#Brittany has come in clutch so many times | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writer-akihiko · 4 years

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TWST Dorm Leaders + Singer!MC

So MC sings and what else to sing than Disney songs? Enjoy a romantic endeavor with your beloved dorm leaders! Covers are linked to the song name! Thank you to my child @cursedtwst for helping me with song choices.

Rest of the dorm leaders under the cut.

Malleus Draconia - Once Upon A Dream (Belle)

When he found out that you used to sing in your world, he wanted to hear you sing. He was quiet about it, not wanting to pressure you and especially not to remind you that you have somewhere to go back. Oh no, he had to keep his precious child of man here.

He brought you to his favourite hiding spot, surrounded by flowers in an empty field for a picnic. His close friends also came, bringing the foods and entertainment.

You actually had suggested the picnic to cheer up your Tsunotarou since he was quite sad. He was again not invited to a party at the Mostro Lounge.

You had your own selfish reasons for making a picnic… You planned to confess through singing. Lilia quickly caught on, making an agreement to handle the other two as you get together with Malleus.

You pretended to wander off, tossing away your slippers. Knowing the overprotective little dark fae, he'd follow you anyway.

You twirled around, humming to the tune. "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…"

Malleus, who had been watching you intently, was thrown off by your singing. So this is how his precious human sounded…

"I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam," You clutched your hands to your heart, pouring your soul into your tune. "Yet I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem…"

Malleus reddened at the selfish thought that the song was meant for him. The lyrics only made him adore you more than ever.

"But if I know you, I know what you'll do," You turned to the Prince himself, pulling him out of his hiding place. "You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream…"

As you hummed the bridge, you took his hand in yours and swayed together, laughing in song seeing how much he towered you.

Malleus was too stunned for words. His angel here was singing to him. What more could he ask for?

"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…"

He grasped your hand, feeling how small your hand was against his.

"I know you, that gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam," You brought your hand to his cheek moving away the hairs that shielded his beautiful coloured eyes from you. "Yet I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem…"

"But if I know you, I know what you'll do… You'll love me at once, the way you did…

Once upon a dream."

You hugged the larger fae, nuzzling your head into his chest. "I like you Malleus."

He couldn't restrain himself, picking you up and staring into your eyes as you did to his. You could see the blush that ran rampant on his cheeks, as his eyes panicked on what to do.

You kissed his cheek, him understanding it as a kiss of acceptance.

"Oh how romantic! Maybe I should take this to Cater to edit! It'll be viral!" Lilia's voice brought the attention of the loving couple.

Well, the picnic ended peacefully, save for the embarrassed screams of the Prince as he yells at his caretaker.

Riddle Rosehearts - Alice (Bruna Wesch)

Ace and Deuce found out you were singing to yourself with your precious guitar in the Ramshackle dorm alone. These two insisted that the next unbirthday they throw, you should definitely sing.

You seriously thought they were joking.

Ace stole your guitar from your room and here you were, about to sing in front of Riddle. It wasn't that you were scared no… It was just that your daft friends couldn’t understand the goosebumps you get at the thought of singing in front of your crush!

Ace and Deuce looked at you eagerly, presenting you your guitar. Cater already has his phone out, preparing to take a video.

You snatched your guitar out, deciding to just go with it. It's not like you have to confess or anything…

Riddle's stare at you made you tense up. Has he been looking at you this whole time? He kinda looks pissed… You decided to get on with it.

You start strumming, letting yourself relax, "Trippin' out, spinnin' around… I'm underground, I fell down… Yeah, I fell down…"

Your tone of voice surprised Rosehearts' audience. Starting to feel more comfortable, you raise your voice a little.

"I'm freakin' out; So where am I now? Upside down, and I can't stop it now…" You stopped strumming. "It can't stop me now.. Oh~"

Riddle this whole time was impressed. Impressed was an understatement. He felt himself become more and more enchanted with every emotion as you sing it out loud.

"I~ I'll get by,"

"I~ I'll survive…"

Your strumming quickened, "When the world's crashin' down, when I fall and hit the ground, I will turn myself around; Don't you try to stop it! I~ I won't cry…"

You completely immersed yourself in the music, enjoying your guitar and the atmosphere, letting your head nod to the tunes.

"I found myself… in Wonderland…"

"Get back on… my feet again…"

"Is this real? Is it pretend?"

"I'll take a stand… until the end!"

Riddle felt the words flow through him…

As the final strums of the song vibrated through your fingertips, you finished your song.

They got up, applauding you. Riddle got up from his high throne, taking your hand in his.

"…Come and sing for me again please."

Well, here goes nothing.

You nodded, pecking the Queen of Hearts on the cheek before running off with your guitar.

"H-HOW RUDE! COME HERE SO I CAN RETURN THE FAVOUR!"

Oh silly Riddle… That's why YN fell for you in the first place.

Kalim Al-Asim - A Whole New World (Emma Heesters + Dan Berk)

Kalim just knew it! You were a singer! His princess was unfortunately too shy to sing a tune. He couldn't settle for this! If you can't sing alone, then he'll sing with you!

Kalim had arranged a sort of music night at the Mostro Lounge. He convinced you that it was a simple date night but you didn’t expect Jade Leech to announce you two as the next performers.

He gripped your hand, smiling at you. Your nervous self calmed down, repeatedly telling yourself that Kalim was next to you.

The soft melody started and so did Kalim, "I can show you the world… shining, shimmering, splendid~" He smiled at you, extending a hand. "Now tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?"

He pulled you close, "I can open your eyes… Take you wonder by wonder~ Over, sideways and under on a magic carpet ride~"

Kalim held your hand, twirling you around. His melodious voice made you blush, wondering how on earth did you ever date someone like him.

"A whole new world~ A new fantastic point of view…" He sung out, always looking at you. "No one to tell us, "no" or where to go, or say we're only dreaming~"

Gathering your courage, you took the microphone and joined Kalim in the chorus.

"A whole new world…. A dazzling place I never knew," You continued. "But when I'm way up here, it's crystal clear that now I'm in a whole new world with you…"

"Now I'm in a whole new world with you…" Kalim sung after. His face turned red hearing his princess sing. Oh lovely you looked right now…

"Unbelievable sights… Indescribable feeling," You held Kalim's hand. "Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky~"

As you two sung through another chorus, you felt as if it was only the two of you there. Together…

"I'll chase them anywhere,"

"There's time to spare!"

"Let me share this whole new world with you…"

As the final notes of the song fell through, you and Kalim stared into each other's eyes, enjoying the magical bond that kept you glued to each other.

"For you and… me…"

The romantic moment was interrupted by the applause that the Lounge attendees thought that was well deserved. Kalim laughed, holding you up by your waist. "That was lovely my princess!"

Azul Ashengrotto - Part of Your World (Halsey)

[Lyrics were altered to suit the scenario]

After many days of insisting Azul to take you to the ocean, he gave in. Your puppy eyes made him give in. He did bring you to swim with him and the twins. He however, never transformed in front of you. You were as curious as ever, a little saddened that he didn't feel beautiful in front of you.

Jade told you that Azul wanted some time to swim in his octopus form for a bit. You watched as Jade and Floyd swum in the deeper water; too deep for your human self.

Instead you climbed on an overhanging rock, watching the twins swim. You decided to sing… after all Azul won't hear you…

"I wanna be where his people are…" You hummed out, "I wanna see, wanna see 'em swimmin'… Flippin' around in the waters~"

Floyd heard you from afar, smirking to himself. Oh, Azul you made Shrimpy a little sad siren~

"Movin' your feet you don't get too far! Fins are required for swimmin', flippin'," You joked to yourself. "Swimmin' along down a — what's that word again? – stream~"

You sighed, singing your thoughts out, "Down where they swim, down where they play, own where they stay all day undersea~"

"Wanderin' free…"

"Wish I could be…"

"Part of his world…"

"YN?!"

There Azul Ashengrotto was, red in the face, staring you up on that rock in an adorable octopus form…

"Azul?..."

You blushed, thinking about how long Azul had been there and probably how much he heard. From behind you, the twins grinned sinisterly as they lifted you up and tossed you into the ocean.

You screamed, but weren't covered in water as you assumed. Azul's soft but firm tentacles had caught you on instinct as he brought you down to face him properly.

"Um… I… liked you singing," He said, unsure how to approach the situation of the Leech twins literally throwing his crush into his arms.

"A-Azul… your… tentacle," You stammered, squirming in his tentacles.

He let go of you, settling you in the shallow waters.

The twins frowned, seeing how their plan didn't work too well. Oh well, there's always next time.

Idia Shroud - I Won't Say I'm in Love (Brittany J Smith)

When shy Idia, your crush, asked you to help you with his experiment, you could not say yes any faster.

Ace, Grim and Deuce kept teasing you on how quickly you agreed, not letting it down and even dragging Ortho with them too. This left you to be quite the tsundere.

You huffed at your friends, "If there's a prize for rotten judgement, I guess I've already won that…" You sauntered away, crossing your arms. "No man is worth the aggravation… That's ancient history, been there, done that!"

The four joined in chorus, smiling at your denial, "Who'd'ya think you're kiddin'? He's the Earth and heaven to you~

"Try to keep it hidden? Honey, we can see right through you~"

"Girl, ya can't conceal it! We know how ya feel and who you're thinking of~"

"No chance, no way! I won't say it, no, no!" You shook your head.

"You swoon, you sigh, why deny it, uh-oh!" The quartet made love hearts with their fingers, surrounding you.

"It's too cliché!" You retorted. "I won't say I'm in love!"

You walked through the gardens, unaware that Idia had settled in one of the bushes, keeping an eye out for his brother who had been hanging around a weird gang.

"I thought my heart had learned its lesson… It feels so good when you start out," You sung out as you walked around, catching Idia's attention. "My head is screaming get a grip, girl! Unless you're dying to cry your heart out~ Oh no!"

Idia turned to the three idiots who were dancing around you with his brother.

"You keep on denying who you are and how you're feeling-"

"Baby, we're not buying! Hon, we saw ya hit the ceiling!"

"Face it like a grown-up. When ya gonna own up that ya got, got, got it bad?!"

"Give up, give in! Check the grin you're in love~"

Idia peaked out at you shaking your head and throwing your arms into X's. Your singing somehow calmed him despite you were retorting the idiot trio's claims.

"No chance, no way! I won't say it, no, no," You sung again.

"This scene won't play, I won't say I'm in love!" You said again.

"You're doin flips! Read our lips. You're in love!" Grim sat on your shoulder, dancing and chuckling at your denial.

"You're way off base," You said to Grim. "I won't say it!"

"Get off my case!" You yelled at Ace and Deuce. "I won't say it!"

It didn't deter the quartet.

"Now, don't be proud. It's okay you're in love~"

"Oh, at least out loud," You slump down to a pillar. "I won't say I'm in love…"

Ortho spots his big brother from a distance away and mouths to him: 'She's talking about you.'

This left his pale blue complexion burning a scarlet red, as he repeated the whole song in his head that was about him.

Oh, maybe it'd take more than a song and a dance to let the true confession come.

Leona Kingscholar - Can You Feel The Love Tonight? (Landry Cantrell + Brianne Brieno)

Of course, Leona brought you back to his hometown with Jack and Ruggie in suit. As you and Leona took your evening stroll, Ruggie pulls Jack to the side, spying on you two lovebirds.

"I can see what's happening," Ruggie said.

"I can't, what?" Jack asked, bewildered.

"And they don't have a clue," Ruggie continued.

"Who's they?" Jack asked again.

"They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line," Ruggie slung his arm over Jack's shoulder. "Our trio's down to two."

"Oh, I get it."

"The sweet caress of twilight," Ruggie exaggerated.

"Yep-"

There's magic everywhere," He sighed.

"It's everywhere," Jack commented.

"And with all this romantic atmosphere," Ruggie continued. "Disaster's in the air~"

"Can you feel the love tonight? The peace the evening brings," The lovely couple harmonised together.

You had been teaching Leona how to sing every time he'd take a nap on you.

"The world, for once, in perfect harmony with all its living things~"

"So many things to tell her…" Leona sings to himself, pulling out a ring from his pocket. "But how to make her see… the truth about my past? Impossible! She'd turn away from me…"

You took a look at Leona who walked ahead, "He's holding back, he's hiding… But what? I can't decide… Why won't he be the king I know he is?" You thought about Farena's talk. "The king I see inside?"

"Can you feel the love tonight? The peace the evening brings?"

Leona slowed down, taking you near him to twirl you across the gardens.

"The world, for once, in perfect harmony with all its living things…"

You brought the lion's forehead to touch yours, comforting him in a way he'd never felt.

"Can you feel the love tonight? You needn't look too far…" The couple basked in each other's warmth, finding comfort in each other.

"Stealing through the night's uncertainties… Love is where they are~"

"And if he falls in love tonight…" Ruggie sniffled. "It can be assumed…"

"His carefree days with us are history," Jack added on.

"In short, our pal is… doomed!"

Later that night, before you rested in your sheets, Leona took the ring out, getting down on a knee.

The rest is history as they say.

Vil Schoenheit - I'm Wishing (Sierra Nelson)

You had stayed over at the Pomefiore dorm to… in simple words… observe your beautiful crush, Vil Schoenheit.

The little fluffy bunny Epel and you rescued from Rook's clutches cuddle into your arms as you sigh forlornly, near Vil's newly installed fountain.

"Want to hear a secret?" You mischievously told the fluffy bunny. "Promise to never tell?"

You swayed your head, singing in your soft tunes, "We are standing by a wishing well…"

"Make a wish into the well… That's all you have to do," You recited, practicing your voice almost. "And when you hear it echoing~ You're wish will soon come true…"

The commotion of your voice called to Vil. He was wondering what was that melodious… BEAUTIFUL… voice that interrupted his skin care routine. There he saw you, sitting so elegantly with Rook's bunny in your arms as you sung like an angel from above.

He leaned against his window, lending his ear to your song.

"I'm wishing…" The deep fountain echoed back.

"For the one I love," You professed. "To find me today…"

The one you love?! Why that must be no one but him!

"I'm hoping… and I'm dreaming of," You sighed dreamily. "The nice things he'll say…"

"Ah~"

As the sweet sound of your voice rung out through his courtyard, he let your melody help him continue his beauty care.

The moment you finished singing, he made his way down, hugging his little songbird.

"I heard you singing for me," He whispered into your ear, kissing your ear so tenderly.

You almost dropped the poor bunny as you blushed, being kissed by the one you love. Vil brought your face closed to his, staring deeply into your eyes.

"Only a sweet voice such as yours deserves to be worshipped by a queen like me~"

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leigh-kelly · 4 years

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The Nanny

So the last thing I should be doing is writing a new fic, but this is a gift for @yourstreetserenade who has been an absolute gift to this fandom especially during such a difficult time. I’m not sure how frequent updates will be, but they will come!

Just after finishing with four separate brides in the bridal shop she works at in Flushing, Queens, Brittany Pierce hops up on the counter and crosses her legs, tossing her head back. Sugar Motta grabs a bottle of water and thrusts it into Brittany’s hand, before jumping up on the counter next to her. The two of them sit in silence for several minutes, taking in the fact that they have no customers, before the bell on the door tinkles and Brittany takes a swig out of the bottle and climbs down, smoothing her dress.

“Oh, hey Dani.” She grins, walking over to her girlfriend. Before she can give her a kiss, Dani puts her hand up, and Brittany furrows her brow.

“No kiss?”

“Look, Brittany, we need to talk.”

“Uh, sure, shoot.”

“Somewhere private.” Dani gestures over to Sugar, who makes herself look busy with her boss’ presence in the store.

“Don’t worry, no one’s in here.” Sugar pops her gum and sticks a pin into the dress on one of the mannequins.

“You are, Sugar. Brittany, let’s go into my office.”

“Aw c’mon Dan, I’ve told you a thousand times, if you tell me something, I’m just going to tell Sugar anyway, you may as well just say it. Besides, we’ve had a real rush in here today, and I don’t wanna leave her stranded if it happens again.”

“Fine.” Dani sighs, exasperated. “We’ve had a good run, Britt, but there’s someone else.”

“Someone else? What are you talking about? We’re pre-engaged.”

“Yeah!” Sugar agrees. “We’ve already been picking out Brittany’s wedding dress.”

“Sugar, this is really a couple’s conversation.”

“How are you going to say it’s a couple’s conversation if you just said we’re not a couple anymore?” Brittany tries to hold back her tears, but she finds that she’s failing miserably. “How could you do this?”

“It just happened, Quinn and I ran into each other a few weeks ago at—”

“Quinn? You’re breaking up with me for Quinn Fabray? How am I supposed to work here knowing that you’re sleeping with that shameless hussy?”

“You sound a little like your mother, Britt.” Sugar interjects.

“Shut up, Sugar.”

“Well, about that.” Dani wrings her hands in front of her body. “Quinn needs a job, and, well…”

“So not only are you breaking up with me, you’re firing me?” Brittany grabs her purse from behind the counter and makes toward the door as Dani reaches for her. “Don’t touch me. You can’t fire me, I quit!” She pushes the door open, gets halfway through and turns around. “No, you fired me, that way I can collect unemployment.”

----

“Kurt!” Santana Lopez calls out, sitting behind the desk in her home office and shuffling through a stack of paperwork. “Come in here!”

“You bellowed, Ms. Lopez?” Kurt opens the door, adjusting his tie.

“Have any of the prospective nannies arrived yet? Rachel is on me—”

“She wishes.” He mutters under his breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“Rachel is on me about the party on Saturday night. If Tyler scares one more nanny away, I’m sending him to boarding school.”

Santana puts her head in her hands on continues to go through her paperwork. Ever since her wife died five years ago, she’s been overwhelmed by the demands of her career and taking care of her three children. Valerie, the oldest, had been thrust into puberty and is off the walls with her emotions, Tyler does everything in his power to force anyone who came into the house to leave, and Abigail, the baby, is in therapy twice a week and trying to deal with the fact that she barely remembers her mother at all, but sometimes Santana thinks it’s making her worse, not better. On top of all that, she has Rachel who is constantly demanding every moment of her attention, and she’s been through eight nannies who just can’t seem to manage her children, so she can give the focus she needs to her career.

“There’s the bell.” Kurt breaks her from her thoughts. “Let’s hope the ninth time’s the charm and this nanny that the agency sent over can actually manage Master Tyler.”

“Tell her I’ll be with her in a minute, I just need to finish up in here.”

“Yes, Ms. Lopez.”

Kurt exits the room and goes to answer the door. Standing before him is a leggy blonde in a bright pink mini dress and stiletto heels. She’s not exactly what he expected from the agency and is certainly a far cry from any of the other nannies they’ve seen over the past five years, but he steps back and lets her in.

“Ms. Lopez says she’ll be right with you. I expect you have your resume?”

“Resume? I—uh…” The blonde clutches the makeup kit she carries close to her chest and looks around.

“Yes, resume. You know, the list of your previous experience as a nanny, which I presume you have quite a bit of?”

“Resume. Nanny. Right. Yeah, I, uh…totally have it. Say, butler man, do you think I could get a glass of water?”

“As you wish.”

When Kurt leaves the room to get her a glass of water, Brittany scrambles through her makeup kit. She had no intention of applying for a job as a nanny, she was just at this gorgeous mansion to try and sell makeup so she could get out of her parents’ house, now that she was no longer living with Dani, but like she always thought, when opportunity knocks, she’s got to answer. Unfortunately, all she has with her is an order form and a few tubes of lipstick, but she’ll make do, quickly scribbling her name and phone number in Monroe Red along the back of the form and trying to write down her years of working at Dani’s Discount Bridal before the butler comes back with her water. She’s just about finished when a dark-haired boy bursts into the room clutching a knife to his chest and collapses on the floor with a pool of ketchup staining his white shirt.

“Eh, mediocre performance.” She stands over his twitching body and his eyes pop open. “Next time, you want to get some of that fake costume blood off of Amazon. Ketchup is so 1990s.”

“I’ll have you know.” The boy feigns a gasp. “I’m dying here.”

“We’re all dying, kid.” Brittany laughs. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“I’m just making conversation. So, you live here, or what?”

“No.” He deadpans. “I just hang around random mansions looking to scare unsuspecting nannies.”

“You’ve really gotta get better at this scaring thing. I’m telling you, I could give you some tips that’ll have you winning Academy Awards.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve scared off seven nannies in five years, and if you’d stop messing with my plan, you’d be number eight.”

“I don’t scare easily, you’ve never met my mother. Trust me, she’ll tell you the story of the time she thought she had to poop, gave birth to me in a barn and wrapped me up in a Mr. Submarine wrapper, and you’ll be scarred for life.”

“Ew.” The boy sticks out his tongue. “That’s disgusting, and I don’t think my mother would appreciate you telling me that story.”

“Your mother will make that decision.” Brittany’s jaw nearly hits the floor when a gorgeous brunette in a pencil skirt and blazer steps into the room. “Santana Lopez, it’s a pleasure to meet you Miss—”

“Pierce. Brittany Pierce.”

“Miss Pierce. Now what was this story you were telling my son?”

“Oh…I…uh…never mind.” Brittany stammers. “We were just getting to know each other.”

“Well, you haven’t run screaming from the house yet, so I suppose that’s going well. Tyler, go get Valerie and Abigail.”

“But Mom—”

“Go.” She shoos him off, and Brittany can’t help but stare at the woman in front of her.

“Santana—”

“I’d prefer if you call me Ms. Lopez, thank you.”

“Right, sorry, Ms. Lopez. Um…he’s a character.”

“That’s one way to put it.” She sighs. “Your resume, please.”

“Oh…yeah. Well, I kind of forgot to bring one with me, but I have this.” Brittany hands over the lipstick scrawled paper, and Santana holds it between two fingers.

“So, you came to an interview without a resume? Is that lipstick?”

“Well, I’m kind of having a bad week, you know how that goes.” She bites her lip, figuring she may as well just show herself the door.

“You’re not here for the interview, are you?”

“I—look, I wasn’t exactly called her for an interview, but I’m telling you, I’m great with kids. I have like…thirty-six little cousins, and I could totally be a nanny.”

“Yet you have no experience. I see here that you worked for…Dani’s Discount Bridal?”

“Mom!” A little girl with her hair in long braids tumbles into the room, and Brittany smiles at how much she looks like San—Ms. Lopez. “Tyler pushed me again!”

“Kid, what’s your deal?” Brittany asks him. “Why do you want everyone not to like you?”

“You can’t talk to me like that! Mom, tell her she can’t talk to me like that!”

“She’s not wrong Tyler. How many times have I had to tell you to keep your hands off your sister?”

“I don’t know.” He rolls his eyes. “About a billion.”

