#TECHNICALLY DAY ONE WAS YESTERDAY im starting on day two and i might get day three done just so i dont have to do it tmrw after class | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

philtstone · 2 years

Note

For the touches meme: MCU ship of your choice with#8 :)

#8 -- shielding someone with their body

u can also read this on ao3 <3 to say "this prompt got away from me" would be an understatement and yet i still have the temerity to follow it up with "and there might be a part two!" lord. anyway, apologies to kaadhu because she doesn't go here at all but also she did give me the green light to be self-indulgent with this one, so.

the "Jonah Day" was inspired by a scene from Abraxas's phenomenal fic series "Just Two Guys" which was in turn quoting Anne of Green Gables. naturally i had to give it my own little spin. the fic concept itself was inspired by "Jazz Standards Vol 3" by sixes_and_sevens and "In the Woods Somewhere" by @rebellconquerer, both of whom are brilliant authors whose versions of these characters are inspiring in how much they are rich and full of feeling and complexity. i wanted to try my hand at the idea without there being an associated plot arc. hopefully i did it justice bc ive been working on this for a week and i have other Responsibilities so if i dont post it now and be at peace with its imperfections ill never get anything else done. this fic is part of this series and while technically a stand alone i guess the emotional beats of it are very much tied into their previous growing. i wanted to show that they have a process for working through things but that it's inevitably still evolving.

anyway. with that out of the way -- enjoy! (or if you're kaadhu, hopefully i can make it up to u with the star wars prompts im gonna work on next)

It’s one of those days.

It’s like everyone woke on the wrong side of some bed, and the world has not thought to slow down and accommodate them, and the headaches Sarah has started getting every few weeks, which she refuses to call pre-migraines, have settled at the back of her skull.

Also, it is raining. Badly.

Cassius used to call ‘em Jonah Days. Only person had it worse in the world, he’d say, was probably Jonah and his whale.

Sarah does not have a whale, but she does have that headache, and has spent all day tracking down a mistake on a license she ordered three weeks ago and trying to make up for the work she missed last week when AJ had the stomach flu and had to spend an afternoon at the hospital. It had just been her at home; Rhodes had called on Sam’s behalf, and Bucky had had to fly out on short notice, something half classified with a tension undercutting it that left Sarah’s tongue feeling dry. He got back in yesterday. Yesterday was not as much of a misery as today but still dragged itself out, and was prolonged enough that they only had time for a brief kiss hello and the curt acknowledgement that Sam was alright. Whatever had happened, Bucky was not happy about it. She’d noticed, of course. His face was drawn, and everything he said came out like the second half was being held as a careful package at the back of his throat. Sarah, distracted by life, had not thought about it too hard. On the rare occasion the rarer mission (getting rarer still) is genuinely awful, she has realized he’ll always find a way to call her. Sometimes, as a reassurance for her. Other times, for his own sanity. Once he called barely three hours after he left, like by some prescient intuition he knew she’d be sitting at the kitchen table on the verge of a panic (another one of those Days). Another time, in the middle of the dairy aisle at Wal-Mart, she picked up the phone to him crying.

Nothing like that happened this time. He’d said I’m fine, quietly, into her temple, and Sarah had been too tired to try to coax anything else out of him, so she let it be.

When she gets home, today – The Jonah Day – stomping into the kitchen with as much purpose as she can muster, Bucky is sitting at the kitchen table, something pale and unkempt about his face, and nursing an empty mug of tea.

She knows it’s tea because of the glittery little tag that’s hanging from the edge of the mug. In truth this should be her first red flag: there’s only one kind of tea he drinks, and a rare handful of occasions he drinks it on. She’s never had a great love for honeybush, but the stuff Ayo’s wife Aneka sends is nice-smelling and strong enough to be medicinal. Sarah’s not in any mood to be catching flags today, red or otherwise. She shuffles in and wonders where they’ve put the ibuprofen and nearly steps on the cat, who scratches her foot in her yowly attempt to get away from Sarah’s sandal.

“Shit –” Her elbow slams into the cabinet as she startles – “Argh! Out of the kitchen, Alpine – Cass! What’d I tell you about getting these dishes done after school? Do I look like a dishwashing service to you?”

That had been the deal. There is an abstract part of her that knows Cass is working on a science project and an even more abstract part of her that knows that, in the regular routine that’s emerged, Bucky would have reminded him.

Clearly he has not. Sarah is too tired to process why that might be. Maybe he forgot. She doesn’t think he got much sleep last night, which isn’t exactly uncommon. She remembers waking up to an empty bed and a rumpled sleeping bag on the bedroom floor. She’d nearly tripped over that, too.

Could be that’s what got the whole day going.

“Can you get Cass?” Sarah asks, only half-looking at Bucky. She walks through the remainder of the kitchen and peers into the coffee pot to see if there are any dregs left from the morning. The rainstorm outside seems to have turned into a thunderstorm; Sarah can hear its low rumblings. Are there leftovers in the fridge? No. And no one has bothered to think of dinner, either. She swallows back the urge to curse on her next prolonged inhale, the delay in reply rubbing her already edgy nerves wrong for no reason. “Bucky.”

“Hm? Oh.” In a side glance, she can see him shift his elbows on the table, rub at his eyes and nod. “Yeah, um. Yeah, I’ll get him. Let me put this in the sink.”

Another rumble. If the power goes out she thinks she might scream.

Speaking of the sink: she tosses the thermoses the boys left on the kitchen counter into it with a dull clang and wonders if she has time to take a shower. It doesn’t occur to her that maybe she will feel better if she takes a moment to breathe and perhaps ask Bucky for a hug – Sarah’s habits of self-reliance started well before her first marriage, even – but anyway, she feels disgusting. She smells like sweat and fish and she wants to sleep for ten years and cry at once. She’s worried if he gets too close she’ll cringe, or snap, or something foolish. Still. He has to enter her space to rinse the mug out. She tries not to look at him lest the crying overtake her and attempts to source a granola bar to maybe take the edge off her headache.

Overloud footsteps thunder abruptly down the stairs. Suddenly, Cass is barreling in, an overdue apology loud on his tongue. This happens a half second before his hip knocks into one of the kitchen chairs, which drags, scrapes loudly, and pinches an unassuming Alpine’s tail between its leg and the table’s.

Alpine shrieks.

“CASS!” Sarah yells, forgetting herself.

“I’m sorry!” yelps Cass immediately, wide-eyed and penitent.

“It was an accident,” Bucky says quickly. He’s straightened beside her, and his voice has something strained under the placating instinct, “it’ll be fine –”

One free hand comes up in front of him in a gesture she knows very well. “For the love of God!” Sarah yells. “No, it was not! I have told you a million times, Cassius Wilson –” Bucky’s hand is too close to her. She grabs it, to bat it away, shove it back towards him. Alpine is still yowling holy vengeance. Cass is apologizing more loudly now, and she does not notice Bucky’s shoulders tensing, and her hand connects with his a split second before the rumbling beginnings of thunder turn into a full blown clap outside.

With the piercing pop of breaking ceramic the mug in his hand explodes, spraying its pieces all over the floor. Sarah’s mouth lets out a startled little cry and she does not realize why that is until she looks down, heart in her throat, and realizes his other hand has shot out and grabbed her wrist.

A reflex, probably. Her tendons are pinching but Sarah knows this kind of thing can spook anyone on a good day. And she’d been yelling so loudly, right in his ear.

“Sorry!” says Cass again, reedy with the fright he gave himself, the suddenness, the mundane violence of a cup breaking and the spring storm. His voice is thinned out with the upshooting squeak of pre-teen concern and in a moment Sarah’s anger fizzles. She can hear the rain lashing at the windows.

“It’s alright,” she says, parroting Bucky’s earlier words, “it’s just a mug.”

Bucky is still holding her wrist. The angle is awkward – Sarah is too close to him and too far away from him at once and her forearm is bent low, towards the kitchen counter. The metal pads of his fingers dig into her bones, pushing them together, and when she comes to gently tug away, she can’t move it an inch. “Ow,” comes out of her mouth, muttered and mostly surprised, before she can stop it.

“Alpine!” she hears Cass say. “No, you have to get on the table or your feet’ll get hurt –”

Poor Alpine has not had a moment of peace since Sarah entered the kitchen. She’s never loved thunderstorms and beyond her own pinched tail and trodden foot the tiny cat is tense and staring at Bucky and Sarah with wide, alert, too-knowing eyes. Sarah cannot process this. She is looking at Bucky’s face. Every line of his body is iron hewn, pupils large and dilated, lips too red and parted where he is breathing heavily. He’s staring at the floor, and the broken ceramic, but there suddenly isn’t a doubt in Sarah’s mind that he isn’t seeing jack shit.

“B,” she tries. “You okay?”

Nothing. His grip on her arm is so tight that she’s started to feel it in her elbow. She can see blood trickling down his right hand thumb where she realizes the broken ceramic cut into his palm; he didn’t startle and drop it, then.

“Mom?” Cass has noticed them. “Uncle Bucky?”

“James,” Sarah says, as steadily as she can. “Let go, please.”

She bites her tongue just before the rest of the sentence comes out; she would not, in a million years, in any lifetime, say You’re hurting me when Cass is still in the room.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“We all just had a fright,” Sarah says, trying to subtly shift her shoulder. “Cass, put your running shoes on. Then go to the supply closet upstairs and grab the hand vacuum and dustpan.”

“But –”

“Tell AJ not to come down ‘til we’ve cleaned the broke mug. We don’t get it clean soon Alpine might hurt herself.”

This is motivation enough to manage him. She thinks for Cass this must still be one of those momentary incursions of chaos into routine that are sprinkled throughout her own childhood. She watches her son nod rapidly out of the corner of her eye, and then he scrambles away and back up the stairs.

“James,” Sarah says, once he is out of earshot. “I need you to hear me. We’re in the kitchen. You broke a mug by accident. There’s a rainstorm outside. Please let go, you’re hurting my arm.”

He is not entirely frozen because she can see the minute trembles in his chest and chin and bloodied right hand. It’s not a lot, but it’s started dripping onto the floor.

“James. Bucky!”

The pressure on her wrist is starting to edge past uncomfortable and into a territory Sarah doesn’t want to think about. She doesn’t think he’s squeezing any harder, only the shock has started to fade, and she is really feeling it now. It might even bruise. Not badly – Sarah knows her own body well enough to guess – but enough that the idea makes her sick to her stomach. She can see the dull brown of the last drops of tea from the mug, splattered onto the pale grey of his indoor t-shirt. Those will stain for sure, she thinks. Her head pounds. Her brain feels like scrambled eggs. A tiny shard of ceramic bites into her pinky toe, between her sandal straps, and she can hear AJ’s inquiring voice from upstairs, asking loudly what happened. Knowing her children he will be down in a moment and heedless of any possible danger, broken mug related or otherwise.

“Baby,” she says, “forgive me.”

She reaches forward with her free hand and fits her thumb and forefinger into the groove beneath where his rotator cuff should be. Sarah presses as hard as she can. Like a flipped switch the grip on her hand releases and Sarah has to bite back another curse when the frozen deadweight of the vibranium prosthetic freefalls and crashes directly onto the ground, just barely missing her shin.

She is not in any place to understand what the effect must be outside of a shock, but immediately Bucky makes a strangled noise of surprise and slumps back against her cluttered kitchen counter with the imbalanced movements of some leggy baby animal.

Only, for perhaps the first time, Sarah is acutely aware of how large he is, how ungainly and imposing all that muscle can be.

“Be careful, the mug –!” she hears herself yell anyway, entirely instinct.

“The mug,” Bucky repeats, slurred, blinking. His right hand reaches up to scrabble at the thin air to his left. She can see the fumbling movement of his wrist, the way his body leans. His eyes meet hers, wide and startled and questioning. He’s seeing her. She didn’t think it would make such a difference, but she nearly cries. The sound crawls up her esophagus but does not quite make it out.

“Sarah?” he asks, voice small.

Jesus Lord, Sarah thinks. The whole thing happened so fast – nothing long or drawn out about it. Hell, she could pretend it didn’t happen at all. He stares at her, and then the shattered mug on the floor, and then his arm, deadened and inert. Finally his eyes land on her wrist, which she has cradled instinctively in her other hand, and is rubbing. Dread floods into his expression.

“It’s alright,” Sarah says, “It’s fine, you got spooked, we’ll just –”

She tries to reach for him, working both with and against her own instincts.

“No,” he chokes.

She can see him beginning to tremble.

“James –”

“No!” The sheer panic in his voice does not help her own at all, “Stay – wait, don’t, please –” He pulls away from her and his foot nudges one of the larger mug pieces with a loud scraping clink. Between this and his sudden movement Sarah flinches.

For a long moment, Bucky gapes at her.

Then, slowly, he sinks down to the floor. The tremble in his body becomes more visible. His remaining arm comes up to wrap around the crown of his head, half-covering his face. His knees are pulled up to his chest, like he is trying to make himself as small as possible in front of her. You’re gonna get ceramic in your jeans, Sarah wants to say. The wreckage of the mug spreads out around him.

“Mom?” calls Cass’s voice from the stairs, followed by footsteps. “We got the vacuum! Should I –”

“Stay outside the kitchen, Cass.” It’s immediate – hoarse-voiced but louder and firmer than Sarah thought him capable of right now. His face is still covered. “Too many small pieces on the floor, I’ll clean it up myself. You too, AJ.”

Their footsteps stall. “Okay!” she hears. Sarah sways in place.

“Sarah,” he says, into his single arm. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, God.”

It’s alright, Sarah wants to say. She managed it earlier, didn’t she? Her wrist is more or less fine now. Maybe a bit tender, but nothing that couldn’t have happened a million other ways.

The words don’t come out. Instead, to her horror, a small sound like a sob does.

It’s alright, she urges herself. Just say it.

“I love you,” is what she says instead. She leaves the kitchen to fetch the dustpan. It’s only once she’s hit the laundry room and locked the door behind her that she lets herself begin to cry.

By bedtime, Sarah’s wrist is properly tender. The kitchen has long since been cleaned. In between her stint in the laundry and AJ’s innocent declaration that she needed a shower, Bucky went ahead and ordered them pizza for dinner, so that was one more thing she didn’t have to think about too. No one put the boys to bed properly but when she checked in they had managed alright themselves. When she enters the bedroom the storm outside has dulled to a simple drizzle and her chest floods with relief. He’s there. And not in the sleeping bag, either. He’s on their bed, curled up to face the wall, and his face is pale.

Sarah ignores her bathroom routine and crawls onto the bed beside him. He hasn’t re-attached his arm. She saw it in the den, earlier, tucked away behind the cushions on the daybed he used to use.

She takes a deep breath. She’s spent most of the evening trying to detangle between her residual emotions from the Jonah Day and the very real thing that happened downstairs. She sat in the tub for twenty minutes thinking about what words she wanted to use.

Bucky beats her to it.

“Has it,” he starts, sounding miserable. “Your -- your arm.”

Sarah doesn’t want to lie. “It’s ...”

“Jesus,” he whispers, this awful undertone of disgust weighing it down into the bed.

“I was going to say it probably won’t even bruise.”

Bucky doesn’t reply. She wonders if he hasn’t reached out to check the wrist himself because he’s scared of himself, or if he’s scared she will be.

“I’m sorry for not being more careful earlier,” Sarah says after a long moment, looking at her toes. They’re in desperate need of a pedicure. “For – yelling. Being rough. I should have been more aware of my surroundings.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she hears, delivered into the bedspread.

They have two spreads on this bed. One Sarah has had for always – it’s quilted, with small squares of yellow and blue, and small stitched flowers that Sarah’s grandmother said were meant to bring a sense of safety into a bedroom. The other is red – burgundy pattern bursts, even a bit of purple. The material is thicker-woven and heavier and very new, and bought after much careful consideration (and her own encouragement that he get something he liked) from one of Bucky’s favourite vendors a few months ago. She knows it is called a kitenge and loves that it is on her bed.

“B,” Sarah says finally. “If I’m an adult I’m responsible for how I behave when I know certain things about others. You have to –” she fists her hands into the sheets, searches for the right thing beneath the tension in her throat, “respect that. Respect me by acknowledging that.”

There’s a long moment of quiet.

“Thank you for apologizing,” Bucky says softly. Then, after another long pause, “I’m sorry for not telling you how – how bad I was feeling. And for scaring you after. And for ... fuck. Sarah. I’m so sorry.”

Sarah swallows around her dry tongue.

“I know. You still feeling rough?”

“A little. My head got really loud and I couldn’t stop it.”

“Because of last week’s thing.”

Sarah doesn’t like calling them missions. Sam says she doesn’t want to give ‘em the dignity of a proper name lest they end up having power over her life.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“Did you call –”

She can’t see his face but she can perfectly imagine the way his eyes scrunch shut on a frown. “Didn’t realize it was bad until it was … bad. Thought I could work through it yesterday. With – routines.”

“The tea,” Sarah realizes. Simultaneously she feels heartbreak and a keen sense of frustration. She should have noticed, she thinks. Then again, the plain reality is that she will have her own bad days, and she is only human. Also, she very much knows the desire to prove you haven’t mistaken your newfound ability to control. Still, still, still –

“Just, since then,” she starts.

“I called Dr. Naimi while you were in the shower,” he says quietly.

It’s been about a month with her, so Sarah would have been ready to understand if he didn’t at all. Just barely, but ready. Sarah likes Dr. Naimi and Dr. Naimi likes Sarah. Trauma specialist is an added perk of her proximity to them, and Sarah’s cheerful memories of LSU.

Sarah lets out a long exhale through her mouth. She can see his right hand where it’s curled up by his stomach. He’s put bandaids over the cuts from the ceramic. She knows he doesn’t need them – those cuts would’ve self-sealed within fifteen minutes – so she is left wondering if the decision was made for the boys’ sake, or maybe hers, or even his own. Easy not to think about something if the evidence is covered up and away. Sarah rubs at her eyes, which are dry and gritty from her earlier cry.

In a sense she’s stalling the instinct to reach out to him because the back of her brain is still working through the newer, more temporary instinct that’s appeared. But she does need to change. Bucky is already in his sleep clothes, faded grey sweatpants that he’s wearing holes into and that garishly orange t-shirt memorializing Cass’s first grade Lion King play. Sarah leaves the bed. She brushes her teeth, wraps up her hair, wipes her face. She comes back into the bedroom and shimmies out of her jeans, then bypasses her usual tank top for the navy blue t-shirt folded neatly at the top of his drawer. The shoulders hit halfway down her biceps. She crawls back onto the bed, in front of him this time.

Bucky’s still wide awake.

“You gonna stay awake all night?” she asks.

“No.”

“Promise?”

She watches him touch his tongue to his bottom lip, which is looking raw, like he’s been doing that all night. He trembles on the inhale. “I’m better,” he repeats. “I’ll do some – um, those exercises before bed. Forgot to do ‘em last night, I was real tired I guess.”

This bedroom’s good for those – it’s got so much stuff in it, and sentimental stuff too, he can go through picking out things he can see and what they’re made of and how they feel to touch and lull himself to sleep like that. Sometimes he does it teasingly and lists what she is wearing while he takes it off.

