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#and he still gets papped there and is buying another house on the block....
hyunjining · 4 years
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ceilingfan5 · 4 years
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taakitz fake dating+bodyguard+proposal :))))
“I don’t want a bodyguard! I want to go places on my own! I want to have some fucking freedom again! What’s the point of being rich if I can’t be in charge of myself??” Taako’s horrible mood seems to radiate off of him, threatening to kill the houseplants. 
“You know that just isn’t possible,” Lucretia sighs. “I’ve been your manager and done your PR for a long time now, Taako, and we both know-”
“Augh!” Taako pops a piece of gum in his mouth and chews angrily, loudly snapping it like he’s imagining sinking his teeth into any stray fingers that might dare approach him. “Don’t tell me that ‘we both know’ speech again! I’ve heard it! I get it! I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
“Taako, you aren’t-”
Taako very nearly growls at her. Kravitz clears his throat. 
“Ah, yes,” Lucretia says, almost another sigh. “You know Kravitz. He’s got an excellent resume, he’s been your bodyguard before. How about today, you two go solo? Rather than a whole team?”
It’s a compromise. Taako hates compromises. But he wants out of the fucking house, so he complies. 
“Sure. Fine. Whatever. But you have to keep up with me.” He glares at Kravitz, in his nice black suit, with his rippling muscles and nonplussed expression and high cheekbones and gold in his hair, which is just gorgeous. He’d be sexy even if he couldn’t bench press three Taakos. Taako pops his gum again, thinking. “And I’ve got a plan.”
“Oh dear,” Lucretia says. 
“Whatever it takes,” Kravitz says, looking and sounding very professional. Taako’s going to fix that. If he can’t have some alone time, he’s going to cause mischief until they wish he was alone. He spits his gum into the nearest plant. 
“Let’s go. I’m driving.”
“You are not-” Lucretia’s voice gets a little more tense. “You don’t have a valid license!”
“I’ll drive you,” Kravitz says, still cool as a cucumber popsicle. Taako rolls his eyes. 
At least Kravitz drives fast. 
“So here’s my plan,” Taako says, gesturing dramatically. 
“I’m listening.” Kravitz passes another car that seems like it’s standing still. Excellent. 
“You’re not my bodyguard today. You’re gonna be my boyfriend.”
“I’m sorry?” 
“Keep up, big guy. You’re going to be my boyfriend. We’re dating. Hot new goss. Delicious and fresh. Everybody will want to know the tasty celebrity deets.” He smacks his fist into his palm, getting excited. And then the paparazzi will swarm, and Taako will be able to slip out of the crowd and run off. It’s perfect. 
“I take it you’re going to insist on this.”
“I sure am.”
“Then, I suppose we’re boyfriends,” Kravitz intones, deadpan. “Yay.”
Taako snickers. 
It’s harder to lose Kravitz than he thought. The dating made for a lot of attention, but it also gave Kravitz an excuse to literally hold him by the arm when the cameras got close. So what if Taako’s heart beat faster when Kravitz slipped them out of the hot zone, running three blocks half-carrying him in the process? So what if they share a hot dog and an indirect kiss? The suit is a little conspicuous, so Taako makes Kravitz wear a shiny purple shawl he finds in a second hand shop. Taako shouldn’t even be going into second hand shops. That makes it great. The look on Kravitz’s face? Greater. 
He tries to slip away again after lunch, but the mustard incident barely phases Kravitz, and neither does the old bathroom trick. Kravitz is stuck to him like glue. 
“Taako! Who’s your new boyfriend??” People with expensive cameras call. And, okay, maybe it’s fun to bask in it. It’s been a while since he had someone on his arm, and that last someone wasn’t half as fine as Kravitz. It’s almost...nice. He thinks less about slipping away and more about wiping that blank look off Kravitz’s face. And he knows just what will do the trick, too. 
Sorry, Lucy. Here comes a PR disaster. 
They slip into a jewelry shop, and Taako buys several things, quite sneaky like, while Kravitz, bored, admires the security cameras. Taako suggests they go for ice cream as they step out into the sunshine, and within minutes, they’re swarmed by paps again. Perfect. 
“Hey Krav,” Taako says, sweet as butter. 
“Hm?” Kravitz looks at him. Taako splits into a dangerous grin, and then he gets down on one knee. 
Kravitz blinks. 
“What are you doing?”
“Tying my shoe,” Taako quips, sliding around in his designer flip-flops. “What does it look like?”
Kravitz squints at him.
“Everybody, gather round!” 
“Taako, no.” 
“Kravitz,” Taako grins so hard his teeth are going to fall out, and he’s going to step on one, and it’s going to hurt, but God, will it be worth it. “I love you so much.”
Kravitz’s jaw drops. His eyes are full of confusion, embarrassment, intrigue. They almost sparkle. 
“You make every day of my life so happy.” Taako pulls out the little ring box. Kravitz covers his mouth. “Will you make my day, and every day after that? Be with me forever.” 
“I,” Kravitz stumbles. He looks around at the paparazzi, who are very much swarming. “Don’t know what to say.” His voice is a weird kind of tense, and Taako pushes it as far as it will go.
“Say yes, baby. Be mine.” And he tilts his head and gives Kravitz the smoulder that got him into a dozen blockbuster films. Several passsersby swoon. 
Kravitz is making a funny noise. Taako frowns a little, thinking he’s choking at first, but Krav’s hand can’t cover it-- he’s laughing. And he’s laughing hard. The more he tries to stop, the worse it gets, and he doubles over, coughing, spluttering, giggling, wheezing. It’s a beautiful show, but Taako’s embarrassed. 
“Well?” he demands. He’s invested now, even if it is fake. Kravitz gets the hint and tries to stop laughing, but his smile is warbly and barely keeping the snickers in. He bends down and pulls Taako up and kisses him, for real, on the mouth and everything, and Taako forgets the ruse for a minute and really kisses back, swooning just like the gawking commonfolk. 
“Of course I will,” Kravitz says nice and loud, and then he leans in and whispers in Taako’s ear, “How are you going to slip out of this one, hm?”
Taako flushes brightly. So maybe Kravitz was a more challenging opponent than he thought. Two can play at this tango. 
“He said yes!” Taako declares, and the crowd cheers. In an instant, Taako’s phone is buzzing so hard he could fry an egg on it. 
“She found out,” he says out of the side of his mouth. 
“She always does.” Kravitz smiles-- really, despite the rest of it, he’s so glad he got to see that gorgeous smile--and he kisses Taako again, once for the tabloids and once more to let him know he’s really fucked it up this time. 
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Another very funny thing about Haylor that Taylor & team got wrong is I Wish You Would. Harry bought a house in LA around the block to where Taylor’s house was. That is correct. Taylor mentioned that “an ex” did that and he would drive past her house blah blah. Okay, the gist?
The paperwork for the buy is online, tabloids reported on it and linked it. He bought it in March 2014. Very very tight timeline for Taylor to write a song about it. Especially considering Harry had tour rehearsals in the UK and tour in South America very shortly after buying that house. Meaning he couldn’t realistically spend that much time in it before Taylor had to wrap 1989. Make matters even worse? Harry bought TWO houses in LA at the same time in 2014. One of them he bought with an LLC and no one, not even the stalkiest fans, found out he bought it until January 2021 because he was seen in the front door with Olivia (she was followed there from set in December and paps stalked the front of the house for weeks to get a picture). Once those pics came out, fans dug up the paperwork and it was acquired at the same exact time than the other house and it’s under his personal assistant’s name (she’s usually in the paperwork of his stuff for privacy, he used the same method when he bought his 8 million dollar apartment in TriBeCa in 2016). This house is in Laurel Canyon, nowhere near Taylor’s house.
This house is much more his style and the fact that he kept it a secret for 7 full years explains why he was so rarely papped in LA. The other house had its entire fucking address online from the moment he bought it but no one spotted him even NEAR it once. Some friends from LA told me they think he bought it to rent it out (which is also what he did with the TriBeCa apartment). All this to say: Taylor saw the headline about him buying a house next to her house and made an entire song and dance about it. Whether the song was about something else and she repurposed it to be “about Harry” or she just made the whole thing up I don’t know, but the story she told is verifiable BS. Lmao.
yes!! i knew this one bc TW i was super into investigating all the gaylor stuff during the pandemic. am pretty damn agnostic now and honestly don't really care but fair warning i do love the queer subtext in taylor's music and i don't care if it isn't her intention for it to be there. it still is! which is a valid literary analysis!
now that THAT is out of the way!
yes i knew about this one and i agree it doesn't make much sense. the timeline just doesn't add up. correct me if i'm wrong, but the song was actually written in 2013 before harry had even bought the house. i think she described it originally as more of a ~story but then ended up allegedly saying it was about harry/an "ex" in either secret sessions or an interview somewhere.
fact of the matter is... haylor was either basically nothing or a.. not very deep fling used for absolute max publicity. the vast majority of what taylor said and did during haylor/1989 was to promote this crazy, intense love story that. didn't really happen that way. it was clear to anyone with like eyes that their chemistry wasn't exactly anything worth writing home about and harry didn't seem at all emotionally torn up over the breakout especially compared to, say, his relationship with camille. and his team... and harry himself... kept skirting around questions or just straight up denying taylor's teams claims. it's genuinely embarrassing to stan/ship haylor i'm sorry bestiess 😭
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chimchimsauce · 4 years
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Five Letter Word
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Share is a five-letter word. So is fight.
Recreduscense AU for @sordidmusings​. Thank you so much for commissioning me! I hope you enjoy!
Commissions closed. They will open back up in February.
Please note! This is NOT canon. In this au, Cerberus is the only one with YN as their soulmate.
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Yoongi huffs, exasperated as he steps through a portal and back into the mortal realm. Yet again, there had been a stir in the Underworld, causing Hades to call his trusted Hellhound down to help him fix up the problem.
It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, had one of the other two gone. But Yoongi is always voted to go and spend hours or even worse - days away from YN.
YN.
Just the thought of their mortal soulmate cheers Yoongi up tremendously. After dealing with the cries and screams of the undead, seeing her will breathe fresh air into his tired form. Hurrying to go find her, Yoongi quickly locates both YN and his other-selves by the sound of their heartbeats.
Preparing to barge in and be wrapped up in three pairs of arms and smothered with kisses from YN, Yoongi stops short in the doorway to the living room, watching from the sidelines as Namjoon and Hoseok snuggle YN between them, all wrapped up in a nice soft blanket.
The blue light from the television illuminates their smiling faces, the way their hands are entwined with each other. They haven’t even looked back at him, even though Yoongi knows for sure that Hoseok and Namjoon should have sensed him by now.
But the thing that ticks him off the most is the fact that they’re watching that new show that had just come out - the show they’d promised to all watch together.
Anger flares up inside of Yoongi quick and hot. Exhausted and with hurt feelings, Yoongi turns around and stomps towards the bedroom, slamming the door with enough force to crack it.
In the other room, YN sits up quickly, alarmed by the noise.
“What was that?” she asks, peeking behind her as if the source of the noise will be standing there.
“Yoongi just got back,” Hoseok says, feeling the anger and hurt in the back of his mind.
The feeling makes him shift uncomfortably. He looks over YN’s head and glances at Namjoon who looks just as apprehensive as he does.
“I wonder what’s wrong,” YN says, turning back around, “I’ll go speak with him.”
Namjoon opens his mouth to say something, but he can’t find any words to form a valid excuse. Frowning, he just watches from the couch as YN leaves, taking the blanket and all of her warmth with her.
Hoseok pouts.
“I know that she’s not going far, but it hurts every time she leaves . . . even if I know she’s spending time with Yoongi. I’d still rather feel her with my own fingers and see her with my own eyes,” Hoseok says, locking eyes with Namjoon.
The other nods, raking his hands through his hair. He scoots closer to Hoseok, leaning his head on his shoulder. It’s comforting being near another piece of his soul, especially when the other piece is hurting.
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YN stops before the splintered bedroom door, her hand hovering inches away from the cracked surface.
It’s obvious that Yoongi is upset about something, but YN isn’t sure if she should interrupt his brooding. Its been a little over half a year since YN went to the BTS concert where she met them. She always had a particular affinity for rapline over the other members, but it still took her by surprise to find out that her adoration for Yoongi, Hoseok, and Namjoon stemmed from something much deeper than she ever could have imagined.
Soulmates.
Even now, that word sends a shiver up her spine. It’s both comforting and terrifying to think that her soul was made to perfectly complete another one. And more shocking than finding out that she was bonded to them was finding out that the boys were actually something she believed to be myth - Cerberus, Hades’ hellhound and three pieces of one soul.
At times it seems impossible that no one else - not even the other members - have noticed how identical they can be. When they’re relaxed or distracted, Yoongi, Hoseok, and Namjoon move, speak, and react with perfect synchronization. It’s almost unsettling.
But other times, they couldn’t be more different. Disagreements and sometimes even fights are not uncommon between the triad. They get into spats over the littlest things, like Hoseok leaving the lights on in the bathroom, Namjoon using all the paper towels up and forgetting to buy more, or Yoongi staying up so late that the other two can’t sleep.
Usually all it takes to calm everything down is a few words and touches from YN. Her presence alone can dissolve any animosity almost like magic.
Something deep down in her stomach tells YN that this won’t be the case this time around.
She takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.
“Yoongi?” she asks softly, knowing that he can hear her.
YN learned about the boys’ shared heightened senses when she sneezed from across the house and they all said ‘Bless you’.
There comes no response from inside, but YN decides to enter anyway.
It doesn’t take her long to find him. Yoongi is situated by the window, glaring through the glass at the sky like it’s done something against him.
“Yoongi?” YN repeats, “You okay? Did something happen in the Underworld?”
Yoongi is silent for several minutes. Just as YN begins to believe that he’s ignoring her, he speaks up.
“No. It was fine. Annoying, but fine.”
YN walks over to him, placing a hand on his back. She tries to catch his eye, but he refuses to look at her.
YN ignores the sting in her chest his lack of attention causes. She knows that Yoongi’s mood probably has nothing to do with her.
“Then what’s wrong? I know that you’re upset.” YN persists.
He’s silent again, opening his mouth as if he’s thinking about speaking, but he quickly shuts it again. He turns to look at her fully.
“Can we just . . . cuddle? I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Yoongi’s voice is soft, vulnerable. All traces of hostility are eradicated, replaced with tender shyness.
“Of course,” YN says, melting, “I’ll call Hos -”
“No!” Yoongi interjects, startling YN.
At her bewildered expression, he clears his throat.
“I just want it to be me and you . . . if that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay, Yoongi,” YN says.
She crawls onto the enormous bed in the center of the room, pulling the blanket along with her. One she’s settled among the pillows, YN taps her lap, signaling for Yoongi to lay down.
As soon as his head hits her legs and her fingers drag across his scalp, Yoongi relaxes completely, falling asleep within minutes. And just like that, YN’s movie night with Hoseok and Namjoon comes to an end.
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A few days later, the four of them are relaxing outside in their backyard, butterflies floating on the breeze. The weather is warm, YN laying on Yoongi’s lap as Hoseok plays with her fingers, Namjoon reading a novel aloud.
It’s a fairytale, a story about a young girl being chased by a wolf. The tale isn’t quite what YN remembered being told as a child.  Namjoon’s alluring timbre tone has his soulmate’s full attention, the girl completely entranced by the alternate tale.
“And then the huntsman killed the wolf, freeing little red. She lived happily ever after. The end.”
YN feels herself pouting.
“What’s wrong, YN?” Hoseok says, picking up on her upset expression.
“Why did the huntsman kill the wolf? He didn’t do anything wrong. He just tried to show her the way she needed to go.”
“Good intentions are the stepping stones right to hell. Trust us, babygirl.” Yoongi says, unbothered by the injustice.
Before YN can protest, a phone rings, completely disturbing their peaceful afternoon. Namjoon frowns as he picks up his phone, placing the book down.
“Right . . . yes . . . now?” Namjoon says into the device, clearly displeased, “Okay . . . yeah, I’ll bring him. See you soon.”
“Yoongi,” Namjoon says, tossing his phone aside in frustration, “One of the producers fucked up and deleted part of our new song,”
“You’re kidding,” Yoongi says.
“I wish. Bang PD wants us to come in right away.”
Cursing, Yoongi wiggles out from under YN, the woman sitting up to make it easier. When he makes it onto his feet, Yoongi stretches.
“When that bastard dies I’m making sure his soul gets stuck in the worst corner of the Underworld,” Yoongi vows, Namjoon nodding along with him.
And with that, they’re gone, vanished into thin air.
“Just me and you, huh?” Hoseok says, grinning widely at YN.
“I guess so,” YN says, returning his smile with ease, “What do you want to do?”
Hours later, when Namjoon and Yoongi finally return from an exhausting day dealing with the incompetent producers and staff members only to find YN and Hoseok sitting side by side, video game controllers grasped in their hands as they playfully shoulder shove each other, both trying to win.
“We’re back,” Namjoon says.
“Hey guys!” YN says, taking a quick peek behind her shoulder to smile at them but looking right back at the screen a moment later, huffing when she discovers that Hoseok is beating her.
The man in question laughs in glee as YN tries to regain her lead, going so far as to stand up to block the screen. Hoseok resorts to holding his controller with one hand and tickling her with the other.
“Hey! That’s not fair!”
“You’re not being fair either, YN - ah!”
It’s as if Yoongi and Namjoon aren’t even in the room. The duo grows irritated. They’ve already had a tiring day. The least Hoseok could do is move so they can spend time with YN too.
Hoseok sends the duo a quick look, winking at them and letting them know he knows exactly what they’re thinking. Of course he does. 
“YN,” Yoongi says, “Why don’t you come snuggle with Namjoon and me? We’ve had a long day.”
“Sure,” YN says, “But let me finish up with Hobi first.”
They play well past two AM. When the sound of the TV finally stops, Namjoon finds YN passed out on top of Hoseok, the both of them fast asleep.
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When award season rolls around, Bang PD hits the boys with a complete shocker.
“You can bring your girlfriends if you’d like,” he says casually, shuffling papers.
“What?” they say in unison, their shock causing them to forget not to speak at once.
“That’s what you’ve guys been up to lately, right? I may be old, but I’m not stupid. As long as they are prepared for the backlash.”
And with that, they’re dismissed. Pure excitement courses through their veins as they think about finally getting to show YN off.
However, their bubble is burst as a single, innocent though passes through Hoseok’s brain as they teleport home.
Who gets to be her boyfriend in public?
Instantaneously, a fight breaks out. The boys argue so loudly that they nearly wake YN up from her afternoon nap. As soon as they hear her begin to toss and turn under her blanket, they make their way outdoors.
“It should be me,” Yoongi insists.
“Oh please,” Hoseok scoffs, “No one’s going to believe that you ever left the studio long enough to get a girlfriend.”
Offended, Yoongi looks taken aback before his expression hardens. He’s preparing to give Hoseok what for when Namjoon interrupts.
“I’ve spent the least time with her recently. Between comforting Yoongi’s moody ass and playing games with Hoseok until the buttcrack of dawn, I’ve hardly gotten to be around her at all.
Sope find themselves without a proper response.
“It’s settled then. She’s going with me. YN, dear!” he calls out, walking back into the house, “Guess where we’re going next week!”
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Nervously, YN checks her reflection in the mirror for the millionth time in the last hour.
“You look gorgeous, YN. Stop fretting,” Yoongi says from his place relaxed on the couch.
“Absolutely perfect,” Hoseok agrees.
In all honesty, the two of them are quite nervous. YN looks gorgeous, definitely. Matter of fact, that’s the entire problem. She looks like heaven on Earth and they’re supposed to pretend that she’s simply their bandmate’s girlfriend. 
Hoseok pulls at his tie, hoping the night goes by quickly.
But it doesn’t.
Each moment drags on forever. Painfully slow, Yoongi has to watch YN laugh with Namjoon, placing her hand on his shoulder and pretending like she can’t see the longing look on Yoongi’s face. At one point Hoseok reaches for her hand and YN turns away from him, pretending not to see.
Pretending, pretending.
And finally, finally when it’s almost over, the boys stand for their final photograph. Namjoon brings YN close and kisses her, the cameras going berserk as Hoseok and Yoongi see red, absolutely furious. It’s all they can do to force a smile until it’s time to leave, making up an excuse not to celebrate with the others.
As soon as they get home, Hoseok has his hands around Namjoon’s throat, Yoongi not far behind.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Yoongi shouts at Namjoon, pain and anger lacing his tone.
Namjoon grins, hand coming up to pry Hoseok’s hand away from his airway. Yoongi, overcome, socks Namjoon right in the jaw.
“STOP IT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” YN cries out, rushing into the fray and pulling them all apart, “WHAT’S BEEN WRONG WITH YOU LATELY?”
None of them can meet her eyes, all ashamed of themselves for upsetting her.
“FOR THE PAST MONTH YOU’VE ALL BEEN A MOODY MESS! What am I supposed to think, huh? You’re not telling me anything! I don’t know what’s wrong . . . I don’t know how to help!”
YN’s face is red from screaming, her blotchy face giving away the fact that tears are soon coming. 
All at once, the three of them rush to comfort her, pulling her in close.
“We’re sorry, YN” Namjoon says, “So so sorry.”
“It’s all our fault,” Yoongi agrees, stroking her hair.
“You’d think sharing a soul would mean we’d always get along but . . .” he pauses, looking away from YN’s sniffling face to Namjoon and Yoongi, “I guess we don’t know how to not get jealous.”
Saying it aloud makes him realize how ridiculous they’re being. They cringe in tandem.
“Jealous? Of what? Of who?”
“I . . . each other I guess. It’s stupid. We’re sorry,” Namjoon says, embarrassed.
“You know I love all of you right? That my soul is bonded with each part of yours,” YN says, face softening at their ashamed expressions, “There’s no reason to be jealous.”
“We’re sorry,” they say, refusing to look at her.
“It’s okay. Just tell me when you feel this way next time, okay? I love spending time with all of you. You’re all precious to me.”
YN opens her arms and they step into them, feeling their connection grow even stronger.
There will be bumps in the road, but they’ll overcome them. They are soulmates after all.
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malethirsty · 4 years
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Californication: Reloaded [Hank Moody]
Hell-In-One
Summary: Following your one night stand with Hank, you attempt to keep your distance to minimize the impact. However a run in with the ex could cause the biggest of impacts
Warnings: M/M smut (21+), Bareback (Wrap Before You Tap!), Daddy Kink
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You & Hank sat at the same table at Reublique, trying to work out the predicament you had gotten yourselves into. “At least there aren’t any press around chasing authors tonight” Hank said lightly, trying to attain a positive mood, it didn’t work. “That was a massive gamble!” You said back “I thought you were rich and could bribe the CCTV off, but the press? Hank you know they don’t care, they’d publish pics with ‘Hank Moody Seen Getting Cozy With Daughter’s Best Friend: Scandal, Shock, Intrigue!’” “I know that! If it got out, my divorce settlement would be on the rocks!” “Then why did you arrange it?” You asked “Because I don’t do things lightly in life, you need to live a little.”
You both steadied your breathing. “So what do we do now?” Hank asked “I guess we wait for a bit, step back & re evaluate our situation, see if we want to move forward.” He swallowed at your statement. “I guess so” he begrudgingly said, you partly wanted to ask ‘Well what do you think?!’ But didn’t want to run after him, so you kept it down. “So what is with your Writer’s Block that you & Becca were talking about?” Hank turned the coversation to his struggles and the matter was dropped. Two hours in and you’d only gotten a bit more forwards with his writing, however you planned to have him go from there as you decided to give him space, so he and you could relax.
A week into this and things instead of getting better, had only gotten worse. You became withdrawn from everything, not even your own songwriting could be fixed, it was as if Hank’s writers block was contagious. Hank, it had been a while since you shared as much as a conversation, yet you ached for him so much. “What’s up Y/N?” Becca’s voice asked from nowhere “The damn ceiling” you responded sardonically “Woah! What’s with the tone?” Becca responded, a bit taken aback. ‘How can I broach this with her?’ You thought ‘“I fucked your dad who could have gotten his sexcapade with me caught by the paps, his divorce pushed back, his property and cash swindled & my friendship with you broken.” How the hell could you say that?’ Luckily you didn’t have to “Did your hookup not go so well.” She inquired “Something along those lines yes.” “What happened? He had B.O.? Bad breath? No respect for you?” “What? No!” “Then what?” Becca said, crossing her arms, you knew you had to phrase this properly so to spare Hank “He’s famous Becca” her eyes widened “And?! Can you not handle someone having all the attention?” You looked scandalised “No!” “Well then, what’s so bad about being famous?” This coversation had you trapped in a whirl, but inthe face of it, you breathed in heavily & continued. “He has a reputation, a reputation he put on the line by buying out Republique. If someone had caught us, everything would have exploded.” “And that’s why you have been distant.” “Yeah, we talked and wanted time to work things out, but that’s the general gist.”
Becca thought about it for a moment and then responded “I think you’ve overreacted a bit” “ME!” You spluttered “You’re meant to be my friend, take my side!” “I am, and I would be amiss if I were to let you let a good man like that slip through your grasp. If he was prepared to do that, he must really give a shit about you. I know you want to look out for people, but I think it’s going to be a detriment in this case. You should call him and explain everything.” “Alright, I’ll do it later.” You said, desperate to avoid her staying with you & finding out the ‘Good Man’ was her dad. “Good. I’m heading out to practice with my band, if I get back & find you haven’t, I’ll call him myself.” Not wanting Becca to set you & her father up, you gulped & pleased her message sunk in, she left.