“Look, Miss Pierce, clearly I need more help here than you’re qualified to give. Thank you for coming, I’ll have Kurt see you out.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry. Thank you for your time.”

Kurt enters the living room again holding Brittany’s water, which he immediately sets down on the coffee table, sensing the tone of the room. While he’s escorting Brittany to the door, she catches a glimpse of the oldest Lopez child and she sighs, thinking that she probably could have made some kind of difference in their lives, even if she doesn’t necessarily have any formal training as a nanny. When she gets to the door, another short brunette enters, who gives her a dirty look, and she just exits without another word.

“Santana!” Rachel cries out, looking at the ketchup on Tyler’s shirt with disgust before the kids all scatter from the room in her wake. “I’ve been on the phone all morning with the caterer for Saturday night. I’m telling you, if this party is a disaster, then we’re never going to get the funding we need for our play. They’re going to immediately jump ship and support the next Lin Manuel Miranda production, and we’ll be out in the cold again.”

“Rachel, it’s going to be fine. I just have to focus on getting a nanny for these kids today, and then Saturday will go off without a hitch.”

“What was the matter with that one? Scared off again by Lord Ketchup?”

“No.” Santana looks to the door, feeling like perhaps she’s made some kind of mistake just as the phone rings. “She’s just not right for our family.”

“Well, you better find someone who’s right. We have three million dollars riding on Saturday night being a success, and as much as I adore your children, I just don’t think having them run around our cocktail party will do anyone any favors.”

“Yes, I’m aware, you’ve told me that about forty-six times this week.”

“Ms. Lopez.” Kurt interrupts. “It’s the nanny agency on the phone for you.”

“Rachel, I have to take this. Go into my office and look over the notes for our pitch.”

“You know that I’m your partner, not your employee, right?”

“Okay.” Santana pinches the bridge of her nose. “Decide if you want to look over the notes for our pitch so you can be prepared for Saturday night.”

“I think that sounds like a great idea.” Rachel chirps. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Great.” She takes the phone from Kurt and sinks down onto the couch. “Santana Lopez speaking.”

“Ms. Lopez, this is Mindy from the agency. Unfortunately, the interviewee we were sending out to you today was offered another job and has decided to cancel. I can get someone else to you on Monday, maybe Tuesday.”

“Monday or Tuesday isn’t good enough.” Santana snaps. “I’ve told you a dozen times that I need someone for this weekend.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.”

“You have got to be kidding me. I have three kids who need a nanny, and I have an event Saturday night. Next week is unacceptable.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it work.”

“Goddamnit.” Santana hangs up the phone and looks at Kurt desperately. “Why is it so hard to find good help in this town?”

“I believe I can still decipher the lipstick on Miss Pierce’s ‘resume.’” Kurt offers. “Maybe you ought to give her a shot. She certainly wasn’t afraid of Master Tyler.”

“She has no experience. And did you see what she was wearing? What kind of influence on Valerie would I be bringing into this house?”

“You certainly seemed a little…preoccupied with her wardrobe if I do say so myself.”

“Honestly, shut up.”

“You need a nanny before Saturday, and she clearly needs a job. Hire her on a trial basis, then you at least have yourself covered and you can resume your interviews next week.”

#brittana #the nanny #new fic

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chooseyouovereveryone · 3 years

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Brittana Analysis Part 5: Season 6 (Coming Full Circle, Parallels and Callbacks)

It’s a long one, but it occurred to me the other day when watching the performance of Home in S6 just how much all the main Brittana S6 scenes parallel and call back to their earlier scenes/obstacles. We all know S6 was fan service and it was a way to tie up their story and had various nods to the past, but I didn't realise how many direct parallel's their were until the other day. Maybe I was sleeping on something most of ya'll already knew but...sharing anyway.

So breaking it down to their 4 episodes and some key obstacles/moments in their story and how they full circled it in S6:

Homecoming- Friends with benefits and Santana's denial and hypersexuality with men

Jagged Little Tapestry- Duets make out scene and Landslide

What The World Needs Now- Santana coming out

A Wedding- The break up and Santana's insecurities about Brittany's love, Artie, Sam etc.

Warning this is super long, and uses the word full circle like a billion times, but it's the whole point of this post 😂

Homecoming 6x02

So I'm starting off with the performance that sparked the theory. I'd say the Home performance is their most significant scene in the episode, the others are all either with other characters or background moments, but in Home they get a moment just to themselves. So here's how I see that performance.

Santana is referenced to be some form of former Homecoming Royalty in that performance, whether that be she was Homecoming Queen off-screen in her Senior Year or Homecoming Princess in another year, maybe the beginning of Sophomore Year just before she breaks up with Puck (as shown in S1). That would make sense because Puck appears to be her running mate, and Sophomore Year is the only year it would make sense for them to be voted in together. Perhaps that's what made Santana go for Puck in the first place, in the same way she used Karovsky to try and win Prom Queen. Perhaps she saw Puck's chances of being nominated and pursued him, then when she got what she wanted and won, broke up with him (using his poor credit score as an excuse). Anyway, that's going off on one, but point being that the scenes show us a flashback to what used to be; Santana and Puck.

Knowing what we know now, we know that Santana was never happy with Puck. She was a closeted lesbian using him for status and to deny her feelings, while she fell in love and slept with her best friend. Meanwhile, Brittany had to watch Santana do all this. She had to watch the person she loved ignore what they had and refuse to talk about what they were doing, and fake it all with Puck instead. She even has to hear Santana say she's just using her while Puck's in juvie- ouch! To sum up, I think it's fair to say that the Puck and Santana dynamic caused both of them a lot of pain and it was probably the first obstacle they had to overcome.

Homecoming is the first episode Brittana appear in on S6, therefore it's the first full circle moment. And that first full circle moment comes with a parallel to their first obstacle. The scene starts with Brittany leading Santana out to the pitch where she's about to partake in this Homecoming Royalty Alumni ritual. They are giddy, they are happy, they are in love. Santana is about to fulfil this commitment with her ex-boyfriend, and it's something that's probably going to transform her back to another world. A world where she was unhappy and scared for the future. It also may take Brittany back to another world, a world where Santana refused to be hers and where she had to watch her all over Puck instead. But in this world, in the here and now, the two of them are happy and you can see that in this scene. Santana may have to stand with her ex boyfriend for a few minutes and be momentarily taken back to her old life as Brittany watches from the sidelines, but Brittany is the one who walks her proudly to the pitch as they eskimo kiss in public (another testament to how far they've come), because that's where they are now. They're together and all that hiding and fear and pretending with Puck is long gone and put in the past. Santana might be standing up there with reference to the fact she was once Puck's homecoming queen/princess, but in reality she's Brittany's queen. That was hella cheesy, but you know where I'm going with it! & that's the full circle of it all. The lyrics they sing are also poignant "man oh man you're my best friend", because as we all know that's how they started out and how they've always remained throughout their relationship and even during their break up.

As Santana and Puck walk around with the sparklers, Brittany looks nervous. It might be because she's nervous for Santana in undertaking her duties, or nervous for how Santana might feel being transported back to that time with Puck. It might be that she herself feels uneasy seeing Santana up there with Puck because it reminds her of what used to be. Or it might be that she's just nervous that her girlfriend is walking around clutching a stick with fire on 😂 Whatever it is, as Puck and Santana do their duties, we then get a shot of Brittany shrugging which indicates that any feelings she used to have about Puck and Santana are now firmly behind her. She can watch her girlfriend up there with her ex because Santana is hers now, and she's no longer scared to lose her to denial, rejection or fear. The Home performance takes us right back to Brittana's rocky start where Santana used men to push her feelings away, and finishes that chapter for us showing how it's come full circle. Also pointing out that while Brittany is watching Santana, she is seated next to her own ex Sam, and next to him is her previous ex Artie which is again a nod to the past and a reference to the fact it's all water under a bridge. Both girls can stand by their exes and it will be okay both with themselves and with each other (there's no jealousy involved).

Jagged Little Tapestry 6x03

A big episode for them, once again their main scenes have direct links back to their past. Starting with the bed scene which is a parallel of the Duets scene from 2x04. The clue alone is in the way the scene starts. Both start with long shots of Brittany's room and when the camera pans up you see Brittany and Santana on the bed in both scenes. They also begin both scenes by talking about scissoring (🙄). I definitely think the mention of scissoring in 6x03 is done deliberately because it's meant to parallel the 2x04 scene. Another parallel is the fact they are discussing duets to perform in Glee Club in both episodes. The difference between both scenes is of course the dynamics of their relationship and their attitude.

In Duets, Brittany is nervous and tentative to suggest singing a duet with Santana as a gateway for her to express her feelings, in Jagged Little Tapestry she is confident and happy as she initiates a kiss with Santana and freely expresses her feelings and love for her. The Santana that we see in Duets is closed off, defensive and harsh but the Santana we see in Jagged Little Tapestry is open and expressive as she tells Brittany how much she loves her and she is super soft in this scene. Santana can't even bring herself to talk about doing a duet with Brittany in 2x04, but in 6x03 she's the one initiating a talk about their future, which shows how far they've come. Long gone are the days of rejection and Santana telling Brittany she is just using her while Puck is in juvie, this scene is all about their love for each other and their future together.

When Brittany tells Santana she will love her until infinity, Santana smiles although she's probably heard countless times how much Brittany loves her, but there's potentially another parallel within the parallel here and it could be a nod back to Santana telling Brittany she loved her for the first time - "please say you love me back". Even though Brittany did tell Santana she loved her back, it wasn't in the way Santana wanted because Brittany said she loved Artie also and stayed with him and we watched Santana's face crumble. In this scene, we get to see her smile because she's secure in the infinite love Brittany has for her. Something else this scene refers back to is the fact Santana was always seen as mean, and Brittany was always seen as stupid, but Brittany could always see the good in Santana and Santana always thought Brittany was a genius. This is replicated again in this scene with Brittany mentioning Santana's giant, generous heart and Santana calling Brittany a genius. But the main parallel is between 2x04 and 6x03, and both scenes end in a similar shot of Santana looking on. In 2x04 she is only thinking of the short term future, and who she's going to do a duet with since it definitely can't be Brittany, whilst a disheartened Brittany watches her from the bed. In contrast, 6x03 shows Santana thinking of the long term future, as she considers her life with Brittany and the fact she is about to propose to her and spend forever with her, while Brittany is cuddled up with her on the bed. With this episode, the writers replicated one of their first iconic scenes but showed us how far they had come and how things had changed for them.

Later on, in this episode, another iconic early Brittana scene is paralleled, the Landslide scene from 2x15. With Landslide, Santana and Brittany are scared, emotional and need the shield of Holly there to do the performance with them. Though initially opening herself up and allowing herself to be vulnerable, Santana immediately shuts down and gets defensive when Rachel mentions sapphic charm. She was brave enough to sing the song, but she doesn't want to be labelled. In contrast, their performance of Hand In My Pocket/I Feel The Earth Move shows them happily singing and dancing with each other and showing their love to everyone. This time, they don't need Holly in between them and they're so proud of their love that at one point of the performance they go to the back row and sit in between everyone. This is also a nod back to the past because it’s where they broke up, now they’re sat there in between all their friends right before Santana proposes.

The proposal is of course a parallel in itself, with Santana directly referring back to moments in their past about Brittany wanting her to be herself and “no matter how many times we tried to put our thing down and walk away from it we can’t”. But the biggest parallel is the comparison to the Landslide scene, where this time Santana is not scared to be labelled after singing with Brittany, she goes and puts a label on them herself by proposing to Brittany in front of everyone. She’s gone from defensive to literally wanting to scream her love from the rooftops. Like with Landslide where their moment is interrupted by Rachel, this time it’s Kurt who interrupts their moment but the two reasons for interrupting and by default the reactions from Santana are complete opposite. The two reactions Brittany has in the Landslide scene vs this scene are also very different. In Landslide she is happy that Santana has finally let her guard down, but as soon as Rachel opens her mouth you can see Brittany's face instantly drop. She knows that Rachel's comment is going to set Santana back and she is crushed when Santana walks away. But in this scene, Brittany gets to see Santana stand proud and demonstrate her love for her in front of everyone, promising to love her forever, and naturally Brittany is emotional at that and we get to see her happy tears in the realisation that nothing is going to come between them now and they've got to where they wanted to be. I’m saying it again, but this scene is literally full circle.

What The World Needs Now 6x06

This episode is less a parallel more a redo, because I see it as fan service in giving the fandom some of what they craved so much but didn't get with I Kissed A Girl (3x07). One of the main criticisms of that episode, was how Brittany didn't even speak. We were robbed of getting a conversation between Santana and her girlfriend, and seeing how Brittany could be there for her. What The World Needs Now gave us that, because it was all focused around Brittany noticing how upset Santana was that her Abuela wouldn't be at her wedding and trying to rectify that, and later being there for her and sticking up for her when Abuela said she wouldn't be attending.

There are some parallels in the episode too, such as:

The conversations with Santana's Abuela. In both 3x07 and 6x06, Santana takes the same angle of telling her Abuela how much she appreciates her and about the lessons Abuela has taught her. She then goes on to talk about her feelings and love for Brittany to try and get Abuela to accept her as a lesbian.

Abuela walks out on Santana in both episodes, leaving her devastated.

The Glee Club sing for Santana to remind her that she is loved and accepted, as they do in 3x07.

The differences are that although Santana is rightfully devastated by her grandmother's rejection, in 3x07 she tries to plead with her, but in 6x06 she stands proud and takes Brittany's hand and shows Abuela that this is who she is, and if Abuela doesn't like that she can walk right out of her life. She is visibly emotional infront of Abuela in 3x07, but in 6x06 she waits until Abuela has left the room before she finally rests on Brittany and lets that vulnerability seep in. It's likely a mixture of both having Brittany there with her this time, and being older and more comfortable with herself, but it shows how far Santana has come in her own acceptance.

A Wedding 6x08

As the final chapter in their story, this episode has many parallels and nods back to the past. Abuela is brought back and there's finally a happy ending on that when she comes to the wedding and accepts Santana for who she is, and one of my favourite parallel's is Santana walking happily and proudly down the aisle towards Brittany, a stark contrast to the Santana we see in 2x15 who walks down the school corridor towards Brittany to tell her she loves her for the first time, nervously glancing around and in fear of her secret getting out.

The scenes in this episode aren't as direct parallel as the infinity bed scene is with the duets bed scene or as Landslide and Hand In My Pocket/I Feel The Earth Move, but I feel there are a lot of references to their break up, the wedding of course being (saying it again) full circle of that. In the vows they talk about their earlier struggles and how they'd suffer it all for the tiny chance of being here getting married, so we can assume that's about both their confusing friends with benefits days and their break up.

The pre-wedding talk scene they have is one of their most prominent scenes, and in this I think there are some full circle moments, the biggest being when Santana says "you love me, and I love you, and no silly superstitions are going to change that". In the beginning of their relationship Santana struggled with a lot of doubt and insecurities, not only with her sexuality but in her relationship with Brittany too. She clung to the fact that Brittany didn't say she loved her back (2x18), even though Brittany did in fact say it, and she had to listen to other people doubt Brittany's love for her aka Finn (3x07). I feel like Santana worried a lot in the early days of her relationship that she was going to lose Brittany, and then when they broke up and Brittany ended up dating Sam and "choosing" him (which I think she only did because she wanted Santana to chase her dreams and go to New York) those insecurities were further recognised. I think that's why she made the comments she made to Dani about "straying for penis". I don't think Santana was innately biphobic or had a problem with Brittany's bisexuality at all (she verbalises her support for it on other occasions), and though her comments were wrong, I think they came from hurt and worry. Because of previous experience with Artie and her later seeing the same thing with Sam, and because of her own insecurities, I think she used to worry Brittany would leave her for somebody else or love somebody else more. I also think part of that was what held back her decision in getting back with Brittany straight away, because she was scared to be hurt. This scene in the wedding talk shows the development and the complete 360 Santana has had. By now she's confident in Brittany's love for her and she verbalises that. She's confident in their relationship, in their future. She knows they don't need to follow any traditions or superstitions because their love is strong and valid, and nothing is going to change that or take that away from them. Another reoccurring theme that's put in this scene, is the way Brittany and Santana struggle with any form of distance between them. It's the reason they broke up, and it's clearly a worry for Santana as she mentions Brittany moving to New York and them living together on two separate occasions so it's obviously something on her mind. She wants Brittany in New York with her because she finds long distance too hard, and in this scene she can't even go an hour without seeing Brittany before the wedding.

So to sum up, I'm so grateful for the S6 episodes because they really did tie everything up for us and it gave us most of the things we asked for. I really love the direct parallel's back to the earlier obstacles they faced, and I love how we got to finish their story seeing their relationship in a solid, strong place with lots of mutual love and appreciation, as well as seeing Santana comfortable and happy with who she is and secure in her relationship, and Brittany able to express her love and feel it back from Santana without any of the earlier fear, beards and confusion.

If you made it to the end, honestly congrats!!!

#brittana #brittana s6 #brittana season 6 #brittany and santana #santana and brittany #brittanalysis #brittana analysis #glee analysis #brittany s.pierce #brittany pierce #brittanypierce #glee brittany #glee brittana #santana lopez #santanalopez #glee s6

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oh-theatre · 4 years

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Livin’ It Up: Chapter 3

Chapter title: Its All Coming Back To Me Now

A/N: New, bad, sorry. Comment? Sorry for short, important.

words: 1340

summary: return

pairings: Eventual logicality, eventual prinxiety, eventual demus, eventual Moceit (Which then goes back to Logicality and Demus)

warnings: Swearing, alcohol, underage drinking, drinking, parties, kissing, throw up, slight self harm, emotional abuse

Ao3 Link

“Ugh of course he did” Virgil sighs, throwing his journal across the room. Patton giggles still scribbling away at his homework. Virgil sits up, rubbing the nape of his neck with sympathy in his eyes. “Im sorry Pat, i know you wanted...not that”

“Hey its ok! I gave it a shot, plus the night I had was fun” Patton admits, he shrugs away his thoughts but finds himself doodling in the corner of his calculus work. “This is pointless” He shut his book away, returning it neatly to its spot on his desk. “My brain cant focus” He threw his eraser towards Virgil “Tell me about Roman” He smirks.

“Ok look nothings happened since the party” Virgil tells, and Patton listens, well until Virgil begins to ramble about their theatre project. His mind was in too many places at once, and he loved Virgil but once his gushing ended and his worries set in, Patton couldn't focus. His mind wandered to that fateful night, under the amber lights of a bustling evening.

“But they're so sticky” Logan scrunched his face, watching Patton thank the shop tender for his caramel apple. Patton rolls his eyes with a playful smile.

“Delicious is the word you're looking for” He corrects, Logan still doubtful. “Come on, take a bite” he offers, holding it up. Hesitant at first, Logan eyes it, was he examining the apple? Oh god, the way his glasses sat on his nose practically falling, Patton swears he could hear his heartbeat.

“Alright” He says, he holds his glasses, Patton strengthens his hold as Logan takes a bite out of the delectable treat. Logan's eyes quickly fly open, a surprise as he chews.

“Congrats Moreno! You're one of us common folk now” Patton teases, the wind ruffling both of their hair. Logan nods, taking yet another bite, Patotn didn't mind, he found the small chipmunk like chewing adorable. “Come on Simon, there's more to show you” He jokes, Logan takes his hand allowing the cheerleader to guide him. The apple was gone quickly but neither minded, it made their commute easier.

Patton had to wonder if Logan had ever been outside however, every little new thing sparked him, the bored robotic look in his eyes disappeared with a new flicker of excitement. Patton adored it. He grew fond of how Logan would fiddle with his fingers, it was soft.

“Just ignore them” Logan whispered as the pair walked towards a more quiet spot.

“Hm?” Patton hummed in response, a small skip as the gravel crackled below their feet.

“The girls and guys staring, just ignore them” And Patton had been. It was hard not to notice, each with daggers in their eyes but even if tonight was just a one time thing, or whatnot Patton was here to enjoy himself, enjoy the carnival he had spent weeks preparing and try something new. And it was nice, even if he did notice the winks Logan would throw out, the boredom as Patton chatted with people and the constant phone checking.

Its nice

It was nice

“So now im like i don't know! Should I dye my hair!” Virgil finishes, Patton coughs away his thoughts.

“I might have adhd but you can really go down a rabbit hole” Patton laughs, Virgil chuckles a flash of red on his cheeks. “Not a bad thing, and i think you should dye your hair if you want. No matter what you're gonna look great” Patton compliments. “Crap! We’re gonna be late” He checks his watch, morning homework sessions on monday were a usual. Except when they forget to actually get to school.

“Id say race you there but i dont wanna get there any faster than I have to” Virgil says, and with that they rush out the house.

~~~

“Does he have to looking so fucking cute” Logan spits, Roman stops his words instaly and looks to where an angry Logan glares.

“Uh Im sorry, imma need my friend back” Roman pokes, Logan turns to him, his eyebrows tightened. “Dude, what is going on with you” Roman questions, Logan slams the locker shut trying to distract himself from Patton and Virgil standing just a few steps down the hall at their own lockers. “Just a reminder that you-”

“Roman I am fully aware of what happened, I am also fully aware that the only reason Patton has not spoken to me is my own fault” Logan leans against the locker paralleling Romans pose. “However I am still infuriated that he looks that cute” Logan sighs. He wasn't wrong, even if Roman and Patton had their...issues he still knew his former friend. And Patton had an incredible eye for fashion.

And today was no exception. He wore a dropped shoulder cropped pullover, striped with white, pastel blue and pink, finished with a white collar. His light blue jeans sat comfortably on his legs cuffed at the bottom to show off his white sneakers. His belt was prominent and no mistake and his backpack slung over just one shoulder as he unpacked his belongings into his locker.

Objectively he was cute, but Roman was distracted by Virgil. He stood next to Patton talking away, his outfits always suited him and his defensive look only made Romans face flush more.

“Welp, you win some you lose some” Roman shrugs, patting his friend.

“I so appreciate the sentiment dear friend” Logan's sarcasm was not lost on Roman.

“Come on, you need some sushi in you” Roman takes his friend's shoulders, preparing to guide his friend towards the exit. Each has a free period that bleeds into lunch so why not take advantage?

~~~

“Is it bad that I want to wear Romans varsity jacket?” Virgil whispered as he darted his eyes away from the said jock who only stood a few feet away.

“No, it's adorable” Patton says, he organizes his things in his locker, ignoring as Logan and Roman begin to walk towards them. He knew rationally they were headed towards the exit but the small inkling of fear if they were to come up to him was still present. But quickly his mind was taken elsewhere with an abrupt cheer.

