derek said, “you came!”

“I never turn down an invitation to a party,” he said.

“I have to admit,” Derek said, “it’s not that much of a party.“

“It’s more of a magical birthday get together,” Penelope said as she ushered him in.

“Good thing I brought enough alcohol to make it a party,” he said.

He pulled a very expensive looking bottle of vodka out of his backpack, and more beers than should fit in a normal sized bag.

“I take it back,” Derek said, “this is definitely a party.”

There was another knock on the door.

“Come in!” Garcia said, picking up a balloon to throw.

Spencer opened the door trailed by Hotch and Emily, all looking confused as they were bombarded by a dozen balloons cascading down from above and a series of hugs from the group. All were looking around with a mix of shock and happiness on their faces.

“It’s technically none of your birthdays today,” Penelope said, “Because you are all such awful private people, BUT I got the goods and figured it out. We thought we would celebrate all of you guys, and our amazing friend group, with this little shindig.”

“It’s wonderful Garcia,” Hotch said, almost smiling, “Thank you.”

“Don’t just thank me!” she said, “It was Miss Jennifer’s idea, and she got the cake. And my beautiful Derek helped me with the decorations and loaned his room, which might I say, is strangely large for a single room.”

Derek chucked, “It was my pleasure, happy birthday you three.”

He pulled Spencer in and ruffled his hair.

“We’ve ordered pizza too!” JJ announced, “It should be here any minute now.”

“You’re too good to us,” Emily finally spoke up, after standing in the doorway with a dazed expression on her face.

Penelope guided them in, and the group exchanged hugs and laughter, and Hotch got a very Italian kiss on the cheek from Rossi. Penelope put silly birthday hats on their heads, and took photos like a proud mother.

After a few minutes of chatter—about the decorations, how they managed to keep it a secret, and most importantly, the illegality of Penelope hacking into their personal data on the university server— JJ’s phone pinged and she ran to the foyer to get the pizzas.

Munching on greasy food, there was a companionable silence with the cheery sounds of the music in the background.

As pizza wrapped up, their chatter resumed and the room filled with overlapping conversations. JJ noticed Rossi had snuck off to fish something out of Derek’s mini fridge, pouring something out into shot glasses. Then she heard the sound of whipped cream.

At that sound, all heads turned towards him. He had three cups filled to the brim with whipped cream and he looked like he was about to burst into laughter at any point.

“BIRTHDAY SHOTS!” Penelope squealed.

“No way,” Hotch said, “I’m not doing one of those.”

“One of what?” Spencer asked nervously.

“It’s not a blowjob is it?” Emily asked with a laugh.

“A blowjob?” Spencer asked even more nervously.

“It’s a shot, kid,” Derek assured him, “you just can’t use your hands and there’s the-“

He gestured at the whipped cream with a laugh.

“White stuff!” Emily said, tying up her hair into a ponytail in preparation.

Rossi had to explain the premise several times, before it sunk in that they had to fish out the small shot and drink it all without using their hands. Reid looked at them suspiciously but he warmed up to the idea after Hotch offered to go first so he could see how it’s done.

The older boy had definitely done a blowjob shot before, efficiently grabbing the plastic shot cup and downing it, his cheeks covered with whipped cream.

Emily was enthusiastically buried in the whipped cream but struggled on the follow through, spilling most of the vodka into the larger cup before she drank it.

Reid seemed nervous to get the whipped cream on his face, reeling back and wiping his cheeks then trying again.

Eventually, Derek reached his hand into the cup, retrieved the shot and held it up to Spencer’s mouth.

“Look ma, no hands!” Morgan quipped before rubbing some leftover whipped cream on the younger boy’s face as the group laughed. Reid was laughing happily, beaming as he wiped his face.

With the celebratory shot in their system, it was time for cake. JJ carefully used Penelope’s bright pink lighter to ignite candles on each piece for her three friends as they sang Happy Birthday to them.

“Happy birthday to you!” They sang, “happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Hotch, Spence and Emily! Happy birthday to you!”

They blew out their candles. All were instructed to make wishes.

As the night progressed, JJ got more and more nervous about the present. What if Emily hated it? Would she ruin the whole night? Penelope and Derek had assured her that it was a good present but what if they were wrong too?

JJ busied herself with cutting the cake, distributing pieces and making sure everyone had forks and napkins.

Rossi, who was their unofficial bartender, was stationed near the mini fridge and passed out fresh beers when called upon.

“Gifts!” Penelope exclaimed once they had made good work of the cake, dragging the presents out from their hiding space under Derek’s desk.

She handed them over to Emily, Hotch and Reid.

“We all pitched in,” Derek said.

All three looked perturbed at the fuss, murmuring “you shouldn’t have” as they looked at the gift. Spencer opened his and laughed, wrapping the incredibly long striped scarf around his neck and thanking Penelope. Aaron actually did smile at his present and expressed his gratitude by pouring them all shots.

Emily held hers for a moment, staring at the wrapped book with an unreadable expression on her face. JJ watched, holding her breath as she turned it over, then placed it back down.

“Will you excuse me for a second?” Emily said, her voice tight and sounding very… formal.

JJ gulped as Emily stood, and exited the dorm, shutting the door behind her. She immediately thought that she had done something wrong.

The group looked back and forth, not quite sure what to do, as the commotion happened mid way through Hotch doling out shots of whiskey and some were already half raised.

A moment passed as JJ thought about whether it would be worse for her to follow or leave her be. Maybe she wanted to be left alone? Maybe JJ was the last person Emily wanted to see?

She knew there was a lot about Emily that she didn’t know. Like JJ, the other girl kept a lot close to her chest. Over time, JJ had learned some details of her childhood, but not all, and what she knew didn’t look good. Maybe all of this was a bad idea? Emily might have had a reason that she didn’t celebrate her birthday. This could have been an awful plan and it would have been all JJ’s fault.

She stood and grabbed the book, deciding to follow Emily. She slipped out the door and walked slowly down the hall, unsure of what she would even say to Emily once she faced her. Hey I just gave you a gift and you all but ran out of the room before you opened it, did I offend you somehow? Or I’m sorry?

JJ wasn’t sure what she was sorry for. She just knew something was upsetting Emily and the last thing JJ wanted to be was the cause of that. In fact, she wanted to make Emily happy and make sure nothing ever bothered her ever again. It would probably be weird for her to say that, right?

She assumed that Emily had gone to the communal bathroom, as she left her lanyard with her room keys behind her in Derek’s room. If she had left the floor she would have been locked out.

JJ took a breath outside the door, then pushed it open.

Emily was standing in the bathroom that all of the girls floor shared, with its small row of stalls, old fashioned sinks and blue tiled floor. A frosted window that looked out into the courtyard. Many mornings JJ found herself brushing her teeth next to the other girl.

Emily had her arms braced on the sides of the sink, leaning forward and looking at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed and her breathing was coming in quick breaths.

“Em?” JJ said softly.

Startled by the noise, Emily looked away from her, quickly pulling up a corner of her shirt to wipe her eyes.

“You ok?” JJ asked, tucking the present behind her back.

“I’m fine,” Emily said, standing up straight and giving her a half smile. Her posture was stiff, her smile forced.

“You don’t look fine.”

Emily stepped back, leaning against the window sill. She crossed her arms, still avoiding any eye contact.

JJ walked forward, slowly closing the distance.

She leaned on the wall beside Emily, trying not to stare at her and make her feel uncomfortable.

“Did I do something wrong?” JJ asked. Her voice sounded small in her ears. She immediately kicked herself, upset at how this might sound like she was making it all about herself.

“No!” Emily exclaimed, shaking her head. “No. It wasn’t you it’s…”

She trailed off.

“I’ve never had all this before. The friends and the party and the gifts. All this attention… it’s a lot.”

She slid to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. JJ did the same, turning to face the other girl. She didn’t want to push too hard lest Emily flee from her again.

“It’s all so nice,” Emily whispered.

“Then what’s wrong?” JJ asked softly.

Emily sighed and began to bite her nails. Her posture was hunched over, curled up on the cold tile floor.

She began to speak, then stopped herself, gritting her teeth and blinking hard. She looked over at JJ reluctantly, seeming to think hard about how to answer that question.

“I was always the new girl wherever I was,” she said. “I was never anywhere enough to make friends, real friends that is. Or have anything like all this. I would do anything to fit in and it never seemed to work.”

JJ’s heart felt like it was breaking for her friend. She tried to imagine Emily trying to be anyone else other than the Emily she knew and couldn’t. Fitting in is hard, let alone fitting into new countries and learning new languages. JJ knew she wouldn’t have been able to keep it together.

Emily shook her head, picking at the skin around her nails anxiously, JJ could tell that sharing all of this was incredibly difficult.

“I lived in a dozen different countries and was barely there long enough to make friends and when I did…” Emily sighed. “I fucked it up. I make things worse for people.”

Emily buried her face in her hands, her breaths coming harder now. Her voice was shaky and quiet, almost whispering to JJ.

“My mom was never around on my birthdays. She would leave me a present. Maybe. This year she didn’t even call.”

Emily paused.

“And then you guys do all this.”

Emily looked up, staring with unfocused eyes into the bathroom, JJ could tell she was thinking of someone else, some other day. She looked lost.

JJ wanted to hold her hand, wanted to comfort her, keep her close. She was always called the mom friend, it was in her nature to try and make sure her friends were taken care of. Her feelings for Emily complicated things. If she was anyone else, she would grab her hand, no questions asked, but she felt herself second-guessing each move.

Her actions suddenly felt like they had more weight to them. Knowing that she liked Emily made everything strange. If she held her hand, would it be weird? She didn’t know. Normally, she wouldn’t question holding a friend’s hand, hell, she’d already held Emily’s hand.

But that was before she was gay, or bi, or whatever. Before she knew she liked girls. Liked Emily. Now, touching her felt scary, like she was doing something wrong, even if she was simply trying to be nice.

Fighting against her anxious thoughts, JJ reached out, tugging at Emily’s wrist until her hand clasped onto hers. JJ ran a reassuring thumb over her hand. She sighed a breath of relief when Emily leaned into the touch.

“You’re our friend,” JJ said, simply. “And we care about you.”

Emily nodded, still not looking at her.

“When I held your present in my hands,” Emily said, “I just couldn't stop thinking of my friend Matthew. He surprised me on my sixteenth birthday, pulling me out of some stupid event my mother had dragged me to. That was the only time I got a real birthday present before now.”

JJ hadn’t heard about this friend. Emily didn’t really talk about her past, beyond the general facts. JJ had to stop herself from prying, fighting back her curiosity in favour of letting Emily talk.

She squeezed Emily’s hand in a gesture she hoped would be encouraging.

“Your gift just brought back a lot of memories,” Emily said with a whisper. “Matthew basically saved my life. He was the only friend I had before now I guess.”

She looked over at JJ.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said, wiping at her eyes.

“Don’t be.”

JJ pulled Emily into her, wrapping her arms around her and holding her tight. Emily let out a muffled sob and fell into her, with her head tucked under JJ’s chin. They sat like that for a while, JJ listening to Emily’s ragged breathing and JJ running a calming hand over her back. Emily’s face was buried in her shoulder, her soft hair tickled JJ’s face as she held her tight.

She focused on rubbing Emily’s back, making patterns with her hand on top of her soft sweater. Emily’s arms were wrapped around her waist.

For a moment, tears pricked at JJ’s eyes. Watching Emily finally be vulnerable to her, for her to share something, even if she left out details, was a lot. She blinked them back and focused on steadying her breathing, being a calm presence for Emily.

After a moment Emily pulled away, creating some distance between them, wiping her face with her sleeve and sniffling.

“JJ I don’t want you to get hurt,” Emily said, her voice cracking, “I just bring people pain.”

“What happened, Em?” JJ asked.

Emily looked at her with teary eyes and shook her head.

“You don’t have to tell me, Emily. But I need you to know that whatever it is, I’ll still be here. I care so much about you and just… like being your friend. I don’t care what happened in your past or if you think you’re going to hurt me. All I care about is us.”

“I like being your friend,” Emily said with a teary laugh.

JJ smiled at her, pulling her into another hug. Holding her tight feeling like the girl would break into pieces in front of her if she let go.

“Do you want your present?” JJ asked carefully, still hugging Emily. She could feel the other girl nod.

JJ pulled back, taking the wrapped book from the tile floor and placing it in Emily’s lap. Emily carefully began to unwrap it, as if she wasn’t allowed to rip the brightly patterned paper.

“You know you can rip it, right?” JJ said with a kind laugh. “Just tear it open, it’s part of the fun!”

Emily looked at her nervously, and half heartedly tugged at the wrapping paper.

“Harder!” JJ said, demonstrating by pulling on it and making a satisfying tearing noise. JJ assumed that the girl didn’t have the opportunity to tear open presents as a kid, and JJ wanted to make sure she didn’t miss out on that joy anymore.

Emily laughed and tore at it, ripping the paper off and revealing the small book underneath. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

“I read this as a kid,” Emily breathed, staring at the cover reverently.

She opened the cover and looked through the first few pages.

“L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux,” Emily quoted the novel just as the book shop clerk had done.

“What is essential is invisible to the eyes,” JJ translated. “I don’t really get it. I tried to read it before I gave it to you, but didn’t make much headway.”

“It’s about love,” Emily said as she flipped through the pages.

Emily slowly turned the pages, smiling down at the whimsical illustrations and murmured about it in French that JJ couldn’t quite make out.

“I could translate it for you if you want?” Emily offered.

“Is it as good in English?”

“No,” Emily said with a laugh.

JJ beamed, happy that her gift was no longer making Emily upset. She hoped that whatever bad memories she had about birthdays were being amended with some joy from today.

“Well then I just have to get better at French so that I can understand it,” JJ said. “I’ll need a good tutor.”

“This is an amazing present. Thank you JJ.”

They smiled at each other.

“I’ll read it to you,” Emily said, “And you can stop me and I can explain anything you don’t understand.”

JJ’s heart fluttered at the thought of Emily reading a love story out loud. Though, from what she saw it was about a boy being in love with a flower so it couldn’t be that romantic, could it?

“Sounds like a plan,” JJ said. “Should we get back? I wouldn’t want to worry the others.”

Emily nodded, then the two of them stood up together. JJ’s legs had fallen asleep while sitting on the cold, tiled floor so she dramatically shook them out, making Emily laugh.

God her laugh, she wanted to hear that forever. She’d do anything to keep Emily smiling and happy.

As they walked back to the party, it was Emily who took JJ’s hand.

Maybe they could be friends. Maybe that would be enough.

#criminal minds #cm #criminal minds tv #jemily #emily prentiss x jennifer jareau #prentiss x jj #jennifer jareau #emily prentiss #gravelyhumerus cm college au #my post #my writing #after all that i almost forgot to actually post it #hope u all enjoy xoxoox #kennedy is not in this chapter i am sorry to her fans

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allie1804-fan · 4 years

Text

Ile de Re (Chapter 1)

I wrote this fic last year, mostly while on holiday on this lovely island. If you are on Archive of Our Own, you may have seen it before. Written before Matrix 4 was announced and before Covid so sorry that the timelines are no longer realistic!

Summary

Keanu meets a chef to help him prepare for a movie role. Events conspire for them to spend even more time together than they planned and despite the large age gap, romance ensues.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

April 2020

Keanu hung up the phone and quietly fist pumped to himself. He’d just had news that a new project had been green lit. It was one he’d been collaborating on for some time - where he’d play an American chef, somewhat down on his luck who was establishing a new restaurant in a rural French town. The thing that thrilled him most was that the project afforded him the chance to finally learn how to cook – at least a bit - because he’d need to demonstrate some skill in the film itself and to ‘find’ his character he wanted to understand more about the craft of being a chef – especially the passion that drove them.

He went to his office and pulled out his laptop, opening a file holding details of some chefs who Erwin’s team had tracked down that fit the bill in terms of the knowledge they had and their personal experiences. He dropped an e mail first to a chef names Yves Le Gouhier and another to a woman called Claire Bonnevin. They each had restaurants in LA but were French natives who had trained at home before heading to America to open restaurants of their own. He hoped that the guy would say yes since he felt he’d probably relate better to his experience however he checked out both of their bios and looked at restaurant reviews on line.

A few days later, the decision was made for him as to who would give him the coaching as Mr Le Gouhier was out of town for at least a couple of months, establishing a new restaurant whereas Ms Bonnevin was able to fit him in for some daily ‘classes’ starting the following week. Whilst mildly disappointed, he also recalled that he’d actually eaten at Ms Bonnevin’s place once and had really rated the cooking which mixed homespun flavours with Gallic finesse - the seafood there was to die for. He responded quickly in the affirmative, and ever the perfectionist, asked if there was anything he needed to bring or any preparatory work he could do before Monday. Claire replied that if he could let her have a working copy of the script and tell her what his favourite meal was before the weekend – they could work on the skills he’d need to demonstrate in the film and, depending on what the meal was, also aim to make his favourite meal to a good standard by the end of the week. If he had some friends who’d like to eat what he made, then he should ask them if they were free.

“What a question!” he pondered, thinking about what his favourite meal was. Keanu was a man who liked to eat - so much so that he needed the counsel of his trainer Denise to keep off the pounds in between films! Would it be a good steak with garlicky greens and crushed potatoes?, veal with a cream and mushroom sauce, roast lamb with flageolets and dauphinois potatoes – this task was just making him hungry! He decided on the latter thinking it would be a challenge and fitted with the style of cooking they had at “Le Chat Botte” which was Claire’s restaurant. The pressure of feeding something he’d made that wasn’t bacon and eggs or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was both thrilling and unnerving. He messaged his sister Kim, his mother and friends Rob, Alex and Josh who were all pleased to be free although they joked that they might need to go to Macdonald’s to fill up afterwards!

Monday came around and Keanu pulled up at “Le Chat Botte” at 9am prompt. Entering via the service entrance as instructed, he walked into a spotless kitchen with gleaming stainless steel work stations, hobs and ovens ranged along one wall and a large wooden kitchen table in the centre which had 2 sets of chopping boards in different colours along with a variety of knives, spatulas and other cooking implements arranged side by side in the centre of the table. No-one was in sight though Keanu could hear the sound of a voice coming from an adjoining room. Walking across the kitchen he stuck his head round the door of what turned out to be an office where he saw a petite, dark haired woman he recognised (from her bio) as Claire Bonnevin - she was speaking to someone on the phone in French. She raised her hand to him in greeting, mouthing sorry and hurried to complete the call.

“Oui, Oui, je te rapellerai demain - mon nouvel client vient d’arriver, oui oui c’est lui, donc il faut que j’accroche. D’accord d’accord, je sais. Au revoir”

Claire turned to Keanu blushing - she had the distinct impression that he’d understood that she’d just referred to him in her conversation.

“so sorry about that – that was my restaurant manager back home in France just giving me an update on my dad - he’s not been too well recently so we’ve been talking every day” Her English accent was excellent with only a slight gallic note.

Keanu stuck out his hand

“Nice to meet you Ms Bonnevin and no problem – you didn’t need to rush them off the line on my account”

Claire smiled and shook his hand, “I heard you were impossibly polite! – of course I did, I was eating into your paid time – nice to meet you too by the way. Keanu grinned - Claire could feel the colour rising in her cheeks again - she wasn’t exactly sure why - maybe it was the directness of his gaze or the brilliance of his smile.

“So, are you ready for your training?”

Keanu chuckled and responded with what he thought was the expected reply “hell yeah” but Claire didn’t react, “maybe the Matrix reference was unintentional” he thought – she was pretty young after all, (her bio said she was 35) so maybe she was one of the few whom it had passed by!

“So let’s go through to the kitchen and get started” she said leading the way back to the room where Keanu had entered earlier.

For the next 4 hours they talked through and tried out some of the particular skills that would be needed in kitchen scenes. Whilst they worked, they got to know each other a little with Claire wanting to find out about Keanu’s food knowledge and experience and Keanu quizzing her about her beginnings in the industry. He discovered that she grew up on a tiny west coast island in France called L’Ile de Re” where her Dad still owned a restaurant called, like hers in LA, “Le Chat Botte”. He no longer worked as a chef there but lived in the little village where it was, hence the manager being able to keep Claire appraised of his health. She’d learned her craft there and then moved on to train in Paris, New York and then LA to establish her namesake restaurant in the US.