The only issue was what to say to Hank ‘I’ve changed my mind about it, please dick me down in public’ did not seem the right way to go about it. You were wondering what you could possibly say, when your phone made noise, a notification. Opening it, you grinned at seeing it from Hank, his blog had been updated for the first time in ages, he was getting over or already over his writers block. So you read from his latest post
Hank Hates You All (Blog #1):
A few things I’ve learnt in my travels, through this thing we call life are
#1: A morning of awkwardness is far better than a night of loneliness. #2: While I may not go down in history, I’ll definitely go down on your friend. #3: If you are famous and are going to fuck someone, make sure cameras aren’t going to follow you.
The last point begs the question: Why is society so quick to demonise sex?
As you read through his points, you grinned. It seemed like he had both understood what you were trying to say and was reaching out with his own words. You had bolstered confidence by the end and knew what you had to do. You raced downstairs “Hank, I need to talk to you!” Before getting an eyefull of a naked woman downstairs who was coated with black diamonds all over her breasts “Oh My God!” You yelled, covering your eyes “What? Who the hell are you!” The women equally shouted back “Y/N, Becca asked me over!” “Oh shit, I remembered her telling me, I thought you went out with her for music stuff.” “I passed, wasn’t up for it. With all these questions, can I ask why there are black diamonds on your tits?” “A Hell-In-One, the beauty parlour vajazzles diamonds onto peoples beeasts, there is a option if getting black diamonds all applied at once, all black, like a spooky theme.” “Well who are you trying to impress? Tim Burton?” You exasperatedly said “No, I asked my new boyfriend here in advance so I could fuck in my ex husband’s house, like a free living thing.” Husband? Oh no, so this must be “Karen? Y/N?” came Hank’s voice. Your vision started to blur and darken.
You woke sometime later, a familiar face above you “Hey there babe.” Came Hank’s voice “You gave us a scare then.” You groaned “That was your ex wife?” “Yeah.” Hank responded “She’s seeing a man called Bill, she’s all set to move on.” “That’s twice I’ve seen a Moody nude. If I see Becca naked, I’m gonna become Amish.” Hank laughed “I might go with you. We’d be away from the press then“ Ouch, that was a sting “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about before I ran into the ‘Hell-In-One’” you shuddered “It’s good I know you’re into men, cause otherwise that shudder could be taken for something worse.” “Well, I read your blog Hank. And I got advice about what to do. And I think that by trying to protect us from ruining things, I might actually be causing problems, cause I’ve been miserable since I wanted space. I’m not sure what it’s like for you, but I would like to give things another chance.”
Hank leant over, kissing you. “You have no fucking idea how happy I am now. I’ve tried to write, drink & watch my Cinemax porn, but I always get brought back to you.” “I shudder to ask but what was it about?” “This time it was a scientology themed one called Pussy Impossible? Talking about how difficult it could be to get laid in that place.” “Was it from David Miscaviage’s POV cause after he offed his wife, no reasonable women would go near him.” “I think you’re giving the women of that place credit they don’t have.” You both grinned and laughed at this point, the good emotions finally came flooding back, like when the power comes back on after a blackout.
“Well I guess I should let you sleep.” Hank began “No!” You said, startling him “It’s that, I really have missed you Hank, like really have, Can you fuck me?” Hank grinned at you “Well Karen’s gone & Becca is still out practicing, we have the house to ourselves and we can make all the damn noise we want.” You began to rid yourself of all the clothing you had on, Hank yanking his pants down to his feet, his cock flopping out “I usually go commando.” He explained “With a sex presence like yours, you shouldn’t even wear clothes.” You flirted. His cock hardened, it’s pink head becoming visible “God, suck daddy’s cock.” Hank groaned, you obeying almost immediately.
You spent a while sucking Hank off, making the man moan and groan as you paid attention to his head & rolled his balls, making him moan in appreciation “Keep that up & I’ll cum.” An idea forming in your head, you kept going, Hank attempted to pull you off but you stayed “Y/N, don’t you want me to fuck you? I’ll blow in a moment and it takes a-ah- a while for me to get hard again.” You nodded on his cock, humming a bit which caused Hank to throw his head back and let multiple curses and your name flow from his mouth as he shot his load down your throat. You pulled away “Taste’s like cherries daddy, must be all the alcohol.” Hank’s legs shook causing him to fall on the bed “Fuck, that’s the best head I’ve had in years!” You grinned making sure he was paying attention, you slid your finger down your face as if to clean it off which made Hank grin. “What a fucking slut you are for daddy.” He grinned, kissing you again. After a while, Hank’s cock got hard again, he sat up & pulled his shirt partly over his neck, tasing your hole “Could you picture the press snapping pics at what we’re doing right now?” “Oh fuck me already.” You groaned “You got a gag order on the writers?” “I’ll be getting a gag order on you for the rest of the week if you don’t start fucking me!” You snapped back “You are one kinky bitch” Hank groaned in lust as he finally began to fuck you. His pace was sharp & reverberated around the room, you moaning out as Hank made love to you.
“Yeah that’s it! Move back onto Daddy’s cock & take it all balls deep!” Hank moaned & you obeyed him wholeheartedly. You arched your back which allowed him to fuck more, making him groan at all the tightness he was slamming into. “Fuck, I know I’ve said it before, but FUCKING HELL you are tighter than Karen, holy shit! How are you still so tight?” “I haven’t fucked anyone since you, so I’ve had time to heal I guess.” “Well, I’ll be taking that tightness away soon, cause I’m not going that long between fucking you again!” You enthusiastically threw yourself back, causing you both to groan “Oh yeah! You’re daddy’s good boy! Fuck yourself on my cock!” The filth spewing from Hank’s mouth was never ending & you were gonna keep it that way.
Somehow stretching your legs wider, Hank got deeper, his moans becoming breathier, you could tell he wouldn’t last much longer. “Fuck, Y/N, I’m gonna come!” You nodded, breathless to say anything else. Hank wanked your cock, making you moan, eyes rolling back into your head as you shot your load “So fuckin’ good babe! You’re clenching around me so tight, I’m gonna fucking blow, OH YES!” Hank roared out as he shot his load deep into your ass. Moaning out, Hank fell right onto you, you were strong enough to toss him aside back first “Don’t crush me! Death by daddy is not how I wanna go down.” Hank laughed “Well I now know you don’t wanna go down, but I like it.” You rolled your eyes “Well I know you like-Oh!” You groaned out as Hank began to eat you out, tasting his shot load. “It really does taste like cherry, except muskier.” You laughed as Hank fell back first, needing some time before a much needed next round. You both happily groaned out a “Fuck!”
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s-bitty-place · 4 years
Text
Getting Fabrics for bitties (kinda long)
As the day went on, Inky bitties would go between Demeter, Kehinde, and Tart until it was time to close up shop and finish the Inky’s dinner, Ambrosia waving to the others before going on Dracaena’s head, the skele-dragon humming at him. Major took the others into the house while leaving Tam and Bam with the newest family members.
“Why’re we not following them?” Kehinde asks as Dracaena looked in a box that she had taken with them.
“Oh, we’re going to go get fabrics so we can sew up you guys new clothes.” Dracaena told Kehinde who nods, in anticipation and exhaustion, their new owner wasn’t kidding when the Inky Bitties had energy along with being ‘spaz-nuggets’. Taiwo had put his brother’s head on his shoulder, as to let the other rest.
“Gonna look for fabric that everyone likes so we can ride in a pouch?” Tam asks and the skele-dragon flushes a dark green, nodding at the bitty. She needed to get pouches so everyone could be near her body and not worry about them falling. There’s a reason Erratic was her personal- after so many soul attacks from him splattered onto the ground from her head. It was deserved. Dracaena had walked to the local shopping mart, about two blocks up and had went in.
“Little lizard, how are you?” A sweet old woman asks, Dracaena smiling at her.
“I’m doing well Baba, just came in town for some cloth.” The skele-dragon told the human who chuckles and nods, going to a small bakery shop near the entrance. Ambrosia had disappeared to the table and Dracaena saw the old Lady, Baba, give him a small piece of a sweet before lifting him up into her hand and given back to the monster.
“It seems as though Hija won’t be the only one to get my desserts anymore.” Baba chuckles and Dracaena nods as the Horror bitty indulged himself.
“Ambrosia, thank Baba for the snack little one. We’ll come back later to buy some sweets.” Dracaena purred, Ambrosia purring back as he thanked the woman. Baba smiles and nods, going back to her stall.
They went and checked other stalls; some antiques interesting some while gorgeous gems did others. Stopping, the bitties saw the fabric store in wonder, amazed at how many varieties they had.
“Find a fabric you all like, I have enough gold for it,” Dracaena told the bitties, all staying near but still browsing and feeling it. Tam and Bam helped them, Kehinde and Tart finding that the soft fuzzy fabrics were delightful to touch as well as some cotton. Ambrosia and Taiwo didn’t mind what their brothers picked out, as long as they were in eyesight with one of them.
After a while, Taiwo came over to Dracaena who was feeling jean-like cloths. He has had a question on his mind since last night.
“That faerie you have, he can interact with dreams, so why adopt us?” Taiwo asks, Dracaena smiling slightly.
“You seen him disappear after dinner, right? Yasha demands to be patrol during the night and I let him be nocturnal, even when Koga brings him out before dinner. I thought it would be comforting for him to have another who understood dreams but had a larger pull to them. That and the shop interested me quite a bit.” Dracaena answered honestly, Taiwo nodding in silence before the others came back to her. Each of them had different fabrics and most were soft, Dracaena smiling at Kehinde who had a dark purple(almost black) cotton fabric with a piece of almost golden fabric. Tart brought over a carnelian soft cotton fabric with a patterned fabric that had sheep against a rainbow background. Demeter had brought a calming purple fabric for a dress or otherwise a calm outfit.
Tam and Bam held a soft jean fabric to make a bag for the bitties. Dracaena hums and got about four yards per fabric, five yards for the jean fabric.
“A couple gold pieces.” The cashier told Dracaena, already used to the skele-dragon’s payment method. Once bought, the fabrics were put on her tail, the bitties amazed as they were got into riding positions.
“How did we not realize the tail?” Ambrosia asks, Dracaena chuckling at the awe radiating from the new bitties.
“Mama hides it when she wants to, some humans don’t like the idea of dragons and skeletons mixing,” Bam tells his new friend. Taiwo nods, watching out for dangers as Dracaena walked, the other bitties talking about clothes and what they wanted. It wouldn’t be such a problem if Kehinde and Bam were only talking, but they were worrying Dray by bouncing around as she walked.
“Bam, settle down, you’re making Mom tense and nervous with all that bouncing.” Tam scolded, Bam realizing what his brother was talking about. The other looked sheepish at feeling the shoulders tense. The other bitties were surprised that Tam could feel that.
“How did you know?” Demeter asked the PJ bitty who flushed immediately.
“Bam and I were her first bitties, kinda hard to not notice body language of the creature that spoiled your brother and you. She tends to adopt bitties in two or more if she can help it. I think Blue smoke’s the only bitty that she adopted being a singular besides Xee. Xee tends to be extremely calm these days, now knowing that Mom won’t stop adopting bitties that seem to call to her.” Tam explains, smiling as he remembered when and how the others were adopted. It was always amusing when others came home.
“What about Erratic?” Tart asks and Bam giggles.
“He was one of the first Inky’s, for some reason giving mom a few soul attacks when he splattered to the ground.” Tam says and Taiwo chuckles at the mention of unintentional fear, he only chuckled because he now understood why there were a lot of bitty-proof areas now. Dracaena coos at the explanations, stopping by Baba’s stall to get some pies (Ambrosia was drooling over them while they were picked up). When they got outside, it was dark and the bitties looked at Dracaena who was looking thoughtful.
“Get in my horns sweets, flying time.” Dracaena told them, five of them doing so, Tart too big to grab a part of the ram-like horns while Taiwo didn’t want to be in a crowded place. Tart was picked up and Taiwo held close as they watched a pair of glistening wings emerge from the slits in Dracaena’s shirt/hood in the back.
The horn-grabbers held on, Bam squealing happily as the others gained an insight of what happens when it was dark. Taiwo held on, not that it scared him at all, the speed was exceptional. Once the liftoff was done, they noticed how nice it was as well as serene. The town was only slightly lit but it was gorgeous to Kehinde, Taiwo amazed as Ambrosia was in complete awe. Tart was kinda looking but seemed to be a bit afraid, Tam and Demeter looking at the stars that were brighter due to not being as close to streetlights. It always seems that the best to look at stars would be out of electrical lights area.
Dracaena landed far better than Tam expected, and Major was up, awaiting their arrival. Taiwo noticed how tired Major was and wouldn’t comment on it….yet. Tart was cuddled as they went in, Dracaena cooing at him as they got to the couch. It was calm as Major gave the others dinner.
“Tart, darling, are you afraid of heights?” Dracaena asked her only Pap bitty who slightly nods. Dracaena nods, telling him,” We can look if we can use a carrier, so you don’t see how high we are or we’ll try not to fly. Xee might think he’s so awesome, but he’s afraid of heights too.”
“Really?” Tart asks and Dray nods, Ambrosia smiling at the interested eyes of his brother.
“Really really, he hides in my rib-cage when we take off.” Dray chuckles and Tart nods, yawning after getting full. Ambrosia was pleased that Dracaena had a hanging cabinet made for the two Horror’s so they could eat anything in there, not having to worry about starving at all.
“Bathtime; Tam, Bam you two can head to bed. I’ll bathe them sis,-
“Major, you look like the walking dead, go up to your room.” Dracaena orders, Major nods, tired even though he wanted to help and argue, it would always end up with Dracaena putting him to bed before he knew it.
“Alright, night sis.”
“Night bro.” Dracaena giggles, Taiwo nearby. Once they were bathing, Taiwo came over to Dracaena who was drying a sleeping Tart.
“Is Major okay? Or should I look into his dreams?” Taiwo asks, Dracaena smiling slightly.
“He’s also a reason that I adopted you twins, Major tends to have nightmares about his parents, having seen a few genocidal resets before one of the nicer Error’s helped him with inter-dimensional magic. It also doesn’t help that depression can be hereditary, his pops had it.” Dracaena told Taiwo who nods, knowing that concern about a makeshift family was good, especially if it was a happy one. Dracaena would never lie to her own bitties if she could help it at all. Taiwo could help with Major's sleep if Dracaena agreed.
“Would it be okay if I put a collective lucid dream together for everyone?” Taiwo asks and Dracaena nods. That was permission enough for Taiwo. Once everyone was clothed and put in their beds, Kehinde was leaning on his twin before they began lucid dreaming.
Taiwo(Nightmare!Bitty);Kehinde(Dream!Bitty); Tart(Teeth!Bitty); Ambrosia(Horrortale!Sans Bitty); Mumcher(Horrortale!Toriel Bitty)
by @dotchi13
Tam/Tapper and Bam(PJ!Bitties)
by @7goodangel
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katrinawritesthings · 6 years
Text
Jonghyun/Taemin; Strawberries; PG
 hi i love jonghyun
“I, um,” Jonghyun says. “I wanted to. Like. Remember, last year, when you said, um. Like. Just--okay.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head quickly. “I forgot everything I wanted to introduce this with,” he mumbles. “I’m just gonna. Show you.” He takes another deep breath and tugs the tarp away, walking with it to the other side of the fence and hopping to tug it off the hook there. Taemin glances at him as he goes passed, and then watches the corner of the yard unveil in front of him.
ao3
Taemin leans with his hand on the closed fridge door, puffing his lips out in a little pout. He’s hungry. He thinks. He’s not sure if he feels rumblies in his tummy or if he’s just cranky. He does know that he hasn’t eaten in a few hours, though, which logically leads to the option where he’s hungry.
He doesn’t know if he wants to eat anything that they have, though. It’s hot but not hot enough for ice cream but too hot for a grilled cheese and he doesn’t even know what else they have. They don’t have strawberries, that’s for sure, which he’s really grumpy about because he forgot to buy some last time he was at the store. He’s been waiting all year for May to come and for the good big in season strawberries to show up and they finally did and he just forgot about them. Bluh.
“Hey.”
“What?” He turns at hands quickly papping his shoulders and looks at Jonghyun, who’s quickly bouncing up and down on his toes, pink hair bouncing with him. He continues to pap Taemin’s chest excitedly, eyes all big and bright and smile all tiny and eager, and Taemin raises his brows. This should be something. “Yes?” he asks, taking Jonghyun’s wrists and letting Jonghyun pap on his hands instead. Jonghyun squeezes his hands excitedly.
“Can you come outside with me?” he asks. “I gotta. Show you your birthday present.” His smile curves up wider as the words leave his mouth, like he’s excited and peppy and proud of himself.
“My what?” Taemin asks, a startled laugh falling from his lips even as he lets Jonghyun tug him through the house. “My birthdays in, like, two months,” he says. Jonghyun covers his eyes with his free hand in his quick little embarrassed gesture.
“Okay, yeah, well, it’s an early birthday present,” he says. “They ca--I finished it a little early.” He looks away guiltily at that little slip of the tongue. Taemin lifts a brow and leans closer to peep at him.
“What came early?” he asks. He didn’t hear anything come in the mail lately. Jonghyun scrunches his nose as he pulls open the back door.
“You’ll see,” he mumbles, and tugs Taemin out onto their tiny fenced-off lawn. Taemin grins and follows him silently, looking around on their little picnic table for whatever it is that Jonghyun has to show him. He’s mildly excited. He’s not really one for presents but he is one for snuggling Jonghyun and telling him how well he does and how good the presents he gives are.
Jonghyun leads him passed the table, though, and to the right corner of their yard. The corner area that he blocked off with his neon pink tarp like, almost a year ago and forbade Taemin from entering. Taemin pauses, looking up at the tarp strung up between the two sides of the fence, looking back at Jonghyun.
“It’s--in there?” he asks, pointing. “In your secret project corner?” He’s been doing shit in that corner of the yard since he sectioned it off. First it was with shovels and fancy landscaping pebbles, then it was weeks of wood and sawing and hammers and nails with Minho to help, then it was a lot of paint, and then he got extra secrety sneaky bringing something else in, and he’s gone in and out of there at least once almost every day for months. Taemin figured it was just some Jonghyun stress relief project that he wanted to be private about, like how Taemin doesn’t like people to know he writes music sometimes.
“It, um,” Jonghyun says. He scuffs the grass lightly with his toe and looks up at Taemin with a soft little smile. “It is my secret project,” he says. Taemin blinks at him.
“Oh my god,” he says. He looks back at the tarp. “It is not.” What the fuck. “You did not spend like a year and hours of manual labor on a birthday present for me,” he whispers. What the hecking fuck. That’s so much work. He’s feeling emotions inside of him already. Jonghyun squishes his cheek gently.
“I mean, it was fun for me, too, to do, and it’s not like I had anything else to do,” he says, “but, yeah.” He takes a step back, holding his hands out to get Taemin to stay. “Just, wait a sec, okay?” he says. Taemin nods blankly. He doesn’t know what else he would do, honestly, besides continue to stand here being baffled and slightly overwhelmed.
Jonghyun backs up until he reaches where the right side of the tarp is hooked up to the tall fence. He struggles on his tiptoes for a moment to reach it and tug just the corner down. Then he turns to Taemin, free hand rubbing the back of his undercut, and shuffles nervously.
“I, um,” he says. “I wanted to. Like. Remember, last year, when you said, um. Like. Just--okay.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head quickly. “I forgot everything I wanted to introduce this with,” he mumbles. “I’m just gonna. Show you.” He takes another deep breath and tugs the tarp away, walking with it to the other side of the fence and hopping to tug it off the hook there. Taemin glances at him as he goes passed, and then watches the corner of the yard unveil in front of him.
Low along both sides of the fence are planter boxes filled with leafy green plants. They extend diagonally to almost meet, making a triangle out of the corner. There's a small space left as an opening to get into the middle of the area, where a cute table is set up with two of what look like the most comfortable lawn chairs in existence on top of fancy landscaping pebbles.
The planters are painted a nice warm yellow--Taemin’s favorite yellow--and are decorated with tiny, tiny paintings of eggies and ducks and leaves and other cute things. At each corner a long pole of wood extends up to make a second layer above the ground where more leafy green plants spill out of hanging pots.
It’s beautiful, gorgeous really, a whole construction project completed with precision and care, but what really gets Taemin is the bright splashes of red color he can see in all of the green.
He steps forward slowly, reaches up to gently follow the closest hanging plant up until his fingers stop at a fat strawberry.
A strawberry.
“Jonghyun,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the bright red fruit. “Jonghyun, oh my god.” His heart swells in his chest as he gives it a little squish and a little pull and it comes right off of the vine, perfectly ripe in his hand. He looks up to find Jonghyun still standing by the fence, small hands twiddling nervously in front of his stomach as his lips twitch up into the tiniest smile.
“Because, um,” he says. “You said, last year, that you really wanted your own strawberry plant, but you wouldn't have, you know, the energy to take care of it,” he says. “So I, um.” He gestures vaguely at the many, many strawberry plants in front of them. “For you.”
“Oh my fucking god,” Taemin breathes. He’s never been more in love in his life. He’s a fucking egg that forgot to put the milk back into the fridge this morning after pouring it into his cereal and Jonghyun did all of this for him because he said he liked strawberries one time a year ago. Every nerve in his body right now needs to be touching Jonghyun so that’s what he does; he walks right up to Jonghyun and wraps his arms around his waist in a tight hug.
He squeezes Jonghyun, not too hard to make him squeak but almost that much because he feels like he’s going to explode from how emotional he is. With their bodies pressed so close he’s sure Jonghyun can feel his heart beating in his chest he nuzzles his face into Jonghyun’s neck, nosing against his skin and breathing deep, heavy breaths. Holy fucking shit. Jonghyun’s arms wrap lightly around him as well and give his back little pats.
“And, um,” he says. His voice is warm and quiet into Taemin’s hair. “I can, you know, keep up with the gardening, but. You can too, if you want, because you’re really skilled at it, you know, and I know it’s hard for you to remember and get spoons, but when you set your mind to something you’re really really good at it, and.” Taemin feels him shrug, like all of that was no big deal, but with every word out of Jonghyun’s mouth he felt his emotions growing bigger and bigger inside of him. “I know you can do this,” Jonghyun says quietly, and a shaky breath shuddes out of Taemin’s lungs.
“Oh my god, and now you’re validating me too,” he breathes. Within seconds he can feel all of the emotions inside of him filling him up, pressing up on his organs, forming a lump in his throat, a burn behind his eyes, and then he’s crying.
Like, full on weeping, ugly sniffles and shaky breaths against Jonghyun’s neck. Validation is his one true weakness. Jonghyun chuckles softly by his ear and pets his head gently. Taemin feels a tiny kissie as well nad squeezes him minutely tighter.
“Do you want me to pretend you’re not crying?” he asks. Taemin sniffles grossly and nods. He’d like that, yeah, and he loves how Jonghyun knew to ask. He loves how Jonghyun knows him so well and always knows the right thing to do. He loves everything about Jonghyun. Jonghyun gives him another kissie and a pat on the booty.
“Do you want to look at it more?” he asks next. Again Taemin nods, taking a deep breath as he pulls away from Jonghyun and pressing his palms into his eyes for a moment. He’s an emotional overwhelmed mess but he wants to look at his new plant friends. When he lowers his hands Jonghyun is still there, smiling all soft and proud, and he takes one of Taemin’s wrists and tugs him to the center.
“I thought about putting another plant here, in the middle of the table, but I figured that would take up, you know, snack and laptop space,” he says, tapping the little round picnic table with his nails. “And, I got two chairs, in case you ever wanna take me out on like, a romantic backyard date.” He flutters his eyelashes at Taemin as he sits daintily in the lawn chair on the left. Taemin laughs softly through his stuffed up nose and sits in the chair on the right. Rubbing wetness from his cheeks, he leans heavily over the table and reaches for Jonghyun’s hands.
Jonghyun gives them to him easily, palms warm and fingers little and wiggly against Taemin’s. Behind him, bright red strawberries sit in beautiful patches of green and Taemin feels his heart melting all over again. He wants to say something, to tell Jonghyun how wonderful this is, to tell him it’s the best present he’s ever gotten, to tell him that he’s wonderful and amazing and incredible and the light of his life, but he can’t find the words to express the emotion filling up his entire body and soul.
Instead, he just puts his head down and squeezes Jonghyun’s hands tight, holds them in his and doesn’t let go for a long, long time. From the way Jonghyun leans over and kissies Taemin’s head and murmurs “I love you too,” Taemin knows that he understands.
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notorious-fiction · 6 years
Text
The Christmas Prince (A Whoever You Want to Read With One-Shot)
        You two had made a deal.
         Shook hands and all, very solemn looks on your faces, promising one another a very simple thing.
         No gift exchanging on Christmas day.
(You'd just been laid off your job and it sucked balls, and he knew money was a bit short on your end and also knew you would never, in a gazillion years accept any money from him, so he started to come up with a bunch of lame ass excuses to make you feel a bit better.)
("It's cliché", he had snorted when you touched the subject "Exchanging Christmas gifts. Ugh. It was meaningful before but now it's just another "especial" date that lost it's core value to boost capitalism. I mean, you can be a crappy boyfriend all year round as long as you buy your girl an extra glittery Hallmark card and a Tiffany Bracelet, right?")
("Right." You had agreed, although not really, because as much as you found sexy as fuck when he used pretty words - core value, damn - you still flipping loved Christmas and looked forward to it all year long.)
        So no gift exchanging it was.