“One! Two! Three!” He hears, why was that voice so familiar? “Who missed me!”

“Janus!” Patton recognizes, he spins with unfiltered excitement rushing through the hall. Janus laughs as he sees his friend racing towards him wasting no time to wrap him in his arms and spin him quickly. Their embrace was pure elation, Virgil caught up to the pair with his own grin. They finally parted ignoring the crowd around them, specifically two boys who had decided sushi could wait.

“Buttercup!” He grins, Patton giggles delighted. He had missed Janus so much, and the sweet way the nickname fell only increased the buzz in his heart.

Someone else in the hall was not feeling the ecstatic energy. Logan glared his shoulders tightening under Romans hold. What was this envious sweat dripping from him as he watched Janus snake a respectful arm around Patton's waist, cupped to keep his gentlemans distance.

But Logan wasn't allowed to be mad

He saw Carly down the hall, she winked at him receiving a disgruntled scowl in return. He watched Brittany and Martin walk by him, each a flustered look.

And why should he care, he had the whole school, why did he need-

His thoughts were interrupted by the most intoxicating, sweetest sound to ever bless his ears. Pattons little giggle as he clutched to Janus for stability. He may have been seventeen but he towered over the boys, including Logan. Virgil seemed happy enough but Logan couldn't get over Patton. Patton stood blushing, his hand never left Janus’s side and he was...flashing the brightest smile.

Why did Logan want to be the one to cause that reaction

“Oh shut up moreno” He whispers to himself, swiping away from Romans grasps he shoots Martin a wink before making his way to lunch, a hesitant Roman followed.

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hauntednightmarekitty · 3 years

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The monsters within (1/2)

Word count: 5,356

Trigger/content warnings: swearing, homophobia, self-harm mentions, mentions of possession, demons, child abuse, mild sexual themes, nightmares, aggressive behaviors

A/N: read the warnings, I'm not trying to offend anyone. If there's anything that I forgot or anything that I need to tag just tell me, I won't be offended.

I walked through the school doors, trying my hardest to not draw any attention to myself. That worked until a brightly colored girl bounded up to me, holding a paper out. She had bright enough colors on her to almost instantly give me a headache and her bouncy brown hair was pulled back in multiple bright butterfly clips which I'm pretty sure haven't been popular since the nineties. She's an idiot and looks like she's five.

"Hey, you're Luna, right? I'm Lillie and I'm supposed to show you around today." She extended her hand towards me and cocked her head slightly.

She's doing this to get out of class. I looked coldly at her outstretched hand then up to her face and when it became obvious that I wasn't going to shake her hand she moved to fuss with her hair clips. "So, I should probably show you to your first class. Come on, it's this way." She waved me in the direction that she was moving and shoved her hands in her oversized sweatshirt pockets. "So why'd you transfer schools?"

"I got expelled," I responded without making eye contact.

"Oh! May I ask why?"

"I punched someone out of self-defense and my principle deemed it unnecessary violence and that I was an unacceptable repeat offender." You should've broken the guy's bones. He started the fight.

"Oh? So you started a lot of fights?"

"I never started anything, but I also wouldn't let myself be kicked around."

"I guess that makes sense." She stopped in front of a door labeled 'science lab' and turned to me. "This is your first-hour chem class." She smiled at me then her eyes fell on something on my chest. "Cute necklace. Are you religious?"

My hand immediately went to my cross necklace that I never leave the house without. She's prodding. "Yeah, I am. It's one of the few things I believe in." She's gonna judge you. They all do.

"I don't like all that stuff, but it's cool that you do." She turned away from me and bounced down the hall to show me to my next class. You've already managed to make her hate you. You know that not everyone likes religion. Get ready for another school of bullies and people who hate you.

"Hey, are you ok?" She tilted her head, looking into my eyes, closer than I realized she had gotten.

I jumped back away from her, clutching my cross necklace. "Yes! I'm ok! When did you get so close?"

"I was talking to you. Did you not hear me?"

"I didn't!" She thinks you're weird now. She'll hate you.

"Oh, well come on." She motioned me down the hall again and this time I stayed right on her heels. I looked back at the science classroom once more and as I did I saw him standing in the window. The shadowy figure that's been following me around for years. The figure with the bleeding red eyes. The figure that I only know as Mr. Poe. He waved at me, lit up from behind by the lights. A smile graced his blurry face and I knew that it would be in my nightmares tonight. I knew you'd fail so quickly. I knew that they would all hate you. His voice resonated through my head and all I could manage was a small head shake. You're going to get expelled again and it's going to be your fault. No. No! I promised daddy that I'd do better this time. I'll do better this time. You're a failure and a disgrace. You don't deserve all that you get. You deserve to suffer like the-

"Luna?" Lillie grabbed my arm, pulling my attention to her. I pulled away immediately, glancing back to where I saw Mr. Poe, but he was gone.

"Don't-" I huffed out, "don't touch me."

"Ok, we should be getting to your next class. I wanna get through your morning classes before lunch."

"Yeah… yeah ok. I'm coming. I just got distracted, I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"You're probably just overwhelmed. I get it." She turned heading down the hall once again.

Mr. Poe was quiet the rest of the tour, only an incomprehensible whispering at the back of my mind instead of a ferocious screaming in my ear. He also only appeared occasionally in my periphery.

After Lillie showed me my first few classes she led me to the lunchroom and brought me through the lunch line. After we sat down a girl with bleach-damaged hair and a fake tan came over and knocked Lillie's tray into her lap.

"Oops, sorry, Lillith. I was just too distracted by your gaudy outfit to realize where I was going. I hope you understand, honey," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice.

Punch her. Beat her. Eat her. She deserves to be punished.

"It's whatever, Brittany," Lillie mumbled.

Punish her. That carelessness deserves punishment. But it's not my place to punish her. Lillith should. It's her place. Tell her she should. She's letting them walk all over her. It's not my place, Mr. Poe.

"Well, I have to get going before your clothes burn my retinas. I hope you understand." The girl with the fake tan walked away to sit with a group of equally fake girls.

Bitch.

Lillie stood, wiping her face. "I should probably go clean up. Here's your schedule," she handed me a piece of paper then left before I was able to say anything.

I didn't see her again for the rest of the day and I was left to fend for myself and figure out where each class was.

When I had gone home I went straight to my room, not letting any of my younger siblings ask any questions or talk to me, and they all knew to leave me alone.

That next day my dad drove me to school and when I got there Lillie met me at my locker with a smile on her face.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," she said, chipper as ever. "By the time I had finished cleaning up, lunch was out and I couldn't find you anywhere. I hope there are no hard feelings."

She had your schedule, she was just trying to get away from you. "Didn't you have my schedule?" I asked, not even looking at her.

"No, I gave it to you, silly. I just wanted to know if you wanted to sit with me at lunch and I can walk you to your first class."

"I'm good. I don't need your pity, I can make it to my first class by myself, and honestly, I would prefer not to sit with you."

"That's fine, it's not a big deal for me."

Why isn't she listening to you? "I told you that I am fine."

"My class is just next door to yours."

"Fine, whatever. You can walk with me." You're weak to give in like that. What did you want me to do? She wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Lillie squealed, looking very pleased, and walked with me to my first class, talking my ear off the whole time about things that I could not recall if I tried.

I managed to eat lunch mostly by myself by sitting in an empty classroom. I'll never totally be by myself since Mr. Poe is always with me, but it's a start to not have any humans in my presence. I looked towards the chair next to me and saw him sitting there, his head, or rather where his head would be, on the desk in front of him. His sharp teeth showed just barely as he smirked.

So, do you have something you want to tell me?

I have no idea what you're going on about.

You would never give in like that. There must be something about this Lillith character that appeals to you.

She's just relentless. Doesn't take no for an answer. She would've just kept badgering me if I hadn't agreed to her walking me to my next class.

Homosexuality is a sin and you know it.

You're right.

She's just pitying you. She feels bad for you. She doesn't actually like you.

You're not telling me anything that I don't know, Mr. Poe.

A boy walked in before Mr. Poe could say anything more and when I looked over at him he was gone. The boy looked at me with hazel eyes, his auburn hair was pulled back from his face with a spider clip and he wore an orange sweater and black skinny jeans. He reminded me of the pumpkins that my siblings carved last night in preparation for Halloween.

"What are you doing hiding here?" He asked, sliding into the chair previously occupied by Mr. Poe.

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied.

"The lunchroom is too loud. Your turn to share now."

"I like to be alone with my thoughts."

"Sounds boring."

"Not when you have as many thoughts as I do." I looked towards the corner where I could feel Mr. Poe's presence and he stood there, still smirking.

The boy looked towards where I was looking but just became confused. "What're you looking at?"

"Nothing, my mind just wanders."

"So, what's your name?"

"Luna. And yours?"

"Taylor. Nice to meet you, Luna."

"Likewise."

Now that's a homosexual if I've ever seen one. Hush, Mr. Poe.

Taylor glanced at the clock, then stood. "We should probably start heading to class. Lunch ends in thirty seconds."

When I got home after school my siblings all crowded around me asking questions about school. In my family, father doesn't let the little kids go to school until they're in ninth grade, which causes the kids who are still homeschooled to be curious about the older kids' school days.

I eventually managed to make my way to my room and close myself in, but the second I did my little brother, Thomas, walked in and sat next to me on my bed.

"How was school today?" He asked.

"Not great, Tommy, Mr. Poe has been especially active today. He was enjoying making fun of me all day."

"Your demon friend?"

"He's not exactly my friend. It's not like I want him there, he just stays."

"Why was he bothering you?"

"Because it's his job."

"Why does he follow you?"

"Who knows. It could be anything." You know exactly why I follow you. You failed. You deserve to be tortured.

"Does he hurt you?"

"No honey. He's never touched me. Now go play with the others, you shouldn't have to worry about me."

"Ok, Luna." He got up and left, glancing over his shoulder once before he completely left the room.

When I walked into school, Lillith instantly grabbed my arm and led me into an empty classroom. I opened my mouth to try and ask what she was doing, but she pressed a finger to my lips, a smile playing across her own.

"Is this ok?" She asked, her mouth impossibly close to mine.

All I could manage was a weak nod and her lips pressed against mine, feeling so impossibly good. Tasting so impossibly good. It was so wrong, but I couldn't refuse this. After a moment my body relaxed against her own and she lifted me, setting me on a desk.

Father would be so disappointed in me if he found out and mother would be beside herself, but that couldn't make me stop. I was for once living in the moment and loving every moment of it.

Lillie's lips grazed across my jaw and she tilted my head to the side, her hand gripping my head to keep it there while her other hand snaked up my skirt to hook onto the waistband of my tights.

A low whine escaped from my throat and a smirk formed on Lillie's perfect lips.

"Do you like that?" She whispered into my ear, beginning to pull my tights down further. I nodded a little, burying my face in her neck and she giggled against my hair. "You know that you'll be sent to hell for this." Her gentle hands turned painful and she pulled my hair causing me to be forced to look her in the eyes. Her eyes were blood red, bleeding, reminding me heavily of Mr. Poe's.

"Why do you submit to something that you know is wrong? Something that you know will doom you. Something that you know your family would be disappointed in."

"I- I don't know!" I said.

"Your father would hate you for this!" She said, her voice slowly but surely distorting.

"I know he would!"

"Then why would you do it?"

I woke up in my bed in a cold sweat, the sounds of my older sister asleep filling the room. I looked around to find nothing out of the ordinary. You dreamed about her. It means nothing. I swung my legs over the edge of my bed, bare feet hitting the cold wood of my floor. But you didn't just dream of her. You dreamed of kissing her. I did, but dreams are random. I stood, pulling on a pair of tennis shoes and grabbing my fuzzy coat. You dreamed of her dominating you.

I pulled open the front door graced with the cool night air. I stepped out, heading towards the worn path into the woods around my house. You want her. That's a sin. I would never. You want her to kiss you and touch you. I don't. You're going to hell for these thoughts. It was a harmless dream. You're going to hell and it'll be your fault. I won't. I'm not. It was just a dream.

A cool breeze blew past me, blowing my hair away from my face and sending a chill down to my bones. I pulled my hood up, apparently finally satiating Mr. Poe for the time being. The first time Mr. Poe had reached out to me was when I was six. Mom had punished me for lying to her about finishing my veggies. I was in my room, sad and pained when Mr. Poe came up to me and told me that he could help me.

He seemed like a friend at first. He played with me and helped me to feel better when I was sad. But what had seemed like the perfect friendship quickly turned into a nightmare. He started heckling me and pointing out my mistakes. My flaws. He was yelling at me. Pointing out people who hate me, calling me names, making me feel worthless. He's the reason why I was so angry, he pushed me to finish fights. He tells me it's because I'm a bad person that has bad desires and over the years I've grown to believe him.

These feelings are unnatural. He was walking beside me now, a blur just a few feet away. His blood-red eyes are the only thing standing out. I know that these feelings weren't ones that I should pursue. I know that these feelings are ones that I should repress. I don't know why they were bubbling to the surface tonight, but I wish that they'd just leave me alone. So you finally admit that this might be something more. You're a demon, aren't you? Smart girl. Then why are you trying to keep me on the straight and narrow? Why not try to convince me to go for Lillie? Because, my sweet girl, I don't care what you do. You could walk the straight and narrow or you could sin your little life away, but either way, I'm going to find some way to torture you. I thought you would've understood that by now, but I guess you sin too much to realize that I'd hurt you either way.

The wind blew my hood down, causing my hair to flutter in the breeze. He would hurt me no matter what. He doesn't care if I'm good or evil he just cares about hurting me.

Now you're getting it, my little moon child.

I turn and dash towards the house, trying to outrun him even though I know it's useless. He'll follow me forever.

Lillith meets me at my locker the next morning as usual. Her demeanor was even more excited than normal, and she was practically bouncing on her toes.

"Luna," she squealed, "you transferred at the perfect time! The Halloween festivities are next week and you should go with me!"

"Why would I want to go with you?" I asked.

"Because it'll be fun!"

"I seriously doubt that it'll be any fun."

"Please, Luna. I would love you for it."

"Fine. I'll consider going with you."

"Thank you!" She bounced on her toes and practically lunged towards me to pull me into an uncomfortable hug.

"Please let me go! I don't appreciate this physical contact!"

She pulled away, still smiling. "I'm sorry, I just got excited."

You're actually considering it. I'm not. Besides, father would never let me go. Just lie to him then.

"We should probably get to class." Lillie gently pulled on my sleeve.

"Yeah, I'm coming." I closed my locker, following her down the hall.

You would never consider this any other time. I'm not considering it. I just said that to get her off my back. Doubtful.

Lunch came around and I retreated down to the practice rooms to attempt to get away from everyone. The practice room I had chosen to hide in just happened to have a piano. Father made me learn how to play the piano in elementary school to try to distract me from Mr. Poe. It didn't work. And he didn't want me playing with and corrupting the younger kids. It just makes them more curious. Your dad is an idiot and you know it.

I sat on the bench, gingerly lifting the cover off the keys. I spent many hours in front of the piano during my childhood. It did help distract me, but only while I'm playing. Only while I had an outlet. Nonetheless, it was something that I loved that I did often. My fingers trailed across the cold ivory keys. I'm sure there were so many before me that have used this piano, and so many people after me will use it.

I started to play a simple melody, one I learned so many years ago. The keys felt familiar under my fingers and my mind went to its happy place; finally forgetting about everything and everyone. I slowly made the melody more and more intricate and complex, building it up more and more.

I was right at the biggest part when someone grabbed my shoulder and I jumped out of my seat, screaming.

"Oh my god," Lillith said and grabbed my arm. "I didn't mean to spook you like that. I thought you heard me come in."

"Well, obviously I didn't!"

"Well, I'm really sorry."

"Whatever." I smoothed my hair down and fixed my blouse before I turned back to the piano and rested my fingers on the keys. "What exactly do you want, Lillie."

"Oh, I just had to give a note to the choir teacher, so I decided to do it during my lunch and when I came down here I heard someone playing the piano." A blush dusted her cheeks. "So I decided to peek in to see who it was and when I saw it was you I wanted to say hi."

"Hi," I said, sarcasm dripped off my lips. "Can you leave now?"

"What were you playing? I don't see any sheet music."

"It was something that I just created. I wasn't looking at music."

"Wait, so you're telling me that you just came up with that on the spot." I nodded a little. "Oh my god! That's so cool! You're so cool!"

"I'm not that cool." I repositioned myself on the bench, a hand instinctively went to the back of my neck.

"Don't belittle yourself."

"I'm really good at undermining myself. Nothing you say will be able to stop that." We both know that you're lying to her.

"Are you sure that I can't convince you?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure. Now leave me alone."

She bit her lip and took a step towards the door. "I should probably go find the choir teacher anyway." She rolled her shoulders, and lifted her head, dispelling any sense of the disappointment that she surely felt. "See you tomorrow?"

"I'm sure you'll meet me at my locker."

"I'll take that as an invitation!" She turned to leave.

"Don't-" but she left before I could say anymore and I was left to just smile and shake my head.

Why are you smiling? Shut up.

"Good day?"

I jumped at the sound of his voice and looked back to see Taylor standing in the corner near the door.

"When did you come in?" I asked as I faced the piano again.

"When Lillith left, I snuck by her."

"I didn't hear her greet you."

"She doesn't particularly like me."

"What do you mean?" I turned towards him. He was looking out the window on the door. "She likes everyone, doesn't she."

"Not me." He still wasn't looking at me.

"What'd you do to her?"

"I swear I didn't do anything." He raised his hands and finally looked at me.

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because I wouldn't lie to you, Luna. You're cool and I've never had a friend like you. I wouldn't screw this up by lying to you."

"I still have no reason to believe you."

"How about trust?"

"Trust is to be earned."

"How do I earn it if you won't trust me?"

"I do not know. I guess you have to figure it out if you sincerely want my trust."

"I guess you're-" Taylor stopped mid-sentence and his face went ghastly pale. He lifted a shaky finger towards the opposite corner and said: "Luna, what the fuck is that?"

I look over to where he's pointing and see Mr. Poe with a confused expression on his almost featureless face. He sees me. How does he see me? He shouldn't be able to see me. I'm your demon, not his.

"You see Mr. Poe?" I asked.

"That fucker has a name?"

"Yeah, he's been following me since I was six years old."

"What is it?"

"He says he's a demon. He used to be super nice to me, but as of late he's been more aggressive than normal." I am not aggressive to you. You said that you want to torture me. I don't physically injure you, therefore I'm not aggressive. The mental injury still sucks. You suck.

"You have a demon following you around?"

"Basically. Nobody else can see him though."

The bell rang which signaled the end of lunch. Taylor gave Mr. Poe one last look, and Mr. Poe emitted a low growl which scared Taylor off and he left the room without another word.

After I got home Tommy came up to me and pulled on my sleeve as he tried to get my attention. I crouched down to him and he looked me in the eye.

"Why'd you leave in the middle of the night last night?" He asked, never scared of confrontation.

"You saw that?"

He nodded, still giving me no room for escape.

"Because I had a nightmare, which unsettled Mr. Poe, so I took a walk to clear my head and to calm Mr. Poe down."

"Did your demon see your nightmare?"

"Yeah, he knows everything that goes on in my head. It's kind of unnerving."

"Luna May!" My mom scolded, holding her wooden spoon tightly. "What did I tell you about discussing your demons with the little kids?" She walked closer and Tommy fled at the sight of her. "I don't want you corrupting them. They're too young."

"I wasn't corrupting him, mother." You know that talking about me is against the rules. "He had a question, so I answered it." You always break the rules, you failure. "I didn't want him to worry about me." You deserve the punishment that's coming. "Please don't hurt me."

"ENOUGH!" Mother yelled as she struck me across the face. "Begging is prohibited and you know it." I held my cheek and looked at her, betrayal evident in my eyes. She struck me across the other cheek then turned to leave. "Go to bed without supper tonight."

"But mother-"

"That is an order. Unless you want worse."

"Yes mother."

I silently passed Tommy - who was hiding behind the corner - and went into my room where I'd be spending the rest of the night.

The next morning Lillith met me at my locker as always. She heard my stomach grumbling and offered me a muffin from her breakfast which I happily took.

"So," she said as I scarfed down the muffin, "have you decided whether you're going to go to the Halloween festival with me?"

"It's been a day since you asked." She's asking out of pity anyway.

"Oh come on, it would be so much fun."

"I just don't know."

"It would make me so happy, Luna. Please just this one time."

"Fine, I will go with you."

"Yay!" Lillith exclaimed whilst hugging me. "You don't understand how much this means to me! Thank you so much!"

"Okay! Okay! Enough with the hugging." I pushed her off of me, but that dopey grin remained on her face. "I get that you're happy, but there are other ways of showing it."

"I'm sorry, I just got excited. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"Whatever… we should be getting to class, the bell will ring soon."

Lillith walked with me to class like always, and the dopey grin had never left her face.

As I waited for my father after school I had just happened to wander behind the school out of boredom. I was examining the trees when I heard the back door open, so I quickly hid behind the tree that I was previously examining.

"Why don't you just leave me alone?" Lillith's voice flitted up towards me.

"Why don't you make me?" A masculine voice responded.

I peeked around the tree and saw Lillith on her knees in front of a boy, two other boys holding her arms to keep her from fighting back. Her head was bowed as she kept from looking into his eyes.

She didn't say anything in response to him and he spit in her face. "Do something about it, freak!"

She shook her head, as tears welled in her eyes and the boy just pushed her down before motioning his minions back into the school with him. "It's not fun if you don't fight back, dyke."

Once she was alone Lillith let out a sob and sat up. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and after she took a second to let her tears stop before she pulled a pocket knife out of her pocket. She flipped it open and examined it a minute, then she pulled up her sleeve revealing lines of cuts marking her whole arm. She pressed the knife to her skin causing a little blood to bead to the surface, but before she was able to cut any deeper her phone rang and she answered it with no hesitation.

"Hey, mom," she said, her voice cheerful once more. "Yeah, I'll be out front… yeah I did… love you too, mom."

She looked down at her knife, wiping the blood off of the edge with her fingers then pocketed it once more. She glanced around then walked around the school to, presumably, meet up with her mom.

You just watched her. It wasn't my place to step in. You were just going to let her hurt herself. She would've been embarrassed if she knew I were here. She was in distress and you did nothing. Her life isn't mine to live. She can make her own decisions.

I waited to make sure that she was gone then walked around the school myself to meet father. If I keep him waiting too long I'll get in trouble.

The next morning, Taylor cornered me in a classroom, his face a mask of contentment. My back hit the wall and I had nowhere to escape to. Nowhere I could run. I was stuck to face Taylor in all of his angry glory. He got closer and he pressed his body against mine, making sure I could go nowhere.