His eyes have cast down, a very deliberate avoidance of hers. Swallowing against her own mind she scootches forward and lies down in front of him. Then she pulls at his shoulder – firm, but with gentle hands.

“Sarah,” muffled, into the pillow.

“Need you to hold me.”

“You don’t have to –”

“For me. For me, James.”

He relents, balancing on the ball of his empty shoulder, and smoothes his free hand over her arm and around her back to pull her towards him. His fingers, which are so familiar to her by now, splay open between her shoulder blades. They don't tremble, but they’re very careful. Sarah has to work hard not to notice. Still, he ends up half covering her. She lets her tender wrist lay gingerly against her collarbone in the hollow between their chests and breathes in and out in long steadying breaths. Where their bodies touch (at her hip, her cheek, where his shoulder digs into her breast) the pressure is just minutely too much but enough for Sarah’s purposes. She winds one arm around him, tangles their legs together, closes her eyes, and wills herself through her pounding heart to re-memorize the feeling: the deep-seated thing within herself that’s come to associate his body touching hers with safety and security.

Sarah doesn’t newly believe herself a fool. Reality coexists with her convictions and they’ll just have to work their way through it. The blankets beneath them are contrasting in their fabrics and soft against the bare skin of Sarah’s neck.

“I love you,” Bucky whispers. It’s said in the same way she said it earlier. Sarah nods, and holds him tighter.

#touches prompt meme #marvel #sarahbucky #sarah wilson #bucky barnes #fatws #sarah and bucky #tfatws #fleur de louve #sarah x bucky #my writing #lord this got long #and the new tumblr ask formating ... bad #ALMOST 1 FULL YEAR BABY

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misscorn · 3 years

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Day 7: Future/Post Confession

I can't believe yet another @takaritsuweek has come and gone so fast 😭❤ everyone in this Fandom is so talented and im obsessed with the nostalgia content 💘 please enjoy my last one shot for this week ☺

***

Onodera Ritsu was being weird, which could only mean one thing: something was wrong and he wasn't talking to Masamune about it.

Masamune had really hoped that things would go smoother after Ritsu confessed, but that was foolish. Masamune was so, undeniably happy, but they weren't perfect people. Both of them still had things to work on, separately and together. One of those things was more readily relying on one another. So, Masamune was determined to find out what was wrong.

Ritsu just seemed a lot more...spacey than usual. And anxious. And maybe a little gloomy? Masamune couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew that he didn't like it.

Currently, Ritsu was over at Masamune's apartment, helping to clean up the dishes as the two of them had just finished dinner. Ritsu was at Masamune's place quite frequently and Masamune always brought up the idea of moving in together, but Ritsu hadn't quite come around to it yet, mostly because he knew for a fact that it would affect any work the two of them brought home. Masamune got...distracted easily and Ritsu tended to get swept away. So, for now Ritsu was content with a lot of sleepovers.

Once they finished cleaning, Masamune led Ritsu into the living room by his hand. He sat down unceremoniously on the couch before pulling Ritsu down with him and on to his lap, making Ritsu's face burn red.

I kind of hope he never gets used to this, Masamune thought, loving the sight of Ritsu's adorably embarrassed expression.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ritsu asked, trying to sound scolding, but he only succeeded in sounding nervous.

Masamune wrapped his arms around Ritsu's waist. "I just want to talk and I figured if I have you like this you won't be able to run away." Like how you love to do.

Ritsu couldn't even argue against that logic, but he made a displeased face anyway. "Fine. What is it?"

"Is everything okay with you?" Masamune asked.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine." Ritsu said dismissively.

"You just seem like you've had something on your mind lately." Masamune said. "Making me worried."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." Ritsu apologized immediately.

"Don't say sorry, there's nothing to be sorry for, I just wanna know if there's something going on." Masamune said, trying to sound reassuring.

Ritsu chewed on his lower lip nervously before he spoke again. "I guess I have been thinking a bit..." He started vaguely.

"What about?" Masamune pressed gently.

"Well, my mom's gotten off my back about An-chan, but not about settling down. She's been trying to set up matchmaking sessions, introducing me to daughters of friends of hers whenever I visit, sending me info about singles events." Ritsu tried not to cringe at the thought of going to one of those. "And I just...I think maybe it's time I tell my parents about you. About us." Ritsu said. "I mean, I know we only started officially d-dating not too long ago, but I feel like we're both kind of in this for the long haul." He laughed nervously. They've both been in this for the past ten years, after all. It was hardly too soon to let his parents be in the know. "So, um, it seems only right to tell them..."

"If you want to tell them then you should." Masamune said.

"You make things sound so simple." Ritsu sighed. "It could go really, really wrong, you know?"

"I know. But the other option is keeping it a secret forever. Which, you can if you want, but it might be difficult to eventually explain to your parents when they visit why you have a longterm male roommate and you both wear matching wedding rings and share a room and take care of a little girl who calls both of you dad."

Ritsu's face flushed at Masamune projection of their future together, his heartbeat picking up in pace. "You want to have a daughter?"

"Someday, I think it'd be nice. But we're not even past the step of me meeting your parents, so I don't think they're going to get grandchildren anytime soon." Masamune planted a quick kiss on Ritsu’s shoulder.

"W-Wait, meeting?! I was just going to tell them, I didn't plan on having you meet them yet!" Ritsu said quickly.

"Ritsu, this is your mom we're talking about. If you tell her I exist she will track me down and interrogate the hell out of me whether you want her to or not." Masamune deadpanned.

Ritsu groaned and slumped against Masamume, knowing that he was right. "Maybe I should just test the waters first? It doesn't seem fair to throw all of us in at once."

Masamune hesitated to agree, subconsciously playing with Ritsu's hair. "I want to be there." He said firmly. "I understand you're worried, but like you said, things could go wrong and I want to be there for you if they do."

"You're only one door away." Ritsu said.

"Too far." Masamune insisted, pressing a kiss to Ritsu's forehead.

Ritsu rolled his eyes, trying hard not to smile. "You're absolutely ridiculous."

"Mhm. Besides, I can't charm the hell out of your parents if I'm busy next door worrying about you."

"Oh, is that your plan? To be all cool and suave until they can't possibly reject our relationship?" Ritsu asked sarcastically.

"Yes, exactly."

Ritsu shook his head before he refocused and took a deep breath. "How's this weekend?"

"I can do this weekend." Masamune said.

"I'll invite them to my place for dinner and hopefully it will be totally boring and uneventful and they won't care about us being together at all."

"Yeah, the woman who has hounded you about marriage for over ten years is going to not care about you being in a romantic relationship." Masamune said sarcastically.

Ritsu groaned loudly.

Masamune chuckled. "What about your dad? How do you think he'll react?"

"No idea, which is honestly worse."

"We'll handle it." Masamune promised and sealed it with a kiss.

"I can't do this, I think I should call them and cancel, tell them I'm sick." Ritsu said as he and Masamune cooked dinner together. Technically it wouldn't be a lie since Ritsu was feeling pretty nauseous.

Ritsu had spent all day yesterday making sure his apartment was spotless and then earlier today he and Masamune had gone grocery shopping together since Ritsu’s options for dinner had been a little slim.

"Oh, yeah, tell your mom that you're sick, I'm sure that will make her stay away instead of making her want to come over more." Masamune said sarcastically.

"You're no help."

"I thought I was being a lot of help, unless you wanna cut the onions." Masamune said, not looking up from the cutting board where he was working on the veggies.

Ritsu huffed and turned away to sit at the kitchen table, putting his head in his hands. He couldn't do this, he was such an idiot for ever thinking that he could. Introducing his parents to Masamune? He had never even mentioned liking men to them! And now suddenly he was going to announce that he had a boyfriend! There was only one way this could go: badly.

"Hey," Masamune said softly, abandoning his cutting station to sit next to him. "Its gonna be okay."

"You don't know that."

"I know, and honestly I'm kind of freaking out too. I don't think there's anything that could prepare me for meeting your parents. I want them to like me, I want them to think I'm a good fit for you because I know they're always going to be a big part of your life. Even if they can be a little overbearing, they love you, and it would kind of really suck if the people who loved you the most hated me." Masamune said. "But, either way I know that no matter what happens we'll still be together and for me that's enough." Masamune placed a comforting hand on Ritsu's knee.

"Even if my mom spends every single family gathering trying to drive you away? Even if she keeps trying to set me up on blind dates? Or, worse, tries to convince my dad to mess with your work?"

"Ritsu, the only thing your mom could do to keep me away from you is put out a hit on me."

"Don't joke about that."

"Oh come on, your parents don't have that many connections." Masamune said. "...right?"

"I really couldn't tell you."

"Jesus Christ." Masamune said, breathing through a laugh. "Look, the point is; we're gonna be okay."

Ritsu placed his hand on top of Masamune's and gave it a squeeze as he slowly nodded. "Okay...okay." He said. "Let's hurry and finish dinner then. My mom likes to get places early."

Masamune smiled softly and stole a swift kiss before happily helping Ritsu in the kitchen once more.

Eventually, there came a knock at the door. "I'll keep an eye on the food while you go get it." Masamune said. Dinner was just nearly done.

Ritsu swallowed hard and nodded, turning to leave the kitchen.

"Wait." Masamune grabbed his hand and kissed him quickly. "For good luck." He winked.

"Y-You're such an idiot." Ritsu scolded before quickly going to the front door and opening it.

Youko and Tatsuo Onodera stood side by side at Ritsu's door. Youko broke out into a smile and threw her arms around Ritsu before anyone could get a word out.

"H-Hi, mom." Ritsu smiled nervously as he hugged her back. "Hi, dad." He said to Tatsuo over Youko's shoulder as he was still being tightly squeezed.

"You feel skinny." Youko said as soon as she pulled away, pouting at her son. Ritsu was not surprised to be scolded instead of greeted, but he knew his mother meant well.

"Well, its a good thing I've invited you over to eat then. Come in." Ritsu said with a sheepish expression, attempting to play it off.

"It smells good." Tatsuo said.

"Ritsu, don't tell me you've left the food unattended for long." Youko said worriedly as they shuffled toward the kitchen.

"No." Ritsu's hands started to shake. "The foods being watched. Right now. B-by my b-boyfriend."

""Boyfriend?!"" Both Youko and Tatsuo exclaimed.

"How long has this been a thing?" Tatsuo asked.

"Oh...ten years or so..."

"Ten YEARS?!" Youko had heard enough, marching into the kitchen with her husband and son following not far behind.

"M-Mom, wait, maybe we should talk a little more-"

"You." Youko pointed accusingly at Masamune. "Are you my son's so called partner?"

"I am. My name is Takano Masamune, it's nice to-"

"Takano? I'm not familiar with that name. What's your family background?" Youko interrupted.

Masamune blinked, glancing between Ritsu and his parents, a little confused by the question. "Uh, my mother is a lawyer and my step father is a doctor, but I'm not on speaking terms with either of them."

"A boy with a troubled family history? Hardly seems like a good choice for a partner." Youko commented to Ritsu.

"Mother! That's incredibly rude!" Ritsu defended Masamune immediately. What was she even going on about?

"What do you do for a living?" Youko asked Masamune.

Masamune played along with her questions as he didn't know what else to do. "I'm the editor in chief for Marukawa Publishing's shoujo manga department: Emerald."

"Emerald? Onodera Ritsu, do you mean to tell me that you are dating your boss?" Youko said, putting her hands on her hips.

"I've heard about the great things you've done for Emerald, Takano." Tatsuo admitted. "But it does seem to be a conflict of interest to be dating a subordinate."

"I've been in love with him since I was twelve! Way before he ever became my boss!" Ritsu said quickly before a realization dawned on him. "Wait...these are the things you're upset about? His family and his job?"

"They're very important things to consider when picking a partner, Ritsu." Youko said. "You know, if you had told me that you were rejecting all those lovely girls because they were girls I could have been setting you up with perfectly charming and handsome men!" Youko pouted.

Ritsu wanted to laugh. And cry. And hug his mom and kiss Masamune and melt into the floor in total relief.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to object to any matchmaking sessions." Masamune jumped in.

Youko frowned sternly at him. "Just what exactly makes you worthy of my one and only son?"

"I know I'm not the kind of person that you would normally want for Ritsu, but I love him. I've loved him for over ten years and there's nothing that could ever stop me from loving him. I will always, always take care of him and make him happy and if there ever comes a day that I don't then please feel free to come back and snatch him away from me because just like you I think Ritsu only deserves the best. I will always be loyal, reliable, and honest with him. And, if you'd still like to join us for dinner, I can show you that I'm not completely useless around a kitchen."

Youko did not move, nor did her disapproving expression melt away, but Tatsuo stepped forward to put a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"So, ten years huh? That's a long time. Why don't you tell us how this all started?" He smiled as he ushered his wife to sit down.

Ritsu beamed, tearing up a bit.

"Well, I was in our school's library..."

#onodera ritsu #sekaiichi hatsukoi #takano masamune #takaritsuweek #fanfiction

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bibbawrites · 3 years

Text

Beach Baby - Single Dad!Charlie x Owen

THIS IS PART 4 OF THE SINGLE DAD!CHARLIE SERIES YOU CAN READ PART 1 HERE , THE PREQUEL (PART 2) HERE AND PART 3 HERE

Request: none

Word Count: 3907 words 😳

Summary: Part 4 of Single Dad!Charlie, Margaux and Charlie reunite with Owen in Hawaii after months apart due to lockdown, just in time for Margaux’s fourth birthday

Warnings: technically underage drinking, i guess technically i have to warn that this is implied mutual crushing between owen and charlie, if you dont feel comfortable with romantic chowen do not read

A/N: i couldn’t get this out of my head so i had to write it, and boy did i write it this is the longest non-chaptered fic ive ever written and honestly i could have made it longer but i didnt want it to drag on any more that it already did this is literally more than double the length of my normal fics, i got very carried away

also just a note that i’m not trying to be rude about the fans who met the boys at the airport and i’m sure in real life the boys were happy to stop and chat, but from a parents perspective charlie’s first instinct would be to protect his daughter so i just thought i’d add that. please don’t get upset for that part!

sorry for any mistakes, its 4am and im half asleep trying to read through this to post lol anyways, hope you enjoy!

Tag List: @happinessinthedarkesttimes @littlemissaddict @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @headheartbellarke @lovesanimals @bartok-the-magnificent @juliefromaustralia @multi-universe21 @rangerelik @kaitieskidmore1 @katrina765 @fandomxreaders @ifilwtmfc

“Papa!” Margaux screamed, racing across the airport to Owen, the blond boy scooping up the nearly four year old and spinning her around when she reached him.

“Maggie! I’ve missed you so much.” Owen exclaimed, pulling his mask down to pepper her cheeks with kisses, causing Margaux to giggle loudly. “Where’s your Daddy?”

“Right behind you.” Owen spun around to find Charlie standing there, clearly smiling at him despite the bandana that covered his mouth, and Owen’s heart skipped a beat at how good Charlie looked in the early morning sun streaming through the airport windows.

Meanwhile Charlie was thinking the exact same thing, admiring how attractive Owen was, especially when he was in his dad mode. He really understood why girls had such a weakness for cute boys with cute kids when he saw Owen with Margaux.

Charlie stepped forward, pulling Owen into a tight hug and Margaux whined in complaint at being squished between her dad and her self declared papa. They pulled away from each other, both boys fighting to hide their slightly flushed cheeks.

“I’m hungry.” Margaux whined, and Charlie was snapped out of his heart eyes daze, his whole focus back on his daughter.

“Let’s get some food into you before our plane leaves then eh.” He replied, and Margaux nodded happily.

Feeling bold Owen grabbed onto Charlie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. It wasn’t unusual for them to do this but it was the first time doing it when they were well known enough that someone might recognise them. But neither of them really cared. They were just happy to be back together again.

The minute they arrived in Hawaii they were met with fans. As much as he loved meeting the fans Charlie couldn’t help but sigh slightly as he tried to protect Margaux as much as he could.

It wasn’t that the fans didn’t know about Margaux, because it was a well known fact that he was a single dad, it was more that he wanted to keep her away from the spotlight. She hadn’t asked for her dad to become a well known actor, and she didn’t deserve to have her life changed because of it. He was determined to give her the most normal life possible.

Eventually they made it to the villa house that they were staying in while in Hawaii, and after throwing their bags into their rooms it was time to have a bit of fun.

“Swim time swim time!” Margaux sung, running laps around the living room. Kenny chuckled at the small girl, looking up at Charlie who was following closely behind her.

“It seems like only yesterday she was a tiny two year old who cried every time you left her side.” He said, and Charlie smiled fondly, sitting down on the chair next to Kenny.

“She’s growing up too fast.” He agreed. “I can’t believe in less than 24 hours time I’ll be a dad to a four year old.”

Margaux tripped on the tiles, landing with a clatter, her bottom lip jutting out. Charlie jumped up, but before he could even think about moving across the room Owen was by Margaux’s side, helping her up and pulling her into a tight hug. He whispered something in her ear and Margaux giggled loudly, her fall already forgotten.

Charlie smiled softly at the scene, his heart filled with love for both the blond boy and his little princess.

“Daddy.” Margaux called, snapping Charlie out of his daze.

“Yeah baby?” He answered, finally making his way across the room.

“Can we swim now?” She asked, grabbing onto his leg. Charlie subconsciously ran his hand through her soft curls.

“Of course we can.” He replied. Margaux glanced up at Owen.

“Papa too?” She questioned.

“Papa too.” Charlie agreed. Margaux peered past him, her gaze landing on Kenny.

“Coming Uncle Kenny?” She asked, and Kenny laughed, standing up.

“Coming Little Gillespie.” He replied.

Margaux smiled contently, taking both Charlie and Owen’s hands to pull them outside towards the pool.

She really did have every single one of them wrapped around her little finger.

Dinner that night was special, as it was supposed to be Carolynn’s last day on the island. They decided on a joint party for her last night, as well as celebrating Margaux’s birthday a day early.

They had headed to a tiny restaurant near their villa, and Charlie had allowed Margaux to pick whatever she wanted from the menu, not that it mattered because she chose chicken nuggets and chips anyways.

The meal was nice, and before they knew it they were arriving back at the villa. Jeremy, Carolynn and Kenny all excused themselves for bed, and Tori settled into the couch, flicking the TV on.

“Bath and bed time baby.” Charlie told Margaux, and she pouted but obeyed, following him into the hallway.

“Hey Char, can I ask you something?” Owen asked, trailing behind the father daughter duo, and Charlie stopped, letting Margaux run ahead to their room.

“Anything.” He smiled.

“Do you mind if I share your room? I know the other bed was meant to be for Margaux but-” Owen started, playing with his fingers slightly.

“She can share with me.” Charlie cut him off. “Bed’s all yours.” Owen looked up, his eyes widening.

“Really?” He checked.

“Of course.” Charlie smiled. Owen grinned, throwing his arms around Charlie’s neck.

“Thanks Char. I just didn’t really want to sleep alone.” He admitted, and Charlie squeezed him tight.

“Any time.” He told Owen, and the blond boy pulled away with a smile, before heading off to the room he was originally going to stay in to collect his bags.