        You'd spend Christmas day with you family and he would spend it with his - you knew how rare it was for him to take some time to see them - but the day before, the 24th, you had him all to your own.
        Just "a casual dinner, the two of us" (his words, not yours) with some "classic Christmas movies, deal with it, loser" (your words, not his) at your place.
        Going out was a real pain nowadays, with the whole paps, fangirls, Snapchatters, etc thing, so to save yourself from the stress (how come he never failed to look like a Goddamn model on those candids whilst you looked like you were about to sneeze? Ugh.), staying in it was.
        In, with no gifts.
        Or at least you thought so, because mid afternoon on December 24th your iPhone seemed to gain a life of its own, all your social media accounts on a frenzy of notifications as, oh well, your famous as fuck of a boyfriend was spotted loading a box the size of a small poney into his car.
("She is so lucky!!!!!!")
("What did he get herrrrrrr i'd be happy just with his dick on box and by the size of it its prob that lol")
("Ugh i hope its a bomb")
(Insert other very sweet comments here.)
        You controlled the urge to text him (going against your über curious personality with all the strenghth your posessed), instead focusing on the fact that you were...
        Fucked.
        Because whilst your boyfriend was on the posession of a very big, flashy box (what you had no idea what was inside, Christ, what the hell was inside of it?!), you were in the posession of...
        "How The Grinch Stole Christmas", "Elf" and "The Polar Express".
(All masterpieces, in your humble opinion.)
        And the phone of the thai take out two blocks from your place.
(Best pad thai and sticky rice ever.)
(Plus it gave tons of free sriracha packets! Yay for free stuff!)
        But seriously, what the fuck were you supposed to give to a human being who seemed to have absolutely everything?!
        It'd be stupid to give him clothes - he got those for free -, you had no idea what his shoesize was (did that make you a horrible girlfriend? oops) and anything else you could think of was undoubtely lame. 
        What if you made him something?
        Okay so you didn't know how to draw or paint or knit or rhyme or write a song or do anything that required a minimum artistic vein slash handicraft talent but you could...
        Try?
        Throwing your body on the couch, your laptop literally on your lap, you sat on your ultimate comfy position - which he had lovingly nicknamed "Cirque Du Soleil's contortionist catching up on reality TV on it's free time" or "how you don't have a back problem is beyond me" (when he said that last one he totally reminded you of your mom) -, typing on the words that were responsible for many delayed papers at Uni and scurries off the house whilst almost tripping on your shoes as you were late as fuck.
        Pinterest dot com.
(A blessing and a curse to womankind, honestly.)
D. I. Y.
(Do it yourself.)
(Although you actually never did.)
        Scrolling down the screen - DIY baking soda shampoo! DIY mosaic tile birdbath using recycled DVD's! DIY Glittery Bath Bombs! - you noticed that all of them seemed to involve stuff everyone apparently had at home except you like glue guns or spray paint or Scrabble tile holders (...seriously) so after five minutes of Pinterest searching, you sighed in defeat.
(Hard effort wasn't your forte, you had to admit.)
        Even friendship bracelets are a hard task to accomplish when you have the skills of a three year old toddler and if you actually purchased a glue gun you could already picture yourself glueing nothing but your own fingers and spending Christmas Day at the ER.
        But you did have glitter glue, and that wasn't so dangerous was it?
        You also had an old, slightly crumpled piece of cardboard and a "DIY Easy Glittery Hallmark card tutorial!" (snort) at your screen, so you decided to give it a go.
        If it came out okay you'd be able to give him as an ironic gift?
("Oh hey, I know you gave me a super awesome/expensive/fancy/cool/thoughtful - insert whatever the hell could be inside that massive box here Christ the curiosity was killing you - but ha-ha-ha remember that snark you made about glittery Hallmark cards?! Instead of giving money to the greedy capitalist men I made one myself, how about that?! Aren't I the Best Girlfriend Ever?!?!?!")
        And if it came out like crap you could, y'know, throw it in the bin...
        ...So of course it came out like crap.
        Because you somehow managed to put more glitter glue on the tip of your fingers than on the goddamn cardboard, more glitter glue on your clothes as you absentmindedly rubbed your hands on it as you tried to think of what the hell you could do to save your "Merry Christmas" masterpiece.
(Trash.) (That was how you could save it, your dignity, your boyfriend's poor eyes and your dignity.)
(By throwing your masterpiece on the garbish.)
(Fuck ironic gifts.)
        Of course that instead of coming up with another idea after the Glittery-DIY-Hallmark-Card fiasco, your procrastinator side spoke louder, and click after click after click you found yourself going deeper and deeper of that pit called Pinterest, until you blazed on a section you'd never dared to venture on before.
        The recipe session.
        There were gooey chocolate chip bars, chocolate fudge brownies, kale and artichokes dip, quinoa fried "rice" (...why would someone all it fried "rice" if it had no rice in it only quinoa, you wondered...) and everything made your mouth water and stomach growl and you deeply wished there was someone who could make it for you.
        Everything sounded too tempting (and too hard and with too many fancy ingredients and kitchen appliances you'd never even heard of) until you found...
"Easy adaptable chocolate chip cookies with ingredients everyone has at home!!!!! Can be made vegan gluten/lactose/nut/anythying free paleo atkins insert random diet you'd never heard of before here"
        Well...
        Following a recipe wouldn't be that hard... Would it?
        Especially when you could sub eggs for oil if you didn't have any or oil for mashed banana or mashed banana for applesauce or applesauce for honey or honey for agave which were all obviously so much alike, right?
        Throwing everything you had into a single bowl - did you mention it was a single bowl recipe? Seriously, it could not get any better, your dishes-washing-hater-side thought - you frowned as you compared your final result to the one on the screen.
        Pinterest's batter: gooey but firm, looked so good you wouldn't mind spooning it raw directly into your mouth.
        Your batter: two year old's diarrhea, you wouldn't want to spoon it raw directly into your mouth not even if they paid you.
        You somehow managed to put little (balls, on Pinterest, blobs, sounded more accurate to your situation) blobs of the batter onto the baking sheet and onto the oven, too busy freaking out slash trying to understand what the hell you did wrong (ooh two american cups of flour? what were american cups? weren't your cups american? why america has to control everything for god's sake?!) to notice the door being unlocked, only realising you had company when you heard an amused chuckle behind you.
        Turning around so quick you almost broke your neck - fouet filled with sticky disgusting batter held in hand in a threatingly way - you found him staring, all long legs and perfect hair and mocking grin and...
        Empty hands?
        Where the hell was the box the size of a toddler he was seen loading into his car?!
        Goddamit, internet!
(And why did you feel a lil' bit disappointed I mean...)
(...you had him, hadn't you?)
(Best Christmas Gift Ever, am I right.)
        "Hi."
        "Hi. Were you..." A cute little frown appeared between his brows, pearly white teeth still on show as he asked "Baking?"
        Getting a bit defensive - why did he have to sound so confused/terrified? - you dropped the fouet on the sink, replying "Yes, why?"
        "Oh, for nothing! I mean, it smells..."
(Awful.)
        "Pretty good."
(Damn, he was a liar.)
        Leaning to check the oven temperature just one more time - I mean, better safe than sorry, you couldn't push your luck (any further) - you ignored your boyfriend's stare (a cute little smirk on his lips because well, he thought it was cute how you hadn't noticed the chocolate batter on your chin or how you wore an apron thrice your size), asking maybe a little too cheery "So, how's your Christmas eve going so far?"
( "...Loading too many big ass boxes onto your car?", you rhymed mentally.)
        "Well, not too good I mean, I only got to see my lovely lady today." He replied with a charming smile, expecting for you to giggle - alright, fine, he knew you weren't one to giggle, or at least give him love eyes.
        You squinted skeptically.
...Okay.
        "Empty handed, I see."
        "Yeah, kinda glad we decided to skip on that Christmas madness. Had to help a mate out with picking up a complete set of one of those fancy Le Creuset cooking things. Said his girlfriend would love it." He added with a scoff, rolling his eyes "I told him that if I gave you anything kitchen related you'd throw it in my head, but seeing you're apparently into cooking now..." He paused, pursing his lips "Should I write it down as a suggestion for your birthday?"
        Her mind went black.
        Kitchen appliances.
        His mate was giving his girlfriend freakin' casseroles and frying pans.
(Oh poor girl.)
(Poor, poor girl.)
(The disappointment when she opened that huge heavy box.)
(Damn.)
        And you had been freaking out the entire day thinking he'd gotten you something big and awesome and you'd look like the awful ungrateful girlfriend.
        Man, that ugly glittery card would look like heaven next yo, y'know... Nothing.
        "If you ever give me a damn casserole pan I shall rip off your little buddy of you, cut it into tiny little pieces, cook them in the freakin' thing and serve you for dinner." You stated, and he replying, giving you a kiss on the forehead  "Aw, see? I know you so well."
        God, you were glad he didn't get you anything.
        Because being with him was the best gift you could've ever asked for.
(Insert vomiting and cringing here.)
(Fuck you never thought you would be THIS gross and disgusting and loving about any human being in your life after your miserable string of awful break-ups.)
(Yet there you were, with your very own prince charming.)
(Yup, that was it, you guys would be watching The Christmas Prince on Netflix.)
        You showed your appreciation by getting on the tips of your toes and pecking him on the lips, the little wrinkle of confusion between his forehead making you want to kiss him even more.
(How was possible for someone to be so cute slash sexy at the same damn time?)
(Seriously.)
(Ugh.)
        But then, maybe you'd been too distracted by his pouty pink lips - no chapstick or anything, you wondered how the hell he managed to get them always so soft and puffy and kissable - to check the oven...
        And the whole room started to smell a bit smokey.
        And look a bit smokey.
        "Fuck, my Pinterest cookies!" You squealed, startling him.
        You were sort of thankful your fire alarm wasn't working so well, because if the firemen showed up because you almost burned your kitchen down, your landlord would have (even more) reasons to hate you.
        "It looks... Edible." Your boyfiend said matter of fact, poking one of your cookies at the tray with the tip of his fingers with brows furrowed.
        They looked like baby alien fetus.
(Edible, in some outer galaxy cultures, probably.)
        "Want to try them?" You knew by the raise of his eyebrow that it was a challenge, a thing you rarely passed.
        Daringly, you got one - dropping it back to the tray because damn they were hot -, trying it again after a few seconds of you two staring at each other with "Who Shall Quit First" eyes.
        Was he going to make you eat them first?
        By the fake tight ass smile he was giving you, he was...
        So with the biggest grin you could muster, you squeaked "Merry Christmas baby! I made these for you! Hope you like them!"
(Or at least don't get food poisoning and die! Please don't get food poisoning and die! I kinda really really really really really like you!)
(And if you die because of me slash my cookies your fans will murder me!)
        With a small gulp, he picked one of the alien fetus cookies, shaking it off so they wouldn't be "too hot and burn his tongue" for about three minutes.
        You kinda knew he was trying to make as many tiny pieces of it fall out so he'd eat as less of a cookie as possible, but you didn't call him out on it because oh well, he was at least going to eat a teeny bit of them.
        And in the end, after a bit of fake awing "Oh, tastes so good babe" and maybe spitting on a napkin when you turned around to throw the dirty dishes on the sink, he did eat your alien fetus cookies.
        What made him the best boyfriend slash Christmas present ever.
        And after drinking maybe a bit too much wine and watching The Christmas Prince, he drunkenly vowed to never ever give you anything cooking related - as the cookies now rested in peace in your trashcan, on top of your ugly ass glittery card -, and that vow would be proved to be a gift that kept on giving.
(I mean, it would give stomach aches and calls to the fire fighters and be a total waste of ingredients, so you were cool with that.)
(And even if he never gave you anything at all, he dealt with your craziness, your PMSing, you overreacting whenever you let your - very expensive - makeup fall onto the floor, never watched Game of Thrones episodes without you and always let you eat the biggest last slice of cheesecake.)
        And if that wasn't much of a proof of real, true love, you had no idea of what the hell it could be.
           And that was the greatest gift of all.
(Cue to cringing due to cheesyness again.)
-------
MERRY CHRISTMAS U GUYSSSSSSSSS!
Hope y’all have a fantastic one and find all you wanted under the tree! ooh and if you liked it pls don’t forget to click on that like button (i’ve been watching too many youtube vids send help)
lots lots of love
Gabe
ps: i’d like to dedicate this to my favorite humans on earth victoria, nina and lari, who are still my friends even after i’ve been through probably 30 different mental breakdowns this year, love you guise so muchhhhhhhh thanks for always encouraging me to write!!! oh and if you haven’t read my stories based on them you can find them all here 
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specialmindz · 6 years
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CICK, CICK!
Papyrus’s tiny hand tapped against the sides of his brother’s eye socket as he struggled to grab the small glowing light within. He had been at it since the beginning of their walk towards the multiple power restoration stations, seemingly unaware or unable to comprehend how futile his goal was.
CICK CICK CICK!
“lemme know when you’re done, bro,” sighed Sans, slightly annoyed. He wasn’t at all happy about their little trip, and the tapping was starting to get to him. It was bad enough that he had to replace the drained magic crystals, but the fact that Gaster had ordered him to bring Papyrus along made it worse.
The scientist had noticed that the baby bones crib was still covered in ectoplasm, but unfortunately it was too late to do anything about it. The orange slime had long since hardened and was now impossible to remove, meaning he would have to get a new crib altogether. After lecturing Sans about his “excessive laziness” Gaster decided to punish him by giving the comedian his least favorite job. Apparently he was under the impression that it was SANS’ job to clean up after Papyrus, and not his.  
It’s not fair. It’s not MY job to get ectoplasm off of PAPYRUS’S crib! He’s not MY son!  
“Nyeh heh heh! You gots some big ol’ glow eyes, Snas! Where’d you get those glow eyes? Baby would like some glow eyes...”
Sans ignored his brother and continued onward through the annoyingly long hallways. It would have been nice if the power stations were closer together, but the volcanic activity in Hotland made underground construction dangerous.  
CICK CICK CICK!
“please stop.”  
WHY would they dig into a volcano to begin with? I mean, who had that FUCKING idea?
“we’ve a second story with ZERO rooms...”
“Nyeh?” Papyrus looked down at him in confusion. “You got some glow eyes in a book?” 
“wh-no. i was thinking about something else,” sighed Sans wearily.
The baby bones scratched his tiny skull as he tried to figure out his older brother’s riddle. What book could Sans have been murmuring about? 
The only book Papyrus knew of that could hide things was Peek-a-Boo With Fluffy Bunny, but Sans had always stayed clear of THAT particular piece of literature...
“A book with no rooms...”   
“hey pap, didja’ hear what i said? i said there IS no book. second story means second floor. i’m talking about the lab.”
“The glowies on the second floor?”
“no-”
“They on the second floor in a book?”
“NO.”
CICK CICK!
*sigh*
“I can’t reach da’ glowies, Snas. Help da’ baby.”
“no.”
“Why not?! You gots two and I don’t gots any! You greedy as hell, big Buther!”
Sans took one of the colored orbs filled with magic crystals and replaced the drained one, starting the second generator in the process.
Two down, two more to go...  
“You’s SUPPOSED to teach about sharing, Snas. I’s impesshinable, ya’ know? I gots to learn to share or I’s gonna be a Scroog duck. Ya’ know dat duck wit the gold swim pool? 
“i know who you’re talking about.” 
“He gots a cane and a big ol’ hat, but no pants.”
“okay?”
“You know why he don’t have pants, Snas?”
“...”
“You know why?”
“...”
“You know why?”
“...”
“You know why, big Buther?”
Oh my god.
“WHY bro,” asked Sans, struggling to keep his temper. “WHY doesn’t he have pants?”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“hello-”
“I don’t know why, big Buther.”
Are you freaking kidding me with this?
“you’re driving me nuts, pap.”
“Well I’s sorry bout’ your nuts, but I thinks mah footure be more important.”
“keep bothering me and you’re not gonna HAVE a future,” warned Sans, putting in another orb.
Three down...
“You bedder be nice to me, stink buther! I’s the one watching over you down here...also dis where I’s gonna put some of the sparklies when I gets em’. Is dark as hell!”
“’sparklies?’ oh right, the stars.”
“Yep! Some gonna go in yo’ room and some gonna be down here. Imma make dis room as bright as your smile! Nyeh heh heh!”
“uh...”
“Dis the part where you say, ‘Awww! Such a nice widdle baby...”
“sorry bro, the only word flashing through my mind right now is gay-”  
“YOU GAY!”
Sans chuckled as the baby bones frowned down at him from his shoulders. To anyone else, he would have looked like a jerk teasing an infant, but he was more than used to Papyrus’s manipulation tactics.
It kinda scares me actually...makes me wonder what he’ll be like when he grows up. He’s obviously going to get smarter...
Maybe this is just a baby bones thing...? 
I think the FontSearch said something about them using manipulation as a means of self-defense...about them purposely trying to be as cute as possible so people will protect rather than attack them.   
CICK CICK CICK! 
The kid comedian looked around in confusion for a few seconds before letting out another annoyed sigh, his brother having pulled him from his thoughts. 
Wrong turn...
CICK, CICK! 
“why don’t you go watch a movie Papyrus? we found lots of barney videos at the dump yesterday-”
“Because the power’s out stink head. Also they thow those away for a reason, Snas. They suck.”
“you suck.”
“YOU SUCK!”
“You both suck.” The boys both jumped in surprise at the sound of Gaster’s voice behind them. “I asked you to restore the power fifteen minutes ago, Sans. WHY is the lab still dim?”
“because you’re still standing in it, genius.”
“NYEH HEH HA HA HA!”
“Excuse me?!” 
“i said i’m working on it-”
“I’m fairly sure that isn’t what you said and I’m getting more than a little tired of your sass, Sans.”
“Go way, douche da-”
“And YOU shut your thumb-sucking mouth!” snapped the scientist. “It’s YOUR fault the power ran out so quickly! Have you the slightest inkling how few crystals we have left?”
“We gots...dis many,” replied the baby, smiling straight ahead. 
“...You didn’t raise any fingers.”
“Dat’s how many we got.”
“*Sigh*”
I can’t deal with this...
“How come you don’t buy more rock stuff, Daddy? How’s da’ baby supposed to get an ed-jew-ma-cation if the tv don’t work?” 
I can’t DEAL with this right now!! 
“You’s awful irra-sponsible-”
“SHUT UP.”
Gaster put his hands over his head as if he were trying to block out Papyrus’s voice. He hoped it would signal his oblivious children that he wasn’t in the best mood, but instead it only made his eldest concerned.
“dad...?” Sans took a step back, wondering if he should put the crystals on the floor and teleport out of the room. His father looked crazy and he was ninety-percent sure that wasn’t too far off from the truth.
To be honest, the royal scientist WAS at his wits end. With the mines closing, it was HIS job to find an alternate source of power for the entire Underground, but how was he to do that when he had a vengeful baby bones destroying his progress and/or making it impossible to progress..?
The more things he had to do over again, the more work piled up for the next day. It had gotten to the point where he had more mail from demanding citizens than actual paperwork!
WHY?
WHY would he have the microwave, washing machine, AND stasis chamber on ALL AT THE SAME TIME?! 
Multitasking was Gaster’s thing, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. He enjoyed science; he enjoyed learning, inventing new things, achieving what others had already deemed impossible.
Not this.
Not having problems thrown at him like knives toward a dartboard.
Not having a kingdom of ungrateful parasites sucking the knowledge out of him without a second thought.
“GRAH!”
“hey, dad chill...”
I hate them. I hate them all. They expect me to find a way to destroy the barrier THEY put up, they expect me to fix the gas leak that THEY created, they expect me to find an alternate power source that THEY should have already found as a backup! 
“THEY EXPECT ME TO DO EVERYTHING!” yelled the scientist, startling his sons once more. 
It’s not worth it. THEY’RE not worth it...   
“i’m sorry, dad,” said Sans, looking down at the floor. “i was thinking about something and took a wrong turn...”
“THEY DESTROY MY PEOPLE AND EXPECT ME TO GIVE ONE HUNDRED AND SIX PERCENT EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!”
“huh?”
Is he not talking about us?
“BACKSTABBING COWARDS!!”
Does he even know we’re still here...?
“THEY DESERVE IMPRISONMENT!!”
“Nyeh..nyehhh...”                                   
“hey dad? you’re scaring pap.”
Sans reached out to pull his father’s sleeve, but Papyrus quickly leaned over and grabbed his own. “Don’t tug Daddy Snas, I sense the danger...”
“nahh, it’s okay baby bro. i’m pretty sure he’s just in his own little world right now. i do this too sometimes.”
“Daz not good, Snas.”
“I’LL BURN THEIR HOUSES DOWN WITH LEMONS!!”
“...”
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“mayyybe we should just keep going.”
“Kay’.”
Before the two continued on, Papyrus leaned over once more and dropped a Snickers into the front pocket of Gaster’s lab coat. 
“...Di-Did you just put a candy bar soaked in garbage juice into my pocket?”
“You’s not you when you’s hungry.”