"You would seriously choose her over me?" He yelled right in my face.

"What are you talking about? Who would I choose over you?"

"Lillith. You'd rather hang out with her than me." His fingers gripped my shoulder and inflicted pain as they got tighter.

"You never asked me to hang out. How was I supposed to know that you wanted to?"

"You never asked." His face got closer to mine and tilted a little. "It doesn't matter anymore, I'll just take what I want." His lips hit mine as one of his hands made its way to my hair. The hand in my hair pulled to keep my head in place.

I pressed a foot to his stomach and tried to create some space between us, but he just pressed in further and trapped my leg between us.

I woke up in a cold sweat; my hands clutched my blankets nearly ripping them and my sister slept just feet away. Do you not trust Taylor? It was just a dream. We've been over this before. Because you shouldn't. I pulled on my shoes. You barely know him. I grabbed my coat off its hook. He could be anyone. I pulled my coat on over my pajamas. He could be out to hurt you. I opened the outside door and stepped into the cool night air. I took a deep breath in an attempt to try to settle myself and Mr. Poe.

It worked to some extent, Mr. Poe backed off and quit trying to freak me out about Taylor, but I could still feel his presence at the back of my mind.

I took my normal trail. The one that I always took after a particularly bad nightmare. I managed to make it pretty far into the woods before I saw Taylor crouched down to look at a flower.

"Taylor?" I asked and rubbed my eyes.

"Luna!" He smiled as he pulled me into a hug. "What're you doing out here?"

"I was just going for a walk. I couldn't sleep. What about you? I've never seen you around here before."

"I have a lot of trouble sleeping, so I enjoy exploring at night. Everything else is peaceful and the woods are so pretty."

"Oh, the cool air just clears my head." Nobody comes around here. Is he stalking you?

"I decided to take a new route today and I guess it just happened to be the one that you take. Isn't that ironic?"

"Are you following me?"

"I would never. I can't believe you think so little of me."

"Well, our house is kinda isolated from town and it's a distance to walk, so it's just hard to believe that you just stumbled upon these woods without previously knowing where they are."

"Luna!" I turned towards the voice calling my name and saw my older sister, Victoria, running towards me. "What're you doing out here? Who were you talking to?" Her breath clouded in front of her. She had her hands shoved in her pockets and was shivering.

"I was talking to Taylor." I looked over to where Taylor was, but he was no longer there. "I swear he was right here."

"Let's get you inside." Victoria slid an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into her side. "It's cold out, I don't want you catching a cold or anything."

I allowed Victoria to walk me home and tuck me back into bed. It makes her feel better to take care of me, so I let her. Keep telling yourself that.

#tw swearing #tw homophobia #tw sex mention #tw sex assault #tw child abuse #tw demons #tw possession #tw self harm #tw cutting mention #tw nightmares #tw night terrors #haunted writes #lgbtq+#lgbtq characters #i believe I got everything #message me if there's anything I misses #tw long post

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insert-pun-here-now · 4 years

Text

So I just wanted to write something for Marley since I like Melissa, and I like Marley, and I like Glee but I dislike how the writers wrote the entire S4 and S5 newbies. (Like come on... Kitty, Ryder, Jake, Marley and Unique deserve way better. Even Joe and Sugar. Also, God bless Blake Jenner. Hate the sin, not the sinner.) So because I love Marley, here’s some angst and whump! You’re welcome, and I’m sorry!

Shooting Star- All or Nothing

Edit: Now has a masterpost!

TW: Violence, blood, panic attacks and eating disorders

The shooting was abrupt, fast, startling. It took Marley all but a few seconds to realize that the bangs were echoing down the halls weren’t the figments of her imagination from lack of eating, lack of sleep, lack of everything really. Everybody was screaming, ducking down by lockers and suddenly Marley was surrounded by a sea of bodies pushing to run away, run to the exit.

Her brain kicked into overdrive as she began to push past people, rushing for the choir room. The Glee club was right there, she had to go to the bathroom to vomit and she had been in the middle of walking back when it happened.

Another gunshot, loud and clear. To the left, maybe? She really did not want to pass out again, not like Sectionals. She was relatively surprised at how everyone blamed her, how everyone easily brushed it off, moved her eating disorder aside. Blaine, Sam, Jake and Unique were doing their best to help her, but without the support of the adults, there was practically nothing they could do.

And Marley was no less than human, and so she didn’t learn from her mistakes, feeling the need to be in more control after Sectionals, counting calories till it made her feel safer, made her feel like she was accomplishing something. Making her feel like she was worth something.

But now, all she was cursing herself for was for the woozy feeling she had as she reached the wall and near sagged against it, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as the world spun around her. The people and the noises made her head throb.

She tried to ignore it as she refocused on a goal: get to the choir room. Worry about her being sick later. She stumbled forward, using the lockers and the wall as a support, as people screamed and pushed past her, trying to get into rooms for safety. Her hand landed on the choir room door handle and with renewed strength, she turned it.

Locked.

Locked? Panic began to really set in, the feeling of the bile rising in her throat as she turned the handle over and over, almost rattling the door in her frustation and near-blind panic, heart thumping wildly in her ears, contesting with the gunshots coming closer.

“It’s Marley! It’s Marley!” Marley screamed, and her voice sounded raspy to her own ears. “It’s me! Let me in!” She pounded on the door weakly with her fists, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. “Help!”

No, no, no, this was not happening. Marley was standing in the hallway, with a guy carrying a machine gun trotting down the hallway, and he looked mad.

He looked so, so mad...

No. Marley refocused her attention to the door again, rattling it in pure desperation. She could make a break for it, but what were the chances he would miss?

Now she could hear voices from the other side of the door. A bit of yelling, something heavy moving from nearby. Orders were barked and the door swung open, arms yanking her into the room. The motion made her dizzy as she stumbled as Blaine fumbled to lock the door before Sam could push past and race outside.

It was a bit of a near miss. The gunshots made Marley’s brain throb with how loud they were, and it was only after falling to the floor abruptly, no longer held up by Ryder and Kitty, did she realize how close she was to being missed.

There was a graze by the top of her left shoulder, stinging from the fabric sticking to her skin from the blood. Kitty choked back a sob as the shooter finally reached their door. Mr. Schuester and Coach Beiste were trying to move the filing cabinet to block the door, but he was pretty determined to come in.

“Marls...” Jake gasped, face turning pale at the blood. The banging at the door would not stop, and it made Marley’s head hurt even more as the filing cabinet began to rattle with the force the shooter was hitting.

“It’s fine, it’s just a cut,” Marley reassured, but everything still felt so weird and spinny, and was she always this weak? She held a hand to her shoulder as she tried to stand, but black dots overcame her vision as she shook her head and crouched down onto the floor, crawling to where Artie, Sam and Blaine were positioned next to the piano.

Sam was still sobbing for Brittany, Blaine was sending a message to Kurt probably, and Artie was staring at her, wanting to say something but not having the courage to.

Everything was really spinning. She couldn’t shake the screaming in her mind, how out of control she felt, how weak she was. She couldn’t stop the voice telling her that she failed at even remaining at a good weight. Being thin takes some sacrifice, she had reminded herself. If she couldn’t take it, she was no good.

Kitty wasn’t the one to put the idea in her head- Marley already had it there in the first place. Kitty was just the final push to this deep, deep hole that she could not seem to get out of.

She could feel the tears welling in her eyes as she fumbled for her phone. She had to tell her mom she was sorry. Sorry for being the worst daughter. Sorry for not being good enough. Sorry that she was even there in the first place.

A text wouldn’t do. Her fingers were too shaky and she was trembling so much that a few times the phone clattered out of her hands, disguised by the sound of the shooter breaking the door, only held back by the filing cabinet and Mr. Schuester and Coach Beiste’s attempts to keep him out.

But she can’t call. Her mom couldn’t escape. Her mom could be with the shooters for all she knew. She didn’t even know if she was coherent enough for a call anyways.

Still, she sent a frenzy of babbling text messages, ridden with typos and mistakes due to her trembling hands, tears welling up in her eyes causing the screen to blur and her ever present headache and dizziness that seemed to ebb away, since she wasn’t standing.

“Stay with us, okay, Marley? We’re gonna get you help,” Blaine was saying, but Marley wasn’t convinced anyone could help her.

“I’m fine, it’s just a cut,” she slurred. She frowned at herself, repeating her sentence. Her voice was still raspy. Odd. She never sounded like this after purging.

“But you’re not okay,” Blaine protested, but it was no use. Marley reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze, mouthing, ‘it’s okay’ to him.

The shot echoed throughout the whole room as Mr. Schuester and Coach Beiste hit the deck and back away from the filing cabinet, which was easily moved aside by the shooter with a bit of effort.

“Finally! You Glee kids gave me and my partner a hard time,” the man sighed, nodding to a woman wearing a black motorcycle mask standing in the doorway. “We can bust into all the classrooms we want, shoot up a load of kids, but the choir room, somehow, is the hardest place to get into.”

He seemed to grin cockily, as they both stepped into the room, rifles sweeping across them. Everybody’s eyes seemed to track the guns’ muzzle movements, even Marley, whose dizziness and headache had now faded into a faint weakness.

“You sure you want to shoot them? They’re Glee kids. It’s not like anyone would miss them,” the woman snorted, keeping her guns trained on Mr. Schue and Coach.

“No, no, no no... there’s two cheerleaders here! And jocks!” the man grinned, as Kitty edged closer to Blaine, Sam, Artie and Marley. He also gestured to the McKinley jackets strewn on the chairs.

Jake tensed, Ryder tensed. Unique cowered, making sure to stay as small as possible. Joe and Sugar edged away from the woman, who was walking towards them while keeping her gun trained on the teachers.

“What’s the difference? They joined this pathetic club.”

“What’s the difference-? Seriously, you ask me that question?!” the man fumed, clearly having a flair for the dramatics. “It means they have quite the diverse group here. Yeah, people would miss them.” He tilted his head mockingly, sizing up each of them. Blaine crouched protectively in front of Marley, his hand clutching her free hand tightly. Kitty was gripping onto Artie’s sleeve for dear life. Sam was staring down the gun.

“Just hurry up, the police are almost here,” the woman snapped impatiently.

“Yes, mom,” he snapped back sarcastically before he trained the gun on Kitty. “I might as well start with the stupid blonde cheerleader bitch who looks like she makes everybody’s lives miserable. Am I right or am I right?”

Everyone stared at him with fear. His face twisted into a scowl as he stepped closer and backhanded her. “ANSWER ME, BITCH!”

“... no.” The answer was out of Marley’s mouth before she could stop it. “She’s not. I’m the one who makes everybody’s lives miserable. She’s been dealt a bad hand. I’m the one who cost everybody in this room a chance to prove themselves. A chance to show that we are better. She didn’t. I’m the one who burdens everybody with things that I don’t even know I ask of people. Like approval. Their time of day. Their love. I’m the one who doesn’t give anything back but keeps taking, taking, taking.”

The man still had the gun trained on Kitty, but he was staring at her in amusement. Everybody in the choir room was silent, even the woman tilted her head in rapt fascination and morbid curiosity.

“And who might you be?”

“I’m- I’m...” Marley had to swallow hard to push down a wave of nausea and dizziness. “I’m Marley Rose.”

“Rose... Rose... ah, yes... your father walked out on you when you were three. That man was a leeching scumbag. A conniving bastard in his own right and so many colourful adjectives I could describe him with. He said something about a daughter and a wife... he said you were the biggest mistake of his life.” He grinned wickedly when he saw Marley let out a tiny gasp.

“How... how do you know my dad?”

“Your dad is a pretty popular drug dealer and drug runner. News travels. Why am I not surprised that his daughter turned out to be more of a wimp than he was?” he mused, looking at all of them. “You her boyfriend?” he addressed Blaine.

“No, but stay away from her,” Blaine snapped.

“Nice try, pretty face, but I think that’s not the case.”

His hand snapped out, yanking at Marley’s hair as she screamed, dragging her along the floor by her hair.

“Marley!” Blaine cried, but fell back as the man aimed his gun at him.

“C, change of plans... we shoot one person. Only one. These kids look like they need to be taught a lesson,” he aimed this at the woman.

“They are just kids!” Mr. Schue yelled, and the woman raised her rifle again.

“No talking. And A, for what it’s worth, that seems so much fun than just bloody murder. Didn’t we come to leave a message?”

A shrugged, before dropping Marley unceremoniously in the middle of the choir room floor. “I think we need to leave them several.”

“Get off,” Marley tried, trying to crawl away from A, but he set a heavy boot on her chest, making her wheeze. He smirked further as he could feel her ribs practically through the thin material of her shirt.

“Glee kids... did you know she felt this way? I don’t think anyone’s supposed to be that ghastly looking, don’tcha think? I mean, man, this is too easy to do. Just watch.” He applied more pressure to the right side of Marley’s ribs, earning him a snap and an ear-piercing wail that quickly turned into a rasp and muffled sobs. He looked around, knowing that everyone was watching. They couldn’t just look away. But he needed an answer. He needed to wipe it in their faces. “Well?!”

“Maybe? Yes? N-no...?” Ryder tried, and A barked out a laugh.

“I’m gonna take that as a ‘some people know but don’t do shit about it’ kinda thing. Y’know? But it’s really odd. Usually you’d notice when someone was that thin. Marley, dear, did you hear that? You don’t mean anything to them. You probably never will. If your dad didn’t want you, what makes you think they will?”

“That’s not true!” Kitty defended, and A barely flinched, now putting a foot on Marley’s throat.

“If you don’t tell the truth, I’ll slowly suffocate her,” he said calmly, applying more pressure. Marley’s eyes bulged, hands flying up to the boot on her throat and trying to push it off. Her breaths caught and there was a radiating pain in her chest each time she moved.

She wheezed, and then whimpered as the very action of breathing seemed to cause so much pain. Everything was spinning, blurring, black dots appearing in her vision.

Her lungs screamed for oxygen. But as they did, her broken ribs seemed to stab into her body even more. Her face was turning purple as Kitty finally could not take the whimpers and mini screams of pain and deep gasping anymore.

“... it’s true,” Kitty relented and A sighed, lifting his foot from Marley’s throat. She took a deep breath of air, before choking and groaning in pain.

“See how easy that was? To admit it?”

Everybody else in the room but Marley knew it was a partial lie. They did care. Marley meant something to them... but they didn’t do anything about it. They abandoned her. But Marley never abandoned them. She was always that kind, supportive friend. Always with the smile and being helpful. She’ll stand up to others for others, but not for herself.

Her pulled his foot back and kicked Marley in the stomach hard. He angled it into her chest too, making her scream further, as blood spurted from her mouth, staining her teeth and the ground in front of her. She coughed out more blood weakly, curling up slightly as it dripped from her mouth. Her tired eyes met Kitty’s for a while as A circled around her like a predatory eagle.

“What is it they probably think? Oh, I know. Everybody, you may stop me if I am wrong. But at least one of you thought and felt these following thoughts...” he cleared his throat, and then he slammed his foot into Marley’s back.

“Why was she in Glee club? I don’t want her here.”

His foot landed on her left wrist, offering another painful snap and crack and break. Kitty looked away at the words. Artie looked guilty.

“I don’t even know why I’m friends with her.”

Unique closed her eyes as he aimed a kick at her face, towards her jaw. The kick broke her jaw as her mouth hung open, leaking blood from the corner of her mouth. There was a whimper, a whine.

“She’s too high maintenance.”

Mr. Schue and Coach Beiste fidgeted. He slammed his foot fully into her stomach, and a low, pained groan came from her as she writhed on the floor. Her eyes were half open, trying to focus on Kitty, Artie, Sam and Blaine.

“I’m embarrassed to be with her.”

Jake, Ryder and Sam hung their heads. A grabbed her by the front of her shirt and punched her in the face, aiming for her eye. He missed a little, slamming his fist into her nose and... now that was bleeding too. There was a red mark beginning to appear on her face, by her right eye.

“I have not thought one of those things,” Blaine steadfastly said.

“That’s because deep down inside, you know she’s struggling. So you pity her. You don’t actually care, you just pity the little girl you see inside this one.” Marley’s head turned a little to focus on Blaine, as if pleading for him to make it true.

“No.” But Blaine’s tone gave it all away. Marley’s eyes just turned sad, resigned, hopeless.

“Wow... no one cares huh?” A chuckled, kicking Marley in the ribs a few more times, causing more snaps and breaks and hoarse screams of pain. “You all should be ashamed.”

“You’re hurting her!” Kitty shouted this time, voice cracking due to fear, guilt, anger...

“My dear blonde cheerleader...” A laughed lowly, leveling the gun at Kitty’s forehead. “... you all already did.”

BANG!

“Psych!” A grinned, as Kitty flew backwards. Artie moved to catch her, just barely managing to protect her head from coming in a rough landing. “HA! You really think I was going to get rid of one of the people who needed to hear that message? You all are funny!”

Kitty’s eyes fluttered open, as she tried to register what was going on. She should be dead.

But she wasn’t.

“Marley!” Jake yelled, as Marley’s hand was pulled away from her stomach to find the blood dripping from her hands.

He shot Marley instead.

“It seemed fitting. I thought, why not get rid of what you all didn’t care about? After all, it seems easier that way than dealing with the problem. It’s a blessing and a curse, honestly. I’ll put her out of her misery, but I’m not that kind with a bullet to the head. I want you all to feel my message... and Marley, your dad has now repaid his debt to me. I guess your life finally came in useful.”

“Marley!” Kitty screamed, and every part of Marley felt cold, except for her broken bones. Those, she felt, were hot and swollen and she couldn’t move them much. Her left hand was limp, wrist broken to the point where she could see a bit of the bone jutting out and it was burning, burning hot pain. Her vision was going in and out as her body expelled more blood via her mouth. Her right hand pressed against her stomach, where he shot her, and she could feel the stabbing pain, as if someone placed a hot poker at her stomach and left it there. She could vaguely realize the shooters leaving.

“Someone get a towel!”

“This jacket will work, right?”

“Hey, Marley, stay awake for me, honey, okay?”

Her eyes were scanning, unable to focus on any one thing. Faces were drifting in and out of focus, the pain seemed to be overwhelming. She felt like she had felt this pain so much that she practically lived in this state of pain. Her eyelids were heavy, like bricks weighing them down.

All Marley’s life she had been faced with bullying, loss of control, pain, suffering, being ostracized and now she was dying. It was so peaceful she felt like she didn’t deserve it. But she also knew it wouldn’t matter if she slipped away.

No one cared.

“I love you guys anyways...” she slurred, almost unheard except by Blaine and Sam.

She was so tired. She was ready to just lie back and fall asleep. Ryder was freaking out at this point, Unique was stuck between pacing, Sam was about to cry with worry and fear, Jake looked like he wanted to scream, Kitty screamed, Joe was praying feverishly to God, Sugar was... oddly calm despite the tears flowing down her face, Artie had a death grip on Kitty’s Cheerio cheerleading uniform, face white as a ghost, Mr. Schue was barking instructions but half of them made zero sense, Coach Beiste was trying to calm everybody down, Blaine was still trying to uselessly place his hands over Marley’s bullet wound, as if it would desperately put back all the blood she lost into her body.

“It’s okay,” Marley whispered. “You can let go now.”

“No,” Blaine protested, shaking his head wildly. “No, no, no, no. Please, god no. Please, Marley. Marley, no.”

“HEY!” Jake screamed, running to the broken down door. “HELP US! HELP US! SOMEBODY!”

Marley’s eyes were hazy and unfocused, flitting from one face to another as the corner of her mouth twitched up into a barely noticeable smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, what are you sorry for?” Ryder asked, gripping Marley’s free hand as if hanging onto it would prevent her from dying.

“Everything.” Her eyes flicked from Blaine to Ryder to Kitty. Sam had moved away, unable to take being away from Brittany, running his hands through his hair as his hysterical outside cracked and the tears began to flow. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay... it’s okay,” Ryder reached out and tenderly wiped Marley’s tears. She hissed lightly at the touch, whimpering slightly. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“If anything, we’re the ones who have to apologize,” Kitty said, kneeling on the pool of Marley’s blood that seemed to grow bigger every second. “Marley, please.”

“I’m scared,” Marley admitted. “I’m scared of dying and being alone again. Don’t leave me.”

“We won’t,” Artie finally said, tears springing free. “Never again. We’re family.”

“Don’t leave me, I’m scared,” Marley uttered quietly, and then her eyes slipped shut. “I’m sorry.”

Blaine roared. He roared like he could shout out all that he was feeling, all the pain and frustration and the anger and everything- and he was scared too. He considered Marley to be one of his closer friends, the only one from the newbies he really connected with.

He shouted and screamed and sobbed as the paramedics arrived with Jake in tow and when he saw Blaine trying to gather Marley in his arms, sobbing, his heart shattered, running towards Blaine.

“Where the hell were you?!” Blaine shouted, as the paramedics were trying to extract Marley from him. No one was sure if he was shouting at Jake or the paramedics. “SHE NEEDED YOU! YOU WEREN’T THERE!”

“Sir, please let go...”

“Blaine,” Sam said calmly, putting a hand on Blaine’s shoulder, the cheerleader stiffening at the touch and turning to Sam. The tears told him all he needed to know. “Let go of her.”

No one wanted Blaine to. The energy was abuzz in the room. Because they all felt guilty for what they didn’t do. And letting her go felt like a finality, a regret they would have to carry for the rest of their lives, regardless of whether she lives or dies.

Sam’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Please.”

Blaine slowly uncurled from Marley, and for the first time, he dreaded calling the old members. He dreaded calling Santana and telling her what happened to her mentee, dreaded calling Finn to tell him what happened to one of their Glee members, dreaded calling Kurt saying that he failed one of his friends by failing to be there. Not the first time that happened, anyways, but he promised himself that it would never happen again.

Everything was a blur once she left him. It took some tugging, some sobbing, some begging, pleading and some inner strength in all of their heads to get up and trudge towards the door.

For the first time, they all shrank back from the bright sun like a giant spotlight on their misdeeds. And for the first time, Mr. Schue would weep when he got back home. For the first and last time, Finn would feel like he failed a student.

#glee #fanfic #whump fic #whump #marley rose #glee fic #angst #angst fic #writing #i’m sorry #blaine anderson #sam evans #kitty wilde #artie abrams #tina cohen chang #jake puckerman #brittany pierce

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

Note

“I’ll take care of you.” “It’s rotten work.” “Not to me. Not if it’s you.” Pretty please for All Souls Gabriel and Garcia?