Charlie entered the room that he and Margaux, and now Owen, were sharing, finding his daughter already snuggled into one of the beds, still wearing her dinner clothes. Charlie sighed, moving to pull her out of the bed. Owen entered the room, bags in tow, and Margaux looked up at him excitedly.

“Papa! Are you sleeping here?” She questioned. Owen placed his bags in the corner before answering.

“I am Miss Maggie.” He said, and Margaux cheered.

“You don’t mind sleeping with Daddy?” Charlie checked, and Margaux shook her head, jumping up to throw her arms around Charlie’s neck.

“Nope! More cuddles!” She stated. Charlie laughed, picking her up.

“Exactly right. Now, it’s bath time.” He said, grabbing Margaux’s pyjamas as she clung to him.

“Bye Papa!” Margaux called as Charlie moved to leave the room. Owen waved.

“Bye Maggie!” He replied, matching her enthusiasm. Charlie couldn’t help but smile.

Margaux was so lucky to have someone like Owen in her life. They both were.

“Daddy! Wake up!” Margaux screamed, jumping on top of Charlie. He groaned, squinting as he looked up at his daughter.

“What time is it?” He mumbled. Owen sat up in his own bed, grabbing his phone to check the time.

“4:47am.” He informed Charlie, his voice thick with sleep. Charlie tried to ignore how sexy Owen’s morning voice was, instead focusing on his daughter.

“Mags it’s too early to be awake.” He told her. Margaux pouted, flopping down on top of him.

“Daddy, it’s my birthday!” She exclaimed. Charlie smiled, kissing her cheek.

“I know baby, happy birthday. Now can we sleep for a little bit?” He tried. Margaux thought for a moment.

“Only if Papa comes here too.” She decided.

Charlie’s eyes widened slightly, eyes fixed on Owen as the younger boy sleepily slid out of his bed with no hesitation, and into Charlie’s, snuggling into Charlie’s side the minute he laid down. Margaux squirmed her way under the covers, squishing herself in between the two of them.

Charlie shut his eyes in an attempt to get back to sleep, but it was no use. He opened his eyes again, staring up at the ceiling, as Margaux slept soundly next to him.

His mind was racing, noticing every single little place where Owen’s warm skin was in contact with his. It felt like he was on fire.

“Stop thinking.” Owen mumbled, and Charlie turned his head to see Owen staring at him, his eyes half shut with sleep.

“How did you know?” He questioned. Owen gave him a small smile.

“I always know. Whatever it is, just ignore it for now. Get some sleep, it’s gonna be a big day.” Owen whispered. Charlie paused for a moment, just staring at Owen in the dim light from Margaux’s nightlight. Even half asleep in the almost complete darkness of the room Owen still looked gorgeous. Charlie swallowed.

“You’re right. Thanks O.” He replied.

“Love you.” Owen yawned in response, his eyes shutting again. Charlie smiled softly, moving his hand to brush a bit of Owen’s hair off his face.

“I love you too Owen.” He replied, despite the fact that the younger boy was already asleep. He pressed a soft kiss to Owen’s head, and lowered his voice to no more than a whisper.

“More than I probably should.”

After what felt like no time at all Charlie was being shaken awake again.

“Daddy is it time to get up now?” Margaux questioned, sitting on his chest. Charlie yawned.

He reached over and checked his phone. It was just after 6:30am.

“Okay we can get up. But we’re gonna leave Papa to sleep a little bit more, okay?” Charlie compromised. Margaux thought for a moment before agreeing. Charlie grinned, sliding the both of them out of the bed careful not to wake Owen. Once they were out of the bed Charlie lifted Margaux up, placing her on his hip. He pressed a soft kiss to her temple.

“Now. Let’s go make some birthday pancakes.”

“Happy birthday Little Gillespie.” Jeremy sung, entering the kitchen with Carolynn close behind him.

Margaux grinned, her mouth full of pancake.

“Thank you!” She exclaimed, her words muffled by her food. Carolynn stepped past Jeremy, moving to place a gentle kiss on Margaux’s head and whisper to her. Margaux grinned before looking up at her father.

“Hey Daddy?” She spoke. Charlie made a noise in response.

“Yeah?” He said, flipping pancakes onto a plate for both Jeremy and Carolynn.

“Do you think the birthday fairy could found me here?” Margaux questioned, her eyes full of hope. Charlie couldn’t help but smile, not even bothering to correct her words, as he placed the pan down.

“Should we go find out?” He asked. Margaux’s eyes widened in excitement.

“Yeah! But first we have to get Papa.” She decided. Charlie nodded.

“You wanna go wake him up? Tell him we made him some pancakes?” He asked, and Margaux grinned, already sliding out of her chair.

“Okay Daddy!” She replied, before rushing out of the room. The room fell silent for a few moments before Carolynn cleared her throat.

“So Charlie...” She raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been in love with Owen?”

Charlie choked on his coffee.

“I’m sorry, what?” He spluttered. Carolynn grinned.

“You heard me.” She said. Charlie hesitated.

“I’m not-” He stopped. “I-”

He groaned. There was no use denying it if clearly he was obvious enough that his friends had figured him out.

“Since filming.” He admitted. Carolynn cheered.

“You owe me $20.” She told her husband, who glared at Charlie.

“You just had to admit it, huh?” Jeremy shook his head, and Charlie shrugged, a small smile on his face.

“Admit what?” Owen’s voice came from behind them, deep from sleep, and Charlie took a sip of his coffee to try to distract himself. Owen always looked good but in the early morning light, his hair still a mess from sleeping, he looked ethereal. Charlie bit his lip to stop himself from staring.

“Nothing important.” Carolynn replied, and Charlie shot her a thankful look.

“Can we see if the birthday fairy visited now?” Margaux sighed, clearly impatient. They all laughed.

“Of course baby.” Charlie told her, standing up. He grabbed the plate of pancakes he had made for Owen, handing them to the younger boy as he passed him.

Margaux lead the way to the living area where Kenny and Tori were already sat waiting, squealing with excitement when she saw the small pile of presents on the table.

“They came!” She exclaimed, and Charlie couldn’t help but smile, ruffling her hair affectionately.

Margaux settled down on the couch as everyone spread out around the room, and one by one she opened the presents, eyes widening with excitement at every single one.

Charlie had gotten her a few dolls that he knew she had been wanting, plus some new clothes, books and other toys.

Jeremy and Carolynn had gotten her a small paint set with a Frozen paint by numbers.

Kenny had gotten her a tiny version of the Sunset Curve shirt that the cast had all received.

Tori had gotten her a little lilac tutu.

Madi, Jadah and Savannah had sent their presents, some handmade earrings, little stud versions of the ghost drawings that Carolynn had created from Madi, a small pair of overalls from Savannah, and a colouring book from Jadah.

But her absolute favourite gift had come from Owen, a tan coloured bear from Build-A-Bear that he had dressed like Luke, and the clothes to change the bear into Reggie, Alex and Julie if she wanted to.

After hugs all round the group decided to go their own ways, with Kenny heading off to spend the day relaxing, and Tori, Jeremy and Carolynn going to the beach to sunbathe since Carolynn’s flight had been delayed.

“Where do you want to go today birthday girl?” Charlie asked, as he and Owen collected the pile of gifts to move them back to their room.

Margaux frowned in thought, the bear still grasped in her arms.

“Hiking.” She decided, and Charlie laughed. She was definitely his daughter.

“You sure? We can do whatever you want to do.” He checked. Margaux nodded, her attention focused on her new clothes that Charlie had placed on the bed to fold later.

“I’m sure.” She said, reaching for the Sunset Curve shirt and overalls. “Can I wear this?”

“Of course you can.” Charlie agreed.

“I’m gonna have a quick shower.” Owen said, grabbing some clothes out of his bag. Charlie nodded, focused on helping Margaux change out of her pyjamas into her new clothes.

“Do you think we can have some time tonight just you and me?” Charlie asked once Margaux was dressed, moving to grab her hairbrush and some hair ties.

“Yes please Daddy.” Margaux agreed, sitting on the edge of the bed as Charlie sat behind her.

“We could go get dinner just the two of us, and then come back here for birthday cake.” He suggested. Margaux frowned, clearly thinking.

“Is it chocolate cake?” She asked after a moment, and Charlie paused from brushing her hair to kiss the top of her head.

“You’ll have to wait and see.” He teased. Charlie finished tying her hair up into two little space buns, not quite proper buns but as close as he could get with her shortish hair.

“I hope it’s chocolate cake. I love chocolate cake.” She giggled, standing up on the bed and turning around to hug her father. Charlie wrapped his arms around her, a gesture that was so safe and familiar.

“Me too baby, me too.” He agreed. Margaux snuggled her head into his shoulder.

“Is Papa coming hiking?” She questioned. Charlie grinned to himself.

“Do you want him to come?” He asked. Margaux didn’t even hesitate.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m sure he’d love to come.” Charlie assured her. She pulled away. looking him in the eyes. Charlie had always loved that she had gotten his eyes.

“Do I ask him?” She said, eyes wide. Charlie struggled to contain a laugh at how serious she looked.

“When he comes back, yeah.” He nodded.

“When who comes back?” Owen asked, re-entering the room. Margaux jumped up, throwing herself at the 20 year old. He lifted her up with no hesitation.

“Are you gonna come hiking?” Margaux asked, her bottom lip jutting out in a pleading way.

“Of course I am. Wouldn’t want to miss spending time with my two favourite people.” Owen grinned, kissing her nose causing her to giggle. Charlie’s heart skipped a beat at the declaration that he was one of Owen’s favourite people.

“Yay! Can we go now?” Margaux turned in Owen’s arms to face her father. He nodded, standing up from the bed.

“Shoes, and then we can go.” He said, and Margaux squirmed her way out of Owen’s arms to go find her running shoes.

Charlie exchanged a look with Owen, the both of them thinking the same thing.

It was going to be a long day.

Hiking with a just turned four year old was exhausting, even despite them choosing the easiest possible trail so that she wouldn’t have any issues.

It was fine at first, Margaux excitedly looking at the plants and trying to spot any animals in the trees, but after about twenty minutes she got bored and tired, and Charlie and Owen spent the rest of the hike passing her back and forth between the two of them.

Finally they made it back to the villa, and after a quick stop for lunch Margaux was recharged and ready for the rest of the day.

“Can we swim?” She asked. Charlie nodded.

“We’ll go and get changed, and then we can go in the pool for a while until we have to get ready for dinner, okay?” He suggested.

“Okay Daddy.” Margaux smiled sweetly.

After quickly changing into their swimmers, Charlie, Margaux and Owen ended up in the pool, Jeremy and Carolynn lounging nearby.

They swam for a few hours until Margaux got thirsty, and with a promise of apple juice she and Charlie climbed out of the pool leaving Owen to go sit with the Shada’s.

Charlie walked inside the villa, finding Kenny sat at the kitchen bench reading while Tori lounged on one of the couches, staring at her phone.

“Why don’t we do cake now, so that you don’t have to worry about rushing home?” Kenny spoke up, as Charlie manoeuvred through the kitchen to get the apple juice out, Margaux clinging to his chest like a baby koala.

“That’s a good idea. Do you want to do your birthday cake now Mags?” Charlie asked his daughter, pouring her some apple juice. She sipped on the juice, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Yeah!” She exclaimed. Charlie smiled.

“Okay, can you go get Papa, Aunty Care and Uncle Jer for me?” He asked, placing her down. She nodded eagerly, handing her cup of juice to him before rushing outside to where Owen, Jeremy and Carolynn were still sat.

Charlie grabbed the cake out of the fridge and placed it on the bench, before putting the four candles in, and grabbing a lighter.

“Have you seen my camera Kenny?” He asked, and Kenny just pointed to the end of the bench where the camera was sitting. Charlie smiled gratefully, grabbing the camera.

“Want me to take photos?” Tori offered, and Charlie nodded, handing her the camera.

Margaux re-entered the room, Owen and the Shada’s following close behind her, and when she reached her father he lifted her up. Kenny took the lighter, lighting the candles on the cake and together they sung Happy Birthday to Margaux, Tori snapping photos as the four year old blew out her candles.

Charlie held Margaux close to him as Kenny divided the cake up, thankful that he had such an amazing family to spend his little girl’s birthday with.

When Charlie and Margaux made it back to the villa after their dinner that night, the newly four year old was ready to fall asleep. Charlie carried her to bed, silently thanking his past self for deciding to give her a bath and do her birthday cake before they went to dinner because now all he had to do was change her into her pyjamas.

He changed her quickly seeing that she was almost asleep, and tucked her into the bed.

“Did you have a good birthday baby?” Charlie asked softly, settling down next to his daughter.

Margaux just nodded in response.

“That’s good.” Charlie ran a hand through her curls. “Goodnight baby girl.”

“Big girl.” Margaux mumbled sleepily. Charlie smiled, leaning down and kissing her head.

“You might be a big girl now but you’ll always be my baby girl.” He whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you too Daddy.” Margaux replied, her eyes already shut and her arms wrapped tightly around her new bear. Charlie stood up slowly and headed to the door, leaving it open a crack for a little bit of light to shine in.

He paused for a moment, just taking in the reality that Margaux was already four years old, and that she was growing up too fast. With one last look at the door he made his way down the hallway and outside to where he knew Owen was waiting.

“She’s asleep.” He announced, flopping down on the outdoor sofa next to Owen.

“I’m not shocked, she’s had a big day.” Owen replied, handing Charlie a cold beer that he had clearly gotten for him. Charlie took it thankfully, taking a large swig.

“Can you believe that she’s four already? It feels like she was only just born and I was waking up to find out that her mother was gone and that it was only me and her. It was terrifying at the time, but looking back I wouldn’t change it for the world.” He rambled. Owen rested his head on Charlie’s shoulder and Charlie wrapped his arm around the younger boy, pulling him closer.

“You should be proud of yourself Char. You’ve done an amazing job.” Owen complimented, snuggling closer to Charlie as he took a mouthful of his beer.

“You think so?” Charlie questioned. Owen nodded against his shoulder.

“I know so.” He sat up. “Margaux is the most well behaved kid I’ve ever met, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her misbehave once in all the time I’ve known her. She’s an amazing kid and it’s all because she has the most amazing father.”

“Thank you.” Charlie whispered, suddenly realising how close Owen was to him. He could feel Owen’s warm breath on his lips, and he found himself leaning in, the urge to kiss Owen overtaking his entire being. His lips brushed against Owen’s ever so slightly, but before they could properly commit to the kiss they were interrupted.

“Hey, we’re gonna play...” Tori’s voice came and they jumped apart quickly. She trailed off, eyeing them carefully. “Were you two about to kiss?”

Charlie cleared his throat. Owen’s eyes widened.

“Uh... no?” Owen lied. Tori shot them a suspicious look but clearly decided against pushing.

“Right... well we’re gonna play Cards Against Humanity if you want to join us.” She told them, before turning and heading back inside. Neither Charlie nor Owen moved, the silence was deafening. Finally Owen spoke.

“Sorry.” He muttered quickly, before standing up and rushing inside. Charlie groaned, watching him leave, the feeling of Owen’s lips still lingering on his own.

“Fuck.” He sighed, downing the last of his beer before standing up to join the rest of the group inside.

He would have to deal with the Owen situation later.

#single dad!charlie #single dad!charlie x owen #charlie gillespie #owen joyner #owen patrick joyner #dad!charlie #chowen

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sevenshoneybuddhachips · 3 years

Note

Domestic hcs for the RFA?Like just how it is the live with them?grocery shopping,movie nights stuff like that?

OOO i love these kinds of hc !! thank you for sending this in !! im going to be doing different scenarios for each character, but if you want me to do a specific one for the characters then feel free to send another ask ! these just ended up being minifics akjnfskrjgnrk. might redo them later so that it’s actual headcanons ! that’s why i didn’t post it yesterday :( my bad

RFA domestic headcanons(?)

Warnings: - General Route/After Ending spoilers - Fluff Zen: - at the beginning when you guys first moved in together, it didn’t take long to notice that zen has barely anything in his fridge except beer - he apparently eats all his meals when he’s working ?? - you decide to go grocery shopping with him!! he doesn’t really want to, but he likes to hang out with you so he doesn’t put up a fight - steering him away from the beer aisle - eventually, you leave the store with the ingredients to make spaghetti !! - (zen picked it out, since he wanted to have a “romantic dinner with you”, lolol) - you start the cooking, and get zen to help out!! - he finds out that he really likes cooking ??? - chopping up the tomatoes is fun for him, and he likes to mix the pasta while it’s boiling - when you guys sit down and eat it together, his eyes light up ??? - he loves how it tastes, but more importantly, he loves that he helped you make it - and that he’s having a “candlelight dinner” with the one he loves - he definitely tries to cook more, but he doesn’t really like doing it alone - “Ah, it doesn’t really feel the same without you, babe~” Yoosung: - just because he’s a vet, doesn’t mean he’s stopped playing video games - he’s given up on lolol though, after you nagged him about how bad it was for his health to pour so much time into it - alternatively though, he suggested another game for you two to play together !! - it’s a multiplayer game about living in a small town and owning a farm !! - for some reason he seemed super flustered abt playing it with you though?? - you’re just ????? confused - after all, it’s just farming, right? - it’s been a few weeks of playing it off and on at this point, and you get ready to log in - for some reason yoosung is tripping over his words a lot, and acting really... nervous? - you’re worried, but you figure maybe he needs the game to calm down??? - until he asks you to visit the beach in game - where he gives you ... a pendant? - you’re happy about it, of course, but you’re not really sure why yoosung was so flustered over it - until he tells you what it means - “With this item, um... you can marry people! So, I figured...” - Now it’s your turn to be flustered - how is he so cute???? - him getting this anxious over a video game marriage... how would he react in real life? - you get up and walk over to his desk, leaning over to kiss him on the head - “i do !” Jaehee: - Jaehee has always seen cleaning as just another chore to get done in her hectic, busy life - especially when she was still working for Jumin - while she valued keeping her house clean, it just wasn’t as important in comparison to her work ! - that changed whenever she opened the cafe with you, though. - now, she actually looks forward to cleaning up after work !! - you guys put on music you like jaehee usually puts on zen’s musicals and dance and sing as you clean up for the day - taking breaks to slow dance ???? taking breaks to slow dance. - admittedly, jaehee gets really flustered when she does dance with you so it doesn’t happen very often - when you’re done cleaning for the night, the both of you go upstairs to your apartment and just talk about your day and the things that you encountered - man i love jaehee Jumin: - as much as you love your husband, you do have one issue - he’s always busy :( - and while you know that you could get him to take time off by just asking, you haven’t even tried that as you know that would cause him trouble at work :(( - but one day, jumin decides to surprise you by staying home !! - he knows that you miss him, and honestly he probably misses you 10 times more he’s such a simp lmao - he wants to have a “movie night” with you, as he’s curious to what it’s like??? - you put on one of your favorite shows/movies, scared that he wouldn’t like it - his face didn’t betray any particular emotion, and it seemed like he might be bored - afterwards, you ask him what he thought about it - he thinks about it for a moment, you leaning on his shoulder, heart pounding while waiting for his answer - “I liked it. You have good taste. I must say, some of the technical aspects were a bit laughable but...” - you breathed a sigh of relief - he was just being Jumin !! - With a smile, he reached over and brushed a stray hair out of your face - “Besides, I’m sure I’d like anything that you like, dear.” Seven: - there are a lot of things that seven feels guilty for - y’know, the things he put you through in the first 11 days he knew you - also the months after that - but one thing he feels especially guilty about is his house - i mean, for him living in a bunker is fine. he’s used to being isolated. - but for you? he can just tell that being in a place with industrial lighting and no windows almost 24/7 is draining - so, being the God Seven that he is, he comes up with a plan - it all started one night when he picked you up ~bridal style~ and Plopped you in the driver seat of his most beloved car - “You’re gonna have to trust me, okay? Put this on.” - he handed you a blindfold ????- immediately you were wary that this might be a prank, but you know that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you so you decided to just go along with it - it was a nice car ride - for 30 minutes you guys were just listening to music and talking to each other about your days - abruptly, he pulls over - “We’re here,” he smiles, pulling the blindfold up off of your face - the first thing you see is his golden eyes looking into yours, before he swiftly breaks contact and exits the vehicle - you follow after, and look around to see- - “Whoa...” - the entire sky is full of stars- and, was that a meteor? - “Surprise!” He laughs - turns out he’d been planning this for awhile - AND he brought a picnic basket????- this night would be a night for you both to relax, and enjoy each others company

#mysmes #mystic messenger #mystic messenger imagine #saeyoung choi #707 #yoosung kim #jaehee kang #jumin han #hyun ryu #zen mysmes #imagine #mysmes headcanons

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angrylizardjacket · 3 years

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dirtbags // 1: Charlotte

Summary: Motley Crue High School AU with The Pack (Lola, Charlotte, Peach, & Eileen); Winter, 1984. Charlotte’s halfway through her Junior year of High School when Lola arrives in town, and becomes a part of Charlotte’s life almost by accident.