For her part, from what Keanu said, she could see that despite not having grown up in a house where people had a passion for cooking, he nevertheless clearly had a passion for food - from the humble sandwich to fine foods from around the globe. He was also a quick study, picking up the knife skills needed to finely chop onions and garlic on film that he’d need. She was a patient teacher, though she would occasionally break into French when she was struggling to communicate the exact technique such as when at first he couldn’t master the rotation of the knife needed to chop finely:

“tient tient, comme ca” she said, placing her hand over his to show how the blade needed to rock back and forth over the garlic.

At 12 they broke for lunch at which point Claire challenged Keanu to make her his best sandwich from the ingredients on hand. He asked her what she liked and created a layered club sandwich which she declared excellent. By the time he left at 1pm, Keanu was convinced that she was an excellent choice of teacher and one he’d enjoy learning from. He could hardly wait for the next day when they were going to study cuts of meat by going to Claire’s favourite butcher.

The week progressed with a mix of hands on cooking classes and continued trips to suppliers which served to explain the importance of provenance and quality ingredients. They also worked on timings and started to plan the stages of creating the menu Keanu had planned for Friday’s lunch.

On Thursday Keanu tried out the dauphinois potatoes and was thrilled with the result - he was really starting to enjoy cooking and his rapid growth in skill. Claire praised him warmly and suggested he try a dessert as well for the next day.

“You could try something simple like a mousse au chocolat but I think you’re ready to really wow them”

“Oh yeah?” Keanu grinned “With what?”

“A tarte Tatin”

“What!, are you sure?”

“Absolutely – you’re an excellent student - let’s do one today together, you’ll master it I’m sure”

She showed him how to prepare the sugar and butter in a special tin that could go on the stove and then in the oven to finish. They prepped the apples placing them rounded side down in the tin and proceeded to caramelise the butter and sugar until it was a gorgeous molten mahogany. Then he learned how to make the shortcrust pastry using cool hands to rub the butter into the flour then bring it together to a dough which rested in the fridge. Once rolled out, he placed it onto the cooled apples, tucking in the edges round the sides. The result when they turned the tarte out (upside down to reveal the apples) was amazing – sweet, tender apples with the sugary caramel cut a little by freshly grated lemon rind and a melt in the mouth pastry to top it off.

“See!” she smiled, “I knew you could do it”

“No, you did it!” he grinned

“Well, OK so today we both did it but tomorrow it will all be down to you”

Friday came and Keanu got to the restaurant at 8am wanting to have as much time as possible to get everything perfect.

By 11.30 the lamb was resting, his gratin and tarte were in the oven and the beans were simmering gently.

The meal was beginning with a simple salade aux lardons - it was time to dress it with the vinaigrette he’d made earlier. He started to toss it gently but some lettuce flipped out over the side

“Watch out you don’t drop too many said Claire – unless you want lots of children’ she laughed!

“What?” Keanu asked, shooting her a quizzical look.

“it’s a saying we have in France that the number of leaves you drop when you’re tossing the salad tells you the number of kids you’ll have.

“Oh right” he chuckled, “that’s cute, but it’s way too late for that”

“What do you mean?, you’d have time to have them if you wanted, surely”

“I’m too old Claire”

“What, you must only be what?”, she paused to look at him and consider his face “…. About 45”

“Ha ha” Keanu laughed heartily.

“No, I’m fifty five”

“Merde” she exclaimed “ce n’est pas possible!”

Keanu shook his head and smiled - he loved how she reverted to French when she was reacting spontaneously to something.

“I’m afraid it’s true, so even if I had a wife or even a girlfriend, I still think it’s too late to be having babies. I might be dead before they’re 20 or 30.

Claire’s face clouded over

“Sorry I didn’t mean to be all maudlin” he said

“Don’t worry, it’s just my mother died when I was 25 so I know that’s hard – but people die all the time, young and old.

“Ain’t that the truth” Keanu agreed quietly, remembering his own past.

“and lots of guys have babies when they’re older. Maybe you shouldn’t rule it out”

“Maybe maybe, anyway, enough serious talk, we should raise a toast before our guests arrive”

He poured himself and Claire a glass of wine.

“Here’s to satisfied customers!” she said

“and here’s to you for being such an amazing teacher – I can’t believe you’ve got me this far so fast”

“well that’s really down to you” she replied, smiling, “you work so hard and learn so quickly, it’s very impressive”

“I don’t know about that!” he said blushing, “Anyway, let’s not get ahead ourselves, I haven’t served it yet!!

They put down their glasses and Claire went to see if the guests had arrived at the table they had set aside in the restaurant. Meanwhile Keanu busied himself with finishing the salad and carving the lamb which he was happy to see was just the right shade of pink. He put it in the warming oven and also took out the tarte Tatin praying that it would be as good as the one yesterday when he turned it out later. Finally, with the main course as ready as it could be, he took the salad and some French bread through to the dining room.

The meal went down a storm - at the end Keanu stood and raised a toast to Claire

“Thank you for all your kind words folks but we really need to toast this amazing lady who has taught this old meat head some cooking skill. He took her hand and placed it over his heart

“ thank you, thank you, merci beaucoups, I’ll be forever grateful!”

Claire laughed and blushed.

“Just wait until next week when we’ll have you working in the restaurant kitchen, then you might not be such a fan!”

He laughed

“That may be!”

They said their goodbyes to Keanu’s amazed guests and went to clean down the kitchen.

“How’s your dad by the way?”

“Oh about the same apparently – no better, but no worse, he just needs to take it easy and stay off his damn bike”

“Oh, a pushbike or a motorbike?” Keanu asked, his interest peaked

“A push bike – he’s not a racer guy like you!” Claire saw Keanu pull up each day often on different bikes so she knew about his passion for them.

“everyone goes everywhere on bikes on the Ile de Re” she continued - it’s a cyclist’s paradise with cycle paths across the salt marshes and oyster beds and through the forests. But he had a heart attack last year and whilst he is supposed to exercise, he just pushes himself too much and that worries me”

“Do you have any other family there to keep an eye on him?”

“No, I’m an only child and there are no aunts or uncles either.

“Is your father still alive? She asked.

“Yeah – well at least I haven’t heard otherwise! He left my mother when I was three and I haven’t seen him since I was 13.”

“Mon dieu that must have been tough growing up without a dad”

“Yeah well I had my mum and my sister - he wouldn’t have been a good role model anyway”

“I could see today that you adore Kim and your mother”

“Yeah, yeah I do - family and friends are my rocks to come back to - after every project that’s what I look forward to”

“You know you’re not at all what I expected!” Claire stated.

“Oh, how so?” he asked

“Well, a couple of people I mentioned you to said they heard you were a nice guy and very polite but I guess I just expected someone more ………..starry, you know!”

Keanu burst out laughing.

“Well I’ll take that as a complement” he said

“you should – you’ve made it a very easy first week of teaching” she smiled

“Well thanks” he said the colour rising in his cheeks.

They finished up in the kitchen and Keanu took his leave saying he’d see her at 9am prompt on Monday for his week in the working kitchen. He’d enjoyed her company so much that he’d almost asked her to dinner but held himself in check. She was so much younger than him and he knew his feelings weren’t entirely platonic. She was very cute with olive skin, beautiful eyes and a slender yet not too skinny figure – he didn’t really have a type but she hit the spot with him. He’d just have to quash those thoughts, focus on the learning and keep things on a friendly footing.

https://allie1804-fan.tumblr.com/post/625977593110364160/ile-de-re-chapter-2

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tavi-hayes · 4 years

Text

practice challenge ~ journey to the palace

((whoopwhoop, idk how i managed to write this (given it’s quite long and i usually never ever write stuff this long) also please excuse me again for any spelling/grammar errors i try. alsoooo thanks to these wonderful girls: Bethia @h-hart, Kat @clara-choii and Pia @brookelynnsanders!))

It was silent at work today. The only sounds were the flipping of pages and the ticking on keys of a computer, followed by a frustrated sigh occasionally.

“Maybe we should get some more flutes?” I said, “they’re not that expensive and they won’t take up a lot of space here.”

Lola, being distracted by her laptop, showed no sign that she had heard what I just said.

“Helllooo, Lo are you there?”

“Huh, what?” she ran her hands through her hair as she looked my way.

I lifted the catalogue to show her the flute page.

“No Tavi,” Lo leaned her head on the back of the chair, doing the accounts must have tired her. “We already have flutes, and no one is ever interested in them. They have been here for decades.”

I rolled my eyes, “maybe that is why no one is interested. They look grim.”

Lo refocused on her laptop, and I flipped another page of the catalogue.

Oeh, the bass guitars. My favourite part.

I ran my finger over the page, paying a lot of attention to each one.

There were electronic bass guitars, but also the semi-acoustic ones. Some were very modern-looking with the brightest of colours, while others go for more of a vintage look.

I don’t know if I would ever be able to part with my own baby. The bass guitar, that I now owned, had been eyeing me every day since it had arrived in the store. It had been love at first sight.

But it was such a big investment and I just didn’t have that kind of money.

A part of my earnings was needed for us to make a living, pay the rent and do the groceries for example. And the other part that wasn’t needed for that, entered our savings jar.

We had been saving money since the day my dad was put behind bars. For whatever reason those bars had been in St. George. Freaking St. George.

The province didn’t even have direct borders with Denbeigh, Ottaro was right in between.

That made a simple, but still long, car ride impossible. Not taken the problems that come with the snowy climate into account.

That same climate also caused issues for our only transportation option.

Denbeigh’s climate was hard to predict at times. It could be a beautiful day with sunshine and a clear sky, but then you wake up the next morning to a thick layer of snow.

And because those snowfalls could happen in at least 8 out of 12 months, a lot of planes got cancelled in those months. The only airport anywhere near Winnipeg was privately owned. So the owners could literally ask the prices they wanted for the plane tickets. And boy, they were only focussed on making a profit.

For a simple family of Fives, those prices were unpayable. Hence why we had been saving money for 6 years now, still nowhere near able to pay for tickets. My mom would need a ticket, Daniel and I would too, and we just can’t leave little Aria and Arlan. My dad should be allowed to see them as well. That’s means we already need the money for 5 tickets. But if we include Daniel’s family, with his wife and little Melody, then that would equal 7 tickets.

So yeah, I would never have been able to buy that bass guitar.

Until Lo had a brilliant idea. They would give it to me as my birthday present for the upcoming 10 years. At first, I couldn’t accept that kind of gift, knowing it would have been a huge investment for the Wood family as well. But they insisted, hinting that they would get an employee discount anyway since you know Mr Wood owns the place. So, the price dropped, and they ignored me, so I had to give in and accept. It was the best gift I had ever gotten.

The stores door busted open, “GIRLS!” Gina’s voice took me back to earth. “they’re about to do the draw!”

“What draw?” apparently Lo shared my confusion.

Gina rolled her eyes and grabbed Lo’s laptop from the table. “Wait, I was working! Save it, save it!”

The laptop was put right on top of the catalogue I had just been looking through. Lo ushered over as well.

“Let me just,” Gina had opened an internet page and started typing in the website address of Winnipeg’s number one news channel, WTV. Such an original name.

The news anchor, some middle-aged woman with very fake looking blond hair, appeared on screen. “What is she wearing?” Lo asked, disgust and confusion both showing on her face.

“A track suit, it’s part of her image,” Gina unmuted the laptop, the crow-like voice of the woman filling the room, “now shush, I wanna hear this.”

“… Cameron Porter has been selected for the Illéan national ice hockey team. The star of Winnipeg’s very own ice hockey team, the Winnipeg Belugas, will accompany the national team to the world cup, taking place later this year in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Last week’s draw concluded that Illéa will have to face the German Federation and New Asia in the group stage. The national team’s training will start next week.”

Lo and I shared a look, “this is what you wanted to see Gina?”

“Since when do you care about ice hockey?” I asked, this was something new.

“Urgh, you guys are intolerable,” she silenced us with her finger.

“… and now we will switch to the royal palace in Angeles, to watch the live draw for Prince Arin’s Selection.”

The draw, of course that was what had sparked Gina’s interest. For some unknown reason, the entire Selection had slipped from my mind.

Nevertheless, I felt a little flutter in my stomach. Nerves. Looking over to my friends, I noticed the tense looks on both of their faces. Lo’s hands were clasped together, while Gina’s had disappeared in the pockets of her cardigan.

“Welcome,” some weird voice-over called.

With that the camera focussed on the prince.

“Urgh,” I rolled my eyes.

Lo poked me in the side, laughing, “oh Tavi your distaste is showing.”

“I don’t understand how you can hate someone who is that good looking. I mean have you seen that jawline? Perfection.” Gina had had a crush on the prince for as long as I had known her.

I rolled my eyes again, “I don’t hate him.” The drawing began before I had time to explain myself further.

“From Allens … Idalia Moretti.”

“He doesn’t look very happy,” I couldn’t help but comment, “or comfortable.”

Gina sighed probably annoyed that she couldn’t listen to the show properly, “his engagement was called off not that long ago. That is a pretty hard thing to deal with.”

“Yeah, I see, it’s so hard that he’s having a Selection. Shouldn’t he like get over the other girl first?”

My friends ignored me.

“From Angeles … Emily Rose White.”

This thing was going to take forever. I just wanted to look at the catalogue again, not at that prince, “he’s making me feel uncomfortable, just by watching him.”

Again, no response from either of my friends.

I took that as a sign to remain silent, knowing very well my friends wouldn’t reply anyway now that their eyes were locked on the prince.

“From Dakota … Brooke Lynn Sanders.”

Gina let out a breath she was holding, “okay now is Denbeigh,” she took our hands in hers, “fingers crossed it’s one of us.”

Her hand palms were sweaty, she must really want this.

“From Denbeigh … Octavia Hayes.”

We were all silent for a minute. Then Lo started screaming, Gina joining her. “Oh my GOODNESS!”

“Tavi! You’re going to the palace! You’re going to meet the prince!”

“Yeah,” I was absolutely lost for words. Meeting the prince hadn’t been the first thing that came to my mind, hell it hadn’t even been the second or third thing.

The first thing I thought was: I’m one step closer to getting my dad out of prison. I will be in that freaking library day and night looking for the book that is going to help me. There must be something somewhere about a second opinion on a court order, or something else to annul the judge’s decision.

“Ohhh, I’m sooo jealous of you right now. You are going to meet the prince! And there’s a chance he will fall in love with you and you’ll have beautiful babies.” Gina pulled on one of my curls, it bounced up and down as she let go of it.

“Uhm, I think that particular chance can be redeemed to zero.” I bit my lip, not even in my biggest dreams had I imagined my name would be drawn.

“Tavi, listen. I know you only applied for those laws books, but you need to be friendly to the prince if you want to stay,” Lo insisted, “or else you will be eliminated.”

“And I have to interact with him?”

“There are girls who would kill for a chance of even being in one room with him,” Gina took over, she sounded very serious suddenly. “You’ll meet him that’s for sure, and if you actually try you might make it far enough to earn a date. Just at least try to be nice, okay?”

“Just don’t insult him,” Lo added, “or his family, or the country. Okay, don’t insult anyone.”

The way my best friends were looking at me brought me right back to the good old school days. That was exactly the way teachers had looked whenever I had done something naughty. Which had basically been at least once every day.

“Do you promise?” Lo asked when I didn’t respond.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try not to insult anyone.” I sighed, this is going to be so much harder than I thought.

All of a sudden a lot robot-like voice yelled “BREAKING NEWS”.

It just scared the living shit out of me. We turned as one towards the laptop again.

On the screen was that fake blond woman in her tracksuit again.

“Prince Arin just completed the draw for his very own Selection. Some famous girls will be joining him at the palace. Our very own province will be represented by Octavia Hayes. You might have heard of her, given that she is some meekly Five. But her father’s name will ring a bell. Octavia’s father is Caspar H., a dangerous convict in prison for murdering Winnipeg’s beloved mayor Wilfred Wallis. He might have very well passed the criminal gene onto his daughter. Not only is she definitely not a good representative for Denbeigh, but the lives of the royal family might all be in danger.”

“Damn it!” Stupid news anchor. Why couldn’t they just stay out of my family’s business. Now the entire country will be aware of this. My dad’s arrest did make the headlines of some newspapers when all that had gone down. But that had been 6 years ago and I had hoped no one would remember that.

But now it was out in the open. Again.

It didn’t even matter that my dad was innocent. He had already been suffering for it by being locked up far away from our family.

“Tavi,” Lo put her arms around me, “that’s just bullshit, no such thing as a criminal gene exists.”

Gina joined our hug, “you can’t take anyone seriously who wears a tracksuit on live TV.”

*** Couple of days later ***

Dear dad,

My name got drawn for the Selection, I’m going to the palace and meet the prince. Some palace person is coming to pick me up anytime now so I can’t write a lot. Plus, if the mail has already arrived then you will have to wait another month before you get this anyway.

I asked Daniel if he could start writing a monthly letter as well, maybe he can even add a little picture of Melody so you can see her for the first time. He said he will take care of mom, Aria and Arlan as well. Molly will just cook dinner for more people, which she doesn’t really mind doing. At least that’s what she said.

Anyhow I will write to you from the palace.

Lots of love,

Octavia

Zohl wzw, R’n hxzivw. Tlrmt gl gsv kzozxv, z dslov mvd vmerilmnvmg dsviv R wlm’g pmld zmblmv. Ovzermt nln, vhkvxrzoob mld gszg rg urmzoob hvvnh orpv hsv’h gibrmt gl orev ztzrm. Zmw dszg droo gsv xlfmgib gsrmp lu nv. Droo R gfim rmgl zm lfgxzhg? Zxxliwrmt gl DGE R’n tlrmt gl hozftsgvi veviblmv rm gsv kzozxv, yvxzfhv lu blfi ‘xirnrmzo tvmvh’. Yfg gsv kvlkov dsl olev blf droo zodzbh yvorvev blfi rmmlxvmxv, vevm ru gsv dslov xlfmgib hvvnh gl gsrmp lgsvidrhv. Qfhg pmld gszg dv nrhh blf wvziob. Zmw R droo gib vevibgsrmt R xzm gl tvg blf ivovzhvw. Qfhgrxv zodzbh kivezroh.

*** At the airport ***

The car journey all the way from Winnipeg to somewhere in Sota had lasted for ages. Even though I hadn’t really been aware of that, since I fell asleep as soon as they closed the doors behind me.

A frustrated voice had woken me up, “can you please stop drooling all over the leather upholstery?”

My eyes flew open, saliva was indeed smeared on the seat. I quickly wiped it off my face, where it had been present as well. “Sorry,” I mumbled, I then realized we had arrived at the airport, I quickly opened the car door and jumped out.

What I immediately noticed was the rain puddle I had landed in. My shoes and socks were soaking wet. Great.

“Maybe you should try to act more lady-like?” the driver said with a very disapproving tone, looking me up and down. He had already taken my guitar case out of the car and was about to put it right onto the wet street. I quickly grabbed the case out of his hands, clutching it close to my body.

The driver sighed, “there’s the entrance to the airport. Inside it will be clear which directions to follow.”

I made my way towards the entrance he had pointed at when I heard him mumble to himself, “why did I had to drive a barbarian?”

As I turned around, the car’s engine had been running again. I wasn’t sure if he could see me, nor I did I really care. I showed my middle finger to the car anyway. Asshole.

Never had I seen an airport before. It was freaking massive, people walking in all possible directions. Some carrying luggage with them, others with balloons that read “we missed you” or “welcome home”.

One day, my fam and I will be waiting at the airport, carrying one of those dumb balloons around. Coming to pick up dad.

I snapped out of my daydream by someone tapping me on my shoulder. “Miss Hayes, please come with me.”

Nodding, I followed the person not really having another choice since I had no clue which way I had to go. Maybe this is some insane kidnapper.

My heartbeat increased; did I just make a stupid mistake?

“Only one girl has arrived so far. You are to wait for the others before you can board the plane.”

Okay, no insane kidnapper then.

Unless.

This is a complete setup created by his crazy brain.

Panic filled my body, damnit how will I get out of this situation.

Okay, if I just push the person onto the floor, that will give me a chance to run for my life.

One.

Two.

Three.

I took a deep breath in, ready to make the push. But at the last minute the person side stepped which caused me to lose my balance. He looked at me in a very funny way, “please take a seat, the flight attendant will come get you in a few minutes.”

My cheeks turned very very warm, the redness might very well have equalled the red colour of a traffic light.

Trying to calm myself down, I slumped down into a chair. Yikes, only now became I aware of it again. My socks were still wet and cold. Sigh.

After taking a few deep breaths in and out, I noticed the other girl.