Nantes, BrittanyOctober 25, 1440

The scaffold stands nearby, looming in the darkness, the hangman’s noose clutching a gasp of empty air where tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, it will clutch Gilles de Rais’ wretched neck. Dry kindling has been stacked, awaiting the burning, and most townsfolk have kept well away from it, only to spit and cross themselves if they must pass. Nobody wants this to be a spectacle, grievous and awful as the accused’s crimes are. He was a war hero ten years ago, the close companion of Joan of Orléans, marching against the English invaders, heroically beating them back, and now this. Ordinarily he should have been sent to Paris for trial, but the courts do not want the English getting wind of the fact of Gilles de Rais’ crimes. Some details are so heinous they have been stricken from the court record. The sorcery and sodomy and murder, the unnatural usage of children before they were killed, the torture and the occult experimentations, the dabbling in black magic. It would be too convenient.

Gabriel de Clermont stands in the shadows of the far side, regarding the courtyard, the pacing guards, the knowledge that this square will be flooded with the folk of Nantes and the surrounding countryside by sunup tomorrow, all eager to see Rais burn. He stole their children, he was the monster that they welcomed into their homes and hung with laurels, he was the one they believed in, and it began almost the moment he returned home from Joan’s campaigns, after they burned her in Rouen. Gabriel knew the Maid of Orléans only briefly. He customarily finds religious zealots unpalatable and inflexible, but he had something of a soft spot for her, this tiny nut-brown peasant girl whose rural French sounded half like Occitan, spitting furious and full of righteousness, who was questioned for days and never broke, who put on armor and did what this entire godforsaken country has failed to do itself in beating the English. Gabriel is, after all, and has been for many centuries, French himself. And yet –

We should have done more, he thinks. We could have done more. They had to step back and let Joan burn, and then for eight years, even when appeals were sent to the Knights of Lazarus as knowledge of Gilles de Rais’ crimes began to seep out across the countryside like poison, his lord father has refused to take a hand. We do not fight the humans’ wars. We are not their judge and jury. Gabriel could recite the speech in his sleep. He knows, he knows, that it’s not that Asher de Clermont does nothing. Asher has protected the mortal world from threats they have never even imagined, has fought monsters beyond all comparison, has trained his sons to do the same, and the world itself made it through the last few hundred years, beset with its human problems even as it was, because the Knights of Lazarus were there. And yet, to stand here and look at this scaffold, soaked in eight years’ worth of children’s blood, because Asher did not deem it noble enough to interfere in humans’ business –

Gabriel breaks off and starts to walk, angry, burning, restless. He knows the arguments. We are too strong for them. We cannot appoint themselves their gods, their judge and jury. We cannot let them rely on us to do what they must do for themselves. No wonder the de Clermonts’ rivals jeer that Asher is too soft and too principled and too honorable to ever make a proper leader for their kind, even if they would not dare say that to the Grandmaster’s face. The humans are weak, they have been for years. Plague, famine, war, unrest, economic and religious and political upheaval. They tear themselves apart easily, they die like flies, in their hundreds and their thousands. The creatures, witches and vampires and daemons alike, could emerge from the shadows and strike, kill all the humans easily, make this their world, and it is only Asher’s restraint and power that stops them. Gabriel loves his father, adores him and admires him beyond all words, knows that they must make sacrifices, but at the same time –

You could have let us stop Gilles de Rais, he thinks. Just this once. Just as if you could have let us save Richard, and you did not.

Gabriel comes to a halt, leans against the wall of a wattle-and-daub inn, and then almost jumps out of his skin, fangs flashing out and eyes going black as he hisses, as someone’s hand touches his shoulder from behind. It takes only an instant after that for him to land rather sheepishly. “Ah,” he says breezily, feigning his usual devil-may-care demeanor. “Hello, darling.”

Garcia eyes him, unconvinced by this bravura performance. (He is the only one, Gabriel thinks poignantly, who would even know that it is one.) “What are you doing skulking out here?” his brother asks. “It’s getting late, and – ”

“They only intend to burn one monster tomorrow, so far as I am aware.” Nonetheless, Gabriel grudgingly consents to turn away from the square and the waiting scaffold. They walk down the lane, pass a tiny church, and Garcia absently crosses himself. He is Catholic in a way Gabriel is not, born to it just as the first missionaries were reaching the pagan Slavs of Ragusa, whereas Gabriel was born before the Romans nailed that Jewish carpenter to a tree and has duly converted with the rest of the family. As they emerge on the far side, Gabriel bursts out, “We could have stopped this, you know.”

Garcia pauses, a look of pain on his face. He takes a moment to answer. Finally he says, “You know that Papa – ”

“Yes,” Gabriel snaps, “yes, I know what Papa. Eight years. Eight years of – you’ve heard what that bastard Gilles has been doing, and if it was my child – if someone had laid a hand on Christian like that, torn him to pieces and used him vilely, and there was someone who could have stopped it happening to any other son, and did nothing because of principle – ”

Too late he wonders if he should be lashing out about their father to Garcia, as Garcia fears too much that Asher might not count him his own son enough to openly criticize him, but Garcia reaches out, grips Gabriel’s arms, and holds on hard. “Shh,” he says, a little roughly. “Shh, moje srce, we’ll make it right.”

“How?” Gabriel demands, the word raw on his tongue. This whole spectacle is doing nothing for his cherished reputation of never giving a fuck about anything, but it’s too late. “Turn back time? Bring those dead boys back to life? Apologize to the mothers and fathers for being able to do something, but deciding that our father just would not stand for it, so very sorry? If they marched on Sept-Tours with pitchforks and decided to avenge it, they would be entirely – ”

“Shh,” Garcia says again, more forcefully, and this time, Gabriel is forced reluctantly to listen. “We will watch Gilles de Rais burn tomorrow. We will do what we came to do, and we will see justice done. It’s not your ill. It’s not your sin. There are other battles to fight, where we can make more of a difference, stop much greater evils. All right?”

Gabriel doesn’t answer, chewing over it, not wanting to argue, still not entirely agreeing. Finally when he still doesn’t speak, Garcia says awkwardly, “Do you – do you want to find a brothel?”

“What?” That startles a disbelieving whoop of laughter out of Gabriel, despite his dark mood. “Did you just – you hate brothels!”

“Yes, well.” Garcia shrugs defensively. Vampires can’t flush, but he’s trying anyway. “I thought it would cheer you up.”

Gabriel isn’t sure how to respond to that. He looks at Garcia, still trying so hard to pretend that this is actually how he wants to spend his evening in any remote measure, sitting stiffly while the whores flirt with him and Gabriel goes upstairs with an armful and must be turfed out the next morning. “No, darling,” Gabriel says at last, with genuine regret that he loves Garcia too much to make him endure that – at least tonight, as both of them know full well there will be many others. “Come on, let’s find supper. Though if you propose to keep my company, be warned it’s much less scintillating than usual.”

Garcia shakes his head. “Not to me,” he says. “Not if it’s you.”

So they start to run, breaking into supernatural speed away from the village, bounding across the dark countryside in pursuit of stags to catch and drain, and sit together beneath the stars, and on that night, terrible as the weight of the injustice may be, Gabriel de Clermont does not mind his own sins so much.

(september prompt list)

#timeless ff #gabriel x garcia #all souls au #prompt fills #extasiswings #ask

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be-better-writing · 4 years

Text

Daily Writing Day 9 - 1/6/2020

What brings a tear to the eye? (It could be happy tears!)

This prompt is fitting for today as it is the 12th anniversary of my uncle being tragically from this world. I wrote a little fictional tale based on his memory that caused my little sister to break down and cry this morning. Between my little story and my sister being two states away crying over essentially my creative expression. Today has been rough. Today 12 years ago brings tears to my eyes, and so does this little story.

"The Tape-Man and The TapeMonster" An original story written by Brittany Lyn on December 29, 2019. Part two written on January 6, 2020. Dedicated to the man who taught me what tape was, how to pull it from the dispenser, and how to stick it to everyone and everything in sight. The man who created the TapeMonster. The Tape-Man. Uncle Jody Becknell. May he Rest In Peace while hunting and fishing every day in Heaven. You are so dearly loved and dearly missed each and every day, sir. Thank you for blessing my life, my heart, and my soul with your everlasting memory. One day, a little young lady was strolling along. Bobbing and weaving between the trees, skipping over roots, and jumping on stumps. Off in the distance, an alarm rang out calling for the hero that hides within. She ducked behind a tree within the blink of an eye, but what came back was quite the sight. No longer was visible her pink dress and boots, but her face covered in tape, her whole outfit, too. Out from the trees the TapeMonster leapt, and down the road it tumbled down to land on it's rear at the sound of that ferocious alarm. *~WEEEEEEEEEEWOOOOOOO~* that horrendous contraption screeched, but that wouldn't stop this little TapeMonster now. It burst through the door, spun the thieves up tight with a roll of simple Scotch tape. Just in time, the police arrive to find the crooks bound by simple Scotch tape, with a note slapped right on their face. "Never fear, the TapeMonster was here!" the note read. Puzzled and shook, the police are confused! The only thing here was the menaces bound by simple Scotch tape. "Where did this TapeMonster hide?" they questioned, but it had seemingly vanished, leaving only the tape bounds holding the robbers in place. But, just out the door, across the street, the tape covered monster was bounding away, off to the man who supplied her with tape rolls. Peeling the tape, piece by piece. The little girl laughed and laughed and laughed some more. She was back on the counter in Mr. Jody's pawn shop. He kept sticking her with tape while her imagination ran free. The TapeMonster rests having saved the day. The thieves were locked away in Imagination's Jail, and the police of Imagination Town went about their way, questioning the identity of this brave creature armed with Scotch tape. The little girl laughed and sat on the counter, and played more games of TapeMonster with Mr. Jody, her very best and dearest friend, who would stick her with tape, supplying the TapeMonster again. He stuck the tape on her again, and again, and again before the little girl's parents joined their fun. "Time to go, punkin'. Give Jody bye-bye sugars," her mother said softly, as the little one jumped into her very best and dearest friend's hug, and kissed him on the cheek, and saying "bye-bye." "Until next time, punkin'," Mr. Jody said with a squeeze. "I hope you bring the TapeMonster back to play next time." "I will, Mr. Jody!" the little girl exclaimed as she hugged her friend again. "The TapeMonster will always come to play!" she sang out with glee, as she stuck one small strip of Scotch tape to Mr. Jody's t-shirt. Jody walked his little friend around the counter to her mom and dad for their journey back home, and all 4 embraced in the strongest and warmest group hug. Farewells were said, and the little one strapped into her seat, as she clutched the surprise Mr. Jody gave to her; the little roll of Scotch tape that was just bigger than her hands. A token for the TapeMonster whenever she needs. "Never fear!" she shouted gleefully from the car. "The TapeMonster is here!" the two friends called out as they waved good-bye. "Until next time, punkin'," he said to himself, as his little friend and her parents drove off in the distance. "The Tape-Man will always have sugars, and hugs, and always an extra roll of tape for whenever a criminal causes chaos up in Imagination Town," he finished just as the tail lights faded off over a hill. He stepped inside the shop while peeling the tiny tape strip off his t-shirt. he taped it to a small piece of paper he scribbled on, and slid it in his wallet; a memory of a little friend with a wild imagination stored away for safe keeping. A little strip of Scotch tape on a small slip of paper that read, "Never fear, the TapeMonster is here!" A memory so pure that no one else could create but Mr. Jody, the one and only Tape-Man to see the real TapeMonster with his own two eyes... ~

Part 2~

The little three year old TapeMonster continued to grow and play and save the days for the next eight years, while getting the occasional grand visits from Mr. Jody, the almost elusive Tape-Man. Until one dark winter night, tragedy struck. Mr. Jody had left this beautiful life on Earth to spend eternity with God in Heaven. The now eleven year old TapeMonster was lost, clutching in her hand the gifted roll of magic Scotch tape with tears streaming down her face.

Days went by, and she placed a roll of her own magic Scotch tape under his carefully folded hands for burial with a note that read "Use in case of bad guys; a piece of the TapeMonster's bravery to keep you safe. Till we meet again, Tape-Man. Your spirit lives on."

Life went on with an overwhelming feeling of emptiness. The TapeMonster couldn't find any Scotch tape and Imagination Town was overtaken by the very many evil doers that she couldn't put away without the Tape-Man's supply.

Six years flew by before she realized, and she was more lost than the years before. Mr. Jody was in Heaven guiding his family through their lives, but it just wasn't the same.

Another six years go by in the blink of an eye. I'm 23 now, turning 24 in 6 months and 2 days. Today marks twelve years that Mr. Jody, who truly was more like an uncle than a friend, was taken tragically from this Earth, leaving our lives better for knowing him in his life, but also leaving the world a darker place without his love and charisma. If I drank, I'd have two mini bottles of Grey Goose and a roll of that simple Scotch tape sitting on the step beside me. One mini bottle to pour to the ground for tribute to Jody, and the other to enjoy myself before wrapping a small piece of Scotch tape around and hiding it and the roll in my hope chest to look back on and smile as time continues to pass us by.

Those twelve years really flew by, but when I stop and look back, it seems more like a lifetime had passed.

Jody, the TapeMonster is so very lost on her journey of life hunting for tape to stop the bad guys from taking over the world. God knows just how lucky I truly am, though. I am blessed to have known and loved you while you were here. I am blessed to have gained through you an adopted mom, an older brother, and a little sister that I have also made great memories with. God also knows it still hurts like hell to experience life without you here, too.

This story is a wild piece fiction based off of my memory of Jody. Memories from 20 years ago are fuzzy as all hell, but the feelings in my heart are just as they were upon experiencing them. I posted the first part the other day while hoping it wouldn't produce the same massive amounts of crocodile tears for Dana, Taylor, and Randy as it did for me. I haven't gotten any feedback from them yet, so I hope part two doesn't make them cry like I am while typing this. I just truly hope that the wild fictional adventure of the TapeMonster combined with the memory of Jody warms their heart knowing that we all still have memories of him to pick us up when we are down, and to carry in our hearts so his spirit lives on each day that lies ahead.

Rest In Peace to one of the greatest life influences to ever be a part of my world. We love and miss you so much. ~

My dates of writing this piece are written at the top with my little dedication, but the end is where it really tore my sister apart. I should have thought before posting it, or I should have read it to her myself. I'm not sure. Today has been a train wreck. Jody is watching us from the Gates of Heaven, though. I felt his presence today. Especially after I reminded my father of the anniversary. He actually brought home a moderate size bottle of Grey Goose without me asking. I haven't had a sip of that vodka, and I won't. Jody set something up for tomorrow for me, or at least that's the way it seems. I plan not to mess that up by being hungover.

Between this date, and the anniversary of my best friend committing suicide, I don't know which one kills me more.

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echoes-of-realities · 6 years

Text

seldom do we take the time necessary to pause; to stop; to record, rewind, and press play (1/2)

* * *

Notes: Man did this ever get away from me….

Inspired by this screencap.

Part 2 is coming either (way) later tonight or tomorrow!

Title from “Tomatoes” by Shane Koyczan.

[Read on ao3]

You transfer to McKinley in grade eleven, and the lady who gives you your locker number winces as she passes the small slip of paper to you across her desk. You don’t quite understand her grimace, but your mom signs some forms and you smile awkwardly at the passing teachers and, just like that, you’re officially a student of McKinely High School.

You already know what teachers to suck up to and who to avoid because your cousin is in his senior year and he has been prepping you for the halls of McKinely for at least the past month.

Your mom leaves and you’re left clutching a schedule and your backpack and too many binders. The secretary directs you down the right hallways to reach your locker, and you head off for a new year in a new school in a new town and you wish you weren’t so used to this. Your plan is to keep your head down until you graduate or move away, you think it will probably be the later considering your mom’s track record of having the worst possible luck ever regarding work. You hope this place works out for her, but most unit clerks seem to be easily replaceable, and despite how crazy hard your mom works, it seems like budget cuts, and therefore employee cuts, always seem to target the new staff, and therefore your mom.

Your locker is a top one, which, score. The first bell rings and the hallway suddenly starts to move like it’s alive, parting and closing without any rhyme or reason, and before you know it, there’s two people on either side of you as you shove your binders into your locker.

You know these people from the Facebook pictures your cousin shoved under your nose, you know that they’re two of the three people your cousin warned you the most about: Brittany Pierce and Santana Lopez, two of the top Cheerios at McKinley and, despite being in the Glee club and only juniors, two of the most popular students in the entire school.

They see right through you, and right then and there you make it your goal to remain completely invisible to them.

They’re talking about some party someone named Puck is throwing (you keep your face blank so they don’t realize you’re listening to them, but you think it’s kind of a dumb name). Brittany says something about lizard people and sewers and you see dimples out of the corner of your eye and you try to control your jaw dropping. You’ve heard your cousin tell hundreds of horror stories about Santana Lopez, the terrifying freshman and then sophomore who’s legacy of being both a bitch and insanely protective of her best friend stretches as far as to the middle school, if your younger cousins’ fearful awe is anything to go by. You’ve heard all these awful, horrifying stories about her, and throughout all of them you never, ever, imagined how soft Santana’s face could get.

It sticks with you throughout your classes, something that you tuck away and turn over in the back of your mind while teacher after teacher goes through attendance and class rules and course outlines. You’re still turning this new piece of information, so vastly different from what your cousin has told you, when they’re on either side of you at the lockers again and you see Santana’s dimples and soft eyes and you realize that this morning wasn’t a fluke.

You’re interested and curious and have about a billion questions but you’re not stupid, you keep your ears and eyes open and your head down and you always see things over the years that no one else ever does.

You notice small things over the first couple weeks of school, like how Santana only smiles with those deep dimples around Brittany, like how Brittany says the weirdest things that only Santana understands no matter how long it takes her, like how they have matching backpacks which would probably look dumb on anyone else but somehow manages to look adorable on them, like how Santana rolls her eyes as Brittany links their pinkies but can’t quite manage to hide the beaming smile on her face, like how they both soften only around each other despite how aloof and bitchy they are to the rest of the school, like how there’s this bright fear in Santana’s eyes whenever she catches herself looking at Brittany too long. You keep your head down and you notice all the small things.

You’re pretty sure you realize they’re in love long before anyone else does; long before even they do, maybe. You admire Brittany’s patience when it comes to Santana, and you admire Santana’s ferocity when it comes to protecting Brittany despite her fear, and you admire how obvious it is that they care more about each other than anyone else in their life, and you admire how obvious it is that they have found their soulmate already (and you feel just a hint of jealousy, but, like, the good kind where you’re happy for them despite the fact that you want to find what they’ve found too).

Until one day you feel a heavy tension between them and you see how Santana still softens around Brittany but not in a happy way, like she’s been forced to turn over and reveal her soft underbelly and she’s just waiting for the killing blow. Brittany’s eyes are hard and sad and you don’t think you’ve ever seen that before, and Santana looks guilty and angry and like fear is eating her up from the inside and you don’t think you’ve ever seen that before either.

Some boy in a wheelchair escorts Brittany to her locker that afternoon and there’s something like surprise and guilt that flits over Santana’s face before it settles on anger. But underneath all that anger in Santana’s eyes as she glares at the boy, is pain you don’t think you’ve ever seen in anyone before, it looks kind of like that look in your mom’s eyes when your dad walked out on the two of you, but brighter and sharper, somehow, and you think it’s because, while your mom expected that, Santana was completely blindsided by this.

Things settle down again, but there’s still a weird tension between Brittany and Santana. They still soften around each other, but sometimes there’s an edge there, something that you can’t quite put your finger on but that worries you just a little bit.

Weeks go by and that boy in the wheelchair starts spending a lot of time around Brittany’s locker, and you only notice how weird it is when you realize that Santana spends a lot less time around her locker now. Brittany genuinely seems to care about the boy, but you know it isn’t even a fraction of what she feels for Santana, you know it because while Brittany smiles and laughs and looks happy around that boy, she never, ever, softens like she does around Santana; you kind of wish you could tell Santana that, but your relationship with the two Cheerios is as the silent locker neighbour, and it’s far too late to change that, so you keep quiet and hope that they’ll figure out how to work it out themselves.

Glee club wins Sectionals and it seems like things are almost back to normal. You still catch Brittany staring longing at Santana, and you see that bright, sharp pain in Santana’s eyes whenever that boy in the wheelchair is around, but you can tell they’re trying to put that weird tension behind them (you also know it doesn’t quite work, you know it because you don’t think it will ever go away until that boy in the wheelchair stops showing up at Brittany’s locker).

And then, just as suddenly as things seemed to be getting better, things start to deteriorate. They quit Cheerios, and you never realized how much Santana relied on the protection her uniform offered until she’s showing up in normal clothes and looking smaller than you’ve ever seen her. The circles under her eyes start to get darker and darker, even under the makeup she tires to hide them with. Brittany seems to get closer to that boy in the wheelchair and Santana is left floundering. You learn that, for how popular she is, there is only one person in all of McKinley she actually trusts and cares for, and your heart aches for her.

You know that Brittany knows too, how lost Santana is, how her eyes dull and her cheeks lose their fullness and how her dimples remain hidden and how the circles under her eyes get darker and how she winces every time Brittany gets too close. You also know how helpless Brittany feels, how caught she is between the boy she cares for and the girl she loves with her everything, how she’s getting tugged in two different directions and the people on either side of her don’t even realize they’re doing the tugging.

They both look exhausted and defeated and like they really need a hug, Brittany from a tug-of-war only she realizes she’s in and Santana from the ghosts she made herself that drip from her shoulders.

You stand there between them and ache at how much they’re hurting. You’ve made a few friends since you started the beginning of the year, but none you’re so invested in as you are in Brittany and Santana, and you know you’re an outsider looking in, you know that you really only see what they want you to see, but you can’t help but feel like there’s so much more you could be doing to help them.

Before you know it, it’s March and everything that’s been building for months comes to a head. You see Santana approach Brittany from down the hall by that water fountain, and the stiff set of her shoulders and the small look on her face and the way she plays with her hands tells you that you should stay right where you are. But you can’t help but watch out of the corner of your eye, you can’t help but watch and worry and ache. You try to give them privacy the hallway doesn’t really offer, but you can’t help but stare as Santana flees down the hall with tears on her cheeks and Brittany stands at the lockers with tears in her eyes, and even though you can’t actually hear it, you know that both of their hearts just shattered.

Santana doesn’t show up to school for two days after that and you’ve never seen Brittany look so longing or sad before, and she looks at you with slightly hopeful, heartbroken eyes, and despite never having spoken to her before you know what she’s asking. You slowly shake your head and guilt claws at the inside of your stomach as you watch that hopeful light fade from her eyes; you never realized how dull blue eyes could look until this week.