Tommy seems to fall for any girl he hasn’t grown up with, Nikki and Charlotte are in agreement that their friendship becoming public knowledge would be social suicide for them both, Vince is a tool, and Eileen is still mad at him for what happened over Summer.

A/N: 8829 words. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO @misscharlottelee this has literally been in the works for what’s felt like a year, but i decided that i can’t keep putting it off forever, so here. part 1. i think im going to try and put these out weekly?? maybe sooner?? but i adore you and i of course absolutely adore @josaphinebaker so i’m glad to finally let you all enjoy the long-awaited, multi-part HS AU (me, not posting writing for months: AND WHAT’S THIS? THE HS AU WITH A STEEL CHAIR --) ft. a softer world quotes

who said life can’t be an adventure? because whoever said that is probably the villain.

There’s a place for everything, and everything has it’s place. That’s they way the world works, at least, that’s the motto the rest of the cheerleading team seems to adhere to almost religiously. Charlotte, who’s been on the team for almost a full year and a half, since the start of her Sophmore year, can’t see the world so black and white. It’s not that she signed up to be a Cheerleader to fulfil some bitchy, blonde stereotype, it’s more that she had free time to fill and thought it would be fun. It took her a few months to find her footing once she’d been offered a place on the team, and was quickly thrust into her school’s the social spotlight, but she managed in the end, and had been managing ever since, mostly.

“Charlie, you’re so lucky,” Tommy, her cousin, lamented to her, driving her home after cheer practice, and marching band, had finished for the day. He was still in his uniform, as was Charlotte, and she gave him a sidelong glance, picking at the nail polish on her thumb. She doesn’t even give him an answer; ever since she’d joined the team, he had felt the need to wax poetic about the other cheerleaders and their uniforms. It’s so familiar that she doesn’t even need to prompt him into mooning over seeing Pamela in the cafeteria that day.

“She’s never going to date you if you don’t talk to her,” Charlotte’s smile is sly as her gaze slides back to the road, and the sun drifting towards the horizon.

“If Pam ever found out I’d looked at her, she’d probably just spit on me, call me pathetic or some shit,” Tommy’s eyeroll is implied by the flatness of his tone, but Charlotte can’t help but laugh.

“Oh Tommy, everyone looks at Pam,” she reminds him, and Tommy lets out an annoyed whine.

“I know,” he groans, clearly not cheered by that fact, feeling ever the more hopeless, and they fall into silence. Charlotte reaches down beside her seat and lifts a lever, pushing the seat back so she could comfortably rest her feet on his dashboard.

“Did you hear someone finally bought the MacCready burger joint? Dad was talking about it yesterday,” Tommy says mildly, making a left-hand turn onto their street. Charlotte raises her eyebrows, intrigued, but doesn’t speak. Tommy knows her well enough to take her silence as an invitation to go on, “Mrs Mac is going into hospice care and apparently some guy bought it and moved into town.”

“Oh shit, poor Mrs Mac,” Charlotte muses, and crosses her ankles on the dash, “hopefully their food is edible now.”

“Their burgers were great!” Tommy protested loudly.

“Their burgers were trash, Tommy! You’re just a rat -!”

“I’m not a rat!” He argues back, pulling into the gas station around the corner from their house. Tommy pulls up beside one of the pumps, and Charlotte gets out to browse the various snacks on offer inside the service station.

“Afternoon, Mick,” Charlotte calls out to the gas station attendant, the guy who’s been working here since he was fourteen, who’s currently got an electrical apprenticeship every other day. Charlotte realizes she might know too much about him considering he barely communicates in grunts most of the time. It’s not that he can’t speak, it’s just that he has a well documented dislike of her over exuberant cousin.

As expected, Mick doesn’t look up from his copy of Rolling Stone behind the counter, but makes a noise of acknowledgement.

Before Tommy has finished filling the tank, an unfamiliar figure enters the gas station, breezing past Charlotte and snatching up a packet of pork rinds, moving to the drinks fridge and taking a can of lemonade. The person is a young woman, though Charlotte doesn’t get a good look at her face; she’s got silky, black hair down to the small of her back, beneath a backwards baseball cap, and she’s the most notable of her clothes are her scuffed, black boots, and her oversized, black denim jacket littered with patches and pins.

When she puts her items on the counter in front of Mick, she pauses, frowning at the display, and Tommy enters the shop with an oblivious smile, asking if Charlotte had decided on anything.

“Can I help you?” Mick asks flatly, and the girl holds up a single finger, the universal signal for wait, and Mick huffs, but remains quiet. The girl adds a packet of gum to her haul, and leans her elbows on the counter.

“And a pack of Marlboros.”

Mick scowls.

“How old are you?”

“Are you being paid enough to care?” She responds, voice a low, challenging alto, and after a moment of deliberation, Mick actually shrugs, and turns to the cigarette display, picking out a pack for her as she pulled a few bills from her back pocket. After everything’s paid for, and the various food and drink had been stashed in the numerous pockets of her jacket, the girl is quick to open the cigarettes.

“They’re for my dad,” she explains, taking one out and putting it between her lips, grinning, “mostly.”

She passes a bewildered Tommy and Charlotte on the way out, giving them a flat look over, eyebrow raising minutely at the sight of Charlotte’s cheerleading uniform, but she’s quickly out the door. Tommy, flabbergasted at her display of confidence, marches straight up to counter and leans on it like he’d seen the woman do.

“A pack of -”

“Fuck off,” Mick tells him, before Tommy even finishes his sentence. Charlotte snorts a laugh, approaching the counter with a bottle of diet coke.

“Fifteen bucks on pump three,” Tommy sighs, pulling out his wallet, “and Charlie’s drink.”

“Do you know her, Mick?” Charlotte asks, still smiling, mind playing over the interaction.

“Do I look like I know her?” Mick grumbles, counting the handful of quarters Tommy had passed him with a ten dollar bill. Tommy, however, has never in his life taken Mick’s constant foul mood to heart, even when he probably should.

“He loves me, secretly, I know he does,” Tommy grinned when they were back in the car, heading to Charlotte’s house to drop her off, “we’ve known each other for five years, we’ll be friends any day now.”

“Tommy, he’s three days away from just decking you when you go to pay.”

“Which is a step up from when you said he’d throw me in front of traffic,” Tommy, ever the optimistic dumbass, chooses to look on the bright side. Tommy wears his affection on his sleeve, and seems to find himself trying to befriend anyone who would sooner fight him, if his hero-worship of local punk Nikki Sixx is anything to go by. It’s with a painful clarity that Charlotte realizes if he ever meets the girl from the gas station, he’s going to fall in love with her almost immediately.

Which makes Charlotte’s accidental and secret friendship with Nikki Sixx awkward.

“Oh Miss Lee,” Nikki whistles at her the following morning, wearing a grin that’s all teeth, “you know just what a guy likes to see on a Thursday morning.” He’s leering at her, leaning on the mesh of the fence, fingers hooked into the metal as he presses himself against it, his gaze trained on the pleat of her cheer uniform split upon her thigh over her tights.

“Every time you speak, I consider vehicular homicide,” Charlotte tells him with a sigh, straightening out her skirt, already resigned to the fact the rest of her free period was about to be co-opted.

“Then I’m glad you can’t drive,” Nikki’s still grinning, throwing his bag over the fence, into the garden Charlotte had thought was peaceful enough to study in.

“It’s the only thing keeping you alive,” she says, plastering a fake, sweet smile on her face, closing her biology textbook as Nikki vaults the fence a few feet away from her. She pulls her jacket a little tighter around herself, in an attempt to ward off the slight chill of the end of semester air.

Never in Charlotte’s life would she have intentionally tried to befriend Nikki Sixx. How was she supposed to know that two of her free periods coincided with when he liked to show up to school? And that the secluded garden area out behind the library where she liked to study in said free periods was the easiest place to sneak in?

She’s threatened to turn him in more times than he can remember, and he spits back that she should just find a new place to study, but she keeps showing up, and she never turns him in, and by now most of Nikki’s flirting is harmless.

They were both very much of the opinion that having a public friendship would be bad for the both of them; Nikki’s got more than a reputation of his own, both because his name technically isn’t Nikki, but he fights anyone who calls him Frank, and because he’s kind of a slut. Also there’s still an unconfirmed rumour about him being expelled from his first high school back in Seattle, since he’d joined their school a semester in Freshman year. Everyone’s too afraid to ask. Charlotte knows the cheerleaders aren’t above making hell for one of their own if they were caught fraternizing with someone like him.

That being said, Nikki had made it very clear that he’d rather saw off his arm than admit that they were even acquaintances, scoffing about how he’d lose any and all street cred he’d ever had if his friends found out he was hanging around Miss Everyone’s Best Friend Charlotte Lee. At the time, she’d taken offence to his tone, but she quickly came to learn that that’s just how Nikki is sometimes.

He offers her a cigarette from the pack in his pocket like he always does, sitting opposite her on the picnic bench instead of going to class, his bag still on the grass where he’d thrown it. Like always, Charlotte turns it down, but it does remind her-

“Saw a girl yesterday at Mick’s gas station that reminded me of you,” Charlotte flips to the back page of her notebook, which was already littered with little drawings, and starts scribbling idly.

“She hot?”

“I guess?” Charlotte says after a moment of consideration, “didn’t get to see her long enough to really be able to tell.” Nikki hums thoughtfully, and Charlotte, without looking up, “she asked Mick for cigarettes and he was like ‘how old are you?’ and she was like ‘are you being paid enough to care?’“

Nikki takes a long draft from his own cigarette, and kindly turns to the side to blow smoke into the wind, instead of directly into Charlotte’s face, as he used to do, or like he does when he’s annoyed.

“Mick would have mad respect for a move like that,” Nikki snorts, and when Charlotte looks up from her notebook, she sees him looking off into the distance, giving a genuine smile at the mental image. Maybe this is why she puts up with him, these rare genuine moments. He raises the cigarette to his lips again, and looks back at her, eyebrows raised, as if prompting her to go on. Charlotte looks back at her notebook.

“It inspired Tommy to try and buy smokes too, but Mick shut him down fast; I swear, if we show up when he’s clocking off, he’s going to K.O Tommy the first chance he gets.”

“Which is a step up from when you said he’d throw him in front of traffic,” Nikki notes, and Charlotte pauses, frowning. She hadn’t realised her hyperbolic threats on Mick’s behalf were a standard unit of measurement for how much he did or didn’t like her cousin. They were bullshit! Why did anyone take them seriously? Charlotte’s often astounded at her own credibility, and how much people tend to take her at her word without question.

“What’s she look like?” Nikki asks, flicking his ash into the grass, bringing Charlotte out of her thoughts.

“Who?”

“The girl from the gas station.”

“Oh,” Charlotte pauses, thinking, finally settling on, “she was wearing heaps of dark shit, had black hair, maybe that’s why I thought of you. I don’t know who she is though, didn’t recognize her from anywhere.” She adds, and Nikki hums thoughtfully, nodding. With his free hand, he snatches her pen out of her grip, despite her yelp of protest, and begins doodling pentagrams on the back cover of her notebook.

“You free tomorrow night?”

“I’d rather die than date you.”

“Charlie, you’re not my type -”

“Nikki, your type is tits and a heartbeat.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d fuck you, but I’d rather be castrated than date you,” Nikki responds flatly, and Charlotte quickly shuts up, scowling, “but my band has a gig at a place that doesn’t card, so if you and that overgrown Labrador you call a cousin can sneak away from mommy and daddy for the night, you’re more than welcome to come party with the big kids.” He smirked, flicking Charlotte’s pen back at her. Charlotte’s annoyance has simmered down at his offer, considering his words.

“Nikki Sixx inviting me to see his band,” she mused, sly smile curling at the corners of her lips, mischief glinting in her eyes, “you like me, don’t you? You like Miss Everyone’s Best Friend. Soon I’m going to be your best friend too!” At least she was self aware enough about her people-pleasing tendencies to poke fun at his scorn.

“I like that you’re cousin’s obsessed with me, so bring him too,” Nikki’s quick to correct, but his heart’s not fully in it, if the smile he’s failing to repress is anything to go by, “I’m just in it for the ego trip, sweetheart.”

Charlotte gags at the pet name; the bell rings.

“She smells like an ash tray,” is the first thing Charlotte hears when she sits herself with the rest of the cheer squad at lunch, and she’s terrified for a moment that Heather, the Vice Captain of the squad, is talking about her. Discretely, Charlotte sniffs at her hair, worried that the perfume she’d spritzed to hide any of Nikki’s lingering smoke had worn off quickly. Heather’s not even looking at her, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially to the other gathered girls.

“Heather, half the people at this school smell like smoke,” Eileen cuts in as the voice of reason, taking a dainty bite of her food to punctuate her point. Heather’s expression sours.

“Yeah, but she’s pretty, why would she smoke?”

“Heather, you smoke,” Eileen rolls her eyes, and Heather sits back, crossing her arms, long, dainty fingers resting on her perfectly tanned and toned biceps.

“Yeah, but at least I have the decency not to smell like the bottom of an ashtray,” Heather raises an eyebrow, as if offering some form of challenge, and Charlotte watches Eileen bite back on a scathing retort, simply offering a withering smile, and continuing on with her lunch, “anyway,” Heather rolls her eyes, and starts up a new conversation with the girls on her other side, who were hanging onto her every word like it was gospel.

It’s quite possible that the tensions between Heather and Eileen may never actually die down, Charlotte considers, fiddling with the plastic-wrapped straw of her juice box. The thing is that Heather had only scored the position of Vice Captain of the cheerleading squad after Eileen, practically a shoe-in after two years on the squad and a pretty impressive acrobatic repertoire, publicly turned down the offer, quit, and joined the swim team the very next day, refusing to give a reason for any of her actions. A vicious joke circled the school about Heather being sloppy seconds, and despite Eileen never actually contributing to the joke in any way, or even acknowledging it, part of Heather still obviously resented her. The fact that Eileen still chose to sit with the cheerleaders despite not being one anymore, might also play into that, like she’s rubbing it in Heather’s face, even though she never would intend to do that.

Charlotte’s known Eileen for what feels like forever, since Summer camp in Grade School, living close enough to maintain a friendship, but not close enough that they were in the same district for Grade or Middle School. Both academically and socially minded young women, they’d found themselves in a number of clubs in those years that brought them face to face at meet or competitions, and thankfully, their local high school drew from a wider range of districts, finally bringing them together as allies, rather than competitors.

“Who were they talking about?” Charlotte asks quietly, stabbing her straw into her juice box, trying to keep their conversation discrete.

“A girl transferred into our grade -”

“On a Thursday?” Charlotte scoffs a little, “with three weeks left to go before Winter break?” And Eileen makes a noise in the back of her throat, an I know, it’s weird, right? Without saying any actual words.

“Something Fields; we just had French with her,” Eileen nods to where Heather’s now happily chattering with the other cheerleaders, earlier disagreement seemingly forgotten.

“Something?” Charlotte asked wryly, and Eileen gave her an amused look.

“Madame Laurent’s accent would butcher the name Sally, I’m surprised I managed to understand Fields,” and okay, she has a point, Madame Laurent’s French accent was half the reason any of the students studied the language, if only to understand her, because her English, while technically good, was sometimes incomprehensible.

“The girl didn’t correct her?”

“Nah, just kept quiet, embarrassed, I think,” Eileen mused, and Charlotte hummed thoughtfully, “though she did sit herself right next to Heather; bold move, I’ll applaud her for that.”

“Bet Heather didn’t like that,” Charlotte snickered quietly, and Eileen’s smile stretched into a full grin.

“She straight up moved the moment the girl put her bag down.”

“The poor girl,” Charlotte shook her head with a sigh, before clarifying, “not Heather, obviously.” Eileen snorted a laugh.

“What’s the new girl like?” Charlotte finds herself asking, intrigued.

“Quiet,” is Eileen’s immediate answer, “couldn’t get a good read on her, but she knows a decent amount of French.” But she deliberates for a moment, “looks kind of mean.” And for the barest moment, Charlotte frowns, mind flashing to the girl she’d seen at the gas station yesterday... it couldn’t be.

“Black hair?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“I saw a girl at the gas station yesterday, black hair, kind of mean looking, Mick didn’t know her,” that was the big tip; Mick seemed to know all the gas station regulars, so she must be new. Eileen catalogued this information in her mind, but had no comment on it beyond a shrug, before reminding Charlotte that they had debate after school, and asking if Tommy would be sticking around to give her a lift home.

“He will be, he’s got practice until four too,” Charlotte said with a half smile, “and yes, he can give you a lift home too... Will Peach be needing one too?” She asked, referring to Eileen’s younger sister, but Eileen shook her head.

“She’s staying back until five every day this week to finish her science fair project, mom’s happy to pick her up - something about magnets this year - but I don’t want to wait around.”

“Wait, how long until the science fair?” Last year, Eileen, Charlotte, Tommy, and Vince Neil, who they’d still considered something of a friend at the time, had all come to support Peach in both her first year of high school, and her first science fair. Peach had come third, with a rather impressive display about which various household liquids killed plants fastest, and all three had cheered when she’d been given her ribbon, and Tommy and Vince spent the entire ride in the back of Peach and Eileen’s mom’s station wagon ranting about how she should have won, and scheming about how to best put a dead houseplant in their science teacher’s bed, like some low budget, home depot Scarface. Tommy may have become their friends via his place as a constant fixture in Charlotte’s life, and Vince simply because he had grown up as something of her neighbour and Tommy’s close friend, but their loyalty was absolute. Well, almost absolute. Vince was noticeably absent from their current roster of friends however, the then-four of them how vowed to make it a habit, and they could all tell Peach had been touched by the gesture, and Eileen, Charlotte, and Tommy were, at the very least, going to uphold that promise. A small smile plays on Eileen’s face.