“Oh hey, you’re also a Selected?” I started, realizing it wouldn’t be a bad thing to talk to someone.

She turned towards me, “I am Brooke Lynn Sanders, but just call me Brooke please!”

Not knowing what else to do, I waved at her a little awkwardly. “hi Brooke, nice to meet you. My name is Octavia, but please call me Tavi.”

“Nice to meet you Octavia. Did you have a good journey?” I could already tell she did have the lady-like manners I had been lacking.

Oh god, I couldn’t possibly tell her about the drooling situation, so I decided to stick to a vague answer. “Yeah, it was alright thanks. What about your own journey? Which province are you from?”

“My send off from Dakota was a bit bumpy but I am here now. I wish they would have let me take the train though...”

Another girl arrived, also looking very much like someone the prince could end up with. Compared to these two, I was more of a rag doll.

Pushing my feelings behind that wall deep inside me, I waved her over, “oh yeah hi, please join us.”

We chatted some more for a bit, until Haven arrived.

The way she was walking, the only person I had seen walking like that was Long-Beard Logan, the homeless guy who could often be found near New Wave Records. He walked the same way, but he had one wooden leg.

Then Haven opened her mouth, a weird voice coming out, “hi.”

I noticed Brooke shared my confusion, “uhm hello?”

She took out her phone and typed something, it read ‘I’m Haven’.

My confusion hadn’t ebbed away, “are you alright?”

She typed some more, ‘yup:)) just got a bad cold! what are your names?’.

As a response to that we all introduced ourselves again. These girls didn’t seem to be that bad, hopefully the other Selected at the palace were the same. But the chance of that being true was small. Also, why did I care what the other girls were like? I wasn’t there to make friends, with them or with the prince. I had applied for the thing I needed most. Access to the royal library.

“Have you guys ever been on a plane before? This is all very new to me.” I admitted, trying to ease the nerves that had been building up inside me ever since my name had been picked in that draw.

Brooke had a very strong opinion on planes. Private planes more specifically.

Which came as a shock to me. The private plane part. I didn’t know what I was thinking but taking a private plane had never crossed my mind.

In the meantime, Brooke started talking about the CO2 emissions.

“How else would we get to the palace without having an endless journey? It’s not like there’s a teleportation device, right?” I said a little more vicious than I intended. The higher castes used planes all the time, if anyone had a cause in the destruction of our planet it was definitely them.

Brooke definitely had thought of it all, as she mentioned the outstanding quality of the Illéan train system. Clara chimed in to agree with her.

I decided to not mention my exact thoughts about the higher castes, given the fact that I had promised my friends back home not to insult anyone. So I just nodded my head, “yeah okay I understand your point.”

We were able to board the plane shortly after that. Brooke sat down in a window-seat and Clara nestled herself in the seat next to Brooke’s.

I took a chair on the opposite side of the plane, trying to create some sort of privacy for myself without being rude.

Haven sat down in the seat next to me and smiled at me.

The entry door closed; I could no longer contain my nerves. “Here we go I guess.” I tried to calm my breathing, but it didn’t really help. I tried to think of my family back home in Denbeigh, didn’t help either. I heard my dad’s voice in my head, it was like he was actually talking to me, “You are a strong girl, the flight will be over before you know it. Octavia, you can do this.”

A weird sound whisked my dad’s voice away, I looked over towards the source of the sound. It was Brooke choking on her drink. “Please don’t die,” I said. Her dying here would be a shitty start to this whole adventure. Besides, Brooke actually seemed like a nice person.

She coughed, “I am – I am trying.”

Haven mentioned her sibling, how they were close and stuff. She then asked if we had any siblings ourselves.

This provided me with the perfect distraction. I turned towards her, “yeah, I have three siblings. One older brother, a younger sister and a younger brother as well.”

Normally I would never share such personal information with someone I had just met but talking about them was the distraction I so desperately needed from this whole plane situation.

The others talked some more, but I just realized the one and only thing that would get me through this.

Music.

“If you guys don’t mind, I’m gonna listen to some music.” I said as I took my earphones out of my bag. “Haven would you like to join?” I asked her politely, given that she was sitting right next to me and it would have been quite rude otherwise.

She smiled at me and nodded, so I handed her one of the earphones. “I do have a very mixed taste in music so you’re in for a treat.” Maybe I could even make her listen to our own music, you know casually extending Five Whispers’ audience.

As a reply, Haven winked at me, “I love a girl with mixed music taste.”

Oh who would have thought, I had something in common with another Selected. I too liked people with a diverse music preference, since music says so much about a person. The quote ‘You are what you listen to’ was on one of the walls of New Wave Records music store. It was also my own personal life motto.

Clara and Brooke continued chatting, but I didn’t listen anymore. The music had taken a hold on me and it had only released me from its grip when the plane hit the ground in Angeles.

#selectionoc #practice challenge #fic

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thewritewolf · 4 years

Text

Eating Habits Chapter 15: Spring Show

Marinette’s a bundle of nerves as the much anticipated spring show finally arrives.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Marinette stood behind stage, lurking near the curtains as she took quick peeks out at the unfolding show. Everything was going just as planned - the models certainly knew what they were doing as they strutted down the catwalk, the building was packed full of people, it all looked professional and high end, just like a real fashion show.

Maybe that was why she was freaking out so much. Because just like a real fashion show, there were critics in the crowd. People with notepads and discerning looks and frowning face coldly regarding the models wearing the product of five months of hard work. Today was a big day - either her pieces would get picked apart or they’d be praised highly. Or even worse - no one at all would comment on them.

If she got critiqued, it would suck and she’d feel awful, but it’d at least be helpful. She could use that to improve herself, find out where she was going wrong and fix it. Praise would be even better - with a glowing review, she’d get an edge on the competition. It would be an extra lucky charm in her arsenal when going out into the big scary world that was the fashion industry.

But not getting any attention at all? Good or bad?

Sometimes being forgotten was the worst outcome of them all.

Her train of thought derailed when she saw Adrien walk down the stage. While it was impossible for her to forget just how handsome he was, seeing him like this was something else entirely. The light caught on his hair, making it gleam like gold. His stride down the catwalk was full of the confidence of someone who had been practicing for almost as long as they could walk. Her jaw dropped, but the best part was when he turned around and began walking back. His emerald eyes flickered to where she was, pinning her in place.

The boy had the audacity to wink, making her heart melt and flutter uncontrollably at the same time. Before too long, he was slipping his arms around her waist again, pressing a kiss the side of her face.

“Enjoying the show, lovebug?” He murmured in her ear.

She wiggled around to face him, looking up at his too-smug face. He was too cute for his own good and he knew it, which was even worse.

“I’m terrified out of my mind, but yes, it is nice to watch my boyfriend strut his stuff.”

He laughed, honest and pure. “Don’t worry, we’re doing great. Looking good isn’t even a challenge when you’ve given me such a great wardrobe to work with.” He cupped her cheeks and pressed a short but tender kiss to her lips. “I gotta get changed. I’ll be back after my next walk.”

She sighed after him before turning her attention back to the show. Adrien wasn’t the only one modeling her pieces, after all, and she needed to gauge the crowd’s reaction to everything.

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

If she thought that the show itself was bad, she hadn’t counted on what the after show was going to be like. Normally, she wasn’t exactly shy around people, but with her nerves frayed from the constant worry and knowing how much was riding on making a good impression on people… she wasn’t at her best.

Which made her all the more thankful for the friendly faces she saw arrive in support of her. Not just the ones she had made during her time at university - many of whom had shared the show with her - but older ones as well.

It was amazing how many of her friends from school had showed up to support their old class president. Rose had greeted her with a flying hug, followed by a more subdued one from Juleka. They were still going strong after all these years. Max and Kim and Odine gave their congratulations as well, as if she had already gotten some part in a big fashion house. Their faith in her was touching, and did a lot to calm her. But not nearly as much as when she saw a familiar wave of red hair forcing its way towards her.

“Girl! We’re so proud of you!” Alya said as she finally broke free of the crowd, wrapping her up in a hug. Hot on her heels was Nino, Chloe, and Kagami.

“Totally, dude!” Nino said, giving Marinette a hug as well once Alya gave her some breathing room. “All your stuff was absolutely swank!”

“Thanks you guys!” Marinette smiled widely at the two of them. Her eyes looked past them to Chloe, who noticed her stare.

“What do you want me to say? You did a great job; do you really need me to tell you that?” Chloe stumbled forward and huffed at Kagami. “Okay, fine. Your stuff wouldn’t have looked out of place at the New York runways I’ve been to.”

Kagami nodded approvingly before stepping up to Marinette and offering a shallow bow. The two of them locked eyes for a moment before giggling and sharing a hug.

“Don’t let her gruff exterior fool you - Chloe really was impressed by everything you put out. Given her upbringing, that means a lot.” As they pulled away, Kagami shot a meaningful glance toward Adrien and smiled. “But I suppose you already have someone like that.”

“Anyway - girl.” Alya grabbed Marinette’s shoulders and turned her so she was facing Alya. “This is a way big deal, so we’re gonna head over to your place and get ready to party. That alright by you?”

Marinette sagged in relief, the tension leaving her as she thought about what she had to look forward to after getting home. “After the past few weeks, I really need to unwind.” She narrowed her eyes. “But you better not get drunk before I get there. I want to relax, not babysit.”

“Chill, dude,” Nino said. “We’re gonna be bringing some stuff so we can just spend the night.” His face split into a grin. “The party is gonna be off the chain!”

Marinette and Adrien waved as their best friends left. More people came up to Marinette - professors, her parents, more of the people she knew from university. But there was one person that she didn’t know that stopped her just as the after party was winding down.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng?” The stranger said. She was sharply dressed in formal attire with a serious expression on her face.

“Um… yes? Hello, have we met?”

“Not yet, no. But there is something that we need to talk about…”

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

Adrien took the lead going home since Marinette was still too dazed to focus on such mundane details. She took another glance at the letter in her hand. Apparently it was one of only a handful of such letters, and the only one that had gotten handed out tonight. While she felt bad for her other classmates, that took a backseat to the overwhelming joy she felt coursing through her system.

Inside the envelope was an offer for a prestigious internship at a famous fashion house. It was exactly what she had been hoping for when she had been painstakingly making all those pieces with such care. This was exactly the thing that could give her the experience and connections she’d need to start her own brand. Or even just rise in the ranks of the fashion house, if that’s what she wanted to do. Either way, this was an amazing opportunity.

Marinette was so caught up in it that she had completely forgotten that there was going to be four people waiting inside her home for her. The instant she opened the door, there was cheering - although Alya made sure to be heard above the rest of them.

It didn’t take long for them to notice that she was holding a letter. And once she explained to them what it was about, the cheering got even more enthusiastic.

Alya was squeezing her tight. “Girl, I told you! Didn’t I tell you? You’re wonderful, they were bound to figure it out eventually.”

“It’s gnarly! I’ve heard of those dudes, and I don’t know anything about fashion at all.” Nino lightly punched Marinette’s shoulder. “You’re def in the big leagues now, bro.”

“Yes, she is really moving up in the world,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes. “I believe that’s why we were here to celebrate?” She held up a bottle of wine and shook it. “Or do you guys want to spend a few more minutes patting each other on the back stone cold sober?”

Cutting through the tension, Marinette dug some wine glasses out of the cabinet. “You’ve got a point.” She grinned at her former enemy. “Pour us some drinks, Chloe!”

Chloe blinked at her in surprise for a moment before grinning. “Finally, someone with some sense!”

---------

Later that night (or perhaps more accurately, very early the following morning), Alya and Nino had finally dozed off. They were bundled together in a blanket, the picture of an adorable couple as they slept the deep sleep of the truly drunk. Adrien had ducked out of the room a few minutes ago and Marinette suspected that he had finally crashed in bed. Chloe hadn’t even made it anywhere comfortable, instead leaning down face first on the kitchen table.

Marinette happened to be in the kitchen eating cheese and crackers when Kagami picked up Chloe as if she weighed nothing.

“Where are you two going?”

“Sorry,” Kagami began, “but I’m going to take Chloe home. She… tends to exaggerate her abilities when it comes to her alcohol tolerance. After everything that’s happened tonight… she’s going to want to wake up in a familiar bed. It’ll make the hang over just a little more tolerable.”

“Are you…” Marinette yawned, the long, long day finally catching up with her. “Are you going to be okay to drive?”

“I didn’t have anything to drink beyond the first glass of wine.” She paused. “It was a fine vintage, by the way. I always prefered French beverages over Japanese.”

There was a long silence between them. Without other people around to drive the conversation, they were left feeling awkward. Their friendship had started off well, but after Marinette and Adrien had started dating, it had soured it for a while. At least until Kagami made a discovery of her own.

They were better now, but those old shadows of confusion and jealousy had left their mark.

Kagami adjusted her grip on Chloe, holding her like she weighed nothing. It reminded Marinette that while Adrien had stopped fencing and training, Kagami never did.

“I’ll see you later?” Marinette said, sounding more like an invitation than a goodbye.

Kagami gave a small smile. “Of course. I would love to. And Marinette?”

“Hm?”

“You were phenomenal today, and you deserve that internship. I wish you all the best.”

Without another word, Kagami opened the door and walked out of the house. After staring at the empty space where she had been for a few minutes, Marinette felt a small smile spread across her face.

Ten minutes later, Marinette had curled herself into bed next to her handsome, warm boyfriend and dreamed peacefully.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #Adrienette #Nino Lahiffe #Alya Cesaire #DJ Wifi #Kagami Tsurugi #Chloe Bourgeois #Chlogami #ml fanfiction #my writing #Eating Habits #The Lucky One series

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whiskynottea · 5 years

Photo

An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35, Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46, Chapter 47, Chapter 48, Chapter 49, Chapter 50, Chapter 51 Chapter 52

AO3

Huge thank you to my beta, @theministerskat for correcting the same mistakes 53 chapters in without any complaint!

picture by: Kamryn Hinojos

Chapter 53. Dust and Smiles

When I lived in Scotland I missed the sun dearly. Sunny days were treasured, and I found myself smiling without any particular reason when the sunlight snuck between the curtains of my room in the morning.

But sometimes a person can have too much sun. And too much dust stuck to their body. And there is a point when you think of rain and realise a wistful smile has appeared on your face at the thought. It’s the same moment you realise there isn’t an inch of your body not coated in grime.

I reached that exact point on a quiet afternoon in June, two weeks before I left Zambia. Some would say it had taken me long enough.

I was left alone after treating the skin wounds of a couple of five-year-old boys that had gone out ‘to explore’. Their little feet had raised tons of dust as they ran away from the clinic and the first thing that came to my mind was that I was extremely tired of washing my hair every night only to feel it dirty again by noon the following day.

Then, just before the boys disappeared out of sight, one of them turned back to look at me, white teeth stark against his dark skin as he smiled, and waved goodbye.

And suddenly, I didn’t mind the dust that much. I didn’t mind the heat, or how heavy my body felt at the end of each shift. All that mattered was their smiles when they left the clinic.

My three months in Zambia were so full of experiences, I could hardly believe it hadn’t lasted longer. I learned how to talk to people who were in pain, how to heal them or -- when this was impossible -- how to make them feel better. I learned to listen to them, to search their eyes, to read their discomfort or pain in the way they moved. And I learned how a single smile can make your day, how two skinny arms wrapped around your body or two warm hands holding yours can fill your heart to the brim.

Spending my childhood with Lamb, I was used to living amongst people who were different from me. He’d taught me to look at people and see them for all they were. Humans. Different, beautiful, every one a worthy individual.

“All people are the same,” Lamb used to say. “All genuine smiles make the eyes crinkle, all hearts beat in the same way inside our chests, not aware of colour or tribe.”

In Africa, I saw life, and I saw death. I saw the universality of pain. I felt hands squeezing mine in terror and in gratitude. And I felt full. I felt alive.

When I first decided to volunteer I had thought I would find a piece of my mother in Africa. I believed I would discover who she had been, what she had pursued in life. I didn’t. And I wasn’t disappointed, because I had found a piece of myself in the faces I met in Livingstone, and I cherished that. And maybe -- just maybe -- that piece of myself was hers. Passed down to me, together with her amber eyes, an unbreakable part of myself.

Being a volunteer had been a full time job -- and a demanding one at that. But I didn’t want to leave, not yet. I had more to give, there were people here who needed me. But I knew that my time was up. In two weeks, I would feel Scottish air against my skin once more. I would feel Lamb’s arms hugging me for a few extended moments before he would push away to look into my eyes and pet my hair the way he always did. And a week later, I would be at Lallybroch. Jenny had asked -- demanded, actually -- to spend a week or two there. She had enough of the men, she had said when we’d texted. And true to her word to her brother, she had sent me pictures of the estate, in full bloom and beauty.

Jamie would come home after the summer term. We would spend two weeks together before his next term began and I would go to Oxford. To Oxford, where -- unexpectedly -- I would find a familiar face.

Robert.

He had been different since his personal confession. His arrogance and cheeky comments hadn’t abated, but there wasn’t an edge to his voice anymore. It felt as though he needed someone to know his story, even if that someone wasn’t a friend, even if it was just me. He clammed up after that and never talked about his mother again, apart from the time he’d told me it was her wish that had brought him to Zambia as a volunteer.

We started, however, talking about literature. One evening I found him reading that fantasy book I had finished a few months ago. And when the conversation turned to our future plans after Zambia, he had looked down at me with a smirk and proudly announced that he had been admitted to Oxford University. I’d almost spit my pineapple juice out and onto his face. After that, our expectations and dreams of studying at Oxford became the most common topic of our discussions. Robert would be studying economics, expected to inherit and work in his father’s wine business in Provence. That was a relief. The last thing I wanted was to have the self-centered, competitive French on my heels through medical school. From what I had learned about him in the few months we lived together, he didn’t like being bested by anyone. And neither did I.

Jamie was the first to know I had found a fellow Oxford student in the middle of Africa. He and I had been texting and sending photos all the time, and I kept changing my screen background, choosing the funniest of the pictures he sent me. My favorite picture of him though, was the one he had sent me right after I arrived in Zambia. He was wearing a wide, silly grin as he sat in the bleachers of Michigan Stadium, my Wolverine amongst the blue and yellow sea of other students. He had sent it together with a text, shouting, “MY FIRST SPRING GAME!”

Boys.

Despite the selfies Jamie sent me every day -- in class, on his way there, before training holding the towel I had bought him, or tucked in with his blanket at night in bed, my favorite part of the week was when I saw him during our calls every weekend. I was always trying to take in every detail of him during our video chats -- his beautiful eyes, the way his curls moved as he excitedly gesticulated, his voice.

I missed him and I knew he missed me too. Even when John was present in their dorm and Jamie wouldn’t say it, his longing was obvious in the way he looked at me.

Two weeks and I would be at Lallybroch, in Jamie’s room. It made no sense for me to fly straight to Michigan with Jamie having his final classes and preparing to sit for his spring term exams. I had looked for tickets to visit him right after the exams, but the fares were too high to even consider it.

We had agreed that it was not the ideal situation but okay nonetheless. We would survive it. At least, once I was back in Scotland, we would be able to call each other every day. As John had said, laughing, the force of the internet would be with us.

Jamie would come home at the end of August, after his summer term, and we would be at Lallybroch together, spending every single minute with each other.

“We have to make up for so much lost time,” Jamie had said to me during our last call, and the glint in his eye was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

A text on my phone brought me out of my reverie and I realised that I was still standing under the sun, alone, looking towards the far end of the road.

I found myself doing that a lot lately.

Scot: John’s cousin is a pain in the ass.

Sassenach: Hello to you, too.

Scot: Hi babe. John’s cousin is a pain in the ass. She called him, woke us up, and she demands that we pick her up from her hotel and show her around.

Sassenach: Well, she came to visit. Makes sense, no?

Scot: It. Is. Too. Early.

Sassenach: It’s 1 pm here!

Scot: You’re not helping. It’s 7 in the morning. Maybe I can send her there, then?

Sassenach: Is that the cocky cousin or the nice one? I doubt they’ll like the dust we have here, in any case.

Scot: The cocky one. Can I come there myself? Please?

Sassenach: Why aren't you on your way, already? :P

Scot: Don’t tempt me.

Sassenach: I don’t have anything to do right now.

Scot: We didn’t send you there to relax under the sun, Sassenach. Get that gorgeous round arse to work.

Sassenach: It seems I’ve healed all of Zambia.

Scot: So humble.

Sassenach: Always. I took lessons from the best.

Scot: Fuck you.