If you thought Brittany’s eyes were heartbroken, it does nothing to prepare you for how shattered Santana’s dark eyes are when she finally shows up. She’s here early, far earlier than you’ve ever seen her, and despite how put together she looks, you don’t think you’ve ever seen another person’s eyes so cracked, until you remember Brittany’s. You don’t quite know what happened between them, except that it obviously had something to do with whatever you saw a couple days ago, and that it obviously has them so goddamn heartbroken. Santana stares at you defensively, but you can read the fear and hurt in her eyes, and you just give her the tiniest smile and she seems to relax, or, at least, she seems to realize you aren’t about to go around and shout her vulnerability to the halls.

You hear quick footsteps behind you and you know who it is by the way Santana’s face shutters closed and the way her eyes crack wide open. Santana’s knuckles turn white where she clutches her locker and she closes it with more force than she probably intended. You don’t know why you do it, but you fumble your binders and textbooks and pencil case and all of your school supplies go skittering across the hall. You know Brittany, at least a little, and you know that she’ll stop to help you as you crouch and start gathering pencils and pens; Santana knows this too and she flees down the hallway. Brittany hesitates in front of you before dropping to her knees to help you gather your school supplies, staring longingly down the hall at Santana’s retreating back with the most miserable eyes you’ve ever seen.

You don’t know if you did the right thing, because somewhere throughout the months you’ve come to care for these two former Cheerios who are so obviously in love with each other, and you don’t want to hurt Brittany in order to help Santana, but then Santana shows up at her locker that afternoon and offers you this small, half smile, and you know that despite your misgivings, you did at least some small thing right.

The next day, Santana shows up at her locker early again, long before Brittany gets there, and she keeps showing up early for a long time. She never says anything to you, and you return the favour, but she’s started to give you those small, half smiles and you realize, somehow, you’ve earned Santana Lopez’s trust. You take a small amount of pride in being one of maybe three people privy to Brittany and Santana being Brittany-and-Santana, and two of those people are Brittany and Santana.

Eventually, you get there one morning to find that Brittany has finally caught Santana at their lockers and you slow your steps, hesitating by that water fountain again and trying not to stare. You’re pretty sure it’s the first time they’ve spoken since that day at the lockers almost two weeks ago, and you are still hoping they will work everything out. You’re not oblivious to how awful McKinley is to gay kids, but they’re both just so damn heartbroken these days and it makes something ache in your chest too. It becomes really hard not to stare when Couch Sylvester walks up to them, but this time it’s less to give them privacy and more out of fear for their current state of being alive. The facefuls of dirt they get makes you jump and you quickly try to hide yourself against the wall as Couch Sylvester storms past you. Brittany leads Santana off down the hallway, presumably to get cleaned up, and you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen Santana look so lost before. Brittany’s fingers are around her wrist and Santana looks a little bit hopeful and a whole lot nauseous; as they pass you, you offer Santana a half smile, and she tries to return it but it looks more like a grimace than anything, and then they’re both swallowed in the crowd of the hallways.

(You cautiously step over the dirt and open your locker with fear pounding through your chest and find that, aside from a couple handfuls of dirt, your locker is clean; Couch Sylvester is good, you’ll give her that, but she’s also more than a little bit psychotic.)

The boy in the wheelchair still sticks around even after that, but you can see how Brittany’s smiles never reach her eyes anymore. You kind of feel bad for him but not really because if he was blind enough to not see that Brittany and Santana will always be Brittany-and-Santana, or dumb enough to get in between them anyways, then he must either be the stupidest person in all of McKinley (a true feat, to be honest) or he must be a complete and utter masochist.

About a week later you show up to school late because you forgot to set your alarm, and you find the hallways pretty empty. You half-jog, half-speed-walk to your locker and stop short a couple feet away. There’s bright red slushy covering the floor in front of your locker and your blood runs cold. You realize, now, that someone else knows Brittany and Santana’s secret, and that someone is a lot bigger than you and a lot less discrete. It doesn’t matter which one of the football players it is, not really, because you know Lima by now. You know that there’s a reason you haven’t really made any good friends here, and it’s because all too often there’s an enemy in every friend.

You step over the slushy and put your locker combination in and try not to wonder how cold Santana must feel right now, because you know that slushy hit Santana with the same sureness you know that Brittany must be somewhere trying to thaw Santana’s face and heart, you know because no one at McKinley would ever dare to so much as think about slushy-ing Brittany, not with Santana still breathing. You put your backpack away and grab your second period binders and ignore the stickiness under your heel when you walk down the halls.

You watch Brittany break up with the boy in the wheelchair from the water fountain and you inwardly cheer because you know that something is changing, you can feel it in the air, and you feel it again, the next day, when Brittany and Santana show up to their lockers together for the first time in what seems like forever. Brittany’s eyes are free of guilt and Santana’s eyes are starting to mend along the fracture lines, and you could hug them both if it wouldn’t be so weird.

Except you see prom king and queen posters of Santana Lopez and Dave Karofsky, of all people, later that day and your jaw drops because that’s one thing you didn’t see coming. Brittany comes up beside you in front of the poster and she looks at you and smiles and her eyes are sad and dull again and you know that she knows as well as you do that Santana is absolutely terrified, again. And your heart jumps in your chest because you get it, you do, because that same fear claws at your heart sometimes, but you also get why Brittany struggles to be so patient throughout it all. And you offer Brittany a half smile and she gives one in return and shrugs a little and your heart breaks for her. She’s been pulled in two different directions for so long that you wonder if she knows what it’s like to just exist and not feel whiplash. As you leave you touch Brittany for the first time, just a quick squeeze of her wrist, and she smiles at you and a little light reignites in her eyes and you feel a flash of pride.

You don’t go to junior prom but— You hear the horror stories and it makes something in your stomach curdle and your mom lets you stay home from school the next day. She calls in sick for you and curls up on your bed with you and you watch movies you two haven’t watched since you were both young and unburdened. Your mom makes you homemade chilli and you hide in her embrace and pretend that the world is a lot better than it is.

You drag yourself to school the next day and Santana gives you a half smile and there’s a knowing glint in her eye that should make you afraid but it just makes you feel like you’re understood. You give her a half smile back and you both dig through your lockers and pretend as if Lima isn’t as terrifying as it is. Brittany shows up soon, and her smile is wide but her eyes are subdued, and she doesn’t even try to link her pinky with Santana’s as they head to their first period class; you’re positive no one is more surprised than Brittany when Santana links their pinkies anyways.

They go to New York with glee, you know because you overhear their excited giggling, and you hope that they learn that there are places for people like them, places where they don’t have to look over their shoulders every single time they hold hands, places where the entire town isn’t staring at them and waiting for them to do something outside of what is normalized. You find yourself lonely in the days they are gone, and when they get back Santana is angry again. But before you know it, Brittany has already soothed her anger and Santana is soft more often than not these days.

The school year ends and, as you head for the front doors you pass Brittany and Santana. Brittany waves at you and Santana offers you that half smile of hers, and you return both gestures. McKinley isn’t nearly as unbearable as you thought it would be, and your mom is doing better as one of the Lima hospital’s unit clerk than you ever hoped she would. You go to your cousin’s graduation and you cheer along with your little cousins when he crosses the stage and you grin a little because, despite his warnings, you somehow managed to kind of befriend two of the most terrifying girls at school, and now, all these months later, you find it kind of laughable that you were ever even a little scared of Brittany and Santana.

You go to California for week in the summer to visit your aunts and uncles and cousins, and you meet a boy who seems to have the sunlight trapped in his smile and you blush the entire trip. He was warm hands and bright eyes and his skin glows deep bronze in the moonlight. He makes you feel alive and, fleetingly, you wonder that if this is what Brittany and Santana feel, because then you really understand why they willingly go though all of that heartbreak this past year, if this is what’s waiting for them at the end of it all, you have a feeling it’s more than worth it. You get his number and you don’t really stop texting at all for the rest of the summer and you feel floaty and bubbly and your mom’s fond teasing makes you even happier.

You see Brittany and Santana at the Lima Bean one day, in the middle of August, and despite the fact that they aren’t holding hands, you know something’s changed. They’re sharing a fancy milkshake and, when you pass their tables, you notice how their feet are tangled in the shadows of the table. Santana sees you first, and gives you one of those rare half smiles, the ones that got more easy and frequent as May faded into June, and Brittany waves at you as you stand in line and that floaty, bubbly feeling grows.

September creeps up on you, and before you know it your senior year is about to start. You still don’t have any really close friends, but you find that you don’t mind it so much anymore, not when you spent the year standing between Brittany and Santana. You only hope you get the same locker again, but you aren’t too worried about it because, as you’ve learned this past year, fate has a funny way of working out.

#brittana #brittany pierce #santana lopez #glee #brittana fanfiction #glee fanfiction #my writing #this wasn't supposed to be as long as it ended up being whoOPS #also I haven't written in second person for like actual years so #story: seldom do we take the time necessary to pause; to stop; to record rewind and press play

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totallyrealhoroscopesdaily · 6 years

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1/14/2018 Horoscope

Aries: You start talking to Death, again. Not as much as you were, but you needed to talk to somebody and he was willing to listen.

Taurus: Students are resisting the unlikely subjugation of peas. There are groups with picket signs outside of local government buildings, chanting that peas deserve to be free. There has been no attempt to subjugate peas, as far as anyone, they’re still as free as any other vegetable, but the students are very convinced that that freedom is in danger. You had nothing to do with this. Watching a concerned adult attempt to explain that the peas are not being threatened, and aren’t sentient besides, to a sobbing teen is ridiculously pretty.

Gemini: You’ve abdicated your crown to the owl, he’s a better bird king than you. You’re now the well-respected, retired monarch, so you’re still getting perks. This just removes the middle man, as well as shoving the owl off, because despite what bonding time you’ve had, he’s still an annoying fuck.

Cancer: You tell Ridali he really needs to go back to his caverns, and you were going to continue, but his sudden deeply hurt and horrified look stops you in your tracks. That sentence crashes to a halt. You are missing something. Ridali slowly says that, yeah, of course, he’s been hanging around too much anyway, he should probably just go- To change, you cut him off. He says what. You say he needs to go back underground to get some clothes or change his, he reeks. He perks up, then slumps a small amount, says oh, yeah, he knew what you meant, to change, and he laughs awkwardly. He’s very obviously embarrassed, rubbing the back of his head, but there is also relief written in every line of his frame. You are missing something. You don’t think it’s a good something.

Leo: You take some soup that Hazel made to Fira’s place. She looks like shit when she opens the door and asks how in the hell did you get this address. You ask how she got your phone, she says touche. You tell her you brought soup, because that’s what you do when someone is sick, and she gets a weird look on her face. She asks how you knew she was sick. You pause. You don’t know. You say she told you, but it comes out more like a question. She says she was about to, but she hadn’t yet. There’s an awkward pause. You make the conscious decision to ignore that, and can practically see Fira do the same. It’s how you get by. You tell her to go lay down, because she’s sick so she shouldn’t be up, and you’ll go warm up the soup. She doesn’t fight, she goes to lay on her couch. You warm up the soup. You give it to her and she thanks you, then says she is sorry for standing you up yesterday. You say it’s no problem. That exchange probably would have been more heated, more alive, but you both are trying really hard to act normal in the face of some sort of mindfuckery.

Libra: Kaimana stays for a bit before picking up Makani. You make her some tea and she bemoans some idiots at her work. You groan in sympathy, joke that “The customer is always right” is a flat lie. She laughs and comments that ain’t that the fucking truth. You say language, and she says English. You groan and she laughs.

Scorpio: Don’t forget your keys.

Sagittarius: Guy and Harold and Helen take their crack at you once Brittany and Bobby loosen up enough to be pried off. Harold reads you the fucking riot act, says he ain’t losing another man in his command, while Guy inspects every inch of you for injuries, only a little bit frantic. You snap a little bit at Guy to stop poking you, you’re fine, and he grabs your shoulders, looks you dead in the eye, and says he watched you fall into certain death and couldn’t grab you in time, let him make sure this is real. You let him continue without a fuss after that. Helen is in the background shouting about how they need to be more careful, they can’t let this kinda shit happen again, and Brittany snaps a no shit to her. Bobby is still crying, though he seems to be calming down a tad bit. It’s a jumbled mess of concern and you feel loved.

Capricorn: You had meant to start fixing up the guest room. Meant to. But when you went back there, it was different than you remembered. You had to walk through some sort of bead curtain that wasn’t there before, and there were fairy lights hanging from the ceiling that you don’t remember hanging, but feel familiar, and the walls were painted, but not in any solid layer. There were complex swirls that looked amazing in one section, and in another there’s a sunflower you’re utterly certain that Punchy did even though you don’t think he’s been back here. There’s a silly dog done in orange and pink that reminds you of laughter over there, and the whole room is just one big rainbow mess. You meant to start cleaning this up, but you saw some crude stick figure battle along the bottom of the wall and your heart gave a pang. You leave the room, making sure the door is shut.

Aquarius: You tell Suzy you love her and she laughs brightly. You tell Linda you love her when she’s teaching you how to knit and she clutches her heart and says that’s very sweet. You say it whenever the words are in your throat, you don’t swallow them. You love your friends and so you tell them. Simple.

Pisces: You want to start a vegetable garden. You have many plants for their magical uses, flowers and buches, but you don’t have many food plants. It’s good to be self-sufficent, daughter. You shrug off your mother’s interference with the ease of long practice, her reasons are not your reasons. Winter probably isn’t the best time to be starting a garden, but it’s always summer around your home, anyway.

#zodiac #horoscope #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #totallyrealhoroscopesdaily

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seeroftodayandtomorrow · 6 years

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The Prince and the Moon God

Chapter 9

Read on AO3

They are on the move once more, and Blaine stand sat the railing, looking into the direction they're going. Even though he knows it will be some weeks until they reach their destination, he keeps trying to see the Isle of the Moon in the distance, constantly expecting it to rise up on the horizon. He looks to it with equal dread and relief.

The journey has become stranger. During the day, they go at a normal pace, as slow or as fast as the wind lets them, and Blaine can't see much progress as he watches, as around them, once they have left the harbor, there is nothing but the sea. At night, though, they seem independent of the wind. The ship rocks, the sea is wild, and still they go faster than Blaine has ever experienced.

He wants to ask questions, but doesn't. The atmosphere on the ship doesn't seem to allow it. Everyone is tense, working in silence broken only by sharp, short commands. He hardly sees Kurt. They still share the stateroom, but Blaine is in it at night and Kurt during the day. Breakfasts have stopped, as Kurt goes to sleep as soon as dawn rises, to rest from whatever it is he does at night.

Blaine feels more out of place than ever, even at the very beginning of their voyage. And now, he doesn't even have a place he can go to in order to not be in the way and also to not feel quite so very alone, because it becomes more apparent whenever he sees the others working together as a group he can never be part of.

But he has forgotten there is one other who is in a similar situation—on the ship, but not part of the crew. He sees Brittany climbing the rigging, quick and nimble and fearless, and sitting far above them with her hair fluttering in the breeze. She looks free and somehow more than human, like a being of the air and the sea without ties to earth.

After a few days of watching, he finds the courage to join her.

His soles have gone supple and leathery from going barefoot, and his palms are work-roughened, but he still has a hard time climbing. The rigging digs into his hands and feet, and it sways and moves the whole time. He is sweaty and terrified by the time he reaches the top, clinging to the ropes for dear life.

“Hi,” Brittany says.

“Hello,” Blaine pants. “Can I...can I join you?”

“Sure.” She even scoots over, without holding on to something.

Blaine sits down slowly, carefully, taking some time to sort his limbs and find what is left of his equilibrium. He looks down once, by accident, and has to swallow. He grabs the ropes so tightly his knuckles are white.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh.”

He is dizzy and scared, and he is scared of being scared. How will he ever manage to cut his own wrists if he can't even face a little height? He can't be afraid of dying. He has to die.

“You look terrified,” Brittany says.

“I am terrified,” Blaine admits.

“So why didn't you stay down there?”

“I don't know. You looked...like you were happy up here. Light, and free. Not really human anymore.” His thoughts sound strange when he says them out loud, but Brittany just smiles.

“I'm not. I'm with Santana now. I'm growing more like her every day.”

Blaine doesn't know what to say to this, so he is silent. He tries to be not so terrified anymore, to sit more comfortably. He looks around, tries to find some of the freedom he thought would be here.

It's not there. There's only wind, and sun, the screeching of the seagulls, and Brittany.

“Are you happy to be here?” he asks awkwardly.

She shrugs. “I'm happy I'm with Santana. But she's always sad now.”

“Why is she sad?”

Brittany leans forward, her elbows resting on her thighs. Her legs are swinging. Blaine gets dizzy just from looking at her, and he grips the ropes tighter.

“Because the captain is sad, and angry. That's why the ship is rocking so much at night, and everyone else is sad as well. Particularly Santana.”

“What are you talking about?”

Brittany sighs and looks at him as though he's deliberately obtuse. “The captain and the crew and the ship, they're all one. So if the captain is sad, the crew gets sad, and the ship gets sad.”

Blaine doesn't really understand more than before, so he focuses on the one thing he does understand. “Why is the captain sad?”

“I'm not sure. Santana thinks it's because of you.”

Blaine nods. It's no more than he had feared. He has brought the whole ship into danger; of course Kurt is angry. But why sad? Maybe Brittany has misunderstood.

He tries for a grin, and feels it slipping off his cheeks, dropping down to the deck and breaking into a thousand pieces. His voice breaks as well as he says, “Well, I'll be gone soon. Then he won't be angry anymore.”

“Of course he will. It'll be even worse, because you'll be gone.”

Blaine climbs down soon after, his legs shaking and his mind shaken. He doesn't know what to think anymore, can make no sense at all of Brittany's remarks. He is no stranger to magic, has grown up under its shadow all his life, but this...? The captain, the ship and the crew are one? He has never heard of a spell like this and can't even imagine why one would want to cast it. Their journey is strange, yes. He's never been on a ship before, but he knows they don't just go faster at night and rock when there is neither wind nor waves. But...he just can't wrap his mind around it, and so, as the day goes by and he either sits in the galley or is up on deck trying to be in nobody's way and miserable no matter where he is, he eventually stops trying.

He should be past caring, he tells himself. None of it matters anymore; in a few weeks—and as fast as they are going, it can't be more than two or three at the most—they'll reach their destination. There's no need to worry what Kurt may think of him because he will be gone...he will be dead. And Kurt will forget him and go on.

If he must think, there are other things to think about. For example, why the amulet never stops buzzing, vibrating against his skin all the time. He knows it's glowing, too, though he doesn't dare unwrap it. And there are still the strange words of the inscription that he is sure are important, but he still doesn't know what they mean.

He worries a little about that, but his thoughts keep returning to Kurt, and in the end, at nightfall, he stands at the stairs and watches Kurt emerge from his cabin.

He looks tired, as always these days, but there is still a little glow to him, and when he walks past Blaine with barely a nod, the amulet against Blaine's chest trembles so much his shirt moves with it, and he has to clutch a hand above it to keep it still.

Kurt walks up to the railing, to the wheel, and looks out into the dusk, at the rising moon. He says a few words to Santana but then turns around to Blaine, who is still standing on top of the stairs even though he knows he should go downstairs to avoid things getting awkward.

Kurt looks back at him with the smallest of smiles, but there is so much heartbreak and loneliness in his eyes that it makes Blaine's breath hitch. He doesn't know what caused that look, if it was him, but he knows he would do anything to make it go away. It doesn't matter if he has to go soon; as long as he's here, he wants to try and make things better. He doesn't quite know how, but he knows he'll have to try.

Because as he lies in bed that night, the ship has stopped rocking. Cold and loneliness seem to permeate every plank. It chills him to the bone, and he knows that every person on this ship feels the same. And if they are all, like Brittany said, somehow tied to Kurt, he is the only one who can make it better.

The next morning, not too early, he takes a deep breath for courage and knocks on Santana's door. He hopes she isn't asleep: he has never been able to determine when, if at all, she is asleep. She certainly always seems to be around when someone makes a mistake. And he has made a mistake, and can only hope she won't take him down as deep as he deserves.

As she opens the door, she is dressed, alone and doesn't even seem overly unhappy.

“I expected you earlier,” she says by way of greeting and motions for him to come in and sit down on her clothing chest.

He gives an inner head shake and decides not to wonder how she knew he would come. There are too many things going on here he doesn't understand; he'll go mad if he wonders about all of them.

“What do I do?” he asks instead. If she knew he'd come he has no doubt she knows why he's here, and anyway, it's not so hard to guess. The situation on the ship is one really, really giant elephant in—well, on the ship, and if he wants to take the metaphor further, it's about to crush them.

“I'm not sure there's something you can do,” she says pensively. “To be frank, I fear you have managed to destroy us.”

“But how? I know I brought the guards on your ship, and I'll be eternally sorry to have endangered you. But...we escaped, didn't we? I mean I -”

“Not that, you longshore lubber. That was bad, but what's going on now is so much worse.”

“What is going on?”

Santana sits down on her bunk, draws up her knees, and looks at him as if contemplating how much to tell him. After a long while in which Blaine hardly dares breathe, she speaks.

“For....people...like Kurt and me, there is...one person on earth, in all of time, who is, I guess you could say, meant to be with us. We can be with other people, of course, but that one person is special. They can...change, if they choose to, to be like us, and stay with us forever.”

She looks at him, and her gaze is hard to interpret. There's joy in it, and rage, and so much sadness.

“Very rarely do we find that person. I have been incredibly lucky to have found Brittany, and she has agreed to change for me so we can be together. Kurt thinks...he thinks you are that person for him. I'm not so sure. For both of us to find their person, in the same part of the ocean, and at this time....would be so improbable as to be practically impossible.”

When she looks at him now, Blaine has to look away. Her eyes are hard, her gaze unflinching and cold.

“I don't want it to be you. I don't know who you are, you are lying to us, nobody knows what's going on with you!”

She's almost screaming, and Blaine flinches, but almost instantly, she calms again.

“It would be nothing if you made him happy. But as all of us can plainly see, you're not. He's as miserable as I have ever seen him, and so are all of us, of course. I don't know what's wrong with you that you don't want him, but if you don't, then...then there's nothing you can do. Nothing anyone of us can do.”

Her voice breaks at the last words, and she doesn't look at him. She doesn't continue speaking, so after a moment, Blaine quietly leaves.

He goes to his hiding place in the hold. He hasn't been there since they've been on their way again, because he doesn't like to remember the terror he felt when the soldiers came so close to finding him. But now, it's the only place he can go.