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mostlymaddie · 7 years
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Sorry I'm Allergic
A/N: Okay so warning this has smut also I started this at 4:30pm and now it's 4:24am like this looks like it was done in one second Harry always made sure everything in his life was how he preferred it. If he wanted something he got it, if he wanted certain things changed they were changed in a heartbeat. Now, Harry wasn't cocky about it this was just something he had grown accustom to, so getting what ever he wanted came like second nature. Although it wasn't just him getting "special treatment" he made sure his family always had what they needed in a matter of seconds. The only thing Harry actually wanted was someone to be with, share his thoughts with, and put his love into. Don't get me wrong, Harry put his life and soul into his music no questions asked but he just wanted someone  that could share their feelings with him and every thought they had ever come across. And that's where you came along, well in Harry's book. When Harry first saw you it was at a smoothie place near his house. You were ordering a Groovy Goji with a grilled chicken wrap. Harry didn't know what attracted him to you he didn't think it was your face seeing half of it were covered by Hangover styled Aviators. Maybe it was your voice, while it did sound beautiful it was the perfect mix of nasally, soft, and filled with confidence. The only words he heard there 'goji' 'also' 'chicken' since the strong wind was impairing most of his hearing. Goji and chicken sounded great to Harry but that wasn't it either. So Harry decided it was the way you carried yourself, you stood tall and determined not to mention the natural glow you had. Harry quickly ordered his food and sat at the table in front of you hoping to catch a glimpse of your face. A little after you both got settled you took off your sunglasses and he finally saw your full face. Harry was completely floored, it was obvious your beauty wasn't the reason you attracted him but it was just a little bonus to finally see your face. Harry sipped on his antioxidant smoothie and tried to get a your attention buy dropping things and and coughing very loudly but you never made an effort to look up. Harry grow frustrated very quickly, everyone in the damned store looked at him with the "Oh my gosh it's the Harry Styles" but the one girl he wanted wouldn't even glance at him. As said before Harry always got what he wanted, right now Harry wanted this girl to notice him and he got none of that. A hour passed of Harry ordering numerous drinks and still no contact from this girl. When he almost gave up the girl closed her laptop, shoved it in her bag and walked toward the door. "See you again Y/N" the barista called out behind her. So that was her name it most definitely fit her face. Now Harry had a name and a face but he still seeked more. It was obvious he could have came back tomorrow and seen you, the barista's words as evidence, but that just wasn't enough. So the only thing that made sense to Harry was to follow you yes full on stalker follow you. Harry made sure you were out of sight of the shop windows before towing after you. He pressed in his mind which direction you were going he all so made sure he was a good ten feet behind you at all times. While in this pursuit of you he's learned a lot if things, everyone and he means everyone knew who were he watched as you received "Hi Y/N!" "Hello love, how are ya?" You replied with smiles, waves, and answers to those question. This whole ordeal made Harry more curious as to who you are. As he pondered who you might be he didn't notice you stopped and turned to face him, causing Harry to crash into you. "Okay listen here mister, I let it slide when you stared at me back at the shop even when you followed me for two blocks. But now you're just being creepy so can you just please leave me alone?" Harry's heart dropped down to his stomach, blinded by the thought of this girl he completely forgot right and wrong. For god's sake he had followed this poor girl. " 'M so sorry. I didn't mean ta freak yeh out I just wanted to talk to yeh." Harry explained. "Mmm really? Ever tried 'Hey wanna talk'?" "I'm sorry. Can I please make it up to you? I just wanna talk to yeh a bit. Maybe over a goji berry smoothie?" Harry proposed, hoping for a positive response. "Nope sorry I'm allergic" with that she turned on her heel and kept walking down the street. Harry had properly blew it and he was more than frustrated. On his walk home he thought about what he could do to try and make the situation better. The last thing Harry wanted to do was leave a bad taste in your mouth, that's when he thought about the barista's words "See you again Y/N!" Harry woke up the next day with a plan already in his head, it wasn't that elaborate but it was a start. He woke up and put on his best outfit, with the help of his sister, and walked to the shop that got him in the mess in the first place. Harry ordered his antioxidant smoothie and a sandwich for himself with a groovy goji and a grilled chicken wrap for Y/N. Merely minutes later you walked in  "Hey! Over here." Harry called. You looked in the direction of the voice, once you saw who it was you tried to leave immediately, but Harry was too fast. "Please jus sit down with meh so we can talk." "No, I don't talk to people like you." Harry has never gotten that response before when he asked to talk to someone. This girl really put up a challenge but that just enticed him more. "Just because 'm famous doesn't mean 'm stuck up if tha's what yeh think" Y/N looked up at Harry with dulled slow blinking eyes. "Famous?" she chuckled " When I said people like you I meant creepy, if we're being honest here I have no idea who you are." Now that was a huge blow to Harry's ego, not only did she not know him, she called him creepy. "Yeh don't know who I am? 'M Harry Styles I'm from the band One Direction well I'm doing my own thing for the time being but." Y/N racked her brain for 'Harry Styles' or 'One Direction' but nothing came up. Of course Y/N didn't live under a rock she always knew the latest songs and Netflix TV shows but she had never heard of Harry and his band. Now she was being pursued by this hot shot since yesterday that she hasn't heard of mainly because their prime years were covered by her emo phase which left no room for boy bands. Since My Chemical Romance and One Direction didn't mesh well on a playlist she was left completely clueless "Yeah dude, I don't know who you are." Harry sighed but maybe this was a good thing, since Y/N didn't know him she may not associate him with the womanizer image that didn't represent him at all. "Okay well maybe we could chat about it ovar some food and such?" Y/N thought about it, if this guy really was a creep she could rely on the employees to save her since she's on a first name basis with all of them and even texts a few of the baristas from time to time. There was no doubt his name held weight because yesterday everyone flocked to him as soon as they walked in. At first she just thought he was a local like her self but some people asked for pictures and autographs, she thought that was odd but the letter she was writing to her brother overseas was way more important than some pretty boy local. After a long sigh Y/N says "I guess so." with a smile that made Harry's heart flutter. Harry lead you to the table where your food was set up " I got what I heard you order yesterday. That's not really helping the creep case but." Harry said while he sat her down and pushed her chair into the table. "Yeah no it's fine, really sweet actually." Harry and Y/N talked about a lot first was about his first band and his experience on the X Factor. Harry's talk lead more into One Direction and the great times he's had with all four guys and even giving Y/N insight on some of the worst. Then Harry let Y/N have the spotlight where she talked about her upbringing. She told Harry just about every embarrassing story in her life because that's what made him laugh the most. Y/N and Harry talked the whole entire day, in fact they didn't even notice until one of the employees told them the place was closing. They walked outside the shop to bid a goodbye to one another but they both didn't want the night to end so Harry had an idea "Come ovar my place for a bit? We could talk some more." Harry leaned his forehead on to hers and intertwined their fingers. "Yeah" Harry and Y/N walked back to his house, they talked some more about TV shows Harry spewed out his favorite in a heartbeat since he barely watched TV but he always had a few he tuned to immediately. Y/N however recommend every show on HGTV like Flip or Flop and Vintage Flip just to name a few. Harry never heard of these shows but seeing the excitement in her eyes made him want to watch them more so they agreed to watch it when they got to his place. They got to his place in a matter of minutes he ushered her in just incase any paps were waiting to catch a glimpse of him."So this is my place, it's not much but I call it home." This place looked beautiful to Y/N different art pieces decorated the white walls, different crystals sat on side tables each were different in shapes and sizes but were all connected by a common color of red. The living room and a color plan of yellow, black, and red it was weird but Harry made it work. The two walked to his couch and took a seat "Now show me this House Hunters you go on about." After about four episodes and Harry yelling at the wifes when they complained about the light fixtures our the shower head, the two found themselves cuddling on his couch. Y/N lifted her self from his chest to get to his face "H, calm down show's fake anyways she's just bitchin' for no reason." Harry looked up at her, her eyes were glazed over and her hair was a hot mess because Harry ran his fingers through her hair, getting it tangled, but she looked absolutely adorable. "It is? Tha's upsetting." Y/N chuckled and started to ramble about something but Harry was too focused on her lips, they were puffy and looked so soft Harry couldn't help himself. Harry reached up to capture her lips Y/N was caught off guard but it felt right and she quickly melted into the kiss. This wasn't the 'sparks are flying' 'fireworks in my stomach' type of kisses because those just didn't happen, but this was the best kiss Y/N has ever had in her life no doubt. Push came to shove and they're in his living room making out like horny teenagers.Y/N was the one to break the kiss "Can we, I don't know. Go to your room or something?" she said gasping for air Harry didn't hesitate before he lifted Y/N up and wrapped her thighs around him. He ran upstairs and dropped Y/N on the bed before crawling over her. "So beautiful love, jus' layin' here fo' meh." Harry kissed her cheek trailing down to her jawline then neck. Y/N started to moan when he sucked a sweet spot under her ear. "Oh babe that feels amazing!" she moaned and grabbed a hold of his hair. Her moans ignited something in Harry that caused him to rut his cock on her thigh. Harry made sure he had two beautifully colored marks on her neck and collar bone before continuing. He lifted the bottom of her shirt to under her breast. Harry kissed, sucked, and kitten licked her lower stomach. Different profanities including fuck and shit leaving her mouth her skirt created no barrier as Harry continued his assault while rubbing her panty clad clit. Y/N took her shirt off and massaged her breast through her bra "Fuck Harry do something please I need you!" Harry decided to give her what she wanted, he reached up to undo the clasps on her bra and slid it off her arms. "You're such a fooken sight to see petal. Your tits are so perfect, let me get us situated then I'll get back to those, okay beautiful?" Harry went down to her lower region he pulled down the zipper on her skirt and slid them down her legs. Then Harry leaned in to place a kiss her her clit he licked and sucked as much as he could seeing she still had underwear on. "Sweetheart, these little thongs yeh have on are so beautiful pet, bet they make ya ass look incredible. In fact turn around and let me see it babe." Y/N whined "Baby please I just want you in me please H I'll do anything!" "Love when I say do something, yeh do it. I don't wanna spank that pretty ass red. But I will." Y/N groaned but turned around on her stomach. "Christ sweetheart I was right." Y/N's ass was beautiful it was the perfect size for Harry her ass turned Harry's semi hard straight into a raging hard on. He dove into her ass, Harry licked and kissed under her left ass cheek while the right hand grabbed onto her other ass cheek. Y/N never thought someone paying this much attention to her ass would feel so good but now that it's happened she doesn't want to have sex again if it didn't include this part. Most of her moans were muffled by Harry's pillows but they both knew how aroused she was especially Harry since he could smell her dipping in between her legs. "Sweetheart, yeh smell absolutely wonderful take off those pretty panties fo' meh." While Y/N took care of that, Harry quickly stripped out of his clothes, leaving his cock angry red and throbbing. Harry laid down between her spread legs as she still laid. Harry spread her pussy lips apart and blew cold air on her opening. "Har baby that feels so good, you're doing me so good but please baby fuck me." "In a second love." Harry tongued her entrance. He took his time while he ate her out he'd smack her ass a few times just to watch it bounce luckily it turned her on so it was a win-win. After Harry ate her to the verge of tears "Harry baby I'm gonna cum I'm so close babe I'm right there jus- Harry!" "Yeh aren't cummin' 'till I'm deep inside you pet. But I got one more thing to do." Harry flipped her over to see her face, her face was flushed she she was sweating, not to mention the tears going down her face. Harry cooed and wiped her tears away "I'll let you cum in a second pet, just let me play with those pretty tits first." Harry leaned up to circle his tongue around her nipples, making them hard. He took her pointed nipples in between his teeth and tugged on them. Y/N wanted him to fuck her so bad but this felt almost as good almost. "Harry please fuck me!" "Okay love I gotcha. Hand meh a condom outta that drawer." after Harry got the condom on he rubbed the head of his cock on her slit. He got whines in return from Y/N so he finally thrusted in. "Fuck Harry! You're so big my gosh fuck me baby" The words coming from her mouth made him thrust faster, her cunt was heavenly around his cock since he had a condom on he couldn't feel everything he'd like but he still felt on top of the world inside of her. Harry held her legs at his hips then reached down to capture this girls lips. Harry got his deepest and thrusted his hardest into Y/N and he could cum at any second. "Harry please I'm almost there!" that's all he needed before reaching down to rub her clit. That's what pushed her over the edged, Y/N came on his cock "Tha's it baby cum all over Daddy's cock I got you pet I'm right here." Y/N's climax crashed down on her while Harry's followed shortly after. Harry laid down beside his lover. "Stay tha night, I'll make you breakfast in the morning and maybe we can have a round two." Y/N obviously didn't need to think twice about this offer. "Okay but next time I want to be in charge." "I think we can work sum out."
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askmicrowaveayem · 6 years
Text
MAYEM: The First Meeting Pt. 2
[Previous]
[Archive] [Cast]
The trio hurried along behind him until they were safely out of the building. Once there all of them looked around and Gaster whistled. “Wow, this place looks really different. No wonder the power is going out, you don’t have the core built.” Gaster looked at where it would, possibly, someday stand.
“What are you using for power right now?”
--
“Waterwheels,” Gaster said, “Waterfall’s full of them, but they’re old, and they’re failing. I’m trying to convince the Royal Scientist to give me leave to try something with geothermal energy using Hotland’s magma basins, but he’s… not willing to let me try until I have a.. cheaper model.”
He sounded incredibly bitter about this.
“Now. What’s this ‘core’ you keep talking about?”
--
The more his counterpart talked, the more old memories were flooding back. Man, how far back had they travelled? It wasn’t all the same, of course, but this felt pretty early on when it came to being trapped in the underground.
“Basically what you’re building.” He said and couldn’t help but laugh. “That was one of my first big projects after we got sealed away. Careful though, the prototypes blow up a few times.”
“Well, mine did.” He added.
--
Gaster resummoned his other blasters, lighting their way better. He was confident they wouldn’t run into anyone out here right now, at least no one who would get too curious, unlike his coworkers. “I don’t suppose you remember what the working design ended up looking like, do you?”
It was strange, being alongside this other Gaster--he was getting more comfortable, thinking that, even if it was such a foreign idea. It was strange, being alongside a Gaster who.. apparently had accomplished something. A lot of things.
--
“Of course I do.” Gaster said with a grin. “You don’t forget your first big achievement.”
“But-” He added, “-I’m not going to spoonfeed you. If you’re me you’ll figure it out. Figuring these things out for yourself is important.”
There was a pause before he added something more; “Unless you plan to build a time machine to break the barrier. Then I’ll gladly write out every little detail on how to make that work the first time around.”
--
“I plan to,” Gaster said immediately, sounding fully assured and honest.
--
Gaster’s steps faltered a little, but he didn’t let himself get left behind or appear anything more than slightly bothered.
“... Guess I’m writing out some notes tonight.”
--
Gaster couldn’t believe that had worked. He smiled at his counterpart, just a bit. “Glad to hear that. We’ll be coming up to the docks soon. Just ask the boatmen to get you to the Capitol docks. I’ll meet you at Pier 7.”
He dug into his pockets and handed each a few pieces of gold. It would be enough for the payment and tip. Despite the lack of a CORE, this underground was clearly already fairly well put-together and had developed their own methods of making things work, even without vent puzzles or reliable elevators.
--
“Yeah, yeah.” Gaster grumbled, taking the gold. He didn’t sound too pleased that his other self had roped him into basically handing his blueprints over on a silver platter, but he just didn’t have it in him to let another version of himself go through what he had.
There was no way he’d let this Gaster get trapped into the void if he could help it. Perhaps he would anyway, only time would tell.
It was no matter, he would try regardless.
--
So his counterpart was clever, successful, and honest.
He sounded like a very nice person. Gaster felt sort of bad for lying, but. Whatever it took. A few lies were a small price to pay.
They reached the docks and Gaster got on one of the boats and went ahead to wait for the others at the meeting place.
...He’d probably have to find something for them to eat and somewhere for them to sleep, huh.
--
The trio did much the same, using the gold given to them to get from one place to another.
As they travelled Gaster wondered if these monsters had been as devastated by the war as his had. There seemed to be quite a lot of monsters despite how early on it might have been. A large part of him hoped they hadn’t fought or resisted as long as his timeline had. So many would still be alive if they had just caved in and let them be sealed with minimal bloodshed.
Heh. Caved.
That would have been a good one to tell Sans, but he decided it was best to keep all their mouths shut. Usually the timelines they jumped into weren’t quite this… drastically different.
Eventually they stepped off and met up with the other Gaster.
--
Gaster had no idea of the terrible pun his counterpart had made, but he’d heard it, he would have appreciated it.
It was a bit brighter at the docks than it had been outside the labs at Hotland. There were more glow crystals about, with fires and shop windows lighting up the cobblestones. He’d long dismissed his blaster. Once he spotted the trio, he waved them over and began walking through the streets as someone who knew them very well, ducking in through an alley or two. Within ten minutes, they were at a small apartment block. He led them inside and upstairs.
“Mind the tripwire,” he said, stepping over it. “My neighbor tries to be funny. Don’t ruin it for him.”
He opened the door to his apartment and ushered them all inside.
...yeah, he probably should have cleaned more. His main room was about as beautifully, terribly bare as it usually was, with his main decorations being the table, couch, and swarms of papers and spare electronics covering every surface.
...he wondered if he’d owned chairs in the last five years.
He’d figure something out.
--
They all followed him mostly silently, the only one ever opening their mouth to speak being Papyrus. He would comment on things he saw as they walked and either Sans or Gaster would elaborate a little or give him a little ‘that’s cool’ or ‘good eye, pap’ before going quiet again.
Each one of them stepped over the tripwire.
“a prankster? i like ‘em already.” Sans grinned.
As they stepped inside each one looked around, none of them looking surprised.
“... DEFINITELY YOUR ROOM.” Papyrus said, looking down at his father, who smiled and shrugged. The tall skeleton turned to look at the other Gaster. “IT TOOK ME A MONTH JUST TO CONVINCE HIM TO BUY A BED.”
--
“Sorry, no weird alternates showed up last month to do that,” Gaster said, smiling apologetically. Papyrus seemed nice enough. He really did feel rather bad about not having more to offer them. He’d never really expected any guests, but… he hadn’t been raised to give so little. “I’ll offer you all the couch, though. ...and if you’re hungry, there… are probably takeout menus around here, somewhere…”
--
Gaster chuckled at the other skeleton’s words.
“THAT’S QUITE ALRIGHT! YOUR HOSPITALITY AFTER WE CRASHED THROUGH YOUR LAB IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.”
Sans was already making his way to the couch, sitting down with a thump. He sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back as though he could take a nap right then and there.
“SANS!” Papyrus frowned at how easily his brother was taking advantage of the offer.
“what?” The skeleton smiled and pulled out a handheld device from his lab coat. “i’m doing work, don’t worry.”
The taller of the two groaned, but said nothing more as Sans turned on the odd-looking tablet and started to poke at its surface.
--
Gaster was now very badly torn. On one hand, hospitality--”Really, it’s no trouble. Make yourself at home,” he said to Papyrus--on the other hand, “...what is that you’ve got there?”
He levitated the papers off his table as he moved and set them in relatively neat stack by the wall, and walked closer to Sans, trying to get a look at the tablet he had.
--
Sans looked torn for a moment, the white dots of his eyes glancing over to his father, who met them before giving a shrug. “It’s fine.”
Before he could start explaining it though, the other doctor approached. “Got some paper? I can start scribbling all sorts of nonsense down that I’m sure you’ll want.”
--
This was the weirdest, best day of Gaster’s life, if it was actually going to pay off. The only other door in the house, leading to what would have at one point been a bedroom, opened up and a stack of home-pressed paper flew out. It settled on the newly cleared table, along with a wire holder of pens. “Please.”
--
“Yeah no shit ‘please’.” Gaster scoffed, but didn’t seem at all mad that he had been roped into writing down some of his work. He took a seat and instantly began scribbling away.
Once Gaster was busy, Sans looked at the… other Gaster. He stared at him only for a second before catching himself and looking back to the device in his hands.
It was so strange to see ‘his dad’ whole again.
“this is what we use to try and find the anomaly, or how far away it is from the timeline we’re currently in.” Sans began, “the anomaly being a… creature that likes to infect other timelines before destroying it.” He explained, however roughly that might have been.
“that’s why we have the machine. originally we built it to get out of the barrier, now we use it to try and track down the anomaly.”
--
“Sounds like there’s a pretty long story there,” Gaster said, glancing between his counterpart and his… counterpart’s son. He very much wanted to see how the device worked, but considering everything, letting him fiddle with it was obviously not a particularly viable option. The other Gaster was scribbling away, intent on that, but he realized a moment later Papryrus hadn’t said much and… was hopefully not feeling neglected by the conversation.
He looked up at the tall monster. The other two were clearly already situated, but this one was not yet. “...I. Sorry. Can I get you anything?”
--
Sans couldn’t help but let out a dry chuckle. “you have no idea.”
As the other Gaster addressed Papyrus he started to flicker through a series of menus. “OH NO, I’M FINE. I’D… ACTUALLY OFFER TO CLEAN A LITTLE FOR YOU BUT IF YOU’RE ANYTHING LIKE DAD I KNOW YOU’D HATE THAT.” He made a face.
“It’s orderly chaos.” Gaster said from hunched over at the table, as though it was the 10,000th time he had said it. Papyrus rolled his eyes just as his father sat up.
“Wait. Shit, can you read this?” He lifted up the paper, all his words and calculations in a series of symbols like hands, smiley faces, crosses, and stars.
--
Gaster took a look at the paper and laughed again. “Of course. I’ll have to translate it later, but… yeah. Of course.”
He didn’t quite realize he was smiling like an idiot at the sight of someone else writing wingdings until his face was almost aching with it. Still. He didn’t really want to stop.
--
“Hallelujah!” Gaster yelled a little louder than he probably wanted to before slapping the paper back down. “I haven’t been able to write this without needing to translate in… forever.” He shook his head, a smile on his face nearly as wide as his twin’s. He mumbled something akin to ‘fuck the latin alphabet’ under his breath.
Papyrus eventually took a seat beside Sans, peering over his shoulder as they both stared at lines of code zooming across its screen. The shorter of the two sighed and handed it over to Papyrus. “you wanna watch it for awhile, bro?”
“SURE.”
He took the device from his brother and watched the code fly across the screen. Even he looked slightly bored by it, as though they had done this hundreds of times before.
--
“People suck at Wingdings,” Gaster said, “it’s awful. I know exactly what you mean.”
He glanced over at the two brothers, taking note of their rather bored expressions. He wondered how often they’d been doing this, traveling around, stopping this ‘anomaly.’ To get so bored while on the hunt for something they clearly believed to be extremely dangerous… it wasn’t exactly something he envied them for, but. He wondered what it was like. Traveling with their family, having others as close as they were, working together.
Not his lot in life. It wouldn’t be. But still; even though his counterpart was odd and vaguely viscous, it was good to know that somewhere, in another time, there had been… something happy.
…he needed to find something to do. Maybe he still had quilts in the closet he could bring out. Maybe he could just keep watching his counterpart write. He was a bit lost in his head, and he knew that, but it would take effort to pull himself out..
--
After a little bit of silence with the only sound being Gaster’s scribbling, Papyrus spoke up again. It was probably a bit jarring to hear his loud voice suddenly cut through the quiet. It didn’t appear as though he could really control the volume of his voice, but perhaps that was a common things with skeletons in this world too.
“YOU CAN ASK US ANY QUESTIONS. WE DON’T MIND.”
Papyrus always enjoyed talking to other versions of people he knew in other timelines. Then again he enjoyed talking in general.
Sans had almost fallen asleep already.
--
Gaster did jump a bit at the sudden noise, but recovered quickly enough. He tried to speak a little more quietly than Papyrus, out of courtesy for Sans, but if Sans could sleep through Papyrus’ speech, maybe he could sleep through about anything. “Thank you. I.. have a lot of questions. ...I’m sure you do too. I’ll answer as best I can.”
He glanced at the other Gaster once more, curious to how much attention they were being paid, before turning back to Papyrus. “So… a family of time travelers?”
--
“YES!” Papyrus said enthusiastically, apparently that not even enough to stir his brother. “I’M NOT VERY GOOD AT THE TECHNICAL STUFF, BUT-”
“Don’t say that, Pap.” Gaster said sternly, apparently paying enough attention to know when his son was talking down on himself.
Papyrus merely sighed and rolled his eye sockets as much as he was able. “WE WERE SPLIT UP FOR A VERY LONG TIME, SO NOW WE DO EVERYTHING TOGETHER.”
--
“I see,” Gaster said, nodding. “...how long have you been doing this?”
--
“MAYBE ABOUT…” Papyrus paused to think. “A YEAR? HAS IT BEEN A YEAR?”
Gaster slowly stopped writing and lifted up his head. “Uhhh… Maybe…? I’m not good with time anymore.”
--
“Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question to ask about time travel,” Gaster said. “..I’m just. Still having trouble fully believing you, I suppose. I saw you arrive with my own eyes, but that doesn’t always mean anything. And I’m having trouble figuring out a way to test what you’ve been saying. I don’t mean to be rude. But. It is… weird.”
--
“IT’S ALRIGHT.” Papyrus offered him a smile. “WE KNOW HOW WEIRD IT SOUNDS. NYEH-HEH!”
Gaster grabbed another piece of paper and continued writing. “Didn’t you ask how old I was back there? How long do monsters typically live in this timeline?”
--
Gaster lit up again. “I did ask that. Um. It depends on the… the type of monster. Usually. Dragons, turtles, eldritch… they… natural lifespan is extremely long. I don’t know of any who’ve died naturally. Others are shorter. Whimsum only a few decades. Moldsmol, et cetera, less. I’ve… just gotten into my third decade. So. Right.”
--
“It’s kinda similar in some ways. The more common a monster’s race is it seems like the shorter their lifespan, usually because having children will pretty much start the aging process.” Gaster explained, “I’m probably…” He stopped writing and looked up at nothing in particular. “... somewhere around 1,100? 1,200? Maybe?” He shrugged and gave his twin an apologetic shrug. “Time jumping makes things weird.”
He turned and went back to writing. “Although honestly I don’t know how much of me is monster anymore, so who knows if I age at all.”
There was another pause.
“And the boys don’t count against my age, I made them in a lab rather than the usual way.”
--
Gaster looked stricken at the sound of his twin’s age. Still. He swallowed his shock down and wondered again how many differences were between their worlds.
“...Yeah. I. Should I ask what you mean by ‘how much of you is monster’? And…” he glanced at the boys on the couch. “...I sort of figured that’s how you made them. CS-1?”
--
“My original body was destroyed when the time machine exploded. That’s why I’m writing all this down. I shouldn’t be alive.” His voice sounded grim at that and even Papyrus’ usual smile faltered a little as he watched the code dance across the device in his hands.
“All that’s left is my soul and… well.” He stopped and held out his arm, letting the ‘flesh’ distort and lose its form before putting it back into place and then shaking his hand a little, as though it made it go numb. “Whatever I’m made of. ‘The void’, which is the area between time and space. Not a very nice place to be, let me tell you.” Gaster laughed bitterly.
“And no, I never gave them code names like that. I called Sans ‘kiddo’ for a really long time. Probably why I fucked up and got attached.” He laughed at himself. “But I’m glad I did. Papyrus has always been Papyrus.”
--
Gaster absorbed that information, edging away a bit when his twin’s arm began to distort. “...I see.”
He glanced at the notes. “...so those are for the time machine, not the core?”
He wanted to comment on bringing in experiments as children, but… he decided that could wait until Sans was definitely asleep and Papyrus became distracted.
--
“No they aren’t.” Gaster said with a grin, wiggling the end of his pen towards his twin. “I’ll put a little information about the core but you’re on your own for that for the most part. I know how you feel about it, trust me.”
He returned to writing, his scribbles sometimes almost impossible to decipher, even for wingdings. “You’ll build it, don’t worry. It works… well okay it doesn’t work great at first, but you hammer out the kinks eventually.”
--
Gaster did not return the grin in the slightest. What had been a pleasant expression since they exited the lab turned hostile. “I don’t have the luxury of being able to hammer out kinks! Or of ‘eventually!’”
He kept his hands under the table, but they still jerked instinctively in several rude gestures.
--
Gaster didn’t seem the least bit offended by his counterpart’s anger. It was him, after all. He looked up from his writing and stared at himself directly in the face, but his expression was nothing but pleasant. “That reminds me, you said you weren’t the royal scientist. That’s new. Who’s in charge right now?”
--
Gaster was not at all soothed. If anything, he looked even angrier at how calm his counterpart was.
“Serptrine.” He spat the name. “You don’t get to change the subject that easily. Why won’t you tell me about the core?”
--
“Because I hate spoonfeeding the solution to someone who I know has the capability to do the work themselves.” Gaster said, still not a lick of anger on his face.
After a moment he inhaled deeply and tapped his pen on the table. “How far have you gotten?”
--
“It isn’t about if I can, it’s that it needs to be done,” Gaster ground out. Still. He tried to take a deep breath and reign in his anger, standing up. No magic right now. He walked over and picked up one of the many, many stacks of papers along the wall, apparently knowing exactly where things were despite the mess.
He carried them back and dropped them down on the table. “These. Are my designs.”
The designs are varied and covered in notes, all written in the latin alphabet. Some are similar to ones the other Gaster may have gone through in the early stages and later discarded due to issues later discovered once they were being built. Some of those design flaws still existed--they clearly hadn’t had the chance to be discovered yet in a practical run--but each design was more compact and more possible than the last. And each variation had fewer and fewer enthusiastic notes.
--
Gaster took the designs and held them at arms length, then close again. He glanced over to Sans but apparently didn’t want to wake him up, so instead reached into his chest and pulled out a pair of glasses from… somewhere inside of himself and put them on, bits of tape stuck to the sides to keep them up.
He began to leaf through the designs and couldn’t help but laugh. “Ahhh, watching the excitement die through cliff notes. Beautiful.” He joked, then started to make two piles in front of him as he went through.
--
Gaster reminded himself that it was very rude to bite guests who were supposedly trying to help you.
He waited patiently as he could, watching his counterpart leaf through his work, before he finally just had to ask, “Well?”