“Next Tuesday, she’s so excited.”

if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. but you won’t.

So according to Eileen, Vince Neil is throwing a party on Saturday, and seeing as Charlotte’s parents still think the world of Vince after he’d been so kind of her after everything happened with her ex at the start of the year, she’s allowed to go. They went to middle school together, though he was always a year younger than her, in Tommy’s grade, and their parents were passive-aggressive PTA friends for a few years there, and, as mentioned before, he’d been genuinely sweet when she was at her lowest. Her parents don’t know that a week and a half into Summer break, right after he’d taken her to prom and promised to key her ex’s car if she asked, he started surfing, starting hanging out at the beach with the rest of the pretty, mean jocks spending their Summer in the sun, and had turned into a vain asshole. Or, well, more of a vain asshole than he already was.

Vince’s family was well off, and his parties were legendary, which is what made her parents agreeing to let her go so strange.

What they didn’t, and would never agree to, was letting her go to Nikki’s gig, so she didn’t even bother to ask. Instead, she asked to spend the weekend with Tommy and Athena. Her mother calls to confirm that that would be okay, Charlotte packs a duffle bag with outfits for the weekend, and her mother reminds her to take care of herself at the party the following night, kissing her on both cheeks when Tommy turns up in his beat up Vista Cruiser.

“Why are you hanging out with us tonight?” Tommy asks, frowning, still in the clothes he’d worn to school. Charlotte’s grip tightens on her duffle bag.

“Because we’re going out tonight.”

Immediately, Tommy’s posture straightens, and his expression lights up; he was delightfully easy to excite. Suddenly he was brimming with questions as he drove, fighting to keep his eyes on the road, and Charlotte let herself relax a little, glad to see he was onboard.

“Nikki Sixx’s band -”

“- is playing tonight!” Tommy finishes her sentence, his voice breaking on the last word out of excitement, though Charlotte kindly doesn’t comment, and it doesn’t stop Tommy’s eyes from sparkling, “he wrote it in sharpie in pretty much every bathroom in the school; you want to go?” Yeah, that sounds about par for the course for Nikki Sixx’s brand of advertising.

“You’re half in love with the guy,” Charlotte ignored Tommy’s spluttered protests, “so I wanna see what the hype is about,” she lied easily. She wasn’t a fan of lying to Tommy, he deserved better than that, but he also might crash if he knows that Nikki had personally invited them.

Tommy begs his mom to let them go, promising to be safe and be back by midnight, and the moment Charlotte vouches for him, his mother’s concern melts into agreement, and Athena complains that she’s never allowed to go anywhere. Tommy sticks his tongue out at her, and she kicks him in the shins, scowling, until Charlotte asks her to help her get ready, and Athena brightens considerably.

“Charlie you look like a badass!” Tommy delights when he steps out of the bathroom, hair all teased up, eyeliner expertly applied his waterline, wearing an outrageous outfit. He was going to fit in easily.

“Holy shit, dude, so do you -”

“Tommy! That’s my shirt!” Athena accused, storming over to him, trying to pull the tight, black tank top with the hot pink diamante lightning bolt off of him, despite his jacket over it, while he tried to slap her away.

“It looks better on me!” Tommy snapped, escaping her grasp and trying to hide in the bathroom.

“Dude, she’s thirteen, give her the shirt back, you can borrow one of mine,” Charlotte sighed, standing back from it all.

“Never!”

His mother called out if everything’s okay, and while Athena yelled that Tommy was stealing from her, Charlotte called back that she’d take care of it.

“Charlie, please,” Athena sulked, leaning against the closed bathroom door, while Tommy told his sister to piss off. Charlotte sighed, before giving the young girl an evaluative look.

“Would you let him wear it for five bucks?”

Athena squinted at her, seriously considering the offer; if Tommy had made it, there would be no way she would have accepted, but she knew Charlotte was good for it.

“Fine, but if he stretches it, I’m telling mom about his stash of Playboys,” she threatened, to which both Tommy and Charlotte made noises of surprise, Charlotte because she hadn’t known about that, and Tommy because he clearly didn’t think Athena knew about it either.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Tommy hisses, wrenching the door open. Athena turns arms crossed, smile smug, and gives him her best try me look. Tommy wrinkles his nose, but stalks into his room, grabbing a five ones from his wallet and giving them to Athena, who Charlotte had never seen so pleased before.

“I hate her,” Tommy seethed, and Charlotte petted his shoulder in solidarity.

“I know,” and then, “aren’t you going to be cold?”

“I’ve got another jacket.”

The pub, Kings’ Hotel, sits on the border between suburbia and the CBD, and Charlotte’s been past it a million times, has spent a considerable amount of time idly staring out the window of MacCready’s Diner across the road, but never actually been inside. Speaking of MacCready’s, there’s a ton of scaffolding around it that Charlotte definitely doesn’t remember, and the sign’s been taken down, so it appears Tommy’s gossip about it being under new management was true.

There’s no bouncer, but high schoolers and music were already spilling from the building by the time Charlotte and Tommy showed up. The music is decent, if a little heavy, but Charlotte knows she could definitely get into it if she wanted to. When she approaches the building, she notices a gaggle of vaguely recognizable people all in a cluster, huddle together while they smoked to keep warm in the cold night air.

“Hi Heather,” Tommy calls out to one, putting on his most winning smile, and when Charlotte gets a proper look, yeah she can see Heather with her hair sprayed up and lipstick shiny, give her cousin a sceptical look. She does, however, notice Charlotte, and her expression shifts to something faux sweet and coy, a show of being amicable to someone obviously associated with a fellow cheerleader, and she gives them both a wave.

“I thought you had a thing for Pam,” Charlotte asks quietly as they push their way into the pub.

“Charlie, I’m into any and every cheerleader I’m not related to, why should I deprive any of the other lovely young ladies by only focusing on one girl?”

“Gross,” was Charlotte’s only comment. Tommy ignored her.

It was kind of overwhelming at first, between the loud music, the crush of people she half-knew, the fact that the bartender didn’t even blink when Tommy ordered a beer, or the fact that Nikki Sixx was on stage in skin tight leather pants, playing bass like it was his God given mission in life.

Her ex and his best friend had also been kind of obsessed with Nikki and his band, and she was coming to understand the hype. Between the swirling lights, the people on the dancefloor, and the heat of the crowd, it was almost hypnotizing to be a part of.

“You should get a drink,” Tommy urges, and Charlotte hesitates. She’s had spiked punch before, half a glass of wine at a family get together when her mom had been tipsy and feeling indulgent, and a couple of sips of beer that her ex had offered her when they’d gone to parties together, but she’d never really...

“I don’t know what to order,” she admits, hesitant, but still raising her voice over the music. Tommy offers her his beer to taste, but Charlotte was already well aware of the fact that beer tasted like piss, and she turns him down. She tries to think back to what people order in TV shows and movies, and tentatively approaches the bar.

“Could I get a jack and coke?” She asks, just thankful that her voice doesn’t shake. The bartender looks her up and down, checking her out without a hint of subtlety, and Charlotte fights the urge to pull her jacket tighter around herself.

“Of course, honey, that’ll be five-fifty,” the bartender smirks, and Charlotte gives an uncertain smile back, thanking him and passing over a ten dollar note. He gives her a five change, along with her drink and a wink. Gross.

“What’d you get?” Tommy asks, when she finds him again, standing against the opposite wall, already halfway through his drink. Charlotte’s holding hers in her fingertips, nervous, taking a sip and scrunching up her whole face at the taste.

“Jack and coke,” she hisses as the alcohol burns. Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up at her bold choice, and asks if he can try it. She offers it easily, and he too makes a face as he drinks, but pretends like it’s great.

They see more people they recognize, people confused but glad to see them out. They’re almost immediately accosted by Keanu, yet another face Charlotte hadn’t been expecting to see, and he wraps them both up in a hug; he’s all dark hair and wide, easy smiles, somehow everyone’s friend in a way that’s so different from how Charlotte seems to be everybody’s friend, but he and Tommy get on like a house on fire. There’s a resilience they both seem to have, and a shared enthusiasm, despite the fact that Keanu was a Senior, a year above Charlotte, and a full two above Tommy, but his good nature seemed to override these boundaries; the moment Tommy mentions he’d been thinking of heading to the dancefloor, Keanu’s more than happy to join him.

Immediately Tommy gulps down the last mouthful and beer and the pair of boys see fit to start cutting shapes on the dance floor with wild abandon, and so Charlotte finds herself at a table at the back of the room with Heather, a few other cheerleaders and their boyfriends, and surprisingly, Vince. He’s in white leather pants, and they look cool as hell, but also it’s Vince, and Charlotte’s fighting back the urge to laugh.

“Charlotte Lee, you’re looking fine tonight,” Vince slide into the space beside her, and Charlotte doesn’t roll her eyes, or make a comment about how he looks like a greasy snowman, no matter how much she wants to.

“Surprised to see you here, Vince, where’s all your popular little surfer pals?” She asks sweetly, and Vince raises his eyebrows at her, a retort on the tip of his tongue.

“I forgot you two knew each other,” Heather says, and she pauses, clearly deliberating, something dangerous in her eyes, “didn’t you used to date?”

“No,” Charlotte blurts quickly, though Vince is just as quick to deny it, “we’re friends- we were friends; not anymore. We went to prom together, yes, but we never dated.” She clarifies quickly, body language all tight and uncomfortable, which manages to go all the way over Vince’s head, and his hand comes to rest on his heart, expression reading betrayal.

“How long have been known each other, Charlie, for you to say we’re not even friends -”

And maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the alcohol, but Charlotte snapped.

“We were friends for years, Vinny, then six months ago you decided to spend all your time with a bunch of tools and bragged about taking me to prom because I was a cheerleader, and also - oh yeah, remember this? - made one of your best friends cry,” Charlotte hissed venomously, shoulders still tense, fingers gripping the edge of the table. Vince scowled.

“Peach wasn’t-” the words spill from him automatically, but there’s a flicker of something that may just be shame in his eyes, so he drops his gaze and starts again; “my friends are not tools -”

“The Vince who was my friend wouldn’t skip school three days a week to get high and fuck on the beach!”

“It sounds like you two have a lot to work out...” Heather seems genuinely surprised, and while she’d been fishing for gossip, this was too much, and she graciously backed out of the conversation, pulling one of her friends over to the bar. Charlotte was suddenly aware of how hot it was in the bar, how sweaty and oppressive it all felt.

“People can fucking change, Charlotte,” Vince scowled.

“You didn’t change for the better, Vince, whatever the opposite of character growth is, it’s what happened to you.” Charlotte spat, and turned on her heel before he can respond. She didn’t want to stand on the side side of the road out the front, so she heads for the door labelled Beer Garden, and steps into the cool night air.

Once outside, she realises how quiet it is, and when she sees Nikki Sixx at one of the tables with a blonde girl giggling in his lap, she comes to the conclusion that the band must be on break. The Beer Garden is mostly populated by smokers, the people around Nikki being the cool, intimidating, stoner punk rockers that she’d figured would be here, but that she can’t bring herself to approach. It’s nice to take a moment to be alone, she finds, breathing in the crisp night air, head feeling clearer for it, looking up at the stars glittering overhead.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Vince is a fucking tool. He’d made Peach cry the week they got back to school, and Charlotte had vowed to never forgive him for it.

After a few minutes, Charlotte takes the time to really look at the people milling around, wondering if she actually recognised anyone. Much to her surprise, in the back corner of the courtyard area, she did.

Side by side, Mick from the gas station, and the mysterious girl who’d bought cigarettes from him, sitting on the edge of a planter full of dead shrubs, both smoking, neither speaking, reading one magazine between the two of them.

Charlotte’s not quite sure who’s more likely to stab her, between Mick and the girl, and Nikki’s band of misfits, but she hedges her bets and heads to the pair at the back.

“Having a good night, Mick?” Charlotte asks tentatively, before giving pause. They’re reading a ratty old copy of Hustler. Mick looks up, and lets go of his side of the magazine, letting the girl take it, to keep flipping idly through.

“The band’s okay,” Mick muses, and seems to realise that his cigarette has gone out when he tries to take a drag on it, and he pulls out a lighter and relights it, “how’s your night been?”

“It’s been alright, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Charlotte gives an awkward laugh, looking to the magazine, which Mick seems to either have forgotten about, or not realise that he’s reading porn in public, but finally the girl looks up.

“Someone cut out all the tits,” she’s got an accent Charlotte hadn’t noticed back at the gas station, and still can’t quite place, but that’s not the part she focuses on.

“What?”

The girl flips the magazine around to show a Farrah Fawcett look-alike posing suggestively, with her entire torso cut from the magazine, just leaving a hole where the cologne ad on the next page can be seen.

“Found it on the side of the road on the way here,” Mick says, like it suffices for an entire explanation. Instead of elaborating, he offers Charlotte a cigarette.

“No thanks, I don’t smoke,” an awkward silence follows, Charlotte with her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, while the girl close the magazine with a resounding slap and threw it over her shoulder into the dead shrubs, “I’m Charlotte.” Charlotte offers her hand. The girl looks at it, then to Charlotte’s face.

“From the gas station, the cheerleader” she says, tone unreadable, giving Charlotte a scrutinizing look, like she’s waiting for the blonde to shirk under it’s intensity. Charlotte doesn’t back down, and the girl finally gives her a firm handshake, “Lola.”

Silence followers, chatter filters over from the various other groups, Nikki’s laugh, loud and clear, above the rest. Neither Mick nor Lola makes room for Charlotte, so she sways idly from side to side, people watching the rest of the courtyard.

“Didn’t pick you for this type of scene,” Mick muses finally, crossing his ankles and fixing Charlotte with a strangely neutral expression, cigarette almost burned down to the butt where it’s poised between his lips, “that over-eager cousin of yours, sure, but this doesn’t seem like it’s your style.”

“Oh, Tommy is here,” Charlotte’s quick to clarify, looking around as if he were about to jump out of the bushes and irritate the rarely amicable Mick, “but, I don’t know,” she shrugged like coming out tonight wasn’t her idea, “I’m more than happy to give anything a go at least once; people at my school are kind of weirdly obsessed with the bass player, so I guess I wanted to see what the hype was about.”

Mick finished his cigarette as he considered her words, giving a pensive look to the bass player himself, still surrounded by a gaggle of fans, and eventually stubbed the last of the ash out against the edge of the planter he was sitting on, letting the butt fall, crumpled, to the ground.

“He’s the only one with any ounce of talent,” voice gruff, Mick’s approval comes as a surprise to both Charlotte, who’s eyes go wide at the statement, and Lola, who barks an unexpected laugh, that ends with her choking on the smoke in her lungs. Mick thumps her on the back, and she roughly when her breathing clears, tears watering in her eyes.

“Whoever writes their songs is half decent,” Lola points out, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, after which she dropped her own mostly burnt-out cigarette, crushing it under the heel of her boot. Yes, she has a point, but Charlotte’s curiosity gets the better of her.

“Can I ask...?” At her tentative tone, Lola immediately tenses, growing defensive, “are you Lola Fields?”

“Why?” Lola immediately snaps, and Charlotte raises her hands in surrender. Mick’s arms are crossed, looking with interest between the two girls.

“I think you go to my school,” Charlotte quickly clarifies, but Lola’s scowl deepens, as if wondering how she knew that, “do you take AP French with a tall, ginger girl?”

“I don’t really know who else is in the class,” Lola slowly tells her, but it’s not a no, which is all that matters. Charlotte nods, but doesn’t press the subject, “it’s weird that you know that much about me.” Lola adds.

“It’s barely anything,” Charlotte points out, baffled at the sudden defensiveness.

“You know my last name and that I do AP French,” Lola says, and her gaze shifts from Charlotte to the gaggle of fans surrounding Nikki, as they all started to head inside.

“Well,” Charlotte doesn’t let her resolve falter, smiling, “my name’s Charlotte Lee, and --”

“Oi, Cheerleader, you coming inside? We’ve got another set to go!” Nikki Sixx’s voice rings out through the courtyard area, and Charlotte visibly cringes at the sound of it, turning slowly on her heel, still wincing when she faces him.

And yes, he was talking to her, his hands are still cupped around his mouth like a megaphone, a tunnel showing off his smug and toothy grin. She hadn’t realised he’d even noticed her, but he had, and he needed her to know he had.

“The world doesn’t revolve around you,” she calls back, irritated. Nikki lowers his hands, and even from this distance she can see him raising his eyebrows.

“But you’re here, aren’t you?” He leaves the because I invited to you as an implication only she would hear, knowing she would hear it nonetheless. Charlotte sighs deeply, shoulders sagging with resignation, and Nikki, feeling as though he’d won, turns sharply on his heel and marches inside.

“I hate him,” Charlotte groaned.

“You know him?” Mick seems rather surprised, enough that the emotion could be heard in his voice. Charlotte turns back, not quite sure what to expect when she faced them. Mick is watching Charlotte with actual interest. Lola was watching the spot where Nikki had been, expression carefully blank.

“He’s a pain,” Charlotte says, defeated, and Lola’s gaze flicks to her, expression turning amused, but before she can get a word in -

“There you are!” The door to the now mostly-empty beer garden bursts open, and Tommy makes himself known. He’s left Keanu somewhere inside, apparently, now that he was on the hunt for his cousin. Mick sighs so heavily that it’s all he can do to lean back into the planter, arms crossed over his chest like a vampire, as if the very sight of the kid exhausts him. From this position, the packet of cigarettes in his pocket is exposed, and Lola steals one.

“I’ll owe you,” is all she says, as Tommy approaches, in less of a beeline, and more of an unsteady wave, more than a little tipsy. Christ, his mom is gonna kill them both.

“I was looking everywhere for you,” his wide eyes betrayed his concern, despite his current state, but his concern turns to joy, upon seeing her company, “hi, Mick!” Mick does not answer, laying with his eyes closed, in the shrubs.

“He’s dead,” Lola supplies without missing a beat, pulling out her lighter and lighting the stolen cigarette, and Tommy’s expression falls.

“We should help him -”

“I can help him, don’t worry,” Lola assures, with faux seriousness, before her tone shifts to something light, easily distracting the tipsy boy, “you were in the gas station the other day with this one, weren’t you?” She gestures with her lighter towards Charlotte; Tommy looks to his cousin before looking to Lola.

“I- yeah, oh, shit, you’re- hi,” suddenly flustered as he finally remembered where he knew her from, he offers his hand, “Tommy.”

“Lola,” there’s a new edge to her smile, sparkling in her eyes as she taking in Tommy and his whole look, which has something strangely protective flare up in Charlotte’s chest. But then Lola catches the slight frown on Charlotte’s face, and it’s like she knows exactly what she’s thinking, because she lets go of Tommy’s hand and her expression betrays on the faintest hint of amusement.