His pallet is still lying on the floor. A few rat droppings fall out of the folds of the blanket as he pushes it to the side, but he pays them no mind; he sits down heavily and finally lets the tears fall.

He doesn't understand half of what Santana said, but what he does understand is that he has brought this pain down on Kurt. For if what she says is true, if there is but one person for him in all the world, and if you believe that against all odds you have been lucky enough to find that person, how much must it hurt to lose them?

And lose him he must, because Blaine can't stay.

He can't.

#fic: the prince and the moon god #klaine fanfiction

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leigh-kelly · 4 years

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So Take the Sweetest Phrases The World Has Ever Known.

Some new Fire Island!AU.

Before long, the dark, cold winter gives way to spring and you find yourself leaving your coat behind when you go outside to plant herbs in the window boxes. Brittany’s arm has completely healed and she spends long days not at the shipyard, but in preparing the Alcott for the start of the fishing season. It seems that even on weekends she’s working on it, leaving only a few hours on Sunday for you to enjoy each other’s company. You don’t begrudge it though, you appreciate that her skill and care for her boat has provided you with a beautiful home and you love her all the more when she comes home bone weary and tired eyed.

One weekend, she stays home, and you’re surprised that she isn’t up before dawn to leave. You roll and curl into her in bed, craving the feeling of your body pressed against hers. She breathes deeply in her sleep and you rest your head on her chest, feeling the thump of her heart, the rise and fall of her chest. Though the sun is coming up warm outside the window and you’d normally greet it to work outside, you make no effort to move from the bed. You relish the time you have with Brittany’s arm still slung over you, you relish the fact that each and every morning you get to wake up with her by your side.

Given the conversation you’d had with her after speaking with your mother, you suspect that she’s been worried that you’ll live up to your responsibility to your parents and marry a man and move back to the city. She kisses you a little more fiercely, she makes love to you a little more frantically and you try to soothe her with your words and your actions, never forgetting to put your ring back on your finger when you’re in the house. You’re not going anywhere, you couldn’t imagine a life without her in it, and you need to be certain she knows that.

“Are ya watchin’ me?” Brittany asks, rubbing her eyes and giving you a smile.

“I love that I get to wake up every morning with you, that’s all.”

“I love wakin’ up with ya in the morning too. I’m glad I didn’t go to work on the boat today, feels like it’s about time I got to sleep in with ya.”

“You needed the rest anyway, love. You’ve been working yourself really hard.”

“It’s almost time to put her in the water and the winter really took a toll on her. But I’m almost done, so I thought I could take the day to be with you. I thought we ought to go look at things for when the little girls come, it’s comin’ up real quick and I know ya want to have the bedroom together.”

“I do.” You nod. “I appreciate the idea that we get them their own beds. We’ll move the big bed to the other room though, that way they’ll be closer to our room if they need us.”

“Are ya nervous to have them for the whole summer, in case they suspect something and tell your mama?”

“I’m not.” You shake your head slowly. “They’re too young to understand enough to think it’s odd. They think every night is a sleepover because they share a room, they’ll think nothing of us doing the same.”

“Are ya sure? Because I can sleep down the hall...”

“I couldn’t dream of not sleeping beside you for the whole summer. We have nothing to worry over, I promise you that.”

“Alright, sweetheart, ya know what’s best.”

For a while longer, you stay in bed. Neither of you are in a hurry to get up, but once you finally dress, you go down to the kitchen and she makes eggs while you percolate the coffee. It’s been some time since you’ve gone shopping on the mainland, but the search for beds for the girls calls for it and you settle your hat on your head just as you’re leaving the house, a bit more dressed up than you normally would be if you were staying close to home.

On the ferry, Brittany encounters people you don’t know, and she introduces them as friends of her father. When they ask how she’s been holding up, you see the sadness creep into her eyes and you wish you could kiss it away. You know that she feels not only the sadness of her father’s death, but the way it’s outcast her and you study the faces of the people she speaks with, trying to determine if they’re genuine in their concern for her, or believing she’s just an odd girl who they take pity on.

“I’d like to take ya to lunch.” She tells you, once you’re off the ferry and walking side by side in the bright sunshine toward Main Street.

“That would be nice.” You smile. “To go somewhere new, since we usually just go to Mr. Edja’s.”

“I know a real good place we can go. Just follow me.”

You follow Brittany as she takes you down Main Street and into a little restaurant. You assume that she’s been here with Mr. Brewster, because it seems quite nice than a place that her and the boys would go on their own, and you smile as you’re lead to a private little table in the back. Subtly, under the table, she hooks her ankle with yours and you feel tingles prick up and down your body. There’s a bit of a thrill of the small act of intimacy in a public place and you cherish it will all of your heart as she smiles at you across the table.

When you’re through eating, you walk with Brittany toward the department store. It’s a bit funny, considering you ordered all of the furniture for your house for the mail order catalogue, but Brittany is insistent upon looking at the beds for the girls to find what is best and you’re happy to indulge her. Of all the things you love Brittany for, sometimes you think the way she cares for your sisters is what you love the most. They’re so vitally important to you and knowing that the love of your life adores them means the world to you.

“What about bunk beds?” She asks, standing in front of the wooden set. “Maybe for Carlotta and Concetta, and then we can get a smaller bed for Mariana.”

“I think they’d like that a lot. Although they may have to take turns on the top bunk, because I don’t think they’ll be able to decide who gets it.”

“Ya probably are right about that, but so long as they don’t mind...”

“I don’t think they will.” You smile. “The way you’re so thoughtful with my sisters means a lot to me.”

“I know they mean a lot to ya, and they mean an awful lot to me too. We won’t ever have any babies of our own, so I like carin’ for those little girls when we can.”

“It means a lot to my parents too, I think. Every time I speak to my mother, she reminds me to thank you for allowing them to stay with us.”

“I’m real glad they came around to thinkin’ it was a good idea. Maybe we could send ‘em back with some things they need to, make it so your mama doesn’t have to do the shopping and spend the money.”

“I suppose my father couldn’t object to that.” You sigh a little.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing much, I just worry that he’s upset with me for many things.”

“Mostly about ya not findin’ a husband and settlin’ down and havin’ babies?”

“I don’t know, Brittany. I wish sometimes that I could tell them who you are to me.” You whisper, looking around to make sure no one is near. “In the end, your father knew, and I wish they could see that I’m happier than I could ever be in the life they thought I was meant to have.”

“I understand that, but it’s real hard. If they were cruel to ya, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

“Do you ever wonder if someday it might be different?”

“I’m not sure.” She shakes her head. “I hope so.”

You finish shopping for furniture, choosing a bed for Mariana and speaking to the sales girl about delivering it to the island. It costs quite a bit more to do that, but Brittany takes out her wallet and counts out the money, insisting that she does. Once that is taken care of, you go upstairs to choose bedding, finding the sunniest things you can find so the room is even brighter in the outside light the windows bring in and then you choose a few summer items of clothing for the girls and you pay, helping Brittany carry the bags back toward the ferry.

On the boat, you’re quiet, but you smile toward Brittany whenever she looks at you. You walk down the beach toting your purchases alongside Brittany and you go up the stairs to the house, leaving everything in the girls’ bedroom. Another day, you’ll move the bed that’s in there, but for now, you just close the door and follow Brittany back downstairs. She turns on the radio and takes you in her arms to dance along to Bing Crosby. Only with her would you find it so appealing to dance in the sitting room and you softly kiss her lips.

The night cools down and after dinner, Brittany builds a fire and you cuddle up beside it until you go up to bed. Like you always do, you fall asleep in her arms, the sound of her breathing lulling you into slumber. When she rises from bed the next morning, you feel a heaviness in your head and a weight on your chest. You try to sit up, but you find it hard to breathe and you immediately collapse back against the pillows. Fighting to open your eyes, your vision swims and you close them again, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. You hadn’t gotten influenza when Ana had it, but you feel in your bones that it’s come to you now. Brittany has already left the bed and you’re too weak to call for her, so you lay back against the pillows and clutch the cross around your neck, praying that God will be kind to you.

She doesn’t come back into the bedroom before she leaves to work on the Alcott and you’re not sure how you’ll manage to get yourself up to use the bathroom. Every inch of you aches and you can’t call for help because the phone is downstairs. Eventually, your bladder gets the best of you and you roll from the bed, collapsing on the floor before you can get to your knees to crawl there. Your nightgown gets in the way and your elbows threaten to give in as you inch toward the bathroom. Finally you make it and you cry as you relieve yourself, not knowing how you’ll be able to get back to bed. You pray that Brittany comes in for lunch today, though some days, she doesn’t, because you know that you need a doctor desperately.

You feel like it takes the better part of an hour to get back into bed and your whole body shivers with cold even under the heavy blankets that are still on from the long winter. Letting your eyes close, you fall into a fitful slumber, but you’re too pained to feel any rest. You think of your childhood illnesses, how your mother would bring you a hot water bottle and sit by your bed and sing to you. How safe you felt then, and how much safer you’d feel now if Brittany would only come home. The door opening downstairs stirs you from your restless slumber and you hear Brittany call out your name. You’re too weak to answer back and you hope she doesn’t assume you’ve gone out for the day. Footsteps make their way up the stairs and suddenly, even with you swimming vision, you see her standing before you.

“Santana.” The alarm in her voice strikes you and she sinks down on the bed at your side. “Are ya alright?”

“No.” You croak, blindly searching for her hand. “I need—“

“I’ll go for him.” Brittany kisses me forehead. “And I’ll see if Mercy can come sit with ya while I do.”

“But Ana.”

“Sam’s home, I saw him on my way it. Sweetheart, we’ll get ya well.”

Your eyes close and when you open them again, Mercy is sitting at your bedside and a cup of tea is on the nightstand. It’s too difficult to lift your head, so you know you won’t be able to drink, but you smile weakly, letting her know you appreciate the gesture. She makes to stand but you shake your head. You don’t want her getting to close to you because of Ana, but it’s difficult to formulate words. The dizziness scares you and mostly you long for Brittany to be back. You hope she can get Dr. Chang to come, you hope he tells you that you’ll be alright and you close your eyes again, just waiting.

When you open your eyes again, Brittany is standing beside the bed. You see that Mercy is still there, but Dr. Chang is nowhere to be seen. A cold fear runs through you, knowing how illness can destroy a life and you see Brittany’s furrowed brow, thinking of all the great losses she’s had. Gently, she sits down on the edge of the bed and she takes your limp hand in hers, rubbing it between hers. That small gesture in the only thing that makes you just a bit grateful that Dr. Chang isn’t there, because Brittany wouldn’t be able to comfort you otherwise.

“He’s out on a call.” Brittany tells you softly. “Mikey’s gonna try and find him and bring him here. But I didn’t want to leave ya any longer.”

“You ought to drink some.” Mercy reminds you, lifting the glass of juice she left beside your teacup.

“I’ll help her.” Brittany takes the glass and helps you sit up. “Here sweetheart, just a sip.”

“I had better make some soup.” Mercy tells Brittany. “She’ll need it to get her energy up.”

“You need to go home.” You rasp. “Ana.”

“Sam will be just fine with her. You saved my girl twice, the least I can do is help you while you’re ill.”

“Thank you.” You manage and Mercy slips out of the room, leaving you in Brittany’s arms. “I’m scared.”

“I’ve got ya. We’ll get ya treated real soon, I promise. And until then, I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

“I don’t want you to get sick.”

“If I’m gonna get sick, I’ll get sick anyway, I slept beside ya all night.” She kisses your forehead. “What can I do for ya?”

“My whole body aches.”

“I’ll run ya a bath, that ought to help.”

“I’m...I’m not sure I can walk there.”

“Then I’ll carry ya.” Brittany promises. “I’ll be right back.”

Brittany goes off to the bathroom to draw your bath and your eyes slip closed again. You love how she cares for you in a way only she can and when she comes back, she lifts you into her arms, undresses you gently and lowers you into the tub. As you soak, you hear her putting clean sheets on the bed and opening and closing drawers to get you a new nightgown. You’re so listless that you can barely keep your head above water, but she comes back and helps you out, drying your body and tugging the nightgown over your head before she brings you back to bed. You fall asleep again and when you wake, you see her sitting beside the bed, crying softly.

“Brittany?” You whisper, throat aching.

“Did I wake ya?” She looks up quickly wiping her tears with her sleeve.

“No. Why are you crying?”

“I’m just real scared of losin’ ya. I don’t like seein’ ya so ill. I wish Mikey’d get here with his brother to see to ya. Maybe I ought to go out and look for him again.”

“Stay, please. I feel better when you’re here.” You try to sit up but your head swims and you collapse back into the pillows.

“I have soup.” Mercy stands in the doorway holding a bowl. “I’m going to have to go home to feed Ana, but I’ll send some back.”

“It’s alright.” Brittany shakes her head. “I’m gonna stay by the bed with Santana, don’t go worryin’ about us.”

“If you’re certain. But I’m going to send Sam out again to try and find Dr. Chang. I’m awfully concerned and if he can get to you, that will relieve me a bit.”

“Thank ya Mercy, that’d be real helpful.”

Though your eyes are still swimming, you watch Mercy leave before you shut them again. As glad as you are to have Brittany beside you, you’re concerned that she’ll get sick too, but you can’t bear to tell her to go. You’d nearly begged her not to leave just a few moments ago and you feel safer when she’s an arm’s length away. You feel her place a cool rag on your head and you exhale sharply as a shiver runs through your body. You’ve never been one to complain, but you ache everywhere and for just a moment, you wish that you were in your parents’ house so your father could look at you. Luckily, it isn’t long before you hear low talking in the room and Dr. Chang is at your bedside.

“Miss Lopez, I’m here to examine you.”

“Thank you.” You breathe and Brittany helps you to sit up a little.

Even sick, you’re modest and it embarrasses you for Dr. Chang to see you in your nightgown. He’s nothing but professional though, taking your temperature, listening to your heartbeat, listening to you as you tell him about the aches in your bones. Brittany catches your eye an she gives you a small smile, one you try to return as Dr. Chang feels the glands in your throat. When he’s finished examining you, he tells you that it’s influenza, but it’s worsened by the illness you’d had the summer you first came to Fire Island. He gives you medication but tells you it will take time to heal and you pull the quilt up over you, thanking him as he takes his leave.

“I oughta call Mr. Woodhull for ya. Ya won’t be in any shape to go to work this week.”

“But the children.” You protest, despite knowing that there is no possibility you can ever make it to work.

“Someone’ll teach ‘em, but ya need to stay in bed at get well.”

You nod and yawn, knowing that you can’t stay awake any longer and fall back into a deep sleep. When you open your eyes again, you can tell it’s very late and Brittany is in bed beside you. She feels you stir and she sits up, looking you over to make sure you’re alright. You rub your temples and then take her hand, falling back to sleep.

It goes on like that for days, and Brittany neglects her work on the Alcott to stay and care for you. Mercy comes too, bringing meals you can barely eat and doing the chores so Brittany doesn’t have to leave your bedside. You hate that Brittany has been so touched by death that she fears the worst and you try to offer her reassurances that you’ll be alright. Finally, by Thursday, you’re able to get out of bed, though your knees ache when you stand. Brittany helps you down the stairs and you sink down into the sofa cushions, pulling the throw blanket around you.

“I’d like to get some fresh air.” You tell Brittany. “I just need to sit for a moment.”

“I’ll get a blanket and a sweater for ya so we can sit down on the beach. The ocean air’ll do ya good.”

She disappears back upstairs and then returns with her arms full of warm things for you. When you have the strength to stand again, she takes your arm and leads you out the door. Once you’re on the sand, Brittany spreads the blanket and helps you to settle yourself on it. You’re not used to being weak like this, you’re not used to needing to be doted upon, but you can’t help yourself and when she sits beside you, you rest your head on her shoulder.

“Are ya alright? Ya aren’t too cold?”

“I’m okay.” You smile at her, though you know your face is gaunt from days of not eating. “I’d just like to sit like this awhile.”

“I called your mama the day before yesterday, let her know ya weren’t feeling well but that ya’d seen the doctor. She’d like if ya called her when ya can.”

“I will. Once we go inside.”

“I hated seein’ ya so sick. I’d do anything for ya, and seein’ ya like that made me feel real powerless.”

“You were there, that’s all I needed.”

“I’d have done more if I could.”

“Brittany.” You touch her cheek, starved of her touch. “It’s alright now, the worst has past.”

“I know.” A tear slips down her cheek and you brush it away. “And I’m real glad for that.”

#brittana #1940s Fire Island #fire island au #starlight!verse

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ktrsss1fics · 7 years

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Cheeseburger in Paradise: Four.

When she decided to come on this trip, she was wary about how much fun she would have. She had conditioned herself to work so much that she didn’t really know what true fun was.

To her, fun was only reserved for her days off and it usually involved catching up on television shows or doing a load of laundry.

When she was invited to do things with her friends, it was hard to remove herself from work.

Being in a tropical place with a group of people who she actually liked without having to worry about work was a foreign concept to her.

She liked it though. Even though she wasn’t accustomed to it.

So far, her fun consisted of sitting in some tourist trap bar watching an Irish boy in a Hawaiian shirt that cost more than her car payment drunkenly dance to a mediocre reggae rendition of “Margaritaville.”

They were currently at the fourth bar of the night and the amount of alcohol in their systems was starting to show.

It was a really good time. Just as the chorus started, Niall pulled Brittany towards him and the two danced together. He went to dip her but she wasn’t ready for it. In one fell swoop, Brittany was dropped on her ass and Niall was covered in her blue colored drink. The entire group couldn’t help but start laughing.

Tears started to stream down Georgina’s face as she clutched her stomach. She hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Niall wiggled his way towards her.

“Real smooth Ni.” She giggled making him smile.

“I thought she was a ballerina.” He said sliding his arm around Georgina’s shoulder.

“No that’s Maggie.” She said sipping her drink.

“Fuck you’re right.” He laughed leaning up against her.

“How’d she do in the water today?” Georgina asked nodding towards her best friend.

“A lot better than I did.” Niall admitted.

“Not surprised.” She said looking up at him.

His blue eyes lit up. “Why?”

“You just didn’t want to lose your chair to me so you psyched yourself out.” She winked.

He shook his head biting back a smile. She smirked knowing that he had appreciated her sense of humor.

Niall leaned over and tried to steal her straw with his tongue. She rolled her eyes before holding out her drink for him to sip.

“Shit that’s good.” He said impressed. “Want another one?”

Georgina nodded. “But I told you I was gonna buy the next round.”

“Enough outta you. I’m buying you a drink.” He said.

“Niall-” Georgina started to say as he stole another sip from her drink.

Niall took his arm off of her shoulder. “You get the first round at the next bar.”

“Fine.” She sighed dramatically.

“Good. Be right back. ” He smiled before leaning in and pecking her lips gently.

As soon as his mouth left hers, he froze. His eyes shut as he silently cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He had wanted to since the day they met but he never imagined actually doing it.

His relationship with Georgina was complicated. He liked her a lot but for some reason she wasn’t too fond of him. As much as it bugged him, Niall had never worked up the courage to ask why.

He opened one eye cautiously. He was expecting to find the death glare of a raging woman but instead he was met with a very surprised girl with rosy cheeks.

Before she was able to chew him out, he headed towards the bar.

As he waited for the bartender, someone nudged him. He turned to find a very smug looking Brittany waiting for a drink. Niall opened his mouth to apologize again for dropping her but she just shook her head.

“I’m surprised she didn’t punch you in the face.” Brittany said with a grin.

Niall’s sighed closing his eyes. “You saw?”

“I’m the only one. Don’t worry.” Brittany said reassuring him.

“I didn’t mean to.” He said nervously.

“What did her face look like?” Brittany asked.

Niall opened his eyes. “Deer in the headlights.”

Brittany made a face. “Interesting.”

“What?” He asked sounding worried.

“I would have expected her to be mad.” She replied. “You’re growing on her.”

“You don’t know that.” He said glanced down the bar.

“How many times has she called ya by your first name since we’ve been here?” Brittany asked.

“More than she ever has before.” He said.

“See?” Brittany said as a barmaid handed over her drink. “Just apologize and see what happens.”

Niall ordered another round of drinks before turning back to talk to Brittany.

“Will you go give the drink to her when it comes?” He asked shyly.

“Why can’t you do it?” Brittany asked.

“I’m scared.” Niall admitted sheepishly.

“You swam with a fucking shark today.” Brittany replied sternly.

“So?” He said resting his hands on the bar.

“Georgina Ferguson is nowhere near as terrifying as a shark.” Brittany said placing a hand on his shoulder. “Trust me.”

Niall grunted before looking at the floor. She had a point. He swam with sharks. He played Madison Square Garden to a sold-out crowd three nights in a row. He had done a lot scarier things in his life.

“I’ll keep an eye out and swoop in if you need me help.” Brittany offered.

Niall just nodded as the barmaid handed over two freshly made margaritas. He took a deep breath before heading back to where he had left the girl he had bombarded with a kiss.

He briefly rehearsed an apology while weaving in and out of people. The moment he saw her face he forgot everything he had planned to say. She was singing along to a song about piña coladas.

Her hair was starting to frizz from the heat of the packed dance floor. A small layer of moisture glistened across her skin as she swayed to the island beat.

She looked absolutely stunning.

And he couldn’t get enough of it.

It wasn’t long before she noticed he had returned. She flashed him a gracious smile as he hand over her freshly made margarita. Niall opened his mouth to apologize but was met by a sour face. He watched as she squeezed the bridge of her nose trying to ease the sudden pain in her forehead.

“Brain freeze.” Georgina mumbled figuring she probably looked crazy. “Sorry.”

Niall slipped his bottle of beer into the front pocket of his shirt. He reached over and flattened his large palm against her forehead.

Jolts of electricity shot through her body from the warmth of his hand. She tried to think nothing of it but the alcohol in her system and the small kiss moments before sent her mind into overdrive.

“This is supposed to work.” Niall said realizing he hadn’t explained what he was doing to her. “Me uncle taught us two Christmases ago. You have someone put their palm flat against your forehead and then one on the back.”

“Then they put a little pressure and it’ll go away.” He said pressing against her head.

“Irishmen are idiots.” Georgina mumbled.

“Is it working?” He asked looking down at her.

She flicked her eyes open. “No.”

“Well fuck. It’s suppose to.” He mumbled.

He focused a little harder making her laugh. He moved closer making her pulse start to race.

He was entirely too close. His features looked different. His eyes looked bluer. His stubble was starting to make itself known. His natural musk started to mix with the sweet smell of Brittany’s drink that had soaked deep into the fabric of his shirt. It was doing something to her.

She couldn’t take it.

She cleared her throat trying to get his attention. He looked at her confused.

“That was probably just his way to feel up women at bars.” She said softly.