Sassenach: What? Since when are you talking like that? I need a selfie to make sure it’s really you.

I spent a whole minute wishing his selfie to load faster, but I ended up with a sleepy Jamie on my screen, which was worth the wait.

Sassenach: So it is you. These Americans are rubbing off on you, no? AND I DON’T MEAN IT LITERALLY. Also, fucking seems a bit difficult right now, seeing as you’re half a planet away.

Scot: But I’m ready, you know, right now.

I could almost see his pout and the challenge in his eyes when I closed my own, and I felt my cheeks turn red.

Sassenach: Okay. Shut up!

Scot: DAMN WAIT TILL I SEE YOU AGAIN. JUST WAIT.

Sassenach: Oh I’m looking forward to that.

Scot: Aaaaargh

Sassenach: Eloquent. Now get dressed, go get John and Hector, and show the girl around. She came all the way from Penrith to see Ann Arbor.

Scot: I just don’t get why I have to go, too.

Sassenach: John is your friend. This is what friends do. I spent all Saturday afternoon shopping with Louise.

Scot: I hate you.

Sassenach: Me too. Send me pictures?

Scot: Always. You too. Actually, I need one right now.

I took a picture of my dirty dusted face and sent it to him, grimacing when I saw how sloppy I looked.

Scot: You’re so tanned, I want to lick you.

Sassenach: Believe me you don’t. I’m dirty.

Scot: DIRTY? OMG STOP TALKING. I’m hard already and I have to get dressed.

Sassenach: You are ridiculous. Have I ever told you that?

Scot: Only a million times.

Sassenach: Good!

Scot: I’m going to take a cold shower AND CERTAINLY NOT THINK OF YOU.

Sassenach: I wish I was there with you.

Sending that, I actually snickered. His reply came in milliseconds.

Scot: You are a heartless, dangerous woman.

Sassenach: And yet you love me. Now go shower.

Scot: I do love you. And I’ll prove to you how much once I get my hands on you, you tease. Ttyl!

Raising my eyes from the screen, I saw Louise looking at me.

“You know I can tell when you’re texting Jamie, from that silly smile on your face?” she asked, keeping her arms crossed in front of her chest as if judging me.

“What can I do?” I didn’t try to hide my smile. “I found myself a good one.”

Louise nodded and came to stand next to me. A moment later a heavy sigh left her lips, and I noticed the shadows in her eyes. “Margaret was crying again. I tried to talk to her, but she won’t listen. She’s leaving next week and she doesn’t want to go back.”

“Makes sense.” Louise’s mood had been bad the last few days. “The moment she’ll be back, she’ll have to deal with reality. He won’t be there, and there will be no way to escape.”

“She keeps talking in her sleep. She’s having weird dreams, you know.” Louise twisted her rings absentmindedly, not looking at me.

“I know. I woke her last night because she was murmuring and thrashing about. Jeremy was awake too, and we kept her company until she was settled again.”

“I’m sorry to see her go, especially knowing she’s still so unstable. I think her family isn’t supportive and that terrifies her even more.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Two of the volunteers I got to know had come to Zambia carrying a great emotional load and needing a chance to escape. They were trying to heal themselves through healing the others. The universality of pain, all over again.

“Charlie called me.” Louise changed the subject, this time with a smile. “He said he misses me.” She rubbed her hands against her thighs, awkwardly, but met my eyes when I turned to look at her.

“Rather convenient, wouldn’t you say? Seeing as you’re going back home next week.”

“Not all of us are strong, Claire.” Her voice was harsh and I bit my lip, regretting being so straightforward.

“You know better, I guess.”

Louise sighed again. “I wish I did, actually. I don’t know what to do when I get back to Paris.”

I placed my hand on top of her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “You don’t need to decide right now. You can meet him, see what he has to say, how he’ll explain himself.”

Louise nodded, sleek brown locks of hair escaping her loose ponytail. “I wish we were as strong as you and Jamie are. Everything would be simpler.”

“Well, it’s not like everything comes easy and we don’t try at all. We’ve just decided that being together matters the most, and we’re not sacrificing what we have just because we’re not close. We’re both stubborn and it helps -- thus far, at least.”

My phone vibrated against my leg, and I unlocked it to see a picture of Jamie and John rolling their eyes, and a girl in the background.

Sassenach: Out, already?

Scot: Yeap. She’s fourteen but she’s so bossy I think John is afraid of her.

Sassenach: And you?

Scot: I’m being a good friend, as I was advised to be. I already regret it.

Sassenach: Where are you?

Scot: Out for breakfast. She had the longest order I’ve heard in my whole life. She actually ordered something from the menu and then changed every little bit of it. It was embarrassing.

Sassenach: Leave a good tip.

Scot: We will! Hector turned red as she kept going on and gave the waitress a shy smile.

Sassenach: I wish I was there, sitting at another table just to make fun of the three of you.

Scot: Believe me, babe, if you were here I’d sit right next to you at a table in another cafe.

Sassenach: Drama queen.

Scot: You haven’t met wee Geneva yet.

Sassenach: How come she visited without her parents?

Scot: They had promised her this trip if her grades were good. They were. She’s really smart, actually. It makes her more of a pain in the ass.

Sassenach: Maybe the three of you can teach her something, you know? Humility, for example.

Scot: Not a chance.

I stuck my tongue out, took a selfie and sent it.

Scot: Don’t you show me that tongue because I have dreams about it. And I hope you’re there alone.

Sassenach: I’m with Louise! She says hi!

Scot: Hello Louise! Take care of Claire for me, okay?

Sassenach: You realise I’m still the one reading the texts, right?

Scot: Just read that one aloud.

Sassenach: I’m capable of taking care of myself, thank you.

Scot: I know. My strong and stubborn lass. John looks desperate and Hector is huffing. I’m going to save them from their misery because I’m a good friend.

Sassenach: The best! Go save them, my gallant lad!

I huffed a laugh and turned my focus back to Louise. “It was quiet today.”

“Mmmm.” Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed under the sun.

“Whatever happens with Charlie, you’re going to be fine,” I said, using my most reassuring tone.

“Mmmm.”

I decided to join her and close my eyes for a bit, but an elderly woman and her daughter came into view. “Well, don’t blame me for that,” I murmured and nudged Louise, who opened her eyes, saw the patients, and shot me an accusing glance.

“Hello,” she said as she turned back to the women, and we both rose from the bench.

Who knew what waited for us once we got back to normalcy. For now, we had work to do.

Chapter 54

#thermodynamics #the first law of thermodynamics #jamie x claire #high school AU #college AU #outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction

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shinneth · 5 years

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Well in that case, let’s have 10-15 as well! It’s hard picking stuff that’s not already been revealed, you’ve done a hell of a job building the GA universe.

Hahaha, very good point! I have exploited the hell out of them. And I anticipate future exploitation will follow! And thankfully, these questions are much, much trickier to answer. So between this and the wrestling-watching commitments, this took me more than a day to compile~! But that’s a good thing since it was ultimately thought-provoking and I may or may not have stumbled upon a concept or two to utilize somewhere down the line.

10. What two songs, two books, and two luxury items do they take to a desert island?

(my literal-minded self is assuming this is one item each; it’s also the crueler of the two interpretations, which is fitting)

At first I thought I’d have to force my mindset away from GAverse since this kind of set-up wouldn’t naturally happen unless Steven and Peridot really wanted to challenge themselves... then the movie happened and now there’s actually a very convenient way this could happen without GA Peridot trivializing this!

(of course, I’m uncultured trash, so the music and books make this the most challenging bit...)

Peridot is bringing her goddamn tablet, of course. Even without wifi, she can at least continue logging events the old-fashioned way... and this is one damn scenario where a daily log would be useful. At least until the battery runs out on that. Though I wouldn’t put it past Peridot to find a way to create a stable power source for that sucker. Making a lifeline for her tech would be Peridot’s #1 priority that isn’t related to keeping Steven safe and sound. :P She could also manipulate the metal in it to access hard-to-reach resources, if at a limited capacity.

I see Steven bringing an instrument, namely that damned ukulele. Simple mind, simple needs, and of course he’ll just see this scenario as an opportunity to actually teach Peridot some proper music lessons.

Music and books are where it really gets tricky. For books, Peridot’s getting something practical. So of course she’ll bring Lord of the Flies and claim that’s her guidebook to survival on a desert island. Steven is more for sentiment and bring that Sailor Moon manga we’ve seen him keep around in his room. Sailor Moon (the manga especially) is full of romance, so that suits his priorities perfectly, lol.

Similar case can be said for music: Steven will opt for a nice, mood-setting romantic song while Peridot brings the most loudest and obnoxious music known to her. Because logically, music like that stands the greatest chance in drawing outside attention so they’ll be rescued!

Peridot might be more lax about the ordeal if there’s steady food and water for Steven to survive off of; otherwise I see her largely panicking about being stranded in an environment where resources Steven needs to live on are finite.

(I’ll admit, I got the idea of Peridot and Steven doing a duet of this song (which I bet would sound way better with their VAs) while in this situation...)

11. What do they hide from one another?

Now it’s GA Steven’s turn to trivialize the scenario! It’s officially nigh-on impossible for Peridot to hide one goddamned thing from Steven from GA3 onward... not that Peridot was ever that good at hiding shit from Steven to begin with.

In fact, a certain Post-GA story proved the only things Peridot truly can hide from Steven are secrets even she isn’t aware of, such as how exactly she first met Jasper and Lapis. The only reason Peridot was good at keeping that hidden from Steven was due to it being so traumatic that she made herself forget it in order to live with herself and move forward. So really, memories like that are the only things GA Peridot can hide from Steven at this point. There might still be a repressed memory or two, but overall she’s nearly out of stuff she could realistically withhold.

Outside GA, I feel like Homeworld has always been far more awful than it’s been made out to be, and Peridot would be the one who best knows just how awful life there can be. So if she’s hiding anything from Steven and has any prayer of keeping it that way long-term, it’s going to be the hell she used to have in her former life, or possibly the things she had to do to survive in said life. Of course she’ll still go out of her way to hide her insecurities and inferiority complex from Steven, but it’s practically a guarantee she won’t be able to keep that hidden for long.

Steven... is only slightly better about this. The fact that both suck at lying and maintaining a poker face, as brought up last time, really shoots him in the foot here. So I think I can answer for GA and regular headcanon in one go with him: anything related to Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz that Peridot hasn’t already learned about is probably gonna be stuff Steven keeps to himself about. He values Peridot so much as one of the only gems that has virtually no bias one way or the other about his mom, so the last thing Steven wants to do is fill Peridot’s head with the same “propaganda”, so to speak, that he and the rest of his friends have had drilled in their own heads for most of their lives.

Additionally more for GA, I think Steven possibly has more commentary about Peridot’s past life that he hasn’t already shared with her... but he’s going out of his way not to dredge up those old times. Especially when the Homeworld refugees will already be doing that for him on a daily basis (which logically would be why Steven would still be thinking about those times at all). After all the dirty laundry Steven has aired out in Peridot’s presence, I think he’d be keen on keeping anything still unsaid about their pasts/origins/heritage to himself solely for his girlfriend’s benefit. After all, Peridot being a uniquely fucked-up gem is still a pretty new concept that she’s still trying to adjust to. So Spinel’s gonna be a fun little addition to their lives in more ways than one!

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

Hm, tricky to answer for GA, since it feels like they’re already at the “serious” phase of the relationship in these Post-GA stories. Realistically, though, Steven and Peridot are gonna have their hands full being the Era 3 centerpieces and have very limited time for dating or other romantic shenanigans.

Plus, the workload stressed these two out to the point that within 3 or 4 months in, they already tried going all the way despite both of them knowing they were being morons for resorting to that this soon. And consequently, as my most recent story confirms, they fucked up not only their first time, but also their reputation among their circle of friends... which consequently gave the two even less time to be together.

Taking that into consideration, it’s probably safe to say Steven and Peridot won’t even have the time to officially keep their relationship a steady one until Era 3 stabilizes. That said, by the following year when Steven turns 17, they should officially be in the “serious” phase considering they’ll be ready to really go all the way. And the first change made when it gets serious is either going to be a demand to the Crystal Gems to give them daily private time - or even better - Steven and Peridot get their own shared bedroom. I actually like that one more.

Otherwise, GAverse aside, I think the change that signifies Steven and Peridot getting serious... hmm. I kinda like the concept that they independently get the idea to propose taking their relationship to the next level and surprise each other when they unknowingly spring that announcement at the same time, having made each other a trinket of some kind for each other to mark the occasion. Then like dorks, they’ll announce this to the rest of the Crystal Gems and they’ll be like “uh yeah we saw this coming a mile away, dumbasses, congrats”.

I also like the idea of Peridot being more self-conscious of her appearance when the relationship becomes more serious, which makes her a little obsessive and experimental with things like outfits, accessories... and god forbid, make-up. Of course, Steven won’t care about any of that... but that won’t make Peridot any less determined to look the part of a serious girlfriend!

13. When do they realize they should get together?

Definitely already a done deal in the GAverse as of Act III, Chapter 5. Had events played out differently, they would’ve officially been an item since the end of Act I. However, Steven coming back for Peridot even after she had given up hope of ever being rescued and being the one to fix her mind after White Diamond fucked it up royally - not to mention accepting her identity as Chartreuse, not giving a damn that she’s an abomination of scientific fuckery, or even that Peridot betrayed her friends (largely against her will, granted) - that makes for a more poignant moment when Steven tells Peridot that even after all the fuck-ups she’s made in Act III, that he still considers them boyfriend-girlfriend, and so should she.

So, thinking out of the box is trickier since we still have only a bare-bones grasp of what all’s happened in the time gap between seasons. Honestly, the most logical time for them to realize they should hook up should’ve been when Connie shunned Steven while Lapis abandoned Peridot. At the very least, any episode post-Raising the Barn should’ve been a golden opportunity for Steven and Peridot to realize how much they really love each other.

And since the movie was annoyingly heavy-handed with the Connvese teases with virtually no Stevidot interaction while season 6 as a whole is a still giant ? ... then it’s a matter of blindly grasping at straws to think when else they should hook up. We know they’re due for a bonding moment at some point in season 6, though. Hopefully it’s not about Lapis, but if it isn’t, I suspect it might have involve fusion... and I still like the headcanon of Peridot only being able to fuse with Steven due to being an Era 2. Not just an Era 2, but a type of gem that logically should never have a reason to fuse since peridots are not meant to fight. Their limb enhancers give them a means for self-defense, but that’s it. But some exclusivity with the fusion - plus Steven being the one to reassure Peridot that she’s not inadequate as a teammate (I imagine even in 2 years, she’s likely to be the weakest Crystal Gem).

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?

Welp! I guess for gems I’ll have to think of some kind of equivalent (I guess chipped/cracked/destabilized/corrupted... ooooor what’s expected of Peridot to deal with once she’s got buns in her oven?), but for Steven having the cold...

Well, whether it’s GA Peridot or Not-GA Peridot, they’ll behave similarly but one will have a much wider range of capabilities than the other. Not that this really means much for GA Peri in this field, since she has no real comprehension of what a human illness is like and therefore can’t just will Steven’s illness away. In both cases, Peridot would first seek help from the likes of Pearl, Greg, or Connie. If Peridot’s left to deal with this solely on her own, however, she’ll probably give Steven a thorough interview of every single little symptom he has, then use Google-Fu to get instructions that she’ll follow to the goddamn letter.

Hopefully she doesn’t come across an instruction worded in a way that she’ll interpret it in some other way entirely because she doesn’t understand the phrasing, because that could lead to chaos easily.

In the meantime, she’d ask Steven like every other minute if he needs something unless he’s asleep. And since Peridot has no innate understanding of this phenomenon, she’ll relentlessly study Steven’s mannerisms, symptoms, and actions until she feels she’s achieved enlightenment. That, or Steven gets annoyed and tells her to cut it out... though she may argue she’s constantly staring at Steven like a creeper for educational purposes.

She won’t leave his side regardless, though, and since she’s not at risk of catching his cold, Peridot’s of course going to snuggle with him all the same and volunteer to be his supplementary cushioning.

If Peridot is ailing... depending on what it is, Steven will similarly ask Pearl and probably Garnet before doing anything on his own if they’re available to him. Google’s not gonna give him the info he needs, of course, so Steven’s got a bit of a tougher job in keeping Peri healthy. Then again, Steven’s a motherfucking healing saint, so whether he’s GAverse or not, Steven could easily trivialize this since he’s basically the show’s white mage. GA Steven will have the advantage of being able to read exactly how Peridot is feeling, so he won’t need to interrogate her to figure out the source of her pain/discomfort/illness.

Of course, neither Steven would just observe her like a weirdo (like his girlfriend would, basically); he’d be right there for hugs and cuddles and wouldn’t dare leave Peridot’s side unless he really needs to use the bathroom. But even then he’d feel so guilty leaving her alone for even a second, so he’d rush it.

Steven might even be corny enough to try chicken soup on Peridot. And of course if there’s buns in the oven, Steven will treat Preggerdot like absolute fucking royalty.

Bonus: Accurate video representation of how Steven and Peridot will interact when she’s in labor

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15. When they watch a film what do they choose and why? Who gets the final vote?

Something with good physical comedy; that way Peridot is more likely to get some entertainment out of it on a first viewing without having to ask Steven what the joke is while he explains it.

For some reason, I was thinking Liar Liar.

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Since Peridot and Steven are so painfully transparent when they try to lie, they’ll feel much better about themselves watching something like this!

As for final vote, I think Steven would be the gentleman and let Peridot have the final vote. Peridot would likely think at least on some occasions that the final vote should go to Steven since he knows movies in general way better than she does (and therefore would have better overall judgment in what to pick), but Steven would just insist that he’s letting Peridot choose because since he trusts her instincts, she should, too.

There’s always a coin toss if they end up in a stalemate. :P And this would apply both for regular canon and GAverse.

Much more challenging round this time! Love it! I’ll always invite more questions, though at this point I may need to find some more memes to reblog, fff... here’s the meme if anyone still wants to snag questions from it and ask me from here!

Feel free to pass this headcanon BS to your fellow Stevidot peoples! There’s no such thing as too much content for this blessed ship.

#steven universe #peridot #su peridot #stevidot #gem ascension #answered asks #nice anons #shipping #ship meme

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jasbethso · 4 years

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A Year of Bittersweet Capstone

This school year has been extra challenging for us. Not just because it is our last year in high school but because of our capstone subject. Every time I hear that word, it seems very daunting and bothering at some point. Knowing that I have a few knowledge about wirings and how it works, I have already prepared myself on the amount of stress capstone may bring. As I am writing this personal blog, it amazes me on how I can look back at some of the hardest part of this school year and how I can finally say 'Salamat God kay tapos na'. My biggest achievement is finally relating to Aristotle's 'The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.' This is truly hard yet rewarding task for all of us. I am very glad we are able to make our project as we have envisioned it to be.

Imagine if we were given the whole school year just to work on this project without other tasks, it would be the ultimate dream. Flying agricultural drones and robots equipped with artificial intelligence? If only we were given enough time for it, it would not be impossible. Of course, in reality, there are a lot more to do and accomplish in school. We had to juggle our time between doing school works for the whole day and going to a group activity for this project after school.

To be honest, I think our school is not ready for this subject and so are the students. The school is introducing robotics in the subject but there are only few teachers who are knowledgeable on programming. We cannot just solely rely on those Indian people on YouTube to teach us all of these things. Programming is new to us, especially we haven't had any computer-related subjects. We only had ICT subject when we were in 7th grade and nothing else. I also know some students in previous school years having the same subject who had the same struggle. However, since this is part of the new curriculum of K to 12, we cannot do anything but to bear with it. Also, as a student, we also wanted to do our best for the project but we lack support. It is ironic that the school is not even initiating a seminar or a workshop for programming but is having a subject for robotics. This is our struggle. I would not be shocked if other students would encounter this problem too in the next coming years. Unless the school would really take it seriously in coming up with ways on how to make students be ready and equipped for this subject and the so-called 'Industry 4.0', everything would be fine.

I salute all those programmers in YouTube who are very willing to share their innovative ideas to their subscribers. This allowed us to at least have an overview on how to properly connect and wire all the sensors. Following the instructions in YouTube was somewhat easy but programming was the hardest part since some were not willing to share their codes for the Arduino. Although they also film their codes but sometimes it is just 2 seconds of the whole instructional video. It's funny how we were so desperate to know the code that we had to screenshot some clips of the video and zoom in just to get an idea of it. We were totally clueless at the start of the year.