“Lola,” Tommy nods very seriously, as if committing the name to his memory in his current state was quite the task, but he persisted nonetheless. After a moment, however, he seemed to remember his original mission, “Vince thought you’d headed home -”

“Fuck Vince,” Charlotte spits automatically, venomously, a knee-jerk response, and Tommy’s stunned into silence.

“Do you want to go home?” Tommy’s far too earnest and concerned for his current state, and Charlotte feels momentarily guilty for her outburst, hanging her head and letting herself breathe for a moment.

“No, the music’s good, we just got into a fight -”

“You guys used to actually be good friends,” Tommy hesitates, confused, and Charlotte gives him a rueful smile when she looks back at him.

“Then he decided that being nice to the people who have been friends with him for years was lame.”

“He’s nice to me,” Tommy says, sounding a little put out, and Charlotte shrugged, crossing her arms.

“And he’s still nice to me, doesn’t mean he’s not a tool; I’m a cheerleader, and you’re a guy, of course he’s still going to be nice to us.”

Tommy still doesn’t get it, but Charlotte decides to head back into the pub with him, throwing over her shoulder that it was nice to meet Lola. She could almost swear she heard a muttered ‘fuckin’ teenagers’ from Mick, all of nineteen years old himself, which just has Charlotte rolling her eyes. Mick taps Lola’s arm when Charlotte glances over her shoulder, while the rest of him still lays flat in the dirt, and Lola passes him the cigarette obligingly, crossing one leg over the other and smirking at him.

it doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty. i am gonna drink it through this crazy straw!

“Vince is on the warpath,” Eileen’s always been able to remain composed while unreasonably drunk better than any person Charlotte’s ever known, and the following night, while Vince’s house party rages around them in the living room of his house, is no exception. She won’t say how many vodka sodas she’s had, or who supplied her with the vodka, but the way she was unable to suppress the amused twist of her lips was a dead giveaway that she was a little more than tipsy.

“Oh?” Charlotte’s eyes were roaming from face to face at the party, never sticking to just one, hands clutching a red solo cup full of cheap wine.

“Someone told him the person who keyed his car was here,” Eileen’s close to laughter, and Charlotte’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Does he -”

“No,” Eileen shakes her head, taking another delicate sip of her own drink, “he thinks it’s one of Duff’s friends.” She says, before her eyes going wide, and she slaps her free hand over her mouth - “sorry.” Charlotte, who’s too tipsy to care about the mention of her ex, is more confused than anything else.

“Because of me?” She actually snorts, skeptical, “as if Duff or any of his friends cared about who took me to prom after everything happened, enough to key Vince’s car.” It’s been long enough now that she can laugh at it, and the warped logic of it all, knowing full well that the girl sitting beside her was the real vandal of Vince’s shiny, red car.

“Can you believe Vince asked me to invite Peach? After all that shit he pulled on her after Summer? I almost clocked him in the middle of the carpark!” Eileen’s movements were relaxed and uncomplicated, so unlike her usual demeanour, so easy-going, so honest, sometimes drunk-Eileen’s openness caught Charlotte by surprise, “told him to invite her himself if he wanted her there so bad.”

“I’m in awe of your restraint,” Charlotte mused, leaning into Eileen, letting her eyes fall closed in an attempt to keep the room from spinning in her vision, “he’s such an ass; I’m surprised you’re even here.”

“The nerve on him, acting like he’s too good to be seen with her because he’s got new friends,” Eileen shook her head, wrapping her free arm around Charlotte’s shoulders, securing her, still people watching, “I should have keyed him,” for a moment, she hiccups, and when Charlotte cracks her eye open for a moment to guage her friend’s current state, she sees Eileen glaring into her mostly-empty cup.

“I’m still deciding if I should pee on something he cares about,” Eileen says, tone so serious that Charlotte can’t help but dissolve into giggles.

“What?”

“‘s why I’m here,” Eileen was so earnest in her declaration that Charlotte was a little nervous, if only because drunk-Eileen would absolutely do something as undignified as pee on something of Vince’s in an act of revenge.

“Would you key Duff’s car for me?” Charlotte asked to change the topic, all soft and teasing, and she can hear rare, unrestrained the smile in Eileen’s voice when she assured Charlotte she would in a heartbeat, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

Despite it still being early in the night, Charlotte knew that if she seemed drunk when she got back to Tommy’s house, her Aunt would tell her mom, and that’s the exact opposite of what she needs. Tommy can get legless if he wants, he only has to face the wrath of his weirdly supportive parents; if Charlotte comes home obviously drunk, she won’t be allowed out of the house until college. So she decides to get water.

There’s bodies everywhere, and Charlotte’s struggling to move through them, even with Eileen guiding her to the kitchen.

Charlotte’s been in and around this house so many times, it should be second nature to her; she and Tommy had spent what felt like half their childhoods in this house, within it’s pristine, white walls, and expensive, leather furniture, playing pretend trying to imagine what their future would turn out to be. None of them would have pictured this, of Charlotte, of Charlotte hating Vince and still stumbling, drunk through his house, nor had they seen Vince, playing pretend with popularity, tossing them all aside for a set of conceited fair-weather friends. Tommy’s never been able to predict his own future, too willing to go with the flow to be too certain of anything.

Away from the living room, and the record player, the music is muffled, and the chatter is quieter, as people are here for drinks, or snacks, while most were choosing to dance in the crush in the living room, or making regrettable, teenage decision upstairs.

Eileen tops up her drink with obviously spiked punch. Half vodka and soda, half spiked fruit punch. Gross. Charlotte looks on in disgust as she sips water, and Eileen acts like there’s no difference between taste, but she interrupts her own performance of stoicism when her eyes widen.

“Fields.”

“What?” Charlotte asks, confused as all hell, following Eileen’s gaze to where the kitchen opens up onto the patio, only to see Lola, in a full face of makeup, hair sprayed to high heavens, wearing all sorts of black, ripped, mesh and denim layers, looking like an intimidating cross between glam rock and crust punk. She was straddling someone’s lap, looking at them intently, what looked to be a black, eyeliner pencil in her hand.

“That’s the girl from my French class,” Eileen sounds a little surprised to see her, and Charlotte smiles a little.

“Her name’s Lola -” but her mouth drops open when Lola, in the dim light spilling from the kitchen, leans in and kisses whoever she’s sitting on. After a beat, both Charlotte and Eileen burst in fits of unsubtle laughter, not having anticipated this turn of events. They’re holding each other for support in their drunken amusement, laughing like this is somehow the funniest thing they’ve ever encountered, thankfully aware enough to set aside their cups.

“I- we’re intruding right? This is- we should leave-” they’re not even the only ones in the kitchen when Charlotte says this, gasping for breaths between her laughs, but they seem to be the only ones who have noticed what’s happening, or at least the only ones who halfway care.

Until there comes a shout of ‘yeah, get some, Tommy!’ from the bonfire about thirty yards from the patio, and Charlotte very clearly and distinctly thinks ‘oh no’.

Vince is silhouetted by the fire, bleach blonde hair catching the light, but Charlotte can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Shut up, Vince!” Lola’s partner, who is now unmistakably Tommy, calls back, flustered, as Lola hides her grin against his shoulder. Vince and his cronies, none of whom Charlotte knows by name, jeer in response. Then Lola’s leaning back and saying something that Charlotte doesn’t catch, but suddenly Tommy looks inside, his expression turning from flustered and pleased to horrified as his gaze locks with Charlotte’s and they both know that she knows.

Eileen is wheezing with laughter beside her.

Charlotte sees Tommy’s now lipstick-stained mouth mutter ‘shit’. Lola follows his gaze, and waves awkwardly at Charlotte. Charlotte also mutters ‘shit’.

Charlotte tips out her water and gets herself another cup of wine from the back of Vince’s refrigerator. A lot has happened in thirty seconds, she thinks she deserves one more drink for the night.

#mick mars #tommy lee #vince neil #nikki sixx #motley crue #the pack #charlotte & lola #lola&charlotte #the angry lizard writes

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argumentl · 3 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression Episode 23 - The worst album in the world rated highly by Kurt (Cobain) and (Frank) Zappa.

K: Hi this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, starting this episode of The Freedom of Expression. Joe san, Tasai san, welcome. Hows it going recently?

J: I've just had my wisdom tooth out, I'm still quite swollen.

T, K: Oh yeh, you are!

J: Its really tough getting your wisdom teeth out at 52 years old.

K: Its quite late to have it done, right?

J: Yeh, Im doing it late. What about you, Kaoru?

K: I don't have any left.

J: All four?

K: Yeh.

J: You had this hell already taken out?

K: Oh, it was awful with me!

J: When you had them out?

K: When I first had one of the bottom ones removed, it took about an hour and a half.

J: One hour...thats awful.

K: It was growing like this (*places fist horizontally against vertical palm)

J: Ahh, if its not growing like this..(*indicates vertical growth angle with hands). This type (*horizontal) hurts.

K: Then in the end, the anesthetic wore off. I had been given anesthetic, but it wore off.

J: Eughh!

K: Then after the tooth was out, my head hurt, my whole face hurt for about two weeks..I couldn't eat anything..It was hell.

J: You didn't have live shows did you?

K: No, not at all.

J: So, you had it done in your time off? Ahh, that sounds so painful. What about you, Tasai?

T: I still have mine.

J: Oh, you have them?

T: But after hearing this, I don't want to have them out anymore.

J: Hahaha

K: Are yours like this? (*growing horizontally?)

T: No, I think they are pretty straight.

K: Well, in that case, you don't really need to have them out.

T: Yeh, but yours sounds like it was painful, Kaoru.

J: For a hour and a half...that must hurt.

K: Yeh

J: Mine was out in ten mins, and Im still this swollen. I still have my lower left one remaining, Im gonna have to get that one out too...(*Kaoru smiles) Look at him! That face! Seriously!

Um, about Hanshin...

K: Hahaha

J: Didn't you say they would win by a mile, Kaoru?

T: He did.

K: They are...in last place by a mile. (*On screen note: 'The rank at the time of filming').

T: But they did win before now, so..

J: They did win before now?? He said they were gonna win by a mile!

K: Well, at the moment they've had two consecutive wins..then yesterday was raining, so that fell through, but..I think they are onto a good winning style now.

J: I see. From now on...

K: Mm, they finally got to the starting line.

J: Hahaha.

T: Starting with five in debt, right? haha.

J: This won't make them lose heart.

K: Well, cause they've only just started.

J,T: Well, yeh.

K: Everyone has ups and downs.

J: Thats true. Still, Hanshin are strong in the summer, aren't they?

T: Thats when they get consecutive wins, right?

K: Well, I mean, its always like this, last year was the same, but in the last month or so, they suddenly get good, its like 'Weren't you losing?' As soon as you realise, its like 'Eh?!, How'd you get that good already?'...kinda.

J: How come they can never get off to a good start?

K: Hmm, probably a lack of coordination, haha.

J: Hahaha.

T: Yeah, but at the start thier pitcher did catch corona and stuff, so they couldn't practice properly from the beginning.

K: Thats only an excuse.

J: Well, its tough, as expected. But, you know, I have zero interest in pro baseball, but this year..

T: You're watching it a lot!

J:...whether or not we'll have this event depends on it, so im putting my all into showing support. Still, it may be empty support, everytime I check the results I'm like, 'Whaaat?'

K: Oh, theres still a lot more to come.

J: Like, what was with those words you said with big subtitles, 'win by a mile'?

K: That was my desire. At the time this is broadcast, they'll be doing well.

J: I see

T: Right.

K: This will be broadcast in how many days? (*Works it out) Ah, maybe not by then.

J, T: Hahaha

J: Your attitude gets weaker and weaker.

K: Ok, lets have today's story please.

T: Ok, well this has been creating a bit of a buzz at Tokyo Sports, a really terrible band has been discovered to be in a list of Kurt Cobain's (of Nirvana) Top 50 albums. People who are into music might know this already, but the band is 'The Shaggs'. They are really terrible. I've also had a listen to them on Youtube, and you could say they sound like beginners, but I did think...Huh? Hang on a sec.

J: Hahaha. Like 'whats going on here?'　

T: Yeah. But somehow ???*1, and since this has come out in the news, its become quite a talking point.

J: I see.

T: Like people are saying, 'In reality, they're really good', or 'On no, they really are bad', and stuff. Joe, do you know of them?

J: I do, yeh. I've played them on the radio before, and whenever I do, there is a big response. When people hear this novice-like performance, they really respond. There must be something more to this. The sound quality of the recording is quite high, so whenever I play it, people think 'Woah, this is so interesting! ...'. What do you think of it, Kaoru? Have you listened to it?

K: Yeh, I have. Well, I mean, its a type of expression, right? I doesn't matter whether they are skilled or not. I thought it was interesting. It leaves a lasting impression .

J: Conversely, right?

K: ???*2

J: But if you had to say if they were skilled or not, you would say not, right?

K: Well, if they are seriously trying, then they are bad.

J, T: Hahah

J: If this is thier best, then they're bad?

K: Yeh, cause this is thier recorded sound. In that case, they're bad. But someone other than the performers has actually recorded this, and said, 'yes, lets go with this'.

J: Yes

T: I see

J: No one tried fix it.

K: Yeh, they didn't try to do a re-take or anything. They wanted to make the record.

J: This is the completed version, right?

K: Yeh, so maybe it was meant to be like this *3

T: So, if you look into this story a bit more, by the time of thier second album, their performance technique had improved a bit, and conversely, they lost their uniqueness. It erased what was special about them.

J: Ahhh, thats tough. But growing up in the 80s, back then all the pop idols were really untalented, weren't they?

T: Haha

J: But they made a lasting impression. Its not really a case of whether or not they were skilled. But, on the other hand...who was that guy?... *sings* 'Watashi no ohaka no mae ni...'...Akiyama something-or-other (*On screen text: Akikawa Masafumi*), I played some of his more rocky stuff on my show, but it didn't resonate because he's just too good.

T: Ehh.

J: The songs require a certain kind of atmosphere.. and singing really well like..(*imitates a tenor's voice*), it didn't work at all. It was interesting.

T: Yeh, so there's something more to it, other than just skill.

J: I think so.

K: Well, it also comes down to who it is making the songs.

J: Yeh, that may have something to do with it.

T: I see

K: I mean, I don't know if these people (The Shaggs) wrote the songs themselves, but the songs are unique precisely because this band is playing them. This is how they do it.

J: But surely, if the songs were played properly, they wouldn't be that impressive, right?

K: Right! Haha.

J: Thier uniqueness comes from thier lack of skill.

T: Joe, can you understand how Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa would appreciate this kinda thing?

J: I think so yeh. Like, Kurt Cobain, even in his appearance, he was grungy, like, appearing in public wearing pajamas and stuff. And in the 80s, slightly before his time, there was also that computerised music, like ???*4. Frank Zappa was also mentioned, and he was an artist with really experimental aspects, so I guess they would like this kinda of thing, the type of thing where there nothing else like it. I can really understand that.

K: Yeh, people who know nothing about music might listen to some super technical and progressive music, and then listen to this, and they might think they sound the same. One of them might sound a bit off, but the other might sound way off to some people. They might just look at them the same.

J: Ah, that may be, yeh. Well, to put it simply...its not your average music, is it?

T: Yeh.

J: Its quite interesting. Its like you said Kaoru, if the progressive stuff is too advanced, it will be written off, and in this case, this band may be regarded in a similar way for doing nothing special. Still, is it possible? Whenever novices like me do Karaoke, you have to do something, don't you? Like, impersonating the singer, or getting a bit excited..if you don't, it would be a kinda chilly performance. So, with this band doing nothing like that...are they not cooperating or something?

T: Well, its hard.

J: Maybe they are professionals *laughing*

Kami: Its interesting how thier Dad forced them into it, right?

J: Oh yeh.

Kami: Its like, why does he know this stuff. They were forced..Didn't they say that in an interview or something? Thats quite interesting.

T: So, from what I've heard, thier Dad was on a mission to strike it rich, in a kind of swindler fashion.

J: Oh, that was it.

K: Ah, I see.

T: And made his daughters...

Kami: Ah, he was an imposter?

J: He tried to be

Kami: So he was witness to the recording and gave it the OK then?

T: Hmm, probably.

J: He was after something.

Kami: They had no money to record, so he just said, 'yeh, this'll do', kinda.

K: The Dad didn't have any talent either.

J, T: Hahaha

K: Or maybe he did?

J: Which is it?!

K: I don't know.

J: Right...But even if it was a ramen shop or something, if it said, 'The Worlds Worst Ramen', you'd want to try it just once, right? Its maybe the same kind of pattern.

K: But it does stay in your head, this band.

J: It does, surprisingly.

Kami: When you listen to it, there is some kind of message, right?

T: I see.

J: Well, Punk had to contend with a lack of skill, didn't it?..in that respect. 70s punk didn't use very complicated chords at all. But when it became more advanced, it kinda faded out.

K: Yeh, people from that generation ???? *5 There's quite a difference, isn't there?

J: There is, there is. What is that all about? Its like, why all the irregularity? Well, they are seeking something different, for sure...Well, we are getting carried away, but if you search for this band, you'll find it. If you search for 'The Shaggs', you'll be able to find them. The name of the album is 'Philosophy of the World'.

K: Ok, let's finish here. Please subscribe.

J: Yes, please do.

K: Thank you very much.

T: Thank you.

*1, 2, 4 Couldn't catch

*3 Could't catch explicitly, but I think thats what he means

*5 I can hear what he's saying, but I just couldn't put together what he means. Feedback always welcome btw!

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #tfoe #kaoru

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memoriashell · 3 years

Text

seashells and shores ( and something a bit more )

Characters / Pairing: Fukawa Touko / Naegi Komaru, ensemble class 78; varyingly background / implied ships are sakuraoi / ishimondo / celeschi / naeleogami

crossposted on ao3

Notes: a very late day 3 for @tokomaruweek. beach prompt! yesterday i was feeling a little burnt out so i decided to not write since i didn’t want to put out something half assed. hopefully this being a bit longer helps make up for it! ( and by a bit, i mean i basically doubled the word count compared to what i’ve done for this week so far lmao rip so much for hoping i’d catch up tonight )

rated t for touko's trauma. and also for junko having her tits out. thanks junko.

anyways tw for like trauma, the general self-depricating / self-concious stuff for toko but also like. her trauma w/ water is brought up since it's. beach? and also drowning doesn't actually happen but it is brought up. and touko mentions claustrophobia in relation to her trauma offhandedly once, and again, just generally feeling insecure.

also it's kinda implied that chihiro and celes are both trans thank you!!!

Summary: going to the beach isn't exactly an exciting thought for her, given the fact she has no desire getting in the water.

komaru seems dead set on making sure she makes some memories anyways.

Do you want to come to the beach with us? That is the first text of the morning that she receives, courtesy of Makoto Naegi. Touko considers asking who he means by us, gathers that he probably means some assortment of their classmates, and ( while it is very tempting to say yes ) concludes that she can safely say no. And she intends to do exactly that, but she gets a set of texts that stops her from being able to do so.

touko-chan!!!!

ur coming with us, right?

you should come with us!

itll be fun!

So Komaru would be there too— their...friendship is odd, all things considered. Not that the knowledge of knowing she’d be there makes the offer any more tempting, but she bites her lip and considers what to say. Not that there’s really much of a question, just keep it blunt and to the point as per usual. No point in sugar coating things.