“I mean I wouldn’t put it past him.” Niall laughed nervously before taking his hands away.

Georgina smiled and took a small step back. She took a quick sip of her drink before focusing on something across the room.

Niall ran a hand through his hair before retrieving the bottle from his shirt.

“I’m sorry.” He said placing the bottle to his lips.

Georgina glanced over at him. “For what?”

Before he could respond, Brittany appeared out of nowhere. She stuck out her drink for Georgina to try.

The moment was ruined.

Niall took a step back allowing the two women to talk. He noticed the rest of their friends making their way over and he knew their time was limited.

“Everyone finish up cos we out.” Jamie slurred sliding his arm around Maggie and Jenna’s shoulders.

“Lets go to the fancy bar next.” Jenna giggled.

“Lets go back to that sports bar.” Dave said leaning up against Brittany.

“We can decide outside.” Keith said. “Just finish yer drinks already.”

Georgina took a large sip of her drink. She didn’t want to be the reason why her friends were waiting. She watched Niall finish off his bottle effortlessly.

She didn’t want Niall’s money to go to waste. She tried to finish as much as she could but knew she couldn’t finish on her own. She tapped Niall on the shoulder and raised her drink towards him. Without hesitation, he took a hold of the glass and finished off the rest.

“Fuck.” Niall mumbled as his eyes shut tight. He scrunched up his face trying to combat the sensation taking over his sinuses.

She wanted to laugh but she didn’t.

Instead, Georgina reached over and placed both of her hands on his head. Her hips rested against his as a funny feeling formed in his stomach.

He opened his eyes and found her watching him closely.

“It helps doesn’t it?” She said with a smirk.

“Why do you always try to make me feel like a creep?” He asked with a laugh.

“Just a bit of banter.” Georgina said.

“What the fuck are you twos doin?” Keith called out causing everyone to turn towards them.

Niall could feel his entire body grow warm from the attention.

“Oh fuck off.” Georgina called back keeping her eyes on the boy in front of her.

“Why’s he get special treatment n that?” Keith asked.

She took her hands off of him before turning around.

“You gonna buy me drinks and give me a chair from your million dollar house?” Georgina asked with an attitude.

Niall tried to interject but before he could Georgina reached over and smacked his chest. Brittany started laughing.

Keith attempted to find a comeback but nothing came to mind.

“That’s what I thought.” Georgina sassed.

“Let’s go.” Brittany said trying to help out her friend.

“You heard the lady.” David said.

Two hours later, they had ended up at a tiny dance hall that made them feel at home. A round of Jell-O shots had just been thrown back. Jamie was leading a dance circle to some tune by Wiley with a few other Brits they had met two bars back. Brittany and David were completely engrossed with each other.

Georgina sat in between two boys in a booth sipping on her millionth margarita of the night. The boy on her left was plotting how to approach a group of American girls across the room after being rejected by an Aussie at the last bar. The boy on her right had stuck by her side all night and was currently on a drunken rant on about tropical plants.

And if she was being honest, she thought it was pretty cute.

“Fergie,” Niall said finishing off his Guinness. “You ever hear of the phile-philed–fuck– the philodendron plant?”

She shook her head. His eyes lit up.

“They are pretty cool. I’ve sure you’ve seen ‘em before.” He said.

“What’s so cool about them Ni?” She mumbled.

“Well the name literally means love tree.” He said in awe. “Can ya believe it?”

“That’s cute.” She said setting down her drink.

“They are reproduced by these little fuckin beetles. Not bees like most flowers but beetles. And they have some berries on them that smell like garlic to attract animals to help spread their seed.” Niall rambled on. “Like imagine if some Italians got lost around one?”

“Or a vampire.” Georgina said causing him to crack up.

“You’re like proper funny Fergie, y’know that?” Niall smiled picking up her drink.

“Thanks Ni.” She blushed as he stuck her straw in his mouth.

“I’m thinking about getting some new plants for the house.” Niall said between sips of her drink. “Maybe a philodendron or some pothos plants.”

“The Devil’s snare plant?” She asked trying to remember what he had mentioned earlier in the night.

“Devil’s ivy.” He corrected her politely.

“Right.” Georgina nodded. “Those ones are prettier.”

He shook his head. “You are ridiculous.”

“What?” She laughed.

“Nothing.” He blushed. “Did you know there is a type of philodendron plant that has heart shaped leaves?”

“So the love tree has heart leaves? Fuck off.” She said skeptical.

“Swear on me life.” Niall giggled. He pulled out his phone.

“That sounds like some made up Disney shit.” Georgina said.

“It’s not.” He said as she rested her head on his shoulder.

He pulled up a picture of the cartoon like plant and she was impressed.

“You should get that one.” She said. “Maybe it’ll bring you positive love vibes.”

Niall rested his head against hers. “That’s a good idea.”

“Why aren’t ya out there with them?” Georgina asked softly.

“Too drunk to dance.” He sighed. “Can’t believe I just admitted that.”

“Need to alert the press. Irishman admits to defeat.” She teased.

He leaned forward to set down her drink causing her to sit up.

“Whoa, whoa whoa. No one’s admitting shit.” He said with a laugh.

“Hmmm. Don’t know about that.” She teased.

“You’re the one who put your almost full drink down first.” Niall pointed out.

“Only so you could have some.” Georgina said.

Niall rolled his eyes making her laugh.

“You know you love me Horan.” She said picking up her drink to finish it off.

"More than you even know.” He mumbled as Craig David came on.

Georgina started to sing-along to the song to push back the comment he had just made. She was joking but she knew he wasn’t. Brittany’s words from the beginning of the trip had made her hyper-aware of everything that boy said. She tried to keep it from bothering her but it was tough.

He was cute and a for a majority of this trip she was drunk so her walls were down. And he had kissed her.

He kissed her. It may have been brief and alcohol-infused but it happened.

She had drunkenly kissed people before. But his kiss was different. It was natural and almost instinctive for him. And maybe deep down she had wished it lasted longer but she couldn’t admit that to anyone. She had built their relationship on the foundation that she couldn’t stand him. If she admitted that she wanted to kiss him, drunk or not, she’d be a hypocrite. That wasn’t something she was ready to face just yet.

She glanced over to find Niall singing along to a song that was popular when they were kids. His eyes were glowing and a drunken smile was plastered across his face. He looked like he was having the time of his life. She found it annoying that he still sounded good even though he was completely pissed.

He was growing on her and she hated it.

"Take a picture Fergie.” He teased catching her staring. “It’ll last longer.”

"My lens would break then.” She retorted.

Niall laughed before turning his full attention to her. “Fergie?”

"Hmm?” She mumbled looking up at him.

"I’m sorry for kissing you earlier.” He said shyly. “It was wrong of me.”

Georgina could feel her entire body grow warm. “It’s okay.”

"It’s not.” He sighed. “I should have known better.”

"Ni–” She started to say but he cut her off.

"It was an accident. It just sort of happened before I could stop it. And actually I’m surprised you didn’t punch me lights out.” Niall rambled. “Why didn’t you?”

"Uh I uh.” She rambled trying to figure out a reason why she hadn’t reacted.

He gave her some time to gather her thoughts. She didn’t have an answer for him though. He had caught her off guard and she didn’t know what to do. The girl that they knew was starting to change.

"I just wanted to say it won’t happen again.” He said pulling her back in.

"What?” She said not catching what he said.

"It won’t happen again. I don’t need you hating me even more or comparin’ me to Keith.” He joked nodded to their friend who had just gone on the prowl.

"You’re much more fit than Keith.” She said watching Keith chat up a girl.

Niall’s face turned pink as he cleared his throat nervously.

"You don’t like me complimenting you, do you?” Georgina asked glancing at him.

"Just not used to it I guess.” He said.

She turned towards him, “We can go back to talking about plants if you want?”

Niall laughed softly. She started going on about some facts she knew about this flower she had learned about while reading a travel magazine. He appreciated her attempt to get things back to neutral territory.

He didn’t want to admit that by doing so it was only making him fall deeper for her. If this trip did anything, it was let him know that he needed to be with her every second of every day and that was scary.

He had a lot of work to do but she was worth it.

#1dff #cip #fergie and niall #niall horan fanfiction #one direction fan fiction

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years

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10 Women on How They Express Their Personal Style at Work

http://fashion-trendin.com/10-women-on-how-they-express-their-personal-style-at-work/

10 Women on How They Express Their Personal Style at Work

Of all the style-related inquiries Man Repeller receives, work outfit inspiration is by far one of the most-requested. It’s also one of the trickiest to address. Intertwining your own sense of personal style with the confines of an office dress code is common sartorial challenge, but it’s all the more challenging in the sense that no two office dress codes are exactly alike. What I wear to work at Man Repeller is very different from what my two roommates wear to their respective jobs in banking — and that’s a particularly stark example; dress codes can also differ within the same industry.

In an effort to spread a wider net and seek office attire inspiration from multiple professional corners, I turned to the Man Repeller community. I put a callout on Man Repeller’s Instagram looking for people with cool work style — or people with a colleague whose style they admired. I rounded up some of my favorite submissions below and asked them to unpack how they balance their personal aesthetic with the limitations of their respective workplaces. Their answers, like their dress codes, varied widely, but one common thread ran throughout: a conviction that the way you dress at work can tangibly impact the way you do your job. Keep scrolling to read what everyone had to say.

Syazana Hishamuddin

Syazana is a 23-year-old editorial assistant at Sassy Mama Singapore.

How would you describe your office dress code?

There’s no dress code really, because I work out of a co-working space. Everyone who comes in is really just a more presentable version of themselves in comfortable clothing.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

Comfort is key for me, which means I’m usually sticking to one layer of clothing. It’s just about all I can manage in the Signapore humidity! I love experimenting with silhouettes, color and print, so my work style is pretty laid back with maybe one dramatic element that makes it “me,” like a glittery scarf, billowing top, statement pants or a bright lipstick. I tend to dress up more on the weekends: a little more makeup, dressier shoes, maybe a maxi dress or a funky hijab style.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

I work for the online lifestyle magazine Sassy Mama Singapore, so at the office we’re always receiving stuff in the mail like food, skincare products and clothes. One time I stepped into the office for one of our weekly meetings to find one of my colleagues unwrapping a package of gorgeous handmade clutches by Moniko, and we started talking about how beautiful they were. Next thing you know, I was tasked with modeling one of them for our Instagram stories since my outfit coincidentally matched the clutch perfectly!

Katie Whelley

Katie is a 29-year-old construction project manager in commercial real estate.

How would you describe your office dress code?

My office dress code is fairly conservative…for a number of reasons. First: I work for a multinational commercial real estate corporation. Even though I’m in the construction sector, I still have to interact with brokers and with clients who are slinging tens of millions of dollars around. Since we never know who is going to be in the office, we have a strict “business professional” dress code. Second: I live in the south, so people are more conservative and buttoned up in general.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

I’m 6 feet tall, a size 12 and have wild curly hair. I knew there was never a way in which I would “blend in,” so I decided to do the opposite. I work in a male-dominated industry, so I like to wear things that make me feel powerful (I’m a huge advocate for power dressing). Bold colors, unexpected silhouettes, menswear with a feminine edge. It’s not that I’m trying to stand out, it’s more that I’m refusing to blend in. And before you ask, yes, I wear this stuff on job sites. I always have a pair of steel-toed boots in my car, and I’d like to think my hard hat is my BEST accessory! My colleagues definitely dress more conservatively, but I think they’ve come to expect and look forward to my outfit choices.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

I used to care obsessively about the size of the clothes I wore. No matter how ill-fitting the item, I would squeeze myself into a size 10, because at some point in my life I told myself that a size 10 was an “acceptable” size to be. I would cover up how poorly my clothes fit by only wearing dark colors, or layering with big sweaters. I was definitely hiding!

My style really changed when I decided to stop hiding my body and stop caring so much about the size I wore. I discovered how much more confident I felt when something fit me properly, and that confidence translated into being more adventurous with my style choices. There are people (especially in the south) who don’t take me seriously when they first see me. They assume I care more about my clothes than my job. My favorite thing is seeing the look on the (predominantly male) client’s face when they realize that I am the one running things, and I know exactly what I’m doing.

Sue Chan

Sue is the founder of Care of Chan, an agency representing the next era of food and living.

Vintage faux fur jacket from London — similar here, vintage top from About Galmour, Kenzo pants — another option here, acrylic purse from Les Puces flea market in Paris — another here, Zara shoes — buy them second hand here

How would you describe your office dress code?

I’m going for the CEO-next-door look, a.k.a. trying to keep it professional but also easy, effortless and natural. For example, I’m too busy getting shit done to do a full face of make-up, but I will put on some lipstick.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

We don’t have a dress code at work, so I wear the same thing to work as I do on the weekends. The only slight difference is that I wear more crop tops when I’m not at work. About a third of my closet is crop tops in all colors, shapes and materials. (I’m really excited about the Khaite “Sydney” crop top that I just pre-ordered from the Resort 19 collection. Too bad it doesn’t arrive until November.)

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

I recently brought an oldie but goodie back into rotation: a orange/pink/fuchsia paisley shorts set made by a defunct Japanese brand that I got from Opening Ceremony years ago. The first day I wore it, I was walking from the restaurant ATLA (one of our clients) back to the office and some guy stopped me to ask where I got my outfit since he wanted to get something similar for his girlfriend. It’s rare for strangers to stop me like that on the street, so clearly resurrecting this outfit was the right choice.

Brittany Berckes

Brittany is a 30-year-old lawyer in the media/entertainment sector.

How would you describe your office dress code?

Technically, it’s “business casual,” but that means a lot of things to a lot of different people and companies. I interpret it as “New York law firm professional” which, to me, means anything but jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, gym clothes, shorts, sneakers, flip flops, hats and “short” dresses/skirts/tops.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

I actually don’t mind the office dress code — it’s a joke among my friends that I have a deep and strange love for pencil skirts. But I also love color, funky accessories and fun shoes, all of which are not too common in the corporate arena. I think black, navy and neutrals tend to be the dominant color scheme in law firms, so wearing a bright yellow “work” dress or a pink dress suit are some ways I express my personal style while staying within the dress code. I also tend to wear a lot of costume jewelry (earrings and bracelets) and try to mix up my shoes (striped boots or colored pumps), too. My friends joke that I don’t really know how to dress “casually.”

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

As far as I know, my co-workers appear to support my outfit choices, even though I have worked at older, male-dominated firms where almost everyone is wearing neutral dress shirts, pants and even ties. However, some outfit choices do tend to inspire funny observations like, “Oh, wow. That’s a bright shirt,” or “Wow, those boots — lots of color.”

Banna Girmay

Banna is a 31-year-old vice president in compliance at an investment bank.

How would you describe your office dress code?

My friends say there’s no greater irony than Banna working at an investment bank. I work with mostly lawyers so the dress code is generally conservative — plain suits, closed-toe heels, blouses, etc. My boss has so many multiples of the exact same suit, he sews in the date he had each made to keep track of what’s what! On Fridays, though, we’ve adopted a more casual dress code I’ve deemed “Freestyle Fridays,” so that’s my favorite day of the week.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

For many years, I maintained a separate drawer in my dresser for work attire that I would only open during the week. I dressed very differently on the weekends, and my work clothes never seemed to align with my personal style. Eventually I started to feel conflicted about that, because clothes are such a huge part of how confident I feel, not to mention a mechanism for how I express my creativity on a daily basis. I decided to take another approach. I started to break down the different components of my office dress code and see how far I could push each of them while still technically staying within bounds. With that mindset, my entire closet was at my fingertips all seven days of the week — a new concept for me. Could I get away with white snakeskin booties? Yes! What if I layered a turtleneck under my blouse? Done! Cheetah on cheetah on cheetah? Let’s go! Could I layer a swim top over my blouse? Too far…

I also started to play around with my hairstyles. I have thick curly hair and have tried everything from my natural curly ‘fro to faux locs, box braids and cornrows (yes, cornrows at an investment bank). The reception hasn’t always been positive — challenging decades-old standards and norms always comes with some unwanted attention. I’ve had a colleague ruffle her fingers through my ‘fro without asking, and another colleague tell me my faux locs were “unprofessional”! Despite these obstacles, I’m committed to continue bringing the full scope of my personal style to work, and I’m better at my job for it.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

One time, on a Freestyle Friday, I wore a red leather jacket with a zipper that allows you to detach the bottom half, turning it into a cropped silhouette. Pure heat. I was feeling myself, but one colleague kept giving me looks, so I eventually stopped by and asked her what she thought of my jacket! All she said was, “Beat It,” à la Michael Jackson. While MJ and I surely didn’t deserve the shade, comments like this one only fuel my sense of purpose. It’s up to all of us to push the corporate culture forward!

Naima Fatema

Naima is a 23-year-old marketing associate at a pharmaceutical company.

How would you describe your office dress code?

I think it’s “business casual,” but who really knows what that means. It’s the type of office where you’re told you can wear jeans on Fridays, but not ones with rips.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

When it comes to business casual, there are only so many pieces you can wear, and I’ve found that most shops here in Australia all seem to carry the same boring things. And everything is separated so definitively into women’s and men’s workwear. I keep my work outfits interesting by blurring this line between masculine and feminine. I stick to very classic shapes (tailored pants, blazers, turtlenecks) in interesting patterns, colors and textures. I also introduce elements of my personal style with jewelry. I have an extensive earring collection, many of which my mum brought me back from Bangladesh. I can’t afford to have two different wardrobes for work and weekends, so I’ve tried buy pieces that will work for both. My personal style and work style have actually started just to meld together as a result.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

Just the classic work colleague comments about me looking “snazzy” or “funky.” One time I did split open the arm of a turtleneck I was wearing from wrist to shoulder, and no one said anything because they thought it was a new trend I was trying out.

Manuela Barem

Manuela is the the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed Brazil.

How would you describe your office dress code?

Somewhere in between casual and business casual.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

I don’t have to look super polished all the time at work, because my workplace has a more relaxed vibe (mostly everyone wears jeans and sneakers). But I like to err on the side of well-dressed, because I think it’s a way of showing respect to the people I work with. At the same time, I would feel ridiculous wearing classic “boss” looks. I am proud to be a young woman who is in a leadership role and has an interest in fashion, so I try to use my looks to communicate that I’m in charge, but I’m also creative and here to have fun. I think people notice when I put thought into what I’m wearing. I love when I inspire them to do the same!

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

Work in general can be a source of pressure and stress, so whenever I wake up low on energy, I try to wear something fun and colorful with fabulous makeup. The sense of dignity I get from wearing a gorgeous look always helps my self-esteem. Every time I look in the bathroom mirror or see my reflection in a window, I feel uplifted.

Jo Bromilow

Jo is a 30-year-old digital strategist in the communications industry.

How would you describe your office dress code?

I’d describe it as “professional yet personal.” (The only thing I was expressly told I shouldn’t wear are any potentially inflammatory slogan T-shirts, which seems as good a rule as any!) At any rate, my personal interpretation of our professional dress code is best described as “the sartorial argument for a Mamma Mia/GLOW crossover.”

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

Weekdays are my opportunity to dress up since I’m going into the city and mingling with people. I feel much more like myself when I get to dress how I want. Feeling like myself translates to confidence, which makes me better at my job. Ideally that’s what I think an office dress code should enable: feeling like your best self.

Most of my colleagues dress more formally (shirts or smart tops and black trousers or jeans), which is what works for them. Ultimately the key to dressing for work is figuring out what makes you feel confident. For me, it’s something bold/bright and maybe a little head-turning. I always strive to look professional and presentable (i.e. neat and tidy), but working in a more relaxed creative environment where self-expression is a large part of how I market myself to clients and media means I have more sartorial flexibility than I would in a corporate environment.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

Personal outfit highlights include the day I came to work in a yellow suit and white boots and was compared to April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the day I wore an oversized frilly white shirt which was subsequently nicknamed “the Victorian baby,” and the numerous occasions on which I’ve worn blue/teal lipstick. Sometimes I’m in the mood to make more of a statement and treat my work attire like a costume (I tend to goth up for Halloween — in an appropriate way, of course).

Darlene Barballianiz

Darlene is a 25-year-old removal defense paralegal at an immigration law firm.

How would you describe your office dress code?

Business casual — emphasis on the casual, since I work in San Francisco.

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

The current political climate makes my job very stressful and emotional, but in general I am a happy and optimistic person. I use clothes to reflect my personality by wearing a lot of bright colors, unique patterns and gold jewelry. I like to wear colorful trousers and suits, high-waist loose pants with colorful patterned tops, block heels or boots and gold hoop earrings. I try to keep my outfits professional and comfortable but fun.

I dress differently from most of my coworkers. Most people at my firm wear neutral colors like navy, black, white and gray, whereas I show up to work in gold pants or a pink suit. Although, I have noticed some of my colleagues becoming more adventurous with their style since I started working at my company. There are definitely more big pants in the office now.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

I had to attend the National Lawyer’s Guild Annual Testimonial dinner for work, and I decided to wear a pink suit with pink heels. I was nervous, but nothing makes me feel more confident and authentic than a bright pink suit — and confidence is vital for young professional woman of color. When I walked into the room full of lawyers, I got a lot of stares. It made me a little anxious at first, but then people starting coming up to me and complimenting my outfit. My pink suit was a conversation starter, and it actually made networking easier because it made me more memorable. I started calling myself “Legally Brown.”

Natalie McKeough

Natalie is a 28-year-old events/operations manager for a women’s professional soccer league.

How would you describe your office dress code?

Business casual (sports team-branded polos, jeans/khakis and running shoes).

How do you maintain your sense of personal style at work?

I challenge myself to interpret our company dress code in an ironic way. Instead of wearing jeans from 1998 with ill-fitting shirts, I’ll wear Balenciaga mom jeans and an oversized graphic tee, or designer track pants with a clean crisp button up and Nike platform sneakers. I call it “elevated athleisure.” I embrace a more extreme version of this aesthetic on the weekends, e.g. Manolo Blahnik jewel-encrusted sandals with biker shorts.

Can you recall any memorable stories or experiences related to getting dressed for work?

One time I was inspired by Phoebe Philo and androgynous carefree looks that make a statement, so I wore cropped navy pinstriped trousers with a gray chunky knit sweatshirt and white sneakers to work. I was very proud of this look and felt so smart and stylish. The following Monday, I showed up to my office and noticed all 16 of my colleagues were wearing navy pinstriped pants with a sweater. I remember thinking, “Wow! Everyone looks so good!” Turns out, they had collectively planned a prank to (lovingly) poke fun at me and copy my outfit. They literally went out and purchased similar items, so now they all own cool pinstriped pants. You’re welcome, colleagues.

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