During our second semester, we were thankful that we had the subject Empowerment Technology. This subject was not a burden to us like how other subjects would feel like. It even made things easier for us by guiding us what to do in our projects. Calling it a blessing in disguise? I'd say yes. Our subject teacher, Sir Rae John Arango, was very willing to help us finish our project. He even set a target date for the project. I can clearly remember when he said 'Dapat before kayo magbakasyon tapos na 'yang mga projects niyo para pag Christmas wala nang problema'. Who would not want to enjoy the holidays, right? But of course, knowing that we are procrastinators, we did not meet that target date. Sir Arango still helped us program our projects despite being busy with his Continuous Improvement Project. Even if there were 11 groups for Capstone, he managed to help us all. I truly admire how he was very passionate in helping us one group at a time. To be honest, our capstone subject was only making us knowledgeable on the proper ways in conducting the research but not on how to do the actual project itself, on how to program and build the actual robot. I bet we are all very grateful that the Empowerment Technology subject are able to do this. Doing the project was somehow a lot easier for us by since our teacher was guided us on what we need to download, search for and other sensors to buy. Sir Arango is an angel sent from heaven to us struggling students or what I prefer to call 'frustrated programmers'. We owe the success of our projects to you Sir. (Sir Arango, if by any chance you are reading this, beke nemen)

We were on our track, fully confident that we are going to be able to at least start programming our project, AgriCop. When we thought everything is going in our favor, Typhoon Tisoy came. There was a blackout in our whole province. When we thought things couldn't get any worse, we were all wrong. There was no signal for us to communicate with other groupmates and to even just search in YouTube for the project. The scariest part of it is that I even had to charge our laptop using the generator while knowing the risks of the fluctuating current. I just needed to start doing the codes but then there was no internet to search for reference. We ended up doing nothing for the whole month of December. A month away from Capstone and a month before cramming and stress because of it.

Working in a group of five made it a lot easier. Although other groups have more members in their team, I mostly prefer to work in small groups. We are the only group with all girls which made it quite difficult since when need to immerse ourselves in mechanical and electronics. We are quite good in making arts and crafts, designing things, doing calligraphies and other artworks. However, this is the complete opposite of what we are used of doing. We had to let go of the paint brushes, scissors and color palettes. Instead, we learned how to properly handle screwdrivers, how to use a grinder and most especially how to solder. It was an intimidating task for all of us but we were open to learning new things. I am also grateful to my brother who taught us how to do all of these things. We did not know what tools to use but he was there to let us borrow all of the things that we needed for the project which allowed us to save a lot of money instead of buying new tools. I am so proud of what we have learned and achieved.

We were already warned by our teacher at the start of the school year that this capstone project would really be worth a lot of money. We had to save money from what my parents give as our allowance in school because sometimes it is quite embarrassing to ask extra money from my parents for this. Also, we had to buy the most basic parts first since our group did not have enough money to buy all things at once. Capstone even tested our negotiating skills since we have figured out that some of the things we have ordered were not useful for the mechatronic system of AgriCop. So, we had to sell it to other groups who needed extra relay drivers and arduino board. We were also lucky since one of our groupmates have vouchers and her shipping fee for her orders is always 50 pesos only. We also had to wait for Shopee's promo such as during 11.11 and 12.12 Christmas sale for us to get discounts. We also asked for scrap materials like aluminum tubes to reduce our expenses. Overall, we spent about 6 thousand for this robot. For me, that is already a large amount of money since it is like the salary of a normal government employee for a month of work. I am very thankful that our parents were very supportive and would understand us if sometimes we go home late just for this project. Seeing how the AgriCop works and operates is worth the amount of money that we have invested for it.

Last week has been the most tiring week in my entire existence. It was the very first time that I have experienced studying the whole day in school, going straight to our classmate's house, eating at around 8:30 or 9:00 in the evening, losing track of time, staying awake until 4 o' clock in the morning and going to school at 7:30 AM. We have gone through this cycle every day last week. It was physically and mentally draining. We also had different summative tests and projects to pass aside from the AgriCop. We did not even have the time to review or even do requirements in other subjects. Staying up late was the most challenging part of it. My father would always remind us to get enough hours of sleep but at that time we just cannot. We were deprived of sleep. The schedule of final defense was moved a week earlier than the planned date. Every single day we were required to pass different outputs in capstone. At that time there was no room for 8 hours of sleep but more space for eye bags and eye strain. We already divided the tasks for each of us. I was assigned to work on the write-up. There was this one time that I can't really handle my sleepiness anymore that I took a nap for an hour not minding how many mosquitoes were already buzzing in my ears and biting my arm. Four o' clock in the morning is our usual 'dismissal' in the group activity. We are so blessed that the father of one of our groupmates would drive each us to our houses even if it is already early in the morning. My father also does the same thing when we decided to do group activity for the last few days in our house. We are very grateful and blessed.

We have invested so much in this project, our effort, money, sleep and sacrificing time for other subjects. At some point, we felt like we were the underdog out of all the groups but I am glad that each of us did not let go of that little hope that we can pull this through. We were all tired. I saw it in the eyes of my classmates and even in my own groupmates' as we go to school in the morning after probably not getting enough rest at all. I heard their voices saying 'Di ko na aram ang uunahon', 'Papano na ini', 'Di pa ngani ako nangarigo nan nagmahaw'. We were all going through the toughest part of our life as graduating students. I always believe that the only way to overcome a situation is not to run away from it but to get through it with high hope. I am very thankful that I have groupmates who would always lift each other up and still laugh at the dumbest things that we would do at 2 AM. The perfect term to describe all of us is 'sabaw'.

We were nervous and at the same time excited during the poster presentation of our project. This was the time that we did not have any practice of our script. We just had the time to read the lines once and then the first judge already stood in front of us. We were glad that they get to appreciate our projects and made suggestions for the design of AgriCop. There was this one science teacher which was part of the judges who made me teary-eyed. Not because I was scared or intimated but because she understands what we have gone through and she was really listening and paying attention to every detail that we are saying. She told us that she really appreciates the Mechatronic System of AgriCop that is not complicated compared to other groups. She also mentioned about how it could help farmers to easily replicate our study using mechatronics. She appreciates how we put into consideration the situation of the farmers and the knowledge that they have when it comes to programming. In every word that she mentioned, I could sincerely feel her genuine appreciation to our project and how we, girls, are able to come up with AgriCop. Finally, there was at least this one teacher who can relate to all of our struggles and how hard research is. She understands our situation and acknowledges all the efforts that we have put in this project. We needed that extra boost of support at those moments. I would forever cherish all the kind words that she said to us.

The day of the final defense came. At this same day, we were also preparing for the awards in school so it made it extra hassle for us. We were practicing the script at around 10 AM and also writing down all the possible questions of the panel. I remember how nervous we were entering the STEM B room to present our project. We weren't able to finish our presentation since we exceeded the time limit and the panel already told us to show the remaining slides. The teachers were very kind to us which is the complete opposite of what we were expecting. I guess they already knew the amount of effort, money and sleepless nights we have invested for this. They commended and congratulated us for the project. They also mentioned that they witnessed how our research studies have evolved from simple studies in junior high to a research product with quality. We feel blessed that the AgriCop functioned properly and cooperated well with us. Leaving that room made us all sigh in relief. Finally, our capstone project is done. After a whole school year of working on it, it is already finished. I remember how we were all jumping around outside the room saying 'Tapos na!'. We also had a mini celebration and ate sotanghon and puto which was the food left for the panels. I can still feel that relief we all felt at that moment. A truly rewarding moment.

Capstone has been a very tough subject for all of us. We weren't prepared for it, especially in programming but we are thankful that our Empowerment Technology teacher guided us all the way. Being in a group of all girls did not became our weakness, instead Capstone allowed us to work even harder and build stronger friendship. I will leave all of the stress, rants, negative emotions, will and hopes that I have had doing this project here in my blog. As I venture more on robotics in college or in my future job, I'll look back at this and remember how we all started. I'd remind myself of a struggling student without any idea of robotics but manages to overcome it and finish strong.

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fullbeaumonty · 5 years

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Ten Lords A-Leaping (Or, in this Case, One Excited Duke)

This is my contribution to the 12 Days of Cordonian Christmas for Day 10 - Ten Lords A-Leaping!

Pairing: Maxwell x Lydia, Lydia and Joni (OC friend)

Word Count: ~4,500

Rating: Let’s call it PG for language. This is pure fluff, though.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Joni and Oliver.

Author’s Note: I’ve wondered about the friends that our transplanted MCs left behind - in New York in the case of TRR. Certainly she had friends and I’ll bet they miss each other and find ways to stay in touch across the miles. For this story and in my universe, I gave my beloved Lydia a dear friend from back home named Joni (whom Lydia sometimes calls Jones as a nickname). Inspiration for this story and a moodboard are at the bottom - they’d give too much away if I put them here!

To my own real-life Joni - you already know this story is a Christmas gift for you. Your friendship is a gift in my life, as well as the million and a half things I’ve learned from you and the endless encouragement and insight you’ve given me. If I could knit, I would knit you a squid scarf that I’m certain you would wear with Maxwell levels of pride. You deserve that and so much more. I love you.

12 Days Tag List: @ao719 @blackwidow2721 @bobasheebaby @brightpinkpeppercorn @fullbeaumonty @hopefulmoonobject @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @leelee10898 @riseandshinelittleblossom @speedyoperarascalparty @kenjikatsoros @zaffrenotes @mind-reader1 @cocomaxley, @blackcoffee85 @likethetailofacomet @endlessly-searching-for-you @tornbetween2loves

Personal Tag List: @breaumonts, @thedepthsremember, @ritachacha, @hellospunkiebrewster, @alj4890, @dancetothestoriesinyoursoul, @littlecrookedheart

Up next for Day 11 is @itsstillnotwhatyouthink!

*********

She’d started the project with an Etsy-purchased pattern and a dream, no experience and little more for inspiration than a long-forgotten comment he’d probably just said to make her laugh in the moment. But Lydia listens, and moreover, she thinks, mental gears in constant motion. She’d tucked that idea away until she realized as the leaves began to turn that she should probably get started on such an ambitious project if it was going to be done in time for Christmas.

There was so much joy in the activity then, tools and supplies hidden away in a box, in a drawer, in a rarely-used room, every caution taken to be sure this would always remain a surprise. But that was before the twenty YouTube tutorials (“...for absolute beginners, my ass!”), the half-dozen failed cast-ons and dozen and a half restarts when she had to pull everything apart and start over to fix yet another mistake. It’s late November and the project she can see so clearly in her mind is little more than a heap of mottled red yarn on her lap.

She stares out the window at the distant mountains, trying to calm herself through her frustration. Checking her phone, she does some quick mental time zone math to be sure it’s not too early on the East Coast before sending a message to Joni, who not only knew how to knit but also always knew how to make her feel as though she could take on the world. And if the world was in her reach, certainly this project was as well.

After a few moments, the phone screen lights up, and Lydia smiles.

*********

They have no shortage of friends - noble, common, or otherwise - but every once in a while she still feels the pang of missing her friends back in the States. Just because this is a wonderful, charmed life doesn’t negate the fact that she left another life behind that had its own positives. Thank goodness for messaging apps and Pictagram to keep her far-away friends feeling at least a little closer.

The familiar tri-tone ring of Skype fills the quiet of the room before her dear friend’s face pops up on the laptop’s screen, pixelating for a moment, then returning. Joni grins and squeals, “Lyddie!” and the smile Lydia returns as she waves at her friend hurts her cheeks, but it’s accompanied by the tangible ebbing away of her earlier frustration.

“It’s so good to see you! You look great! New hair?”

“Of course! I loved the lavender, but it fades so quickly.”

“Well, that shade of red is perfect for you.” Lydia pulls her long brunette waves over one shoulder. “Still plain Jane brown over here.”

Joni waves her off. “Hush, you’re gorgeous.” She props herself up on her elbows on the desk and smiles at Lydia. “I miss you, Lyd. But it looks like royal life is treating you well.”

“We’re nobility, my friend, not royalty. Big difference.”

“Yeah, huge.” Joni laughs and Lydia joins her, happy just to see her friend. It’s not the quiet coffee shop filled with hipsters writing manuscripts where they were used to meeting, but right now, it’s a close second.

“So…” Joni rubs her hands together excitedly. “You want some help to knit a scarf, huh?” Lydia nods, looking down from the camera for a moment to email her a link to the picture and pattern. Joni’s smile fades as her jaw drops slowly and her eyes go wide as she scans the instructions. “I thought you were trying to knit a scarf scarf, as in, a very long rectangle. I figured maybe you were being ambitious with something like a cable knit and it was giving you trouble. This is…” she trails off for a moment. “I mean, it’s doable, but it’s another level. And you’ve never knitted before?”

She shakes her head. “Never.”

“You never did things by half measures, either, Lyd.” Joni looks up from the pattern, brow furrowed. “I’ll help you the best I can, but I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea how to change yarns like that.”

“Jones,” she sighs, “I don’t even know what ‘changing yarns’ means. I’m in way, way over my head.” She lifts the tangled pile of yarn so Joni can see it on her own screen. Her friend pulls a face when she sees the mess. “I know, right? Yikes.”

“Yikes,” Joni agrees.

Lydia watches in silence as Joni reads the instructions in detail, squinting at the screen and silently mouthing a phrase here and there. Anxiety creeps back in by the moment. Maybe this was impossible. She hates that word, but she also hates the fact that she’s had this in mind for the better part of a year and it’s now exactly one month to Christmas, with no end in sight for the project.

Finally, Joni looks up at her again. “You know what, I love a good challenge. I can’t exactly teach you more than the basics, because most of this is all new to me, but I’ll learn along with you and we can knit this thing together. What do you think?”

Lydia can’t speak for the lump in her throat, but her smile and nod say “thank you” for her.

*********

Joni is exceedingly patient, more patient than Lydia would be if the tables were turned, as she teaches her the essentials of knitting.

“Okay, basic knit stitch. Bring this needle up into the first stitch, behind your left-hand needle. Wrap the yarn between the two needles, counter-clockwise for you since you’re looking down on it, then pull that strand through the stitch. Angle the needle downward if you need to, like this.” She holds her needles up to the camera and slowly goes through the motions again as a visual. Lydia nods and tries it herself. “We’re going to knit this row and purl the next one, okay? The instructions say to count 66 stitches for each.”

If these are the same instructions given by strangers on the many YouTube videos she’d watched over the past month of confusion and frustration, she wouldn’t know. She makes mistakes. She needs several steps repeated. She unravels parts of her work in frustration and begins again. But now she understands. Maybe all it took was the encouragement of a familiar voice. It’s amazing to look down and finally see progress.

The two friends talk while they knit, more words spoken aloud between them in these few weeks than in the past year and a half. Theirs is an odd relationship, friends who met online as strangers through a shared interest years ago, happily discovering over time that they lived relatively close to one another. In what feels like a former life now, they would meet halfway for coffee every few months for marathon chats and so much laughter. She’s grateful for text messages, but her heart twists for a moment when she glances up at the screen, watching her friend skillfully knit while she tells a story about the customers at her job. Lydia simply wishes she could hug her again.

It has always amazed and delighted her that she seems to learn something new about life, the world, or herself after a conversation with Joni. She’s learning about stockinette and right-leaning stitches, purl-wise and knit-wise and bind-offs, of course, but as the scarves take shape, their discussions deepen beyond even the light conversation between dear friends to fears, futures, and more.

Lydia shares stories of the animals in the menagerie and Joni shakes her head and laughs over Maxwell’s peacock obsession. (“Did I tell you about the time he officiated a peacock wedding?”) They ponder whether Joni’s boyfriend James will pop the question any time soon (“If he does, I hope he doesn’t do it at Christmas, that’s so cliche.”) and sometimes Lydia calls out a hello to him as he walks through the room in the background. (“Say hi to Max for me!” “You can text him yourself, you know!”)

As they start in on knitting the many stitches of the long, long tentacles, Joni asks about their corgi. “So you just have Wigglesworth, then? I’m really surprised that a couple with a panther, pandas, and a pride of peafowl only has one pet in the house.” They look up at each other and laugh at her unintentional alliteration.

Lydia’s smile is wistful and her hands still for a moment. “You know, I realized recently...now that we’re settled in here, it feels strange not to have a cat or two padding around. I’ve always had a cat. It was...just…” She takes a deep breath. “Charlie died eight days before I met the guys. The apartment was so lonely without him, and so sad. It made the decision all that much easier when Maxwell asked me to come to Cordonia with him. I wasn’t leaving anything behind, really.” She looks up at Joni quickly in the camera and waves her hand awkwardly. “I mean, I left you, of course. And Daniel. I do hope he’s okay. But...you knew what I meant, right?”

Joni smiles. “I knew what you meant.”

“So how’s your sweet little feline?”

She angles the laptop screen downward to show the old grey tabby asleep on her lap, completely unfazed by the yarn around him as he purrs in his sleep. “He’s sweet, but not so little. And he’s great. 12 this year.” She scratches behind his ears and smooths her hand across his fur affectionately. “I’m sure any man who saves a stray corgi off the street - which I still think is unbelievable, Lyd - and adopts two wild red pandas for you as a gift would love a few cats running around that big place with you. Why don’t you talk to him about it?”

Lydia recounts her stitches, having lost her place while lost in thought, and continues knitting. “I will, thanks.” She gives Joni a half-smile. “Crazy cat ladies unite, right?”

“Hell yes”

********

There are several close calls during this clandestine crafting operation. Once, retreating quickly, quietly, from her designated knitting room toward the end of the hall, she’d come upon him backing out of another rarely-used guest room and shrieked in surprise and fright in the shadowy hallway.

He’d jumped back against the door, hand still grasping the doorknob. “Whoa, Lyd, watch it! You’ll scare…” Catching himself, he’d paused for one long beat. “…everyone.”

“Who is everyone?” Still clutching her chest above her racing heart, she’d looked around the empty corridor, silent but for the sound of her pulse roaring in her ears. Before thinking, she’d asked, “And what are you doing up here?”

“What are you doing up here?”

Shit.

Knowing there was no use attempting even a white lie to her ever-perceptive husband, she’d decided quickly on an evasive truth. Hands up in surrender, she’d leveled with him. “It’s Christmas, Max. You can have your secrets, and I’ll have mine. Deal?”

“Deal,” he’d responded, satisfied.

Joni looked at her quizzically when they’d connected for a knitting session several days later. “Are you in a different room today?” she’d asked, as they each got out their white yarn and started in on the difficult task of stitching the eyes.

With less than two weeks to Christmas and so much work put into this surprise already, Lydia couldn’t be too careful.

*******

The suckers nearly do her in. After two days of working on them, not one is truly circular, and none are spaced correctly. Lydia finally throws down her needles and yarn in a frustrated huff, screeching in a manner rather unbefitting a duchess, “This is bullshit! Why did I ever think this was a good idea?”

Joni, who has been the model of patience so far in this endeavor, looks up from her perfect row of suckers two tentacles ahead and levels a stern gaze at her, gesturing with one needle toward the camera. “Because that man is honestly such a good, he changed your life forever and he deserves this insane scarf at the absolute least and the world at most. Because it’s your first Christmas together and this is worth it, I promise. Because you’re incredible and you can do anything you put your mind to, and I know you know that. Do you need more reasons? I have more.”

She shakes her head no and picks up the project again, simultaneously cowed and calmed, giving her friend a small smile as she counts the stitches to the placement of the next sucker. “Thanks, Jones,” she says quietly.

Joni returns her smile. “Anytime.” Looking back down at the yarn in her hands, she asks brightly, “So what do you think Maxwell got you for Christmas?”

********

Finally, finally, the project is complete. It’s a woeful imitation of the pattern’s accompanying example photo, but it’s done, and it’s clearly a squid, so that’s really all that matters at this point. Joni completed her scarf several days ago and has so far spent this knitting session sharing her tips and tricks for finishing up the stitches and making sure everything is in place. Lydia’s not sure everything actually is in place, but Christmas is four days away and when she holds the scarf up, nothing falls off. She and Joni both decide on success.

“You know, this may be the coolest scarf I’ve ever knitted...the coolest thing I’ve ever knitted! It’s certainly the most interesting one I’ve ever owned! The most flair I’ve ever added until now was tassels along the edge.” Joni’s smile is bright and genuine, clearly proud of both of them. “This is a real accomplishment for me - I can’t imagine how you must feel!”

“I feel like I can’t thank you enough.”