I’m busy. Maybe next time. She’s not that busy, current manuscript aside. Not that Touko intended on ever not being busy. It’s not her fault that Komaru is too dense to take a hint.

awww :(

pls?

if u don’t wanna get in the water, ill make sure they’ll leave you alone. im sure you won’t be the only one that doesnt want to!!

Ah. She might have to ( partially ) retract her statement on Komaru being dense. Had she figured out her reluctance without her even mentioning it, or had that just been a lucky guess? Maybe it was just Makoto’s luck rubbing off on her...

i understand if you don’t want to come

and i’ll leave u alone if u rlly dont wanna come.

but it wont be as much fun without you there :(

Urgh. Yeah, this girl doesn’t understand a thing, does she? She’s probably not even realized the impact her words have on her. Touko grumbles under her breath, but figures she should respond before Komaru sends another text begging trying to convince her.

Fine.

I’m not going in the water, though.

If this goes horribly wrong, I’m blaming you.

That is a lie. Even if worst comes to worst and Syo feels the need to front for her, she won’t hold it against her. She’s the one who agreed, after all. It’s just one last attempt at offering her an out. To change her mind. Like she should. But Komaru is nothing if not stubborn, so she doesn’t really expect that offer to be taken up on. She starts making a mental checklist of what she probably needs to take with her, doesn’t get very far into that list because Komaru’s response is nearly instantaneous.

yayayayay tnk u touko-chan ily!!!!!! :D

we’ll pick u up k????

ur staying @ the place near the dorms right? see u soon!! ♡♡

Touko grimaces at the butchering of language that is Komaru’s texting ( and ignores her own fluttering heart upon seeing the casual hearts sprinkled in at the end ), and sends back, If you love me, fix your grammar.

The car ride over is mostly uneventful. In that she means she feels like she’s going to have a headache before they even get there and Makoto keeps giving her a sympathetic look. In other words, she’s learned that Komaru and both Asahina siblings should not be left to entertain themselves for the hour-long car ride, but the only silver lining here is that it was only an hour-long ride and hopefully they would be tired out for the ride back.

The highlight of the hour was that even if it’d been a tight squeeze in the backseat, that meant she’d been ( somewhat ) uncomfortably sandwiched between the door and Komaru herself. She’s a little surprised that it doesn’t set off her claustrophobia, but reckons that might just be because it’s too bright to remind her of being locked in a closet. And also because Komaru is generally distracting in close proximity, from the way she’d been halfway sitting on her lap, to the faint scent of what Touko figures to be her shampoo.

She also considers it a victory that she did not dissociate in the midst of that, but probably only because Komaru kept checking on her and apologizing for how close they are: she’d had to bite her tongue several times from saying something harsher than she’d really mean. She doesn't hate Syo, but probably counterintuitive to let them front today: whether they are aware of this, or simply just disinterested in trying to front right now, she is thankful. If nothing else, she would consider this some kind of learning moment. Maybe. Something to draw inspiration from?

Still, once she’s free from the confines of the car, she can actually relax a little— or does for all of two seconds before Komaru has grabbed onto her free hand and started dragging her towards the loud group that she recognizes as her class. Yuta and Aoi had bolted out of the car the moment they’d come to a stop to race to the waters ( she can’t imagine being that athletic and feels tired watching them ). Touko gazes back longingly at the confines of the car and the consideration that she might’ve been able to isolate herself there, but her grip’s pretty tight on her hand. Which is nice, and distracts her from thinking about escaping until it's way too late, and she’s forced to look at the group before her, and—

Slaps a hand over Komaru’s eyes with a groan. “Enoshima, wh-what the fuck, you—” She holds off on the ( derogatory ) word she wants to say, and just scowls at the sight before her. “This isn’t a...a nude beach? Are you t-t-trying to get us in trouble or something?” Granted she’s not technically completely nude, but also more revealing than she should be. Seriously, she would’ve figured that Ishimaru would’ve already told Enoshima off already because what else is he good for ( then again, he is single-handedly the only person who would probably take no real issue with it, or be naively convinced by her that it wasn’t really a problem, so maybe she really shouldn’t be that surprised ).

Enoshima cackles at her. “Don’t be a prude, Fukawa! Or are you jealous? I’m just trying to get a sick tan.” While she’s at it, where the hell is Ikusaba to keep her sister in check? Whatever, that’s not really important, and she refuses to dignify that with a response given that Enoshima probably only wants to get a rise out of her.

Instead, she makes sure to put a decent distance between them before removing her hand from over Komaru’s eyes with a huff. “Urgh, honestly...what on earth m-made her think that was a, a good idea?” She grumbles, glancing around now that she doesn’t have to stare directly at...that.

Actually, now that she looks around, the only seemingly responsible person from their class currently present was Oogami— and honestly, she seems too busy being in love with her girlfriend to count ( if it wasn’t kind of heartwarming, she’d probably be disgusted. Not in a homophobic way, in a general ew PDA sort of way ). As for any else viably responsible: Kirigiri being absent wasn’t a surprise, Fujisaki’s too soft to really keep people in check, Byakuya is...his own entirely separate category, and she would rather die than count Hagakure as responsible in any capacity. And Makoto might be a voice of reason, but she’s pretty sure he’s utterly useless here. Which is probably a horrible sign of things to come, but what else did she expect from anything involving her peers?

“You don’t want to go in the water, right?” Komaru’s voice cuts in through her thoughts, watching her closely before taking her hand to start pulling her along then. “We should set up somewhere to sit, then!”

We? She thinks, but instead attempts to free her hand from her grip and voices, “...Don’t you want to go in th-the water with the rest of them? You don’t have to, uh, to stay with me, you know. I’m not a k-k-kid.”

Her expression looks conflicted. “Well, yeah, of course I do want to! But only for a bit, probably? I mean, it’d be kind of rude to leave you alone since I asked you to come?”

She ignores the way her stomach twists at that, and purses her lips. “Technically s-speaking, Makoto asked first. You aren’t— it’s not rude of you to want...to want to have some fun without me. I know I’m n-n-not fun to stick around.” She knows she wouldn’t want to stick around herself if she had the choice. “It’s not like, like I wasn’t prepared for th-that.”

“Yeah, but— that’s the thing. You shouldn’t be! And I want to spend time with everyone, and that includes you too.” And now she’s sulking. God. Fukawa is about to growl back something she’ll probably regret saying, but is saved from doing so by a much calmer voice interrupting, having overheard their argument.

“Why don’t you go join your brother for a bit? Fukawa-san can join us if she would like to. We have an extra seat.”

Celes looks hot— and she means that in a very literal sense ( mostly ), decked out in one of her usual frilly black dresses. She looks out of place in the hot summer heat. Touko is also not sure where and how she managed to get a table out here ( and tea, apparently, and you know what she’s just not going to question it ), but Fujisaki is already pulling out the extra seat in offering, and she sighs reluctantly. Better this than feeling like she’s holding Komaru back.

“G-G-Go. Or...or I’ll let Syo toss you in the water.” Not really a threat - if anything, Syo would dive bomb into the water with her. Argh, maybe she should’ve just let them front today...

( No, no she shouldn’t have. The only person currently present that Syo would’ve mostly listened to would be Komaru— and maybe Makoto or Fujisaki if they were feeling generous— which is an entirely different set of issues she doesn’t want to linger on. Needless to say, she doesn’t particularly want Syo to cause chaos today )

Touko is saved from having to argue further with her on this because as Komaru opens her mouth to protest, Yuta comes to steal her away, blabbering on about something about a game they should play: and while he’s definitely as oblivious as his sister, she’ll consider that a good thing, just this once. The only words Komaru manages to get in is to ask Toko to keep her bag for her, which she would’ve done anyways, picking it up from where she’d dropped it. She watches them wander off ( and only looks away when Komaru starts discarding the clothes she’d been wearing over her swimsuit ) before trudging over to sit next to Fujisaki, who flashes her a small smile as she types away on her laptop.

“I am surprised you came, Fukawa-san. You do not seem like the type for these activities. You are usually quite disinterested in participating in these kinds of things, in fact. Did something change?” Ugh. This is why Touko hates being around Ludenberg. Because she’s observant, generally only bested by Kirigiri in that regard, and is generally good at picking people apart when it comes to lies and acts and fronts ( though Touko would argue this is from personal experience, and not from being a gambler ). And this fact would have irritated her, quite honestly, if she had not self-sabatoged herself by taking it as an insult, instead.

“I-I-I get it. No one really wants...wants me here. That’s what you meant, right...? You don’t have to r-remind me.” She grits her teeth. If nothing else, when she isn’t busy lying, Touko can appreciate her honesty. The tiny hand that wraps around her wrist stops her from saying anything further, even if it doesn’t take much to wrench her arm out of Fujisaki’s grasp: but she gets the feeling she is only able to do so because she isn’t actually trying to hold on too tightly.

“I’m sure th-that’s not what she meant, Fukawa-san...” Ever quick to play peacekeeper, she supposes. Touko simply grumbles at her and rolls her eyes. “...Especially since not everyone was available today, it’s nice that you were able to join us!”

“Yes, it is a shame. I would have liked for Yamada-kun to have been able to help with my tea, today.” Celes sighs as if disappointed— really? That’s what she’s on about?

Touko does a second look at who is not currently gathered, and denotes, “Is Maizono st-still out on tour...?” She thinks Komaru had mentioned something like that in passing.

“Yes! Maizono-san is on tour, Yamada-kun is at an important convention, Ikusaba-san, she’s...doing some kind of training...? I think Kirigiri-san is supposed to be on the tail end of a rough case, and...” Here Fujisaki pauses to giggle into her hand. “I sh-shouldn’t really laugh at this really, but Ishimaru-kun got sick. Oowada-kun had to force him to rest since he had been trying to work through it and made it worse for himself... or so that’s what I was told.”

Oh, so that’s the reason she hasn’t heard the loudmouths today? She might take back her sentiments on Ishimaru being useless, but he’s on thin fucking ice. Of course the overachiever would get sick during the summer holidays— apparently, she’s not alone in that thought.

“Only Ishimaru-kun would get sick during vacation and still manage to find a reason to not take a break.” Celes rolls her eyes, but Touko gets the feeling she’s amused too.

“So wh-what you’re saying is, uh, is that Oowada’s going to get sick next...right? I guess— we’ll find out if idiots get s-s-sick or not.” Touko quips— which earns a softer laugh from Fujisaki, so that’s pretty good.

Of course, it wouldn’t be like her if she didn’t put her foot in her mouth almost immediately afterwards by asking why they aren’t going in the water: she’s not really surprised because Celes rarely participates in gym ( and coming from Touko that says a lot ), but she was pretty sure Fujisaki wasn’t that self-conscious of herself. Not as much? Not that she really has any place to talk in that regard.

“Well, we already went to the beach at the start of the summer holidays! I’m not really missing out on anything, and it’s probably not my last opportunity to go during this break anyways.” And then, a little more sheepishly. “...Also I’m close to making a breakthrough on this code, I think. I wanted the fresh air, but I don’t really think I can afford to take much of a break right now.”

“She would have stayed on the train if I did not warn her we were approaching our stop, I believe. And not all of us can be like Enoshima. The brazenness of that woman is truly something else.” Touko is not sure if she says that from a place of respect or fear, and honestly she relates. And also doesn’t say any further on the subject because Celes gives her a dirty look.

Her gaze goes back out to their peers— she is pointedly avoiding needing to look at where Enoshima is— and spots Komaru and Yuta splashing around with Aoi and Oogami. Well, it looks like just splashing at least, from where she’s at. And Hagakure, who really just looks like an out-of-place sea cretin with the way his hair floats on the water’s surface, so. There’s that?

( No, she’s not at all envious of the fact that all of them get to have fun because they don’t have crippling fears: the ocean does not instill the same fear of confinement that a cramped bathtub does, but fear— there is still the fear that something will tug her down and her body will simply let herself dragged underneath out of instinct, a fear of something worse if she tries to fight for survival— )

Focus. She can feel the way her breath catches a little, the uneasy way her heart beats and concentrates on calming down. She doesn’t seem to have gotten Syo’s attention yet, nor anyone else’s, thankfully. She’ll just...watch Komaru for now, yeah. It takes a moment to relocate her, head breaching from underneath the water and surfacing like...like one of the sea’s legendary enchantresses. She means that in a wholly respectful way, of course, watching the way she shakes the water from her hair, mouth open in a wide grin while she laughs. Touko doesn’t need to hear her to know that on the sole basis of her appearance— the bright look in her eyes is enough to say she is happily enjoying herself without her.

On that note, hm. Maybe she can use some of that for the basis of her next novel— something about a siren and a lady visiting the sea? Tragic romances are always a hit, aren’t they? Okay maybe a tragic lesbian romance is more self-projection, but that's besides the point. No one has to know its self-projection if people eat it up like anything else that has her name on it.

Or maybe you need to talk to a therapist more often? Syo contributes helpfully, apparently having become more conscious at some point. Maybe her panic hadn’t gone as unnoticed as she thought. Not that they’re wrong, but talking to a therapist isn’t exactly going to help with her gay pining ( unfortunately, she wishes it were that simple ).

Yeah, that’s not something she really wants to linger on, and as if Celes can read her mind, says, “How do you ladies feel about a bet?”

“Pass.” Touko says immediately, because she is arguably far from a smart person, but she is smart enough to know to not take her chances against the ultimate gambler. Celes ignores her.

“You see, I would bet that Komaru—”

“No. We’re leaving h-her out of it.” Toko interrupts, and Fujisaki ( thankfully, like the god sent angel she is, even if she seems too good to be real ) nods her agreement.

“I don’t think Naegi-kun would be really happy if he heard us talking about his little sister like that...” Her reasoning is fair, if nothing else.

“Fine. Do you think Naegi-kun is going to interfere on Togami-kun’s behalf, or help Kuwata-kun?” A painted fingernail points out the trio by the sea. Kuwata seems pretty intent on forcing Togami into the sea, suit and all, much to his disdain. The duo is yelling, probably. On the other hand, Makoto just looks like he doesn’t know whose side he’s supposed to be on here.

In the end, it doesn’t matter because by some luck ( or lack thereof ) Togami manages to trip on a washed up stone and ends up taking the other two boys down with him. The heir doesn’t even look all that mad, really, as Kuwata dunks him back under the water in retaliation: she knows what his angry face is, and that is not it, even if it looks kind of like he’s swallowing a lemon.

Or maybe that’s just her and her sour mood feeling like she’s swallowed several lemons raw because Touko doesn’t know how to make lemonade out of all the citrus life has handed her.

“By the way Fukawa-san, about Komaru—” Celes starts, but is interrupted by Komaru’s sharp yelling, which is followed by the wet feeling of her arms wrapping around her. Touko frowns, pushing her away.

“You’re w-wet.” She states the obvious as she makes a face, not that that seems to stop her. “Are you...you're done going in the water f-f-for now?”

“Mhm! It’s too cold in the water, honestly. You’re nice and warm.” Komaru hums happily, and she grabs a towel from her bag to wrap her up in it before she ends up being the next sick kid. “I was thinking we could maybe spilt a snack...? And then we could make a sandcastle! Asahina-san was telling me about shells she saw earlier that we could use?” Touko bites back a small snort at how childish she sounds.

“Yeah, yeah— let go of me, s-so I can get up...” She agrees, ignoring the curious way Celes’ watches their interactions. She mutters something that passes for a thanks before she leaves ( not that she thinks Fujisaki notices at that point, full enraptured by her laptop screen ).

By snack, Touko realizes that this is more of a way of making sure she eats lunch— Syo had not so accidentally let it slip once that when she gets caught up on things, she has the tendency to skip meals. She bites her tongue on saying that it wasn’t necessary and instead pays for their meal because she can do that, she has the money to spare for that kind of thing: and she knows she doesn’t need to, but sometimes she feels like she needs to make it up to her before Komaru gets sick of their friendship.

And if it comes off like a date, that’s simply just coincidence.

When they return to the shore, Komaru drags her off to an area a little more secluded— she doesn’t really realize this at first, simply accepting her fate to follow along, but notices she can’t really hear anyone else. It helps her relax, feel like she doesn’t need to be so guarded.

( It doesn’t stop Touko from briefly complaining about how sandy she’s going to get because of this, which is annoying. And then immediately shuts up because Komaru offers to let her borrow her clothes, and she has nothing coherent that she can say to that. She eventually manages to spit out a no when it becomes obvious Komaru is waiting for her to say something )

“Well, okay then. You can always let me know if you change your mind.” She says, then, “Oooh, Touko-chan! It looks like there are tide pools over here!”

Komaru leaves her to pick out shells for them to use while she does the dirty work of constructing a sand castle. “So you won’t end up too sandy,” she explains. “And I trust your eyes to pick out nice shells.” She can’t really complain— although she almost makes a scathing comment about the fact that her eyes can't really be trusted when she wears glasses— and just keeps away from the waves for the most part. The water laps at her feet while she lingers around the tide pool, and then returns with the fruits of her search.

It’s...not an awfully constructed sand castle. Well, that’s probably more than a little generous to say. You know, if she was going to compare it to something kids made. As it stands ( or doesn’t, if Touko is being honest ), it’s probably not the most...concretely built and looks like part of the base might fall apart at any moment, but doesn’t say anything as she dumps an assortment of shells at her feet. And then pulls out a towel, so she can sit and watch her work. It feels like there’s another problem with this, but she can’t quite place what it is; it’s probably not important enough to point out.

Going back to the novel idea: maybe it’s not about a siren after all. Maybe it’s about a sea princess instead. A lonely girl drowning in the waters called home, in a lonely castle, and—

“Here you go!” Komaru plops a shell into her hand with no warning and beams at her. “It’s nice and pretty just like you, Touko-chan. So you should keep it!”

She definitely doesn’t almost tear up upon hearing that, swallowing thickly as she bites back a self-deprecating, Are you sure it’s not just ugly like me? Instead, she picks out a small shell from the pile and holds it out to her.

“...H-H-Here. Completely plain and, and average like you.” And cute, but that’s not important. Still, Komaru looks like she’s actually said something of worth as she throws her arms around her neck.

“Thank you! I’ll take good care of it.” She acts like she’s given her a houseplant or something of actual value, and not a shell.

Stiffly— because she still really doesn’t know how to respond in these kinds of moments, despite being friends for a few odd months now— Touko pats her back and mutters, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is!” Komaru pouts at her. “It is to me. Isn’t that enough?”

She opens her mouth to point out that she’d really just been reciprocating a gesture, but the wave crashing over them interrupts the conversation— oh yeah, she thinks absently. That’d been the other problem that she’d noticed when Komaru had started building, but hadn’t thought it was a big enough issue to point out.

Once she processes that yes, that happens, her first thought is how cold she is now, soaked to the bone. Touko represses a shudder and tries to ignore the fact that she will need to shower later because salt water gets itchy. The second thing that occurs to her, in the midst of this, is that now Komaru is wailing into her shoulder.