--
“Shit.” He pointed to one pile. “Promising.” He pointed to the other, then went back to the first.
“I recognize some of these, the problems that come from them really aren’t worth trying to get them working, but the others aren’t bad.” He picked up the ‘promising’ pile. “The main obstacle you’re facing that I didn’t, is cost.”
“Our population wasn’t nearly quite as large as this, so obviously everyone is going to shoot you down and worry about food and housing over power until they’re suddenly left in the dark and then wonder why they never listened to the weird guy.”
Gaster thumbed through them one more time. “Each have their problems. You’ll never get it perfect, probably. I had to mess with the core for decades after I finally finished it just so it didn’t blow the hell up. Oh!”
He grabbed one and held it up. “Cooling. Cooling is a big fucking problem. Keep that in mind.”
--
“The ‘cost’ excuse is bullshit,” Gaster said, his anger slowly dissipating as he began to get legitimate feedback. “Housing and food have been stable for years. It’s time we didn’ have to live in the dark anymore, or worry about hospitals going out of commission every other day because of faulty lines. It’d save us so much effort in the future if we just got consistent power now.”
He sighed and rolled his head back. “...it took you decades. Fuck. Fuuck. Okay. Cooling. I’ll… figure out something with cooling. Can’t drain waterfall. Snowdin..” he began mumbling to himself.
--
“Mine still isn’t perfect, but it works.” Gaster shrugged, then watched his twin moan and grumble. Something about it shifted his expression from catty playfulness to something a little more sincere.
“Ice. Ice from Snowdin travels down through Waterfall and into the chamber to cool.” He tapped the center of one of his plans.
--
Gaster looked at his twin, a little startled, but… very grateful. Just the one hint might’ve saved him weeks of brainstorming and effort.
“Thanks,” he said, and leaned over towards the plan the other Gaster tapped. In the margin, he wrote a quick note to himself in Wingdings. He’d have to revise the plan anyway, so as long as it wasn’t going to be presented as an option, he could write it out in his own way.
--
“Now I have a question.” Gaster said, looking up at himself. “You didn’t fight in the war, right? So how did it go? It seems like a lot of monsters survived, or… it’s been a long time since then.”
--
“...it’s been over a thousand years that we know of,” Gaster said. “I was only born in 20XX. Probably. We… there’s a Dark Age right after the war. No writing, no carvings, no books. We’re not sure how long it lasts. So at least a thousand years. We lost. Badly. Most schools skip over the details, that I know of. I… only know what I do because I’ve been digging.”
He glanced over at the other stack of papers by the wall--the ones he’d mostly cleared from the table. It was the only stack of papers to outclass the ones on the Core designs.
--
“Hm, interesting.” Gaster mumbled, rubbing at his chin for a moment. He glanced over at Sans and Papyrus, one sleeping soundly while the other boredly stared at the tablet in his hand.
He opened his mouth for a moment and then closed it again, then opened it and finally spoke accompanied by his gestures out of habit. “How many humans have fallen down here?”
--
“Two,” Gaster said. “Or… three. But the first fallen human… doesn’t quite count.”
He looked a little uncomfortable as he said it, perhaps even sad. He’d been alive when the human first fell. He remembered the day they died. He remembered the day Hope was really, truly broken in the Underground.
He glanced up at the boys on the couch as well, before gesturing slightly with his hands, taking a gamble on if his counterpart would see it. Are you alright with talking without them?
--
At mention of the first human child, the whites of Gaster’s eyes faded out and he suddenly looked very, very angry.
It faded as quickly as it had come upon seeing the other’s gestures. ‘Maybe. Depends on what about. Shoot.’
--
That--was a very different reaction from what Gaster expected from the mention of the First Child.
Whatever that face was about, he said, but. Actually. About the clone experiments.
--
Gaster didn’t answer right away. He inhaled deeply and started to sign something but his hands started to shake too much and he took a moment to lean back and rub at his face. After a second attempt he finally managed to do it. At least signing was easier than talking for him.
‘The first child is the anomaly. I don’t know what timeline they came from, but they infest the others like a virus as you’ve been told. I fought them for a very long time in the void to try and stop them and it got me no-’ He stopped for a moment and changed his wording, ‘-it got me my boys back eventually, but they’re still alive. Or as alive as you can be as a soulless piece of…’
The doctor let his gestures pitter out and took another deep breath before addressing his twin’s other question. ‘Anyway, what about them?’
--
Not Chara, Gaster said, startled. That. That was not--not impossible, if time travel and alternate universes, but. Fuck. ...I… the experiments. You made them your sons?
--
Gaster was more than happy to drop the subject of Chara and move onto something much more light-hearted. ‘Not originally, but yes. Sans was intended to be a weapon strong enough to break the barrier. Papyrus was made later, as a…’ He paused, ‘well, as something to make slight amends with what I did to Sans.’
--
Gaster planned to say something scathing about how someone as smart as him could’ve thought a single monster had any hope of breaking the barrier single-handed, especially one as fragile as CS-1--if their universes were at least consistent on that front--but the last sentence halted him. ...Make amends with ‘what you did?’
--
‘I nearly killed him.’ Gaster said, taking another glance over at his boys. Even Papyrus was beginning to get sleepy from staring at the screen for so long.
‘I overloaded him. I kept pushing to see if I could match or surpass the strength of a human. It didn’t work. He nearly melted into nothing. I reversed what I could, but since then he’s always been pretty unstable.’
--
So the instability only began after various experiments? Gaster knew he was probably sounding a little too casual about that, but clearly things had worked out okay, so it was probably fine? I’m assuming you used DT?
--
‘Yeah. I wanted to give it gradually over the years in the hope that he would build a tolerance. Maybe he has over your average monster, but I’m not willing to test that now.’ Gaster said, apparently unoffended that they were discussing his sons like experiments. They were, at one point, so why not? It was science. And he loved sharing his science.
He nodded at mention of DT. ‘Papyrus has it too, but just the right amount. He’s about as strong as I could make without things getting dangerous for his health.’
--
Gaster relaxed again upon seeing the other wasn’t offended. You didn’t test on other monsters for it? And has there been any progress in stabilizing your Sans since the overload, or once it happened, was there simply no going back?
--
‘Wasn’t allowed to. That was my original plan, but the King was pretty against that idea. So I made my own.’ Gaster sounded proud at that even though his gestures somehow.
‘More or less. He’ll always have issues. It gave him nightmares and sometimes he gets sick. I tried to draw it out of him more and more but... ‘ He inhaled, ‘Sans was done with being experimented on by that point and I didn’t have the heart to keep trying when he clearly didn’t want it.’
--
Gaster nodded, That makes sense.
He paused another moment to consider his next question. ...how, exactly, did you go about trying to draw the DT out and know when we was reaching a more stable level?
With the careful way his hands made those gestures, it was very difficult to misunderstand, and clearly the question had some sort of immediate relevance.
--
‘I somehow reversed the machine I was using to give it to him.’ Gaster kept himself from laughing bitterly at that. ‘I say ‘somehow’ because I was in a complete fucking panic and did it without even thinking. I probably couldn’t recreate it, unfortunately.’
‘I figured he was stable when he wasn’t oozing all over the table of blowing half the lab to splinters.’
--
Gaster thinned his mouth, but nodded and accepted that answer all the same. I see. Thank you. I can’t use much of that, but it is definitely good to know.
He glanced back over at the two on the couch, making sure again that they weren’t being disturbed or paying attention to the conversation. It was rude to talk  while the person was listening.
--
Gaster did the same, glancing over to both of the skeletons slumped on the couch. Sans had since slid down, his cheek squished against his brother’s gangly arm as he slept. When the doctor turned back around he gave his twin a serious look.
‘Be good to your Sans. He’s just a kid and he’s probably really scared. At least, I assume so. I know it’s science…’ He rolled his eyes at himself, ‘God do I know it’s science and it’s very tempting, but don’t do dumb shit like I did.’
‘Take care of him.’
--
He watched his twin carefully, eyes narrowed, and wondered what, exactly had been happening in that lab.
CS-1 is just a prototype, he told the other, intending to be comforting. His survival is my goal. Nothing extreme’s going to be happening to him. He’s just a fragile klutz is why I was asking.
--
‘CS-1 is just a K-I-D.’ Gaster signed, not intending to be angry but signing out each letter very deliberately. ‘I know telling you this is probably for nothing, because you’re me and I know what I was like, but just…’ He stopped signing for a second and tried to think of what he wanted to say. ‘Fuck I dunno where I was going with this. You get the point.’
--
Gaster frowned. CS-1 is a prototype, he signed, not spelling out each letter, but giving the word a particular emphasis. He cannot afford to be a kid. He’ll spend his life in a lab; I intend to make it a comfortable life if I can. But that is all I can do. Our situations are clearly very different in this regard.
It maybe came off a bit more formal than he would’ve liked--he really would’ve liked to sound sympathetic, but. Not for this. It just wasn’t in him to lie about that right now.
--
Gaster sighed and went to sign something, but stopped. ‘They might be. But they might not be.’ He eventually decided to say. ‘I can’t make you do anything, but seeing as I’ve just given you quite a good chunk of my more important notes, at the very least I want you to keep an open mind. Don’t let science blind you.’
‘Don’t be afraid to get attached. It might be the best thing that happens to you.’
--
Gaster narrowed his eyes. We’re clearly not communicating properly. I’m not interested CS-1’s project. I’ve been trying to ask for a different handler for some time now. I don’t want him to come to any harm. I want him to be comfortable and content. But I don’t have power over what happens to him, and I don’t want any part of his project. Science is not an issue for me in this case. In fact, it’s my motivation to get out. As you can see-- he gestured around the room, at all the stacks of papers, books on the walls, the faint lights of crystals and candles out the window--I have other projects I’m more desperate to work on. The barrier can go fuck itself. It’s the underground I’m concenred about.
--
‘You have power over him if you’re even the slightest bit involved, but-’ Gaster held up his hands in defeat. ‘-I won’t press.’
A part of this really was like watching a younger version of himself. It was strange and… sort of funny, actually. Of course this Gaster was much more polite than he would have ever been. Even now, after all he had been through and how much he had gotten over those issues, this version of himself was probably ‘better’ in a lot of ways.
Funny. He was still the asshole Gaster. He’d have to get himself a little trophy made when they got back home.
--
Gaster tried to settle down when the other lifted his hands in defeat. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand he had power over CS-1--that was part of the problem. Having someone living and impressionable dependant on someone like him and his reports was not a good feeling. At least with his machines, he could always repair when he broke them.
This alternate-dimension elder version of himself (and wasn’t that rich?) had… had good points. And good intentions. He just. really, really didn’t want good intentions right now, much less from someone clearly much more experienced and level-headed than he was.
Because right now, he was being a fucking snake.
...right. I’m sorry. We can change subjects. There has been another thing I’ve been wondering a bit, but… it might be a bit personal.
--
‘Go ahead. If it’s too personal I’ll just tell you to fuck off.’ Gaster smirked.
--
How did you get those scars?
--
‘These or these?’ Gaster asked, first pointing to his head and then down to his hands.
--
Ah well. Couldn’t hit every sore spot in passive-aggressiveness perfectly each time.
They aren’t from the same incident? he said, genuinely surprised. Then, after a moment of hesitation, gestured to the scars on his own forehead as an indication. I just wondered since.. Well. Thirty years worth of scars verses over a thousand’s worth? And still somehow relatively even.
--
‘Nope.’ Gaster said, clearly not bothered by the question. He pointed to the upper scar, ‘This is when Sans clocked me with one of his blasters after he went unstable.’ He then pointed to the one below his eye. ‘This was when the time machine exploded.’
He then held up both hands, gesturing with each one as he said the names of his sons. ‘Sans.’ ‘Papyrus.’
‘I guess I technically have more unless that’s everything? But my body is long gone. I had a few across my shoulders that were from the war.’
--
I see. It must have been a lot to bear, Gaster said, at a loss of what else to say. Still, it was odd to think of surviving a thousand years with still the same relative number of visible scars as himself. He didn’t know if that said more about him, or about his counterpart.
--
The doctor shrugged indifferently. ‘What about you? You didn’t fight in the war and apparently Sans isn’t old enough or powerful enough to be blowing half your face off. Shitty childhood?’
He then added, ‘You can tell me to fuck off.’
--
Good childhood, he said. Stabbed myself in the face.
He said it with such a straight face, he wondered if his double would believe him.
--
Without missing a beat Gaster signed; ‘Brutal.’
He didn’t know if his double was telling the truth or not, but it didn’t really matter. If it was true he couldn’t say anything, he had yanked out the palms of his hands for genetic material for clones.
--
You, Gaster said, grin finally reappearing. I like you.
It was really hard to dislike anyone who could use timing like that.
Seriously, though. I just got into fights in college a lot. One guy got a lucky hit on my face. I gave him a new face piercing. I call it fair.
Though he was starting to wonder if there was just something inherently violent about being a Gaster.
--
‘I like me too.’ He smirked, knowing that his double would pick up on that little bit of humor.
‘College though, jeeze. I never liked the idea of schools. Sans had to convince me to let him and Papyrus go when they were older.’
--
At least someone likes us, Gaster said, smirking back.
I was homeschooled until college. Definitely the superior option. I only went for a shot at working in the labs. Didn’t like people without records much. Understandable, but a pain. The kid actually wanted to go to school?
--
‘Oh yeah.’ Gaster said, looking a little proud. ‘I homeschooled him until Papyrus got old enough to enroll, then he suddenly wanted them both to go. I can see why, I’m a shitty English teacher.’
‘I still kept him back a lot. He’s a brilliant kid, helped me on the original time machine and the one we crashed through your lab in.’
‘Papyrus isn’t dull either, but he’s less technical than Sans and I. Better in other ways.’
--
Oh, yeah, shit, they want me to teach CS-1 how to speak verbally back at the lab, Gaster said, snorting. I am not qualified to teach anyone anything remotely like that.
He looked up at the two on the couch again as his double spoke. ...yeah. I haven’t seen much of him, but. Papyrus seems like a good kid. ...Kind.
--
‘I could help a little with that if you want. It would be cool to see another little experiment Sans. I taught him how to talk. He slurs sometimes but…’ Gaster shrugged, ‘like that fucking matters.’
He followed his twin’s gaze at Papyrus just as something beeped on the tablet and he sat upright before poking at the screen a few times.
“Everything good, kiddo?”
“YEAH.” Papyrus said with a yawn. “NOTHING YET. I’M GOING TO SET IT TO THE NEXT STAGE.”
Gaster nodded before turning back to his double. ‘If you’re as connected to a Sans as I am, I bet you’ll get your own Pap eventually. He doesn’t change much over the timelines. He’s always a really sweet kid.’
--
Oh, please, no, I don’t think I could handle two, Gaster said, thought he meant it in good humor. If you’ll help with the speech, that would be great. I think he’ll probably be excited to have someone else to talk to as well. Though I do have a couple questions about your plan from here on. Are you just going to… be around, waiting for the ‘anomaly’ here? Or trying to fix your machine first?
--
‘Nah. Usually the machine will only take a few days to go through the data from this timeline and others adjacent. While Papyrus looks over that Sans and I will work on fixing up the machine. Hopefully we don’t find the anomaly anywhere close by and we can just head home without anything fucking up.’
He paused and a happy smile stretched his toothless mouth. ‘This is nice though. You’re the first Gaster I’ve ever come across in all this time. We’re a bit of a rarity.’
--
Gaster struck a dramatic pose. I feel very special, then.
--
Gaster stifled a laugh and spelled out ‘W-O-W.’
--
Gaster got out of his dramatic pose, and peered at his double out of the corner of my eye. Hey. Feel honored to be in my presence. Come on.
--
‘Fuck that you just make me feel old.’ Gaster grinned.
--
!! How does that make you feel old??
--
‘You’re younger than me! I’m not getting shit out of this but a pleasant conversation and getting to stare at a pretty face. You get the cool research and shit.’
--
I have but one request, Gaster said, turning to his double very seriously, don’t go all mentor-y on me. Please. If you talk down to me I might have to trip you. O-wise-older-me.
--
‘I promise nothing, but go ahead.’ He said, unable to stop himself from grinning all this time.
--
Okay, I can work with that, Gaster said, grinning back. He was honestly pretty pleased with himself, getting him...self to grin for such a long time. I really hope your kids weren’t paying much attention to me just now, though. That would be really embarrassing.
--
‘Nah.’ The doctor shook his head for extra emphasis. ‘If they were Sans would be cracking jokes and Papyrus would be groaning.’
--
Inherited our sense of humor, then? Gaster didn’t quite mean to say ‘our,’ but he was definitely becoming a bit more comfortable with the idea.
--
‘Definitely.’ Gaster said, still smiling. ‘Papyrus gets on it too, but he’s tortured by puns, pranks, and scares all the time so he mostly just groans about it.’
--
Poor kid, Gaster said, shaking his head in mourning.. It’s a rough life.
--
‘Eh, he’ll live.’ Gaster said, crossing his arms for a moment and shrugging.
The silence was cut short by the sound of Sans abruptly sucking in air and one of his slippers flying across the room to meet the far wall. Both Gaster and Papyrus turned to look at him, his eye glimmering blue and yellow before slowly dying down. He he woken up abruptly and jerked, his slipper carried by the sudden jolt of his leg.
“ARE YOU OKAY?” Papyrus was the first to ask, although none of them looked surprised.
“i… yeah…” Sans mumbled before sitting up and wiping a little sweat from his brow. Gaster stood to fetch his slipper.
“i thought you said there wasn’t a sans yet?” He looked between the other Gaster and Papyrus while rubbing at a certain spot on his ribs.
“HE SAID THERE WAS NO PAPYRUS.”
“... oh. great.” The short skeleton grumbled as he took his slipper from Gaster once it was handed over.
--
Gasater couldn’t help it. When Sans gave such a sudden jerk, he’d flinched back and ended up a good few feet further from the table than he’d been a moment before. Still, no one seemed too concerned, so he shook off the newly-returned tension easily enough and watched from there.
“...should I know about something?” he asked, once they began to talk about Sans-es and Papyrus-es.
--
“The nightmares.” Gaster repeated from earlier, but it was Papyrus who decided to elaborate.
“THE CLOSER ANOTHER SANS IS, THE MORE REAL THE DREAM.” He looked down at his brother. “NORMALLY IT DOESN’T MEAN MUCH. MOST SANSES ARE… JUST AS LAZY.” He shot his brother a glance, who grinned up at him all while rubbing at his ribs a little.
“BUT SOMETIMES IT DOES. ARE YOU OKAY?” Papyrus asked again.
“yeah i’m fine. it’s just dreams anyway. did he hurt his ribs or something?” Sans looked over at the other Gaster.
--
Gaster nodded slowly, returning to where he was sitting before. “...he took a bad fall today. Broke a rib. Keeping him in the medical wing for now. ...you can see his perspective?”
--
“yeah.” Sans said, his hand finally moving away from his chest now that he knew the cause. “just what recently happened. it’s not like premonitions or anything.”
Gaster finally took off his glasses and put them back away inside himself before taking the device from Papyrus and looking it over.
“He’s another experiment like you guys. Honestly he might have a better Gaster looking out for him than you did.” He laughed.
“how much a step up we talkin’ here?” The skeleton joked with a grin. “‘cause it don’t take much.”
“Well he invited us into his house. Would I have done that?”
There was a mix of ‘no way’ and ‘OF COURSE NOT’S.
--
“Rude,” Gaster said, shaking his head at his double, as if deeply ashamed. “Way to be fuckin’ rude. Our parents raised us better than this.”
He turned to Sans a moment later, “Honestly, no offense, but at this point, if one of you said you had premonitions about your doppelgangers, I’d probably say, ‘fuck it, why not.’ It isn’t the weirdest thing happening today by a stretch.”
The casual joking was still comforting even to just listen to, but  wow, he really hoped it took a bit more than that to be a step-up from his twin.
--
“Like fuck they did. My mother would have had the toughest warrior shitting their pants with a look alone.” Gaster smirked, “Not that she was mean, but you get the idea.”
“THIS DAY HAS BEEN WEIRD FOR ME TOO! IMAGINE, THE FIRST WORLD WITHOUT A PAPYRUS!” He smiled and looked down at his brother. “THAT MUST MEAN YOUR DOUBLE IS A BABYBONES.”
“uh…” Sans just shrugged, having been unable to determine the height from his dream. It wasn’t too hard to still be a baby and stay the same size as him though, he knew he was pretty vertically challenged compared to the rest of his family.
--
“...he’s not quite a baby bones,” Gaster said, though… it was sort of a complicated situation. He wondered if most of the other timelines they’d been to had Papyrus with a specific age gap to Sans. If that were true, would he be able to predict when he’d get a Papyrus of his own?
Not that he was getting a Papyrus. Or that people were things you could ‘get.’ But.
That was circular thinking. Nope. Fucking right out of that one. “Either way. Glad you didn’t see anything terrible, it sounds like. ...your… Gaster might be meeting him later. Does that sound like a horrible idea, or just a ridiculous one?”
He was definitely going to take input from these two very seriously when it came to their Dad.
--
The two brothers looked at one another, then at their father. “WHY? YOU USUALLY HATE INTERACTING WITH THE OTHERS.” Papyrus wondered aloud.
“I told him I could help get him to talk. I taught you two well enough.”
“oh god.” Sans started to laugh, a hand over his face. “but you’re so bad at it.”
“HEY!” Gaster pointed, but apparently didn’t have any defense to that and ended up just narrowing his eye sockets.
“yeah. exactly. i can teach the kid better than you half asleep.”
“YOU’RE ALWAYS HALF ASLEEP.”
“exactly.” Sans grinned wider.
--
“Still better at it than me,” Gaster said, throwing his arms up and flopping back to lie on the floor a moment later. He gestured to his throat. “Fuck talking. How do people do this all the time.”
Even if Sans or Papyrus offered, he’d still sort of rather have the other Gaster help out. Papyrus’ loud voice might startle CS-1 pretty badly, and… he was just generally uncomfortable with the idea of introducing one former experiment who had gained autonomy to another experiment who was not going to. And who happened to be his replica. Yeah. Maybe not.
“Whatever help I can get is useful.”
--
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO TALK IF YOU DON’T WANT TO AROUND US. WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE GESTURES WELL ENOUGH.” Papyrus offered.
Gaster seemed to be on the same wavelength as his double, and decided to set up a plan.
“I’ll help him with the kid while Sans fixes the machine and Papyrus monitors the timeline.” He handed the device back. “I’m the one who can teleport in and out, so if anything happens people won’t be able to catch two of us together at the same time.”
--
Gaster nodded, fully agreeing. “I’m content with that if you all are. For now, though, you two were both almost fully asleep for a while. Call it a night and get some rest and we can worry about other things in the morning?”
--
“good plan.” Sans smiled and leaned back again, letting his head rest on his brother’s lap, who looked none too happy to be a pillow.
“I SUPPOSE.” Papyrus mumbled as he fought back a yawn. He handed the tablet back to Gaster for him to take over monitoring while he slept.
“hey, uh, dings number two.” Sans said, opening one eye to look over at the twin. “i ain’t got nothin’ but a broken rib to worry about, right?” He said, talking about his double. “no other nightmares i should be worried about?”
--
Gaster cringed at the nickname. Somehow, it was even worse than ‘Wingding.’ “...please don’t call me that. And no. Unless there’s some residual magical exhaustion or if he has nightmares from his early awakening, that rib should be the only thing troubling him right now.”
--
“sorry, didn’t mean to upset. but ok. thanks.” Sans said before closing his eyes.
Gaster pulled out what looked like a tech magazine from somewhere inside him just so he could smack Sans over the head with it before putting it back.
“ow.”
His grin never faltered.
--
Of all the strange things he’d seen that night… yeah, Gaster was just letting the majority of that go. Still, since neither Papyrus nor Sans were looking, he signed to his double What was that for? before getting up and trying to find a place clear enough to at least put down pillows of some sort. He picked up one of his many notebooks while doing so.
--
‘’Dings was the nickname he used with me before it was ‘dad’. He knows I hate it so he only says it to be a little shit.’ Gaster signed back. ‘I’m surprised it upset you though. Isn’t that your name? Wing Dings Gaster?’
--
My name is GSTR, he said, and then, G-a-s-t-e-r. Wingdings was a nickname. Because of how I talked. It never left.
It was hard to tell if he was more upset, irritated, or exasperated while signing about the name. Mostly, he seemed tired.
--
Gaster paused and looked genuinely confused for a moment before signing out a simple ‘huh’.
‘Getting some rest too? I don’t sleep much myself, so I want to be sure.’
--
I’ll be staying up a bit longer working, he said, trying to not think of a timeline where he’d genuinely been named ‘Wing Dings.’ Want tea?
--
‘No thanks. I don’t need to eat much anymore either.’ He paused and looked at his boys, both of them already dozing off. ‘I might go poke around the machine unless you want help with something else here.’
--
Gaster shook his head. The only other thing I have to work on tonight isn’t… very mechanical. Thank you, though. Don’t let anyone see you.
--
‘I won’t. Besides, if they do, I have other ways of making them think they just saw something weird.’ He turned to leave for a moment and then felt the need to clarify. ‘And by that I mean I just sort of change shape before I teleport out. No darker implications.’
--
Good, Gaster said, Though I wasn’t going to ask. I was just going to say if someone saw us in a dark corridor, they’d already be seeing something pretty weird.
He smiled as he said it and wished the other Gaster luck again.