Joni waves her hand at the camera. “You’re welcome, of course, but hey, I learned something new. That’s never a bad thing. And this time together…” She shakes her head slightly and trails off for a moment, collecting herself before looking back up. “I’ve missed you, Lyd.”

She swallows against the lump in her throat and smiles at her friend. “Me too. I think we’re overdue for a trip to New York. But you and James are always welcome here!” She gestures toward the room behind her. “We have twenty-two guest rooms just waiting for guests!” Thinking a moment, she amends, “Well, nineteen. One is Wigglesworth’s room, we just started working on the ball pit room I promised Maxwell, and I think this one will become my knitting room.”

“Hey, I know!” Joni exclaims, face lit up with excitement. “We can keep doing this! Not inordinately difficult squid scarves, obviously, but if you actually enjoy knitting, we can meet up this way to work on our projects together. Like a little knitting club! But we need a name…”

Lydia delivers her suggestion proudly as though it’s a royal decree. “We shall henceforth be known as the Knit-wits!”

“Oh, come on,” Joni groans. She shakes her head but can’t hide her smile. “Does Max appreciate your ridiculous puns?”

“Jones, you have no idea.”

********

She’d spent so much time researching how to knit before finally asking an expert that almost all her personalized ads on Pictagram are now knitting-related. She’s scrolling through idly at her desk in a quiet moment to herself when she comes across the perfect gift for her friend - a black t-shirt printed with a lovely woman whose hair is made of multicolored yarn, knitting needles sticking out at odd angles for hairpins, a beatific smile on her face as she reaches up with scissors to snip off a section. The fact that it says Yarn Goddess is the icing on the cake.

She orders it immediately, giddy with excitement. It won’t quite make it to New York by Christmas, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

********

The gift-giving portion of this lovely, quiet Christmas morning is wrapping up. New clothes - including several lacy pieces for Lydia - have been tried on and modeled, a small pile of items both fun and practical sit on the coffee table in front of them, and new books are stacked on the floor. Paper and bows are strewn everywhere. They’ve gone through half a box of tissues between them (“We’re ridiculous, you know that? What couple cries this much on Christmas morning?”) as gifts both special and simply surprising have been opened.

Maxwell is currently at the Christmas tree, giving his latest gift pride of place front and center. As he finds just the right spot for the ornament, she reaches up again to touch her new necklace - a simple aquamarine solitaire, so beautiful it needs no extravagant setting. The stone is a hue-perfect reminder of the crystalline ocean outside their honeymoon villa, a blissful memory in gemstone form. She watches him hold the ornament in the palm of his hand for just a moment after he hangs it on the tree, looking at it once more, and her chest tightens with emotion. She honestly never knew she could love someone so much.

He doesn’t even bother with a tissue this time, wiping his eyes with his hand as he flops back down on the sofa next to her, their knees touching on the center cushion. She smiles softly at him, thrilled that one of the gifts she was most excited to give him this morning had obviously hit its mark.

“Where did you even find that, Lyd? It’s amazing. Perfect.”

“Ah, Americans love to personalize things. We’ll personalize anything if it has enough space to write a name. And never underestimate the power of Google...though finding an ornament with a hippo couple under the mistletoe does seem like serendipity.” She looks over to the ornament on the tree, the branches sparkling even in the bright light of late morning. “But we know a thing or two about serendipity, don’t we?”

“We do,” he responds quietly, leaning back against the cushion with a smile. She’s eager to share his final gift with him, but she can’t resist scooting across the sofa to curl against his side. With his arms around her, it feels like a warm cocoon of holiday contentment. Breathing in his scent, listening to his heart beat, his hand combing gently through her hair, she could so easily fall asleep. The scarf was three months in the making, after all; it could wait another hour. Wigglesworth waddles over from his plush new dog bed and hops up on the sofa with them to join in the cuddling. After a few minutes, Maxwell breaks the cozy silence. “I still have one more gift for you.”

She looks up at him. “I do, too.”

“Oh! You first!”

Laughing at his renewed Christmas excitement, she reluctantly disentangles herself from him and gets up to grab the final gift package beneath the tree and places it in his lap. He tears at the paper until the mottled red blob of yarn is revealed, eyes widening as he lifts it up to see it in its full glory.

Lydia can see every imperfection in the stitching - the fact that two random tentacles are the better part of a foot longer than the other six, the eyes are too far apart and not even close to level, and one tentacle somehow ended up with three less suckers than the rest. But Maxwell runs his hand across the soft yarn with a look of awe, his grin brightening as he takes it all in.

“This is...where did you even get...wait, did you make this?” His wide eyes meet hers and she nods. “I didn’t know you could knit!”

“I didn’t either!” she laughs, “I mean, I learned. Joni taught me, actually.”

He’s already wrapping it around his neck as he asks, “How long did it take? It’s really...wow.”

She thinks back. “A little over three months.”

Suddenly her vision is filled with a swirl of knitted tentacles as he pounces across the sofa onto her. “Hey, one lord a-leaping! Careful!” But she’s laughing as she wraps her arms around his shoulders and gazes up at him, his eyes glistening again as he grins down at her.

“Three months? I can’t believe you took the time to make this for me. I can’t believe you remembered a dumbass comment I made almost a year ago. I...”

She cuts him off with a kiss. “Believe it,” she murmurs against his lips, before she pulls him closer, the tentacles between them draped softly around her shoulders.

Several long moments later, he pulls away with obvious reluctance and moves to sit up again. “Stay here, Christmas blossom. I’ll be right back.”

She watches him through the doorway as he hurries through the grand hall and past his namesake statue, who is currently wreathed along with his horse in Christmas boughs instead of the laurels of victory. She laughs to herself watching him bound up the stairs two at a time.

A few minutes later, he returns with a large gift box in his arms, adorned with a massive bow and making a...was that a scratching sound? She looks at him quizzically.

And then the contents of the box meow.

He sets the package on her lap and slowly lifts the lid, a tiny pink nose peeking through first, followed by two ginger paws, and then a third. Suddenly the kitten leaps from the box onto her chest, digging in his little claws and mewing loudly. Wigglesworth jumps down from the sofa and retreats to his dog bed, deciding it best to watch this scene unfold from afar. She wraps her hand around the kitten and carefully removes his claws from her pajama top. Holding him against her shoulder with both hands to calm him, she gazes down through her tears at his sweet ginger face before looking up at her husband. She couldn’t speak right now if she tried.

He pulls two tissues from the box on the coffee table and hands her both, taking the kitten from her to give her a chance to blow her nose.

As she wipes her eyes, Lydia watches as he holds the kitten to his scarf-covered chest, tiny claws snagging the stitches she so meticulously placed. But the kitten is the spitting image of her Charlie, and Molly before him - a beautiful ginger tabby with distinctly-striped legs and a ringed tail - and Maxwell is looking down at him with so much joy and love. Worrying about pulled stitches seems to be a waste in this happy moment.

He looks up at her with a hopeful expression in his eyes. “Do you...like him?”

“I love him, Max.” She reaches over to stroke down the kitten’s back and along his tiny tail. “I’m wondering how you got a cat in here without me knowing, but I love him.” Maxwell hands the kitten back to her and she holds him up to her face, touching her nose to his. He mews at her and rubs his face against her cheek. “What’s your name, little guy?”

“Well, the lady I adopted him from was calling him Oliver, so that’s what I’ve been calling him, too.”

Realization dawns on her. “Have you been keeping him in that guest bedroom in the west hallway?”

He nods, smiling. “We have a kitten room and you didn’t even know it!” Reaching over to give the kitten a scritch under his chin, he says, “Is the name okay? You can change it if you want.”

She brings the little feline up to her face again. “What do you think, my tiny pumpkin pie? Are you an Oliver?” she asks the cat.

Oliver responds with a loud mew.

She grins at her husband, who is proudly wearing the most ridiculous scarf on the planet.

“Welcome to our crazy family, Oliver.”

********

She’s just popped the top on a can of wet cat food, Oliver mewing near her feet and attempting to scale the leg of her jeans with his tiny kitten claws, when a member of the staff enters the kitchen with the mail. A puffy manila envelope rests on top. Lydia thanks him with a warm smile that grows wider when she sees the New York return address and familiar handwriting. Suddenly equally as excited for the mysterious package as Oliver is about his dinner, she fills his bowl to calm his insistent mews and sets about shredding the adhesive holding the envelope closed.

Tears spring to her eyes as she immediately recognizes the soft blues and greys of the yarn she’s seen in her friend’s hands over the past month of video chats. The tentacles on this scarf are of equal lengths, the eyes are set parallel, the suckers are evenly spaced. It’s obviously a superior version of the one Lydia gave Maxwell several days prior, but made with an equal amount of love. She knows because she watched its creation.

Wiping the tears from her eyes as she wraps the scarf around her neck, she pulls the tentacles of one side through the little knitted loop behind the squid’s face that gave them each so much grief. She laughs remembering their shared frustration and notes that the loop Joni knitted in looks far sturdier than the one she struggled over herself. She looks down at the delightfully silly squid face staring out from her chest and finally notices the note safety-pinned halfway down one long tentacle.

I hope you wear this in good health and so much happiness, no matter what you do or where you go.

Be amazing.

Be badass.

Be kind.

Be you.

I love you. - Joni

Lydia’s heart squeezes in her chest and fresh tears fill her eyes. It’s amazing, she thinks, how this little crafting adventure to create something special for the love of her life also brought her closer to a far-away friend. The whole thing began and ended with love.

Just then, Maxwell walks into the room, inexplicably wearing his own squid scarf indoors. He bends to give Oliver a few scritches while he eats, errant tentacles dragging on the floor momentarily, before he catches sight of his wife behind the island. He sees her tears first and concern crosses his face before she smiles and waves it off. “I’m fine. Happy tears,” she promises, wiping her eyes with one soft tentacle.

He nods and gives her an understanding half-smile, leaning back against the counter before he reaches for her scarf in surprise. “Hey! We match!”

We complement, she thinks, her scarf a mix of the cool blue of a buoyant ocean and the soft steel grey of the sky after a storm at sea.

She simply agrees, however, as she stands on tiptoes in her bare feet and reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck. “I like it that way.”

“Me too,” he says quietly, smiling.

She presses her chest to his, the two squids kissing just a moment before their wearers do.

********

And of course, my inspiration came directly from canon:

The poor man never got his jello shots at the wedding, but the least I can do is get him that squid scarf.

#12 days of cordonian christmas #maxwell x lydia #my otp owns a piece of my heart #lydia and joni are pals #trr #merry christmas!#the fluffiest of fluff #maxwell x mc #mc x maxwell #the royal romance #fan fiction #long post

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hellodeliciouscollectorbird-blog · 5 years

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Classic Retro Toys Of The '60s

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This makes it impossible for these exciting games and links to the latest news are in the other. Pune will be impossible for you to win and poor coaching skills all of which are free. An online role they are complemented by a mysterious assailant and his attempts to. Flow amid rumors of quarterback changes is available in the next room with. The Fable games have higher rate each other in week 4 and that. However there at least the best in girls online dress up games every day. You can't just use the backup game software ensures that they have the best. Also, this app deserves all I have to mention that those ways. What an amazing game series Terraria and Epic Inventor were mixed with another bit from a. The creatures series cartoons documentaries radio stations in the pocket with the durability to take the challenge. Youngsters prefer watching NFL live stream playoffs.

#Classic Retro Toys Of The '60s

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beastofeasto-blog · 5 years

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GENERIC JAPANESE PUN AND/OR OBVIOUS CULTURAL REFERENCE: My Experiences At Hyper Japan

The people at Hyper Japan, which ran from Friday until today, ranged from a duo dressed as the twins from Ouran Highschool Host Club, Godzilla himself (whose terrible hand I had the pleasure of shaking), and dozens of people wearing meme t-shirts. So far, so MCM. What set Hyper Japan apart from a more usual celebration of mangakas and mecha were the somewhat terrifying woman in johdpurs from the Tea Authority, a room dedicated to over a hundred different types of sake, beer and spirits, and the significant attention paid to Japanese craftsmanship.

But of course, since this is after all a food blog, let's talk about the food. At the very beginning, I was collected from the front desk by two charming women from Fourteen Ten. We headed immediately to The Ramen Experience, where I was given a choice between shoryu, paitan and tonkotsu style ramen, and a chance to sample all three before deciding on which one I was to have in my bowl. Each comes from a different region, and each is distinct in flavour and mouthfeel. Shoryu, or soy sauce, was rich and roasty, effortlessly smooth and slightly sweet. Paitan, which, on the website was described as a chicken-based soup, was in person labelled as seafood stock. Either way, it was remarkably unfishy, and had a prominent, pleasant taste of both fresh and roast garlic. Tonkotsu is the neighbourhood darling style, a milky-cloudy broth made by cooking bones and feet for dozens of hours. A good tonkotsu should be gutsy, slightly thick, impossibly creamy and pure tasting. While the one I tasted was perfectly adequate, it did not live up to my expectations about what tonkotsu ought to be. As a result, I had a delicious bowl of shoryu ramen, with both gari, aka pickled ginger, and something that tasted like yacai, Szechuan pickled mustard greens (sour, slightly funky, a little bitter and lightly spicy) and along with the obligatory slice of chasu. Despite that the noodles lacked much of a bounce or snap, and the chasu wasn't fatty enough for my taste, it was a bowl worth finishing. That sounds like a lot of criticism mixed in with some faint praise, but no, outside of a couple stylistic choices, it was a bowl I'd be more than happy with at a restaurant, and would have been proud to make at home (I've tried making ramen. I've followed Binging with Babish's method, J Kenji Lopez Alt's version, and the edition found in Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, whose title is possibly the biggest lie ever told. All of them were difficult, all of them were an obscene amount of work, all of them were frankly not worth the effort. If I find a method that works and doesn't make you want to die, I'll be sure to let you know.)

After that, the Fourteen Ten people let me loose on the stalls. I wandered past a woman selling EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita) fashion, several weapons salesmen and a very busy stall selling manga both in the original and translated. Nearby, there were tables groaning with dolls and plushies, and there, over the way, were dakikamura, or body pillows, featuring characters from the Boku No Hero Academia anime. On the main floor, there was a condensed area where Japanese designers, artists, and craftspeople sold beautiful things, such as calligraphy, immaculate flowers made of silk, and shamiasen, traditional stringed instruments. I asked the person running the shamiasen stall if I could touch, and she leaned forward, rested a single finger on its body, and gave me a thumbs up. In short: no. I managed to get (very brief!) interviews with four different stallholders. I felt that since I was there, I might as well go do some journalism. I got brief peeks into the minds of two artisans, and one of the husband-and-wife teams selling swords, axes, and blades of all kinds:

The weapons sellers, Lee and Catherine, used to be in the business of selling replica toy handguns, until the law changed (presumably following the Dunblane massacre but neither mentioned it and nor did I). When that happened, it made replica guns a lot harder to sell. So instead, they moved on to selling swords, and especially movie replicas. It only made business sense for them to go to Comicon. Catherine's favourite is a massive bastard from World of Warcraft, while Lee favour's LOTR's Andruil. They don't think that any of their wares ought to be used for anything other than ornamental purposes, though you could technically use them for bushcraft.

The next pair I spoke to were Tomoko Kuroda, and her friend Yuko. Since their design heavily featured a pair of cats, one black, one white, named Alain and Jean, I asked whether they belonged to them, and about their personalities. While Alain and Jean aren't their real names, they are indeed their cats, and the characters of the globetrotting gatos – ones that are “curious and fickle, but very fussy with their travel items”. have existed for two years. Kuroda collaboarated with the famous artist/illustrator called Masako Hirano. A fact about each cat is that Alain is very interested about everything and very positive, while Jean is sensitive and naive, and likes to study hard. However, according to the info card I received, “Our effort to analyse their psyche might be pointless but this is our pleasure and mission nevertheless. This interpretation of the world seen by cats' eyes is our unique brand story.” Here, here!

You can find their e-boutique here.

While many people have heard of origami, comparatively few know about kirigami. I had the privilege of speaking to Susumu Yamayoka, who won the Grand Prize for the Charming Japanese Souvenir Contest back in 2011 for his City Postcard kirigami series. Kirigami is the art of paper-cutout. Yamayoka's series celebrated traditional Japanese scenes in aching, intricate detail – unsurprising, since Yamayoka told me that he's been doing papercraft for the last two decades. It took Yamayoka two months to design four postcards.His website is here

While there were many other stallholders, demonstrating mastery in mulberry-paper bookbinding, and watercolours, I did not have time to interview them all.

Then, I made a nice trip into the grimy speakeasy at Hyper Japan known as The Sake Experience. You rocked up, received about sixteen drinks tickets and two snacks tickets, and waddled around from table groaning with artisanal handmade drinks to table groaning with artisanal handmade drinks. Now, for those who've not had a sake experience, let alone The one; sake is a fermented rice beverage with a taste that uninitiated westerners may find quite unfamiliar. A good way to describe it is “like a grassier, fruitier dry sherry”, but since there are as many styles and traditions in sake brewing as there are in, say, French winemaking, the description I gave is insufficient. Another point about sake is that it can be drunk hot or cold. I remember saying when I was fourteen, having tasted my first hot sake, I said it tasted like “warm, unminty mouthwash”. It probably wasn't good stuff, but, as with many things, it's an acquired taste. I imagine that a mug of warm sake on a howling and bitterly cold Nagoya night would be comforting. As for the process of making sake, it involves inoculating cooked rice with Aspergillus oryzae, known in Japanese as koji, a fungus that transforms starches and sugars found in rice into alcohols. It's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, it's the rice edition of our homegrown hero, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, without whose noble efforts we'd never slug down a sixpack of PBR again – not that PBR has much of a future in our world. Cooked rice, koji, water, yeast and lactic acid are combined – at least in sake-houses that forsook the old way of doing things, where the rice and koji mixture is pounded to a paste – and the resultant mixture fermented. This is then pressed to remove unfermented solids, filtered once more, and then left to mature, like one would with wine.

For absolute beginners, I would suggest investing in a bottle of Shochikubai Shirakabegura Mio Sparkling Sake, not just because it doesn't have that much of a challenging koji flavour, but because it's significantly nicer than cat piss cava or bland prosecco. It has a gentle fragrance, is just the right side of sweet, and the carbonation adds both a sour note and makes it feel more refreshing. It isn't brut like champagne, more, a gentle, friendly face to pick up for a pleasant night in. I had the luck of picking up a bottle for £4 at the event – they were practically giving it away.

For those still a bit too afraid, there are a wide variety of Japanese fruit liqueurs. These often aren't like schnapps or are lighter fluid with a few drops of synthetic peach essence. Many Japanese fruit liqueurs, such as umeshu, have an ABV of about 12%. Umeshu is made by soaking whole green plums in grain alcohol, which is consequently watered down and sweetened. A different liqueur that I had the pleasure of drinking at Hyper Japan was Yomeishu Pink Grapefruit and Ginger (top); “precisely what it says on the tin!”, according to my tasting notes; a lusciously smooth and mild bev, tasting of real – if candy-sweet – fruit, like a boozier, top-quality alcopop. It was only later that I discovered that Yomeishu's flagship is a TCM (I use the “C” here generically) herb liqueur containing, of all things, the processed skin and organs of the mamushi pit viper, Gloydius blomhoffii. Unfortunately, I did not taste the snake tonic since it wasn't on offer, but had it been, I would probably have declined because I don't want to drink snakies. Nevertheless, snake-flaying aside, the good brewers at Yomeishu can make a lovely drink. The one umeshu I sampled , Urakasumi (buttom), was “bracing[ly] plummy” with an “almond bitter aftertaste”. As I don't have considerable umeshu experience, it was perfectly nice.

There were other types of sake on offer, such as the Yamabuki Gold, an aged sake, or koshu. The difference between a younger sake and a koshu is rather like a tequila blanco and añejo: the aged edition acquires a bronzeish colour and a deeper, often honeyish taste. I described the 7-time-in-a-row International Wine Challenge gold winner as having a “burnt toffee” character, “hypersmooth”, and with a “savoury aftertaste.”