“I should’ve been more careful, I’m sorry Touko-chan! You’re okay? You aren’t upset, are you? I thought th—” Touko leans forward to cut her off. Her lips taste like salt, and vaguely reminiscent of the sweet snack Komaru had coaxed her into splitting. She wants to bite down on her lip, a nervous habit, and pulls back before she can accidentally manage to bite the other’s lips instead. The implications of that are a lot more than she’s willing to handle right now, and averts her gaze as soon as she leans back, so she does not have to acknowledge her actions.

That doesn’t stop Komaru from throwing her arms around her a little too eagerly, a grunt at the impact of their bodies colliding. “Too m-much.” Touko manages to wheeze out, and before she can start apologizing again, follows with, “I’m not upset. I should probably just...just buy something overpriced from one of th-the nearby shops since our clothes are soaked now...”

She takes this in fairly good stride, jumping to her feet and pulling her up by her hands. “Can I pick out an outfit for you? It’ll be fun!”

Their ideas of fun are very different quite frankly, but considering Komaru won’t overthink her appearance like she does, thus meaning it’ll be more time efficient. And quite frankly, she’s tired, so she just agrees. On the condition they can just go take a nap in the car afterwards.

Touko doesn’t quite agree with Komaru’s fashion choices, but she picks out clothes that cover up everything that needs to be hidden, so she can’t exactly complain. Nor does she complain when they do less napping and more snuggling in the backseat. Which means on the ride back, Komaru ends up falling asleep on her shoulder. She thinks about how pretty she looks in the light of the sunset.

Maybe she can rethink her next novel being a romantic tragedy.

#tokomaru week 2021 #toukomaru #tokomaru #komaru naegi #toko fukawa #touko fukawa #danganronpa #* zhi writes

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twinklecheeks · 4 years

Text

Friends With Benefits (Jeff Wittek Imagine) Part 9

Summary: Jeff and Y/N have been hooking up for a while. The whole vlog squad assumes they’re dating and Y/N does too but Jeff doesn’t like labels. He eventually starts to express interest in Natalie.

Note: Planning on making this a multiple part series, depending on how good it does. You’re 21 & Latina in this (maybe) series. Also, I’d like to apologize for the typos, if there are any. I’m just illiterate lmao.

Warnings! Pregnancy, PURE FILTH, KINKY AS SHIT, I SWEAR THIS MESS IS NASTY, NSFW. I’m being SERIOUS. Most of this chapter is sex.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Word Count: 1.7k

Jeff’s Birthday 12/15/19

David: *Vlogging* Everybody get in the room quietly

Zane & Toddy: *has buckets of ice water*

Everybody: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JEFF. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

Jeff: *under his blanket and pillows* Guys. I’m old now. Let me sleeep.

Zane: Wakey wakey baby

Toddy & Zane: *throws the ice water on Jeff*

Jeff: WHHAT THE FUCK

*Everybody runs out of the room laughing*

Jeff: So now that I’m awake, are we all gonna snowboard today?

Y/n: I can’t, so I’m just gonna stay here.

Carly: Erin, Corinna and I will stay back with her.

Y/n: Great, people are feeling sorry for the pregnant girl.

Corinna: Not true. I also hate the cold and I don’t wanna fall down a hill.

Jeff: Okay cool. We’re gonna leave in 20 and y/n, call me if anything happens.

Night time

David: I know we already sung it this morning but-

Everybody: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JEFF. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

Jeff: I just like to say thank you so much guys. I know that I’ve been such an asshole the past couple weeks but now that I’m 30 and we’re entering a new decade in like two or so weeks, I want to make things right and also I’m going to be a father to two little girls. Y/n I know of personally apologize to you already but I just wanna say in front of everybody here. I am so sorry for everything I have done to you. I will admit, I am scared to become a dad, I will protect you and the girls with my life. And thanks to everybody that came here. This friend group has changed my life for the better.

Zane: Can we stop with this sappy shit and eat some caaake.

David: *vlogging* VARDON THROW THE CAKE

Jeff: wait what

Vardon: *throws the cake*

Jeff: *dodges the cake*

*little cake fight happens in the kitchen*

David: hey y/n, can I talk to you?

Y/n: Sure..

David: I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday. After hearing what Jeff said and the way you looked at him, I’m guessing you’re still probably in love w/ him.

Y/n: ummm…

David: I don’t blame you. He is the father of your kids and he most likely still has feelings for you too. Can we just move on and be friends again?

Y/n: I’d like that very much.

*after Jeff gets cleaned up*

Jeff: What did David say to you?

Y/n: that he wanted to move on and be friends again. So now, I’m officially single.

Jeff: So does that mean I can win you back?

Y/n: woah woah woah, slow down there Wittek. You're still on a trial run.

Jeff: Is there anything I can do on this trial run to make me a lifetime member?

Y/n: *getting horny* Maybe… I mean, technically you’re already a lifetime member. I’m pregnant w/ your kids.

Jeff: Sooo… I’m not crossing any lines if I do this? *pushes y/n down gently on the bed and hovers over her*

Y/n: Ummmm….. no.

Jeff: I bet your tits have gotten a lot bigger since I saw them last. I’ll only continue if you’re okay with this

Y/n: *smiling shyly* Oh gosh yes. Please continue

Jeff: *takes off y/n’s shirt* Wow, no bra? Were you planning this? *smirks*

Y/n: No but this better fucking happen because I’m gonna beat you if it doesn’t. My tits have gotten so sore since I got pregnant.

Jeff: *sucks of the right nipple and massages the left* Mmm, they taste sweeter from what I remember.

Y/n: *moans* Mmmm.. fuuuck. Daddy you can suck on my tits all you want.

Jeff: *laughs* Daddy? Someone’s got a daddy kink now?

Y/n: Oh shut up. Let’s be honest, you had a breeding kink before because you always loved cumming inside me before I got pregnant.

Jeff: touché… and I still will cum inside you at the end. I like to finish what I started babe *winks*

Y/n: You kinky whore.

*pulls Jeff in for a needy kiss*

Jeff: *takes off your leggings* Damn babe no underwear too? You were definitely planning this.

Y/n: *getting impatient* Jeff please eat me out.

Jeff: No problem. *kisses his way down to your pussy and his warm tongue licks from your entrance up to your clit.*

Y/n: Oh my god pleease don’t tease me Jeff.

Jeff: Anything for my queen *slowly circles his tongue around your clit* I love how you were always wet for me. *eats you out*

Y/n: *cries out in pleasure* I’m trying so hard not to cum so early.

Jeff: Cum anytime you want baby.

Y/n: Oh GOD I’M CUMMING.

Jeff: *fingers her and sucks on clit*

Y/n: *trembling* mmm I feel like I’m still cumming.

Jeff: You ready?

Y/n: *smirks* I’m always ready for you.

Jeff: You’re making it hard to be gentle w/ you cause I wanna fuck you so damn rough, but I don’t want to hurt you. And you also won’t be able to walk normally..

Y/n: And who says I want it gentle? *winks*

Jeff: You’re gonna be the death of me doll.

Y/n: *gets on her knees & unzips his pants* I’ve missed your cock so much daddy. *You suck the pre-cum* It’s bigger than I remember.

Jeff: You’re daddy’s little pregnant whore aren’t you?

Y/n: I’ll always be your whore, cum slut, doll, you name it. *licks from the base of his cock to the tip* No one can suck like I can. *You hollow your cheeks so you can suck off as much as you can. His cock hits the back out your throat; you start to deepthroat Jeff*

Jeff: *grabs y/n’s hair & bucks his hips* Only daddy can fuck your mouth, cum inside you and get you pregnant, you got that?

Y/n: Of course. I’ll always take your cum.

Jeff: Get on the bed. On all fours.

Y/n: *Gets on the bed* Just fuck me rough daddy.

Jeff: *slams cock into y/n, gives her a bit to adjust* What’d say doll? *slams it into her again*

Y/n: Jesus fuck. I’ve missed you so much. No one can fuck me like you can.

Jeff: I remember you liked it when daddy fucked your ass doll. Remember?

Y/n: *trembling* Please fuck my ass and then my pussy*

Jeff: *slowly pushes cock into her* FUCK. Shit I almost feel like cumming rn.

Y/n: Fuuuuck me- too. SHIT oh MY UGH. I haven’t done anal in so long.

Jeff: *goes faster* oh fuckk… Your ass feels so amazing.

Y/n: *being a moaning mess* Cum inside my ass Jeff!

Jeff: Don’t worry doll. I’ll cum in both. *goes faster* Fucking SHIT. Sss-o ttight *cums inside y/n*

Y/n: *screams into pillow* SHIT SHIT SHIT IM CUMMING.

Jeff: *Quickly pulls out of ass and fucks her pussy* I’m still rock hard for you baby

Y/n: *Has 3rd orgasm right after the 2nd* Jefff!

Jeff: *cums inside her* Jesus.

*both are sweaty messes wrapped in the blanket*

Y/n: *cuddles with Jeff* Well that was-

Jeff: Kinky-er than usual. I didn’t think I liked to be called daddy.

Y/n: *laughing* Oh god don’t remind me.

Jeff: I’m gonna take a shower, wanna join?

Y/n: What, so you can make me cum for a 4th time tonight?

Jeff: No you little nasty. We’re sweaty and gross. We gotta wash off our sins.

Y/n: *gets out of bed and tries to stand up*

Jeff: I told you you won’t be able to walk.

Y/n: Oh shut up and help me.

The next morning

Y/n & Jeff: *wakes up at y/n’s phone ringing*

Y/n: It’s my doctor. *picks up the phone and puts it on speaker*

Doctor: Good morning y/n, how are you feeling?

Y/n: I’m feeling great.

Doctor: Well that’s good. Is there time for you and Jeff to come by my office today?

Y/n: *confused* Umm no. We’re out of town and won’t be home for another 2-3 days. Is there something wrong? You can just tell it to us over the phone.

Doctor: Well… Okay. The only thing that came up in both of your test results was that you and Jeff are carriers of a mutation of the GJB2 gene. Normally, that gene has a protein that plays an important role in the development of the cochlea, which is in our ears.

Jeff: Can you please get to the point.

Doctor: So because you both are carriers of the mutation of the gene, there’s a chance that one or both of your girls will be born partially or completely deaf.

Y/n: Wh-what?

Jeff: Is there no way in knowing if they are beforehand?

Doctor: The only way in knowing is doing a hearing test on both girls when they’re born. If one or both are born deaf, there’s options like the cochlear implant. I’ve seen this used on babies as young as 5-6 months old but that’s in the UK. Here in the states, babies would have to be at least a year old. Just remember that I’m saying there’s a CHANCE. I’m not saying that they will be born deaf.

Y/n: Ooo-kay. Th-thanks for calling. *Hangs up the phone* D-deaf? Our girls are gonna be born deaf?

Jeff: *holds y/n* Hey hey hey, she said there’s a chance. Since there’s a chance, we gotta be prepared. We gotta do our research and see what the best options are. We might also have to learn sign language and also teach them. Y/n I know you’re terrified and I am too but we have to look at the bright side.

Y/n: And that is?

Jeff: That we’re gonna have 2 beautiful baby girls.

Y/n: *smiles weakly* Should we tell the rest of them?

Jeff: Let’s wait a bit until we tell them.

Y/n: Okay.

Ummm… Yeah so that happened… Don’t say I didn’t warn y’all in the last chapter. Jeff is really stepping up after only a few days. What do y’all think of my little plot twist at the end? Also, Jeff still hasn’t told his parents! How do you think they’ll react.

Comment if you want to be on the taglist!

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northcarolinanative · 4 years

Text

𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗/𝙲𝚑 𝟷𝟹

Chapter 13: Don’t Remind Me

A/N: I am so sorry for the late update. I haven’t been feeling particularly motivated the past week or so, but hopefully, I am back and will be writing more:) thank you guys so much for reading my stuff, it means the world really. As always my asks/requests/messages are open:)

Description: John B’s Sister comes home from staying with their mom, only to find out that her brother is missing and her dad was murdered. JJ may have just lost his best friend. Her and JJ have to figure out what to do and how to pick up the pieces.

Need to catch up? Full Collision Masterlist

JJ insisted that we both text Kie and Pope about the previous encounter with Barry. He wanted to make sure that they were aware of the situation, and were looking out for Rafe. If anything, after the way Rafe looked when I saw him, Pope should be scared. JJ was getting frustrated, repeating what we had to do to me. He kept pacing through the kitchen, clearly still on edge from the encounter with Barry.

“Deny, Deny, Deny,” I spoke cutting JJ off. “I know,” I spoke standing up and walking to the opposite side of the bar that JJ was leaning against. “We don’t know anything, the hot tub was a gift from uncle T, felt bad for leaving JB here alone so much right?” I questioned him.

He shrugged his shoulders before nodding. “I need to get 50k quick, Y/N.” He said again. “How the hell am I gonna do that? I mean Pope said he’d help me pay back the restitution, but I can’t ask him to do that.” He shook his head.

I hated how JJ was so stubborn, especially now. “Hey, you didn’t pull the plug on Topper’s boat yourself right?” I looked at him raising an eyebrow, the stern tone of my voice was evident.

“I talked him into it though. You and I both know Pope would not have done that if I wouldn’t have been there.” He fired back.

“Well, he still did it JJ, which is why I think that you should let him help you pay back the restitution. You put this on your record, this isn’t just a fight on the point or shoplifting JJ, you took the fall for a felony.” I said emphasizing what he did.

“Thanks, Y/N. I really needed a reminder of that” He spat out, pushing himself off the counter turning and pulling his hands through his hair. I could tell that I was getting under his skin, but he needed to hear it. At least that’s what I was telling myself. “You gonna remind me that I also stole money from a drug dealer, or that the cops could come banging on the door because Rafe was found innocent and I am an accomplice to murder, or that just lost my best friend searching for a damn ship?” He said turning around, his voice rising with each point.

“Oh don’t even go there JJ,” I said warning him about his last statement, standing up from my seat. He scoffed and shook his head.

“I lost my best friend, and you lost your brother dude. The guy who’s guilty just beat you in front of the other fucking kooks. How are you not pissed?” He asked as he moved closer to me. I could feel the anger radiating off his body. I was almost always the one to stay calm when the boys would get hot-headed. I was always the level headed one, especially last summer when Kie wasn’t around. “We’re alone Y/N. How are we gonna do this?” He said. While he fronted the statement with rage and anger I heard the pain behind it. We didn’t have parents to run home to at night, or a rich family to bail him out, we had us and the small hope that John B and Sarah were alive. Alive in Nassau.

“JJ, take a deep breath alright,” I said trying to calm him down. I didn’t want him to break. I felt it coming, with all the pressure that he was feeling right now, I could sense that a breaking point was close. “Please,” I whispered to him, putting my hand on his bicep trying to get him to look at me.

“No, Y/N, I won’t calm down.” He said shaking my hand from his arm. “I’m fucking livid and you should be too.” He said before storming out of the house.

“JJ please wait.” I yelled as I stepped out onto the porch, but it was too late. I heard the familiar sound of his bike as it revved and the cloud of sandy dust was kicked up behind him.

I sighed, leaning my head against the door frame leading outside. I had been through this before, but it was different this time, this time it was JJ instead of John B. After the disappearance of our father John B and I would stay on the phone for hours recounting memories and talking about what he could have been doing. Neither of us was ready to think of the alternative, so we would say that he fled into Canada, or that he was on some island he bought with the gold. We made up crazy theories and laughed but the conversations almost always took a turn to JB recounting the last few moments he had spent with his father. I could hear the guilt that he felt for what he had said to him. Even after months, during our last phone call, he was angry, talking about how DCS wanted to move him because Uncle T was off somewhere and JB couldn’t get to him.

When I offered to get to reach out he said he didn’t want her help. While mine and my mother's relationship was definitely not something I bragged about, her relationship with John B was worse, almost nonexistent, but with a heavy seasoning of hate. John B blamed her for the divorce, saying she could have stayed on the Island, saying that she ran away from her mistakes. Both John B and I were too young at the time to understand what had happened between our parents. All we had been able to piece together from the two of them was that our mother had an affair with someone from Figure 8, causing their divorce.

I looked out over the yard, seeing the hot tub as the sun reflected off the still water, my thoughts made their way back to JJ. I understood why he was mad. He had 30k in restitution, while Rafe and Ward Cameron walked, untouched by the law, for killing the sheriff. I wanted Rafe to rot in a prison cell, but knew that mine and the pogues' statements held nothing against Ward's “eyewitness testimony.”

I was shaken from my thoughts as a loud knock echoed through the house. I was startled, about to make a run for it when I heard it again followed by a loud male voice. “Kildare County Sheriff’s Department.” I froze walking into the house looking for anything incriminating that they might try to take from us. Another knock echoed and seemed to shake the house with it.

I made my way to the door, taking a deep breath before turning the handle and pulling the door open, just enough for them to see me and my face. “How can I help you?” I stated, putting on the friendliest smile that I could muster up.

I recognized the officer as Shoupe, but the other was a female, had a few old cuts, and bruises littering her face. Shoope looked at me and then back to the officer to his right. I could see him putting the pieces together. Why did I open the door? I knew this was gonna happen eventually. “I knew you looked familiar when I saw you at the point the other day,” Shoope said as he finally put it all together. His partner had a look of confusion covering her face as she looked between the two of you. “Y/N Routledge” He spoke, the officer’s eyes widening as she looked over me. I nodded sarcastically in her direction, letting her know that I was not satisfied with her facial expression. I looked over at Shoope the same expression towards him, letting him know I was not happy with him. “You here by yourself?” He questioned, trying to look past me in the doorway.

“No, My mom went to get some stuff from the mainland. We’re cleaning out, going back and forth.” I said quickly. It was a vague enough lie that I hoped he believed. The last thing I need is DCS here, starting the cycle over like it was with John B.

Shoupe nodded his head but scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. “Is there something I can help you with or where you just coming to check up on me?” I said leaning against the door frame.

“We’re looking for JJ, got a few questions for him. He here?” Shoup cut straight to the point.

I shook my head. “JJ isn’t here,” I said plainly. Technically it wasn’t a lie. Shoupe gave me a questioning look. I shrugged my shoulders, last time I saw him was yesterday morning, he was making deliveries to someone over on Figure 8.” I lied again. This one seemed to please Shoupe as he nodded before stepping back from the door.

“Thanks, Y/N.” He nodded before moving down the stairs, followed reluctantly by the other officer. He turned one last time and spoke, “We’ll be back to talk to you, your mom, and the rest of your friends.” He smiled, but it just caused my stomach to turn at his words. I watched as they looked back over to me while backing out of the driveway. I smiled before waving to them. I closed the door behind me, sliding my back down until my butt hit the ground. I let my head fall in my hands. JJ was gone, god knows where and the police were looking for him? I slipped my phone out of my pocket, sending a quick text to the other’s saying that the police were sniffing around the area, to lay low.

I hit my head back against the door and let out a long deep breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. I was starting to stress out as the day's events seemed to just keep piling up. It was barely 7:30 but I was exhausted, from my encounter with Rafe to the Wreck to Barry to JJ to the cops. I needed a break.

I made my way over to the bed in the living room, slowly sinking down into it. I rolled over, close to JJ’s side. I wrapped myself in the blanket that somehow managed to smell like him. I laid there, happy for the calm and quiet. One thought kept circulating my mind though. JJ was right, What the fuck are we gonna do?

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