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telltheworld-phff · 7 years
Text
Chapter 31: Ice, Ice baby
Carol tried to find out where she was going. She read some of her mom’s texts to see if Harry had sent something, she asked everyone about it, she tried to see if she needed a visa to visit the place but no one told her where it was. She was frustrated, being a very curious person was one of her strongest traits and she didn’t like to be kept in the dark. She didn’t know how this trip would work out. Harry had said “see you on the 27th” but he was in London and she was in São Paulo. He asked her to pack for a cold winter, so it was an international trip to the north hemisphere. Hailey had packed her clothes and locked her bag. She said Carol didn’t need to see what was in there, but it surely was heavy. She was growing frustrated with all the secrecy behind her until the morning of the 27th.
She had woken up early and she got ready not really knowing what to do. Her family were asleep when she went downstairs and fixed herself breakfast. Everything was ready to go, she just needed to know when and where. She paced the kitchen for a while and thought about waking her mom up to ask if she was on time but Harry soon texted her. He was making fun of her, of course, saying that she was probably nervous and wanting to kill him. He only said, on the second text, that she needed to open her front door.
She ran there and opened the front door. Nothing was there and she let out a frustrated sigh. She then walked the path and opened the front gate and there he was. Holding a lilies bouquet and with that mischievous smile that was so characteristic of him. She looked from the flowers to him before hugging him tight. She had missed her friend and he was going out of his way to surprise her and ask for her forgiveness. He gave her the flowers when they parted and she invited him inside. This was the first time he went to her new house and when he was inside, he noticed how they had already made it a home. He asked her if she was ready and she said she was.
“Then, let’s go. We’ve got a long road to go.” he said grabbing her luggage and waiting for her while she said goodbye to her family upstairs. She woke them up quickly and said they didn’t need to come down, Harry’d understand. After all he did appeared at their door at 7:00am.
She was surprised to see he had no bodyguards with him.
“I told you it was going to be just the two of us.” he said while driving the rented car to the airport.
“But is it safe for you to be travelling without security?” she asked looking at him concerned.
“To where we’re going, yes. Besides, I’ve fed the press with false but believable tips that I’d be going to Africa for the new years. So all paps might have headed there.” he said with a smile. “I even booked a couple of different hotels in there.”
She laughed at him and then looked at the road.
“You do know you didn’t have to do all of this, don’t you?” she said.
“I know. But I wanted to. I was an ass to you, again. And we do need to talk.”
“We do.” she agreed putting on her sunglasses.
“But not now. We’ll talk, but first, we have a flight to catch.” he said speeding up and following the GPS commands.
(…)
She didn’t expect he’d actually give her ear plugs when they arrived at the airport. He asked her to stay inside a bookstore while he checked them in and sent away their baggage. She waited there only because she found some interesting titles and ended up buying a couple of books. He gave her the earplugs so she didn’t listen when they were called to the gates. She learned now that Harry had a passport issued with his names scrambled around so no one would know it was him. He had booked them executive seats. She was uncomfortable because that was for sure a splurge of money, but before she commented on it, he stopped her. He was using his private money and he would use it the way he thought was best. They were sat side by side on the two seats row in the right side of the plane. They chatted for a while and she didn’t listen when the commander talked to the crew. He let her hold his hands on the take off and discovered she was afraid of flying. He thought his plan had gone wrong because of that, but as soon as the plane had stabilized in the air, she was calm again. He let her take off the earplugs and they stared awkwardly to each other.
“So…” she started. “Where are we going?”
“I won’t tell you.” he said smugly and kissed her knuckles. Her first instinct was to retract her hand from his hold and while she did that, she saw in his eyes how it had hurt him.
“I’m sorry. I acted out of instinct.” she whispered.
“And since when your instincts tell you to retract from me?” he asked staring into her eyes.
“I don’t know, Henry. I really don’t.” she whispered and he shook his head. He wasn’t going to start a fight with her with less than an hour of their 12 hour flight. The steward came and served them breakfast and they ate in silence. Both stealing a few glances of the other.
They did what they could to kill time on the plane. They watched a movie, they talked about non senses, she read a book and he slept. She napped while he was playing on his laptop and when she woke up and knew they still had four more hours to go – after a two hour connection somewhere -, she began to grow impatient. But if she really wanted to know where they were going, she could simply go to the bathroom and ask a steward for the information. But she didn’t want to spoil the surprise. She just wanted to be out of this plane as soon as possible.
“Are we going to China?” she asked when she sat beside him again. He laughed and looked at her before answering.
“No. Not today. Why?”
“This flight is taking forever…” she was annoyed.
“We’re almost there darling.” he said kissing her temple and she side hugged him. He enjoyed the moment by hugging her back and being comforted in the feeling of having her on his arms. He made sure she was comfortable and he ended up in a uncomfortable position. But he didn’t care, he simply held her and made her “cafuné” the way she liked.
They landed in Akureyri, Iceland at 1 am local time. Harry and Carol had put on lots of layers of clothing to be able to face the -4°C/24°F weather. They walked through security and custom fastly enough before getting a taxi that would take them to their hotel. The ride was a short one and both of them were tired. Harry had checked them in while Carol was waiting seated on the lobby’s sofas. She was yawning now and then and she only wanted a shower and a comfortable bed to sleep properly. Harry was the one who carried their luggage to the room, he opened the door and she stayed on the corridor.
“Aren’t you coming in?” he asked after finding their belongings a place.
“Where’s my room?” she asked suspiciously.
“This is your room, Carol. Come on in.” he said opening the door even more for her.
“Harry… I’m not kidding. Where’s my room?” she said crossing her arms.
“This is your room. They hotel’s fully booked so we’re going to share a room. Come on.”
She only raised a eyebrow at him before entering. Their room was actually a suite with a living room and a bedroom. It was comfortable but more importantly, warm. She started taking off the clothing she was wearing and folding them to leave it on the couch.
“I didn’t think you’d be uncomfortable with us sharing a room. But since you are, I’m sleeping on the couch.” he said taking off his scarf.
“I just don’t want you to mix things Harry.” she said tired.
“Let’s not have this conversation right now, ok?” he said looking at her. “Go take a shower while I make my bed and we can finally rest. Tomorrow’s a full day.”
She only nodded and went to grab her luggage, she entered the bedroom and opened it to find her pajamas. Hailey had truly well packed her suitcase, because she saw that there were lots of warm pieces for her to wear for the next 8 days. She got the things she needed and entered the bathroom. She took a quick shower while trying to push away the feelings and the things she had to make clear with Harry. But she didn’t want to dwell on it right now. She wanted to rest and to be comfortable and to sleep.
She put on her pajamas and went to the living room to see Harry sitting on the couch waiting for his turn. She touched his shoulder and he looked up at her.
“I’m all done. You can go now.” he nodded and got up, she waited for him in the living room while snacking on a few biscuits and drinking a cup of tea. He came back wearing his pajamas and the tension between them grew. She knew she had to make things clear for him. She’d hate to be the one breaking his golden heart. Harry was a wonderful man who deserved to be happy and to have the family he always wanted. But at this moment she couldn’t be this woman to him. She didn’t want a relationship, she had gotten quite scared after her relationships. She had this huge block in her mind that commitment was truly and unbreakably linked to heartache and betrayal. And she couldn’t have one more of those. She wouldn’t be able to handle another one. She couldn’t keep crying for the same reasons all the time, so instead she’d have to remind him that he was taking their friendship to a level where she wouldn’t follow him to. She felt that Harry was starting to see her with other eyes and before it grew to something more, she’d have to stop giving him hopes.
“So… goodnight.” he said laying on the make shift bed he made on the couch.
“Good night, Harry. Sweet dreams.” she said entering the bedroom and closing the door. The bed was a king side bed with the most comfortable mattress in the world. She got more blankets and turned on the heater. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Her body was tired but her mind was racing thinking about everything. She kept turning in bed and got up a couple of times to go to the bathroom, she brushed her teeth twice and huffed annoyed when the clock was showing it was already 3 am and she hadn’t slept a bit.
“Damn it.” she cursed when she realized that her own body was taking control of her mind. It was a cold night and the room, even though the heater was on, was a bit cold. But it wasn’t something unbearable. She could sleep in the temperature, but her body was looking for warmth. Her body wanted his arms around her body, she wanted to feel his breath on her neck and the feeling of safety she felt whenever she was near him. She fought those urges for a couple of minutes before getting up and going to the living room. He was sound asleep on the couch and snoring. She laughed a bit by the scene. Harry slept like a baby and looked cute at the moment. He was peacefully sleeping and she watched him for a couple of minutes. She wondered what would it be like to be able to sleep with him every night but soon she took those thoughts out of her mind.
“Harry” she whispered and he didn’t even move. “Harry” she called again she ran her hands through his ginger hair and caressed a bit before calling him a little bit louder.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. He rubbed his eyes.
“What happened Carol?” he whispered sleepy.
“It’s too damn cold and I can’t sleep.” she said looking at him and she bit her lip.
He didn’t say anything. If she wanted something from him, she’d have to ask.
“I was wondering if…” she said and stopped and was considering the pros and cons of her request. “I was wondering if you could sleep with me. Because it’s… it’s cold and I can’t sleep when the room is this cold.” she said looking down and he smiled and got up. He got his pillow and blankets and noticed the room wasn’t as cold as she was saying. They entered the bedroom, that was even more warmer than the living room and he made the bed again. She laid on the left side of the bed and he soon followed.
“So… if you’re cold you have to come closer.” he said looking at her and watched in her eyes while she was fighting herself before she slides on the bed and was closer to him. Her body immediately recognized his and the warmth she wanted, now was coming from within. She turned on her side and he snaked his arms around her waist and she put her hand on his face and caressed it. They stared at each other for a while before he asked: “Better?”
“Yes. Now I’ll be able to sleep. Thanks, Harry” she said snuggling closer while he was making sure she was well covered. He kissed her temple and used his other hand to make her cafuné. He kissed her temple a couple more times before closing his eyes. He noticed her breathing slowing down when he said: “You can sleep tight now, darling. I’ll be here holding you.”
(…)
They woke up next morning at 10 am. Harry was spooning Carol’s body and she was pretty much glued to him. She had slept like a baby in his arms and when she got up the next morning she was between regretting calling him and loving that she had fought her pride to do so. He was looking at her still laying on the bed when she went to the bathroom. He couldn’t deny he was happy she had asked him to sleep with her.
“Morning.” she said smiling when she got out of the bathroom.
“Morning.” he answered sitting on the bed. “You slept well?”
“I did. Thank you.” she said making a bun with her hair. “So, where are we going today?”
“We have to go pick our car and then we’re headed to Iceland’s longest fjord.” he said.
“Well… that’s interesting.”
“I know. I planned this trip and it came out fucking amazing.” he said proud of himself.
“You did this all on your own?” she asked.
“I did.” he got up and went to fetch a change of clothes for him.
“Impress me then.” she said smiling and he only smirked.
(…)
They got out of the hotel and walked around the city center that looked more like a miniature town. It was colorful and they were close to the sea, that was actually part of a fjord. Harry and her walked around with a map on their hands to find the renting car place. The wind was blowing non stop and it was the worse part of being out in the open, even though day time wasn’t much of all day. They knew it’d get dark sooner than in London, but they were having the time of their lives to try to guess what the words on the street signs meant.
While he was getting their car, Carol found a store where she bought things for them to eat on the road trip. She took forever to understand what was what but she was satisfied with her choices. She met him and he opened the car door to her. They were in silence for the first minutes of the ride. She was admiring and taking photos of the landscape the road trip was giving them. Harry was stealing a few glances in her direction while driving.
“So… should we talk about the elephant in the room now?” she asked looking at him and saw his face tense.
“I’m sorry for the way I talked to you. I was in no right to say what I said.” he offered looking at her.
“Apology accepted.” she said. “I just don’t understand why you got so jealous.”
“You’re a smart girl, Carolina. You understand why, you just don’t accept it.” he said and she was silent. “And I know you’re going to say we’ve talked about this when we were in Rio. That we’re friends and friends only. That sometimes we fuck and have a great time at it. But yeah… after my grandfather passed and I came home to see you there waiting for me, I thought something in you had changed. But I was wrong.”
“Did something in you change?” she was studying him.
“Yes.” he simply answered and she was shocked for having him confirm her suspicions so clearly and fearlessly.
“Harry…” she breathed.
“I know. I’m not forcing anything and you aren’t giving me false hopes. I’m a grown man, Carol. I can take a few bumps here and there.” he sighed and sped up a little bit more.
She didn’t know how but she started crying. She was wearing sunglasses and she didn’t want him to see, but locked in a car with him made the task a bit more impossible.
“I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry.” she whispered and he could see the tears in her face.
“I didn’t plan on it, Carol. But it happened. And I don’t regret it. If I have to be in love with someone, might as well be with you. You’re a fucking great woman. You are beautiful, warm, caring, you’re intelligent and independent. You care about your family and you have the ability to overcome the hardships life throws at you.” he said looking at her and saw when she was crying even more with his words. “And I fucking hate that I arrived at your life after that douchebag of your ex-boyfriend. Because unlike him I’d honour and cherish our relationship. I hate that he came before me and made you suffer and cry. He came and messed with you and now it’s not like you’re not giving me a chance because you think we’re not going to work or because you think you wouldn’t feel the same for me. You won’t give me a chance because you’re afraid and I don’t judge you. It’s completely understandable.”
He parked the car once they arrived at the island of Hrisey. He turned off the engine and looked at her. She was fully crying right now and that was the image he was trying to avoid. He didn’t want her crying, he wanted her smiling and being the cheerful and chatty self she was. But he had to be honest with her. He couldn’t lie that he had fallen for this amazing woman. She had to know what he thought and what he felt, because he knew what she thought and felt and he’d be willing to accept whatever she wanted to give him. Either be a new relationship or just a friendship or just fucking whenever she felt like it. He’d have her. As much of herself she’d be willing to give him. He held her hand and kissed it non stop, he didn’t say anything else, he simply waited for her to let it all out.
“I’m.. I’m s-s-o sorry, Henry” she stuttered looking at him and taking off her sunglasses. “I don’t want to make you suff-fer. I jus-s-t can’t gi-ve you what you want.”
“I know, darling.” he leaned his body to be closer to hers, he cupped her face and kissed her tears away. “I’m not asking anything of you. Not anything more than what we already have. If you want to be only friends, then we’ll be only friends. If you want to try, we’ll try. If you want to be friends and have sex whenever, then we’ll do it. I’m not asking anything or imposing anything. I just want you to know how I feel.” he said looking in her eyes and she saw nothing but sincereness in those deep blue ones.
“But whenever we’re together I’ll think I’m giving you hopes and breaking your heart.” she said looking at him.
“No, you’re not. I know what I’m signing up to.” he said looking at her. “I’m not asking anything of you, but let me show that we can work.”
She had a puzzled expression on her face and he kissed her knuckles again.
“I chose to come here because it’s not likely people would recognize me and because we can be just Harry and Carol. I don’t have to have a protection officer and we can be just us. Let’s use this week to run away from our fears and responsibilities. Let me show you how you deserve to be treated and then, when we come back, you’re back in Brazil and I in London, as friends. Best friends.”
“You’re insane.” she laughed and shook her head.
“Come on. It’ll be fun.” he smiled and looked at her with those pleading eyes.
“I don’t see how it’ll help the fact that you just told me you’re in love and the fact that we agreed to be just friends.” she pointed out now that she stopped crying.
“Just because I’m not forcing a relationship doesn’t mean I can’t show you how fucking amazing it’d be if we were together.” he said with a smug smile.
“Ok, Your Royal Smugness. Let’s see this Icelandic fjord before it gets too dark.” she said getting out of the car and waiting for him. She put on her sunglasses again and adjusted her cap and scarf. He walked around the car and put an arm around her shoulder and they followed the signs to walk around the fjord and admiring the small city that was built around it. The landscape was breathtaking and Carol soon started to snap a lot of pictures.
A/N: I'm so very sorry for taking too long to update. But that happened for two reasons. One of them is that my laptop went crazy and I can't even type on it anymore. It gave me hell to proofread this chapter and post it after I tried for days. 
The second one is that I'm facing something every writer does: I'm blocked. I do have a few chapters written that haven't been posted yet, but at the same time I don't want to let go of them because I know I couldn't come up with anything more after that. Does it make any sense??
 If you guys have any ideas to help me I'd very much appreciate. 
A hint: the chapter I've blocked at is when Carol meets Princess Sofia. 
 Let me know what you think of this chapter now that Harry has poured his heart out to Carol. 
 Carol's outfit for the trip. 
 See ya next chapter!
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dcnativegal · 7 years
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Fire
Originally, I wrote about fire in July. It’s now September, and fire season in Oregon got so much worse. The fire called Eagle Creek was started by giggling 15 year  throwing firecrackers into a dry patch in the Columbia River Gorge: it became Oregon’s second largest fire, second only to the Chetco Fire on the southern western coast. Since the Eagle Creek Fire is close to Portland, and Multnomah Falls, it became national news, and maybe also because it was started by giggling teenagers.
I’m used to smog and fog on the east coast, but not smoke all summer and everywhere. Breathing smoke, smelling wood fire, has become a normal thing. I wondered if this is unusual and natives of Eastern Oregon tell me that it surely is. Apparently all the rain and snow over the winter encouraged a great growth of grass, referred to as fuel in fire lingo.
 Today is Sunday, September 9, 2017, and it feels as though the planet is having convulsions, tossing about its human parasitic invaders. Hurricane Irma is the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever, and it’s about to slam into Florida, after flattening Caribbean Islands. The biggest evacuation of that state, ever. Irma was preceded by Harvey, which basically drowned most of Houston, the USA’s 4th largest city. There was an earthquake, over 8 on the scale, that Clara felt in Guatemala, off the coast of Mexico, that hasn’t killed the huge number in the thousands that the earthquake caused 20 years ago there. But it’s bad. First rescue, then salvage.
And then there’s fire. Everywhere in the west, from Canada south to Utah. A flame.
From July:
On Saturday, July 8, a group of visitors from the wet part west of the Cascades was shooting some explosive, for fun, and set off a wildfire. This in the town of Summer Lake, just north of Paisley and south of Christmas Valley and Silver Lake. I’d just driven past that area 2 hours before the fire on my way west. First it was 600 acres, then 3,000, and finally, 6,000. As of July 14, it was 90% contained. Unlike hurricanes, there isn’t a list of names that one runs through to name it. It’s based on location. This was the Ana Fire, named after a reservoir.
Fire is not something I’ve grown up with as a persistent danger. A nuclear bomb landing on the Nation’s Capital was an abstraction and pretty scary to contemplate, but a decimated DC was only an idea, until 9/11 when a plane hit the Pentagon and another plane was unaccounted for before the passengers made it crash in Pennsylvania, killing themselves and the hijackers, while saving however many DC residents and tourists. Fire is an annual fear. A daily thing to prevent in the summer months. We, the fine people of Lake County, know what to do and what not to do. Don’t idle your engine over tall grass. Don’t burn trash until it’s officially okay to do that. Don’t pitch a cigarette anywhere. Campfire? Ha!
But then there are two kinds of knuckleheads. The kind that shoot explosives for sport, in the Oregon Outback, when they think they’re still somehow in the soggy Western part of the state. The other kind is the arsonist. Last summer’s fire that nearly consumed Paisley was set intentionally. That fire is called the Withers Fire, named after the family who owns the land it was set on, one of the long-resident, stalwart families of ranchers in Lake County. That knucklehead has been identified, but apparently there was some inter-agency foolishness, and someone went on vacation after securing some evidence, and now there’s no way to indict the dude. The Western Oregon knuckleheads are known, and although they did not intentionally cause the Ana Fire, they are liable. Financially, they are screwed.
I watched a 90-minute video of a community meeting that the firefighting agencies put together. I was fascinated, and will continue to be slightly obsessed with the whole matter of fire, now that I am in the line of it, so to speak. A woman from some agency ran the meeting, introduced all the people, mostly men, from many agencies. I will get familiar with them all over time. The designation of how serious a fire it was, who fought what when, the airplanes and helicopters, the hotshot firefighters, the cause and the legal repercussions, the backburning, all of it was gone over. A woman who sounded like a reporter asked questions to get it all down correctly on paper. There was scattered applause for the fine work that was done, with no loss of human life; only a shack and a hunting cabin burned. Now instead of watching Russian car crashes on youtube, or pimples being popped in a sterile environment, I can watch videos of fire, firefighting, and community meetings. (My actual youtube obsession is knitting and crochet techniques. Truly. I must be a menopausal chubby woman. Indeed, I am. They are riveting. Back to fire.)
It is a sad sight to drive by and see perky houses intact, in a sea of blackened, denuded land.
I am also learning to associate something that was very pleasant and a great relief in DC--the summer thunderstorm—with fire. In Paisley, a thunderstorm means lightning strikes, and thus, lots of little fires that can turn into big ones. There are several fires in Lake and Klamath counties right now, including one near enough to Tank Springs that Valerie drove up there to keep an eye out for her beloved family plot up there, and watch the firefighters. All is apparently safe, for now. I have to associate thunder and lightning with fire and possible devastation. This is a world class bummer, I can tell you. I wonder if I’ll get used to that.
Having lived in Washington DC for 56 years, I shared with all the residents the same kind of primal fear, of getting nuked by the Soviet Union. Until the Soviet Union was no more. And then it was ‘terrorism’. And the scary possibility of attack came true on September 11, 2001. I was at work, staring at the Washington Post web site, procrastinating, when I saw the very odd picture of a plane pointing toward the World Trade Center and about to hit it. Within minutes, the entire staff was watching television. Shortly after both planes hit New York, the one plane hit at the Pentagon. I got through to my then husband, who went to get the children from their elementary school that was exactly 12 blocks from the Capitol building. He scooped up some other kids from our neighborhood after reaching their parents, and held a kind of camp. I told him not to let them watch TV. In downtown DC there were a lot of sirens, and rumors about truck bombs at the State Department 12 blocks from us. The White House and Congress was evacuating to an undisclosed location.  My job’s office location was 6 blocks from the White House. We heard about the fourth plane and knew it was headed for either the Capitol building or the White House. We were all relieved to hear it had crashed in Pennsylvania because it was indeed pointed toward D.C.: I am eternally grateful to those passengers, who would have died wherever they crashed, but saved a big swath of the nation’s capital by going down in a rural area instead, not killing anyone but themselves. And the Saudi Arabian hijackers.
Eventually, I took the subway home, although I could have walked the 4 miles. The Metro was deserted by 3pm. It had been a devastating day: all sense of security and predictability blown away by the planes.
Fire season is all summer long, every summer. I now know how to keep track of fires on which web sites. I know what that yellowish haze means: smoke. I know that the most up to date information for Paisley can be found on our virtual community bulletin board called “For Sale in Paisley.”  You can buy a horse, a truck, cowboy boots, and second-hand clothes. You’ll also find information about stray dogs, weird weather, home games at the school gym, which internet companies are having trouble, and which fires are burning nearby.  
I will get used to this.
And I know what I’ll try to rescue: Val will take care of her stuff.
·     I’ll get my cat and cat food and litter.
·     My journals, kept continuously since college, which fill a trunk. They are kind of heavy. So only if I can.
·     My wallet. Phone, computer, chargers, c-pap machine. All my medicines. There are a lot of them.
·     A backpack full of jars of apple sauce and protein bars. A big water bottle.
·     My kids’ dad got all the photo albums, and that’s really fine, they are for our children. I have a couple with pictures of my ancestors. I can fit them all into a suitcase.
·     And my latest knitting projects. My needles and hooks.
·     Lots of size 11 underwear. I’m a big girl, and I need my big girl panties. Two pants, tee shirts, a sweatshirt. Since it is summer I’d need to high tail it, don’t need much. One pair of sneakers, 6 pairs of socks.
·     Would I have the luxury to be this selective? Beats me.
 My safety is tied up in my fellow Paisley residents, and I trust them. We will survive whatever befalls.
"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."                          
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ
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inkyardpress · 7 years
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Excerpt: When It’s Real by Erin Watt
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1
HIM
“Please tell me every girl in there is of legal age.”
“Every girl in there is of legal age,” I dutifully repeat to my manager, Jim Tolson.
Truth is, I have no clue if everyone’s legal. When I came home last night from the studio, the party was already raging. I didn’t take the time to card anyone before grabbing a beer and chatting up some eager girls who proclaimed that they were so in love with my music that they sang it in their sleep. It sounded vaguely like an invitation, but I wasn’t interested. My buddy Luke took them off my hands and then I wandered around trying to figure out if I knew even a quarter of the people in my house.
I ended up counting seven, tops, that I actually recognized.
Jim presses his already thin lips together before taking a seat in the lounger across from me. There’s a girl passed out on it, so he’s forced to perch on the end. Jim once told me that the biggest hazard of working with a young rock star is the age of his groupies. Sitting this close to a bikini-clad teenager makes him visibly edgy.
“Keep that line in mind in case TMI asks you about it on the street today,” Jim warns.
“Noted.” Also noted? Avoid any celeb hot spots today. I have zero desire to be papped.
“How was the studio last night?”
I roll my eyes. As if Jim didn’t have the studio tech on the phone immediately after I left, replaying the track. “You know exactly how it was. Crappy. Worse than crappy. I think a barking Chihuahua could lay down better vocals than me right now.”
I lean back and stroke my throat. Nothing’s wrong with my vocal cords. Jim and I got that checked out with a doctor a few months ago. But the notes that were coming out yesterday lacked...something. All my music seems flat these days.
I haven’t recorded anything decent since my last album. I can’t pinpoint the problem. It could be the lyrics or the rhythm or the melody. It’s everything and nothing, and no amount of tweaking has helped me.