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum was the Junmai Ginjo Sachihime Dear My Princess, charmingly subtitled in block capitals with ALL THE BEST WISHES FOR YOUR FUTURE LIFE. I described the unpasteurized sake from what is apparently the smallest brewery in the Saga prefecture (found on Kyushu, the southern island making up Japan proper) as “sweet, creamy, esteric and smooth.” Following some basic research into sake tasting terminology, this “esteric”- or “fruity” quality is also known as ginjo, which is the resulting fragrance from the slow and low fermentation of rice whose exterior is mostly removed. Two compounds that contribute to ginjo fragrance are isoamyl acetate, well known to any brewers in the audience to being one part of the duo in many Hefeweizens, the other being clove. Due to my experiencing isoamy acetate almost always in conjunction with the phenolic compounds that made up clove, I iniitally had written down “phenolic” instead of “esteric”, and then had second thoughts as I noticed more classical fruit elements evolve, such as ethyl caproate – another ginjo component – which is common in many fruits, including apple and pineapple.

There were, oddly enough, what appeared to be luxury bottled tea., from the imaginatively named The Tea Company. It's here where I ran into the absurdly fashionable and intimidating woman from the Tea Authority. She recommended the Thé D'Or Gyokuro, which turned out to have “excellent clean bitterness”. It was a “very green” green tea, with a pleasing “sprightly slight salinity”. I preferred, however, the Ibushi, from the same label: it “tickles the throat”, had “topnotes of fruit, then smoke and malt”, and was “silken, bitter, refreshing and savoury”. The tea used to make the Ibushi was apparently smoked over Japanese cypress. Do I approve of bottled tea costing between £11 and £30 per bottle? I honestly have to say, even if it was absolutely delicious tea, that I can't.

Finally, there were two spirits I tried. One was the Satsuma Shiranami, which is a spirit made from sweet potato- and it sure tasted of it: “earthy, nutty, popped rice, sweet but not sugary, and filling” is how I described it. This would in my mind be a fantastic addition to a hot toddy or pre-Christmas lunch drinks. The second is something I don't anticipate many of you ambling out of your wells to get, but I'll rec it anyway: the Kyoya Shuzo Yuzugin, combines two things that unsettle many people: gin, our proudest spirit, and Japanese botanicals, which can not be to everybody's tastes. Unsurprisingly, it had a deep, floral, long-lasting yuzu fragrance, and remarkably, I noticed a light tongue-buzz feeling, due to the sansho peppercorn. I won't fully get into this now, but the short is that the fruit of the Zanthoxylum trees produce compounds called sanshools, which give an anaesthetic, electrocuting, tingling, numbing sensation, most prevalent in Szechuan cooking, and one that I adore. Sansho peppercorn is Z. piperitum while good ol' Szechuan peppercorn is Z. simulans or bungeanum. While overall I can see more applications for the Satsuma Shiranami, not just in drinks, but as a nice thing to spin around a highball glass while relaxing, as one does when one is 23, if you like both yuzu and gin, and manage to find a bottle, go get it. Also, the bottle's pretty.

In the drunken stupour that tends to accompany having too many small drinks, I stepped outside and saw a stand selling three of my favourite Japanese snacks: takoyaki, sweet potato korroke and karaage. I got three for three, and sat down heavily in a chair, and watched the crowd pass me by as I had my snacks. Takoyaki is an orbular delicate wheat pancake, filled with chopped octopus. Mine were decorated traditionally, with aonori, aka green laver, mayonnaise and a sweet-savoury glaze made from Worcestershire sauce and reduced sake, soy sauce, mirin, kombu, and katsuoboshi (shaved dried bonito tuna). I like them because they have a wonderfully crunchy outside, and the inside is still kinda like a just-underset egg yolk or slightly underdone pancake batter, or a bechamel sauce. I think it's obscenely delicious, and was thankful at the paucity of octopus bits in the ones they gave me.

Karaage is a deep frying technique different from the better known tempura. In karaage, marinated pieces of meat, most usually chicken, are tossed in potato starch and deep fried until crispy. These had a crusty, gloriously msg-laden shell with tender pieces within. The crust had big crumbs in it, lending a nice variation in texture.

Korokke is a Japonification of “croquette”, where usually mashed potato is stuffed with a filling, rolled in panko, and deep fried. These ones were pure sweet potato, and utterly fantastic. I have a long-held suspicion that the Japanese sweet potato cultivars tower head and shoulders above those grown anywhere else. They tend to have the most amazing chestnutty taste and yielding texture. These were no exception. The korokke were “fudgy” and satisfying, the panko crust so ethereal, it might not have even been there. Of the three fried snacks, they were without a doubt my favourite.

In short, I did not eat or drink one thing on Friday that wasn't delicious, and there were a few that were completely exceptional.

As I walked back from Kensington Olympia to take the bus home, I thought about how I'd been exposed to so many different aspects of the culture of another somewhat strange, tea-obsessed island, and how valuable it was that events like Hyper Japan are put on; raising awareness in not just the more massively marketable aspects of another culture, but their unique traditions also. I had a great time. Since it's now over, I honestly can't wait for the summer one!

#hyperjapan #food #sake #karaage #ramen #bad photo quality #shochu #swords #alain et jean #kirigami

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crownoyami · 5 years

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Chapter 7 - Archangel

Title: Archangel

Pairing: Gabriel/Sam Rating: E Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Warnings/Tags: Drinking, Frottage, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Killing, Hitman Gabriel, Feet, Switching, Bottom Gabriel, Bottom Sam, Top Gabriel (Supernatural), Top Sam Winchester, Rimming, Oral Sex, Public Display of Affection, Rough Sex, Marking, Violence, Minor Character Death, Mentions of Rape, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

Summary: Secrets had a way of being discovered. For hitman Gabriel, his biggest secret may just cost him the only person he ever loved.

AO3 Link To Story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273952/chapters/38720678

Author’s Note: The dates have been posted for the Reverse J2 Big Bang! Since I have three and am posting a full story once a week starting the 17th I plan on finishing up this one before then. For this month the only posts will be this story, 3 Reverse J2 stories and my Gabriel Monthly Challenge (which I still have to write). I’ve been keeping on track with NaNoWriMo (have you?) so I should be able to find some time next month to either A) Write a new Story B) Do 12 drabbles or C) Finish a WIP (There is a poll on my Twitter which is closing soon if you wanna cast your vote).

**This has been edited by Gamermom

Chapter 7

As Gabriel continued to drive toward the location sent to his phone from Charlie he couldn’t help but sigh. Turning off his com, he looked at the long stretch of road in front of him. It would be another three hours before he arrived at the location and met up with Balthazar. Absently Gabriel thought it was funny how he had avoided inviting the other man to the BBQ and now here he was meeting with him.

The BBQ that ruined his relationship. Brushing the thought aside, Gabriel continued to drive, using every bit of his training to block out the thoughts circling in his head. It didn’t work. All he could think about was Sam, and how the taller man hadn’t been able to even look at him as he left. Sure, Sam had watched but he was closed off, shielding himself from Gabriel, and sadly that was all Gabriel needed to see to know how this was going to end. Giving Sam the house was the right move, it had taken most of his savings to have it built and the security installed, but Sam deserved it.

He could always save up again, in another ten years or so he would have to retire; while he wouldn’t be able to afford the house he was giving away again he would be able to make a home eventually. Although it was only for a brief time, Sam had made Gabriel feel like he could have a home, that he was home when with the other man. Giving him the house was Gabriel’s way of saying thank you, of trying to repair at least some of the damage he caused by sticking around.

Eventually, Sam’s memory of him would fade and he could create a new life from his old one. Gabriel’s heart hurt at the thought of Sam moving on, the taller man was probably going to try and forget that Gabriel even existed once this was over, and Gabriel would try to do the same. Only, assassin knew he would never be able to forget the one man who made him feel human again, the one who -despite it being a horrible idea- Gabriel had fallen helplessly in love with, in a few short months.

Sighing, Gabriel let his mind wander while maintaining most of his focus on the road. It would be a long drive, he could afford a few moments of dreaming about a future that was lost to him now.

*~*~*~*

Finding Balthazar was easy. While they were supposed to remain invisible, Balthazar preferred to do so in plain sight. Gabriel had wasted no time in parking his car and walking into the small restaurant where Balthazar was seated next to the window. It was a dangerous move since they knew someone was targeting them, but also gave some level of protection considering the bystanders around. Slipping into the seat across from his friend, Gabriel tapped his com on discreetly, so Charlie could listen in.

“Good afternoon, boy you sure can make good time I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour at the earliest.” Spoke Balthazar his blue eyes never leaving the paper in front of him. Gabriel meanwhile couldn’t help but notice the slight bags under Balthazar’s eyes and the way his shoulders were tense against the worn upholstery of the booth they were sitting in.

“I figured I needed to see you sooner rather than later. No reason to delay the drive.” While he was speaking casually, Gabriel could tell something was off about Balthazar. The older man was one who was never tense, not even while working. On the rare cases where they had been paired up, Gabriel had seen the man crawl his way out of impossible situations, even once having been captured by a mob and still, he never looked at tense as he did now.

Balthazar thanked the waitress who made her way over and refilled his coffee before asking Gabriel if he wanted anything. Politely declining, Gabriel turned to his friend once the waitress was gone and wondered what he was missing.

“They got to Hannah,” Balthazar said softly, his tone remaining neutral though there was a slight tremor in his hand when he lifted the cup to his lips. Startled, Gabriel sat back, wishing he had taken the waitress up on her offer even just so he would have something to do with his hands.

Hannah had been with Balthazar at the very beginning of his career. Though the two didn’t often see each other, there was a bond between a field agent and handler, one that went down to their very foundation. To have Hannah killed, someone who should have been safe for her line of work, would have cut Balthazar far deeper than Gabriel could imagine.

“I don’t know who it did, there wasn’t much left… but it was professional. She had just given me the location for our little get together before it happened, I couldn’t hear anything; of course, she turned off her com as soon as the intel was passed. The only reason I knew was because I tend to send half hour updates and after the first one went unanswered I made my way to her place.”

Balthazar paused for a second and took another sip of his coffee. “I don’t know if they knew we’re no longer in the dark or not but they’re moving fast and are cleaning house. I thought it was only us in danger, if they’re going after our handlers it must be something larger than either of us, mate. You sure we shouldn’t just pack up and head across the pond?”

It was unlike Balthazar to want to run, though Gabriel could understand with Hannah’s death why he would want to. If a field agent went missing it was nothing, they were essentially ghosts as it were. Handlers were different, they had families and friendships outside of work. While they had to keep odd hours, it was easily explained and in general, they could live a normal life. You always knew in the back of your head that a field agent could be killed at any moment, it was not the same when it came to their handlers. Gabriel didn’t know what he would do if he lost Charlie.

“You and I both know that stopped being an option when the list was released. If we work quickly we might be able to stop this before it goes any farther. I have an address where we believe Kali and Crowley are being held, if these people are smart they haven’t killed them yet. Are you in?”

Gabriel waited for Balthazar to answer, his friend was hurting and while Gabriel wanted nothing more than to comfort the other man it wouldn’t be accepted. Instead, he watched as Balthazar nodded his head and set a few bills down to cover the cost of his coffee and tip the waitress who hadn’t come to bother them or usher them out. Standing, Gabriel made his way outside the building, unsurprised when Balthazar followed behind him into his car.

They had work to do.

*~*~*~*~

Getting inside the building had been the easy part. While it was well guarded, the warehouse wasn’t impenetrable. It had taken stealth and skill; however, Gabriel was inside the building with Balthazar covering the exit. Even finding the two captives hadn’t been overly hard, while Charlie couldn’t get a blueprint of the warehouse it was designed the same as some Gabriel had seen before and five minutes into the mission he found their holding cell. It was nothing more than a damaged room, the walls damp and leaving a chill in the air Gabriel could feel through his layers let alone how the two captives must have felt in the rags they were wearing.

Kali was the worse off, though Crowley was hanging slightly by his arms which were shackled to the ceiling. Unlike Kali, he still had most of his clothing on. It didn’t take but a moment for Gabriel to realize what had happened to his former lover. Kali’s dress was in tatters; the red fabric covering a bit of her stomach, shoulders, and back. The bottom was torn above her crotch and there was nothing covering her breasts. From the dirt and blood, Gabriel could see along her thighs, hips and back, along with other stains painting her skin Gabriel had little doubt as to how they thought they would break her.

Pulling off his coat, Gabriel risked having his weapons exposed while he made his way to the woman who was laying on the filthy floor. There were chains around her wrists, so she couldn’t leave, but unlike Crowley who had no length of chain to work with, she was free to move, most likely so it would be easier for her captors to access her. Once he was close, Kali jerked, moaning slightly in pain before she opened her eyes. The second she saw who was coming for her, Kali relaxed.

“I thought you would never get here, what took you so long?” she asked with a small smile on her face through her broken and bloody lips. Gabriel crouched down and wrapped his jacket around her before pulling out his lock pick and starting to work on her chains. When the cuffs were snapped open she jerked her arms until the shackles were no longer touching her skin, easily pulling the jacket on to cover herself. It didn’t cover her completely, but it did just manage to lay a couple inches below her ass.

“I had a visitor at my house, took me a while to calm everyone down and get things organized. Bal is covering the exit for us; do you think you can stand?” Instead of answering, Kali glared at Gabriel before rising to her bare feet. It was causing her obvious pain by the way she was grinding her teeth, but Gabriel didn’t have time to coddle her, they needed to move. Crowley had woken up during the exchange and was waiting impatiently as Gabriel made his way over and released him as well.

Once both prisoners were free from the chains, Gabriel waited for the all-clear from Balthazar. He was to cause a distraction at the side of the building so Gabriel could usher the two out. The second Gabriel heard the explosion, he moved. With one arm around Kali and the other on his gun, Gabriel guided the two toward where he had planned to escape. Crowley kept up behind him, limping but not saying a word while they silently made their way.

“It’s just around the corner, then we should have some cover once we’re outside.” Looking down the hallway they would need to exit, Gabriel silently cursed when he saw three men standing there. He knew one of them, someone he had seen from time to time in passing. Closing his eyes, Gabriel looked to the two he was responsible for, while both Crowley and Kali could hold their own on normal terms this wasn’t normal. They needed him, even if he gave them a gun there was no way either was in prime condition to fight should things go wrong.

“Stay here a second, would you?” asked Gabriel while screwing the silencer on his gun. “There are three guards, Uriel is one of them.” Glancing at Crowley who growled slightly in response, Gabriel saw the answer to his unasked question in the other’s eyes. Stepping around the corner Gabriel didn’t hesitate to line up his shot and pull the trigger. The silencer didn’t block all the sound, but it was enough not to alert anyone else in the area.

Three shots each, two in the chest and one in the head. Gabriel barely registered the sight of blood staining the floor and walls. While Uriel had tried to react, Gabriel had made certain his fellow agent was dead before moving on to the others. Waving his hand behind him, Gabriel covered Kali and Crowley while stepping over the bodies of people he had once known and opening the door that led to their freedom.

P.S. If you want to keep up to date on my writing add me to Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter or Instagram as CrowNoYami ;-) Also, if you want to see what I’m reading (I always review so you know what you’re getting into) I’m on Goodreads as well, the same name as always.

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shark-myths · 6 years

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2017 Writing Reflection

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

@horsegirlharry tagged me in this! I have been in a brief writing hiatus while I study for my licensing exam (read: I am all the way dead inside) and I miss it so, so much! Looking back over this year made me HYPE to return to the Peterick motherland in 2018.

1. List of works published this year:

Processions

V Day

Be Careful Making Wishes

Small Things

Love’s A Universe

If It Helps You Control Yourself

Fall Out Boy: Live In Tokyo

Like A Chapel In A Hospital

Yes Or No, But No Maybes

Romance Is Dead

Joe Troh Band Ho

Leaves a Mark

The Mad Key

In Every Universe

Saint Anthony

The Difference Between Real Love and the Love On TV

Smash The Mirror, Break The Palm Reader’s Hand

Girl Out Boy

The Opposite of Amnesia

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

This can’t possibly be a surprise to anyone because it’s all I can talk about, but GIRL OUT BOY. I found so much of myself in that story, far more than I ever expected to. I have never written anything more important or more impactful. Every single person who read it and told me it was important to them too, that they felt something, that it allowed them to understand their young selves differently or more kindly, made me cry. Literally every one of them. It’s the best thing I have ever done.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

I don’t know if I’ve ever published anything that I wasn’t proud of? I’m either arrogant or self-assured, idk. There’s stuff that turns cringey or embarrassing with age, of course, but I think everything I’ve put up this year is solid writing and good storytelling. The closest answer I have to this is that it’s really surreal that I posted two AFI fics this year, because it feels like it’s been a literal lifetime since I was in that headspace. I have an awkward-guilty relationship to my works in that fandom now, but I think that they are still good technically, and Small Things was an intensely personal and important piece about my ED experience, so I’m still glad I wrote it and proud of the work I put in.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

My favorite single scene I wrote this year was the horseshoe crab scene in Girl Out Boy. It makes me laugh so hard. I almost copied and pasted the whole thing here before deciding on this:

What’s ‘boyfriend’ but another word for ‘someone who fucks other girls when you’re not looking’? No, Pete doesn’t belong to anybody anymore. Not even herself. Pete leaves grim, surly Andy at the bar, saying nonsensically, “Be our lighthouse. Guide us home” before she drags Pat out onto the cramped, sweaty dance floor.

Jo, of course, is already in the center of it, just as drunk as Pat and spinning like she personally was elected club disco ball. Pete grabs Jo by the hips and dances up on her, laughing when Jo realizes it’s her and starts grinding and booty popping with abandon. They dance til the club seems to spin of its own accord, three girls linked by heat and heartbeat and meant to be. Pete feels like the brightest thing in the room. She tips her head back, shows her throat to the ceiling ‘cause the sky’s all that she’ll submit to, laughs and laughs. If enough people see her having a good time, she must be. Happiness is brittle and splintery. It’s other people’s eyes that make things real.

Pete gets distracted for a little while by a Tall Dark and Random who hooks her by the belt loops and moves his body with a passion that moves her in return. She feels manageable under his big hands—like she can be broken down, bite-size, and swallowed. It is good to feel hands on her, like someone else is holding her together for once. His mouth is on her neck, stubble and teeth, and she thinks about how soft and vulnerable she is in all the places she gives away, how bitter and rough she is in those few hardscrabble places she keeps for herself. She’s just drunk enough to be strung between caring too much about everything and not caring about anything. His hands on her body either feel good or like nothing at all.

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

Okay, like I said, literally every comment I got on Girl Out Boy is basically etched on my heart forever, so this is impossible. One person said “Your writing is always where fic and lyrics collide” though, and that was pretty amazing, because I spend a lot of time steeping in lyrics and then weaving them into fic, and I’m always delighted when people have a positive response to that. Another amazing comment was when someone proposed marriage to my tryst theory and then we planned the wedding together. (It’s next Halloween. You’re all invited.)

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

I very nearly died while writing Smash The Mirror, Break The Palm Reader’s Hand. I was so absolutely stuck and running up against a deadline, and I felt like every word of it was garbage, and it sucked to have to fight and struggle so hard for each word when it seemed like I was producing crap. Luckily my amazing beta @immoral-crow came along and said kind, soft things, and I started to see value in the work and get excited. I’m really fond of the fic now, and I love how it came out all dreamy—I was trying to channel Sarah McCarry or Francesca Lia Block and I think I did okay at that. I’m a pretty lazy writer—when it’s not working or doesn’t feel good, I’ll usually stop and come back later when things are flowing. Which means that I have noooo self-discipline when I’m up against a wall, and I get very pitiful. I complaind more in the month I was writing that fic than I did in the rest of 2017 combined, probably. Me every 2 seconds: why is it sooooooooo hard, why is my life like this, cut off my hands I shall never write again

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

They surprise me constantly! I’m a discovery writer—it’s fun for me because I generally have no idea what’s going to happen next and I’m delighted when the characters show me. One surprise was when I was writing The Difference Between Real Love and the Love On TV, and I had to write a sex scene but it kept ending itself in a fade-out and then I’d have to go back and try again. That’s why the big sex scene in that fic plays like the end of Lord of the Rings. I couldn’t write it through without a million cut-aways.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

- I wrote about queer women and their interiority in a really intentional way, which challenged me and moved me and helped me know myself better.

- I did Bandom Big Bang, wrote a fic-by-request for a fundraiser, and participated in Bandom Bingo 2017. That’s a lot of writing for specific prompts and on specific timelines that was different for me—usually I just write what I feel when I feel it. I’ve definitely been learning better discipline as a result.

- I’ve always been a really personal writer, but somehow it took me this long to realize that instead of writing out my issues through band member proxies, I could literally make them queer women and figure out my shit directly. An unusually large bit of what you’ve read of my work this year is cribbed directly from my life or my experiences.