I run my fingers over the six strings of my Gibson, knowing my frustration must show on my face.
“Come on, let’s walk a little.” Jim dips his head toward the girl. She looks passed out, but she could be faking it.
With a sigh, I set the guitar on the cushion and rise to my feet.
“Didn’t know you liked walks on the beach, Jim. Should we start quoting poetry to each other before you propose?” I joke. But he’s probably right about putting some distance between us and the groupie. We don’t need some yappy fan talking about my music block to the tabloids. I give them enough to talk about already.
“Did you see the latest social media numbers?” He holds his phone up.
“Is that an actual question?”
We stop at the railing on my wraparound deck. I wish we could walk down to the beach, but it’s public, and the last time I tried setting foot on the sand in the back of my house, I came away with my swim trunks torn off and a bloody nose. That was three years ago. The tabloids turned it into a story about me getting into a fight with my ex and terrorizing young children.
“You’re losing followers at a rate of a thousand a week.”
“Sounds dire.” Sounds awesome, actually. Maybe I’ll finally be able take advantage of my beachfront property.
His perfectly unlined face, courtesy of some of the best Swiss knives money can buy, is marred by irritation. “This is serious, Oakley.”
“So what? Who cares if I lose followers?”
“Do you want to be taken seriously as an artist?”
This lecture again? I’ve heard it from Jim a million frickin’ times since he signed me when I was fourteen. “You know I do.”
“Then you have to shape up,” he huffs.
“Why?” What does shaping up have to do with making great music? If anything, maybe I need to be wilder, really stretch the limits of everything in life.
But...haven’t I done that already? I feel like I’ve drunk, smoked, ingested and experienced nearly everything the world has to offer in the past five years. Am I already the washed-up pop star before I hit my twenties?
A tinge of fear scrapes down my spine at the thought.
“Because your label is on the verge of dropping you,” Jim warns.
I practically clap like a child at this news. We’ve been at odds for months. “So let them.”
“How do you think you’re going to have your next album made? The studio’s already rejected your last two attempts. You want to experiment with your sound? Use poetry as lyrics? Write about things other than heartache and pretty girls who don’t love you back?”
I stare sullenly at the water.
He grabs my arm. “Pay attention, Oak.”
I give him a what the hell are you doing look, and he lets go of my arm. We both know I don’t like being touched.
“They aren’t going to let you cut the record you want if you keep alienating your audience.”
“Exactly,” I say smugly. “So why do I care if the label drops me?”
“Because labels exist to make money, and they won’t produce your next album unless it’s one they can actually market. If you want to win another Grammy, if you want to be taken seriously by your peers, then your only chance is to rehabilitate your image. You haven’t had a record out since you were seventeen. That was two years ago. It’s like a decade in the music business.”
“Adele released at nineteen and twenty-five.”
“You aren’t fuckin’ Adele.”
“I’m bigger,” I say, and it’s not a boast. We both know it’s true.
Since I released my first album at fourteen, I’ve had unreal success. Every album has gone double platinum, with my self-titled Ford reaching the rare Diamond. That year I did thirty international tour stops, all stadium tours, all sellouts. There are fewer than ten artists in the world who do stadium tours. Everyone else is relegated to arenas, auditoriums, halls and clubs.
“Were bigger,” Jim says bluntly. “In fact, you’re on the verge of being a has-been at nineteen.”
I tense up as he voices my earlier fear.
“Congratulations, kid. Twenty years from now, you’ll be sitting in a chair on Hollywood Squares and some kid will ask their mother, ‘who’s Oakley Ford?’ and the mom will say—”
“I get it,” I say tightly.
“No. You don’t get it. Your existence will have been so fleeting that even that parent will turn to her kid and say, ‘I have no idea who that is.’” Jim’s tone turns pleading. “Look, Oak, I want you to be successful with the music you want to make, but you have to work with me. The industry is run by a bunch of old white men who are high on coke and power. They love knocking you artists around. They get off on it. Don’t give them any more reason to decide that you’re the fall guy. You’re better than that. I believe in you, but you gotta start believing in yourself, too.”
“I do believe in myself.”
Does it sound as fake to Jim’s ears as it does to mine?
“Then act like it.”
Translation? Grow up.
I reach over and take the phone from his hand. The social media number beside my name is still in the eight digits. Millions of people follow me and eat up all the ridiculous things my PR team posts daily. My shoes. My hands. Man, the hands post got over a million likes and launched an equal number of fictional stories. Those girls have very vivid imaginations. Vivid, dirty imaginations.
“So what’s your suggestion?” I mutter.
Jim sighs with relief. “I have a plan. I want you to date someone.”
“No way. We already tried the girlfriend thing.”
During the launch of Ford, management hooked me up with April Showers. Yup, that’s her real name—I saw it on her driver’s license. April was an up-and-coming reality television star and we all thought she’d know the score. A fake relationship to keep both our names on magazine covers and headlining every gossip site on the web. Yes, there’d be hate from certain corners, but the nonstop media attention and speculation would drive our visibility through the roof. Our names would be on everyone’s lips from here to China and back again.
The press strategy worked like a charm. We couldn’t sneeze without someone taking our picture. We dominated celebrity gossip for six months, and the Ford tour was a smashing success. April sat in the front row of more fashion shows than I knew actually existed and went on to sign a huge two-year modeling contract with a major agency.
Everything was great until the end of the tour. What everyone, including me, had failed to recognize was that if they threw two teenagers together and told them to act like they were in love, stuff was going to happen. Stuff did happen. The only problem? April thought stuff would continue to happen after the tour was over. When I told her it wouldn’t, she wasn’t happy—and she had a big enough platform to tell the world exactly how unhappy she was.
“This won’t be another April thing,” Jim assures me. “We want to appeal to all the girls out there who dream of walking down the red carpet but think it’s out of reach. We don’t want a model or a star. We want your fans to think you’re attainable.”
Against my better judgment, I ask, “And how do we do that?”
“We conjure up a normal. She starts posting to you on your social media accounts. Flirting with you online. People see you interact. Then you invite her to a concert. You meet, fall in love and boom. Serious heartthrob status again.”
“My fans hated April,” I remind him.
“Some did, but millions loved her. Millions more will love you if you fall for an ordinary girl, because each and every one of those girls is going to think that she’s their stand-in.”
I clench my teeth. “No.”
If Jim was trying to think up a way to torture me, this is absolutely it, because I hate social media. I grew up having my baby steps photographed and sold to the highest bidder. For charity, my mom later claimed. The public gets a ton of me. I want to keep some parts of my life private, which is why I pay a couple of people a fortune so I don’t have to touch that stuff.
“If you do this...” Jim pauses enticingly. “King will produce your album.”
My head swivels around so fast that Jim jumps back in surprise. “You serious?”
Donovan King is the best producer in the country. He’s worked on everything from rap to country to rock albums, turning artists into legends. I once read an interview where he said he’d never work with a pop star and their soulless commercial music, no matter how much anyone paid him. Working with King is a dream of mine, but he’s turned down every overture I’ve ever made.
If he wasn’t interested in producing Ford, then why this latest album? Why now?
Jim grins. Well, as much as his plastic face allows him to smile. “Yes. He said if you were serious, then he’d be interested, but he needs a show of faith.”
“And a girlfriend is that show of faith?” I ask incredulously.
“Not a girlfriend. It’s what dating a nonfamous, ordinary girl signifies. That you’re down-to-earth, making music for the sake of music, not for the sake of money and fame.”
“I am down-to-earth,” I protest.
Jim responds with a snort. He jerks his thumb at the French doors behind us. “Tell me something—what’s the name of that girl who’s passed out in there?”
I try not to cringe. “I...don’t know,” I mumble.
“That’s what I thought.” He frowns now. “Do you want to know what Nicky Novak was photographed doing last night?”
My head is starting to spin. “What the hell does Novak have to do with anything?” Nicky Novak is a sixteen-year-old pop star I’ve never even met. His boy band just released their debut album, and apparently it’s topping the charts. The group is giving 1D a run for their money.
“Ask me what Novak was doing,” Jim prompts.
“Fine. Whatever. What was Novak doing?”
“Bowling.” My manager crosses his arms over his chest. “He got papped on a bowling date with his girlfriend—some girl he’s been dating since middle school.”
“Well, good for him.” I give another eye roll. “You want me to go bowling, is that it? You think that will convince King to work with me? Seeing me roll some gutter balls?” It’s hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“I just told you what I want,” Jim grumbles. “If you want King to produce your album, you need to show him you’re serious, that you’re ready to stop partying with girls whose names you don’t know and settle down with someone who will ground you.”
“I can tell him that.”
“He needs proof.”
My gaze shifts back to the ocean, and I stand there for a moment, watching the surf crash against the beach. This album I’ve been working on these past two years—no, the one I’m trying to work on and failing—suddenly feels as if it’s actually within my reach. A producer like King could help me move past this creative block and make the kind of music I’ve always wanted.
And all I have to do in return is date a normal? I guess I can do that. I mean, every artist has to make sacrifices for his art at one point in his life.
Right?
 2
HER
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard what I want,” my sister objects.
“I don’t need to. You have that look in your eye.” I pull the bacon out of the microwave and dump four slices on each plate.
“What look?” Paisley checks her reflection on the back of the spoon I used to stir the eggs.
“The one that says I’m not going to like what you have to say.” I pause as I dish up the rest of the twins’ breakfast. “Or that I’m too young to understand.”
“Ha. Everyone knows you’re more together than most adults. I wish you were more impulsive, actually. It’d make this easier.”
“Breakfast is ready!” I shout.
The clatter of shoes on the staircase makes Paisley sigh. Our little brothers are incredibly loud, eat an incredible amount of food and are getting incredibly expensive. All I can say is, thank goodness for Paisley’s new job. We’re barely keeping our heads above water, even though Paisley has performed miracles with what little insurance money our parents left us. I’m adding to the family account with my waitressing job at Sharkey’s, but we don’t have much extra left over. Spencer and Shane insist that we don’t need to worry about college tuition for them because they plan on full-ride athletic scholarships. But unless it’s for competitive eating, I’m not going to count on it.
As the twins practically fall face-first into their breakfast, Paisley pours their milk and shoves a paper towel next to their plates. Hopefully they’ll use it instead of the kitchen towel. Again, I’m not holding my breath.
I drink my coffee-infused milk, watching my twelve-year-old brothers inhale the first of what will likely be their six meals of the day. As they grumble about the shortness of Christmas break, I think about how glorious it is that I haven’t had one class this year, unlike them.
“Vaughn,” Paisley says urgently. “I still need to talk to you.”
“I already told you no.”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, fine. Talk.”
“Outside.” She jerks her head toward the back door.
“We’re not listening,” says Spencer.
Shane nods in agreement because that’s their shtick. Spencer talks and Shane backs up everything his brother says, even if he disagrees.
“Outside.” Paisley’s head jerk looks painful this time, so I take pity on her.
“Lead the way.”
The screen door slams shut behind us. I take another sip of my rapidly cooling drink as I watch Paisley search for words, which is worrisome because Paisley is never at a loss for words.
“Okay, so I want you to hear me out. Don’t say anything until the very end.”
“Did you drink one too many Red Bulls this morning?” I ask. We both know Paisley kind of has a caffeine addiction.
“Vaughn!”
“Okay. Okay.” I zip my lips shut. “Not another word.”
She rolls her eyes. “You do the lip-zipping after the last word, not before.”
“Details, shmetails. Now talk. I promise not to interrupt.”
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, so you know how they finally gave me my own cubicle, so I don’t have to share with that other assistant anymore?”
I nod. “They” are her bosses at Diamond Talent Management. Paisley’s official job title is Brand Coverage Assistant, but technically she’s a glorified gofer—she goes on coffee runs, makes a zillion photocopies and spends an insane amount of time scheduling meetings. I swear, the people she works for hold more meetings than the UN.
“Well, my cube has this little bulletin board on the wall. I’m allowed to put up pictures, so yesterday I brought in a few photos. You know, like the one of Mom and Dad that we love, where they’re kissing on the boardwalk? And one of the twins at baseball camp. And then I put up the one I took of you at the beach bonfire we had for your birthday last month.”
I have to fight the urge not to make a waving motion with my hand to tell her to speed up. Paisley takes forever to get to the point.
“Anyway, so get this! Jim Tolson is walking by my cube—”
“Who’s Jim Tolson?” I ask, breaking my vow of silence.
“He’s my boss’s brother. He manages some of the biggest musicians in the world.” Paisley is so excited her cheeks are flushed. “So he’s walking by, and he sees the picture of you on my bulletin board and asks if he could borrow it for a minute—”
“Ew! I do not like where this story is going.”
She shoots me a dirty look. “I’m not done. You promised to be quiet until I was done.”
I swallow a sigh. “Sorry.”
“So I’m, like, sure, go ahead, but just make sure to bring it back because that’s my favorite picture of my little sister. So he takes the photo and disappears into his brother’s office for a while. He’s got all these assistants in there and they’re all talking about your picture—”
Okay, now I really don’t like where this is heading.
“Something major is going down at the agency,” Paisley adds. “I have no idea what, because I’m a lowly assistant, but Mr. Tolson has been in and out, arguing with his brother all week, and they keep having these secret meetings in the conference room.”
I swear, if she doesn’t get to the point soon, I’m going to lose my mind.
“So at the end of the day, my boss—Leo—calls me into Jim’s office and they start asking me all these questions about you.” She must see my worried look, because she’s quick to reassure me. “Nothing too personal. Jim wanted to know how old you are, what your interests are, if you’ve ever been in trouble with the law—”
“Um, what?”
Paisley huffs in annoyance. “He just wants to make sure you’re not a criminal.”
Forget this vow of silence. I’m too confused to stick to it. “Why does this agent—”
“Manager,” she corrects.
“Manager...” I roll my eyes. “Why does this manager care so much about me? And you said he manages musicians—is he trying to sign me as a client or something? You told him I can’t carry a tune, right?”
“Oh, totally. That was one of his questions, if you had any ‘musical aspirations.’” She air-quotes that. “He was pretty happy when I told him you’re (a) not musical and (b) interested in becoming a teacher.”
“Is it a matchmaking thing then? Because, gross. How old is this dude?” I ask skeptically.
She waves a hand. “In his thirties, I think. And that’s not it.”
“Is there an it? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”
Paisley pauses for a beat. Then she blurts out her next words in one breath. “They want you to pretend to be Oakley Ford’s girlfriend this year.”
I spray the concrete steps with lukewarm coffee mixed with spit. “What?”
“I promise you it isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
She runs a hand through her ordinarily perfectly styled black bob, and I notice for the first time that her hair is sticking up on the sides. Paisley’s usually so polished, from the top of her shiny head to the tips of the flats that she buffs every night.
“Mr. Tolson thinks you’re perfect for the job,” she tells me. “He said you’re pretty but not in an over-the-top way. More like a natural, girl-next-door type. I described you as down-to-earth, and he thinks that will complement Oakley, because Oakley can be really intense sometimes—”
“Okay, let’s back up,” I cut in. “Are you talking about Oakley Ford, pop icon? Oakley Ford, the guy with so many girls’ names tattooed on his body he’s like a phone directory of former Victoria’s Secret models? Oakley Ford, who tried to depants a monk in Angkor Wat and nearly caused an international incident? That Oakley Ford?”
“Yeah, him.” She scrunches up her nose. “And he’s only got one tattoo of a woman’s name and it’s his mom’s.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Did he tell you that or did you make a personal inspection?”
Oakley’s nineteen and Paisley’s twenty-three, so I guess it could happen, but that’s kinda disgusting. Not because he’s younger, but because Paisley’s too awesome to be some celebrejerk’s castoff.
“Ew, Vaughn.”
“Look, if you’re serious, the answer is still no. In fact, there are so many reasons for me to say no that I don’t know if we have time for me to list them all. But here’s one—I don’t even like Oakley Ford.”
“You played his album on repeat for, like, three months.”
“When I was fifteen!” Oakley Ford was a phase. Like BFF necklaces and Hannah Montana. Plus, his antics got really unappealing. After the tenth or so picture of him making out with some random girl at a club, he got kind of slimy in my eyes.
Paisley runs her hand through her hair again. “I know this is your year off. And I want you to have that, I swear. But this thing isn’t going to take up very much of your time. An hour or two maybe every other day. A couple nights. A couple weekends. It’s the same as if you were waiting tables at Sharkey’s.”
“Um, aren’t you forgetting something?”
She blinks. “What?”
“I have a boyfriend!”
“W?”
“Yes, W.” For some reason, Paisley hates W. She says his name is stupid and that he’s stupid, but I love him anyway. William Wilkerson isn’t the greatest name to be saddled with, but that’s not his fault. It’s also why we call him W. “There have to be dozens of girls who want to pretend-date Oakley Ford. And why does he need a fake girlfriend anyway? He could probably walk down to the Four Seasons on Wilshire, point to the first girl that drove by and have her in a hotel room in five seconds flat.”
“That’s the whole problem.” She throws up her arms. “They tried the whole fake girlfriend thing with him before, but she fell for him and he broke her heart. I think half of the bad publicity the guy gets is because of her.”
“Are you talking about April Showers?” I gasp. “That was fake? Oh, man, I believed in ShOak. My childhood dreams are crushed.” I’m only half-kidding. Fifteen was a tough year for me, and not just because it was the year my parents died.
Paisley punches me in the shoulder. “You just said you didn’t like him.”
“Well, not after he cheated on April with that Brazilian swimsuit model.” I chew on the corner of my lip. “Fake, really?”
“Really.”
Hmmm. I might have to rethink my opinion of Oakley. Still, doesn’t mean I want to be the next fake girlfriend to be fake dumped and fake cheated on.
“So you’ll do it?”
I stare at her. “I make a couple hundred a night at Sharkey’s. You said before Christmas we were doing fine.” I narrow my eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Last year I found Paisley crying at the dinner table at two in the morning. She admitted that Mom and Dad didn’t leave us in the greatest financial position. The insurance money kept us afloat at the beginning, but last summer she’d had to get a second mortgage to cover all the bills, and she was thinking of leaving college to get a job. Appalled, I sat down and made her go over everything with me, because she was a year away from graduating. I got my diploma early by taking summer courses, online ones to supplement my high school studies, and special permission from the school to take advanced classes. And then I found a job. Serving steak and iceberg lettuce wedges isn’t fancy, but it pays the bills.
Or so I thought.
“No. We’re fine. I mean...” She trails off.
“Then my answer is no.” I’ve never been interested in the other side of LA. It seems so artificial, and I do enough pretending as it is.
I have my hand on the screen door when Paisley drops her next bomb. “They’ll pay you twenty thousand a month.”
I spin around slowly, my mouth hanging open. “Are you effing kidding me?”
“Don’t swear,” she says automatically, but her eyes are bright with excitement. “And that’s for a full year of commitment.”
“That would...”
“Put the boys through college? Pay off both our mortgages? Make everything easier for us? Yes.”
I blow my overgrown bangs out of my face. This proposition is insane. I mean, who pays such an obscene amount of money to some random girl to pretend to be a pop star’s girlfriend for a year? Maybe that’s normal in the entertainment industry, but I grew up with parents who were elementary school teachers.
I suddenly wonder what Mom and Dad would say if they were alive to hear this crazy offer. Would they encourage me to do it, or tell me to run, run for my life? I honestly don’t know. They were all about exploring new opportunities, taking the road less traveled. It was one of my favorite things about them, and I miss my fun-loving, impulsive parents. I miss them a lot.
That said, their love of spontaneity is part of the reason why we’re hurting for money.
“An opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day, but you don’t have to say yes,” Paisley assures me. Her words say one thing; her strained tone says another.
“How long do I have to think about it?”
“Jim Tolson wants an answer tomorrow morning. And if it’s a yes, he wants you to come to the agency to meet with him and Oakley.”
Oakley. Oakley frickin’ Ford.
This is...nuts.
“Fine, I’ll think about it.” I let out a breath. “You’ll have my answer in the morning.”
Twenty thousand dollars a month, Vaughn...
Yeah. I’m pretty sure we both know what my answer is going to be.
3
HER
I said yes.
Because (1) It’s a lot of money. And (2) It’s a lot of money.
Guess that makes me a kinda sorta gold digger? I’m not sure if my situation fits the exact definition, but I can’t deny I feel like one as I follow Paisley into the elevator the next morning.
Diamond Talent Management is an entire building. Not just a couple of floors, but an entire glass-covered, needs-an-elevator-and-a-security-team building. The scowly but hot guards with the earpieces give me the willies, but Paisley walks by them with a wave. I copy the motion. I kind of wish I hadn’t had that second cup of coffee this morning. It’s sloshing around in my stomach like a tidal wave.
The elevators are a shiny brass, and there’s a guy in a suit whose only job appears to be spraying them constantly with cleaner and wiping them down. He’s got a jaw that would look good on the side of a mountain and a butt tight enough to rival any football player’s.
Paisley gets off on the sixth floor, which is emblazoned with Music Division in big gold letters on a dark wood backdrop. The receptionist is more beautiful than half the actresses on the tabloid covers. I try not to gawk at her perfectly outlined lips and wicked winged eyeliner.
“You’re staring,” Paisley mumbles under her breath as we pass the reception desk.
“I can’t help it. Does Diamond only hire people who could star in their own movies?”
“Looks aren’t everything,” she says airily, but I don’t believe her because clearly Diamond requires photo applications. Gotta be beautiful to work in show biz, I guess, even if you’re behind the scenes.
We’re ushered into a huge conference room, where I stop in my tracks. It’s full of people. At least ten of them.
I quickly scan the table, but I don’t recognize anyone, and the one person I would recognize—and who this meeting is about—isn’t even there.
A tall man with dark hair and plastic skin stands up from the head of the table. “Good morning, Vaughn. I’m Jim Tolson, Oakley’s manager. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I awkwardly shake the hand he extends. “Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Tolson.”
“Please, call me Jim. Have a seat. You, too, Paisley.”
As my sister and I settle in the chairs closest to his, he goes around and makes a bunch of introductions I can hardly keep up with.
“This is Claudia Hamilton, Oakley’s publicist, and her team.” He gestures to a redhead with huge boobs, then at the three people—two men and a woman—flanking her. Next, his hand moves toward three stone-faced men on the other side of the table. “Nigel Bahri and his associates. Oakley’s lawyers.”
Lawyers? I cast a panicky look at Paisley, who squeezes my hand under the table.
“And finally, this is my assistant Nina—” he nods at the petite blonde to his right “—and her assistants. Greg—” a nod to the African-American guy to his left “—and Max.” A nod to the slightly overweight guy next to Greg.
Jeez. His assistant has assistants?
Once the introductions are out of the way, Jim wastes no time getting down to business. “So, your sister has already provided you with some details about this arrangement, but before I tell you more, I have some questions for you.”
“Um. Okay. Hit me.” My voice sounds unusually loud in this massive conference room. The echo feels endless.
“Why don’t you start by telling us a little about yourself?” he suggests.
I’m not sure what he wants me to say. Does he expect me to recite my life story? Well, I was born in California. I live in El Segundo. My parents died in a car accident when I was fifteen.
Or maybe he wants trivia-type stuff? My favorite color is green. I’m scared of butterflies. I hate cats.
My confusion must show on my face, because Jim gives me a few prompts. “What are your interests? What do you aspire to do after high school?”
“Oh, I’m done with high school already,” I admit.
I don’t miss the way Paisley’s lips curl slightly at the reminder of W. Ugh. One of these days she’s going to have to suck it up and accept that I’m in love with the guy.
“Yeah, I have a boyfriend,” I reply awkwardly. “And actually, my Twitter and Instagram have lots of pictures of the two of us.”
Jim turns to Claudia, who falls silent. I can see the wheels in her bouncy head turning and turning.
“You’ll announce a breakup on your social media,” she decides. “We’ll spend two—no, three, weeks focusing on the split. First will be your despondent post announcing the end of the relationship, then we’ll document your grieving process, how you’re so upset and—”
“Listening to Oakley Ford’s albums on repeat,” one of the assistants finishes animatedly.
Claudia’s eyes light up. “Yes!” She claps her hands together. “Oakley’s music pulls you from the dark abyss of heartache.”
I almost gag.
“And that’s what inspires you to draw his face, which leads to our social media meet-cute.” She glances at Jim. “It still works.”
He looks pleased. “All right. What about Vaughn’s appearance? How do we feel about that?”
Everyone at the table swings their heads toward me. Their gazes pierce me, assessing me like I’m a specimen under a microscope. My cheeks heat up, and Paisley squeezes my hand again.
All of a sudden, the critiques start pouring in.
“The bangs are too long,” Claudia chirps. “We’ll trim them.”
“Hair itself needs a trim, too. And that shade of brown looks too fake.”
“It’s my real hair color!” I protest, but nobody’s listening to me.
“The honey-brown eyes are nice. I like the gold flecks. We’ll forgo colored contacts.”
“Shirt’s a little too baggy. Are your shirts always this baggy, Vaughn?”
“Isn’t normal what we are going for?” someone disagrees. “If we make her pretty, then the fans won’t be able to relate.”
I have never been more humiliated in my life.
“Oh, one last thing,” Claudia says suddenly. “Are you a virgin?”
Scratch that—it’s possible to be more embarrassed. There are a few coughs from other people at the table. Jim pretends the traffic in the hallway outside the room is fascinating, while the lawyers all stare stone-faced down the length of the table.
“Do I have to answer that?” I cast a dark look at my sister, who shakes her head.
“That can’t be important,” Paisley says to the man who’s more or less her boss.
Jim ignores her. Clearly this question is one he wants the answer to, as well.
I want to hug her for standing up for me. I’m pretty sure my cheeks are officially as red as Claudia’s hair.
“If you’re worried there’s some sort of sex scandal in Vaughn’s past, don’t be,” my sister assures the table. “Vaughn is the definition of good girl.”
I don’t know why, but Paisley’s view of me kind of stings. I mean, I know I’m not Miss Badass, but I’m not a Goody Two-shoes, either.
Claudia shrugs. “We’ll do a thorough background check, nonetheless.”
Background check? My sex status shows up in someone’s report? I’m about to burst in outrage when Jim steps in.
“All right, I think we can all agree that this arrangement shows promise.” He clasps both hands together and glances at the lawyer section of the table. “Nigel, why don’t you and the boys draft a rough contract and jot down any negotiation points you anticipate? Oakley will be here in an hour, so we can get into the finer details then.”
I frown. We’re all just supposed to wait around for an hour until His Majesty gets here? And now that I think about it, do I need a lawyer? I whisper the question to Paisley, who voices the question to her boss.
“The contract will be very straightforward,” Jim assures us. “Basically, it will state that you’ve agreed to enter into a service contract and that should you, at any time, no longer be able to perform your duties, the contract can be terminated. Any goods or monies received up to that time are yours to keep.”
I bite my lip. This is starting to feel exceptionally complicated. But I guess when twenty thousand dollars—a month!—is involved, I should have expected complicated.
“How about this?” Jim suggests. “Why don’t we sit down with Oakley and go over the contract details? Then you can read the agreement Nigel’s firm drafts, and then you can decide where we go from there.”
“Okay,” I answer, because that sounds very reasonable despite the ridiculousness of the situation.
Next to me, Paisley winks and gives me a not-very-subtle thumbs-up of encouragement. I shoot her a wan smile in return.
If I just remember why I’m doing this—so my brothers can go to college, so Paisley can stop worrying about how we’re going to pay the bills... If I can just keep focusing on all that, then maybe I’ll stop feeling like I’m going to throw up.
4
HER
I’m hungry and my stomach’s been announcing that fact for the last thirty minutes. Still, no one suggests we take a break for lunch, even though it’s close to noon and Oakley Ford still hasn’t appeared. It’s been two hours. Jim and the lawyers have left the room, but everyone else is glued to their chairs.
“Here’s a granola bar. And a Coke.” Paisley sets the snacks on the table in front of me.
“No wonder you like working here,” I joke. “The free lunches are so fancy.”
But since I’m starving, I shove half the bar in my mouth—at the exact same moment that Oakley Ford throws open the door.
Two burly guys with arms like tree trunks follow him inside. One plants himself next to the entrance while the other trails behind the singer. I barely notice Jim and the lawyers entering and closing the door, because I’m too busy staring at Oakley.
He’s taller than I thought he’d be. Everyone in Hollywood is short. Zac Efron is barely taller than my five-six. Same with Daniel Radcliffe. At six-four, Ansel Elgort is a veritable giant. Oakley looks to be Elgort-size, but with way more muscles.
He’s even hotter in person. It’s not the sandy-blond hair spiked up in the front and cut short in the back. Or his moss-green eyes. Or his chiseled jaw. He actually has an aura. You hear of things like that, but until you’ve experienced it in person, you don’t believe it exists.
But he has it.
Everyone in the room is responding. People are sitting up and straightening their clothes. I dimly register Paisley smoothing her perfect hair into place.
And I can’t look away.
Oakley’s jeans are low enough that the brand of underwear he’s wearing is visible as he reaches across the sideboard to grab a bottle of water. His arm muscles are defined enough to be noticeable, and I watch in fascination as the right biceps flexes when he twists the bottle cap off. Those muscles remind me of the shirtless spread he did for Vogue a couple of months ago. It was all over the web because the editorial spread had one shot of him in underwear only, and the size of his crotch got everyone speculating whether he stuffed a sock down his shorts.
I forget I’m eating my granola bar. I forget that I’m sitting at a table with a bunch of lawyers. I forget my own name.
“Sorry. Traffic,” he says before settling in the seat at the very end of the table. The bodyguard stands at his shoulder.
I find myself nodding, because LA does have horrible traffic. Of course this beautiful god wouldn’t make us mere mortals wait for him because he was doing something—is his hair wet? Did he just shower? Is it getting hot in the conference room?
This is Oakley Ford and I did listen to his album on repeat when I was fifteen. And fine, I might have harbored a teeny-tiny crush on him, which was why I was so upset when he cheated on his girlfriend. His fake girlfriend.
Which I’m going to be.
Fake.
I don’t like fake, but I’m good at it. Faking things, that is.
Paisley nudges me.
“What?” Then I realize I still have the stupid granola bar hanging out of my mouth.
A quick scan of the room reveals that everyone has noticed this. Claudia wears a worried expression. Jim is resigned. I don’t want to look at Oakley, but I do anyway. His face shows a cross between horror and fascination. The glance he throws his manager definitely says You’ve got to be kidding.
The only thing to do is act like I don’t care. I bite off the bar and start chewing. The health bar, never an appealing item to begin with, tastes like cardboard. Everyone watches me, and I chew even slower. Then I take a big swallow of Coke before wiping my mouth with the napkin that Paisley miraculously produces. I’m certain I’m redder than the receptionist’s lipstick, but I pretend that it’s no big deal. See how good I am at acting like everything is perfect?
“So this is her?” Oakley waves a hand in my general direction. I’ve heard him speak in interviews before, but his voice sounds even better in person. Deep and raspy and hypnotizing.
Jim hesitates and then looks down at his phone. Whatever he sees there stiffens his resolve. He sets the phone down. “Oakley Ford, this is Vaughn Bennett. Vaughn, Oakley.”
I start to rise and hold out my hand, but stop halfway out of my seat when Oakley leans back and clasps his hands behind his head.
Okay then.
Suddenly all my nervousness and embarrassment drain away. Relief settles in their place. I take another sip of my Coke. Surprise, surprise—Mr. Famous is a total jerk.
For a moment there, I felt like I was in danger of being sucked in by his magnetism. That I’d forget W, the money, April Showers, Brazilian supermodels and become caught up in his force field. But a guy who mocks me because I had the nerve to eat a granola bar while we all waited on his late ass? Who doesn’t have the courtesy to shake my hand?
There’s no way I’d ever fall for a guy like that.
I sneak a look at Paisley, who’s smiling slightly. She must have had the same concerns.
“So are we going to talk about terms? Like, what are my work hours?” I ask coolly, cradling the pop can between my hands.
“Work hours?” Claudia echoes, a tiny furrow appearing on her forehead.
“Yeah, since this is my job.”
She titters. “Not a job, more like a...”
“Role?” one of her assistants offers.
“Yes. A role in a long, romantic movie. And you’re the two leads.”
I feel actual bile rise up in my throat.
Oakley grumbles with impatience. “Let’s get on with it.”
Quickly, Claudia outlines our meet-cute with the drawing and the Twitter stuff. When she’s finished, Oakley yawns.
“Sure. Whatever. You’re going to handle it, right?”
“Well, not me, but Amy here will.” Claudia tips her head to the raven-haired woman on her right.
Amy holds up her phone in acknowledgment.
“Great.” He slaps his hands down on the table. “Then we’re done?”
Seriously? I waited over two hours and got only a granola bar and an extra serving of humiliation for this five-minute demonstration of how Oakley Ford isn’t even going to participate in this charade? Instead, I’ll be fake flirting with the assistant of one of his media people.
I turn to Paisley, who gives me a small, rueful shrug.
“No. We’re not done,” Jim barks from the other end of the table. The two of them exchange glares, but whatever power Jim holds over Oakley, it’s enough to get the young star to resettle into his chair.
“Let’s hear the rest of it.” He makes a tired gesture toward Claudia.
She picks up her notepad. “We’ll need the first date. We don’t think you should have any physical contact until after the third—” she looks at her assistants and then at Jim “—fourth date? I mean, we’re trying to sell this as a wholesome romance.”
Everyone starts throwing ideas out about when and how the touching will happen. Someone says he should kiss me on the forehead. Another suggests a hand on the small of my back. There’s another vote for hand-holding.
I’m still struggling with the concept of any touching when Paisley, the traitor, asks, “When did you and W start holding hands?”
Before I can answer, Oakley jumps in, snickering softly. “You dated a guy named W?”
“So what?” Wow. His first words to me are to make fun of my boyfriend’s name? It’s like Oakley’s trying to get me to dislike him.
“Sounds like a pretentious asshat.” He leans back in his leather chair and folds his arms across his chest. The action makes his biceps flex again.
I drag my eyes away. “Okay, Mr. I-Name-All-My-Albums-After-Me Ford.”
Someone at the end of the table gasps at my audacity, but Oakley’s unfazed by my insult. “Even Madonna has a full collection of letters in her name.”
“W is not pretentious.”
“If you say so.” He smirks.
“I do. He’s awesome. And sweet.”
“So why’d you break up with him?”
“I didn’t,” I say indignantly.
His brow creases. “So he broke up with you?” He sounds...confused. Like that doesn’t make sense to him.
“He hasn’t!”
Oakley shifts to Claudia. “So my down-to-earth, wholesome, normal girlfriend is a cheater?” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s gonna go over well.”
“Oh, you mean the fake breakup,” I say. For a minute there, I’d forgotten.
He looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but refrains.
“He’ll break up with her tomorrow. The sooner, the better. We’ll give it approximately two weeks after the breakup, and then she’ll Tweet you the drawing. Then there’ll be a series of dates, but no touching.” Claudia turns to me. “When did you have your first kiss?”
“Ever?” I realize it’s a stupid question, but my mind is stuck on the breaking up with W bit. I haven’t thought this whole thing through. I’ve been so focused on the money and how we’d be able to pay off the mortgage, pay for the twins’ college, allow Paisley to sleep better at night, that I hadn’t given any thought to the actual details of how this whole thing was going to work.
“Yeah, ever,” Oakley says, and this time he does roll his eyes.
These personal questions suck. “When was yours?” I counter, still focused on the W issue. Lately, he’s been pulling away. He says it’s my fault that I don’t act like an adult about our relationship because I’m still refusing to have sex with him.
“With tongue? I think I was eleven. It was with Donna Foster, the daughter of my dad’s side chick.”
My eyes grow wide. He French-kissed at eleven? I still thought boys had cooties at that age. Oakley would probably pee with laughter if he knew I was a virgin.
“You?” he prompts.
“Um...” Jeez, now I’m even more embarrassed, but for another reason. “Sixteen,” I mumble.
“How sweet. Just like the saying.”
I curl my fingers into fists. If Claudia’s team wasn’t sitting between the two of us, I might’ve reached over and smacked his smug smile off his smug face.
Paisley grips my hand, an unspoken gesture for me to get it together.
Even Claudia must sense that my patience is coming to an end. Hurriedly, she says, “Let’s do hand-holding on the third date and then a kiss on the fourth date. We’ll keep the first couple of dates under wraps, but leak the later ones to the paps.”
“Hold up, we’re going to kiss? I have a boyfriend,” I remind the room. “No one said there’d be kissing.”
“We’re gonna have a year-long relationship and we don’t kiss? Why don’t we just announce that it’s fake from the beginning?” Oakley mocks.
“But...but...” Yeah, I definitely didn’t think this through. I quickly turn to Paisley for help.
She grimaces. “They’re right. No one is going to believe that you and Oakley haven’t kissed. Not if you’re serious.” Her tone is apologetic, but her words don’t provide me any relief.
“You don’t expect me to...” I trail off, not able to bring myself to say the words out loud.
“Of course not,” Jim interjects briskly. “We’re not that kind of agency.”
He tries to play it off as a joke, but, um, they kind of are. They’re hiring this guy a girlfriend and they expect us to kiss.
How am I going to explain this to W? Sorry, babe, not willing to have sex with you yet, but I’m going to kiss another guy. In public.
That will go over well.
Claudia leans forward. “This is no different than if you were acting on a television show. Remember, you’re playing a part in a big love story.”
Her assurance doesn’t help, either. I may not know what I want in life. I may just be telling everyone I want to be a teacher because that’s easier than admitting I’m clueless about my future and that I’d rather hide as a waitress for the next five years. But I do know that the entertainment industry doesn’t interest me.
Paisley squeezes my hand again, probably to remind me why I’m doing this. By playing the role of a girlfriend, I get to lift the burden off my big sister’s shoulders and provide for my brothers. It’s not like I’m signing my entire life over. It’s just one year.
“What do I need to do?” I ask, feeling resigned.
“Just a few kisses, some hand-holding. It’s nothing, really.” Claudia waves her hand airily. “And it doesn’t need to be in the contract other than some general terms about physical contact when necessary.”
“Does any of this need to be in the contract?” Oakley sounds annoyed.
“I agree. If this ever got out, it would be terrible for Oak’s image,” Jim points out.
“The terms need to be specific so that the girl can be held to them,” one of the suits replies. Then he and Jim engage in some furious whispering until the lawyer presses his lips together in unhappy surrender. “Fine, it can be general, then. A general contract of employment.”
Once that’s decided, Claudia returns to her list. I wonder how long it is. I glance at the big white clock on the wall. It’s going on three hours and I’m exhausted.
“Let’s talk about her look again.”
                                                                “I’m not changing my look,” I mutter. “I like my look.”
                                                                I like my comfy skinny jeans, assortment of colorful T-shirts and the Vans that W and I doodled on during morning advisory last spring. The sneakers are filled with details marking our favorite dates. There’s a wizard’s wand along the left sole because we’re both Harry Potter fans. Then there’s the light post to signify the Urban Light display on Wilshire, where W kissed me for the first time. Where there was definitely tongue. His initials are on the back of one shoe and mine are on the other. He has a pair of them, too, but he doesn’t wear his. He says he doesn’t want to ruin them.
“You have a look?” Oakley raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah, and it’s better than yours,” I retort, tired of his attitude. “Would it kill you to wear pants that actually fit around your waist? No one wants to see your underwear.”
“Baby, everyone wants to see my underwear. I get paid a hundred grand per pap pic.”
“Baby?” I scoff.
He leans forward, threading his surprisingly elegant fingers together. “Don’t like that one? Pick another, then. You’re my girlfriend,” he reminds me mockingly.
“So you’re into infants?”
“What?” He rears back. “No. Fine. How about—” he pretends to think and then snaps his fingers “—old lady?”
“Great.” I give him my fakest smile. “I’ll call you...dick cheese.”
“Vaughn, gross,” my sister interjects.
Oakley covers his mouth. I swear I see a smile. I wait for his response and I’m not disappointed. “I have no problem with that, crabby patty.”
“All right, that’s enough of that. None of this needs to be in the contract.” Oakley’s lawyer rattles his papers in agitation.
I turn back to Claudia. I’ve given in on the kissing. On the dates. On this made-for-the-media breakup with my boyfriend, but no way am I going to let them change my look. I’ve got to fight for something. “I thought you wanted a normal girl. I’m a normal girl. This is what some normal girls wear.”
When Claudia and Jim exchange a glance, I know I’ve won this one. They agree to keep my look...for now.
“But when we take pictures, at least let us do your makeup. You’ll want us to,” Claudia promises.
Um. That doesn’t sound ominous or anything.
The negotiation goes on. When will our first official picture be released? Where will the dates take place? Will I go to an awards show with him? How about fashion week in New York? How often should I be seen with him? Every day? Every other day?
Oh, and I would not get Oakley’s phone number. Like I care.
But I still find it weird, because what nineteen-year-old isn’t allowed to give his number to his own girlfriend? And how does he communicate with his friends? Wait—does he even have friends? Or are they all fake like me?
I peer at him from underneath my lashes and feel a pang of sympathy. Oh, brother. Am I actually starting to feel sorry for him? I think I might be.
But then my stomach growls and reminds me that we’re still mad. And unfed.
“You’ll text Amy or me if you want to get ahold of Oakley,” Claudia says.
“I feel like I need my own people. My people can text your people,” I joke.
No one laughs. Instead, Claudia looks like she’s seriously considering it, but then decides against it. “No, I think two nonteens Tweeting each other and commenting on Instagram would appear too contrived. And your voice, we want to preserve that. Whereas Amy has been running Oak’s page for a couple of years now.”
I have a voice?
“Whatever.” I’m exhausted and hungry. One granola bar wasn’t enough, and my stomach rumbles again to alert everyone to that fact.
“Is the granola bar all you’ve had today?” Oakley asks.
A burst of surprise jolts me. Out of all the people in this room, Oakley’s the one to ask? “I had breakfast, but I like to eat like a normal person.”
A faint smile touches his lips. “Jim, we need to eat.”
“Oh, sure.” Jim turns to Paisley. “Run and get us one of everything from the café across the street.”
I see a chance for fresh air and an escape. “I’ll go, too.” Not to mention that I don’t want to be here without Paisley.
“Oh, no, we’ll need you here,” Jim objects.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to my sister. She doesn’t need to wait on me.
Paisley laughs. “It’s my job, silly. I’ll be right back.”
She trots out like she’s glad to be out of there, while I watch her exit and wish I could go with her.
On the other side of the table, Oakley leans back, crosses his arms again and looks smug, like he cured world hunger. “Well?” he prompts.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“Why? Paisley’s the one getting the food.”
“You wouldn’t be having lunch without me.”
I point to the clock. “I’ve been sitting in this conference room for five hours. Prisoners in maximum security receive better treatment. If it weren’t for you, I’d be lying on the beach rereading The Handmaid’s Tale and I would have eaten something. But sure, thank you for alerting your manager to send my sister to get me food.”
He doesn’t like my smart-ass response. “It’s too cold for the beach.”
“I never said I was going to swim.” I speak in the same tone I use when I tell my little brothers they’re acting like immature idiots.
“Why are you at the beach, then?”
I gape at him. “Why does anyone go to the beach? Because it’s awesome.”
“If you say so,” he responds, but the smugness he’s previously displayed is dialed down a watt as if my reasons for liking the beach are important...or even interesting. Or he might be confused about why I’d choose to go there rather than sit five feet away from his holy presence.
But I’m not going to tell him.
Instead, I drain the rest of my Coke, slam it on the table with more force than necessary and then sit back and refuse to say another word.
Is it childish?
Oh, yeah.
But it feels really, really good.
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drunkenonmysofa · 7 years
Text
SHINE (PRINCE!CALUM AU) - PART THREE
+masterlist +shine masterpost
parts; (one, two)
Tumblr media
summary: in which you fall in love with a prince that has already fallen for someone else.
word count: 1,538
warnings: very very very light swearing
author’s note: track the tag crowns ft calum for updates!!
“What do you think I should do when I get my girlfriend mad, princess?” Calum asked right after you sat across him, not even bothering to look away from his phone or greet you properly. You had to admit to yourself that you were offended that he didn’t ask about your day or how you were doing (and that sounded really petty), but at least Calum was talking to you.
“I don’t know,” You raised your eyebrow in amusement, examining the stressed boy before you. “What’s she mad about?”
“Apparently, people took pictures of us while we were on the balcony at your party,” He sighed, leaning back into the booth chair as he practically tossed his phone onto the table in blatant frustration. “She saw them, she threw a fit and I got the silent treatment,” Calum chuckled at the events that occurred a few hours ago, just moments after he woke up from his slumber.
“She is one for theatricals,” He continued before changing the subject. “Anyway, I should buy her something. You know, to say sorry,”
“By all means, you go ahead, but I’m starving,” You joked, calling over the waitress with a wave of your hand as she greets the both of you with a smile.
The waitress, whose name seemed to be Gwyneth as it appeared on the tag pinned to her apron, said and took out a small notepad along with a pencil. “Your orders are?”
The breakfast went by smoothly, small conversations popping up in between Calum’s loud chewing and the dark coffee refills that the tan-skinned boy kept practically chugging down. At one point, you were pretty sure that you called him out on his obnoxious gnawing, and he just stuck his tongue out at you. Thirty minutes passed, and Calum, without asking you for consent, told you that you would be going to the mall with him.
There was no doubt with the fact that Calum was a ridiculously attractive person. Even more so, his kind and gentle actions that countered his tall stature and sharp jawline was enough to make even the most stoic woman drool. It was fucking insane how this boy conjured up so much attributes as if he was sculpted by Greek gods. Hell, maybe he was a Greek god himself.
And now, he’s picking out an electric guitar. He’s sat on the chair and plucking out the strings one by one, testing it. You wondered how you ended up here, but you sure as hell wasn’t complaining.
“Princess,”
He kept calling you that, as if it’s an endearment and not just a role in life. It made you… well, blush. What the hell was this boy doing to you?
“Princess,” Calum repeated once more and you look up from your phone where you were trying to make yourself look busy. Once your eyes was on his, he stood up and walked over to you, a black acoustic guitar on his hand. “Is this a good gift?”
“Does she play guitar?” You eyed the instrument.
“She told me once that she wanted to learn.” Calum sighed, running his fingers through his messy hair in frustration. “This is impossible. Can you believe she almost cried this morning? I’d never forgive myself if she actually let a tear slip because of me…” The Prince carefully put the string instrument back on the rack and gestured for you to follow him out. “I really do love her, princess. I just don’t know how.”
You felt… disappointment go through your body. It was for a petty reason, since you didn’t even know him enough to fancy him, but nevertheless, his statement made you sad. The sadness wasn’t enough for heartbreak, but it was enough to make your mood shift entirely. Then, you went on to thinking that it was selfish of you to think about yourself while the prince is in a difficult situation himself.
“Don’t think like that, prince.” You gave him a small smile as you both walked through the third floor of the large mall. “If you didn’t, then she would’ve been gone by now.” You weren’t sure if you said the statement to convince him or yourself, because if they did seem to be like an us against the world type of couple, you would have enough reason to forget about the elementary-grade crush you were having on the tan Maori.
“Have you ever been in love, princess?” Calum asked. “Like, the type of love that would make you go crazy.”
Your face darkened at the thought, but you quickly played it off and joked instead, trying to avoid the sensitive topic. “That’s a stupid question, Prince Calum.” The tone of your voice seemed to let him know that you didn’t like this type of conversation.
“Y/N,”
“What?” Your heart raced, over thinking this whole situation. You kept asking yourself if he heard anything about him. “No, I haven’t.” The answer was quick and rushed, as if you were running away from something. “We… I should go home,”
“Oh… yeah… okay. I’ll drive you.” Calum didn’t say anything about the present hunt for his girlfriend, but it wasn’t like the situation was a big deal for you. You could care less, but you couldn’t tell Calum that. The prince walked with you silently to his car in the parking lot.
Just as he was about to say another sentence, a flash emitted around you, showing the small horde of paparazzi coming out right around the block. The annoyance was getting unbearable, you were on the verge of shouting and blowing them off, until Calum held your wrist, trying to calm your nerves from all of *this*.
“Princess Y/N! Is it true that you and Prince Calum are dating?”
“Princess! Did you two break up?”
“Prince Calum, how long have you two been together?”
“Princess, are the allegations about Michael true?”
The last sentence seemed to have set you off, igniting a flame that has been out in a very long time. Calum made an effort to tighten his grip, leaning in closer to whisper sweet nothings in your ear to try and calm you down. Somehow, his words didn’t comfort you as you’d like it to, so you started yelling at the cameras and the people that swarmed you. “Leave me alone! Fuck! LEAVE!” Despite the anger, they didn’t leave, they just silently laughed, knowing that these pictures would be viral in two hours time.
The outburst resulted in Calum wrapping his arms around you and quickly escorting you to the passenger seat of his car. He scolded himself quietly that he was stupid enough to not bring a bodyguard. You couldn’t do nothing but comply to his silent orders, realizing that this mess was a situation that your mother would never drop. Silently, you fixed yourself on the passenger seat, still fuming but giving everything to keep your anger inside. Calum followed suit, entering the driver’s seat without giving any acknowledgement to the flashing lights and constant asking from the paparazzi.
The Maori prince started to drive away from the scene, the silence deafening the both of you.
“I’m sorry, Calum,” You were the first to speak up after a few minutes since he started driving. “That was foolish of me, I suspect this friendship isn’t going to work out any time soon.”
Seconds passed before Calum shook his head, smiling softly but his eyes never failed to leave the road. “You’re delusional if you think I’d lose our friendship over such a silly thing.” Calum paused. “You should research me more. There’s a ridiculous amount of fifteen-year-old Calum shouting at paps.”
You laughed quietly at him. “We didn’t buy that gift, though.”
“I’ll make it up to her.”
Silence occurred again, but it wasn’t awkward. Somehow, the slight buzzing of the car and the hum of the car’s air conditioner seemed like home. You spoke up once more.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about Michael?”
Calum took a quick but confusing glance at you before averting his eyes on the busy road. “Why should I? I don’t suppose its my business.” His sentence made you blush. “I reckon you’ll say it when you’re ready. If you don’t, it’s no big deal. Just know that I’m here whenever you need someone to talk to.”
“Thank you,” You said quietly, focusing on the Einstein bobblehead on his dash. You were quite surprised at yourself when you didn’t notice it the first time, but you don’t say anything about it. The moment seemed too heavy-hearted for you to be comical about his love for mad geniuses.
“You’re welcome, Y/N.” Calum turned the curb and you were in front of your house. You hadn’t even noticed that the drive was over since you were so engrossed in your thoughts.
The prince turned off his engine, and you notice right away that he was nervous with something. “I think I’m going to marry her.”
You looked over to him in confusion. “What?”
“I don’t know when or where. Maybe next week or next month or tomorrow. I want to marry her. I don’t think anyone’s stopping me now except myself.”
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