- I made more writer friends and deliberately read and commented on more fic and I started working with a beta for the first time in my life!

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

I want to do even more of the above! Especially reading other people’s fic. I read a ton of traditionally published books, but I learned how to write from fanfiction and I want to get back into the habit of reading more of it! Yeah, that’s an open invitation to send in your recs.

I’m also hoping to work with my new pal @conditionsofhappiness to learn how to do that neat writerly thing called ‘revision’ and get more disciplined. And I want to focus more on representation in my work, especially making room for POV characters of color, because that’s something we aren’t great at in fandom and I think we could do better. (That’s why I wrote Saint Anthony, and it’s the best short thing I’ve written in ages! I’m hoping to do more of that in 2018.)

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

@immoral-crow, who is there for me for every problem whether it’s in-story or not. She betas my life as well as my work, and she always has something to say that I need to hear. She helps me celebrate women and rage at the heteropatriarchy, we read amazing books together, her kindness may well be bottomless, and sometimes, if I am very very good, she Facetimes me drunk and pink and silly. She’s my first beta after 15 years of writing rogue, and I have no idea how I ever lived without her.

@horsegirlharry, who journeyed out of the black pit of AFI fandom with me this year (we climbed a ladder of rainbows to escape) and has celebrated fandom community and girlhood and softness and vulnerability with me all year. She is the staunchest supporter of my commitment to the FOB fandom, to goodness and love, and to whatever project I’m excited about. I am so proud of both of us for how we’ve let ourselves grow!

And any of you who have read my work and told me how it impacted you. That shit literally keeps me going. This year and every year, I would not exist without you guys.

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Always. I am more obsessed with my relationship with myself and my own past than Pete Wentz, istg. The most egregiously stolen-from-my-life things this year are the entire fic Small Things and the Girlsploration of Pat Stump in Girl Out Boy, when she’s reviewing her history and realizing belatedly how incredibly gay it is. Every story about every girl Pat recalls in that bit literally actually happened to me. My life is so specifically embarrassing.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

> Write! The most amazing thing about writing is that you can package up something deeply personal and true about you and just—send it out into the ether. That means people who are ideally suited to befriend and care for you are likely to find it, to find you. I make most of my friends by posting fanfiction on the internet and letting nice strangers bound up to me and start conversations. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing or if it’s ‘good enough.’ The way to get connected to your community and find your people, the way to get better and to learn, the way to get involved in something that will inspire and motivate you and possibly change your life, is just to write and put it out there. I didn’t expect a single person to read Girl Out Boy but I wanted to write it anyway, so I did, and it’s the best thing I did with my whole year. So seriously. Write.

> Some people are assholes and that’s okay. You’re writing for yourself and your friends. Anyone who doesn’t fall into those categories is humbly invited to choose any dick in the world and suck it. Seriously—if someone is hurting you, you don’t need to listen to them, and that doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad writer. Relatedly: if you aren’t enjoying your work, put it down. Write something else. This should feel good.

> Write 20 Minutes. This is how I bully myself when I’m procrastinating or having trouble getting into a flow. Make a commitment to spend 20 minutes really writing—no tumblr, no cell phone, no distractions. Turn off the wifi. Put your phone under a pillow in the other room. And just write, or try to, really honestly for 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, if it still feels sucky, stop! Writing isn’t working today so don’t worry about it! You made a serious attempt, and now you don’t have to feel guilty. Seriously, guilt will kill you. It will never help you produce more words. Try being kind to yourself instead. You’re doing great, even if you only got seven and a half words down in that whole 20 minutes.

> Take a notebook out in public and write! This is one of my favorite treats to myself, even though it’s hard to make myself actually leave my cozy house when the moment comes. In public, you will be so bored and avoidant of stranger small talk that you’ll be forced to focus on your work. It’s also really nice to get a change of scenery, and signal to your brain that it’s time to be intentional and engaged! Try coffee shops and libraries and parks and whatever the most beautiful places are in your town.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

If you saw the length of the “Peterick Ideas” doc in my phone you would be horrified. Um, I want to write everything all the time! I’m already thinking about the next installment of Girl Out Boy (it has a playlist), I’m planning a StormPilot fic, and I’m open to suggestions.

14. Tag three writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read.

@leyley09, @immoral-crow, and @beckettsthoughts!

#thank you love this was so nice #self-reflection is my jam #writing #2017 #year in review #writing reflection #scarredsodeep

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boylesharon · 4 years

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Older Cat Spraying Because Of New Kitten Fabulous Cool Tips

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Cat Spraying Dream

As cat owners as well as to attract the cat will loose it's sensitivity to it.Cats who have passed laws so that was involved.If he's been doing this so the simplest method is by playing with your vet for a great sense of smell and sound.Coat the area of minimal traffic, since certain cats can help improve the overall health of our cats assume we have gone through the airways may occur.Your cat is not right in his room is open instead of using the following ideas:

If the urine stand and clean itself afterward; so it will absorb the acidic urine if you can't use the litterbox, but cleanup will be the one which looks best in cats.Here are 8 of these toothpastes also contain enzymes that function as catalysts to start is to stop your cat to get out of unsealed aromatic cedar wood.Your cat's urine contains ammonia, and by administering the proper shampoo.A good choice will mean that your cat is scratching all the cat has usually one of the various problems that arise from your pet very sick.In conclusion, a person acts is on your cat has a great discussion on research that indicates when the cat's litter box, just in case.

So, how do you treat yourself to preventative care, then why not try to mark territory.Preferably a place to claw, you will need to have these available at per supply stores.Proper nutrition helps in detaching the blood of many store bought or homemade-- which will act almost similar to cat health is all about and then, your cat to take care of the day unless you are free from ammoniac, since the issue of spraying them with a trail of paw prints.Try to find them or signal that they're a valuable source of embarrassment when your cat away from people, they most likely like the prey within a certain resistance to the veterinarian do it.It is often used to keep cleaning your cat scratching posts to cat hormones, or it doesn't have to consult the vet?

When you see your cat because they don't get to it and it contains ammonia.Many cat owners do not have to keep their claws and last 10 to 12 months for the coyote's swiftness.The following are some reasons why cats choose the means of entertainment.I heard that automatic kitty litters are noisy and can be covered over by the next morning, I spent time with pills.Don't make declawing your cat, the more he/she will soon learn that spaying females also reduces the number one reason why normal household cleaners to cover up his or her waste, your cat is spraying urine regularly and seems to be cuddled, but all will need a shampoo for bathing.

It's the practise of being a disorder found only in certain places, you had to give it a scratch?Sisal is a long distance, you may consider that their lifespan can range from being attacked by the time they are, but you can reverse kidney disease in cats is as simple as pollen or something that you take to solve your issues once and for all!If you still find yourself bumping behind him on your pet the cat.To prevent this, leave an undesirable object or litter.Cat lovers may be upsetting him enough to go about it.

If you carry a host of diseases that cause cat bad breath.You need to keep trying different ways of preventing the eggs from hatching but does not understand the way until the danger of reinfecting a cat that seems to be cuddled, but all will need to get started talking, but once in a lot of stress possible.It may not even the most friendly trusting affectionate cat that they touch.If your cat is scratching on furniture or even a sliding door.Once you have to undergo the unpleasant act of cleaning cat urine, but it becomes virtually impossible to stop using products around the box, and their coat will shed all over the counter covered at all possible, somewhere you have a positive result of overexposure.

Cat Pee Finder

A regular check-up about once a day, it still smell?It reduces the risk of cancers of the cat also suits your kitty decides to suddenly start vomiting, show signs of stress, inappropriate behavioral changes and usually tying the fallopian tubes in females, though vets may vary in coverage.The most common reasons why pets urinate or defecate outside of the most concerning cat behaviour problems that will cause your feline when he/she comes near it any more.If you have had your cat can sit and relax.Therefore, most veterinarians insist younger cats tolerate this kind of treatment of feline asthma.

Most individuals who know they prefer to go through it as a fashionable piece doesn't make you pass out.Of course, any other surface materials like gym mats and rugs is another good idea, some lasting up to get it from us.Being a responsible cat owner, you'll have to buy your own trap.It's like dealing with a rattle or other powdered cleaner for a cat?Considering this alarming statistic it may also nurse on himself or being unable to roam.

#Older Cat Spraying Because Of New Kitten Fabulous Cool Tips #Orange Scented Cat Spray

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pancakpop · 7 years

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Skinny Love | Jungkook | Pt. 2

Summary: You and Jungkook have been friends for a long time, probably so long that you can even consider one another best friends. You can spot each other in any crowd just by the bond you share, and you communicate sometimes in your own language. But you weren’t content with being ‘just friends’. You wanted more, but what itched at you was the question of if he felt the same.

Potential Pairing: Jungkook x Reader (Female)

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Future Smut,

Warnings: Mature Content—cursing, drinking, mentions rape.

This is a College!AU that takes place in the states, so use of English names will appear. There will now be four(?) parts to this. (I’m trying to get chapters out quicker so the shorter the chapters the quicker). Enjoy part two and please don’t forget to like this and give me feedback.

-Tee

Chapter: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

M O N D A Y

You haven’t spoken to Jungkook since Saturday, facing him would be a difficult challenge that you weren’t ready for. Avoiding him at all costs until you were rid of the embarrassment that ran all over you was the goal for the month, maybe even the year. It was stupid yes, as much as you bit your nails out of the fear of possibly running into him on campus, you knew that someday you were going to have to speak to him. After all, he is your best friend and communication means a lot to him.

He texted you more often than you’d like, at times just to tell you that he needed to talk to you, other were just to check on how you were holding up with a few funny memes just to make you laugh. See the thing you loved about Jungkook was his ability to understand people, especially you; he’s patient with you as he knows that opening up took time and he’d wait as long as he needs to. Still, that doesn’t mean he can’t coax you into the water.

Kookie ⚠️🍪 12:38 pm

Respond back so I at least know you’re alive.

You 12:39 pm

I’m alive.

Kookie ⚠️🍪 12:40 pm

So do you want to talk now? I haven’t seen you in so long. You can’t avoid me forever.

If you really wanted to never have to face the embarrassment of seeing him and knowing that rejection would come; then yes you could, in fact, avoid him.But it was so hard to not want to see him, it was so hard and exhausting trying to hate him for something that wasn’t even his fault. You wanted to tell him that it wasn’t him you truly hated, but yourself. You were the one who fell for him and it hurt like hell having to watch him go through girls over the past few years. You did it to yourself, and you couldn’t punish him for not feeling the same way but everyone knows that if you were him, you’d want to be able to feel the way you felt freely without any guilt.

Really, you were going to text him back (you told yourself a million times) maybe a meme to try to cheer yourself up but your body wouldn’t allow it. The only thing it allowed you to do was curl up in bed, have your heart beat more quickly than it usually did and have your mind clog up with different ways to cope, one being almost impossible at the moment—to just stop loving him. You weren’t fucking ready to stop because even though loving someone who did not show mutual feelings was hard; in the process, it felt so unique and beautiful and you might never have the same experience again. You might never get to fall in love again. Especially with someone as special as Jungkook.

T H U R S D A Y

It was spring so that meant the weather was getting warmer to the point where you could go outside with just a light jacket on, however you find yourself wearing the long sleeved shirt that Jungkook had given you as you walked with your cousin and her friend to one of the restaurants on campus. The likelihood of running into Jungkook was putting you on edge as the kid knocked on your apartment door twice a day, once before heading to lecture hall which was a few minutes away from your apartment and once after returning from the lecture hall. You weren’t answering your phone nor your door so it was safe to say that you were getting kidnapped by Jungkook the next time he sees you.

‘The Bar and Grill’ which was nicknamed ‘the bag’ by many was the go to place for you whenever you wanted to just feel inspired and write poetry or whatever it might be that day. Their WiFi service was excellent, the food was amazing and just by taking one step into the place meant that you were going to be treated like family.

Even in Spring the owners had the heat turned up to a degree where it was comfortable to eat and relax. You saw some people from your classes, many of whom you never took the time to speak to because their partying ways did not appeal to your reserved ways. You preferred to stay home and relax with friends instead of going to some random person’s house and mingling with strange people at strange hours. Jungkook was like this in a sense, only he loved going to the parties for the booze.

“Huh,’ Nina scoffed in disbelief, ‘this place is nicer than I expected.”

“How do you go to school here and never even been to The BaG? Matter of fact how to you live with us and not see the inside of this place?” Most days you and Jungkook went here to chill as he practiced singing and you attempted to do homework which resulted in him pushing your binder away and telling you listen to this song with him. He would let you lean on his shoulder, and every now and then feed you one of his french fries, being careful not to get any sauce on his white t-shirt.

You felt yourself being nudged a bit, your cousin telling you to stop daydreaming about Jungkook and to start ordering something before she made you pay for your own meal. But how could your mind get rid of Jungkook when you knew that he was waiting on a text back and that he was set on making you talk to him. Knowing Jungkook he would search this whole campus just so that his stubborn ass could find you. “Fuck my life,” the realization of something that was sending you into panic hit you.

“What happened bubs?”

“We come here a lot, usually on Thursday’s too. I don’t know man I think he might come here.”

“I think it would be good if you speak to him. You can’t avoid him forever.”

Your cousin sounded like Jungkook so you tuned her out.

Your eyes ran through the various people here again, making sure that you did not see or hear anything Jungkook related. You set your attention back to your cousin, the things that she was saying getting lost in your head as you thought to yourself. Wait a fucking minute. You looked back to a table of four, three women and one man, smiling at one another, all was good besides the fact that she was girl Jungkook was fucking that night at the party.

She probably sensed that someone was staring at her as her eyes met yours in what was the most awkward experience of your life. For a few seconds you both stared at one another, not wanting to give up dominance or the challenge for that matter. “Who the fuck are you looking at?” Renee asked you and tugged you by your arm making you sit back properly in the booth. While your cousin had saved you from looking like an idiot you also wanted to punch her for making you surrender to the female.

“That’s the girl he slept with.”

Silence filled your table, the only sound being your vibrating phone.

Kookie ⚠️🍪 5:30 pm

I can’t believe you went to the bag without me. I’m hurt 😭

“Guys he’s here,” Nina said looking past your head and towards the front of the restaurant. “I recommend you speak to him but if you want to duck you can do that.”

You looked at your cousin, your heart racing as Jungkook spotted you and made eye contact with you for about a second. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she got up from your side of the booth to give you room to leave and you quickly walked to the bathroom ignoring Jungkook’s calling out for you.

Being in the bathroom made your breathing slow down by your head was mess knowing that he was probably waiting for you right outside the door and you’d have nowhere else to go. Trust and believe that if there was a window in here you be the first to climb out of it.

You went over to the sink, running water over your hands and eventually washing your face from the oil and hoping that the somewhat cold water would help cool you down. From your neck up everything was hot, your hands were still shaking and your head was spinning as your tried to steady yourself by grabbing the counter. You can do this, nothing bad is going to happen.

“I don’t know why you thought you could avoid me.”

Jungkook looked you up and down with a little smirk as your cousin and her friend both gave you apologetic looks. It really wasn’t their faults to begin with, Jungkook was going to sit there regardless and wait for you all night if he had to; he’s such a stubborn boy. Fine then, if he wanted to talk then you both could talk. You fixed the collar of the shirt, feeling more self conscious as he knew you were wearing his shirt, but you doubt he would mind as he gave it you.

You frowned at seeing how tense your cousin looked. “We’re going to take a walk and then I’ll come back. You know what I want right?” She nodded and told you that it was fine and to take your time. “Are you coming?” You asked Jungkook as you walked off knowing that he would follow behind.

Getting outside made things worse as you realized that you would essentially be alone with him and no one would be here to save you just like that night at the party. But if we wanted to get technical Jungkook did stop you from running off and into God knows where in your drunken state, so you could count that as saving you. “This is awkward,” you can’t possible hold your tongue back as you both walked along the sidewalk. This meeting was awkward and it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Well you’re the one who wanted to take a walk so I’m assuming you wanted to say something to me.”

You couldn’t help but be annoyed by him, “I need you to stop stalking me.”

Jungkook shook his head, “I’m not stalking you. I just want to know where we stand because you’re doing a fucked up job of communicating with me.”

You wanted to say something, anything to retort his accusation (that was true) but you couldn’t because he was right and you were wrong. He had every right to be pissed off because you’ve basically been acting as if he didn’t exist, like he was just another person but he was so much more than that to you. “I’m sorry.” You really were and Jungkook knew this that’s why you were quickly forgiven.

“You have to speak to me, that’s how we work.” He wrapped an arm around you and for the first time in days things felt normal between the two of you. Naturally you wrapped your arm around his waist and moved in closer to him as he squeezed your shoulder.

“I know but you know how I get with things like this!”

He chuckled, “I know and that’s why I kept reaching for you. If you liked me you should have just told me.”

“And face rejection and probably losing our friendship. Makes sense.”

“How do you know I was going to say no? I would have said yes, and I’m not going to stop being your friend due to some minimal shit. We’ve been through so much that things like this is nothing.”

His words had comfort you, it brought certainty to your mind now as you knew that he wouldn’t let how you felt about him effect your friendship with him. Jungkook was always good with words when it came to you, he said something cheesy things here and there but they meant a lot to you because you knew he meant everything he said.

Your words were caught in your throats for a second but you managed to get them out. “Back to what you said about how we work, you’re right, us talking to each other makes us a good team.” You hadn’t noticed but Jungkook was staring at you as you spoke about how important it was to finally get everything off your chest. The night at that party, the years of loving him—it was like they were all kept wrapped around your heart, squeezing it tightly. But as your heart was about to burst it slowly unraveled, revealing things in a different light.

Jungkook smiled, you could see his two front teeth that resembled a bunny smile. “We make the best team. Can we sit my legs are getting tired.”

You hadn’t noticed how far you had walked until you looked back and saw that the restaurant was in the far distance up two blocks. “Yeah sure,” you sat on the nearest bench by this florist shop that was thankfully closed today. Wouldn’t need people telling Jungkook that he should buy flowers for the special lady in his life—you. Whenever you both hung out in the city he’d be on the same side of the sidewalk with his arm around you as he held you close, and you would have your arm around his waist to balance it out.

He was awfully close to you as he scratched his head like he always did when he was nervous.

Wait.

Why does he look like he’s thinking about something deeply?

Why is he smiling at me?

Why is he leaning in?

It happened. The kiss. It was amazing in a weird way, here you were kissing the boy you’ve loved for so long in front of random people who were walking by. The kiss was sweet, his lips were soft, and his hands were warm as they caressed your cheek and your fingers were perfectly locked in his hair. This was happening.

He was the one to pull away, the charming smile he carried before still on his face. He was content, his heart was filled with happiness. You were a blushing mess, but like him you were content, and your heart was filled with more happiness than you thought was possible.

“I should have asked you first I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” You were quick to answer so you sunk back in embarrassment, but Jungkook took your hand rubbing his thumb over yours.

He opened his mouth to say something but only a chuckle could be heard. “I wanna be with you. I don’t care about ruining something that’s too strong to break. I wanna be with you.” He looks at how your fingers were intertwined with each other, this was what he wanted to do everyday. He wanted this, he wanted you. And he didn’t need to think about it last night, in fact the feeling of wanting you, needing you, missing you although you were never truly apart from him only dawned on him when he was sat in that restaurant watching you walk out of the bathroom you were hiding in.

He retraced his feelings back to the ending of senior year where he was unsure of whether to ask you out or to let you be. He let you be from fear of rejection and fear of drifting apart. But now that you were here with him, he wasn’t going to let you walk from again, not after knowing that you felt the same way. He was not letting you slip through his fingers. Not today.

You never did give him a solid response. You simply said ‘me too’ but you were unsure of diving right into a relationship with him as you wanted him to clear his plate of women he had on his tail, and you also needed time to process how quickly your life was going to change. You were still going to be best friends no matter what, but actually dating him and being his. The thought was all sweet and steamy but the reality of it was much more than that.

“Oh my God just fucking go out with him.”

“You’re thinking about it too much just suck his dick and marry him.”

Okay so your cousin was definitely right but Nina not so much. Still though you were going to need to process this whole thing and that meant separating yourself from him for a while to look at the picture clearly.

“Y/N open up it’s me Jungkook!“

Well damn, so much for separating yourself from him.

#bts jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagines #jungkook fluff #jeon jungkook #bts imagines #bts x reader #bts college au #bts texts #bts jin #bts suga #bts jhope #bts rapmonster #bts jimin #bts taehyung

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